Open Society Institute, the network of philanthropic foundations established by billionaire George Soros, has long promoted access to information because it understands that information is power and that people in positions of power often try to withhold information from those who don’t have power. In most organizations – and even entire fields – information flows [...]

Liberia is getting some (does quote marks) love on Twitter today because of a new web documentary on Vice Magazine. What else can we find on Vice Magazine’s website?

I’m not happy about the documentary. Here’s the comment I left on Ethan’s blog post:
Idiotic, sensationalizing, simplistic, and in many places factually incorrect. And I say this [...]

What’s the point of getting drunk anyway? The point is this: you’re at the bar, you’re having fun, you walk upstairs, you take it all in. And you leave. There’s no need – no reason – to leave, but you leave. You’re on 3rd and Santa Monica and you start walking. You don’t know where [...]

Just to clarify, I am 100% not responsible for the intro script. Sparsh’s extra strength margaritas might be. Happy new years.
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Whether Avatar is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it’s undeniable that the film – like alien apartheid flick District 9, released earlier this year – is emphatically a fantasy about race. Specifically, it’s a fantasy about race told from the point of view of white [...]

In Jordan, like in most societies, conversations among friends and family frequently turn into complaint circles with long lists of frustrations directed at the local and national governments, unresponsive banks, damaged roads, and corrupt officials. In September 2008 four Jordanian technologists developed Ishki to serve as a complaint brokerage which collects and organizes complaints from [...]

This sounds idiotic, but I was really hoping to leave the Middle East without new friends, and without a desire to learn more about yet another region/culture/language. ‘Make new friends, and keep the old’ sounds great, but it has its limits and I reached those a while back. But it is hard not to fall [...]

I’ve been back in the United States for four days now, but I still feel like I’m stuck in first gear, always ready to take a nap but never able to fall asleep. The end of December is, in many ways, both exciting and challenging. I need to wrap up all the projects of [...]

Five years ago I boarded a flight from San Diego to Boston to attend the 2004 Internet & Society conference at the Berkman Center. This was just a month after George Bush won the 2004 election and so there was an element of group therapy to many of the panel discussions. 2004 was the year [...]

Salam Pax in Beirut for the Arab Bloggers Meeting.
Six years ago:
One day, like in Afghanistan, those journalists will get bored and go write about Syria or Iran; Iraq will be off your media radar. Out of sight, out of mind. Lucky you, you have that option. I have to live it.
Salam Pax, 2003

Four and a [...]