Yesterday was round 2 of mortar missiles attacks on my neighbourhood,
over 20 mortar missiles fell on the neighbourhood and caused 30 deaths
and injuries.
Here is my side of the story:
I was at my grandmoah's house which happens to be next door to my
house, me and my cousin were at the back garden playing soccer and
moking on each other. Suddenly we heard a very loud noise of mortar
missile passing over us, I said "did you hear it?" and by the time he
was saying "yes", a huge explosion took place, it was very close to us,
we couldn't tell where it exactly fell as it was too close, we ran
inside my grandmoah's house and waited there for several minutes.
Shortly after that, we heard screaming, shouting and people running in
the street, we ran out to the street to see what happened.
At first, I couldn't see as there was alot of dust and ashes in the
street, then my vision cleared and I saw smoke clouds coming out from
the roof of the house of my neighbour which is in front of my house.Instinctly I ran with the people to the inside of my neighbour's house
to check for survivers, there were women all over the place shouting
and screaming "help him, help him, he is at the roof", meanwhile mortar
missiles were falling here and there very close to us. Me and several
people ran to the roof of the house, and there was my neighbour lying
on the floor with his legs got cut due to the explosion and he was
severly bleeding and there was blood stains all of him.I was completely shocked, scared and terrified, I stood there and
didn't know what to do.A man who was standing next to me shouted on me "come on!, grap him
with me, lets take him to the hospital", I ran to him and carried my
neighbour with him, we went down to the street carrying my neighbour
where a kind man stopped his car and took us with him to the hospital.
Although I tied his cut off legs and squeezed his legs trying to stop
the bleeding, but by the time we arrived to the hospital, he was
already gone, as he was bleeding severly.
In the hospital they didn't do anything to him, because he was already
dead, they took him to the bodies refrigerator.shortly after his son (my neighbour's son) arrived to the hospital, he
was shouting and crying "where is he? I wanna see him", we went to the
bodies refrigeraotr, and it wasn't actually a refrigerator, bodies were
lying on the floor, as there were too many bodies and there weren't
enough rooms for them in the frig.The view of the bodies lying on the floor was very disgusting and sad,
most of the bodies were victims of the mortar attacks.
Anyway, my neighbour relatives came to the hospital and brought coffin
for there dead relative, we took the body and headed back to my
neighbour house, so that his wife and kids can see him for the last
time before they bury him. I told them not to take him to his parents,
because it would be very painful for his kids to see their father dead
and his legs cut off, anyway, his son insisted on taking him back home.
We took him back to his house, and there was his wife and kids waiting
for him and by that time they didn't know whether their father was dead
or not, by the time they saw the coffin they started screaming,
shouting and crying. I was very touched seeing the tears of his little
kids crying with so much pain.
Shortly after that, his son said "lets take him to the cemetery, I want
him to be buried before it gets dark". so they took him to the cemetery
right away. the considerd him as a martyr.(In islam the martyr should be buried right away, with his blood and
with his clothes he was wearing when he died).Anyway, we went to the cemetery, and the handlers started to bury him,
I was standing with my cousin, near them watching them, before they
were done closing his grave, another round of mortar attacks took place
very very close to the cemetery, people just started to run and left
his grave not completely closed, Me and my cousin closed his grave and
ran to the car and headed back home.
When me and my cousin went back, my neighbours told us that another
mortar missile fell on my grandmoah's house but it didn't explode,
thank god it didn't explode because my grandmoah was alone in the
house.
thats what happened yesterday, god knows what more can happen.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
...ands we're back
Due to unforseen circumstances (*cough* blogger messing up *cough*), Iraq Blog Count was not updating for nearly two months. Now it seems we have access again :) - Better catch up with all those unlisted blogs before blogger changes its mind and locks us out again...
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Hazrat Hasan Basri
Somebody came to Ummul Mu'mineen Hazrat Umme Salamah (Radhiallaho Anha) giving her good news of the birth of a son in her servant Hazrat Khayrah's house, upon which Hazrat Umme Salamah became very happy.She sent a message asking her to come to Hazrat Umme Salamah (Radhiallaho Anha) with the child. Upon seeing him, Hazrat Umme Salamah (Radhiallaho Anha) held the child in her arms. She asked Umme
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Aboriginal language of the Ahaggar
Tuareg oral tradition records that, when the Tuareg arrived in the Ahaggar (Hoggar) Mountains of southern Algeria sometime in the first millennium AD, they encountered people called the Isăbătăn - a sparse population of hunters and goat herds, stereotyped in popular anecdotes as stupid. Parts of the Dag-Ghali tribe claim descent from them. What language did they speak? We may never have enough data to know for sure, but Tuareg stories provide possible clues, sometimes putting seemingly nonsensical, or at least non-Tuareg, words into the mouths of Isăbătăn characters. I recently came across an example, quoted from Pandolfi 1998:132 in Kossmann 2005:15 (transcription slightly modified):
Bibliography:
Kossmann, Maarten. 2005. Berber Loanwords in Hausa. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Pandolfi, Paul. 1998. Les Touaregs de l'Ahaggar (Sahara algérien). Parenté et résidence chez les Dag-Ghali. Paris: Karthala.
Ikkəršərmadən tangarən damadən.The morphology of the sentence is Tuareg - -ən is the normal Tuareg masculine plural suffix, while i- is a normal Tuareg nominal plural prefix. But the lexical stems - -kkəršərmad- "ant" (?), tangar- "come in", damad- "go out" - have no obvious Tuareg or broader Berber cognates. Unlikely as it is, it would be interesting if one of my readers happened to recognise an obvious source for these...
