At Queen Alia International Airport, I tucked away my laptop and lunged to the security check point before the gate. On my way I double-checked the flight departure monitor. It flashed: “RJ178 Gate 3 Last Call.”

Right before the X-ray machine stood an airport security guard that checked passports and boarding passes. Upon seeing my pass he said: “Montreal not yet open. Please wait in the other lounge.”

“But they just made the announcement,” I said in Arabic. He simply smiled and gave me a blank look, then pointed to the lounge. There were a few people behind me. Most of the Arabs, having overheard my conversation with the officer, stepped out of the line and headed back to the outside lounge. A few Canadians continued to proceed to the gate. They were really confused when the officer again pointed them to the lounge. This was not the first time that this had happened. I suppose this is a system or a process issue. Just poor communication and coordination between airport personnel.

In any case, I was happy that I had managed to book a window seat. It is a long flight to Montreal and this would help me try to get some sleep. Boarding the plane, I walked towards my seat. The configuration of the seats were 2-4-2—aisle next to a window seat.

I spotted my seat, 31A and yes, it was vacant! What a delight. So many times in the past on Royal Jordanian someone would be in my seat, usually playing dumb and asking me to switch with his seat, which invariably would be a middle seat. So many times I had to fight for what was rightfully mine. Luckily, not this time.

A girl in a veil sat on the aisle seat, 31B.

“Excuse me, I am sitting there,” I said to her with a courteous smile, pointing to the vacant window seat next to her.

Her face turned a bit red, she stood up but did not step to the side to let me in. Panic seemed to engulf her and she looked like she was fast cooking something in her head. She then looked at the man and woman sitting one row ahead and said:

“Excuse me. Are you ka-bel (couple)?”

The man and woman, who were non-Arab, looked at each other, as if amused at the suggestiveness of the question, gave a brief smile, then said to the girl in veil “No.”

The girl in veil looked at the woman anxiously and said: “Do you mind sitting next to me. It’s a long flight you know.”

It all happened so fast that I only realized what was going on after the other lady had stood up, went to sit in my seat and gave me hers—which was an aisle seat.

Then, a lady, walking from the front of the plane to the middle section, stopped a couple of rows ahead and asked a seated passenger to do a seat swap so that she can sit next to her friend.

Indeed, it was a very sociable plane, people would spot others they knew and pay them visits at their seats. The mother of the girl behind me came to check on her daughter, arching over me, resting her arm on the back of my seat and breathing down my neck. “Excuse me,” I said, but my words didn’t stir the determined.

I had to move my head a bit lest it gets bumped. Every three to four rows, there was one such visitor. The plane was still at the gate.

The flight attendant announced: “Everyone please take your seats and fasten your seat belts. We will not take off until everyone is seated with their seat belts fastened.”

Then another flight attendant, realizing that a speaker announcement was not enough, passed through the aisles, ushered lingerers to their seats and reminded them to fasten. An unshaved man a couple of rows ahead would not fasten his seat belt.

“Fasten your seat belt please. Just for fifteen minutes then we’ll be up in the air and you can unfasten.”

“Why don’t you fasten it for me,” he said with a smile that she quickly returned with a smirk.

The flight’s final destination was Detroit with a stop in Montreal. Roughly half of the plane was filled with Montrealers, the other, Detroit passengers.

Seconds after the plane touched ground in Montreal, the beast was still bumping on the ground, air brakes still laboring at full throttle to bring the plane back to steady motion, but people stood up and started opening the overhead compartments. A couple that were being jerked around, looked like drunkards desperately trying to regain their balance.

“Please sit down and remain seated with your seat belts fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop and the seat belt sign has been turned off!” The voice of the flight attendant sounded fiercer than usual.

People reluctantly went back to their seats. Then as soon as the plane stopped, and before the seat belt sign went off, people sprang up and claimed their carry-ons and filled up the aisles, ready to exit the plane.

“Passengers headed to Detroit are to remain on-board. You cannot leave the plane,” came the announcement with some other information.

There were some visits here and there, some seat swapping by the Detroit passengers, and it seemed that the flow of people out of the plane was impeded. Apparently, some Detroit passengers were standing in the way because soon, another announcement followed.

“Detroit passengers, please take your seats, let the Montreal passengers exit the plane.”

Finally, there was movement again.

“Would you stop pushing. Where are you going to go. Look! You going to jump over all these passengers?” One man scolded another behind him.

Just when I was about to disembark from the plane, a flight attendant, standing by the gate, asked me if my final destination was Montreal and I confirmed. Apparently, some Detroit people had stepped out of the plane and had to be escorted back so a flight attendant had to act as gatekeeper.

***

On another long RJ flight, I was seated in the middle seat section, with three empty seats next to me. As soon as we were airborne and the fasten seat belt sign was extinguished, a lady in her late forties popped up and asked me if she could sit on the other end of the empty seats. Had I acted like the other passengers, I would have claimed the territory at the earliest chance, extending my legs or placing objects and securing my sleeping space, but I did not want to be desperately opportunistic.

I said okay. I was sympathetic. She was an older lady. After dinner and when the lights went off, she made herself cozy, curled sideways and extended her legs, claiming all three seats—her toes almost touching my side while I sat squeezed in my one sorry seat.

Feeling a burning sense of injustice, I finally spoke out.

“Can we at least share?”

She withdrew her limbs from the third to the second seat and I extended mine to that second seat, so we sat from the outside seats with knees ridged upwards, each claiming two seats and facing each other. Every once in a while she would doze off and her legs would seamlessly slide into my territory and I would have to push back, so over the course of the flight, far from getting any sleep, we were throwing contemptuous glances and playing a hostile game of footsie to fend off intrusion into this tough turf, part of which almost became a no man’s land.

***

I’d been consulting for over ten years on international assignments, travelling on average once every three weeks across the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia. The travel experience with my fellow Jordanian and Palestinian brothers and sisters is truly unique.

In some cases, adults act like children. Their behavior ranges from lack of common courtesy and consideration for others to outright self absorption and selfishness— me first in line, me the all-deserving of better service, of a better seat.

“Madam, you are requesting a first-class service, but you’re paying economy,” a flight attendant told a passenger once. I thought that summed up best this aspect of my culture—over expectation, under contribution.

The irony is that one would expect this selfish individualism to take place in a culture known for that, not in a culture famous for being anti-individualistic. We are a self-conscious people, obsessed with what society thinks, with reputation, image, and with something we call ‘honor.’ We are also very sociable people, flocking to weddings, funerals, newborn baby parties. And as such, Arabic culture probably ranks one of the highest in hospitality.

When we have guests, we show off with our generosity. We are very supportive of our kids. It is unheard of to kick a son or daughter out of the house after reaching eighteen, even forty, regardless of economic hardships, while this may not be so unusual in the U.S. for example. We respect our parents and our elders. We are very supportive of family members, extended family, members of the clan or tribe, our friends. Abandoning a friend or relative in need is considered a taboo.

