World Affairs, Global Warming, and Lipstick Smudges.

I have decided to post whenever I have the time
(which isn't often)
just to give you lovely people an update once in a blue moon.
Are you overcome with ardent anticipation? Oh' I'm sure.
You want me, you need me, oh baby oh baby.

:)

Well now, without further adieu, here is both my most recent work for the Haight-Ashbury Beat and my final from last semester's "Sex and Transgression in the Islamic World" history class.
And yes, it WAS a really fun class.

Whole Foods On Haight Might Be Ugly

(*note: sorry, my computer was acting funny and wouldn't let the footnotes paste properly. Thus, any fact or figure with a number next to it, will simply correspond to it's match below in "footnotes." Enjoy -_-)

Digital Islam:

Middle Eastern governments, which at first resisted the domestication of digital technology, have implicated a system of vigilantly state-regulated access in the name of safeguarding Islamic culture and now actively endorse internet connectivity amongst their populations in the hopes of expanding economic, educational, and infrastructural growth. But by utilizing western censorship methods these governments are stifling the potential expansion and preservation of Islamic tradition while further propagating orientalist ethnocentrism. Despite this fact, the spread of personalized digital technology has had a sweeping cultural impact throughout the modern Islamic World. It has expanded women’s realm of influence in the modern Middle East by increasing women’s access without refuting traditional gender-segregated space, as well as serving as a medium of expression. It has personalized sexuality and transgression for both genders in the Middle East by redirecting the satisfaction of desire and the power of mate selection to individual youths but has not proven to negate the cultural values of modern Islamic societies. The increased availability of international rather than localized media and public access to expression, regardless of credentials or social standing, has reconfigured power and the public voice throughout the Middle East. For example, increasing domestic Internet access has disassociated notions of political power from that of divine authority in modern Islamicate society as well as increasing devotion to individual self–expression over that of communal derivatives of pride, such as nationalism. The vast majority of Middle Eastern governments resist these changing mentalities, imprisoning and punishing those who oppose their authority. The creation of a simultaneously public/private sphere through personalized digital technology is reshaping notions of sexuality in the modern Islamic world through a movement of youth culture which resists government control of personal exposure and expression.

The vast majority of governments in the Islamic world delayed the launch of Internet availability to the public due to what Middle Eastern media expert Rasha Abdulla called: "desire to control information." (Abdulla, p.77)1 The Internet was seen as a weapon through which Western societies would assault Islamic chastity, such as the hacking of the Hamas website following an attack by Islamic militants on Israeli citizens in March 2001. Visitors to the Hamas homepage were diverted to a pornographic website titled “Hot Motel Horny Sex Sluts.”2 Increasing personal power over choices of exposure and socialization decreases the authority of family and community in the shaping of an individual’s identity by removing collectivity from the notion of self. Thus there developed a fear throughout the Middle East, not only that technological advancement would allow for the use of sexuality as a weapon against the purity of Islam, but also that personalized digital technology would damage or demean Islamic culture.3 However, the growing majority remained un-intimidated by western technology and actively defied the government in seeking civilian Internet access.4 Today the governments of the Middle East have completely reversed their initial mentality and decided that the Internet is crucial to their economic and educational progress. Most now actively endorsing internet connectivity amongst their populations (Abdulla, p.39.) 5 However, while these governments vigorously promote internet connectivity in the name of improving quality of life and education for their people, they simultaneously exhibit a keen distrust in their citizens by implicating strict, state-regulated censorship. 6

By attempting to institutionalize digital information access and socialization the oppressive regimes of the modern Middle East have demonstrated that they have internalized orientalist ethnocentrism, which belittles the capabilities, moral standing, and intelligence of Muslims. In forcing compulsive regulation by state-issued definitions of appropriate vs. inappropriate Internet content for a Muslim7, these governments are inexplicitly reinforcing what Foucault described as the quintessentially Christian mentality of collective spirituality, rather than the traditional Islamicate notion that the personal and private is spiritual. The expansive popularity of the Internet amongst the Muslims of the modern Middle East8 has not eradicated the notion of personalized spirituality and private sexuality. To the contrary, it has reinstituted the culture of relishing individual identity through a separate, anonymous public sphere.

