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Saboteurs caught trying to sever major undersea Internet cable to Egypt

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:53:56 +0000

The Egyptian military claims it caught saboteurs in a small boat trying to sever one of the country's main undersea Internet cables. No word yet on who the guys were and what their motive might be:

Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said in a statement on his official Facebook page that divers were arrested while “cutting the undersea cable” of the country’s main communications company, Telecom Egypt. The statement said they were caught on a speeding fishing boat just off the port city of Alexandria.
The statement was accompanied by a photo showing three young men, apparently Egyptian, staring up at the camera in what looks like an inflatable launch. It did not further have details on who they were or why they would have wanted to cut a cable.

Egypt: Naval forces capture 3 divers trying to cut undersea Internet cable [AP]

(via /.)

Photos from on top of the Great Pyramid

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:10:34 +0000

The Pyramids of Giza close to tourists at 4:00 pm. Recently, a group of Russians managed to hide out at the site after closing time and scramble up the Great Pyramid of Cheops in the fading light. Naturally, they took photos. (Because if there is one thing the Internet has taught me about Russians, it's that they like to climb to dangerous heights and then take photos.)

These shots are kind of fabulous, not just for the thrill of "yeah, somebody broke the rules!", but because of the perspective you get from on high that isn't visible in the many ground-level shots I've seen. From on top of the Pyramid, you can see how the stone is pockmarked and carved — it really looks like something humans cut out of the Earth. You can also see the graffiti left by generations of tourists in multiple languages; English, Arabic, French, and more. And you can see the edge of the modern city, shimmering just at the horizon. I don't think I'd previously had such a profound sense of how closely modern Egyptians lived and worked to the Great Pyramid, before. What a fascinating view!

Thanks to Steve Silberman for the link!

Cairollers: Cairo's first rollerderby team

Cory Doctorow — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 17:57:44 +0000

Lex sez, "I've just posted an interview with Indie Hannah of the Cai Rollers, Cairo (and Egypt's) first roller derby league. They're a mixture of local women and international residents, and are finally practising after the project has been over a year in the making. They're had to fight hard to get to this point, and have plenty of struggles ahead of them."

Who are the CaiRollers? Many leagues in far-flung places are conglomerations of ex-pats with little local involvement. Something tells me that's not the case for you...
Nope, CaiRollers are as diverse as the city. Right now, we have about eight skaters, one coach and two volunteers who make up the foundation and are all working equally as hard to get this league going. Skaters include Egyptian natives, Egyptians with dual citizenship who are third world kids having grown up around the world, and some ex-pats from other parts of the world including America and Argentina. Our volunteer--hopefully future refs--are equally as diverse from Africa and America. Our belief and value systems range from Muslim to Christian, Agnostic to Buddhist. We range from teachers and nonprofit workers to female entrepreneurs.

Up Close and Personal with the CaiRollers of Cairo, Egypt

Incredible 360° interactive panorama of Great Pyramids

David Pescovitz — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:25:08 +0000

AirPano created a breathtaking 360° interactive panorama of Egypt's Great Pyramids of Giza. The video above shows how AirPano collected the images that went into the panorama. How did they do it? As Greg from Daily Grail explains, "Just like the aliens that built the Giza pyramids, they used UFOs (or possibly remote-controlled drone-copters) to fly a panoramic camera up to certain points above the plateau in order to get the best possible view of these jaw-dropping structures." When I visited the pyramids as a 13-year-old, I was struck by how close the pyramids are to bustling Cairo. I imagined a long camel trek into the desert (hey, I was 13!) when it was really just a 15 minute taxi ride. Great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt • 360° Aerial Panorama

Tutankhamen: A mummy story for grown-ups

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:10:54 +0000

When Howard Carter opened the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamen in 1922 he found a series of chambers piled high with “wonderful things.” For nerds of a certain age, this is a story we’ve heard many times before. King Tut was a part of our lives from childhood. On the list of “Dead Things Small Children Get Really Excited About”, he ranks just below dinosaurs and just above Pompeii. By the time we reached junior high, we had explored the Valley of the Kings through diagrams in National Geographic, catalogued Tut’s treasures in the pages of glossy DK picture books, and watched innumerable actors recreate Carter’s day of discovery on TV documentaries.