The ants come in and go out.
Bibliography:
Kossmann, Maarten. 2005. Berber Loanwords in Hausa. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe.
Pandolfi, Paul. 1998. Les Touaregs de l'Ahaggar (Sahara algérien). Parenté et résidence chez les Dag-Ghali. Paris: Karthala.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Genetically Modified Dubaians
Today's Gulf News carries an astonishingly misleading article. The headline says "40% of food is genetically modified". But if you bother to read it, you will learn that the sample tested was of 35 items bought in the UAE, Oman and Qatar. That's a pretty tiny sample. When you get to the bit where they tell you what the 'contaminated' products are, you'll laugh. To save you the bother, here's the list: Munch King Nacho Cheese, Tostitos Tortilla Crispy Rounds, Funyuns Frito Lay Onion Rings, Quaker Yellow Corn meal, Doritos Nacho Cheesier, Fritos Corn Chips, Doritos Nacho Cheese. I wouldn't describe any of that as 'food'. Anybody who buys and eats stuff like that deserves to grow two heads.
I'm really disappointed by this article. It's based on a report from Greenpeace. I don't know if it was Greenpeace people who suggested their survey proved '40% la la la' or what. But I am suspicious of GM food and I think it is something we should be wary of. Sadly, this report by GN is either trying to be sensationalist by exaggerating any claims made, or the reporter just didn't get it. Or the Greenpeace report itself presented the data in those terms. Hmmm.
I'm really disappointed by this article. It's based on a report from Greenpeace. I don't know if it was Greenpeace people who suggested their survey proved '40% la la la' or what. But I am suspicious of GM food and I think it is something we should be wary of. Sadly, this report by GN is either trying to be sensationalist by exaggerating any claims made, or the reporter just didn't get it. Or the Greenpeace report itself presented the data in those terms. Hmmm.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Duck!
No, not the fluffy things that love to be chased around the pond at Jebel Ali Village, and not the Little Yellow one that loves to...ahem!. I'm talking about the kind of duck you can eat. We had a bunch of people round for a buffet lunch last weekend and one of the things I did for it was Half Man Half Beer's brilliant recipe for Beijing Duck. It seems like a lot of effort, but believe me, it's worth it - especially the little pancakes.
My original plan had been to buy a couple of frozen ducks but, come the time, our local Choithram's had none, and neither did Géant. So I got a pretty pricey fresh duck and two very cheap frozen breasts from Géant. In fact the breasts were so cheap that when I went back today to get a freezer-full, there were only three left. And now there are none, hehehe.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Maulana Anwar Shah Kashmiri
Maulana Anwar Shah Kashmiri (Rahmatullahi Alayhi)[1292 – 1352 AH] (1875 – 1933 AD)Maulana Anwar Shah’s (Shah Sahib) genealogy can be traced back to al-Imam al-Akbar Abu Hanifah. This genealogy is mentioned in Shah Sahib's two works, namely, Nayl al-Farqadayn and Kashf al-Satr.Many inhabitants of Kashmir are known of have benefited spiritually from Shah Sahib's father who passed away at the ripe
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Maghreb sociolinguistics
I've just come across a couple of interesting posts on the North African sociolinguistic situation. On Aqoul, Shaheen discusses a topic close to my heart - how the dominance of French hurts the Maghreb's economy and makes new ideas take longer to reach it:
The ubiquity of French not only aggravates the dependence of the Maghreb to France, it impedes the region's ability to develop beyond its traditional (colonial) ties. Worse, it not only serves as an economic chain, it culturally acts like an albatross around their necks: everything, from law to social models is borrowed from France. Considering how inefficient and sterile French models and intellectual production can be today in most fields when compared to their anglo-saxon counterparts, the Maghreb is riding a losing horse. It isolates individual Maghrebis from most scientific and economic literature...Some of the comments are worth reading as well, and the author links to published online papers (bibliography in a blog post - always a trend worth promoting!)
In a more personal post, "Filjazair" describes Algeria's linguistic "schizophrenia", as it appears to a heritage learner:
I hear, a lot, things like: "Don't bother learning darija, it's not worth it"; "You don't need to learn fusha [formal Arabic], nobody speaks it"; "Our language [Arabic, formal Arabic] is being corrupted - we're still in the age of colonisation!" (this from one student who'd heard that another student had to write her university thesis in French); "Everybody speaks French, that's all you need"; "Everybody speaks darija, that's all you need."
Chaos.
So I'm in a French class with Algerians who already know a lot of French but speak it sloppily, and who feel a need - because of work, because of school, because of future prospects - to get better. This week I start formal Arabic lessons with a tutor downtown. And along the way I'm trying to pick up snippets of darija to use in the street, so as not to have to use too much of the French or Arabic I'm learning, because French marks you as a foreigner (or worse, a snob - an Algerian in contempt of her Algerianness) and because nobody actually speaks the formal Arabic.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
-n't infixation in English
Consider the following word:
* "...cardboardy Paul Walker, whose lack of presence ('charisn'tma'?) sucked much of the life out of..."
* "Collectively, they exude charisn'tma, and one or two even possess what Ken Campbell once described as "the legendary Minus Quality" whereby when they exit, the stage somehow seems fuller."
