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Juan Cole

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“Mull”:  Twitter word of the Day (Short Words for 140-Character Messages)

“Mull”: Twitter word of the Day (Short Words for 140-Character Messages)

Juan Cole

Twitter imposes a 140-character limit on messages, requiring that authors make every word count. To “consider” or to “contemplate” are long words, and character-hogs. The Middle English word “mull” gets the same work done. The Oxford English Dictionary lists the verb “mull” as of unknown origin. It could be from the noun, “mull,” which in […]

Africa
Kenya: Solar Power on a Pay as you Go Plan gives Light, rechargers to Villagers

Kenya: Solar Power on a Pay as you Go Plan gives Light, rechargers to Villagers

Juan Cole

“Small solar home systems bring good quality light and phone-charging to off-grid households and save them money. Yet their upfront costs render them out of reach for the people who would benefit most from them. UK-based startup Azuri has developed a pay-as-you-go interface which allows households [in Kenya and East Africa] to pay for solar […]

Domestic Surveillance
Obama Explains his NSA Domestic Spying & Why it differs from Bush's (Cartoon satire)

Obama Explains his NSA Domestic Spying & Why it differs from Bush’s (Cartoon satire)

Juan Cole

Cartoon satire: “President Obama explains why Americans should not be concerned about the NSA’s secret data collection program and that he is very different from George W. Bush.” The video is here:

Israel/ Palestine
Israel's District 9:  Its Biggest Ethnic Cleansing since 1948

Israel’s District 9: Its Biggest Ethnic Cleansing since 1948

Juan Cole

30,000 Palestinian-Israelis of Bedouin heritage are are being forcibly transferred by the Israeli government, and thousands of acres of their land is being stolen from them. The 972 article compares it to Apartheid South Africa’s District 6, the inspiration for the film, “District 9” The Palestinian-Israelis are mounting big protests today. Aljazeera English reports Amjad […]

Egypt
The Backlash against Political Islam is not a Backlash against Islam:  Egypt and Bangladesh

The Backlash against Political Islam is not a Backlash against Islam: Egypt and Bangladesh

Juan Cole

There is a big difference between being a believing Muslim and being a devotee of political Islam. Political Islam attempts to make the religion a platform for gaining governmental power. This movement (political Islam or the Muslim religious Right) has been very important in many Muslim countries in the past few decades, but its rise […]

US politics
Guns and Sissified Punks (Friday Scene)

Guns and Sissified Punks (Friday Scene)

Juan Cole

From the 1995 stoner movie “Friday”: The father [John Witherspoon] of Craig Jones [Ice Cube] warns him against carrying a gun in the local neighborhood if he wants to be a real man: The video is here:

Energy
Tiny Cape Verde's Push to be a World Leader in Wind Energy

Tiny Cape Verde’s Push to be a World Leader in Wind Energy

Juan Cole

Finnfund explains: “The windswept islands of Cape Verde lie off West Africa, some 500 km from Senegal. They are the site of Africa’s largest wind power project, which started up in autumn 2011. Generating equipment on four of the islands will produce a greater proportion of electricity from wind than anywhere else in the world…” […]

Domestic Surveillance
A Century of America’s Imperial Deep State (McCoy)

A Century of America’s Imperial Deep State (McCoy)

Juan Cole

Alfred W. McCoy writes at Tomdispatch.com The American surveillance state is now an omnipresent reality, but its deep history is little known and its future little grasped.  Edward Snowden’s leaked documents reveal that, in a post-9/11 state of war, the National Security Agency (NSA) was able to create a surveillance system that could secretly monitor […]

US politics
Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers

Whites and African-Americans in America by the numbers

Juan Cole

88% of African-Americans in a recent Pew poll said that there was “a lot” (46%) or “some” (42% ) discrimination against them. Only 57% of whites agreed, and only 16% of whites said there is “a lot” of discrimination against African-Americans: Average household net worth of whites: $110,000. Average household net worth of African-Americans: $5000 […]

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Juan Cole
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