Because identities are shaped through expressions of self, increased access to a “public” space such as the World Wide Web within the security of a “private” space, i.e. home or office, allowed for the development of a “counter public” in which Muslim youth are able to explore their religious and sexual identities without being inhibited by physical symbols of traditionalism or modernity, such as the veil for young Muslim women or a beard amongst young Muslim men. Government censorship seeks to define Islam and in many cases prohibits access to sites pertaining to aspects of Islam they consider subversive, such as Shi’ite ideology in Saudi Arabia. (OpenNet Initative, opennet.net) These methods instigated to protect Islamic identity are in actuality stifling spirituality in the Middle East.

The vigilance with which these governments micromanage citizen Internet use shows that they covertly agree with former colonial powers in believing Muslims are an obscenely licentious and sexually wanton people by focusing the vast majority of such censorship on websites containing sexual content or referring to sexuality.9 Such assertions perpetuate a culture of distrust, and even creates legislation which compels private citizens to regulate each other’s internet use, such as laws in Yemen and Oman that require that computer screens in Internet Cafes be “visible to café managers at all times.” (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net) 10 Even Middle Eastern countries with more liberal Internet censorship policies, such as Egypt, have been known to penalize and imprison citizens for their online activities.11 This mentality of collective, compulsory scrutiny being necessary in order to affirm righteousness directly opposes the values of the pre-Colonial Islamic world, which implicated laws which separated the illicit material and/or behavior from the public sphere rather than excavating and pursuing the “immoral,” to drag them into the public for punishment. (Andrews and Kalpakh, “Love, Law, and Religion;” Course Reader)

Government regulations, implemented supposedly to protect Islamic culture, are bastardizing the Internet’s potential by internalizing colonialist censorship methods and convoluted, bigoted associations of what constitutes a threat to Islam. Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and to a lesser extent, the United Arab Emirates, all outsource the decisions of what their citizens are permitted to access on the Internet via SmartFilter to the US-based software company, Secure Computing. Such software utilizes orientalist mentalities and situates a vast portion of non-English language web content as automatically associated with terrorism and damaging or inappropriate content, and in doing so, promotes westernization and hinders literacy in Middle Eastern langauges.12 SmartFilter also blocks web sites that offer language translation and free web hosting due to their potential use to circumnavigate other blocked content. The constraints of such censorship stifle cultural pride as well. For example, blocking free web service providers as disabled public access to regional Internet forums, such as “Persianblog” in Iran, which seeks to create a space for Iranians to express and relate to each other. Many other government censorship systems that do not utilize Smartfilter have implemented their own restrictive policies which discourage educational Internet use.13 Islamic regimes themselves, have played a pivotal role in the sexploitation of Muslim women by censoring a vast portion of women’s websites, deeming them as explicit or subversive, and by using key words such as “breast” in order to categorize web content as “sexually explicit (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net.)”14 Internet users of the modern Middle East have resisted the control implemented by censorship over their personal choices of exposure and communication. Despite such stringent restrictions, modern Middle Eastern youth have utilized the Internet in order to explore their identities, seize independence through control of personal exposure and power over their own spirituality through digital Islamic resources and methods of expression, without inflicting damage to their cultural values or identities as Muslims.

In response to government regulation of sexual content of the Internet, Ramzi El Khoury, founder of the Arabic-language Internet portal Albawaba and a former editor in chief of the Arab Daily, said that citizens of the modern Islamic World become “amateur hackers.” "They teach each other ways to reach certain sites,” he said. (Unknown, “Porn Dominates Saudi Mobile Use.”) In fact, “sexually explicit” Internet content is more widely sought in the Middle East than anywhere else on the planet.15 The majority of media and culture experts make the mistake of associating this trend in Internet usage with Islamic society being sexually repressed and the Internet’s ability to consequently “liberate” Middle Easterners through the integration of western media and information into their lives. However, the illicit sexuality present in the Internet usage of Middle Easterners demonstrates the opposite: the re-Islamification of sexuality through the personal and anonymous nature of the Internet. Pre-colonial Islamic, and predominately Sufi, ideology cherished the intimate nature of private sexuality and spirituality. The pervasive digital “counter public” space allows for such an individualized sexuality, which does not inflict itself upon society. Rather, it allows the individual to derive pleasure from privacy, and thus obliterates the compulsion to implicate collective, moral imperatives which serve as the base construct of distinctly Western sexuality according to Foucault. (Foucault, The History of Sexuality)

Internet pornography does exist which focuses on Muslim women and Islamic scenarios. However, the material focuses primarily on Muslim women being penetrated by non-Muslim men and tends to be sac-religious, overtly orientalist, and intentionally vulgar.16 Thus Middle Eastern men seek more readily available Western sexual stimuli on the internet, not because of ideological colonialism as some might theorize, but out of respect for Islam and Muslim women.