Inherent in all this is compromise and sacrifice. If anything, it is more selfless than selfish. We are willing to give more to our loved ones than are others in the U.S. and Europe, perhaps.

Yet, once we step out of the circle of friends and family, another personality takes over.

My explanation for this is that there is no sense of the collective, a sense of a common identity, of a common people working together. There is no belief in a fair and equal system that we belong to, adhere to, that represents us equally. There is no participation.

The common man is someone that gets trampled on. The common man in our culture does not get much respect, while the common man in a first world country is as good as any. In the absence of democracy and a system that works for the one and the many, we end up with dog eats dog. To each their own. That helps us remain divided. The perception is that the gain and success of one is at the expense of the other. Though conceptually this is not unique to us, or to people of the third world as a whole (i.e. rich at the expense of the poor,) the extent and degree are more severe for us.

Rather than the sense of: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, we get: Do unto others as others have done unto you. And ‘others’ have treated you unfairly and gotten away with it, so the exploited becomes the exploiter in a never ending cycle.

The other exhibited behavior, that of restlessness, might be symptomatic of people’s frustrations and sense of powerlessness—those whose lives are not within their control. So to compensate, they make up for it by taking it out on others. All this is consistent with the way people drive in Amman.

Little common courtesy is given to the ‘common’ man in shared, common spaces such as airplanes and streets.

Amman is famous for its villas and mansions, burgeoning out of most beautiful gardens. Unlike any city in Europe or the US, though, there are no beautiful common areas, just disconnected islands of beauty fenced behind walls. Similar to what Robert Fisk observed about Lebanon, people don’t feel a sense of ownership of their streets and neighborhoods and cities. They have no problem littering outside the fence while their gardens and houses are kept immaculate. There is no sense of ownership of that which is shared.

Though the aforementioned generosity, hospitality and selflessness may not always be genuine—often done in response to social pressure or for a desire to show off— they are still something to be proud of. A less turbulent journey, and a more cohesive society would emerge if we changed our mentality and realized that we are in this together. If I don’t fasten my seat belt before takeoff because I am too busy chatting with a friend, I won’t just be delaying others, but also myself.

I look at myself in the mirror, sullen face staring back at me, wide, empty London smile fixed to my face, hiding the torment within.

What’s causing this? A meeting I have just had with my editor.

‘Gerhan’, he told me. ‘I want you to go to Bahdobian and write about how rubbish it is.’

‘I thought we loved it,’ I asked. ‘The last five features this paper ran said it was the best thing since sliced bread?’

‘Good point,’ said my editor. ‘The pendulum swings both ways, though. We decided it’s rubbish now.’

‘Fair enough, but why do I need to go? I already know everything there is to know about the place from my friend Germaine Greer – she spent four hours on the bus there only the other day.’

‘I know’, grunted my editor. ‘But we’ve got five days’ free at one of their best hotels, provided we give them a mention in the article you’ll write. File your piece before you leave, if you like – take the week as holiday.’

I’m still in shock. How can I, with my example-setting lifestyle, manage to survive five days in somewhere so awful as Bahdobian?

At home, I spend an hour looking for my passport, which I haven’t had to use since my last travel article. The mental scars of that particular piece still haunt me. Images of interviewing drunken tourists at four in the morning at nightclubs in Ibiza fill my mind. None of them seemed to care in the slightest that they were in a town that lacked an opera house, or that they were in a country that lets people fight bulls. And that used to be a dictatorship and had some kind of civil war a while ago. Or something. These people just wouldn’t talk to me. They simply carried on drinking Aftershock and vomiting.

I fly in on Bahdobian’s national airline. 150 years ago this country had no aeroplanes – camels were used for transport. Now they operate a fleet of carbon-belching planes, allowing people to flit from continent to continent in search of instant gratification. Whilst I feel this kind of travel is unethical, it is very useful for helping journalists such as myself to get to important destinations quickly. I refuse to watch “Top Gear” playing on the in-flight entertainment. The works of Lenin and Marx shall be my only companions on this journey. I settle into my first-class seat.

‘Are you a slave?’ I ask the smiling stewardess. Katy Framione from Essex looks at me blankly as she offers me a glass of a particularly cheeky Chablis, her wide, empty Bahdobian smile beaming up at me as she crouches, shamed, at my elbow.

‘I’m sorry?’

The poor woman doesn’t even realise that she is an indentured worker, forced to slave her life away at 40,000 feet, never to return home. Behind her smile I read her mind – she knows, but cannot admit what she sees and feels. I pat her on the head encouragingly. I write down her innermost thoughts on my notepad as she backs slowly away from me. The look of fear on her face is thanks to me, I congratulate myself – I have opened her eyes.

As I fly into Bahdobian, the air provides me with a clear view of the city. It rises from the desert like a [insert turgid metaphor here please, sub editor]. I wish I had gotten off as lightly as my colleague Simon Jenkins, who managed to file his piece based simply on flying over the city. I, alas, must venture into its portals of doom.

Bahdobian takes it’s name from the ancient Arabic for ant, the ‘dob’. This is an undisputed fact. As we fly in I see people on the streets below. They look like ants from up here. Later, sitting on my hotel balcony, I see an ant. The symbolism overwhelms me.

As we land at the airport, skyscrapers surround us. Every window, every free piece of space on every building, absolutely everywhere is taken up with pictures of a Sheikh. Sheikh [insert name here – subs, please make sure you spell it right] is the absolute ruler of Bahdobian. Just 35 years ago he lived in a desert. Now he has made of the desert a city. But of this city, a desert shall once again rise. I predict.

"...and STAY on that camel!"

I enter the airport, its ceiling hung with more images of the Sheikh. Looking more closely, however, I realise that there’s one small image of the Sheikh and that the rest of the pictures are actually adverts with people wearing local dress. I remind myself to get some new glasses. It’s so hard when they all look the same.

‘Passport please,’ asks the smiling Bahdobian at the desk, clothed in cool, crisp white robes, his beard neatly trimmed. 70 years ago these people dressed in sackcloth. Tradition, it seems, counts for nothing here. He is drinking a Coke, I notice. I shudder.

‘I know your game,’ I snap back. ‘You just want to imprison me here forever, forcing me to write press releases for a living, paying me a pittance and never allowing me to return home.’

He looks at me blankly, but I read his true thoughts – he agrees with everything I say, but he cannot admit so in public. This, he senses, would be a transgression too far. ‘May I have your passport please, sir,’ he asks again, hiding his shame behind a face filled with mild confusion.

I know we’ve connected, sensed his guilt. I hand my passport over. He stamps it and wishes me a pleasant stay in Bahdobian.

As I buy four litres of vodka at Duty Free I wonder how I will manage to get through the next few days in this oppressive atmosphere.

