Goats in tree

• French hip hop must die
• Argan oil was a good idea until I learnt that it comes from seeds shat out by goats.
• Cigarettes defeat all notions of private property. Expect to be asked for free cigarettes. All the time, by people you don't know at all.
• Effective communication is an unnecessary prerequisite to maintaining a nation. Moroccan Arabic is completely indecipherable.
• If vegetable oil-fueled cars were pervasive, McDonald's in Morocco would be a refueling station and not a fast food restaurant. Just try the McRoyal.
• Prostate exams are free, and the Casablanca airport cops are trained specialists.
• If you ever have a need to stimulate your capability for optimism and positive thinking, Morocco is the place. Previous point is Exhibit A.
• The most common use for screwdrivers in Morocco is keeping the passenger side window in Peugeot taxis propped up. Creative application of tinfoil will also do, much to the surprise of even the tinfoil itself.
• The trains in Morocco are extremely reliable. This doesn't make any sense, which is in character.
• People can wear dull polyester suits along with garish duckbill caps at the same time without violating any law of physics. Any known law of physics.

One evening as Chiara and I were on a Christmas shopping sprint in Udine, she got an SMS announcing a gathering of Friulano bloggers that evening for aperitivi (for you ignorant non-Italian louses, that's the name given as an excuse to drink wine before dinner). Just after seven, we met up with Il Furlanist and ordered a bottle of vino rosso corposo. The bloggers trickled in over the next half hour, and we ended up with nine persons (not counting the salami-happy canine entourage of one).

I was immediately comfortable with these people as was Chiara, people we had not met before. To my mind, the reason is clear: the Friulano bloggers are a community. I am used to communities arising around a shared interest and I thrive in them. My Linux User Group in Egypt is such a community, and the dynamics clearly map very well: bonhomie, egalitarianism, respect, informality, and the clarity of people who have set up outpost camps in the content-producing side of the media economy.

Yemen exists primarily, one suspects, to provide a definition logic by providing a diametric opposite. As I post this I'm sitting in Sanaa airport waiting for my flight to Amman, and I would be enjoying my first wireless connection in a week if it were not slower than the dialup I've had to make do with.

Out of the 20 odd million people, something like 50% (60 something persent of men and 30 something percent of women) are perpetually drugged on khat. It probably affects the remaining 50% given that the environment can't be too stimulating when one out of every two citizens is stoned as a matter of lifestyle.

This is not a critical post, it is observational. A friendlier people than the Yemenis are hard to find. The picture herein attests to this, taken in a vilage in the southern governorate of Abyan.

Children in Abyan