Just finished watching the movie A Jihad for Love. One of the first of its kind - a documentary following the personal stories of Homosexuals in Muslim nations. A highly controversial film, highlighting these issues which most dare not talk about.

It is heartbreaking to see these people’s struggle between love for their religion vs. realizing their sexuality. At first fighting against their innate feelings, hoping that the “wrong” can be cured, seeking advice, even marrying - to eventually find out that there is no cure. One of the women interviewed in the film described her search for answers to figure out why she was different, and how she could change. She tried the IslamOnline web portal, where she got in touch with Imams and other priests who all suggested that she get married as a cure. Well, she did. And she also somehow managed to get a divorce and escape from her country years later.

A Persian man told his tale - arrested at a “gay” meetup, whipped and beaten, managed to flee to Turkey. He received refugee status from the UNHCR and a visa to Canada. He cries when he finally arrives in Canada - “How can I be free when so many others cannot?!”

What touched me most was seeing how devoted these people still are; after all they’ve been through. How they maintain such a strong connection with their god, even though they are afraid; afraid that they will be punished by god for their actions. The film also introduces  the concept of Ijtihad, or independent reassuring. It is defined as the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the legal sources, the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Conservative Muslims say that most Muslims do not have the training in legal sources to conduct ijtihad. They argue that this role was traditionally given to those who have studied for a number of years under a scholar. However, liberal movements within Islam generally argue that any Muslim can perform ijtihad, through which gay Muslims can justify their right for being both Homosexual and follow the Islam.

Tonight I feel thankful.
Thankful for living in a culture that will not stone me to death if I fall in love with a man.
Thankful to have the freedom and support to act according to my heart.
Thankful that the sky is piercing blue, for me.

Sharma refuses to associate homosexuality with shame, but recognizes the need to protect the safety and privacy of his sources, by filming them in silhouette or with their faces blurred. In one case, the family of an Afghan woman he interviewed “would undoubtedly kill her” if they found out she was lesbian. In another example, one of the associate producers, an Egyptian gay man, chose not to be listed in the credits for fear of possible consequences.
The film was banned from screening at the 2008 Singapore International Film Festival “in view of the sensitive nature of the subject that features Muslim homosexuals in various countries and their struggle to reconcile religion and their lifestyle,” Amy Chua, Singapore Board of Film Censors chairwoman was quoted as saying by The Straits Times.

The film’s director updates his daily blog with thoughts from his tour as well as comments he receives from fans of the film around the world.

Technorati Tags: homosexuality, islam, film

A fun service which takes text as input, and outputs a fun, visual tag environment. Check mine out:

I forget how much I love seeing a city wake up. Twilight time - as the sun inches its way up into the sky, waking up the birds first, then cars, roads and stores. And except for the movie set which was built out along the promenade, the beach made a perfect setting for the start of yet another picture-perfect day in the SoCal kingdom of sunny blue skies. Now that I feel cleansed and fresh, its time to hit the 405 and the not-so-lovely LA traffic.

An interesting thread has been running in the Global Voices List on expanding GVO’s output to include audio content - a daily podcast including a summary of the day’s important posts. What I love about the GVO community is its constant efforts to come up with additional features and possible outputs, all under the big idea of amplifying voices from around the world, those which are usually not heard. Providing audio content on the site can raise its outreach substantially - providing access to disabled audiences and making it easier for readers whom English is not the first language. Fellow GVO-er Deborah Dilley wrote an insightful post organizing her thoughts on the topic. She writes that the most problematic part in regards to this idea is the actual manpower; getting people to record text is not simple, and requires much time. Jeremy Clark, hacker/designer extraordinaire suggested using archive.org for hosting all the content, and linking to GVO’s site from there. I really do like the idea of GV articles being read by their author’s voices, the visual side of me can’t help but want to take the experience one step further.

I am a big sucker for the New York times audio+visual slideshows. The interactive environment that the NYTimes has built is a fantastic way to receive personal stories - stunning photos, solid narration and lots of links to videos and texts. I almost want to build something similar for GVO. With the joint forces of the 100+ Authors from around the world, the slideshow can concentrate on a different topic every time. Its creator will need to fetch a variety of CC flickr photos, and attach a short recording of the topic. There could be additional links to videos and other stories on the topic - A visual representation of a story for those readers who engage with the content better through images rather than text.

Below, a screenshot from the NYTimes Interactive slideshow about life in Gaza. Shortly narrated at first, then accompanied by four different perspectives on people who live in Gaza.

Conclusion? I need many more hours in the day. On my list of to-do’s - find an effective, open source tool that would allow us to create these visual-audio slideshows for GVO. If that doesn’t exist… well… build it.

Technorati Tags: audio, news, global, voices, online, visual, slideshow, gvo

Oso (a.k.a. David Sasaki) - friend and great source of inspiration - has been running the Rising Voices project, a spinoff of Global Voices, one of my all time favorite initiatives on the web. Rising Voices is successful because it arms real people with the tools to tell their stories. The projects usually focus on marginalized communities, usually far from mainstream media’s interests.

