New Blog Day

I got tagged by Haytham Sabbah for "New Blogs Day."   I'm not totally sure whether I'm supposed to be spotlighting good blogs that I read that others might not have heard of, or mentioning blogs I've only just discovered, or mentioning the "top blogs that I enjoy reading."    Here's a random selection skewed towards the obscure and the recent finds:

Sphinx Blog:  pseudonymous blog by what appears to be an American grad student in Egypt.  One of my favorite recent posts include this discussion of the advertising of beer and condoms and bibles.

Or does it explode?.  Lots of good coverage of popular mobilization efforts around the Arab world;  the most recent post is about how hard it can be to even xerox copies of protest posters in Cairo.

Jordanian Issues: just the other day I complained that there were no decent Jordanian politics blogs.  Now I've discovered one  - mostly in Arabic, some English.  Recent posts include a critique of the latest round of talks on the Professional Associations law, a discussion of Shaker al-Nabulsi's constitutional reform proposals ("more monarchical than the monarch"), and the text (with some commentary) of remarks by Riyadh al-Nawaysa and Hisham al-Bustani about his trial for insulting the king.

Breed Em and Weep by my friend Jennifer Mattern is really, really funny, brilliantly written, and - I can attest - alarmingly true to life. 

Baheyya isn't new to Abu Aardvark readers, of course, but everyone interested in Egyptian politics should read her, along with the Arabist Network.  Aqoul is a fun group MENA blog, and the home of Lounsbury (if you think that's a good thing). Also, in case you've forgotten about them, Stacey Yadav and Chana'd Bahraini are both back from hiatus with interesting new posts (here's one from Stacey and one from Chan'ad).  Tim Burke is consistently one of the best writers out there, and the Duck of Minerva and TPM Cafe's America Abroad are doing their best to bring the International Relations field into the blog world.

Happy New Blog Day!

Comments

[Haitham]

Happy Blog Day :-)

[Rachel]

I'm a big fan of "Breed 'Em And Weep," too. :-)

You can find more about World Blog Day 2005 here, if you're interested.

[The Lounsbury]

Damned by faint praise.

You just wait for our kicking Sheikhly Love II.

[tarumar]

Abuaardvark is first rate. Don't know how he manages to stay on top of it. I am doing my own blog from a slightly different angle. Thanks for the inspiration.

www.tarumar.blogspot.com

[Via]

Thanks for the great suggestions! Om Ali