* "Hard-edged r&b from the band with a front man who exudes charisma. Me? I exude charisn'tma."
In this structure, a common word's meaning is "inverted" for comic effect by adding -n't to a portion of it which resembles a common auxiliary verb. I can think of at least one other such case:
* "Scarlett's Hair-Don't"
* "Hair-Bow is a Hair-Don't"
* "Is it a hair DO or hair DON'T???"
and an entry in the Urban Dictionary.
And at the even less lexicalised end of the spectrum, we find stuff like this:
* "Another Republican’t paragon of virtue"
* "As it happens, my friend Tom Schaller noticed that many of you liked “Republican’ts” — and he suggests that we all start using it, at least as often as the GOP throws around “Democrat Party.”"
* "You’ve seen me in action. You know I’ll get you out. I’m a Mexican, not a Mexican’t!”"
* "did you hear about the lazy, unambitious bird? It was a whippoorwon't. (Yuck, I hate puns.)"
Your question for 10 points: do portmanteau words like this need to be accounted for by a full theory of morphology, or are they monstrosities that should be swept under the rug into psychologists' labs? These words' two components seem to both contribute to their meaning, but not exhaustively, in much the same way as the meaning of "catty" is partly but not completely predictable from "cat" and "-y"; how should that relation be characterised?
Finally one said "It's astonishing. Frankly astonishing. The man has actually got charisn'tma."This word may not be original to Terry Pratchett, incidentally - this document suggests it appeared in a show called My Word! back in 1976. It gets 90 ghits, (including one in Polish), concentrated disproportionately in reviews:
"Your meaning?"
"I mean he's so dreadful he fascinates people. Like those stories he was telling... Did you notice how people kept encouraging him because they couldn't actually believe anyone would tell jokes like that in mixed company?" - Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay, 1996, p. 289
* "...cardboardy Paul Walker, whose lack of presence ('charisn'tma'?) sucked much of the life out of..."
* "Collectively, they exude charisn'tma, and one or two even possess what Ken Campbell once described as "the legendary Minus Quality" whereby when they exit, the stage somehow seems fuller."
* "Hard-edged r&b from the band with a front man who exudes charisma. Me? I exude charisn'tma."
In this structure, a common word's meaning is "inverted" for comic effect by adding -n't to a portion of it which resembles a common auxiliary verb. I can think of at least one other such case:
"I even attempted a beehive do, but I ran out of hairspray. So it kind of turned into a don't." - Douglas Coupland, Generation X, p. 82Believe it or not, this one gets some ghits as well, though it's obviously hard to determine how many:
* "Scarlett's Hair-Don't"
* "Hair-Bow is a Hair-Don't"
* "Is it a hair DO or hair DON'T???"
and an entry in the Urban Dictionary.
And at the even less lexicalised end of the spectrum, we find stuff like this:
* "Another Republican’t paragon of virtue"
* "As it happens, my friend Tom Schaller noticed that many of you liked “Republican’ts” — and he suggests that we all start using it, at least as often as the GOP throws around “Democrat Party.”"
* "You’ve seen me in action. You know I’ll get you out. I’m a Mexican, not a Mexican’t!”"
* "did you hear about the lazy, unambitious bird? It was a whippoorwon't. (Yuck, I hate puns.)"
Your question for 10 points: do portmanteau words like this need to be accounted for by a full theory of morphology, or are they monstrosities that should be swept under the rug into psychologists' labs? These words' two components seem to both contribute to their meaning, but not exhaustively, in much the same way as the meaning of "catty" is partly but not completely predictable from "cat" and "-y"; how should that relation be characterised?
Friday, January 19, 2007
TESOL/TEFL Guide
- TESOL a guide towards a Teaching English career -
TESOL is the abbreviated form of an internationally acknowledged diploma course.The full form is Teaching English To Speakers of Other Languages. This degree willenable you to become a teacher to the mass whose native tongue is not English. Thiscourse will train you in the basic approaches; prime teaching methods and learningtechniques to teach English effectively to foreign pupils with diverse studentprofiles and dissimilar requirements.
TEFL and TESOL
The acronyms TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and TESOL (TeachingEnglish to Speakers of Other Languages) can often be confusing. Both terms are usedinterchangeably and effectively mean the same thing. In both cases, the aim isteaching English to those whose first language is not English, worldwide.
A TESOL Qualification adds to your worth
Most countries consider a TESOL certification a pre-requisite to securing a jobas a teacher in the English language.
The TESOL training program familiarizes you with systematic lesson plans,effective classroom management and efficient teaching techniques.
Your fundamental knowledge of the language and grammar skills is furtherstrengthened before facing a classroom of learners.
The program brings out your best teaching skills, and the training imparted givesyou hands on teaching experience.
There is a great demand worldwide for TESOL teachers and this opens a whole newvista of career opportunities.
Teaching Prospects after TESOL
Many primary schools, high schools, colleges and universities require qualifiedEnglish language instructor. Having a TESOL certificate can brighten up yourprospect as an English teacher around the globe.
The best career option for a new TESOL pass out is in the domain of a privateschool where you can teach both grown ups and kids usually through conversation.
You may even get lucky as a teacher in a business house. Here you only have totoil for one to two hours each week.
Private tuition is another option if you can set up a group of students. Here youhave to interact with your students directly.
The icing on the cake is that you can travel and see the world while you earn.The countries that you can visit and teach English with your TESOL qualificationinclude Japan, Vietnam, South Korea , China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Taiwan in Asia;Turkey, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland in Europe; and Chile, Peru, Brazil andArgentina in South America, amongst others.
