Brillante!
A while ago Naj and Gina were kind enough to mention this blog for this award. Thank you so much 🙂
Gina, aka ‘The Pagan Sphinx’ wrote about “building solidarity with a blog award“, so I am passing this award with the same spirit to:
1 – Sister-city site: Lair of the Bluebear
2 – Dear friend and great writer Ressentiment
3 – Les Politiques, Sophia and her daily quest for the truth
4 – Pedestrian, simply brilliant!
5 – Peyman, Thinking eyes, blogs in Persian. Great selection of subjects, from which I borrow from time to time – the muse of his blog: two-years-old Yasna
6 – Dear Kitty: many many interesting pieces of news plus a glance at the wild life
7 – Words and Pictures by 37 year old Ali Ramezani who works outside Afghanistan (where I have previously borrowed these pictures). He writes (in Persian) about his homeland and countries he visits, translates Russian poetry … you can communicate with him in English or in Russian
8 – Farida, Afghanistan in Peace blogs in English. She has finished high school and wants to be an engineer to help rebuild dear Afghanistan
Through the last two blogs you can open a door to a country described during the 70’s by photographer Luke Powell in the following words: “No motor vehicles, no power lines. Everything was homemade and everyone was happy and no one was hungry. It was the most beautiful place“.
The rules: Put the logo on your blog, add a link to the person who awarded you, nominate at least 7 other blogs, add links to those blogs on yours, leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.
Related post: Solidarity
Let’s Kick Ass
One day, almost out of nowhere, someone shows up at your blog, writes a comment and a friendship is born. That’s what happened with Gina, aka The Pagan Sphinx. Since, I have an eye on a slice of her life, her tastes and her generous world view.
For some reason she thinks that I “kick ass” and she has bestowed me a Kick Ass Award!
Thank you Gina 🙂 🙂 🙂
That’s the idea: “Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?
Maybe they’ve got incredible, original content. Or they’re overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person… or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off…
————————
Nothing but these words -“kick ass”- makes me think immediately of neufneuf! Sorry if I am back to the usual suspects, but she is The universal kick-ass-er, on earth and in outer space. She has been kicking mine for a while now 🙂
“Or maybe it’s someone who simply inspires you to be a better person …” Now this makes me think of PPGG, aka Ann El Khoury, or Reclaiming Space same as Peoples Geography. She is erudite, she is gracious even with her most nasty visitors. She inspires and strives toward a better world.
Which makes me think of another blogger/friend, a real inspiration. No – I won’t name him – he might find the title of the award disrespectful considering his line of work 🙂
Proggiemuslima also qualifies: Right in the midst of the war of terror here is an American turned Muslim – although I bet this wasn’t the real reason. Isn’t this enough to make you a “kick ass”? She doesn’t like “to be told”. She has a great sense of humor, which appears when she finds the time in her busy life to add her personal salt to the news.
In these troubled times, probably by temperament rather than by choice, Eatbees’ blog is where East meets West. He can address difficult subjects concerning both parties. He manages to keep the trust and friendship of a great variety of readers. And as if this wasn’t enough, he will answer your long emails with even longer emails with honesty and wit.
Now, if you all will: Choose five other bloggers that you feel are “Kick Ass Bloggers” and let them know.
Small School & Successful Blog
Probably no one would have ever heard of A.M. She’rani if he hadn’t started a blog.
Jadid Online: “When Abdul Mohammad She’rani was asked to describe his future ambitions in the first year of high school he wrote ‘to be a teacher in a far-flung village’. Now aged 21, Mr She’rani teaches in a small Iranian fishing village of Jamalabad Kalu near the southern port city of Bushehr. His tiny school consists of only four pupils ...”
Meet She’rani and his four pupils in this short presentation with English subtitles low / high speed
A few posts translated by one of She’rani’s fans
Too Many Good Blogs …
… too many notes
While he wasn’t paying attention, eatbees has been nominated by conservative blogger Jon Swift -a finalist in the Funniest Blog category himself – for the 2007 Weblog Awards in the Best Middle East or Africa Blog category. See his latest post: Weblog Awards Finalist! You can also find in this post a selection of eatbees‘ articles.
