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Joelle Bassoul | Cairo, Egypt
24 September 2006 06:00
In the depths of Cairo's City of the Dead, Umm Essam unveils her latest creation: a blood-red belly-dance costume, complete with golden pearls. But there are no models or podiums in this dressmaker's tiny workshop hidden deep in the alleys of one of the city's oldest cemeteries. At the bottom of a sandy path, erected over a tomb, lie two cramped rooms and a minuscule kitchen: her workshop by day, her home by night. Like thousands of Egyptians, Umm Essam, whose real name is Fawziya Mohammed al-Sayyed, was driven to this unlikely spot of real estate by the housing crisis and dire poverty that plague Egypt. The gradual migration to the necropolis forced authorities to connect the area to the electric and water grids. "Three years ago, I decided to embark on the job of making belly-dance costumes, as my previous job of dressmaker was in decline," says Umm Essam, still enthusiastic despite her 60 years of age and a life of hard labour. The designer, whose only assets are a strong will and an old sewing machine, draws inspiration for her costumes from the Arabic superstars she watches on her tiny television screen, the only distraction in an area of few tarmac roads and smelly septic tanks. She has come a long way since her first outfit. Today, she is the queen of an improbable kingdom, where dozens of neighbours help her cut and bead fabrics, while the laundry dries between tombstones used by the local children for games of hide-and-seek. Each costume, a fitted bustier, a low-waist skirt and a wide belt, requires 1kg of glass pearls and several metres of colourful fabric. "We make about 100 costumes a month. My daughter Madiha takes them to the [Red Sea resorts] of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh," says Umm Essam, referring to the country's top tourist hot spots, popular with foreigners. But despite the high output of costumes which keep the designer up till dawn, the gains are slim. "I sell each costume for a little over 150 Egyptian pounds [$26], but in reality I only gain about 20 pounds [about $3] because the rest is spent on fabric, pearls and payments to friends," she says. But at least this little sum of money allows her to put food on the table for her family, in a country where most people earn less than 600 pounds [about $104] a month, and where unemployment is rampant. "The retailer sells my costumes to tourists for at least 500 pounds [$87]," she says bitterly. But despite the hardship, Umm Essam continues to produce daily and has even brought in her granddaughters to help, in the hope of one day escaping the neighbourhood of the dead. Seven-year-old Fawziya works on the children's costumes. "I learnt by watching my grandmother do the job," she says, balancing a bowl of pearls on her knees. "We have three sizes -- adults, adolescents and children," says the grandmother, who throws sideways glances at her granddaughter to check on the yellow pearls being attached to the latest costume. "From time to time, we manage to sell a costume to a heaven-sent foreigner, who hears about us through word of mouth, like the Qatari man who ordered some costumes a few months ago," says Umm Essam. "I had to design custom-made patterns because he ordered bustiers for some pretty voluptuous chests," she says, trying to hide her laughter behind her hand. -- AFP

BELLYDANCE & FLY FISHING (yup, that's me in the article) 
August 2006 NY Times Sunday Paper:

Standing on a rock outcropping that juts into Officer's Gulch Lake in 
Colorado, Char Bloom resembled an orchestra conductor the moment 
before a concert. Instead of lifting a wand, though, she waved a fly 
fishing rod.

With an audience of women surrounding her, Bloom brought her rod 
back, then gracefully rocked it forward, throwing her line into the 
lake with just the perfect amount of arch. The fly gently landed on 
the tranquil lake, creating only the tiniest ripple.

"Make sure the fly hits the water first and not the rest of your 
line," Bloom said. "Otherwise, you'll scare the fish away."

Too late: The 17 female anglers watching Bloom were wearing jingling 
beads around their waists and they were decked out in bright colors 
like turquoise and hot pink. Their rods? Raspberry-colored.

There are new anglers reeling in fish these days. According to an 
Outdoor Industry Foundation study last year, there are nearly 3.5 
million women who fly-fish in the United States, up 200,000 since 2003.

That is welcome news to Robert Ramsay, president of the American Fly 
Fishers Trade Association.

"We all know that mothers control vacation destinations," Ramsay said 
with a laugh. "If we can entice mothers to take their families 
fishing, that would be great.

"Fly fishing has this stigma of being a cigar-smoking, good-old-boys-
type club. It would be great to change that image."

The International Women's Fly Fishers organization, now in its 11th 
year, has helped organize 42 women's clubs from California to New 
Zealand.

"You have companies making waders and boots just for women and rod 
makers designing rods to fit the smaller hands of ladies," said Pat 
Magnuson, vice president of the women's fly fishers organization. 
"I'd say ladies are discovering fly fishing. It's fascinating to see 
the interest."

If Bloom's clinics are any indication, interest is increasing. As one 
of the top female fly fishers in the nation, she is in high demand.

"My husband was up at 5 a.m. one morning with a sick kid and saw her 
on television," said Betsy Wiersma, who brought Bloom in for Camp 
Experience, a two-day women-only seminar at Copper Mountain, Colo.

The clinic was dedicated to giving women a chance to relax and mingle 
through fishing, golf, yoga, massages and pedicures.