Other TESOL Advantages
The vital reward is your right to use the available information, seek aid andassistance even after finishing your graduation long ago. You are admitted to enterthe worldwide job databases, seek information about recruitments, and look forguides to different countries and more. You can benefit from discussion forums, canshare concepts and ideas or seek help through Internet chat rooms. You can make yourclasses better by downloading array of resources and ideas for ensuing lessons.
If you're thinking of a teaching Englishcareer,
you'll find more interestinghttp://www.teachingenglishtips.com/tesol/tesol.html">TESOL, http://www.teachingenglishtips.com/tefl/tefl.html">TEFL and http://www.teachingenglishtips.com/tesl/tesl.html">TESL
related articles athttp://www.teachingenglishtips.com">www.TeachingEnglishTips.com
you'll find more interesting
related articles at
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Jumeirah
I had to go to the Jumeirah Jumeirah Beach Hotel this morning, so I took my shiny new camera to get some pics.
I'm quite proud of the pic below - the helipad near the top of Burj Al Arab: hand-held, 12x zoom, image stabilisation on.
There's a prototype air-conditioned bus stop outside Wild Wadi:
Apart from the ludicrous waste of energy this represents, I spotted a bit of a design flaw. Well, all of it really, it isn't the most beautiful thing ever built. No, I mean, the door. It's a sliding door, and it's not self-closing. When your bus finally arrives, you'll rush out to stop it and you will not think about closing the door behind you. Mind you, you could do what I did: grab the handle, pull the door shut, and bruise your fingers as it slams against the door-frame: there is no door stop. Ouch!
I'm quite proud of the pic below - the helipad near the top of Burj Al Arab: hand-held, 12x zoom, image stabilisation on.
There's a prototype air-conditioned bus stop outside Wild Wadi:
Apart from the ludicrous waste of energy this represents, I spotted a bit of a design flaw. Well, all of it really, it isn't the most beautiful thing ever built. No, I mean, the door. It's a sliding door, and it's not self-closing. When your bus finally arrives, you'll rush out to stop it and you will not think about closing the door behind you. Mind you, you could do what I did: grab the handle, pull the door shut, and bruise your fingers as it slams against the door-frame: there is no door stop. Ouch!
Monday, January 15, 2007
The plural-breaking mountains of Oman
Arabic is well-known in phonological circles for the diversity and complexity of its broken plurals (jam` at-taksiir جمع التكسير) - that is, plurals formed at least partly by internal modification of the word. The commonest type for four-consonant roots is mainly characterised by an -aa- after the second consonant. For example:
daftar-un > dafaatir-u "notebook"
kawkab-un > kawaakib-u "planet"
Certain rather regular complexities emerge when a long vowel is present in the singular; depending on position, it is either treated as an extra consonant or affects the length of an output vowel:
xaatam-un > xawaatim-u "ring"
risaal-at-un > rasaa'il-u "letter"
qaanuun-un > qawaaniin-u "law"
If the stem has more than four consonants and takes this plural types, the later ones get dropped off the edge, so to speak:
`ankaabuut-un > `anaakib-u "spider"
Now this has been the subject of some interesting work, notably in autosegmental phonology, where such phenomena have been taken as a strong argument for separating consonants and vowels into separate tiers. For Arabic, the plural morphology itself - in this case, the skeleton -a-aa-i[i]-, but there are many others - never seems to involve infixing a true consonant; diminutives in -u-ay-i- can be explained away by treating -y- as a semivowel. But that changes if we look beyond Arabic...
Jibbali/Sheri is a Semitic language spoken on the southern coast of Oman, and (despite its location) is neither descended from nor mutually intelligible with Arabic. Among other changes, it no longer has distinctive vowel length. Its commonest equivalent of the Arabic plural form described above involves the insertion of -ab-/-ɛb- instead of -aa-:
dəftɔr > defɛbtər "notebook"
kənsed > kenabsəd "shoulder"
mɛrkɛb > mirɛbkəb "boat"
muṣħar > muṣɛbħar "branding iron"
although it does have a more Arabic-like form with -o-/-ɔ- in some (mainly feminine) cases:
maħfer > moħofur "basket"
ħalḳũ-t > ħɔloḳum "Adam's apple"
Note that the -ab- plural is productive enough to apply to Arabic borrowings like dəftɔr. I would love to know how this form emerged; as far as I know, no other Semitic language has a b-infix plural.
Bibliography:
Ratcliffe, Robert R. The 'Broken' Plural Problem in Arabic and Comparative Semitic. John Benjamins: Amsterdam 1998.
daftar-un > dafaatir-u "notebook"
kawkab-un > kawaakib-u "planet"
Certain rather regular complexities emerge when a long vowel is present in the singular; depending on position, it is either treated as an extra consonant or affects the length of an output vowel:
xaatam-un > xawaatim-u "ring"
risaal-at-un > rasaa'il-u "letter"
qaanuun-un > qawaaniin-u "law"
If the stem has more than four consonants and takes this plural types, the later ones get dropped off the edge, so to speak:
`ankaabuut-un > `anaakib-u "spider"
Now this has been the subject of some interesting work, notably in autosegmental phonology, where such phenomena have been taken as a strong argument for separating consonants and vowels into separate tiers. For Arabic, the plural morphology itself - in this case, the skeleton -a-aa-i[i]-, but there are many others - never seems to involve infixing a true consonant; diminutives in -u-ay-i- can be explained away by treating -y- as a semivowel. But that changes if we look beyond Arabic...