60 years ago this place was desert, filled with nothing but Red Indians and cowboys. And tumbleweed too I expect, like in the Clint Eastwood films. Now, as I drive to my exclusive hotel, there is nothing but 18 lane motorways. Everywhere. Even the side streets have at least 10 lanes. Every car I pass is a gas guzzling 4×4, not a bicycle in sight. I weep silently.

‘Are you a slave?’ I ask my taxi driver, a bearded man from Baziristan. He looks confused. ‘I work hard here, yes, but there is little for me back home and this is what I need to do to support my family.’

He pretends to be focusing on the road, but deep inside, I know what he really feels, but he cannot admit it. It’s Bahdobian’s fault there is no work for him back home. For him to say otherwise would be, he senses, a transgression too far.

He asks me if I can help him to get to Britain. I shake my head in disbelief. How naive he is. I only have a three bedroom flat in Islington. How could I manage with him staying there for weeks on end?

I check into my hotel, a gorgeous understated place well worth staying at – apparently its minibreaks are great value and come highly recommended. You can book your stay there via my newspaper’s website.

Naturally, as a first class investigative reporter, my first destination is the hotel car park. It is here I see my first signs of the shocking truth that fills Bahdobian. A truth that no Essex expat may dare speak of.

Mohan repeats the same thing over and over – he is a driver for a local businessman and he is waiting for him to return from a lunch meeting. But I know what he is really trying to say, deep down. He cannot say it though – this, he senses, would be a transgression too far.

Mohan is clearly living in his Rolls Royce in this car park. Maxed-out, in debt, he has nowhere else to go. No choice but to spend his days sleeping in the car with the AC on. Afraid to go home, he is destined to spend his life here, in a Rolls Royce, in a hotel car park. His story isn’t unique. Across Bahdobian, maxed-out expats sleep in their cars, not thinking to sell them or to live somewhere more practical than a hotel car park, not possessing even one friend with a couch to spare in their hour of need. Sleeping in their Rolls Royce is their only option. I can read it in Mohan’s eyes.

But it’s not only sleeping in cars. The desert, 40 years ago nothing but tumbleweed, lions and tigers, now resembles a refugee camp, as expat middle managers huddle, with nothing but a Rolls Royce, Range Rover (HSE or Vogue) for shelter, nestled amongst the dunes, with nowhere to go.

That evening, I set off for my first bout of real research. Although I already know what I am going to write, I feel I should pay some lip service to journalistic standards.

I head to the only place I will get objective, honest, in-depth feedback on what it’s like to live here. I resolve to visit a local pub hosting a long lunch for a visiting rugby team from the UK.

I arrive just before closing time. People, I am astonished to note, have been drinking. In a pub!

I talk to two old ladies, just the sort of people you would expect to find in a pub aimed at the under-30′s. They too have been drinking. Drinking beer, I notice. Hiding my disgust, I order a cheeky glass of rosé and engage in conversation.

‘It’s great here,’ says Aliciana Frackmouter. She works at a local school for disabled children. ‘After a hard day at work I had nothing that would really help me relax when I was back in England. Here I relax by going to the market and buying maids to lock in my basement. Everyone does. It’s the British expat way.’

There is a common echo I hear in every one of the imaginary conversations I have with myself during my visit. Everyone has staff. Even maids have maids. Fifty years ago, there was nothing here but desert, roamed by dinosaurs. Now the desert is filled with runaway maids, sleeping under maxed-out expats’ Range Rovers, with no one to look after them but slightly more junior maids.

I leave the pub, my head spinning from one too many glasses of Jacob’s Creek – there is no quality wine available here, sadly. Feeling tired and emotional after the day’s onslaught of awfulness, I forego a night in my comfortable hotel and, in solidarity with the maxed-out expats, climb into a nearby car in the car park. I will sleep here tonight, shoulder to shoulder with the millions of others. Going back to my hotel, would be, I sense, a transgression too far.

The following morning, I wake up around midday when the car’s owner rudely turfs me out of the backseat. ‘Are you a slave?’ I ask him. He shouts at me, not realising I am on his side.

I visit a local shopping mall. Shopping malls are everywhere here. Glittering domes of consumerism, rising out of the desert like the cacti which filled the area just 20 years ago.

As I approach this brand new building, I am struck by something so few others seem to have noticed – it’s new. This new city is filled with new buildings. There is not a single Anglo-Saxon era church, no Roman remains, no Georgian terraces. Nothing built here over the last twenty years is older than twenty years. How can British people sink so low as to live here?

This mosaic is younger than my bulldog

Once inside, I wander, dazed, from dress shop to dress shop. I am a man and don’t wear dresses. With each salesperson’s pitch, my spirits sag further. Why are they trying to sell me dresses?

I approach a 17-year-old girl wearing a miniskirt, walking through the mall. She walks briskly away from me. ‘Are you a slave?’ I cry out, but still she walks away. To talk to me, she senses, would be a transgression too far.

I corner her, finally, between an ice cream shop and a fast food joint. I lower my head, overcome with disgust that people in this country might want to eat fast food, or ice cream.

I know what this young girl thinks, as I can read her mind, but before I can ask her again, I feel a firm grip on my shoulder. The authorities have clearly caught up with me – it took longer than I thought, but the secret police were bound to be on my tail.

The secret policeman is disguised as a security guard and speaks only rudimentary, broken English. ‘Good afternoon, Sir,’ he mumbles, in halting, disjointed sentences. ‘Would you please be so kind as leave this young lady be? You seem distressed. May I recommend that you proceed forthwith to your hotel, where a cold refreshment and a lie-down might serve to revive your spirits?’ I struggle to interpret his attempts to communicate, but, finally understanding, I agree that a quick lie-down might be a good idea.

He leads me, brutally, to the taxi rank. I sense he would like to cuff me, but he holds back, aware of my vaunted status as an international newspaper columnist, standing a little ahead of me, smiling encouragingly. As I climb into my cab, I see the girl looking at me from across the marble floor of this temple of consumerism. She is talking to a friend. ‘Weirdo, freak’ are the words I can read on her lips. I smile at her in agreement. She is clearly referring to the disguised secret policeman who has treated me in such a degrading manner. She wishes to speak to me, I can tell, but is afraid to. That, she senses, would be a transgression too far.

My time in Bahdobian over, I forego a normal cab back to the airport and choose to take hotel transport to the airport. I ask for a bicycle, but am met with blank looks. Clearly, environmental sensibilities have not made much of a mark here. The concierge points out that a bike may be unpractical, given my three suitcases. I give in and grudgingly accept a lift in the hotel Bentley. To my surprise it is being driven by Mohan. I congratulate him. He has clearly stolen the car and is hoping to escape this hell-hole. He tries to deny this, telling me, in halting English, that he has a new job driving for the hotel. I smile knowingly, understanding what he is really saying. He is telling me that he has given up on life and has agreed to become a slave. To admit that openly would be, he senses, a transgression too far.