For Bloom, it was paradise. She was a camp participant, but she was 
also an instructor.

"Any day I have a group to teach, it's a special day," said Bloom, 
the mother of Jeremy Bloom, the Philadelphia Eagles kick returner and 
Olympic moguls skier. "You have the possibility to give them a day 
that might change their life."

During one morning at Camp Experience, one person plunged into the 
water up to her knees and another snapped her line so hard the fly 
took flight and landed briefly in her hair before falling to the 
ground. Someone else snagged a 3-foot-tall bush.

"We haven't caught many fish, but we look good and are having fun," 
said Bloom, who has started her own line of clothing with "Fish like 
a girl" as a motto.

Charlie Craven has seen the influx of women fly fishers. According to 
Craven, owner of Charlie's FlyBox in the Denver suburb of Arvada, 
there is a growing number of wives accompanying husbands into the 
streams.

"It's really catching on," he said.

Fly fishing as a whole has leveled off, though, according to last 
year's study. There were 14.7 million fly fishermen (and women) in 
2005, down from 18.2 million in 2004.

Fly fishing had a surge in popularity when Brad Pitt starred in the 
1992 movie "A River Runs Through It." But wannabes soon discovered it 
was not as easy as Pitt made it look.

"It got very fashionable there for a while," John Gierach, a fly 
fishing author, said. "But those who saw the movie and got into it 
because it looked fashionable have moved on to something else."

If you find a good fishing spot, you tend to keep it private. But the 
secret's out about Bloom, who has been teaching clinics for four 
years from her home base in nearby Keystone. She does 10 formal 
clinics in the summer and several informal ones.

She does not take payment, either. Instead, she will hand the client 
a donation form for the Denver Rescue Mission's Champa House, which 
helps single mothers and their children.

"If they float for nine hours in my drift boat, I never know if they 
send in $10 or $10,000," Bloom said.

All of Bloom's classes at Camp Experience were filled. Most of the 
nearly 200 women wanted to learn fly fishing, and so they were bused 
from Copper Mountain to the lake - a lake is easier than wading into 
a river. Seeing the women walk toward her in the bright clothes she 
designed gave Bloom goose bumps.

"Fishing should be in high-def," Bloom said.

Maria M_______, a belly dancer from Boulder, Colo., who supplied 
the hip scarves the women were wearing on the lake, asked: "Is it 
common to lose your fly? I've lost a few."

"No problem," Bloom answered. "But you catch more if you keep the fly 
on."

While the women practiced casting, Bloom's attention was drawn to the 
fish jumping toward the middle of the lake.

"I'd give anything to cast out there," said Bloom, whose first name, 
Char, is a small-scaled trout. "Fishing is such a sensory sport. 
Standing in the river, listening to the sounds as butterflies fly 
around.

"Day 1 might be frustrating because you might be getting knots in 
your line, but when you finally get that good cast and you get a fish 
and you pull up a gorgeous rainbow trout - it's a little bit Zen."

Sent to me by a friend on April 9th 2006 

This is as funny, sad, unbelievable as you can imagine! 

Click here! 

 Egyptian belly dance 'in crisis'
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, Cairo
April 2004
Exponents of the art of belly dancing - a unique element of Egypt's national cultural heritage - believe it is undergoing a crisis and is in danger of being driven underground.
Two years ago, the government banned foreign dancers from performing, but has recently done a U-turn and allowed them back.
One of the country's former belly dancing divas, Nagwa Fouad, is now calling for the establishment of an academy to preserve the art.
Dressed in a turquoise harem outfit, Iranian-born Liza Laziza practices in her studio high above the Corniche alongside the River Nile.
Liza is a world-renowned belly dancer who came to Cairo five years ago to fulfil a dream of living where her art began many centuries ago.
Even to my unpractised eye, it is clear she is a fine exponent, combining grace, interpretation and sensuality.

Declining art

But Liza has not performed on one of Egypt's great dancing stages for two years.
"The dance, from what I see, is at the moment rapidly fading in the background, whereas before, it was right up front," she says.
"It's very serious and I'm part of what's going on. I'm part of the big decline that's going on in the dance."
During the ban on foreign dancers, Liza was forced to teach for a living.
Now she is free to perform again, but she has had trouble finding a suitable platform for her talent.
"Egypt has been the central nervous system of the dance for a long time now," she says.
"It's not as great as it used to be and that's because of the climate of the times, socially, economically, religiously.
"And there isn't any education on the dance in Egypt, so I really do predict it fading into the background as we speak."

'Part of Egypt'

One of Liza's students is a Saudi Arabian woman who must be in her 50s, who has taken up the dance for the benefit of her husband.
She prefers to remain anonymous for fear of shocking relatives in her arch-conservative homeland.
"Like the Sphinx or pyramids, belly dancing is part of Egyptian culture and it would be a shame to lose it," she says.
On board a Nile river boat, about 200 tourists are taking a two-hour-long supper cruise.
The highlight of the evening's entertainment is supposed to be a demonstration of belly dancing by a 27-year-old Egyptian dancer called Wafaa Fowzi.
To borrow the words of Jerry Lee Lewis, there's a whole lotta shaking going on - but none of the sinewy grace of Liza Laziza.
Miss Fowzi believes that Miss Laziza and her Saudi Arabian pupil are scare-mongering.