Jibbali/Sheri is a Semitic language spoken on the southern coast of Oman, and (despite its location) is neither descended from nor mutually intelligible with Arabic. Among other changes, it no longer has distinctive vowel length. Its commonest equivalent of the Arabic plural form described above involves the insertion of -ab-/-ɛb- instead of -aa-:
dəftɔr > defɛbtər "notebook"
kənsed > kenabsəd "shoulder"
mɛrkɛb > mirɛbkəb "boat"
muṣħar > muṣɛbħar "branding iron"
although it does have a more Arabic-like form with -o-/-ɔ- in some (mainly feminine) cases:
maħfer > moħofur "basket"
ħalḳũ-t > ħɔloḳum "Adam's apple"
Note that the -ab- plural is productive enough to apply to Arabic borrowings like dəftɔr. I would love to know how this form emerged; as far as I know, no other Semitic language has a b-infix plural.
Bibliography:
Ratcliffe, Robert R. The 'Broken' Plural Problem in Arabic and Comparative Semitic. John Benjamins: Amsterdam 1998.
Maulana Masihullah Khan Sherwani
Mawlana Masihullah was born in 1329 or 1330 ah at Sara’i Barla, in the district of Aligarh, India. From early childhood, he had a unique desire to sit in the company of the scholars and pious servants of Allah. In particular, he enjoyed the close companionship of Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas, the spiritual representative (khalifa) of Shaykh al-Hind Mahmud al-Hasan. Through this relationship, Mawlana
Friday, January 12, 2007
Burj Al Arabi
Notwithstanding the blatant rip-off of the name of this building, I read the announcement of this project with a snigger that spread my drink all over the room. Had I not lived in Dubai for these last thirteen years, my reaction would been just plain disbelief. But now I know that anything can be attached to the end of the phrase 'a building in the shape of...'. So this one is 'a building in the shape of a UAE National man'. Except it clearly is no such thing. It's a very poor attempt at it. The real things are a bit rounder, their headresses much more flowing. I mean really, it's not going to win any architectural awards now is it? And it looks a little bit like a statue, which is haram. This comes hard on the heels of the replica of London's Parliament Clock Tower (the one that has the Big Ben clock at the top) being built near the Emirates Towers on Sheikh Zayed Road, and Falconcity of Wonders (buildings in the shape of The Eiffel Tower, The Taj Mahal, The Pyramids etc) being built in the desert somewhere. OK, I give in: we live in a theme park, what should we expect?
Thursday, January 11, 2007
iLust
Apple Combuter has announced its version of a mobile phone. I want it! Now! As you'd expect of all things Apple, it's a sleek and sexy beast. It's all screen and no hardware buttons. Not only is it a phone and internet/email client, calendar and notebook, it's also an iPod. Truly awesome.
Go to www.apple.com and be amazed.
Go to www.apple.com and be amazed.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
The Slave of Wealth
The passionate slave of wealthignores his ailing healthMorning and night he toilstrying to Allah's law foilAt night, even till twelvewill he in riba delvenot realising his riba will cause him to bake and broiland his wealth round him like a serpent will coilUnmindful of his salaatnever will he with his time partWhen the pious at his door knockhe pretends he's a deaf blockCome the time of death,
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
Fixing Stuff
It is often said that when things go wrong, they do so in groups of three. I’ve had three things to deal with in the last two days – not things that have gone wrong, necessarily, but stuff that I would have preferred to have dealt with one at a time.
Thing 1) My Trade Licence. You may or may not know that to do business in the UAE, you have to have a Trade Licence. It’s best to think of this as tax in advance for the coming year: the cost of a licence varies depending on how big your company is, what business you are in, etc. My licence is done through Dubai Media City, and it was due for renewal four months ago but we’ve been having a bit of a dispute over how much I should actually pay. It has been quite hard to resolve but for the first time ever I have a client who actually wants to see a valid Trade Licence before releasing payment, and that brought the issue to a head. So I spent the whole of yesterday morning getting the licence sorted out.
Thing 2) In connection with the above, I noticed that my passport had expired the previous day. Thank God I noticed it then and not at an airport check-in counter! First thing to do, organize photos. I checked out the requirements on the British Embassy website – light background, no smiling, no masks etc. And also they are now doing biometric passports and iris-scans, fingerprints or DNA may be required. OK, I lied about the DNA, but it meant that BetterArf’s offer to whizz down to the Embassy and do the job on my behalf could not be accepted.
Anyhoo, BetterArf took a picture of me looking glum (proper Brit-style), I Photoshopped it a bit, and then attempted to print it on our Sony photo-printer: no dice (no ribbon). Huh.
Plan B: take the file on a chip and get it printed at the fag kiosk outside building 2 at DMC. No dice: they no longer offer a passport photo service (translation, the guy on duty didn't know how to work the kit - he let me have a go myself, but the ancient laptop they use refused to recognise my chip and wanted a driver).
Plan C: have a fresh photo taken at the photo shop in building 8. This I did, but they were hugely busy and it took an hour to get the job jobbed. Back to my building: no Brits around to countersign the back of one photo saying 'I know this geezer'. So I finished off the stuff with DMC - the important bit, giving them money, and went home. I called an old friend who lives nearby to get him to countersign the photo and complete a part of the form. Sorted.