Given all that you already know about the Tutankhamen story, why should you bother reading Joyce Tyldesley’s new book Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King? Because Tyldesley asks (and answers) questions those old familiar sources seldom bothered with. Her book takes a popular kid’s history and fleshes it out with grown-up levels of depth and context. For instance: Why exactly was King Tut buried with all those grave goods to begin with?

The answer isn’t as simple as you might suspect. The golden couches, ornate game boards, food, and flowers are all usually presented as things Tutankhamen thought he’d need in the afterlife. But that doesn’t match up with what we know about ancient Egyptian religious beliefs, Tyldesley writes. Kings were supposed to spend their afterlives away from the tomb—reborn as a star, or merged with the god Osiris. It was non-royal elite who, at one point, thought they would need to deck out their tombs to be eternal vacation homes. By Tut’s time, though, even they were granted access to Osiris’ kingdom. Technically, there was no religious reason to bury anyone with as much stuff as Tut had, let alone a king. Howard Carter’s “wonderful things” were probably a function of cultural tradition, rather than religious necessity. It was about wealth and appearances, an effort to keep up with the Joneses which spiraled so out of control that real treasures were eventually replaced by representations of treasure. More important, Tyldesley says, there’s no reason to suspect that an older king would have been buried with more grave goods than Tutankhamen got.

That’s just one of the many places where Tyldesley takes the worn-out Tut legend and makes it surprising again.

Through her book, you’ll learn how the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb played an important role in the transition to Egyptian self-governance, and why Howard Carter should be recognized as a key figure in the process of changing archaeology from a looter’s hobby into a sound science. You’ll go inside Imperial England’s mummy fad, and delve into the best theories we now have about the cause of Tutankhamen’s death. (Hint: He probably wasn’t murdered.) And you’ll read the mysterious letters that Tut’s widow sent to a Hittite king—a correspondence that doesn’t show up in the Egyptian record. We only know about it from Hittite court documents.

Some of the most interesting parts of the book deal with the background of Tutankhamen’s family—a lineage that was difficult to make sense of and is still not fully understood.

All of this is fascinating. Tyldesley, a British Egyptologist, does a very good job of providing academic depth in an easy-to-read writing style. I plowed through Tutankhamen during a long weekend getaway. (Bonus: I can tell you from experience that the stories in this book make for great conversation starters around the campfire.)

But a book like this is also important, because it teaches a lesson that applies to a wide-reaching range of topics. Science doesn’t just stop. There’s not really a point where everybody dusts their hands together and goes, “Welp, guess we’ve learned everything there is to know about that!” It has almost been a century since Howard Carter slipped a candle into Tutankhamen’s tomb, and there are still things about that king, his reign, and his death that we don’t understand. We are still stumbling across new questions that Carter wouldn’t have even thought to ask.

Tutankhamen may have been a topic you devoured as a child. But you don't have to put it away now that you’ve become an adult. The body of knowledge keeps changing. There is always something new to learn. They key is to look for writers like Tyldesley who can help you take a favorite topic and transition from a child’s understanding to that of a grown up.

Tutankhamen: The Search for an Egyptian King by Joyce Tyldesley.

Image: Mural 2, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from merceblanco's photostream

Trompe l'oeil graffiti vanishes Egyptian military barrier

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:22:44 +0000

Noordijk sez, "Egyptian graffiti artists make this military street barrier 'disappear.'"

Sheikh Rihan mural

Egyptian port-workers refuse to sign for tons of US-made tear-gas shipped in by Ministry of the Interiorworkers

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:47:42 +0000

Five port workers in Cairo refused to sign for a shipment of 7.5 tons of tear-gas from the US, fearing that it would be used against demonstrators; another 14 tons of tear-gas were expected from the US at the time. Peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square were subjected to relentless gas attacks by the military government last week. The shipment was eventually released and sent to storage owned by the Ministry of Interior in Cairo.

Egypt’s al-Shorouk newspaper reported that upon the arrival of the shipment, massive disagreements broke out between employees, where five employees refused to sign for the shipment, one after the other.
The five, being dubbed by activists as the “brave five”, were to be refereed to a investigative committee as to why they refused to perform their duties, which has since called off.
The news about the shipment’s arrival stirred the Twittersphere, after it was consumed all day with the country’s first post-revolution elections, and activists mocked the reinforcement of weapons that is being used against them.

