Stories about Ideas from February, 2010
Kuwait: One Year, 188 Questions
Yasmine Gamal, Egyptian blogger living in Kuwait, shares her 188 questions of the day (Q.O.D) she posted on her Facebook and Twitter accounts over the past year. She initially started this idea as a way to avoid the dullness of the status update or negativity and to start a conversation...
Egypt: Independent Single Women
Egyptian blogger and feminist activist, Fatma Emam, celebrated this Valentine with some of her friends being “independent, mature, well educated, professional and single women.”
Egypt: Valentine's Day Dilemma
Forget about anything you know about the Valentine's Day, as you are going to experience so many contradicting reactions and thoughts regarding this day, after paying the Egyptian blogosphere a visit.
Video: Mobile Libraries of the World
The mobile library has become a staple in many library systems, bringing books to those who cannot access the libraries themselves. However, in many places due to bad road conditions or lack of funding, the traditional system of rigging a bus or truck as a library is not possible. Thus, library trains, donkey libraries and motorcycle libraries have come to stay as viable options to bring books to the communities.
Trinidad & Tobago: Poetry in the Mas’
Trinidad & Tobago Carnival inspires a poem by blogger Andre Bagoo.
Trinidad & Tobago: “Dat is Carnival”
MEP Caribbean Publishers explores the question of what constitutes Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, while My Chutney Garden adds: “That the ‘mas’ has become sanitised is beyond dispute.”
Lebanon: The Better Daily Star Project
Annoyed by the current design of the news website "The Daily Star", Lebanese Blogger Beirut Spring redesigns the website to show that it can be done.
Japan: Momus, on This Ageing Country
In “Growing old in, and with, Japan” on the Click Opera blog, Nick Currie (aka Momus) lists several points of what could be “a silver lining to Japan's likely silver age” but concludes that realistically, “Japan will get cheaper, smaller, poorer, purer, wiser, more itself.”
Trinidad & Tobago, Haiti: Preparing for an Earthquake
“We have all looked on in horror at the scenes of destruction and human suffering experienced by our Caribbean neighbours in Haiti as a result of the strong earthquake on 12th January”: Afra Raymond considers the implications of a major earthquake on Trinidad & Tobago.
Guyana: Rodney Film
Signifyin’ Guyana is inspired by “Guyanese filmmaker Clairmont Chung's W.A.R. Stories, a documentary on the life, activism, and death of Dr. Walter Rodney.”
Bangladesh: Questions For Climate Organizers
Anirvan Chatterjee, a tech geek from San Francisco, has five questions for Bangladeshi climate organizers. Read the answers here.
Japan: Learning the art of diplomacy from a mobster
Blogger at U-SUKE's tumblr says [ja] he learnt the art of diplomacy from a former mobster. This the yakuza's advice: “During negotiations, you know, the one who looses his temper looses the game. First of all you listen carefully to what the other party has to say. Then, when he...
Trinidad & Tobago: Working for the Tourist Dollar?
The Liming House is incensed by a campaign from Virgin Atlantic designed to “help the Caribbean”: “Both Virgin and the Travel Foundation appear to think that the only opportunities for ‘disadvantaged youth’ in the Caribbean are in ‘craft making, beekeeping and fishing.’ Gosh, development has just passed those backward-but-smiling natives...
Bangladesh: How To Minimize Risk In Stock Trading
Kabir Ahmed at Bangladesh Corporate Blog discusses how to minimize risk in investing in the stock market.
Trinidad & Tobago: Radio Face-Off
Underground Trini Artiste thinks that Facebook is the new radio.
Trinidad & Tobago: Robber Talk
Just in time for Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, Pleasure interviews one of the festival's traditional characters, the Midnight Robber.
Trinidad & Tobago: Water Noir
“I find it baffling that, decades later, we have not figured out this whole water issue as yet. Water is, after all, essential for life. And while not strictly speaking relevant, it is certainly ironic that we also live on an island”: Tattoo suggests that “they should make a film...
Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti: Defending Haitians
In response to a statement that the arrival of Haitian refugees in Jamaica could be seen as a threat to public health, Long Bench republishes a Letter to the Editor that he wrote: “Haitian refugees are not criminals, and should not be treated by citizens or represented in the media...
St. Lucia, Jamaica, Haiti: Words Can Help
Want to write in solidarity for Haiti? St. Lucia-based Caribbean Book Blog and Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey Philp have details.
Jamaica, U.S.A.: Wisdom of Children
“I learned that children are naturally giving and spontaneous and if we are not willing to accept some of the ‘wild energy’ of our children and if we continue to treat our schools as warehouses, then we should be prepared to accept the death of their imagination”: Jamaican litblogger Geoffrey...
Suriname: Tattoo You
At Paramaribo SPAN, Christopher Cozier considers the work of a tattoo artist “using skin as another canvas”, which “coincides with the painted decorations on Paramaribo minibuses, reaching out to a larger contemporary public and extending the dialogue about visual production.”