At the airport, I take my last chance to speak to an expat of the horrors they experience. I signal to a cleaner, beckoning to him from where I sit on the toilet, pleading with him to join me. He hangs back, hesitant. He speaks no English at all, but I know what he’s saying. He’s trying to create a poetic metaphor about mirages, deserts, oases and that sort of thing, but can’t quite find the words.

‘Do you feel this place is like a mirage?’ I ask him. ‘A brittle rose of the desert, apparently whole, yet so delicate, crumbling when touched, yet so perfect to behold, as if buried in time, but ready to shrivel like a date in the midday sun?’.

‘Yes, sir’, he answers. I congratulate myself on pinpointing his thoughts so accurately.

My flight back is uneventful. I sit, drained, in First Class. The habits of expats have rubbed off on me, leaving me no choice but to numb myself with cheap liqour. Sharon from Manchester feeds me glass after glass of Moët. I look into her face, frozen as it is in an empty Bahdobian smile. I sense a feeling of utter revulsion coming from her as she looks at me. I know what she is thinking about – the desperate awfulness of the sweltering desert city we have left behind.

‘Another glass, sir?’ she asks. I know what she’s really saying though. She turns her heard away from me, shamed that she has chosen to live anywhere other than London.

I whisk through Heathrow’s VIP fast track. All around me I see pictures of the Sheikh. They are everywhere. Or am I getting confused with advertising boards again? Who knows? Bahdobian has left me dazed.

I pick up a copy of the paper on the way through. MY BAHDOBIAN HELL, the headline screams, my name and photo just below. Once again I’m filled with joy at seeing my face and name in print. The article I filed before leaving on holiday has been printed. Wikipedia and a quick phone call with Germaine were all I needed – she went on the Big Bus tour when she was over, after all. With contacts like these, my visit was superfluous. I had the material I needed to print straightaway, but five days’ paid for holiday is five days’ paid for holiday!

Finally reaching my pied-à-terre, I collapse onto my sofa. Looking around, I am pleased to see that the cleaner’s been while I was away. Everything is spic and span, my underpants ironed, bedclothes neatly made. That nice plumber form Poland has also popped around and fixed my blocked toilet. I write cheques to pay them their monthly wages. Should I give them a little extra, considering the great job they do? Maybe pay them the same amount I am paid for writing my in-depth reportage?

I decide not to do so.

That, I sense, might be a transgression too far.

The original version of this piece is here.

We in the media have, to use the obvious pun, plumbed new depths. While distillation of the news to fit the location or political inclination of the audience is hardly a new phenomenon, accelerated in the past 15 years by the rise of conservative talk radio and the infamous idiocy of Fox News, the recruitment of Joe the Plumber to report from Southern Israel during that country’s bombardment of Gaza offers a further refinement of the trend – world events presented through the filter of everyman ignorance. Bias in the media is no longer a matter of partisan affiliation but academic faculty.

Joe Wurzelbacher was, of course, the blue-collar middle American – regular, representative and conspicuously unintellectual – who confronted Barack Obama’s tax plans on his lawn during a campaign stop. With the tide of popular opinion swinging inexorably towards Obama, Wurzelbacher’s down-home, go-get-’em street corner democracy became a beacon of hope for the reactionary right; his name, if not always his bar-room-brawling face, was rarely out of the debates and stump speeches as the election date neared. Alongside the twitching imbecility of Sarah Palin, the wholesomeness of uninformed American insularity was the Republican Party’s sole remaining strategy.

It failed, and failed abysmally. But neither Palin nor Wurzelbacher appear to be any less in demand as a result. And after more run-outs on Fox – apparently Joe’s qualified to run the rule over the intricacies of the financial bailout and Obama’s CIA chief pick – the man was suddenly being flown by an outfit called Pajamas TV to Israel to cover the conflict from the town of Sderot.

Pajamas TV is a right-wing blog whose mission statement includes “exposing both bias and deception by the typically liberal Main Stream Media”. And as Roger Simon, one of their contributors, argued that as the American press – yes, the American press – was obviously an extension of Hamas, only Joe the (previously passportless) Plumber could redress this grievous imbalance for the fact hungry nation.

Leaving aside the issue that a news organisation can instruct a reporter as to the conclusions he must come to before he even arrives at his assignment, the use of someone who is neither well-versed nor remotely impartial to cover such a conflict underlines two new trends in news consumption:

Firstly, that people are less interested in being informed than they are in having existing prejudices confirmed and, secondly, that complex issues must now be boiled down to a simplistic bad-versus-good narrative by a guy you might want to sip a beer with – just so the nation can be saved from the grip of people who have a vague idea as to what they’re talking about.

Joe’s “reports” – and I confess I could only stomach two – revolve around speaking to everyday Israelis about how evil Palestinians are for not accepting their apartheid imprisonment.

He uses of the word “terrorist” every 12 seconds, avoids grammar and generally phrases questions so they induce gleeful nods from his interviewees, mostly militant rabbis and evicted Gaza settlers.

But it was off camera that he really made his mark, launching a tirade against a flock of Israeli journalists who, in his words, “should be ashamed of themselves” for reporting the mounting Palestinian civilian death toll.

He then went on to say that journalists shouldn’t even be in a war zone at all, lest they quibble over the nature of the onward march of goodness – an odd position for a newly-hired war correspondent to take.

Not that piercing truth was on the minds of the Pajamas TV web community, of course. When this columnist argued that the complexities of the Middle East deserve a more learned correspondent than someone who stated, in October, that “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel” – without actually being able to say why – the seething began. “Let me tell you,” said Michael Toledo, “that Joe the Plumber is the guy many of us have waited for. He speaks his mind, and he’s not afraid to go head to head with some of the nastiest reporters in the world… When is he running for Congress?”

And someone called Cynthia saw Joe as the moron’s messiah: “He is a guy whose opinion has not been shaped by being in New York City and Washington politics. He is more like one of us than anyone who writes or reads the New York Times.”

Is this really the news landscape of the future? Papers and networks outbidding each other in the drive to provide a version of events that not only their readers might want to hear, but in a monosyllable, smiley-studded, texting language they can be bothered to understand? Joe the Plumber might have already had his 15 minutes, but the trend of segmented, audience-centred news looks set to be around a little longer. In the internet age, “telling it like it is” really means “telling me what I want to hear”. And that is neither news nor journalism.

The visiting celebrities were eager to talk about their experience at a workshop in Jordan’s SAE Institute, a media technology training institute, pointing out that the country has a lot of local talent just waiting to take off.

One SAE student later told me that he personally wasn’t impressed with the workshop at all, though I immediately wondered how much of the negativity stemmed from simple inertia: the lingering idea that nothing with artistic or entertainment value could possibly be created in Jordan, ever (the same student told me he despises the recent Jordanian film “Captain Abu Raed,” a ground-breaking movie I adored).

