The Jordanian blogsphere sends its condolences and is praying for the victims and the families of victims of the devastating earthquake that occurred in Pakistan.

Jordanian blogging portal Jordan Planet is now also covering the blogs of expatriates living in Jordan, one of who is Dr. Marcy Newman, who in her last post writes about her experience crossing the borders of Israel and into Palestine. Another expatriate blogger, Schiavoni blogs about her surprise about Ramadan, “I guess I didn't really believe that a culture where 15 minutes means an hour, people would really be strict enough to refrain from eating, drinking or smoking anything.”

As for the usual serving of blogs, the Jordanian cultural front is singing this week. Jad Madi reports on the Jerash chariots, saying that they make Jerash the only place in the world where Roman army, gladiators and chariot racing performances can be experienced in a genuine Roman setting. How fascinating! Nasim Tamimi, on the other hand, is happy that the Royal Film Commission is now screening movies outside of the Jordanian capital of Amman, and Roba Assi has pictures of the first Andy Warhol exhibition taking place in Amman this month, along with the works of burgeoning Jordanian artist Hala Awad.

Stateside, Natasha Tynes, meanwhile reports about a “unique musical outing… enthralling us with their compositions that mesh jazz elements with Arabic melodies” in a live performance by Arabic band Shusmo, who performed in downtown DC, and she also wonders where Jordanian movies are in the Arab Film Festival taking place in the same city.

“Artwork by Jordanian artist Hala Awad” by Roba

On a more local facet, Mira Shnoudi is protesting about how interior designers in Jordan don't have their own organization, and Ahmad Humeid has a post about the billboard that vanished, saying , “Has anyone here heard of freedom of expression?”

Khalaf continues the talk about Ramadan from last week with a very interesting post pondering the question, “How conservative is too conservative?”  Isam Bayazidi says he is not surprised about the recent headlines saying that Jordanian diesel is against Jordanian standards for diesel, and Naseem Tarawneh writes saying, “the next big conflict is not about land or oil, it’s going to be water, or lack thereof.” Meanwhile, Natasha Tynes is outraged at the fact that latest honor killing case resulted in no more than six months in prison for the 26-year-old shepherd, a sentence which Haitham Sabbah also see as a pass to kill although no Islamic rule justify this light sentence. Haitham Sabbah also wonders if lawmakers will raise shields to protect bloggers, and he posts about the first Arabic homosexual magazine, Barra.