The virtual “outsourcing” of sexual stimuli in the Islamic world has less to do with Westernized sexual identities and more to do with the limited amount of Arabic language content available on the Internet.17 The Israeli porn site Ratuv, which features pornographic satire of Israeli politicians, Hebrew speaking porn stars and IDF sex scenerios, translated it’s entire site into Arabic when executives realized in 2007 that it received heavy trafficking from Internet users in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, despite government censorship of web addresses featuring “.il.” (Unknown, “Mideast Peace Through Porn.”) After doing so Ratuv’s traffic increased to 100,000 hits from computers in Arab countries per week. (Jupiter, Jewcy.com) A study published in the Moroccan business publication, L'Economiste, in 2006 revealed the duality of colonialist pornography consumption and it’s relation to “real world” romantic relationships in the Islamic world; namely, that consuming outside sexual stimuli does not damage their devotion to Islam or desire to continue their culture.18 However, it is the access to interpersonal socialization that the Internet provides, rather than it’s highly sought after pornography content, which is reshaping gender and identity in the modern Islamic world.

Islamic youth constitute the vast majority of Internet users in the modern Middle East, 19 20 and as such it is playing a pivotal role in the development of identity and the future of Islamic culture in the Middle East. Studies reveal: “Internet use by youths is creating new forms of communication across gender lines, interrupting traditional social rituals, and giving young people new autonomy in how they run their lives." (Wheeler, “The Internet and Youth in the Subculture of Kuwait.”) The Internet has created an anonymous, public, social sphere in which modern Muslims can explore their desires and experience interactions with the opposite gender without violating tradition or societal expectations. Middle Eastern women interviewed by Wheeler reported they used the Internet in order to communicate with the opposite sex, and that they valued such experiences “because it taught them about the opposite sex within the safety of being confined to a computer screen.” (Abdulla, p.102-103) Wheeler found similar results mirrored in recent studies done in Saudi Arabia.21Throughout her research Wheeler discovered the cultural effects of cyber-romance: more couples are meeting, courting, and marrying without the instigation or pre-prescribed approval of parental figures. 22 As couples now can meet and fall in love without needing to cross physical boundaries of space and gender-segregated society, the Internet is reconfiguring power of mate selection, social access, and sexual realization.

However, these developments are not altering or inhibiting the growth of Islamic traditions and culture. Wheeler noted that the “traditional and Islamic cultural norms” the Kuwaiti subjects were raised shaped their Internet use, and that they “refrain from usage patterns which contradict those values.” Even those subjects who experimented with taboo Internet content avidly returned their patterns of Internet use “to the societal norms and values they cherish.” (Abdulla, p.103) Similar research conducted in the United Arab Emirates “contradicted the notion that the Internet will eventually reshape Arab cultures by Western influences.”23 Researchers thus stated in their conclusion what the governments of the Middle East refuse to believe: that Middle Eastern youth, and young Muslim women in particular, are “conscious media consumers who are capable of determining what aspects of the local and global cultures they can accept, preserve, share or reject.” (Abdulla, p.103) The Internet has not desecrated Islamic culture, as people once feared it would, nor has it’s sexual content tainted the chastity of young Middle Eastern Muslims. Within the shifting role of personal technology in the assertion of sexuality and romance outside the influence of family or community, access to the Internet and such online communities has proven to have the greatest impact on Muslim women. It has allowed for women to expand their spheres of influence and gain independence without disregarding traditional gender segregation.

As citizens of the modern Islamic World have gained considerable presence in virtual communities so has the available online content relating to Islam and Muslim identities. A simple search for the word "Islam" on Yahoo! generated 97,300,000 (Abdulla, p.61).24 Digitized resources now aid modern Muslims in practicing their devotion without the hindrance of location. Online communities have formed providing mediums through which modern Muslims share and express with one another.25 The interconnectivity of online Islamic communities has also helped to expand career opportunities and business networking throughout the Middle East, further integrating a Pan-Islamic identity into the region’s computer literate populations. (Wheeler, “Empowering Publics: Information Technology and Democratization in the Arab World.”) Pan-Islamic forums, chat rooms, and resources has created a phenomena in the Middle East of international friendships, and created a sense of unity amongst the world’s Muslims. (Wheeler, “Empowering Publics: Information Technology and Democratization in the Arab World.”) As the Internet continues to play an increasingly influential role within Middle Easterners media exposure and consumption, the development of virtual Islamic pedagogies has reoriented the terms through which the modern Muslims form their notions of self. Khaled Abou el Fadl, professor of Islamic law at UCLA Center of Near Eastern Studies, acknowledged the dilemma presented by such an atmosphere when he said: "the internet introduces a challenge of legitimacy and accountability” because "there are a thousand cyber Muftis out there...spewing fatwas left and right" (Abdulla, p.63) Despite such qualms of validity, such free-flowing access to expression and information has served to empower and unify Islamic youth through individualism via the Internet.26