Congrats and best wishes 🙂
Relevant links: Radiant days
Jon Swift Nominated for a 2007 Weblog Award for Funniest Blog
Thinking Blogger Award
Many of my favorite bloggers are nominated for the Thinking Blogging Award.
You can have all the information about it in:
Ilker Yoldas blog, where this has started
Thinking Blogger Award by PPGG
Thinking Blogger Award by Ben Heine
PPGG has been kind enough to tag my humble blog among all those smart people, and now I’ll have to tag 5 more bloggers:
Let me just add the passionate, funny, smart and Zen Agent 99 somewhere in her moon base before BB2 does so 🙂 , but I need more time and a clearer head to finish this post!
I just wish to bring some of the bloggers who are already tagged to your attention and suggest you to visit their great blogs. You already know some of them, my good friends by now:
Reclaiming Space
Ben Heine
Lair of the Bluebair
Can’t see the forest
Les Politiques
The Fanonite
And here are other blogs I met through the selections of some of the nominees:
Desert Peace
A Poetic Justice
Tales of Iraq by Latuf
Sabbah
Kurt Nimmo
eatbees
… to be continued
Drums!
Still Alive
Courtesy of Saleh Ara
Photoblog: Words are never enough
Blog: Last4words
درجستجوي كلمات
Saleh’s links
Unrelated Topic
Sheta wrote:
Today I’ve been pretending to be African again.
The reason: Our washing machine has died. The lack of two things constitute Africa in my mind: Washing macines and hot showers. Washing clothes by hand makes me feel like almost being home again. Scrub til your knuckles are sore – then rinse and rinse again. After rinsing four times, you give up to the fact that you’re never going to get all the soap out, and anyway, your’re gonna have to wash that t-shirt again in a few days anyway. Back aching from bending over too long. Washing clothes is hard work. But it makes me feel that all I need to do is open the door and step outside, and there will be red dirt underneath my feet, the sun will beat against my head, and the air will resound with cockrows and distant radios and children laughing and singing. I get so homesick sometimes. Today, Africa is mercilessly far away.
Persian Blogs
“Has everyone noticed the spooky absence of graffiti in our public toilets since the arrival of web logs? Remember the toilets at the university we used to call our ‘Freedom Columns’?”
Iran through the eyes of the country’s bloggers
by
Nasrin Alavi
“Yesterday I bought a turquoise ring…They say it brings you happiness… I didn’t let my boyfriend buy it… I bought it myself. I wanted to be the creator of my own happiness, beauty and freedom… The era of fairy-tale heroes has come to an end.”
“If George Bush, Dick Cheney and the Fox News Network swapped places with Ayatollah Khamenei, Rafsanjani and our own state-controlled television network… nothing much would change in the world. Just as everything in Iran is the fault of the Americans, in America, the Middle Eastern terrorists are to blame for all the woes of the World…”
“Here in this forgotten corner of the world, lost in this third millennium, I am worried about the crumbling ruins collapsing on my only child’s head … Not far away in the civilized world, people would laugh at my deepest fears… No rubble will disturb their dreams… I can hear them snoring.” …
We Are Iran: Independent 2006 Books of the Year, New Statesman critics’ choice 2006
Fariba Amini review of the book for Peyvand: a great website presenting in English information about news, arts, books, sports, and much more. I specially enjoy the book reviews. Thank you Naj for having posted about this book in the first place!
Other reviews: NewStatesman, The Independent, Guardian, and Soft Skull Press where you can download a sample chapter
Nasrin Alavi a British Iranian. She spent her formative years in Iran and attended university in Britain. She lives both in London and in Tehran.
A summary of Nasrin’s articles in Open Democracy, and Comment is Free Guardian.
Iranian Blogs, Wikipedia
Forever Under Construction 
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