UPDATE: Egypt imports 21 tons of tear gas from the US, port staff refuses to sign for it (via JWZ)

(Image: Water & tear Gas!, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 89031137@N00's photostream)

Battered Tahrir Square protester recounts Monday clashes

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:39:20 +0000

Alejandro De La Cruz from Turnstyle News tells Boing Boing,

Our reporter out of Egypt, Shadi Rahimi, has completed an online post with video on a Tahrir Square protester who was in the middle of Monday's clashes. The demonstrator, whose name is Saleh, says he was battered, arrested and later released. He says he considers his fate "fortunate" compare to those who lost their lives.

When Rahimi met up with Saleh, he was still deciding whether to boycott Egypt's historic vote.

More here, Video Link.

Egypt police detain, beat, sexually assault US-based journalist Mona Eltahawy; other journalists also targeted

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:30:02 +0000

[video link] US-based Egyptian blogger, speaker, and journalist Mona Eltahawy was released today after spending 12 hours detained by Egyptian security forces in Cairo. According to her tweets, she was arrested by riot police while observing the ongoing protests in Tahrir Square, where thousands of Egyptian citizens are calling for the military junta SCAF to be disbanded, and a representative, democratically-elected leadership to take their place.

While she was held, Mona managed to tweet from a fellow detainee's Blackberry that she had been beaten and was in prison. When she was released, Mona tweeted more details: she had been sexually and physically assaulted, and sustained a broken arm and a broken hand from beatings inside the interior ministry in Cairo, in the early hours of Thursday morning.

"The whole time I was thinking about article I would write," she writes, "Just you fuckers wait."

A number of journalists and well-known voices from Twitter have been detained in the last few days, including Egyptian-American documentary maker Jehane Noujaim, and Maged Butter, shown below (WARNING: graphic image):

More details from Mona's tweet-stream over the last few hours:

I AM FREE
12 hours with Interior Ministry bastards and military intelligence combined. Can barely type - must go xray arms after CSF pigs beat me.
A thousand thanks for all well wishes and support. Fuck #EgyPolice.
I can barely imagine what my family and loved ones were going through those 12 hours-I know they were worried about me to begin with. Sorry
Thank God a political activist in MOI with me lent me his phone to tweet. Right after my tweet his battery died
5 or 6 surrounded me, groped and prodded my breasts, grabbed my genital area and I lost count how many hands tried to get into my trousers.
They are dogs and their bosses are dogs. Fuck the Egyptian police.
Yes sexual assault. I'm so used to saying harassment but those fuckings assaulted me. #CSF
@Sarahngb is coming to kindly take me to the hospital. Besides beating me, the dogs of CSF subjected me to the worst sexual assault ever
Didn't want to go with military intelligence but one MP said either come politely or not. Those guys didn't beat or assault me.
Instead, blindfolded me for 2 hrs, after keeping me waiting for 3. At 1st answered Qs bec passport wasn't w me but then refused as civilian
Another hour later I was free with apology from military intelligence for what CSF did. Took pics of my bruises and recorded statement
On sexual assault and said would investigate it and said they had no idea why I was there. Then who does??! WTF!
The past 12 hrs were painful and surreal but I know I got off much much easier than so many other Egyptians.
God knows what wuld've happened if I wasn't dual citizen (tho they brought up detained US students) & that I wrote/appeared various media.
#Egypt must be free of those bastards
Military intelligence blindfolded me for 2 hrs. Didn't want 2 go with them but 1 said I either go politely or else. 3 hrs later,
My Cairo phone got lost during my beating so no calls there
I was arrested alone and I didnt know that @MagButter was arrested too. Glad to hear he was released as well
My left arm and right hand are broken acc to xrays

More on US involvement in her release, from the Guardian:

A US embassy representative in Cairo told the Guardian that the reports of her detention were "very concerning" and that "US embassy consulate officers are engaging Egyptian authorities".

An AP/MSNBC item on the story is here.

PHOTO: The face of bravery. Mona, having just received medical treatment after being released from prison, tweeted this photo of her casts an hour ago.

UPDATE: There are now reports of other women, possibly a female journalist from France, being stripped and sexually attacked at Tahrir.

Egypt: 33 dead in Tahrir protests, as "Arab Spring" mirrored in bloody Fall

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 19:18:43 +0000

[Video Link, warning: graphic content.] Reuters reports: "Cairo police fought protesters demanding an end to army rule for a third day on Monday and morgue officials said the death toll had risen to 33, with many victims shot in the worst violence since the uprising that toppled President Hosni Mubarak."

