Stop The Press ...

I might have been tweleve years old when I started reading newspapers. Everyday on my way back from school I would grab my dad's copy and read Al Ittihad in the car. In the begining it was the just the last page and the Rayy Ennas articles, then I got interested in the 7awadeth section and so on, by the time I was in high school I was reading the whole paper more or less, including the dreadful first page that I purposly used to skip and the political and social essays written by renowned journalists.

It was one of those first page news that got me into one of my first great depressions. The 2001 "Intifada" broke my heart. The helplessness was too great to bear. To me the only way of coping was pretending that ignorance is bliss. And so it was in 2001 that I decided to end this long love-hate relationship and stop reading the papers altogether.

Surprisingly enough, for a person who eventually got a degree in Media Studies, I did not really need to read the papers. ( Now don't judge me; judge the program I was enrolled in!)

It wasnt until quiet recently, in a de-bimbofying* attempt to resuscitate my former so-called intellectual self that I sought back the company of newspapers. And this time I took out the big guns! I started going through a couple of local newspapers, and some arab and international news websites. This way I thought I will get the big picture. I would be able to evaluate infromation to produce my own unbiased and educated opinions on international affairs. And at the same time I would be able to steer away from getting into personal, emotional and irational dilemmas.**

Alas! I might as well had tried to make my boss fly!


It ain't ignorance that causes all the trouble in this world. It's the things people know that ain't so. --Edwin Armstrong




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* I had to use that word! Since I made up that word this morning, I could not wait to use it!!
** Seems like I copied that from my ZULO reflection papers!!