When do you get to hear about life in Madagascar? Or those communities recovering from the war in Bolivia? or even about daily life in Iran. Rising Voices provides micro-grants to a chosen number of projects on a bi-yearly basis. All projects deal with one major topic - providing regular people around the world the knowledge and toolset to share their stories; amplify their voices.

Rising Voices seeks to empower under-represented communities to make their voices heard online by 1.) providing financial support to outreach projects, 2.) developing a series of participatory media tutorials, and 3.) cultivating a network of passionate citizen media activists to help encourage and support the replication of outreach trainings.

Below is a trailer highlighting several of the Rising Voices projects. David has challenged the GV community to translate it into over 50 different languages. I did my share - Hebrew text available (using the fantastic dotSUB service). I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to translate subtitles.

Keep up the amazing work David!

Technorati Tags: risingvoices, rising, voices, GVO, globalvoicesonline, citizen, journalism, third, world, citizen, media

I love that the NYtimes Travel section is supporting an interactive means of providing its readers with travel destination information. Matt is traveling through Europe on a low budget, sharing his experiences and recommendations via blogging and vlogging once a week. He prompts his readers to send in suggestions and recommendations on where to go, what to see and where to eat. I am impressed by the amounts of people commenting on his posts and sending in recommendations. However, I am unimpressed by the way they are presented on the blog - yes, as a list of comments. I’d love to see the NYtimes make use of this fantastic data after Matt’s 12 weeks are over. So many sites are adopting viewer participation (thumbs up!) but none are presenting their viewer’s data in a clear and usable way.

This summer, the Frugal Traveler is embarking on the Grand Tour, reimagining the classic European journey as a budget-minded, modern-day jaunt. Over 12 weeks and on less than 100 euros a day, Matt Gross will circle the continent in search of cool hotels, memorable meals and contemporary culture. New columns and videos will be posted every Thursday, with updates and frugal tips throughout the week. (link)

Another travel related endeavor which I am very excited about was created by the company I work for - Endemol. The GAP YEAR is produced by Endemol UK in collaboration with bebo. It follows six young British youth on their gap year adventures, documenting their adventures, thoughts and exciting moments. Fans are encouraged to vote on tasks for the contestants. In addition, produced videos are constantly released, while the travelers themselves update blogs and photo albums with their thoughts. An exciting project, extremely successful in the UK, with a real potential to get people excited about meaningful travel.

Gap Year HQ have sent six travellers – Amy, Andre, Cara, Dave, Lewis and Roxanne – around the world on a six-month trip of a lifetime. We’ll be bringing you a brand new video every single day of the week, giving you the latest exciting and memorable footage from every corner of the world. As well as this, the travellers will be sharing their own photos, blogs and videos on their individual profile pages, which you can check out below. (link)

Technorati Tags: travel, gapyear, nytimes, interactive

Saturday Guard automatically shuts down your website during Sabbath (and ONLY during Sabbath) according to the browser’s geographic location. Another genius innovation from our beloved religious sect (did I already mention that I can’t wait for someone to invent sarcastic type already!)

With the development of technology the Internet takes a major roll in our day to day life and commerce. The Internet is active 24/7 therefore most web sites are opened during Shabbat. Until now it was technologically impossible to efficiently close a website during Shabbat since Shabbat comes and goes in different places in different times.

By utilizing the power of SaturdayGuard your site will be closed and opened automatically during the Shabbat. This will all happen according to the browser’s geographic location. Your website will be closed for visitors coming from a location where Sabbath is occuring, while it will be closed in a place where it is not yet Shabbat. For those of you who are worrying, there is even an attached signed “Kosher” certificate recommending the service by Yona Metzger, Chief Rabbi of Israel. My dear rabbi - is it not a problem that the server is still turned on and consuming electricity during Sabbath? In order to run the software which shuts down your website you still need to consume electricity and “do work”. Why not make transactions even during Sabbath by marking them down, and actually dealing with them after Sabbath has ended? You find ways to use electricity even during Sabbath.

The software creator explains “since the internet was not created according to the Halacha (Jewish law), there are many problems - one of them is that it is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Desecration of Sabbath is a grave sin. (link)

Technorati Tags: judaism, technology, religion, web, kosher, shabbat, website

A sea of orange shirts shout at the Television screen in the stuffy, dark pub down Santa Monica Blvd - everyone saw how the Russian player faked a faul, yet the referee decided to card the Dutch player.

Satellites transmit slow-motion replays of this split second to the whole world; closeup images of just how the Russian player was only tapped on his shoulder by his Dutch counterpart, and masterfully fakes a hit in the face, taking a fall to the ground and clutching onto his face as if in agony. He does this shamelessly, probably knowing that the whole world is watching, but that the referee is the only person he needs to deceive; the only person who cannot see exactly what has happened.