Below: Gotta love the cotton candy vendors who are still out there, peddling their fluffy pink wares, even as tear gas and live ammo are deployed against protesters by the military police.

(photographer/source unknown, via @acarvin and @sarahcarr).

Egypt: Tarek Shalaby on "Free Alaa. Again."

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:08:37 +0000

"Alaa’s detainment proved to be a lot tougher than I had initially hoped for. It’s a wake up call for the expensive price of freedom, and it makes one value the struggle on the one hand, but curse the incomprehensible cost on the other. I just didn’t think that the news of Alaa in military prison would affect me so strongly. But it did. As it will, when he’s released. And as it will, when our fight reaches victory."—Tarek Shalaby.

Free Alaa. Again.

Xeni Jardin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:08:42 +0000

This weekend, Egyptian blogger, Twitter activist, and human rights advocate Alaa Abd El Fattah (@alaa), who is something of a legend, went in to a military court in Egypt for interrogation. "He refused to answer the military’s questions, refused to grant them legitimacy, and was thus detained for 15 days," Jillian York writes in this blog post about her friend.

At Global Voices, Amira Al Hussaini has more here, and Rasha Abdullah has more here. At the NYT, Bob Mackey has background on the case. Egyptian activists around the world are outraged.

This isn't the first time Alaa has gone to jail for political reasons: there was a high-profile internet campaign five years ago for his freedom, when he was held under similarly trumped-up charges. The regime hasn't changed. The images in this post are all from that campaign.

Hopefully, public outcry this time around will result in similar success. His wife Manal Hassan (@manal), also an online activist, is expecting their first baby soon.

Fellow Egyptian activist Bahaa Saber was also called before the military court that same day, but was released even though he took the same position as Alaa, in protesting the legitimacy of military tribunals.

As soon as he was outside, he led chants condemning the SCAF, weeping for his friend, according to onlookers via Twitter. Just last week, Alaa was in San Francisco for RightsCon, and visited the Occupy San Francisco. He tweeted from the Occupy a number of times, and was among those Egyptians who suggested that demonstrators back home in Tahrir Square march in support of the Occupy Oakland police crackdown. And they did.

Last night, folks in Egypt were tweeting that a small gathering of protesters marched around the military prison where Alaa is being held, chanting. Some observers tweeted that Alaa whistled back at them from his cell.

Egyptians march from Tahrir Square to support Occupy Oakland protestors

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:12:19 +0000

As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy today to march in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.

Above and below, photos from Egyptian blogger Mohammed Maree, who is there at the march live-tweeting. He is a journalist with Egytimes.org, a human rights activist, and a veterinarian. All photos in this post are his.

The larger demonstration back at Tahrir was about issues closer to home: Egyptians are demanding that the military transfer power quickly to a representative civilian government, after the death by torture of a 24-year-old political prisoner named Essam Ali Atta. As the Guardian reports, critics say his death proves that the junta is failing to dismantle Mubarak's brutal security apparatus:

Essam Ali Atta, a civilian serving a two-year jail term in Cairo's high-security Tora prison following his conviction in a military tribunal earlier this year for an apparently "common crime", was reportedly attacked by prison guards after trying to smuggle a mobile phone sim card into his cell. According to statements from other prisoners who witnessed the assault, Atta had large water hoses repeatedly forced into his mouth and anus on more than one occasion, causing severe internal bleeding. An officer then transferred Atta to a central Cairo hospital, but he died within an hour.

His funeral took place today. Follow live tweets from the memorial at #esamatta. Journalist Reem Abdellatif, who is there, tweets:

His sister just passed out screaming they took my brother from me. [photo]. The scene is devastating at the morgue #essamatta's mom and sister keep calling out to him like he's still alive. Essam was 24.

As some protesters noted, that is exactly the same age as Scott Olsen, the US vet injured at Occupy Oakland. They see both men as victims of state brutality.

Above, guards outside the US embassy block protesters from advancing closer.

Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour: exploring magic's roots in China, India and Egypt

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:47:02 +0000

We just watched Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour, their 2003 documentary on traditional magic in China, India and Egypt, and really enjoyed it. Penn and Teller resolve to track down performers who are still doing the street magic that inspired western magicians in years gone by -- the Indian Rope Trick, the Egyptian Gali Gali men with their cups and balls, and Chinese classics like the mask trick and the glass bowls trick.

