Curious
It is most curious that the posts that harvest the most comments (and supposedly generate most reactions and/or debates) are either political or personal.
Should I take it that people enjoy politics and gossip more than literature? (I have an uneasy feeling about the answer to this question) What do you think?
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September 24th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
I’ll tell you why, that because people (specially the
Arab ones) feel so depressed, suppressed and under pressure, and they need a
free space to express, fortunately the blogs offer the space for this…
September 24th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
A friend of mine now lives in Ethiopia and has his own blog (check out meskelsquare.com if you are interested!). <br /><br />As you probably know, the Ethiopian elections last year resulted in controversy about the results, riots and political crack downs, and being a journalist he put up a few posts about it.<br /><br />When he stopped and started posting about more "frivolous" topics like dog shows and the countryside, a lot of people got a bit hot under the collar. His answer? If you don’t like it, go and start your own blog.<br /><br />And I think that’s a good approach to take. Blogs are by their very nature personal and this is your site, so stay true to whatever you had in mind when you started it.<br /><br />If you want to post about politics and personalities, go for it, you know you’ll get a response!<br /><br />If not, well, there’s plenty of other places we can go and shout at each other or we can start our own!<br />
September 25th, 2006 at 1:45 am
It isn’t that hard to understand. Our literary choices are highly individual. Those who haven’t read something, really cannot comment upon it. The current political happenings are things we all see on the news. We’ve all seen it, so we can all comment upon it.<br /><br />As for the personal stuff: yeah, people like to gossip. ;-)<br />
September 25th, 2006 at 4:16 am
To be honest, Tololy, I decided not to comment on political issues a long time ago, and though I’ve done so a few times anyway, I still try to avoid it. I like your "light" posts :)<br /><br />Maybe you could try to mix it up a little and see if you can get some of the political-oriented people to talk about other things too?<br />
September 25th, 2006 at 4:19 am
<span class="commentBody" style="font-style: italic;"><span id="comment-3443">I decided not to comment on political issues a long time ago<br /><br /></span></span><span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3443">Meant to say "on Jordanian blogs" there. I comment quite a bit about politics on some Iraqi, Egyptian and even a Libyan blog. The Jordanian ones are just a wee bit too hostile for me, and the Palestinian ones are insane.</span></span><span class="commentBody" style="font-style: italic;"><span id="comment-3443"><br /></span></span>
September 25th, 2006 at 7:09 am
I would argue that our interest in literature…the stories of characters whose lives we get to know intimately…is closely linked to same impulse which causes us to be interested in gossip.<br /><br />As people we are naturally drawn to discussions about other people whose ambitions & desires & strengths & weaknesses mirror our own. Gossip is a way of talking indirectly about our own inner life. Indeed the origin of the English word "gossip" shares an etymological root with "gospel" in the sense of a hidden truth revealed.<br /><br />Literary analysis looks at character’s behavior and attempts to find explanations for it, to place behavior in a larger context. To a degree, this is what gossip attempts to do.<br />
September 25th, 2006 at 12:01 pm
We don’t live on an island. We are surrounded by three wars where great injustices are committed on a daily basis. We drive around in Jordan and we see signs of great injustices and poverty. Add to that the constant external attacks either the cartoons or the hitler-youth pope. What you call gossib and politics I call a healthy phenomen where people care and are not apathetic.
September 25th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
<p class="MsoNormal">Craig, someone once commented that Nazis were always cool-headed.
I guess when you bask in the comfort of knowing you will be safe no matter how
much you pillage and destroy, you can always maintain your calm. Those on the
receiving end as well as <span style=""> </span>decent human
beings who see great injustices and know the criminals will go unpunished tend
to be emotional and hotheaded. <span style=""> </span>The
though that someone will be wronged and will never ever find justice does great
damage to the psyche.<span style=""> </span>Since you come to
these forums defending the points of view of mass murderers and ethnic
cleansers expect to be the subject of great scorn and disdain.</p>
September 25th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
I suggest we all cool down a little and stick to the topic…Do people like politics and gossip more than any other subject? If so, why?
