The Angry Arab and His Fans
For several years I've been reading, off and on, a weblog called "The Angry Arab News Service." It is a most curious place. To enter its environs -- meaning also its comments sections -- is like taking one of those little train rides into a chamber of horrors in a carnival -- or at one of the Disney worlds.
The Angry Arab goes by the name of As'ad. He appears to be a professor of some kind somewhere, possibly in the U.S. I don't know his country of origin. He gets around. He gives lectures all over, from San Francisco to numerous places in the Middle East. Once he played a bit part in the movie "Legally Blonde." He takes seriously the role of his site as a news service, so that every day there are 10 or more fresh items that he gleans from a huge variety of sources. And most are pieces of information that you're not likely to find anywhere else, at least not all in one spot.
His site is valuable in the same way and nearly to the same extent as Juan Cole's Informed Comment. If I want to see what's going on in Iraq and its neighbors, I turn first to Cole. If I want to get some perspectives on situations in the 20 or so Arab countries that are clustered 75 percent of the way around Israel like emeralds adjoining a pendant ruby, or like wolves around a ram, I look to see what Angry Arab has to say.
I don't always know what he's saying, though the site is largely in English. With his time obviously being valuable, he often resorts to being terse and cryptic, and sometimes even a lot of clicking through isn't enough. But I assume he's doing us a favor by even writing in English, or American I should say.
His constituents are not as helpful. Instead I would say that his fans, his hangers-on, his commenters are a disaster, and they reflect the fact that Angry Arab shot himself in the butt from the start by his choice of the site's name. Anger is something that should always be avoided, because it is certain to be accompanied by stupidity, in thoughts and action. I think this is nothing less than one of the irrefutable laws of human physics, and this is why the whole of the Middle East and much of the Arab world is in such terrible turmoil, and why the Israelis are in such a huge pickle, by having allowed themselves to be fetched up squarely in the middle of it
Of the other two weblogists from that region that I read regularly -- Riverbend's "Baghdad Burning" and Raed Jarrar's "Raed in the Middle" -- neither allows comments, and it must be because of all that anger that appears to be so endemic in the Middle East. It's significant that, though both are from Iraq, Riverbend is now in Syria, the last she wrote, which was a while ago, while Raed is safely esconsed in the U.S., where he is happily and authoritatively bitching about the U.S. political system as if he has been here all his life instead of just two or three years, and as Angry Arab isn't also above doing, and with great gusto.
Meanwhile Prof. Angry Arab does permit comments, unmoderated, and he does so at great risk to his site, because the denizens that haunt his comments plumb the rock bottom depths in rudeness, meanness, obscenity, obtuseness, uninformativeness, and in every other undesirable respect that can be conveyed by words. They conduct feuds with each other that are unmatched in viciousness, and among them are so many namby-pambies that hide behind the name "Anonymous" that they can't be told apart.
His commenters, many of them, are in fact so odious that actually they're remarkable. And yet Angry Arab suffers them, though they swoop down and attach themselves to each and every one of his posts like starving buzzards, by the 10's, 20's, and sometimes even up into the '40's.
All in all, it's an interesting site.
Angry Arab clearly does not suffer from stomach ulcers, though he must think he's above any of the dangers of the road. Lately, without explanation, he has taken bitter exception to warnings being handed out by the Queen of Jordan, Raini, against reckless driving.
The Angry Arab goes by the name of As'ad. He appears to be a professor of some kind somewhere, possibly in the U.S. I don't know his country of origin. He gets around. He gives lectures all over, from San Francisco to numerous places in the Middle East. Once he played a bit part in the movie "Legally Blonde." He takes seriously the role of his site as a news service, so that every day there are 10 or more fresh items that he gleans from a huge variety of sources. And most are pieces of information that you're not likely to find anywhere else, at least not all in one spot.
His site is valuable in the same way and nearly to the same extent as Juan Cole's Informed Comment. If I want to see what's going on in Iraq and its neighbors, I turn first to Cole. If I want to get some perspectives on situations in the 20 or so Arab countries that are clustered 75 percent of the way around Israel like emeralds adjoining a pendant ruby, or like wolves around a ram, I look to see what Angry Arab has to say.
I don't always know what he's saying, though the site is largely in English. With his time obviously being valuable, he often resorts to being terse and cryptic, and sometimes even a lot of clicking through isn't enough. But I assume he's doing us a favor by even writing in English, or American I should say.
His constituents are not as helpful. Instead I would say that his fans, his hangers-on, his commenters are a disaster, and they reflect the fact that Angry Arab shot himself in the butt from the start by his choice of the site's name. Anger is something that should always be avoided, because it is certain to be accompanied by stupidity, in thoughts and action. I think this is nothing less than one of the irrefutable laws of human physics, and this is why the whole of the Middle East and much of the Arab world is in such terrible turmoil, and why the Israelis are in such a huge pickle, by having allowed themselves to be fetched up squarely in the middle of it
Of the other two weblogists from that region that I read regularly -- Riverbend's "Baghdad Burning" and Raed Jarrar's "Raed in the Middle" -- neither allows comments, and it must be because of all that anger that appears to be so endemic in the Middle East. It's significant that, though both are from Iraq, Riverbend is now in Syria, the last she wrote, which was a while ago, while Raed is safely esconsed in the U.S., where he is happily and authoritatively bitching about the U.S. political system as if he has been here all his life instead of just two or three years, and as Angry Arab isn't also above doing, and with great gusto.
Meanwhile Prof. Angry Arab does permit comments, unmoderated, and he does so at great risk to his site, because the denizens that haunt his comments plumb the rock bottom depths in rudeness, meanness, obscenity, obtuseness, uninformativeness, and in every other undesirable respect that can be conveyed by words. They conduct feuds with each other that are unmatched in viciousness, and among them are so many namby-pambies that hide behind the name "Anonymous" that they can't be told apart.
His commenters, many of them, are in fact so odious that actually they're remarkable. And yet Angry Arab suffers them, though they swoop down and attach themselves to each and every one of his posts like starving buzzards, by the 10's, 20's, and sometimes even up into the '40's.
All in all, it's an interesting site.
Angry Arab clearly does not suffer from stomach ulcers, though he must think he's above any of the dangers of the road. Lately, without explanation, he has taken bitter exception to warnings being handed out by the Queen of Jordan, Raini, against reckless driving.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:13 AM
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