I saw this combo “Sikka” and “84″ as a virtual sign on Dubai One TV channel. If you have ever noticed this, the channel plays a small ad every once in a while to announce the cultural events in the city. That’s where I stole the title of this post from. It’s catchy.

And now we move on to the juice of the post. Because I am a very busy person (or because I like to imagine that I am a very busy person), and especially so during the blessed month of May in the year 2007, I shall either abandon Tololy’s Box or post prolifically. You know this will happen because I am supposed to be doing other things instead of typing what the voices in my head dictate.

I am very much inspired, precisely because I have to perform non-inspiring activities such as studying and writing papers. During this month, I will develop a queer passion for nature and smoking. I will love my family so much that I would want to spend unhealthy amounts of time in the living room instead of my own room, and I will complain excessively about the heat. I will also take siestas in the strangest times and consider leaving my job. I will become ultra-sociable, too, and will want to go out with anyone willing to endure me. I will discover that I have so many hidden talents like palm-reading, and that the projects in my head must materialize instantly.

I will discover ice-cream and obscene quantities of coke. But somehow, May will pass.

Discovery News published an article by Jamal Halaby of the Associated Press on May 7th that discusses the not-so-slow but steady death of the Dead Sea (accidental pun).

Here are the highlights of the article:

I once cut my foot by mistake and forgot all about it until minutes later when I dipped it in the Dead Sea. That is something that happened years ago and the burning feeling I felt was unforgettable. Last year, however, I visited the Dead Sea and I seriously felt that the waters were not as salty as before. Not a single place in my cut-ridden body burned, I felt nothing. That was a very alarming sign, and it was very personal.

As a Jordanian citizen, I grew up taking pride in knowing that we have the lowest point on earth, the saltiest body of water, and a famous biblical site that is also making money for cosmetics and tourism tycoons. Whenever my family and I passed by the Dead Sea, I would look at it and feel connected to nature. My father would always tell us stories on Sodom and Gomorrah and their swift destruction. The Dead Sea, its beauty and its tales, became part of our family tradition.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Jordanians feel strongly connected to the Dead Sea. True, it is not exactly big and it is not exactly enjoyable if you have cuts on your body. Truer still, drinking some of its water would cause you to throw up and if that water gets in your eyes then you will be very sorry. But still, it is our sea and our wonder.

The Dead Sea has visibly and rapidly shrunk over the years. Anyone who has been to it during the 1990’s and again in 2007 would notice the matter-of-fact decline in its size and saltiness. Simply put, Jordan and Israel are destroying the Dead Sea and with the little coordination that seems to be taking place every once in a while, things are not looking up.

If the revival of the Dead Sea is too costly for governments, why don’t the private corporations that own the multiple hotels and spas along its shores chip in? Why don’t the people behind successful Dead Sea products assume some of the responsibility, too? Also, the companies that extract salt from the waters (thereby greatly accelerating evaporation), shouldn’t they allocate some funds to help keep the ball rollin’? Isn’t environmental responsibility quite trendy these days? You would think that the same corporations that generate profit from the Dead Sea would want to keep that flow of cash coming in, no?

Still on the issue of revival, politics should not be allowed to interfere in this one… more… thing. The people in Jordan, Israel, and Palestine are clearly already burdened with the political conflicts in their daily lives. But to let that conflict steal away something that they all share is simply unspeakable. It would be true transgression on every citizen’s environmental rights in all three of these countries.

In the meantime, the three culprits governments are deliberating, fighting, and sometimes negotiating a way out of the mess that they let happen. Maybe they are waiting for Green Peace to settle the dispute. Or maybe they want a Rabbi and a Sheikh to agree on the location of Sodom so they would know which side will pay more funds…and by then the Dead Sea would have become a trickle of water on a pillar of salt.

Warning: Meaningless-except-for-Tololy post ahead. Leave if this does not interest you.

Many exciting things will happen in a month’s time, or a little over a month’s time. These things I cannot reveal now because I am known to jinx plans when I talk about them (remember the book I once said I was writing, ugh, that’s still unborn). But I am very excited nonetheless and I think that this time, things will work out.