Each segment is very self-contained, and full of the brash Penn humor and Harpo Marx Teller mischief that they're known for. There's a bit of general history and cultural overview in each nation, but the emphasis is always on magic and its odd history in each nation -- Mao's purge of street magicians, the hieroglyphs that (may) depict an ancient cup-and-balls routine, the colonial soldier who faked evidence of the Indian rope trick.

But where the video shines is in the intimate views of the lives of the magicians and their families in the countries that P&T visit -- a village filled with traditional magicians in China, a slum known for magicians in Calcutta, the descendant of Luxor Gali-Gali, an Egyptian magician who played the Ed Sullivan show and attained fame in Vegas.

The documentary left me with a sense of the overall oddity of devoting your life to magic, and the strange ways that magicians all over the world, and all through time, are bound together by this craft of trickery and illusion. Teller has a moment where he addresses the camera at some length on the nature of the linking rings and the cultural differences in the way that it's transformed that is one of the most interesting bits of video I've ever seen.

Oh, and the Crosby and Hope-style title animation and themesong are a hoot.

Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour [amazon.com]

Shareholders take Vodafone to account for network shutdown during Egyptian revolution

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 05:26:22 +0000

AccessNow, an NGO that works for human rights values in telcoms policy, took a resolution to the Vodafone Board meeting in London last week, holding the company to account for its network shutdown during the Egyptian revolution and asking it to endorse a plan to uphold its customers' human rights in future.

"I am asking this question as a proxy and on behalf of thousands of people from over 85 countries who have endorsed this question to the Vodafone Board.
Our question is, in recognition of the challenges that you and other telcos faced during the Egyptian revolution and the lessons you’ve learned from this experience might you be better prepared for any future crises - which is undoubtedly in the wings - by committing to doing a human rights assessment of your licensing agreements in the roughly 70 countries you operate in, to ensure that, for example, you are both able to protect your staff and the integrity of the network, but not in the position of having to once again shut down the internet or send pro-regime messages to your customers as happened earlier in the year in Egypt?
I would like to present you with a five step action plan, consistent with the GNI principles, which we believe would assist you to protect Vodafone's brand and shareholder's profits and ask that you consider adhering to the practices outlined in the action plan."

In addition to prolonging the misery and bloodshed of the Egyptian revolution, Vodafone's network shutdown also resulted in the death of Egyptians who couldn't use their phones to call ambulances during medical emergencies. Not to mention all the money the shareholders lost when millions of Egyptians lost their phone service.

Access’ Questions Vodafone’s Board At Annual Shareholders’ Meeting (Thanks, Brett!)

(Image: vodafone in Egypt, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from emiemihuimei's photostream)

Networks are necessary, but not sufficient, for social upheaval

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 21:26:59 +0000

My latest Guardian column, "Networks are not always revolutionary," argues that networks are necessary, but not sufficient, for many disruptive commercial, cultural and social phenomena, and that this character has led many people to either overstate or dismiss the role and potential of networked technology in current events:

"For most artists," as the famous Tim O'Reilly aphorism has it "the problem isn't piracy, it's obscurity." To me, this is inarguably true and self-evident - the staying power of this nugget has more to do with its admirable brevity and clarity than its novelty.
And yet, there are many who believe that O'Reilly is mistaken: they point to artists who are well-known, but who still have problems. There are YouTube video-creators who've racked up millions of views; bloggers with millions of readers, visual artists whose work has been appropriated and spread all around the world, such as the photographer Noam Galai, whose screaming self-portrait has found its way into everything from stencil graffiti to corporate logos, all without permission or payment. These artists, say the sceptics, have overcome obscurity, and yet they have yet to find a way to convert their fame to income.
But O'Reilly doesn't say, "Attain fame and you will attain fortune" - he merely says that for most artists, fame itself is out of their grasp.

Networks are not always revolutionary

Mubarak's custom pinstriped suit was striped with his name?

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 15:07:55 +0000

According to this unsourced photo-magnification, Hosni Mubarak's swanky pinstriped suits were made from custom fabric whose "stripes" were Mubarak's name, printed in tiny letters, over and over again. I have no idea if this is shooped -- on the one hand, it is the kind of thing a loony dictator might revel in; on the other hand, why wouldn't he get his name woven in Arabic script? (And on the third hand, maybe getting your name custom-woven into your suit's stripes in a foreign alphabet is the Egyptian dictator's equivalent to westerners who get random Japanese characters tattooed on their nethers).