Middle Eastern Internet users have proven they value free-flowing access to information and unity thru pan-Islamicism over that of loyalties to nationalism. In Egypt, bloggers flocked to divulge, discuss, and condemn the “waves of attacks on women” in Cairo during the Muslim Feast Day, Eid al Fitr in October 2006 while “much of Egypt's official and semi-official media remained conspicuously silent for many days.” Fragmented video footage from the attacks where posted onto Youtube for the world to see, despite Egypt decrying such posts as attempts to “defame” Egypt. (Padania, "Egypt: Cairo's women speak out against violence.") When the international best seller depicting the role of digital technology in romance amongst young Saudis, Girls of Riyadha, was banned in Saudi Arabia and chastised by the government for it’s criticism of Saudi men, the book was released in Beirut instead and the full test was transcribed and posted in numerous Saudi Arabian forums and blogs. (OpenNet Initative, opennet.net) Such innovations prove that the modern Muslims of the Middle East value personal expression and free access to information over governmental decrees or national identities. The fact that it became an international bestseller reaffirms not only the validity of the novel’s premise, but also that around the world an international digital-Islamic youth culture is allowing Muslims to relate beyond notions of nationality, on the basis of religion and subculture. The freedom of expression perpetuated by the Internet empowers the populations of the Middle East27 and proves the people of the modern Islamic world to be far more capable and devote than their governments suspect them to be. Contrary to the initial fears of modern Muslims, the Internet has contributed to the strengthening and reviving of Islamic culture in the modern Middle East, and will continue to do so despite obscene, orientalist censorship.

Footnotes:

1. Iran did not permit citizens to access the internet until 1997 (Hosaka, “The Internet and the Middle East”); similarly, it was illegal to access the internet within Iraqi borders until the late 1990’s. Syria did not allow citizens to access the World Wide Web until June 2000. (Abdulla, p.77)

2. Hamas spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, accused the Israeli intelligence of being behind the prank, saying that they used pornography to ‘disfigure the image of Islam and Muslims’. (Unknown, “Hamas hit by Porn attack.”)

3. A study conducted by Deborah L. Wheeler on Internet use in Kuwait in 2004 found that many Kuwaiti citizens internalized this panic that the domestication of the Internet would deconstruct their society’s culture and traditions.
“With the introduction of the Internet, young people argue that they find it more enjoyable to surf the net in the evenings instead of participating in traditional social rituals. A recent regional survey found that 55% of Internet use takes place between the hours of 4:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m., the hours when tea and home visits, or visits to the diwaniyya (male social clubs) are most likely to occur (DITnet 1999).” (Wheeler, "The Internet and Youth in the subculture of Kuwait.")

4."According to Human Rights Watch (1999), more than 30,000 Saudis did access the Internet regularly through international phone calls to ISPs." (Abdulla, p.77)

5.Tunisia has sought to increase Internet penetration through innovations such as “Internet Cavarns,” “several buses electronically equipped with computers and mobile Internet access” that travel throughout the country providing workshops and seminars and “open Internet days,” which provide free internet access. King Abdullah 2 of Jordan has publicly stated he is “very enthusiastic about increasing Internet penetration among the citizens.” The Egyptian government has taken the most proactive approach with the implementation of its “ambitious plan to make computers available in every Egyptian home,” by subsidizing computer and cable costs for it’s citizens. (Abdulla, p.39)

6. Egypt, Iraq, and Israel are the only countries in the Middle East without state-regulated censorship of the Internet. Countries such as “Bahrain, Jordan, Libya, and Syria focus their filtering efforts primarily on political content” while “Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, not only extensively filter political content but also pervasively block content that is perceived to be religiously, culturally, or socially inappropriate.” (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net)

