How upsetting! I tried to withdraw some money today (A nice chunk) from a certain ATM, and, well, the machine ate my money! I waited for the sum to come out and then to adorn my purse to no avail.

I, naturally, freaked out. Then I instantly called my personal advisor who assured me all is well and that this sometimes happens (Why?) and is generally solved the next day once the technicians open up the machine and such.

I must say this lady from the bank is very pleasant, I can imagine anyone’s reaction at hearing my voice through the phone with that sharp tone, almost about to burst out of the receiver and to have a nice bite of the other end’s ear. Yet she was composed herself, and that is probably the best face of this bank I have come to explore.

After such a break, one would think that Adiga Xabza series are dead and gone. Untrue, I bring you the third entry on the subject of Adiga (Circassian) traditions and customs, this time inspired by my friend Zaid Dodokh.

Much like in other cultures, unique customs apply to Adiga girls’ ways of dress, manner, and habits. An intriguing tradition that I recently learned of is the absolute ban of spirits to unmarried girls.

An Adiga girl may never drink and, if offered a glass of the prohibited stuff she should voice her gratitude and then pass the glass on to whoever male of her people is present. Dodokh quotes an ancient saying that states ” A drink can be in the girl’s hand, but only on the lips of a man”.

I am not precisely aware of the reasons behind this policy, but I find it preciously interesting. You may wish to check previous Adiga Xabza entries here, and here.

This entry is relevant, albeit not identical, to previous posts titled �Bil 3arabi�, and �Bil 3arabi:Kaman marra�. Like those two just cited, its aim is to examine the state of the Arabic language in specific circles of society, and, although this sounds too bright a venture, poses questions in relation to that stance. At one stage, it will employ the transliteration of the Arabic language into Roman characters, reflecting the Amman-Jordanian dialect, to accent the edges of the paradox.

This matter of the Arabic language has been one not easily dismissed from my thoughts, I love my language and I cherish it deeply. I am most positive many others share the same affection for the antique, fabulously artistic tongue. I am equally certain many feel an ambiguous sense of guilt for not being able to utilize the language that is their birthright and a duty often unfulfilled, in their daily lives.

Feeling incapable of self-expression in one�s alleged mother tongue is, at the very least, tragic. I remember smiling when I bump into fresh learners of Arabic who strive to utter every word the correct way, and to compose the riddles of complex sentences in line with the formulas of Arabic, and not their own languages. It is this battle that astonishes me, as opposed to the often all too defeatist abandonment of language by �native speakers�. Those learners speak standard Arabic, and they take pride in showing it, unlike many, many Arabs who take every possible measure not to speak in Arabic and to abolish any ties with the culture it carries.

That broken form of pure Arabic, employed in earnest attempts at grasping the methods of the rich linguistic system, is what came to be called �3arabi mkassar�. Yet it is fully justifiable for foreigners to miss a proper tense here or there, or to use the wrong pronoun, or even to pluralize the should-be-singular in their course of learning. But is it justifiable for an Arab to use 3arabi mkassar as well? Ino, iza ba7ki 3arabi mkassar, badalni 3arabeyyeh, wella sho bakoon?

I am eager to expand this debate further, Arab talk show style: Perhaps there is an inferiority complex within the collective frame of Arabs, or, here�s another hypothesis for you, perhaps they are easily influenced by exterior trends, easily impressed, that is.

Quite honestly, I find it enormously odd that Arabs seem to hop on any chance that would feature them as being �westernized�, rather than adherent to their heritage. Since that first image offers glittering opportunities of being glued to open-mindedness, education, and the rest of your choice of terms as opposed to that �uncivilized� Arab civilization (and I use the term �westernized� loosely). Could this linguistic hiccup, much celebrated by the elite, usher self-annihilation? What is the point of being identical with another culture via language? Does that not abort any identity, or whatever is left of it, and does it not leave one a miserable incomplete replica of a glory that never was?

To bring this to an end, it is not accurate to propose that people who do not wish to employ foreign languages needlessly in their speech are trying to shrink themselves to fit unopened cocoons, nor it is fair to judge the competence of an individual as based on usage of fancy words belonging to any language other than Arabic, or even to infer that this self same individual is incapable of going with the flow of modernization by fault of his/her usage of his/her mother tongue. Even modernization preaches logic sometimes, let us not forget that.

O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!

O sun, that from thy noonday height

Shudderest when I strain my sight,

Throbbing thro� all thy heat and light,

Lo, falling from my constant mind,

Lo, parch�d and wither�d, deaf and blind,

I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.

Last night I wasted hateful hours

Below the city�s eastern towers:

I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:

I roll�d among the tender flowers:

I crush�d them on my breast, my mouth;

I look�d athwart the burning drouth

Of that long desert to the south.