Oh hey, Mubarak. Nice pinstripes. Wait, what? Oh shit, those pinstripes are actually your name spelled over and over again. You're a douche, no doubt, but that is some serious despot swag.

How To Talk To Girls At Parties (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Sharing the power in Tahrir Square

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:31:35 +0000

How Tahrir Square's protestors shared their power: an exuberant spaghetti, wall-warts, and charging handiphones of all variety.

cairofeb6_036

Egyptian orders a pizza for the Wisconsin demonstrators

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 08:45:17 +0000

Ian's, a pizzeria near the Wisconsin state capitol that is sympathetic to the demonstrators, has been facilitating the process of supporters around the world who want to send pizza to the protest. They've fielded an order from Egypt -- now that's solidarity.

The blackboard behind the counter lists the "countries donating" as "Korea, Finland, New Zealand, Egypt, Denmark, Australia, US, Canada, Germany, China, England, Netherlands, Turkey, Switzerland, Italy" and has the abbreviations for all 50 states listed below, with donating states circled.

From Cairo to Madison, some pizza (Thanks, Nextnik, via Submitterator!)

(Image: Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from wrestlingentropy's photostream)

Tahrir Square's spontaneous kindergarten

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:47:38 +0000

Mosa'ab Elshamy -- a photographer and pharmacy student who attended the Tahrir Square rallies in Egypt -- describes the volunteer-run kindergartens that spontaneously popped up in the square to care for the children who came with their families for the rallies:

It's difficult to estimate numbers, but I think not less than 10 percent of those present in Tahrir were families. They added a special spirit to what we started calling Republic of Tahrir. Some of the kids would do their own marches around the square, with people applauding and smiling at them. They were quite an integral part of the place and everyone took care of them. When Tahrir would get crowded and a kid got lost from his parents for a while, we would quickly mention their name in the large microphones set in the square and the parents would easily find them.
I wouldn't say the kindergarten idea was set up by specialists. But there were people of all professions in Tahrir which obviously included teachers. But many of those working on the kindergarten were ordinary mothers who would take care of the kids and look over them while they were painting or reading. It was usually set in the safest area of the square, just in case anything would happen, and the kids were being kept at a distance from any possible tension. But obviously it wasn't professionally set up. I mean, it didn't have working hours or a fixed schedule, because the place was quickly developing and changes were taking place from day to day. Still, the main core was maintained and any kid could join, play with others for some time, and indulge in children's activities for a while. It was quite heartening to say the least.

Did You Know There Was a Pop-Up Kindergarten in Tahrir Square? (Thanks, Rufusstripe, via Submitterator!)

(Image: children creating art in tahrir, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from Yasmin Moll's photostream)

Could you make a Tahrir Square game about nonviolent revolutions?

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:15:55 +0000

Over on the Play This Thing games review blog, JZW wants to know why no one has made a game built around nonviolent revolutions.

Modern non-violent revolutions are very dramatic, very to the point, have excellent pacing, and are a perfect example of asymmetric struggle. You can interpret them as the state versus the people, or dictatorship versus the republic. But their most important aspect is the struggle between centralised technologies of the industrial age and distributed technologies of the information age. The state uses armed forces and television. The people uses crowd psychology and communication networks. The state exerts control by giving orders and withholding information. The people exerts control by spreading information and defying orders.
It's also a fresh new challenge gameplay-wise, because you don't get to give direct orders, and the situation can spin out of your control easily. You reach your goal by nudging people in the right direction one step at a time, giving them tools they need, and keeping them connected. It's far more organic and fuzzy than the kind of direct control you can find in a first person shooter or a real-time strategy.

Tahrir: The Game (Play This Thing)

(Image: Feb4-12:49pm, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 89031137@N00's photostream)

Glenn Beck gold company on how to profit from Egypt unrest

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 06:34:50 +0000

Goldline International, the gold company promoted by Glenn Beck on his show--and which is under investigation by a U.S. congressional committee--would like you to know that death and destruction in Egypt makes their product more valuable. From my inbox:

Gold prices were up over $18 as of 9:33 Pacific Time today on the New York Spot Market as increasingly violent protests in Egypt continue to spook markets globally. Gold is regarded by many analysts as a "safe haven" asset during uncertain economic and geopolitical times. "There are latent geopolitical worries stemming from Egypt and the Middle East in general," said Jim Steel, senior vice president and metals analyst with HSBC in New York. Egypt has been in turmoil in the last week as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's administration has come under fire, and worries have surfaced about the unrest spreading to other Middle Eastern nations. Standard & Poor's Corp., Fitch Ratings, and Moody's Investors Service downgraded Egypt's ratings this week. "We think that the price of gold could resume its climb due to reduced risk appetite as the global recovery falters and new shocks hit the financial system," Capital Economics said in a report. Gold was also bolstered by comments about rising euro-zone inflation from European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, who said officials are monitoring rising price pressures. ** Have questions about acquiring gold and silver today? Call a Goldline Account Executive...