7. The 5 year gap between internet availability in Saudi Arabia and making internet access available to the public in 1999 was “attributed to working on a system that would protect Saudi citizens from ‘inappropriate” material on the internet.” (Abdulla, p.78)

8. Overall, the Middle East experienced an estimated 921.7% increase in citizen Internet users between 2000 and 2006. "On average, every Internet account all over the Arab world is shared by 3 people, with the exception of Egypt where it is estimated that every Internet account is shared by 8 people…5 users per account for Syria, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan…4 users for Yemen, 3.5 users for Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco; three users for Saudi Arabia; and 2.5 users for the rest of the Gulf states (Abdulla, 2001; Jarrah, 200)." (Abdulla, p.36)

9. For example, studies conducted between 2004 and 2005 revealed that the Iranian censorship system eliminated access to 100% of pornographic websites, 18% of sites containing “provocative attire,” 11% of content containing “provocative attire,” 11% of websites pertaining to gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals, 7% of women’s rights websites, 7% of personal blogs and 6% of educational websites. (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net)

10. For example, the Syrian government “tampers with the very fabric of the Internet, restricting the use of the basic electronic protocols that allow people to send e-mails and construct Websites,” according to the Human Rights Watch in 2005. In addition, the same report noted that the Syrian government hires “officer monitors” to roam Internet Cafes, “snooping over people’s shoulders to see what their doing.” (Adbulla, p.81) Other governments in the region have followed suit, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has implemented a growing amount of restrictions on Internet Cafes since May 2001. (OpenNet Initative, opennet.net)

11. One such recent case occurred on February 22, 2007, when an Egyptian blogger was sentenced to four years in prison for expressing anti-Muslim sentiment online and “insulting the president.” (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net)

12. Testing of Iran’s censorship software revealed that 31-34% of Farsi websites and 50% of Farsi news sites were blocked by SmartFilter, compared to the 5% of English language web sources prohibited. (OpenNet, opennet.net) While most international news sites, including Israel-based Haaretz, are not blocked by Saudi censorship software, prominent Arab-language news sites such as Al-Quds Al Arabi (www.alquds.co.uk) and Elaph (www.elaph.com) are.

13. For example, 52% of sex education websites are blocked by censorship software in Yemen. (OpenNet Initiative, opennet.net)

14. This has also had tragic implications for Middle Eastern chickens.

15. According to Google Trends, Pakistani citizens search for "sex" more often than any other nationality in the entire world, followed by Egyptians. Iran and Morocco are in fourth and fifth place, Indonesia in seventh and Saudi Arabia the eighth. Cairo is top city in the world for "sex" searches. When the terms "boy sex" or "man boy sex" are entered into Google trends, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt constitute the first four countries listed. (El Ahl and Steinvorth, “Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World.”)

16.“Besides these websites, there is a huge market, particularly in Europe, for movies featuring French and North African Arabs, so much so that beurette movies have become a genre on their own, much like the Oriental, Black, and Latina-themed films produced in the United States. These films include Oriental Lover produced by Stan Lubrick, which features Arab porn stars wearing veils and turbans…Many of these movies openly mock the traditional morality of Muslims…They are rarely ravished by Arab men, and never by Persian men. They are violated and desecrated by non-Muslim men, white and black, who are mainly nominal Jews or Christians.” (Kahina, “Sexually Assaulting Islam: The Case of “Muslim Porn.”)

17. Less than 2%, according to the Internet World Stats. (Abdulla, p.43)

18. 56% of young Muslim men in the Maghreb region admitted to watching porn on a regular basis and that premarital sex was not “uncommon,” but also asserted that they considered religious observations such as the Ramadan fast and daily prayer as important and that they wanted to marry a fellow Muslim. (El Ahl and Steinvorth, “Sex and Taboo in the Islamic World)

19. Statistics state that 40% of Egyptian users are between the ages of 16-28 and (Abdulla, p.50) and a suspected 63% of Kuwaiti internet users are under the age of 25 (Wheeler, “The Internet and Youth in the Subculture of Kuwait”).

20. In the Middle East, around 60% of the current population is officially classified as 'youth', between 15 and 24 years old. (Unknown, “The Dating Game”)

21.Modern Saudis are said to be “poised on the edge of a significant new social landscape,” because “new forms of private communication, like electronic mail and chat…for the first time enable communication between males and females in this gender segregated society.’” (Wheeler, “The Internet and Youth in the Subculture of Kuwait.”)