I have heard repeated statements that Jordan in particular is an “anti-intellectual” environment, as opposed to, say, Lebanon or Egypt. I asked Waleed Zuaiter, whose parents divide their time between Amman and Ramallah, what he thought about said claims of anti-intellectualism:

Waleed, who co-produces the New York Arab American Comedy Festival besides working as an actor, told me: “I don’t think there is anything “anti-intellectual” about Jordan at all. Amman doesn’t need to “import” culture, it is full of culture and history. When it comes to Comedy, which is an Art form as all the other Arts, I would recommend that Jordan not solely “import” comedy from the West, but to really focus on creating a home-grown practice and following where comedians and audiences can enjoy stand-up comedy in their own native language.”

Born in Sacramento, California, Waleed spent most of his childhood in Kuwait and, as a native Arabic speaker, highlights the importance of understanding a culture from within.

Maysoon Zayid, whose recent role in Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” has garnered much attention, is another native Arabic speaker, despite having grown up in New Jersey. It was refreshing to hear Maysoon speak about working with Adam Sandler at the press conference, because many of my earnest friends had quickly dismissed the film, which aims to poke fun at conflict in the Middle East, as racist clap-trap.

Maysoon, and others, argued that Adam Sandler was in fact very sensitive to the subject matter and wanted to make fun of both Jews and Arabs in a manner that was entertaining. Maysoon is a woman with agency, and then some, and she strikes you as a person you don’t want to piss off under any circumstances. The idea of her taking on a demeaning role seems ludicrous, all pious hand-wringing on the subject be damned.

When I asked Maysoon what’s next for her, she spoke of performing at the upcoming Democratic National Convention and working on another comedy project, “Little American Whore,” as well as translating said project into Arabic. Will the word “whore” be kept in the Arabic title? Of course it will.

And that’s the thing about Maysoon – she’s bawdy and fresh and brash. I’ve corresponded with her for an interview before, but seeing her in the flesh is a rare treat.

Interacting with Maysoon made me think of how many women in the entertainment industry are still expected to be not fully human, with sculpted hairdos and on-call stylists and the cool appeal of sirens. It is comedy, a genre generally overlooked by cultural gate-keepers in the world, which often allows more women to freely act out the livelier, messier sides of their actual lives.

Meanwhile, having remembered that Maysoon once spoke of being accused of anti-Semitism, I wondered if “Axis of Evil” Aron Kader, whom I last saw in Dubai, had ever encountered such accusations in his professional life. Aron said no, but he also mentioned that he knows where the sensitivity comes from.

In the U.S., it is very hard to have a rational debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So hard, in fact, that it seems as though laughing about it may be the only way for all sides to start talking.

Meanwhile, Dean Obeidallah, “Axis of Evil” star and co-founder and co-producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival, noted that many people had told him that Jordanians do not laugh. He was pretty emphatic when he said that he didn’t believe this was the case. Jordanians laughed hysterically when Dean and Maysoon gave live comedy performances in Amman, for example.

I have to testify that one could hear said hysterical laughter from blocks away. The cats on the trash-bins perked up their ears, and the neighbourhood, lively by all standards, felt as though it was brimming with fizzy good energy.

It’s no wonder. Like Maysoon, Dean is incredibly funny, with precise timing and an impish smile. He also comes off as incredibly, disarmingly sincere. This was his second time in Amman and he spoke highly of its growth and development, even if the Ammanites’ practice of parking on the sidewalk left him bewildered (growth and development isn’t making those streets any wider).

When the inevitable question along the lines of “aren’t you afraid of becoming too mainstream?” sounded forth at the press conference, Dean grinned widely. On one hand, money for his projects is important, that much ought to be obvious to all, even the most radically anti-establishment among us. On the other hand, he spoke about the notion that there are plenty of generic comedians out there, and being an Arab-American comedian means that one cannot aspire to be generic, lest one loses one’s audience.

Waleed Zuaiter told my fellow journalist that the group’s talent “ does not end with being Arab.” The performances are not gimmicks that will simply lose their flavour once an even greater audience catches on.

Waleed struck me as the youngest of the group. I was shocked when he told me he was thirty-seven. He has an Arab Errol Flynn quality to him, something that Hollywood, in its infinite wisdom, has to take a closer look at.

We spoke about racism in the entertainment industry; I recalled the time that actor Kal Penn came to Duke while I was an undergrad, and sparked a pretty sobering discussion on what it means to be “too ethnic” in Hollywood. Waleed told me that he feels fortunate that he hasn’t experienced what Kal Penn spoke about directly. He said he just preferred to focus on the art – “art” is a word that gets bandied about with some ease, but coming from Waleed, you think its invocation to be genuine.

Interacting with this group makes you wonder what it would have been like to see George Carlin young, at the height of his potential. Wandering over to Aron Kader, I asked him to comment on Carlin’s recent passing, since I was aware of Aron being a fan.

“He was the greatest.”

Damn straight. And you may be too.

The upheaval in my head was about the human tendency which we all share when in dire times of trouble: to plead for salvation to what is supposed to be an omnipotent force that holds our fate in its hands – without ever questioning the meaning and purpose of this instinctive exercise. Why, the question kept haunting me, do believers need to implore God for an intervention to save an innocent little girl like Madeleine, if they believe that He has the power to do it anyway.

Does a most merciful father need us immortals to beg him to do the right thing? Does He need the Pope to intermediate to end a grief-stricken family’s plight?

This dilemma has no comfortable answer for someone like me who has reached his belief in a Creator through an arduous process of rational thinking and reasoning rather than by indoctrinated fear of torture in hell fire.

That’s why all the other believers with whom I tried to share this philosophical issue were unwilling to come near the question of how far God is involved in our daily lives, and whether He is responsible for the inexplicable incidents of pain and suffering that plague humanity. They were too afraid to confront the eternal taboo of whether our misery and unnecessary anguish are man made or God made.

Personally, I want to convince myself that only an evil criminal intentionally causes misery, such as causing the disappearance a young girl, and then expect her parents to beseech him for mercy, while keeping them hanging for a verdict of life or death. No, in my book, the party responsible for abducting Madeleine McCann is the sick individual who took her away. God has nothing to do with it. If He did, Madeleine would have long been in her parents’ arms. This is the only God that my mind can fathom, and is the only one worth worshipping for that matter.

Nor can God have anything to do with causing – or preventing – the crushing under tons of concrete of the thousands of families in the latest earthquake in China. Only a sick joker, let alone a compassionate supreme being, would look at our planet one morning, and then decide to give the earth a little shake underneath the province of Schezuan so that 70,000 souls would expire in the most excruciating and slow manner.

I can sense that this topic is already too much to handle for the unsuspecting reader, so I will shift to another, hopefully lighter, aspect of this tragedy (as if anything can be light in dealing with a disaster of this magnitude – but here it is anyway). I noticed something else while following the earthquake story, something we are all guilty of, but we do it subconsciously without too much thought.