Up bright and early this morning to get to the Embassy. I hand over the form, the photos and the fee (dhs 640, if you're interested), and they give me a receipt and send me on my way. 'What about the biometric doodad?' I ask. 'Oh, we do that by scanning the photo'. No way! You can barely tell what colour my eyes are, never mind anything else! Whatever, new passport ready in two weeks, offers invited for old one (joking!).
Thing 3) Now this is a killer. I confess that I have not been to a dentist for treatment for an obscenely long time. Although I do have two clients who are dental clinics and I've seen their charges. Which is why I don't go! But for the last month or so, one of my molars has been a bit iffy, to the extent that I've had to avoid eating with that side of my mouth. Two days ago I happened to chomp down on the offending molar, and the pain was agonising and lasted about an hour. Some time later it happened again. Clearly this was not going to go away, and something had to be done.
A friend recommended a new and reasonably-priced clinic in Satwa, and I called them to make an appointment for this morning. The clinic was pleasant, the doctor very professional and anxious to avoid unnecessary pain. The equipment was state-of-the-art - the chair has an x-ray machine and a video screen attached (I was watching 'Hitch' when my eyes weren't screwed shut in pain). But the job is a root canal. Ow, ow, ow! I'll spare you the details, but one of the nerves was inflamed, and I had about 45 minutes of intermittent pain as the doctor tried to numb the nerve and then work on it. Finally it was done and a temporary filling bunged in. I have to have two more treatments for this, the next one is next Saturday when I'm expecting more agony, but the one after that will be ok - that's when they nail a crown onto the remains of the teeth. And after that I guess I'll have my other two amalgam fillings replaced with nice shiny whitish ones.
BetterArf had heroically gone with me to hold my hand (ie make sure I didn't bottle out) and we went for lunch when it was all over. I had lentil soup. How's your soup? 'Tastes like lidocaine' How's your bread? 'Tastes like lidocaine'. Etc.
Hours later, everything still has that antiseptic dental flavour, but I don't have toothache anymore. Yeehaa!
Thing 1) My Trade Licence. You may or may not know that to do business in the UAE, you have to have a Trade Licence. It’s best to think of this as tax in advance for the coming year: the cost of a licence varies depending on how big your company is, what business you are in, etc. My licence is done through Dubai Media City, and it was due for renewal four months ago but we’ve been having a bit of a dispute over how much I should actually pay. It has been quite hard to resolve but for the first time ever I have a client who actually wants to see a valid Trade Licence before releasing payment, and that brought the issue to a head. So I spent the whole of yesterday morning getting the licence sorted out.
Thing 2) In connection with the above, I noticed that my passport had expired the previous day. Thank God I noticed it then and not at an airport check-in counter! First thing to do, organize photos. I checked out the requirements on the British Embassy website – light background, no smiling, no masks etc. And also they are now doing biometric passports and iris-scans, fingerprints or DNA may be required. OK, I lied about the DNA, but it meant that BetterArf’s offer to whizz down to the Embassy and do the job on my behalf could not be accepted.
Anyhoo, BetterArf took a picture of me looking glum (proper Brit-style), I Photoshopped it a bit, and then attempted to print it on our Sony photo-printer: no dice (no ribbon). Huh.
Plan B: take the file on a chip and get it printed at the fag kiosk outside building 2 at DMC. No dice: they no longer offer a passport photo service (translation, the guy on duty didn't know how to work the kit - he let me have a go myself, but the ancient laptop they use refused to recognise my chip and wanted a driver).
Plan C: have a fresh photo taken at the photo shop in building 8. This I did, but they were hugely busy and it took an hour to get the job jobbed. Back to my building: no Brits around to countersign the back of one photo saying 'I know this geezer'. So I finished off the stuff with DMC - the important bit, giving them money, and went home. I called an old friend who lives nearby to get him to countersign the photo and complete a part of the form. Sorted.
Up bright and early this morning to get to the Embassy. I hand over the form, the photos and the fee (dhs 640, if you're interested), and they give me a receipt and send me on my way. 'What about the biometric doodad?' I ask. 'Oh, we do that by scanning the photo'. No way! You can barely tell what colour my eyes are, never mind anything else! Whatever, new passport ready in two weeks, offers invited for old one (joking!).
Thing 3) Now this is a killer. I confess that I have not been to a dentist for treatment for an obscenely long time. Although I do have two clients who are dental clinics and I've seen their charges. Which is why I don't go! But for the last month or so, one of my molars has been a bit iffy, to the extent that I've had to avoid eating with that side of my mouth. Two days ago I happened to chomp down on the offending molar, and the pain was agonising and lasted about an hour. Some time later it happened again. Clearly this was not going to go away, and something had to be done.
A friend recommended a new and reasonably-priced clinic in Satwa, and I called them to make an appointment for this morning. The clinic was pleasant, the doctor very professional and anxious to avoid unnecessary pain. The equipment was state-of-the-art - the chair has an x-ray machine and a video screen attached (I was watching 'Hitch' when my eyes weren't screwed shut in pain). But the job is a root canal. Ow, ow, ow! I'll spare you the details, but one of the nerves was inflamed, and I had about 45 minutes of intermittent pain as the doctor tried to numb the nerve and then work on it. Finally it was done and a temporary filling bunged in. I have to have two more treatments for this, the next one is next Saturday when I'm expecting more agony, but the one after that will be ok - that's when they nail a crown onto the remains of the teeth. And after that I guess I'll have my other two amalgam fillings replaced with nice shiny whitish ones.