September 25th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
<p>I don’t know if I’d call it "gossip" per se. I know that I enjoy reading about your experiences, your thoughts, your personal "take" on things, because it unites us as human beings, cutting through all the political and cultural and <insert controversial difficulty of choice> issues.</p>
<p>As for political - well, we are all people living in very politically charged times and I suspect most folks have very strong opinions.</p>
<p>I was interested in seeing the selection of titles you chose to bring home from the book fair. I have read some of those, and some of them are on my "must purchase someday and read" list. Lately my own life has become so chaotic that I feel the need to use my reading not for information or for education, but as an escape - and so I read mostly cheap, trashy, murder mysteries or science fiction.</p>
<p>Sometimes, however, I just have nothing important or interesting to say about certain literary works, either from having not read them, or because I read them and was unimpressed. Please do not attribute silence to meaning disinterest. Sometimes it is just a respectful "Your opinion is interesting, but I have nothing to add or comment".</p>
<p></p>
September 25th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Eh… see what I mean, Tololy? :D<br /><br /><span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3451"><span style="" /><span style="font-style: italic;">The
though that someone will be wronged and will never ever find justice does great
damage to the psyche. <br /><br /></span>I understand completely, Azzam. On 23 October 1983 Hezbollah murdered 243 American peacekeepers in Lebanon, and about 60 French Peacekeepers. Some of them were personal friends of mine. Justice has not been done these last 23 years, and if it ever is done, it is far too late to do anything about the damge done to my "pysche".<br /><br />Just because I don’t see things the same way you do doesn’t mean I deserve to be insulted. <br style="font-style: italic;" /><span style="font-style: italic;" /></span></span>
September 26th, 2006 at 2:03 am
Craig, you are one self-absorbed creature. You compare the deaths of 400 soldiers who chose to be in a war outside their country and take sides in a foreign civil war with the clold-blooded murder of 500,000 Iraqi babies? with the expulsion of millions of non-jews from their homes? with the slaughter of hundreds of innocents in Lebanon and Palestine? with…<br /><br />That’s exatcly my point. You are clinically incapable of seeing the your evil you only see the backlash, small as it may be in comparision. But then again, you are the same people who pillaged the world during colonialism and exterminated whole nations and never uttered one word of apology. What sort of cultur can produce centuries of violance and looting and the people behind the violence still think they are civilized. only reason you are frightined by this new phenomen you call islamic extemism is that you know it will put an end to your free bloody hand in our area. There is something that you cannot defeat with your indiscrininate bombing raids. You can no longer cause harm without a backlash. That’s why you are attacking Islam from the left (the danish cartoons) and from the right (hitler-youth pope). Something has changed for good and you no longer can kill and loot with impunity. That troubles you.<br />
September 26th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Craig: “<span style="font-style: italic;">Hezbollah murdered 243 American
peacekeepers in Lebanon</span>”,
yes it’s true, but they were not a peacekeepers, the American soldiers never
ever been a peacekeepers; they always been and still occupation forces and spies…
September 26th, 2006 at 11:10 am
<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3470"><i>That’s exatcly my point. You are clinically incapable of seeing the your evil</i><br /><br />Wow. Insulting, is it not? In fact, everything was just said to me was insulting, from top to bottom. This is why I love Jordanian blogs :)<br /><br />I will issue a short response anyway. Jarkum, Hezbollah killed freinds of mine, and tried to kill me. Too damn bad for you that I hold that as a more personal grievance against Hezbollah and anybody who supports Hezbollah than some uspect claims of innicent victims that I never knew and don’t know anything about, and that have nothing to do with me. Such is life. Same reason why Palestinians think they are the world’s biggest victims while at the same time ignoring things that have happened to other people that are many orders of magnitude more sever and more tragic<br /><br />Are you aware that 75% of all the Armenians in existance were KILLED by muslim Turks, and they were COMPLETELY driven out of their home land? Why no tears for Armenians?<br /><br />And speaking of traumas, are you aware that the Nazis rounded up and systematically EXTERMINATED 6 million jews, just a few short years before your brothers attempted to finish the job? What about their trauma?<br /><br />Why is the trauma of Palestinians so important?<br /><br />You want to talk about Iraq? It’s estimated between 60,000 and 80,000 Iraqis have died since the US invaded. Most killed by other Iraiqs.<br /><br />Do you know that the Soviet Union lost 9 million to 13 million TROOPS fighting the Nazis? And an unknown number of civilians?<br /><br />Even including the Iraqi on Iraqi violence, there has rarely been a more bloodless war than the one in Iraq, Jarkum. And there has never been a more bloodless invasion. Seriously. The US lost 60,000 troops in Vietnam and millions of Vietnamese weer killed in that war. And that was previously America’s most bloodless war.<br /><br />Some perspective is called for before you start calling other people self-absorbed. You sound like a child, complaining about how much you have sufferred, when history tells a different tale.<br /><br /><br />.<br /> </span></span>
September 26th, 2006 at 11:55 am
hmmmm no i think there are other topics that get attension, but if it seems people like to gossip, well, thats not a new fact is it?? lissa its better if they read blogs because they like gossip instead of really (socially) gossiping ha??!!