Average Jordanians tended not to focus too much on the vast human toll of the Chinese earthquake because deep down in the unexplorable alleys of our minds, we think China is a massively overpopulated country whereby a few thousand less inhabitants are not a cause for spectacular mourning this side of the Asian continent. Don’t get me wrong; the key word here is ‘subconsciously’.

I am not saying that when we switched on the news of the Chinese earthquake, as we all did, and flicked away so swiftly to another channel, as we also did, we acted this way because we are heartless and indifferent monsters. Apart from the deceptive numbers game (there are over a billion Chinese people, the logic goes, so they can afford it), it is also this overwhelming media conditioning we are all subjected to that sets our priorities of what is newsworthy for precious airtime and what is mundane and lame stuff.

We are under the spell of organizations who direct us towards what should amount to a grieving moment, such as the loss of a beautiful Princess in a car accident in a Paris tunnel, as opposed to the routine loss of a few hundred lesser people in a train crash outside Bangalore, where we yawn and switch off. Of course we don’t do it because we have a grudge against the Indian people, but it is still worth pondering why and how we manage to behave like that; how we turn away as if nothing has happened when thousands die in a flood in Mexico, and how we get glued to the TV when, say, Madeleine McCann goes missing.

And let us admit, in the rat race that is life today, we are all equally guilty in this inclination to be too apathetic and oblivious to the news that really matters. We developed a lazy conscience and just cannot be bothered to determine for ourselves what warrants our attention and sympathy, so we have subcontracted that task to amoral news merchants who are too happy to pick and select on our behalf.

In the case of China, I may personally be adversely influenced by them being the nation who invented fireworks, something that has always been very close to the heart of the child in me, until, of course, Amman became the world capital for the gratuitous daily use of these explosives, smack in the heart of sleepy, residential neighborhoods. Sarcasm aside, there is something seriously twisted in the law enforcement agencies that permit the uninhibited detonation of these bombs right in the middle of our peaceful backstreets, every single night of the week, while having the audacity to pull me over for not wearing a helmet while riding my motorcycle.

Do I have to wait until one of these missiles lands in my balcony before any Jordanian official visualizes the criminal aspects of allowing Amman to resemble, on a nightly basis, West Beirut in the summer of 1982? I just find it insane to live in a society that does not waste a breath without complaining about sky-rocketing prices, but co-exists happily under the constant barrage of another ludicrously money-wasting form of sky rockets.

But I will not go down (or blow up) without a fight. I shall create my own loud bang and will be heard in my own way: by immediately writing to the Guinness World Records institute and get Jordan a new footprint in history books for being the nation that sets off the biggest number of individual fireworks annually in the world (and while I’m at it, for having more mobile phone shops than any other nation).

And the people of Jordan dare to complain about how expensive life has become? And to top that, the government dares to single out motorcycles and ban them in Jordan?

Speaking of the global inflation phenomenon, it is most ironic that only after just more than a decade since the collapse of communism, the whole capitalist system has not yet had the time to take a triumphant breath and yet is itself on the brink of total collapse. And it is happening all because of the incurable human sin of pure and utter greed.

I’m not talking only about the price of gasoline and diesel here. Analysts studying the financial crisis in the US and Britain have warned that the Great Depression of the 1930’s could be a walk in the park compared to the inferno brewing under the ashes of the world’s financial systems today, and that the recent US housing loans crisis is only the tip of a giant iceberg looming behind the façade of cooked books and sugarcoated profit and loss statements.

But why is capitalism doomed to these endless cycles of booms and recessions? Let’s see what’s taking place with the oil markets as an example of my point.

As OPEC and other oil experts would confirm, there is absolutely no shortage of oil in the world today, despite the surge in demand by our friends the Chinese (a fact that every learned economist and taxi driver would tell you these days to explain away why the whole world is sobbing at the gas pumps). So why are prices continuing to climb as I write, and as the head of Russian Gazprom predicted, would reach US$250 a barrel by the end of the year?

The way this humble observer sees things, the unprecedented surge in oil prices is purely caused by greed and speculation by a bunch of unscrupulous global players who can’t get enough profits to feed their insatiable and extravagant lifestyles. Supply and demand as a price-setting formula has just become a tired magical potion used to justify the unjustifiable when suppliers want to con the demanders. There is absolutely no reason why the supply taps cannot be re-opened to relieve the crisis, except for, again, pure, unadulterated, and crude greed, to borrow an oily adjective.

Back in small and oil-less Jordan, what are we to do? I can assure you that no amount of prayers to the Lord can save us from the unspeakable scenarios of steeper rises in oil prices anymore than it has helped to save poor Madeleine McCann or succeeded in undemolishing a single school in China.

All I can advise is that if we all get on our bikes, as the saying goes, no one will feel the weight of the soaring price tags as these machines are very economical, and all of Jordan would then be, just like me, writing their own happy and totally incoherent motorcycle diaries, under the illuminated skies of our nightly 4th of July celebrations.

Take care, and if you ride, do it safely.

This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine.

Each comedian profiled has their own angle on both the entertainment business and the experiences of Muslims in the United States. Maysoon Zayid talks about being a Palestinian-American Muslim woman who doesn’t cover her hair, a virgin, and a disabled person aspiring to become an actress.

Dean Obeidallah shares the story of how he initially stopped using his Arab last name when performing in the aftermath of 9/11, then had a change of heart and a change of direction.

Azhar Usman, who is shown praying in his dressing room at one point, discusses going through a conservative phase before realizing that his path in life ultimately lay elsewhere.

Many viewers will relate to Ahmed Ahmed’s anxiety in regards to air travel, except that in Ahmed Ahmed’s case there is the added “bonus” of traveling while Muslim and enduring extreme suspicion. And Tissa Hami’s account of enduring prejudice both from non-Muslims and Muslims (some of whom have told her that she is “going to hell”) is not exactly a laughing matter.

Yet, staying true to its subject matter, the special manages to be light-hearted as well. The featured jokes could probably make even David Horowitz laugh, or so I’d like to believe.

Prior to the premiere, I was given an opportunity to interview several of the comedians, and here is what we talked about:

Natalia: Can you tell me more about the PBS special?

Dean Obeidallah: The one-hour special is the brainchild of producer Glenn Baker who first approached us almost four years ago with the idea of shooting a documentary about Muslim and Arab-American comedians. The documentary begins with us performing before any of us had appeared on any major US TV networks. However, by the end of the documentary many of us had appeared on Comedy Central, ABC, CNN, NBC and on numerous other TV networks, so viewers get a chance to watch us move up the entertainment ladder.

Maysoon Zayid: I am so blessed to be involved in this project with such extraordinary talent, including my brother from another mother, Dean Obeidallah. Glen and Omar [Naim - the co-director] were invisible. They made it so easy for us. I’m amazed with the end product. Omar is truly genius. It’s funny. And no one gets shot. AND you get to see my Dad. That alone is worth TiVo-ing.