This is a common event during soccer matches - a wrong misjudgment by the referee, accepted by viewers worldwide for cultural and historical reasons - the referee’s decisions must be respected, even when wrong! Why do they not have a little pocket device to consult in such cases? Why is a technological solution not proposed to fix this situation?

The assumption is that misjudgments and mistakes are an integral part of the game. In sports, like in business and other disciplines, those who play by the rules, tend to lose. The difference is that only in sports, are these actions magnified and accepted worldwide for “cultural” reasons. Or is it only in sports?
more: failing to follow the rules

Technorati Tags: rules, culture, uefa, euro2008, soccer

In October 2000, two Israeli soldiers entered Ramallah and were arrested by the Palestinian Authority police. An agitated Palestinian mob stormed the police station, beat the soldiers to death, and threw their mutilated bodies from a window. The mob then abused the bodies and dragged them through the street. The killings were captured on video by an Italian TV crew (Mediaset) and broadcast on TV. Images captured from the scene included one of the lynchers waving his blood-stained hands from the window to an enthusiastic crowd, who went on to beat the dead bodies.

Mark Seager, a British photographer who was the only journalist to witness the lynchings stated “I know they are not all like this and I’m a very forgiving person but I’ll never forget this. It was murder of the most barbaric kind. When I think about it, I see that man’s head, all smashed. I know that I’ll have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

This moment in time is etched deeply in my mind. A shift in Israeli perception of “the situation”. The second intefada had just started in September and continued for the next 6 years. At that time, it was hard to imagine that such violence would clench the region for so many years, especially since economically, both sides were doing extremely well. Many Palestinians were working with (and without) permits within Israeli territories. Many households I knew employed domestic helpers who’d come in from Qalqilya every morning. The majority of construction workers all across the country came from Gaza and the West Bank. Masses of Israeli’s drove out to towns in the west bank every weekend to buy their fresh produce, including the most wonderful olive oil. Their casino was also reeling in Israeli shequels, as gambling is illegal within Israeli territories.

I remember visiting Eyal in Gaza and going to the beach. He was serving in the army, had Saturday duty, and we came down to bring him some good food. This was not a crazy adventure. No. Just a two hour drive down from Tel-Aviv. No big deal. Nowadays I would never dream of crossing into that plot of land.

But the Lynch did change it all.
Especially as emotions were amplified by mass media, repetitive coverage of this story. The utter brutality of these killings acted, in effect, as the cornerstone of the wall that would be built between Israelis and Palestinians. As the walls were being raised, trust faded, and the only connection many Israelis had with their neighbors existed through televised media.

Physical walls take longer to build than to tear down. Trust, however, takes even longer to rebuild. There was absolutely no trust. Not even liberal Israelis dared employ a Palestinian worker. “The situation” as Israelis like to call it, has escalated to a state of separation - little to no contact between the two sides. Or to clarify - little to no contact between regular people on both sides.

However, I am excited to witness a slow yet gradual increase in grassroots operations connecting across the two sides of the wall. Those who are able to forgive and work through issues that stand in between. Willing to take a risk, stretch a hand, and realize that similarities between the two sides shall over-power the differences.

I was deeply moved by Robi Damelin’s talk at the 2008 Pangea Day events in Los Angeles. Robi Damelin’s son was killed by a Palestinian sniper while he was guarding a checkpoint near a settlement during his army reserve service. Nowadays, Robi is an active member of a group of 500 Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost close family members and who work together for reconciliation and a just resolution to the conflict. She speaks with a Palestinian partner in communities and schools throughout Israel and the Palestinian Territories, as well as internationally. I highly recommend listening to her talk, especially as she reads out the letter she sent to the mother of the Palestinian sniper who killed her son.

Robi has carried out over 1,000 classroom lectures with Israeli 17-year-olds, who were due to join the army. She discovered that while more than 70% of the youngsters in Israeli classes had been overseas, very few knew a Palestinian, despite living 10 minutes apart.
“In Palestinian schools they have not met an Israeli out of uniform who is not standing at a roadblock or an Israeli who is not a settler,” she says.

It is impossible for me to comprehend just how much courage it took Robi to overcome her anger and take this route of compassion. Robi is setting an example for the world; and I am in awe.

Luckily, we are are not all like Jill Price - the woman who remembers every day of her life. Emotions fade, and memories become hazy. As time goes by, we make peace with the past, and look for a brighter future. It is heartening to see that even through his traumatic experience in the West Bank, Marc Seager has not given up on attempting to capture images from Palestine, to keep punching another hole through the wall.

Technorati Tags: israel, palestine, wall, intefada, lynch, ramallah, robi, damelin, pangeaday

Thought they’d keep us in suspense? New York times just updated their headlines as well.

OBAMA CLAIMS NOMINATION:

Technorati Tags: campaign08, elections, USA, nytimes