If i were Gamal...

A million words were said about Gamal mubarak's succession to his father, but Gamal is not making the right moves to ensure that the power ball would smoothly fall into his lap. Apart from attending football matches and establishing a pro-gamal front within the national democratic party, he is not hitting the major keys that would guarantee him full control of Egypt. To control Egypt, Gamal must be on the job of eliminating the old Mubarak Team and putting in power his own. The military and the Egyptian intelligence are the 2 major institutions absolutely mandatory to establish a stable rule over Egypt, or any country for that matter. It is crucially needed for Gamal, following that train of though to put two old dogs to sleep (guess who ?). It is a rule of history regarding the law of power and governments that rejection to change at its fiercest levels, is displayed by those who control institutions of might trying to protect themselves from that change. It is very hard to try and get an old dog out of his house especially after the owner is dead. Gamal shouldn't be trying to score points with the Egyptian public or appeal to the youth of Egypt (something he has been trying lately ), but he should be getting his cards in line to flash the right hand whenever the time comes. Filthy rich businessmen like Ahmad Ezz (considered by many political analysts to be part of Gamal's NPR team) can be helpful only when there is a gun protecting their route to the bank . After establishing control over Egypt by eliminating the old team, clearing any competition and putting in power his own team , Gamal would then be able to negotiate terms to his rule with the united states. So If i were Gamal Mobarak i wouldn't trust the old rottweilers so much, i would breed me some new ones.

Podcast: Mosque of Al Hussayn.

Script:

The mosque of al Hussein is an architectural wonder and one of the many sites worth checking out for those interested in Islamic architecture. Al Hussein was the son of Ali, Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and Fatima his daughter.

After his father was killed Al Hussein claimed the caliphate from yazid iibn maawyah and was killed in Karbala’ with 72 of his companions while fighting with Yazid’s enormous army.

The shrine was built in 1154 and it is claimed that the head of Hussein is in the shrine of that mosque but the claim is controversial since shii’is believe it is in the mosque of Imam Hussein in karbala’.

The mosque includes great architectural work but it is hard to relate the restorations to time periods because it was renovated so many times. The remaining part of the Fatimid structure is believed to be the lower part of the gateway at the south corner of the mosque called Bab Al akhdar.

The Ayyubids in 1237 added a minaret with carved panels of arabesque in stucco; it is above the fatimid gateway. Al Husayn’s wooden cenotaph, a magnificent example of
Twentieth century wood carving is at the Islamic museum of art. The mosque’s wood ceiling is supported by forty four white marble columns.

The mosque is a centre for congregational prayers in Cairo today. The Shrine is also a major visiting site for many Muslims. The great silver mashrabeyya screen surrounding the shrine was a gift from the Bohra ismai’li brotherhood in India. The mosque of husayn remains to this day one of the most important sites of Islamic architecture in Cairo-.

Podcast: Sheikh Abd el Hamid Kishk

Script:

Sheikh kishk, one of the most influential Muslim scholars in the 20th century was born on the 10th of march 1933 in shobrakheit, beheira. He memorized the qur’an before the age of 10 then joined the religious institute in Alexandria. Kishk graduated from al Azhar University with the highest grades at that time.

After graduation, he worked as a teacher for Al azhar for a while then he was appointed as imam in couple of mosques before taking a job at Ein el hayat mosque which was the platform for delivering his speeches especially in Friday prayers since around 1962.

Kishk frequently spoke in his speeches against all forms of political oppression and corruption. He also spoke against the government decisions that he considered to be inconsistent with the Islamic belief.

He was arrested in 1965 and stayed in prison for two years, during which was moved around to different prisons and suffered extreme torture but he still kept his job as the imam of Ein el hayat mosque. Since 1972 his popularity increased significantly and crowds of more than 10,000 used to attend the Friday prayer with him.

In 1976 he started speaking out against the Egyptian government and the policies of Anwar al sadat especially after the Camp David treaty which he considered to be an act of treachery against Islam and Muslims. He continued to speak out in his lectures and speeches against all forms of corruption and oppression within Egyptian life until he got arrested in 1981. He was released in 1982 and forbidden to give speeches or conduct lectures.

In one of his famous speeches he addressed the Egyptian minister of health blaming him for the deteriorating health care program for Egyptians and the high medicine prices that many cannot afford.

He refused to leave Egypt except to Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage in 1973. He wrote about 115 books and is considered to be one of the most phenomenal Egyptian public speakers. Kishk also called for many reforms regarding al Azhar University. He died on the 6th of December 1996, when he was 63 years old leaving hundreds of recorded lectures, books and a great legacy to be found rarely.