Natalia: What’s it like to be a Muslim American working in the entertainment industry in the year 2008?

Dean Obeidallah: The entertainment industry is very competitive and is a struggle for everyone, regardless of race or religion. [Being] an Arab-American comedian who talks about my heritage in my act, has set me apart from many other typical comedians because I have a point of view that has not been heard from too often in the past. In the last few years, the entertainment industry has increasingly been supportive of our comedy.

Maysoon Zayid: I don’t know. No, just kidding, I do. I find it very difficult not only being a Muslim but a disabled female Muslim who doesn’t fit the stereotype shown by mainstream media of what a Muslim woman should look and sound like. Nearly all of my experience comes from the entertainment side and I found that, once someone takes a chance on casting me, its been a great opportunity for people who know very little about my culture to learn. In those instances I’ve had a wonderful reception from the majority of my colleagues as well as the Muslim community itself. Oh and the Italian Christians love me too.

Natalia: What are your audiences like nowadays, do lots of Muslims come to see your shows? Are there Jews in the audience?

Dean Obeidallah: When I’m not traveling for shows, I’m in NYC performing nightly at the major comedy clubs so the audiences are a cross section of every race and religion. When we do the Middle Eastern themed shows then the audience is probably 60% Middle Eastern. I am fortunate to have supporters of all different backgrounds

Maysoon Zayid: I don’t make it a policy to check what religion my audience members are, so I cant answer that. Because its not really something I think about nor do I care. Religion is personal. It doesn’t matter to me what religion anyone in my audience is.

I do know for a fact however that I’ve had a Mormon in the audience because she happened to be my best friend.

Natalia: This is just a stab in the dark, but, as an American, I get the impression that there is this sense of discomfort between Muslim Americans and Jewish Americans, and I see comedy as something that has the long-term potential to repair this situation. Am I naive to think this way?

Maysoon Zayid: Please don’t use the word “stab” in the same sentence as “Muslim Americans” and “Jewish Americans.”

Dean Obeidallah: I truly believe that comedy can be used to foster understating between Jews, Muslims, Arabs, and [people of] all different backgrounds. In fact, I have toured colleges for four years in a show I co-created called “Stand up for Peace” with Jewish comedian Scott Blakeman. Our shows are generally co-sponsored by Arab, Jewish, and Muslim student groups.

The goal is to bring together people of different backgrounds and religions (especially Arabs/Muslims and Jewish-Americans), to foster understanding through laughter as well as to attract support for a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the Middle East conflict. I can promise you that our show is much more fun than the events featuring speakers on the extreme right who appear on college campuses with the goal of dividing people through their hate-filled rhetoric.

Natalia: “Axis of Evil” was a success in the Middle East . Would you say that this success is indicative of the way that Muslim American comedians are perceived in Muslim majority nations overall?

Dean Obeidallah: I actually didn’t go with the Axis guys for that tour. However, I have performed in the Middle East before on my own and am returning for shows in late May/early June with Ahmed Ahmed and Maz Jobrani.

Comedy does not have geographic barriers. The Internet, TV shows and films have brought the world closer together. I can also tell you that I learned that we have one big thing in common: Jokes about President Bush get big laughs both in the US and in the Middle East!

Maysoon Zayid: Whether you’re part of the Muslim community or not, if you appreciate good comedy, you’re gonna love our shows. I’ve done shows in Beirut, and I’ve done shows in Tennessee, and I can honestly say the audiences I’ve encountered have been equally enthusiastic on both sides of the globe. Masha’allah.

Natalia: I recently interviewed a Muslim American author, Dilara Hafiz, and one of the most interesting things we talked about was her idea that Islam has a great future in the United States, because it can thrive more alongside democracy. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Maysoon Zayid: First of all, I want to give respect to Dilara Hafiz. I think what she did is such a cool idea and I love the fact that she collaborated on it with her own children. That being said, I heartily disagree.

Being Muslim in America, I feel put in jeopardy. Growing up in Cliffside Park, New Jersey I never felt as if I was an “other,” and I definitely was never attacked for my religious beliefs. But, during the George W. Bush Presidency, I, as well as my nieces and nephews, started to feel overwhelmed by the pushing of his distortion of Christianity on our daily lives. I started feeling a lot less comfortable in my own country, because of this.

If, by the grace of God and the Diebold machines, we get a Democrat in office, Islam may have a slim chance of thriving, but if we end up with that dude McCain, I got two words for my fellow Muslims: “Move to Canada”. OK, sorry, that’s three words.

Natalia: Would you like to share more thoughts on this year’s election?

Maysoon Zayid: I am super-proud to say that I am actually going to be ATTENDING the Democratic National Convention, as both a delegate from the great state of New Jersey and a performer with my arab-boy-comic-harem, aka “Axis of Evil” and Dean Obeidallah.

I am so excited for this election because it means no more Dick and Bush (forgive me for not being halal, but those are their names), and I’m thrilled at the prospect of having either Hilary or Barack Obama for president (as long as Hilary shuts it about obliterating Iran).

Ideally I’d like to see them on the same ticket. But more than anything else, I want Bill back! I know he’s itchin’ to get back in the Middle East peace process/ circus. The one other thing I will say, is Michele Obama is frickin’ awesome.

Dean Obeidallah: This election has both inspired and distressed me. I have been inspired by that fact both a woman and an African-American have a realistic chance of being the next President. I am personally supporting Senator Obama, but I am confident that Senator Clinton would still be a far better president that John McCain.

I have been distressed by some people’s use of Barack Obama’s middle name “Hussein” and the word Muslim as a slur in this campaign. I believe strongly that most Americans will reject these attacks – which I view as not anti-Muslim, but as anti-American, since our country was founded on the principles of religious tolerance. Let’s hope that these haters’ voices will be drowned out by the voices of mainstream America.

Natalia: I have to ask, what’s the most ridiculous thing that’s anybody ever said to you in regards to your brand of comedy?

Tissa Hami: “Are you only doing this to get a husband?”

Dean Obeidallah: I have been asked several times: “Are you really Arab?” As if I’m going to make up an ethnic background.

Maysoon Zayid: People call me anti-Semitic all the time which is completely ludicrous, because first and foremost I am a Semite and definitely not self-hating. Also, of you look at my catalog of work I defy anyone to find an anti-Jewish comment. They don’t exist.

A funnier misconception that always shocks me is when people accuse me of pretending to be disabled. All I can think is wow. I must be the best actor ever, because I have never broken character, EVER. I always get a kick out of that one.

Natalia: And what’s the best thing?

Maysoon Zayid: The best comment I’ve ever gotten was when a really well known actress came up to me at the end of my show, and said “I never knew Palestinians had children!”… In that moment, I had introduced humanity to a people who often see Palestinians as being very far from human. So that moment really validated me.