22. “At least once a week while conducting this research I was told stories of cyber-courtships ending in marriage.”(Wheeler, p.11)

23. To the contrary, studies revealed that e-mail exchanges mirrored traditional UAE social practices, such as majlis. (Abdulla, p.103)

24. 1.68 times more than the number of results for Christianity and 4.78 times more than the number of results for Judaism. (Abdulla, p.61)

25. Sites such as “Islamic City” offer worldwide prayer times, online fatwas and online credit card payments of Zakat. They also have Mosque directories for countries with Muslim minority populations, such as the United States. (Abdulla, p.66) "The Internet has afforded to Muslims worldwide is the ability to connect, communicate, and discuss issues on an unprecedented scale." (Abdulla, p.73)

26. “While personal quests for what it means to be Muslim entail a degree of individualization, their driving motivation is a search for coherence and stable meaning and norms that are core to a ‘true’ Islam, capturing its unchanged essence.” (Ismail, p.11)

27. When Girls of Riyadha was finally released in Saudi Arabia in 2006, Saudi Arabia’s literary output doubled that year, with half of the texts authored by women. (Zoepf, "From Saudi Arabia, Chick Lit without the racy bits: Girls of Riyadh: A literary phenomenon comes to America.")

Bibliography:

Abdulla, Rasha A.. The Internet in the Arab World: Eygpt and Beyond. New York, New York: Peter Lan Publishing, Inc., 2007.

Wheeler, Deborah L., and "Empowering publics: Information Technology and democratization in teh Arab World-Lessons from Internet cafes and beyond." Oxford Internet Institute, Research Report 11(2006):

Unknown, Author. "Mideast Peace through Porn ." Los Angeles Times Opinion. 1, Sept 2007 11 Dec 2008 .

Jupiter, Helen. "Arabs hot for Israeli Porn." Jewcy.com. 29, January 2008. Jewcy. 9 Dec 2008 .

Unknown , Author. "Porn dominates Saudi mobile use." BBC News 25 April 2007 9 Dec 2008 .

Unknown , Author. "Hamas hit by porn attack." BBC News 7 March 2001 9 Dec 2008 .

El Ahl, Amira and Steinvorth, Daniel. "Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World." Spiegel Online Internatinal 26 October 2006 9 Dec 2008 .

Unknown , Author. "the Dating game." bnet Business Network: The Middle East. October 2008. 29 November 2008 .

Wheeler, Deborah L.. "The Internet and Youth in the subculture of Kuwait." Journal of Computer Mediated-Communication 8 January 2003. 29 Nov 2008 .

Hosaka, Shuji. "The Internet and the Middle East." Japanese Institute of Middle Eastern Economics Review 1997. 28 Nov 2008 .

Unknown, Author. "Executive Summary." Internet Filtering in Iran 2004-2005: A Country Study. OpenNet Initiative . 11 Dec 2008 . (also, , Middle East and North Africa regional overview http://opennet.net/research/regions/mena)

Rasha, "Girls of Riyadh." Mideast Youth. July 30 2007. Mideast Youth. 20 Nov 2008 .

Zoepf , Katherine. "From Saudi Arabia, Chick Lit without the racy bits: Girls of Riyadh: A literary phenomenon comes to America." The New York Observer 19 June 2007 November 21 2008 .

Padania, Sameer. "Egypt: Cairo's women speak out against violence." Global Voices Online. 23 Nov 2006. GlobalVoices. 24 Nov 2008 .

Kettman, Steve. "Arab governments put veil on Internet." San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate) 5 May 2001 27 Nov 2008 .

Ismail, Salwa. "Islamism, Re-Islamization and the Fashioning of Muslim Selves: Refiguring the Public Sphere." Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 4, Article 3(2007)

Kahina, Mikail . "Sexually Assaulting Islam: The Case of "Muslim" Porn." UK Indymedia. 15/07/2006. 15 Dec 2008 .

El Ahl, Amira and Steinvorth, Daniel. "Sex and Taboos in the Islamic World." Spiegel Online Internatinal 26 October 2006 9 Dec 2008 .

World Affairs, Global Warming, and Lipstick Smudges.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Moses was high on drugs?

Monday, May 4, 2009

Everything You Need To Know While I Stress Over Finals....

Monday, April 27, 2009

Rest in peace.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Miss California's stance against gay-marriage losses her the crown

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

OMG, M.E. Drama

Monday, March 16, 2009

Bikinis and Cover Stories.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Okay so, after much thought (aka: procrastination) ...

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