Palestine...

A picture is worth a thousand words, and here are some drawings by Carlos latuff best describing the Gaza situation and the Israeli occupation of Palestine overall, from different angles.


(click the pictures to view full size)

Project #4: Yasir khan interview

Yasir khan, a multimedia journalist, reporter, and film maker. He worked in CNN, and CBC and produced many news stories all over the world. he was one of the first journalists to report on tsunami from the scene of the disaster. His passion for story telling and learning lead him to a career in journalism, a teaching job at AUC and finally he will be going back to his first love, journalism.


Interview script:

Mostafa: Dr yasir, your journalistic career began with an internship at CNN in 1996, then associate producer at CNN before moving to CBC in 1998, so tell me how was the start, how did you get hooked up with journalism ?


YAsir: My parents sent me to Canada to be a doctor and I have a degree in neuroscience, but during my second year, my sophomore year of degree in neuroscience I started writing for the university newspaper. And then within a couple of months I became editor of the newspaper, so I started writing in the newspaper and it was like a whole new world that opened up to me, and after finishing university I knew I wanted to do television because I’m a very visual person and I like to watch television, I like the process behind it and so I called CNN, somebody at CNN out of the blue and asked for an internship and they told me to get the hell out, because they didn’t know who I was and they didn’t know why I was calling them and I just kept persisting until somebody said fine, come here and show me what you got. So that was in 1996 I sold my car and took the money and went down to CNN in Atlanta state for a while and because it was an unpaid internship I would have to finance everything myself.

Mostafa: Then you moved to CBC in 1998, why did you make that decision?

Yasir: Well my family was still in Canada, and working in the states is great and there is a lot of opportunity but it’s a boring story about paper work, and also when you graduate out of university in Canada if you don’t want to take money from your parents which I didn’t, you have student loans that you need to pay off, if you start working outside the country they expect you to pay the whole loan back immediately, because they don’t know how much money you are making, but if you work in Canada then they structure your re-payment of the loan according to the salary that you are making so for very boring reasons of student loans I had to move back to Canada and I got an offer at the
CBC and I took it and said goodbye to CNN.

Mostafa: When did you come to AUC?

Yasir: August 2007

Mostafa: You said that coming to AUC you wanted to share and transmit all you knowledge that you have learned in the 12 years.

Yasir: I cam to AUC because I wanted to see if I could teach, I had 12 years of experience of doing journalism and I had never taught before, and this was a new challenge for me and If you look at my CV I’m, constantly moving around tp places where I can learn something; if I stop learning in a place then I’m out, so at my previous job it was a wonderful job with a wonderful crew and a wonderful show but had just stopped learning.

Mostafa: how were you able to transmit your experience and knowledge to AUC students?
Yasir: All I know is that I’m showing up to class and I’m telling them everything that I know and showing them how to do things from what I know, whether or not I have transmitted my knowledge I have no idea, I guess the fact that I still have a job here means that I’m doing something right, no body has walked into my class and said you are fired professor Khan. So the idea was to bring whatever I have learned from 1996 to 2007, actually from 1995 to 2007 to bring it to class and share it with students and teach them how to do things as I have known them.

Mostafa: So you are leaving AUC, so why are you doing that?

Yasir: I have been meaning to go back to journalism for a year now. I feel that I have figured out how to teach and I would love to come back to teaching in about 10, 15 years with a lot more experience I feel I have a bunch of experience but I feel I need more and journalism is my first love, story telling is my first love and I’m finding that while teaching I’m not left with the energy or the time to actually practice journalism on my own. So I have received a wonderful offer to go back to the world of journalism especially at a time where journalism outlets are being shutdown or down sized and cutback; to get a job offer in this climate is actually quite spectacular so I am going back to my first love which is journalism.

It's Not Funny Anymore: Comedy in the Recession (Listening journal #3)

Producer: Maria Bartholdi
Narrator: Maria Bartholdi
Length: 18:09



The documentary was about a comedy club going out of business in Wisconsin. The owner, the comedians who work at the club and everyone involved in this club are soon to be out of business as the owner is filing for bankruptcy. The comedians in this particular club take comedy seriously and follow creative approaches involving their audiences in the skits making it more like one big happy family. Narrator Maria Bartholdi, approaches the recession topic emotionally, in the documentary, the fact that lots of lives are involved in a comedy club with the sole reason of putting laughs on the faces of people, and that those lives as well as this unique institution are jeopardized by the recession is presented in the documentary as heartbreaking. This is achieved through the utilization of Nat sound, parts of the interviews with the owner and the comedians and the description of the setting in which this sad transition is taking place.