Last night, when some one spoke his name,

From my swift blood that went and came

A thousand little shafts of flame

Were shiver�d in my narrow frame.

O Love, O fire! once he drew

With one long kiss my whole soul thro�

My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.

Before he mounts the hill,

I knowHe cometh quickly: from below

Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow

Before him, striking on my brow.

In my dry brain my spirit soon,

Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,

Faints like a dazzled morning moon.

The wind sounds like a silver wire,

And from beyond the noon a fire

Is pour�d upon the hills, and nigher

The skies stoop down in their desire;

And, isled in sudden seas of light,

My heart, pierced thro� with fierce delight,

Bursts into blossom in his sight.

My whole soul waiting silently,

All naked in a sultry sky,

Droops blinded with his shining eye:

I will possess him or will die.

I will grow round him in his place,

Grow, live, die looking on his face,

Die, dying clasp�d in his embrace.

Link

It is most upsetting to think of the negligence that other cities than Amman suffer from. I have often reflected upon the marginal possibilities of living, and enjoying life with satisfactory levels of decency in public services and facilities, in other parts of the kingdom, and I have found them so slim that speaking of them would render me too optimistic.

It is a given that the capital of any country should represent a center for operations, services, and perhaps should host the governmental body. But in many countries the case is not so, the capital is but a place where the government is, and is not largely different from other cities within the same state. This said, some cities actually top the capital in their countries of question, be that in industry, technology or services.

Unfortunately, in Jordan the gap between Amman and its closest contender, Irbid, as many sustain, is very obvious. Let alone the difference between it and other less looked-upon cities than Irbid, such as Karak or Mafraq.

I am given to believe that large sums of finance are invested in the beautification of Amman, seeing as it is the capital and the fattest city with regards to population. But do I see that, just a suggestion here, more money should be dedicated for developing the infrastructures in other, less privileged areas? Affirmative.

How can any logic try to minimize the rates of immigration from rural and subordinate cities to Amman, without first trying to improve the wretched conditions in which people in the large majority of these areas live ? Do I see a brake in the sense of it? Affirmative.

I stumbled upon a curious article in this site. It deals with the allegation that the antichrist, or the eighth head of the beast, will be Circassian. This probably sounds too queer for your taste, so did it sound to mine up until the moment I finished reading the article that, aside from containing interesting informations, has a number of nice pictures.

This is a catchy slice of the early passages of the site to which, by the by, I have no clue as to accuracy or originality.

If the Jews are God’s chosen people, the Circassians are definitely Satan’s chosen people, the most dangerous community on earth.
“Could a reborn Circassia be the home state of the eighth head of the
beast, the miniscule [sic] and fledgling new nation at the very end of time
which is prophesied by the Bible to appear and give birth to the Bible’s
‘madman’?”
The “seventh head” was Adolf Hitler (”the Beast of Berlin”), the
eighth will be nastier.

This could explain my 50-50 devilish inclinations. (irresistable pun)

Splendid news in Al Ghad newspaper this morning. The legal proposal much-handled recently, giving businesses the right and power to cut down Jordan’s humble tree population, has been rejected a second time. Let’s see where this leads us, please do sign the petition if you haven’t already.

Link

One of the most captivating myths I have come across, and one of the most artistically well-knit, Prometheus Bound remains anonymous to most people. In this myth, one is presented with the case of Prometheus, Mankind’s most generous patron, as he is punished by Zeus for having stolen the fire from the god Hephaestus and given it to Man.

The conflict between the “old regime” and the “old gods”, and Zeus’s newly established dominance over the rest of the new generation, is so obvious in this myth one could almost touch it. Zeus overthrew his father, with Prometheus’ aid, but when Prometheus gave Mankind special gifts and abilities and therefore sabotaged Zeus’s plans to destroy them, the latter grew outraged. He decided to punish Prometheus, and so had him chained to a mighty rock by Hephaestus, the God of fire. Later on in the myth, Zeus split the chasm and entombed Prometheus underground, and when ages have passed on this punishment, he returned into the light and a savage eagle ripped his flesh and picked on his liver all day long.

Prometheus came to be known as a Satanic Hero, due to his defiance to Zeus, and to his exquisite knowledge. In addition to those traits, he was quite proud, even in his torture and time of punishment. One of the most memorable lines that he says in this play, and one of my favorties, is : ” I willed to be wrong”.

From Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Other Plays, translated with an introduction by Philip Vellacott, a Penguin Classics book, inclusive of Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians, I bring you the sixth episode of Share a myth.