September 26th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
<p> Craig posts "Just because I don’t see things the same way you do doesn’t mean I deserve to be insulted. "</p>
<p>Really Craig? Then why do you insist on insulting me, attacking me, and cursing at me on every blog that we both go to?</p>
<p> Do you have different standards for different people? You can hardly get upset at someone for insulting you when you yourself have called me all sorts of names, attacked my patriotism, cursed at me and tried to use my children against me.</p>
<p> When YOU stop insulting people you will have room to ask that someone else do the same. Look at your comments to me on this very blog. All of this because you do not agree with me and think I am "this or that" based on what you have read on the blog.</p>
<p> The fact is you have no basis to ask others not to insult when you do it yourself.</p>
<p> I agree, rational discourse is the best, so why doesnt everyone stop the insults, including YOU?</p>
<p> Thank you.<br style="FONT-STYLE: italic" /></p>
September 26th, 2006 at 7:11 pm
"<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3475">so why doesnt everyone stop the insults,</span></span>"<br /><br />We agree. After all, we are entitled to our different opntions so lets be civilized.<br /><br />Best,<br />Hitler<br />Musoullini<br />George Bush<br />Ben Guroion and Co.<br /><br /><br />
September 26th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
"P<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3473"><span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3470">alestinians
think they are the world’s biggest victims while at the same time
ignoring things that have happened to other people that are many orders
of magnitude more sever and more tragic</span></span></span></span>"<br /><br />ATTENTION ALL EXPELLED PALESTINIANS IN REFUGEE CAMPS, AND SURVIVORS OF SABRA & SHATILA AND THE MAIMED & INJURDED. STOP YOUR WHINING AND COMPLANING AND CHALK IT UP TO BAD LUCK. <br /><br /><br />
September 26th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
span id=”comment-3475″Abu Sinan,br /br /My comment where I told you what I really thought of you didn\’t make it through moderation. I\’ll try again.br /br /<i> When YOU stop insulting people you will have room to ask that someone else do the same</i>br /br /The first I saw of you, Abu Sinan, you made personal attacks against me, calling me an ignorant redneck, you insulted my religion and you attacked all westerners in general and Americans in particular.br /br /As far as I can tell, you have never stopped with this behavior. In fact, I saw you say similar things just yesterday on a blog post about that “Jihad” car commercial. I treat you as you deserve to be treated. If you don\’t like it, remember the Golden Rule. You still remember the Golden Rule, don\’t you? You did learn that at some point in your youth, didn\’t you?br //span
September 26th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Like I said earlier, ultimately it’s your site Tololy. So just put up whatever you like and anyone who doesn’t like it can always start their own blog.<br /><br />But, if it does come to political posts then I’d prefer to spend time talking about a way forward and to have a dialogue - even if that’s with people who don’t agree with me. <br /><br />Actually not agreeing with me is great. I don’t really like sites where everyone outdoes each other to show who is the most ‘on side’<br /><br />Unfortunately yelling about genocide, Ben Gurion = Hitler etc might be satisfying for the people making the comments…but it gets us absolutely nowhere. <br /><br />And it does nothing to solve the perceived injustices a lot of people here feel so angry about<br />
September 26th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
This shall be the final public statement I make on the subject, people who have personal issues going on against each other can take their fights to e-mails. I will be glad to serve as a medium for e-mail address exchange. I shall have no more of this in my blog, Abu Sinan and Craig. Take your personal arguments elsewhere.