This documentary was very interesting because, although a sad story is being told which was very clear through the narrator's voice, the use of nat sound, the music and the script showed hope and also let the comedians make fun about the whole situation to prove what big of a loss this is.

The quality of nat sound and narrator's voice were great although the use of use of some of the parts of interviews were not clear as they were voiced over by the narrator. The interviews were used effectively to go along with the tone of the piece, sad then happy then sad again.

The last segment in the documentary was especially very good because Maria Bartholdi at the end asked each one of the comedians about the way they feel in the last night and that successfully went along with the tone of hope the documentary introduced in the second half.

The documentary was about 18 minutes but it felt like 5 minutes or shorter; it was sad, funny, sad and then full of hope.

The documentary had a good start but the end was particularly strong because it closed with a conversation between Bartholdi and one of the comedians that ended in a hilarious punch line, and then a song started that really related to the documentary.

PSA#1 Awladi Orphanage

Organization: Awlady Orphanage
Contact Info: Tel: 5212700/659 Fax:5212598
www.awlady.org
Heading: Awlady Orphanage
Airdates(s): March, 2010 – May, 2010

Duration: 30 seconds


Music: (Starts MA Maistro Track 12)

Anch 2: (Impressed) These children look amazing

Anch 1: (Depressed) Do you know that some of these children sleep hungry and others do not have medical care?

Anch2: (Disappointed) And why is that?

Anch 1: (In a sad tone) The money we receive from donators annually is not enough. Have you ever considered giving your money to our orphanage?

Anch 2: No, What do they provide for the children?

Anch 1: Awlady Orphanage tries to provide a home for the children, with emphasis on
education and vocational training to ensure that they become productive members of
society.

Anch 2: How to donate?

Anch 1: Either through Misr International Bank #5505356 or Visit our website www.awlady.org

MUSIC: (fade music out)

-End-

Listening Journal #2: International News

Title: BBC World service (Time 2:30 am)

Producer: BBC

Length: 4:59

(ostrich egg fragments could represent earliest forms of written communication)

The BBC newscast included stories about:

1- Ethiopian aid money used by repels to buy guns. (reporter included)

2- Son of a founding member of Hamas said he worked as a spy for Israel. (reporter included)

3- Chile’s earthquake. (reporter included, but the sound quality is bad)

4- Chief of Guatemala’s national police was arrested in a case involving stolen cocaine and slain police.

5- HIV as the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age worldwide. (reporter included)

6- German prosecutors have opened investigations into allegations of sexual abuse at two Roman Catholic schools by four different monks.

7- Scientists say they found signs of one of the early forms of human written communication in South Africa.

The newscast was interesting and captured my attention. The stories were really interesting.

The quality of sound was good, and the announcer’s voice was great. Nat sound was used in the Chile earthquake story and it enriched the story, as sirens are cars moving can be heard with the reporter’s voice.

The newscast’s length was okay and it wasn’t boring. BBC’s website was really interesting as it has a feature where you can drag and replace news boxes. For example, you can put Sports or weather at the top or change the order of news sections on the website.

Listening Journal #2: International News

Title: NPR Hourly News Summary
Producer: NPR
Length: 4:46


(massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake in Chile)

Newscaster Jack Spear started with the story of Chile’s 8.8 Magnitude earthquakes then the reporter (supposedly in Chile) talked about how strong the earthquake was. He then switched to a story about president Obama’s speech about home energy upgrades in Georgia, and part of the president’s speech was included as nat sound. Spear for the third story briefly introduced the topic, and then the reporter gave details about the story and introduced a Ford official before including a part of the interview with him. He then announced the change in stock market points. For the last part, the reporter talked about the story.

The newscast was interesting, because each story was presented in a different way. The newscaster presented the first story, and then the reporter presented the second one after a brief introduction by the newscaster. The third story was briefly introduced by Jack Spear but the reporter presented all the details including an interview.

The quality of sound was great throughout the story except for the reporter’s voice in the first story (it was probably a phone call). The quality of the announcer’s voice was good and he sounded conversational.

The use of nat sound wasn’t sufficient especially in the Chile earthquake story. The story was dry and needed nat sound of cars moving or anything indicating the rescue operations in action.
The length of the newscast was okay, it wasn’t too long or too short.

Generally the newscast was interesting, and the newscaster’s voice was clear, but nat sound could have been utilized more effectively.