This month will be the longest in my entire life simply because I desperately want someone else to live it for me. Any volunteers? I want someone to think of, type, and print the handouts I have to give during my two presentations this week. I want this someone to give those presentations for me, not because I have stage phobia (Which I don’t have –I can talk to any given number of people at any public or private function about anything and improvise if I am not prepared, I think it’s the Karaki gene), but because I do not want to do the work and prepare for them.

Very dependant, yeah, I’ve become. I also want someone to go to work twice a week like I do and give that other presentation I have to give on Tuesday (probably) on how things are going and how the plans are working, yada yada. If that someone succeeds in those tasks, I want them to sit for my three finals due later this month, and to write the three papers that I must submit this month as well. I already wrote two papers earlier on, what do they need the other three for? What intellectual bondage! Remove the shackles! Hail the uber-academic paper-generating braniac! Bleh.

How did everything end up being crammed in May, when June is set to be the most intensely bright month of this year? And to think that I had a plan to volunteer at some animal shelter…Psshh…It makes me laugh.

Other things that make me laugh now include wanting a hamster I can obviously take very little care of at this point in time, reading my camera’s manual, finishing this side-reading fat book on evolution and human societies, taking excellent pictures, finishing at least one chapter of the mystery book I’m writing, talking someone into reading it and giving me some not-so-harsh feedback, figuring where my sense of “life direction” has evaporated to since I was around 5, drilling my bedroom wall to hang a calendar and a white board and other items, not losing my job, not failing my courses, not messing up my GPA, writing a wholesome article for Alt School Arabia, meeting Shaden and Kinzi, taking a mosaic course, having a life, cutting & colouring my hair, fattening Tsuki-san…among other things.

Now you might be wondering: Why do I do this energy-draining mental scheduling of simultaneous tasks? Because I can, I guess. Because otherwise, I’d have a dull life (and mine is drama-infested to a disturbing degree). Because the heat gets to my head and I toss and turn at night so I have a lot of time to schedule impossible tasks and jam them in one month in a sort of a silly display of self-defiance. On top of all that, them mean mosquitoes write me love letters every night, all over my body. So like in Fallen, time is on my side.

There has always been so much debate going on about smoking and its “status” as Haram (religiously forbidden) or Halal (religiously allowed). We know now that the limited evolution of our laws has prohibited smoking in public places and in some corporate environments (minus the CEO’s office), but do we really know what religion thinks of smoking?

I have seen, as I am sure you have, many religious people smoke. I have also seen many non-religious people shun smoking  rather too religiously (i.e they hate its guts). We know we should not judge a religion by its believers, but what is right and what is wrong when a religious verdict is pronounced on a habit, a cancer, an artistic taste, and an annoyance like smoking?

I am very interested in your answers to this question: do you think smoking is Haram?

You know that my fascination with serial killers and cannibalism must have reached its peak of perversion when I celebrate the voting of my favourite on-screen character of all time, Dr.Hannibal Lecter, as the all-time top movie villain. I strangely feel a personal connection to Lecter, and that adds to my pride that he has received this honour.

Indeed, Lecter embodies supreme intellect and malice combined in one person and yet leaving some room for something humane, as odd as this may sound. He and Lucifer are not that different if you reflect on their build-up for a moment; the similarity of their names is but a cliché if you don’t dig deeper. I am sure Lecter would want you to try something new; dig deeper — you might find splendid dark things.

Voted the all-time movie villain in an American Film Institute poll, Thomas Harris’ epicurean madman has been played by three actors: Brian Cox in the 1986 Manhunter (based on the novel Red Dragon), Gaspard Ulliel as the teen Lecter in this year’s Hannibal Rising and Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and the 2002 remake of Red Dragon. Audiences connected with Lecter for his majesty and eclat as much as his dark sadism. I’ve chosen the 2001 Hannibal because, promoted from featured player to antihero, Lecter finally gets to display his sick talents center-stage; and because Hopkins makes this mad genius more insinuating and horrifying than ever.

Source: Time — Top 25 Greatest Villain