After sustaining that, in Prometheus, we are taken to a period which, historically, is that of the first appearance in Greece of the “Olympian” gods, but which Greeks thought of as belonging to the most primitive stage of the history of man, Vellacott says:

” The transition from the primitive to the civilized world, from the life of nomadic tribes and village settlements to that of walled cities and organized states, was doubtless a gradual and barely perceptible process spread confusedly over several centuries and large expanses of land. Individuals who noted such change, however, must generally have associated it with some sudden or memorable event - an invasion, a siege, a massacre, a migration. So this stage in the development of Greek social order had its mythical counterpart in the story of a violent dynastic change among the gods.”

This is the summary of the myth, again cited from the introduction:

” In the primitive era Cronos was lord of all gods. During his time the human race was created, but was early recognized as a regrettable failure, and kept in a state of wretchedness and total subservience. Force ruled everything; reason and right were unknown. The Titans, sons of Earth begotten by gods, were a race of gigantic size and strength, and no intelligence; until in one of them, Prometheus, emerged rational and moral qualities, ranging from cunning and ingenuity to a love of freedom and justice.

The knowledge that the future lay with such intangible principles rather than with brute strength, was a secret possessed by Earth, who imparted it to her son Prometheus. (The earth was in all centuries thought of by the Greeks as the prime source of foreknowledge and prophecy.) This certainty set Prometheus at the side of Zeus, son of Cronos, in rebellion against his father and the older dynasty; and by Prometheus’ help Zeus and the other “Olympian” gods won the day and thenceforward ruled the universe.

But Prometheus was not only an immortal; he was also a son of Earth, and felt a natural sympathy with the earth’s mortal inhabitants. The race which Zeus despised and planned to destroy, Prometheus saw as capable of infinite development. He stole fire from heaven and gave it to them; and he taught them the basic mental and manual skills. In so doing he frustrated Zeus’s plan to create a more perfect race. So when Aeschylus shows him punished for this presumption, the reader or spectator, judging between the antagonists, finds the scales nicely balanced.

What has won our favour for Prometheus is largely the fact that he believed in, and wanted to help, the human race as it is, full of both noble achievement and pitiable squalor, honouring both goodness and wickedness; a race where virtue, if rare, is at least costly. ”

Visual and resources: 1- Prometheus bound and visited by the Eagle at Caucasus by Elsie Russel and 2-Prometheus Bound, by A. Russell.

You may wish to check out previous episodes of Share a myth, find them at: Share a myth I, II, III, IV, V.

There is always the issue of comment moderation, as opposed to the “total” freedom of the so-dubbed self-expression on blogs, to reflect on. Questions such as: “Why would anyone enact comment moderation?”, and “What ends does this facility meet?”, are naturally valid. But no less valid is the question: “Can you trust people enough not to moderate their comments?”.

Blogger has a comment moderation system, that is not precisely timely. Nevertheless, it is a useful tool in the hands of blog authors who do not wish offensive language - for example- be posted in the tails of their entries, thus depriving them from achieving their desired degree of seriousness or from impacting their targeted readership as they intend.

Offensive language aside, some times comments just “don’t fit”. This is yet another reason in favor of moderating comments: Why publish a remark debating, say, apples, when one’s entry is about cars? No reasons I can think of can satisfy this question’s answer.

A wise function in Blogger’s comment moderation system is the inability of the blog author to modify or alter comments in any way; comments either get published, or they don’t. A possible outlet, or an exception, for this case is when anonymous comments exist. In this case one can modify and re-post the comment as an anonymous person, certainly with a difference in the clock at the end of the remark in question. Still, this trick is not entirely safe, since anonymous commentators are not all blind to the time they posted their comments.

“Can you trust people enough not to moderate their comments?”

The answer to this question relies laregly on one’s own perspective of matters, and one’s experiences. From personal experience, I have to announce that I do not trust people enough not to examine their comments before having them related to my entries. This is not to say that any are inferior to some, but to simply state that there are no guarantees as to what irrelevance or medicore quality one can have glued to a certain post, should one be too tolerant in this regard.

It’s quality that one should be concerned about. If one is positive that the readership is perfectly aware of the importance of a topic, or even remotely aware of it, and that this same readership is operating on a relevant wavelength that will not overshadow the content of a post, then there is hardly a need for any such a step as “monitoring”, or “control”. But the odds of having a person all too sure of the anonymous eyes reading a blog is so marginal it is almost non-existent.

Enabling comment moderation remains a personal choice of the author. Some work well with it and are able to take in numbers upon numbers of absurd, and mostly off-topic comments, while others cling to the principle of quality and do not wish to have to be put in a situation where they manifest their control by deleting improper comments. It is a waste of time and energy, essentially.