September 27th, 2006 at 11:11 am
<p><span class="commentBody"><span><font size="2"></font></span></span><span class="commentBody"><span>I agree with a previous commentator - Sewmouse - who said quote [I don’t know if I’d call it "gossip" per se. I know that I enjoy reading about your experiences, your thoughts, your personal "take" on things, because it unites us as human beings, cutting through all the political and cultural and issues]</span></span></p>
<p><span class="commentBody"><span>My interest also in reading Totoly’s blog is learning something about Jordan and life there,,yes we all know scores of people are killed daily in Darfur,Kashmir,Chechnya,Sunni triangle in Irak or in Mogadishu and the hundreds of thousands starving in Niger,,a member of Arab League,,5 churches according to blogger Sandmonkey burnt down in Arab World in the last week or so,,it’s all very depressing.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="commentBody"><span></span></span><span class="commentBody"><span>Jordan has much going for it,,so let’s hear the good news and stay away from politics</span></span></p>
September 29th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
I’ve just discovered another thing, people like to talk about politics because we think that our point of view is the correct one; unfortunately, there are toooooo many point of views, and some times there are more than a correct one!!!<br /><br />My point of view is "I don’t like politics, politics is the weak weapon", look at the USA example, if they want something, and they think that they can have it by war, then OK, the war is the first choice, but if they cant take it by war; they start negotiations… Iraq and Afghanistan by war, because they don’t have weapons, but Iran and Korea, by negotiations, because they have good weapons…<br />
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:26 am
<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3500"><i>Iraq and Afghanistan
by war</span></span><span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3500">, because they don’t have weapons, </span></span><span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3500"></i><br /><br />That’s an interesting comment, considering Iraq and Iran fought to a draw after 8 years of war, and Afghanistan defeated the Soviet Union.<br /><br /><i>but Iran and Korea, by
negotiations, because they have good weapons…</i><br /><br />The US already went to war with North Korea in 1950 and 1951, and won. Then the Chinese got involved and the best we could do was a ceasfire with a tense border between North and South Korea. The real reason that the US does not want to fight North Korea is because Seoul is right on the border, and they (North Korea) could destory the city withing a matter of hours with their many thousands of artillery peices, which are in range of Seoul from the other side of the border already.<br /><br />As far as Iran… that hasn’t played out yet.<br /><br />Also, you forget that Saddam had a chance to negotiate before the 1st Gulf War and didn’t, and he had over 10 years to negotiate before the second Gulf War, and he didn’t.<br /><br />Iran has had 27 years to negotiate since they declared war unilaterally on the US in 1979. And they haven’t.<br /><br /></span></span>
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Oh, please don’t say that the States aware about Korea; bullshit… in 1950-53 Korea have no weapons.<br />1956- Egypt<br />1958- Lebanon<br />1959-75- Vietnam<br />1962- Cuba<br />1964- Brazil<br />1965- Dominican<br />1981- Libya<br />1982- Lebanon<br />1986- Libya<br />1989- Libya<br />1989-90- Panama<br />1991- Iraq<br />1998- Afghanistan and Sudan<br />1999- Serbia (NATO)<br />2001- Afghanistan won against USSR because Pakistan, Iran, KSA and all Arab Countries helped them… and the major forces that occupied Afghanistan were from France, Germany and UK…<br />1992-2003- Iraq lost (not lost yet) after 11 blockade years, and by about 42 countries…<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;">THEY ARE ALL POOR COUNTRIES<br />THERE IS NO ONE SINGLE WAR THE STATES WON IT ALONE…</div>
October 2nd, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Mahdy, every country on earth is poor compared to the United States. We are a third of the global economy. What’s your point?<br /><br />And I have to say your opinions about the Korean War are too uninformed for me to even bother responding to. Perhaps you should do some research on your own?<br />
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:21 pm
I’m not going to bother myself in studying the US
shell history; I prefer to spend my time in something valuable to me and
others.<br /><br />
October 4th, 2006 at 6:16 am
<span class="commentBody"><span id="comment-3562"><i>I’m not going to bother myself in studying the US
shell history; I prefer to spend my time in something valuable to me and
others.</i><br /><br />Like talking about things you haven’t bothered to research? : D<br /><br />Have at it, then.<br /></span></span>