I also absolutely love it when [people with cerebral palsy] come up to me and are like, this is dope. I can totally do whatever it is they were dreaming of, that they didn’t think they could do. That gives me the warm fuzzies except for when I remember that 98% of them wont make it.

Dean Obeidallah: By far the best comment I have heard is from people – and it’s usually from Middle Eastern-Americans and Muslim-Americans – who after a show, or in an email, say: “Thank you for doing the type of comedy that you do.” I like this so much because it means they appreciate that my comedy is not just intended to make people laugh, but also intended to challenge the way we are often defined in mainstream media and present us in a positive, likable, and accurate light. The support of our community has inspired all of us to continue talking about these issues.

Tissa Hami: When a young boy came up to me after a show and said, “You were the best comedian on the show, by far.” He didn’t tell me that I was the best female comedian on the show, or the best ethnic comedian, or the best female ethnic comedian, if you see what I mean. He just saw me as a comedian.

On a related note, check out my interview with “The Axis of Evil” comedians in Dubai. For more, please read the interview with Maysoon Zayid and Tissa Hami at Muslimah Media Watch.

to cleanse that impure pedigree
And with Oprah at your side
You’re sure to glide
Tell America about your papa
the one in heaven
In one afternoon a campaign boon

A reverent scene
Beside the media Queen
Spreading the American dream
We are all one in the body of Christ
So don’t you go traveling
among the disbelievers
the Allah deceivers
they may not like your version
of the great conversion
and go after your ass
till you do the reversion
Stay safe man
You’re in America now Obama
The religious freedom nation
of personal salvation

Your name is Obama
Barack allah feek

Baruch ha shem Ya Hussein
you’re related to the Queen!!*

* – See Juancole.com for Arabo/Islamic lineage of British royalty

Fine, I exaggerate. However, sometimes I wonder if she is more emotionally committed to the latest installment of “Grand Theft Auto” than to me. Of course, I was the one who irritated her with my obsessive devotion to “Final Fantasy.”

Revenge is sweet.

I would like to see some type of statistical study on the kind of damage that video games can do to a marriage. Forget setting up romantic dinners or remembering her second cousin’s wife’s birthday: the real challenge to many committed couples today is making sure you don’t kill each other while arguing about whether or not “Assassin’s Creed” lived up to its hype (I say yes, she says no).

It chokes me, but I have to admit that my wife is a better gamer. To be perfectly honest, she even has a better relationship with my parents than I, their son, do (“why can’t you be more like Dina*, son?” – a question I hear almost as often as the “when are you going to give us grandchildren?” inquiry). Maybe, she is better at living.

Does my wife have to make a mockery of my high scores? My knowledge of elaborate cheats? My commitment to the art of gaming?

The answer, I am discovering, is affirmative.

I have no one to blame. I created this situation. Once, I made a horrible blunder. I became competitive with her. I forgot that in relationships, excessive competition is not healthy. Before we were married she knew that I was the better cook. The sight of a kitchen makes her confused, while I navigate everything from the stove to the juice-maker easily. This didn’t trouble her.

It didn’t trouble her that I could touch the tip of my nose with my tongue and she, by contrast, could not. She could be humble about such life-and-death matters.

I had lost my humility, however. Perhaps now it is time to find it again.

Men are jealous of women who excel in a “boy’s” field, and gaming is still dominated by the boys. There is nothing manly or natural about the jealousy. It’s simple stupidity. Even as one’s friends point out that one’s wife is more fun to play “Halo” with when we visit them (we have steered clear of buying an Xbox, if only because we don’t want to die, covered in mold, while attempting to play every good game the world offers), one must remain committed to the idea that she has the right to the praise she receives.

Let her continue the Playstation affair.

I’ll console (pun intended) myself with my secret shrimp recipe.

What? I have to be good at something.

*- Name changed to protect the innocent.

My profound problems with this so-called holiday run deeper than that.

Consider, for instance, the candy:

Too sweet, too artificial, inevitably heart-shaped, and always stuffed in a ridiculous box that no grown man (or woman) should be seen carrying in public. Indulge in a few of these, and you can actually feel your teeth rotting in your head for the rest of the day. No amount of toothpaste can quite erase the sticky film on the enamel. Drinking ten soft-drinks in a row is probably much, much healthier.

Then, of course, there is the rest of the merchandise:

I was in a store this week, searching for clothes for a formal occasion, when the salesman decided to force me to buy a sky-blue tie patterned with pink hearts and chubby cherubs. “Special promotion, sir.” At first I thought it would make for a nice joke-gift, until I realized that this “special promotion” actually cost approximately one hundred British pounds.

Of course, come February 15th, it will be lying in the bargain bin next to the pink, heart-shaped cuff-links, and God-knows-what-else.

On my way out of the store, a saleswoman with an evil grin sprayed me with something that came out of a (surprise!) pink bottle, and smelled like roses doused in sugar. She claimed that this was a cologne for men. Well, no woman should have to wear something like that either. It was more like perfume for chihuahuas.

The entire episode made me wish I could barricade myself in my house until February 15th had safely arrived, and avoid the bargain-bins henceforth for at least another week.

So, am I in favor of banning this ridiculous debacle of a holiday?

No.

As a matter of fact, I think that certain religious authorities have gone a trifle too far in banning the color red this week. They are only making the forbidden fruit that much (artificially) sweeter. Now there will be people who will celebrate this holiday simply because it is a rebellious thing to do. And we don’t need anything like that.

The minute that Valentine’s Day becomes a cool, “alternative” holiday for people who “oppose the system” and “question authority,” will also be the minute that I officially decamp to another planet. Or, at the very least, a deserted island somewhere.

In her bio, Ms. Mahdi lists her mother as her source of support in pursuing her goals. She also lists her background in graphic design and advertising. She has done freelance work for a variety of Egyptian publications, so, if you’re in Egypt, she might already be familiar.

Mahdi looks like she is no friend of the George W. Bush administration, though she takes on other subjects just as freely (Osama Bin Laden, Brad Pitt, and Tony Blair among them – personally, I’m a big fan of the Brad Pitt caricature; considering the fact that this man’s perfectly chiseled face has been staring at me from every newsstand).

Mahdi is working in a male-dominated field, in a country where bloggers and other outspoken individuals can wind up in jail. For this alone, she ought to be admired, methinks.

Her commentary on the Shia-Sunni rift and the political exploitation thereof caught my eye, and will stay with me for a long time. By contrast, the depictions of George W. Bush as Satan/monster lack bite (notwithstanding such depictions’ popularity in Egypt, and beyond).

I think if Mahdi were to focus more on specific aspects of current U.S. foreign policy, her work would become more pointed – and accessible not only to the Arab world, but to those beyond it.

I think as Mahdi continues to hone her craft, more good stuff will happen.