BetterArf had heroically gone with me to hold my hand (ie make sure I didn't bottle out) and we went for lunch when it was all over. I had lentil soup. How's your soup? 'Tastes like lidocaine' How's your bread? 'Tastes like lidocaine'. Etc.
Hours later, everything still has that antiseptic dental flavour, but I don't have toothache anymore. Yeehaa!
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Another Moonshot
According to the moonbox on BetterArf's blog, moonrise was supposed to be at 8.28 pm. I was up on the hill with camera and tripod, all ready to go with fifteen minutes to spare. It was late! I saw it peeking out from behind a building ten minutes after the appointed time and I took a bunch of shots, none of them terribly inspiring. This is about the best of them- I love the craters at the top.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Shoot The Moon
BetterArf gave me a book on digital photography for Christmas (just a hint that I'd better use the Sony H2 digital camera she also got me). There's a lot of great stuff in this book, but I was particularly interested in one example piece: how to get a detailed picture of the moon but still retain a decent foreground image. The sample shot showed the White House at dusk with a finely detailed moon just over its shoulder. The text described how you could get such a shot of the moon. And then the different requirements for how you could get the foreground image. And then the steps you would take in Photoshop to blend them together. Huh!
Anyhoo, as soon as I got the camera and read the book, I was keen to do some moon shots. At Christmas we only had half a moon: I took a pretty good test shot, but tonight the moon is 95% full, waning gibbous, so I wanted to have a go at the whole thing. I could not see the moon from our balcony, so at about 9.30 pm I went out to see if it had risen and was visible from some other location. It had and it was, so I went back to the apartment to pick up the camera and the tripod.
We ventured out a little bit and tried a shot or two, but light pollution from the street light was a problem. So we ventured across the perimeter road and a few hundred metres into the desert. I must admit the guidance given in my book was a little bit vague, and I must have taken a dozen shots before finally getting one that worked.
Good eh? You can almost see the London Bus and the remains of the Lunar Module that are parked there! Now I want to try to get a shot just as it is rising. A couple of years ago I spent New Year's Eve on Jebel Ali Beach. The moon rose exactly at midnight and it was gigantic - an amazing sight, but nobody had a camera! If I could get a shot like that I would be a happy bunny indeed.
Anyhoo, as soon as I got the camera and read the book, I was keen to do some moon shots. At Christmas we only had half a moon: I took a pretty good test shot, but tonight the moon is 95% full, waning gibbous, so I wanted to have a go at the whole thing. I could not see the moon from our balcony, so at about 9.30 pm I went out to see if it had risen and was visible from some other location. It had and it was, so I went back to the apartment to pick up the camera and the tripod.
We ventured out a little bit and tried a shot or two, but light pollution from the street light was a problem. So we ventured across the perimeter road and a few hundred metres into the desert. I must admit the guidance given in my book was a little bit vague, and I must have taken a dozen shots before finally getting one that worked.
Good eh? You can almost see the London Bus and the remains of the Lunar Module that are parked there! Now I want to try to get a shot just as it is rising. A couple of years ago I spent New Year's Eve on Jebel Ali Beach. The moon rose exactly at midnight and it was gigantic - an amazing sight, but nobody had a camera! If I could get a shot like that I would be a happy bunny indeed.
End of this blog
I don't think that a blog is the appropriate format for me anymore. At some point in the future I hope to harvest my previous posts and sow them into a more useful medium, such as a webpage. Blogs are nice for rants and raves, but for information about learning and teaching Arabic plus various resources - I think a webpage would be much easier to navigate and organize. Who knows when this would be. Hopefully free and high-quality web designing programs and free online storage will be commonplace in the future.
'yalla bye' until then,
Jeremy
'yalla bye' until then,
Jeremy
Friday, January 5, 2007
Executable articles
Mark Liberman recently made an excellent suggestion on Language Log: scientific and technical papers should include an explicit, executable recipe for generating their numbers, tables and graphs from published data. However, I think if anything he undersells the possibilities. Where executable algorithms could make a big difference to linguistics papers is in testing proposed rules - phonological principles; historical sound shifts; morphological rules...
If someone proposes a vocabulary of protoforms and a set of regular sound shifts, they are writing an explicit algorithm already. With an accompanying executable version of it, taking protoforms as input and outputting descendant forms (and programs to do some of this have already been written, eg Geoff's Sound Change Applier, Phono), you would be able to know exactly what the predicted forms in each descendant language would be, and be able to spot irregularities (in other words, prediction failures) with ease.
Likewise, if someone proposes a phonological principle (whether conceived of as a rule, as a constraint, or otherwise), you could test its effect on arbitrary data and see if it makes the right predictions. Gaps in the theory (for example, the representation of clicks in Government Phonology) or non-computable theories (an accusation sometimes made against Optimality Theory) would be conspicuous: the input would rejected, or the program would simply be unwritable. The phonology of a language would be accompanied as a matter of course by a program generating phonetic representations from phonemic inputs. In fact, a widespread and welcome trend in modern phonology is to regard individual language's phonologies as specific instantiations of universal constraints or structures; so let each theory be fully specified as a programming language, and each individual language's phonology be represented in it (as an ordered list of constraints, or a set of parameter settings, or whatever your favorite theory does). Inconsistencies or ambiguities would stand out like sore thumbs as you played around with the program. In short, executable articles would make linguistic theories more accountable, and make it easier to spot gaps and places where further work is called for.