Those familiar with the Glenn Beckalypse where only gold will save us, etc., will hardly be surprised. UPDATE: Kenneth Cole got himself some of that unrestvertising action!

If London's police were in charge of Egyptian crowd-estimates

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:34:58 +0000

Guardian editor Charles Arthur riffs on the London police's habitual underestimation of crowds at protest marches in this Egypt-themed tweet: "BREAKING: protesters pack every street and square in Cairo. Met Police estimate crowd at 'nearly 5,000.'"

Egypt in Chaos

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 03:30:41 +0000

Egypt in Chaos

By Xeni Jardin on Friday, Jan 28, 2011

A protester stands in front of a burning barricade during a demonstration in Cairo January 28, 2011. Police and demonstrators fought running battles on the streets of Cairo on Friday in a fourth day of unprecedented protests by tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to President Hosni Mubarak's three-decade rule. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

Protests are raging throughout Egypt today, the largest mass demonstrations yet demanding an end to the 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Thousands took to the streets today, after Friday Prayers.

A roundup of recent Boing Boing posts related to ongoing events in Egypt, and throughout the region:

• Egypt turns off internet, Lieberman wants same option for US
• Joe Biden says Mubarak isn't a dictator, questions legitimacy of protesters' demands
• Egypt: to thwart protests, government attempts to leave the internet
• NYT: Wikileaks cables reveal details of US-Egypt diplomacy
• After Egypt, Tunisia unrest, Syria cranks up the 'net censorship
• What is happening in Egypt, explained
• Egyptian activists' protest plan, translated to English
• Guardian reporter beaten, detained at Egypt protests; records audio throughout
• Egypt: Protests inspired by Tunisia and fanned by social media break out all over
• Egypt's men in Washington
• Egypt: yet another iconic photo of a brave protester smooching a bewildered cop
• Egypt: without internet, country may face "economic doom" Monday
• Mubarak: I'm dissolving Egypt's government, new one forms tomorrow, I'm not going anywhere

For continuing live coverage, we recommend following Global Voices' coverage of Egypt, with eyewitness reports throughout the region. (RSS feed here).

Al Jazeera has live streaming video coverage here, and a liveblog of today's events here.
Their Creative Commons-licensed Flickr stream of images is here.

The Guardian's live blog is here.

Salon's live blog is here.

And CNET has an update on Egypt's internet going dark, with confirmation that carriers were ordered to halt communications within the country.

Internet-enabled activism versus Malcolm Gladwell: snarkypants edition

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:53:15 +0000

Excellent snark from Graham Linehan, regarding Malcolm Gladwell's infamous pooh-poohing of Internet activism: "Malcolm Gladwell would love to comment on all that's happening in The Middle East, but his fax machine is in the shop."

Malcolm Gladwell would love to comment on all that's happening in The Middle East...

Joe Biden says Mubarak isn't a dictator, questions legitimacy of protesters' demands

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 21:09:59 +0000

US vice-president Joe Biden told PBS NewsHour that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (who as presided over a 29 year reign characterized by blatantly stolen elections, suspension of civil liberties, torture and arbitrary detention) isn't a dictator and questioned the legitimacy of protesters' demands. The USA provides $1.3 billion/year in military aid to the Mubarak regime.

Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: "Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he's been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with - with Israel. ... I would not refer to him as a dictator..."
Biden urged non-violence from both protesters and the government and said: "We're encouraging the protesters to - as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we're encouraging the government to act responsibly and - and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out." He also said: "I think that what we should continue to do is to encourage reasonable... accommodation and discussion to try to resolve peacefully and amicably the concerns and claims made by those who have taken to the street. And those that are legitimate should be responded to because the economic well-being and the stability of Egypt rests upon that middle class buying into the future of Egypt."

Joe Biden says Egypt's Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn't step down...

(Image: Hosni Mubarak - Official Photo, Wikimedia Commons)