Incidentally, I have occasionally been known to practice what I'm preaching here: way back when I was studying mathematics, I wrote a program to generate Algerian Arabic broken plurals from singulars, and found the experience very informative. (It worked, too.) Unfortunately, this program was written in Visual Basic 3.0, not a programming language that has aged very well... which is, of course, another issue that would have to be considered.
If someone proposes a vocabulary of protoforms and a set of regular sound shifts, they are writing an explicit algorithm already. With an accompanying executable version of it, taking protoforms as input and outputting descendant forms (and programs to do some of this have already been written, eg Geoff's Sound Change Applier, Phono), you would be able to know exactly what the predicted forms in each descendant language would be, and be able to spot irregularities (in other words, prediction failures) with ease.
Likewise, if someone proposes a phonological principle (whether conceived of as a rule, as a constraint, or otherwise), you could test its effect on arbitrary data and see if it makes the right predictions. Gaps in the theory (for example, the representation of clicks in Government Phonology) or non-computable theories (an accusation sometimes made against Optimality Theory) would be conspicuous: the input would rejected, or the program would simply be unwritable. The phonology of a language would be accompanied as a matter of course by a program generating phonetic representations from phonemic inputs. In fact, a widespread and welcome trend in modern phonology is to regard individual language's phonologies as specific instantiations of universal constraints or structures; so let each theory be fully specified as a programming language, and each individual language's phonology be represented in it (as an ordered list of constraints, or a set of parameter settings, or whatever your favorite theory does). Inconsistencies or ambiguities would stand out like sore thumbs as you played around with the program. In short, executable articles would make linguistic theories more accountable, and make it easier to spot gaps and places where further work is called for.
Incidentally, I have occasionally been known to practice what I'm preaching here: way back when I was studying mathematics, I wrote a program to generate Algerian Arabic broken plurals from singulars, and found the experience very informative. (It worked, too.) Unfortunately, this program was written in Visual Basic 3.0, not a programming language that has aged very well... which is, of course, another issue that would have to be considered.
<g> in Arabic
A belated Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year to all my readers!
This post is brought to you by the letter G - a sound all too common in many languages, including many dialects of Arabic, yet absent from Classical Arabic, leading to a minor quandary for transcribers, and to substantial regional variation. In Morocco, [g] in names is typically written using a kaf ك with three dots (ڭ), as in this sign. In Algeria and Tunisia, it's typically a qaf ق with three dots (ڨ), a choice reflecting the sound shift q > g common in Bedouin dialects, but unfortunately easily confused with the fa with three dots (ڤ) often used elsewhere in the Arab world for [v]. In Egypt, a jim ج is generally used, since classical j is pronounced g in Egyptian dialect. Elsewhere in the Arab world, a kaf with a line on top (گ), as in Persian or Kurdish, is sometimes used. In adapting foreign loanwords, ghayn (eg بلغاريا Bulgaria) or jiim (eg إنجيليزية English) are usual. In a Qatari mall recently, however, I saw yet another system: Osh Kosh B'Gosh was transcribed as أوش كوش بيڠوش, with a ghayn with three dots (Malay ng). I have no idea what country this may be characteristic of - even here it appears rather unusual. Any thoughts?
This post is brought to you by the letter G - a sound all too common in many languages, including many dialects of Arabic, yet absent from Classical Arabic, leading to a minor quandary for transcribers, and to substantial regional variation. In Morocco, [g] in names is typically written using a kaf ك with three dots (ڭ), as in this sign. In Algeria and Tunisia, it's typically a qaf ق with three dots (ڨ), a choice reflecting the sound shift q > g common in Bedouin dialects, but unfortunately easily confused with the fa with three dots (ڤ) often used elsewhere in the Arab world for [v]. In Egypt, a jim ج is generally used, since classical j is pronounced g in Egyptian dialect. Elsewhere in the Arab world, a kaf with a line on top (گ), as in Persian or Kurdish, is sometimes used. In adapting foreign loanwords, ghayn (eg بلغاريا Bulgaria) or jiim (eg إنجيليزية English) are usual. In a Qatari mall recently, however, I saw yet another system: Osh Kosh B'Gosh was transcribed as أوش كوش بيڠوش, with a ghayn with three dots (Malay ng). I have no idea what country this may be characteristic of - even here it appears rather unusual. Any thoughts?
Surah al-Kahf
The Prophet (salAllahu alayhi wasalam) said,‘Whoever recited Surah al Kahf on a Friday, Allah will kindle for him abundant light to brightly illuminate the period between the two Fridays (the Friday on which the recitation was made and the next Friday)’[Hakim 2/367, Mishkat al-Masabih #2175, however Baihaqi disagreed with it’s authenticity in Sahih Al Jami 2/1104]Source: Iqra
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Peas on Earth - Goodwill To All Men
I could hardly believe my eyes when I wandered out onto the balcony this morning. My recent spate of gardening has not so far yielded any fruit (or veg), although there is a bit of parsley kicking around. The healthiest plants in the garden have been the peas: they flowered about a week ago, and this morning I noticed that the flowers have turned into pea pods! Just amazing. Lovely plump pods, possibly enough for an entire serving! Whatever: there is nothing to compare with fresh peas, and we haven't had any such thing during our sojourn in the Sandlands. We'll just wait a few days to see if we get any more, and then we'll harvest them. Yayy!
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