Brilliant moves

"I'm not worried about the dance. It can't really die out in Egypt. It's an important part of our popular heritage," she says.
Nagwa Fouad used to be one of Egypt's belly dancing divas.She is of indeterminate age, and went into retirement about five years back.
Madame Nagwa is very worried that subtleties of an art dating back to Pharonic times are being lost and she wants Egypt to set up a national academy to teach the dance properly.
"What you are seeing nowadays is just shaking, which is very Turkish," she says."Egyptian dancing has many more brilliant movements, which is why there must be an academy to teach it, where I could lend my expertise."
But belly dancers here worry no one will take heed and that their cultural heritage will be consigned to history along with the pyramids, Tutankhamen and that great seductress Cleopatra.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4393035.stm

Published: 2005/03/30 12:45:16 GMT

© BBC MMV

From March National Geographic Magazine www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine 

Culture: EGYPT RESTRICTS NAVAL MANEUVERS
by Margaret G. Zackowitz

Egyptians take their bellydancing seriously-so much so that professional practitioners of the art must be licensed by the government.  But as of this year, all foreign belly dancers, whose numbers have boomed in recent years in Cairo clubs, are banned.  Now only Egyptian citizens can get a license to writhe. 

The rising popularity of middle eastern dance has drawn women from all over the world to Egypt to study the moves at their ancient source.  Some of these students stayed on to work as full-time performers, earning the decent Egyptian wage of 100,000 pounds ($16,000 U.S.).  Before the new law, four of Egypt's top five dancers were foreign born.  Foreigners tended to work less prestigious venues and make less than Egyptian dancers, yet many still earned more money dancing in Egypt than they could in their home countries-including Russia, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and the United States.  Complaints that these interloping undulators were undercutting local rates led to the new law.  

Even for Egyptian performers, the future could be shaky.  Conservative religious leaders decry the practice as immoral.  But belly dancing has been around for thousands of years.  Perhaps it's meant to be eternal.  (italics mine).

IRAN
(December 26th, 2003, Camera Wire service)

TEHRAN-
Iran's best known female dancer and 24 of her students have been detained on charges of dancing in public - for an all-female audience, her husband said Thursday.

Although there are no written laws against dancing, Iran's hard-line clerics have banned the activity, which they consider a promotion of moral corruption.

Farzaneh Kaboli and her students were detained Wednesday night as they were performing folk dances on the second night of a two-week program at Tehran's prestigious Vahdat Hall, Hadi Marzban said.

Marzban said the students were freed Thursday after signing statements pledging not to perform again but Kaboli was taken to Evin Prison, north of Tehran.

"It was a program of rhythmical movements displaying folk dance of various provinces of Iran to an all-female audience. The program had been authorized by the Culture Ministry," a distressed Marzban told the Associated Press.

Marzban said efforts by pro-reform government authorities failed to prevent police from taking Kaboli to prison. She has not yet been charged.

Judicial officials were not available for comment, as Thursday is the first day of the weekend in Iran.

Andrew Hammond - from the Cairo Times 

When sex fills the bookstore shelves, you know that market forces are having their way. That's what has been happening in recent years in the publishing industry. A plethora of scandal-mongering literature has taken the book world by storm and is out-selling all but the best-known political pundits and TV sheikhs.

The titles on display at bookstalls in Cairo's Metro stations require little elaboration: Secret Confessions: A Journalist Infiltrates the Nightlife; The Experiences of a Woman in Love; An Arab Actress: Secrets from the Vice Squad Files.

Without doubt, the pioneer of the scandal market is journalist Emad Nassef. Since it appeared in 1995, his lament on the decadence of '90s Egypt The Age of Fifi Abdou has now gone on to its ninth print run. Close behind Nassef is Nabil Khaled, an ex-army officer, whose The Dancer¹s Flesh and the Servants of Satan sold out within days of appearing on the bookshelves and is now on its second print run.

But the contents rarely fulfil the promise of the lurid titles and covers. Take The Dancer's Flesh‹what seekers of titillation actually get is a finger-wagging morality lesson in the dangers faced by the youth of today. Khaled tells a tale of a girl from a broken home who hangs out with Westerners, and starts listening to heavy metal music. The slippery slope which starts there, ends in a cooking pot after she is sacrificed at a Satanist knees-up. Guilt and a social conscience lead her erstwhile companions to distribute her remains to the poor.

The power to make or break a book like this lies with the distributors Al Ahram, Al Akhbar and Al Gomhoriya (whose book distribution is essentially an adjunct to their newspaper activities). But even Al Gomhoriya -- the main purveyor of sleaze -- refuses to deal with The Tales of the Whores, an extraordinary book that appeared on the streets of Cairo last year. Written by the self-styled "writer of the youth" Mahmoud Abdel Razek, it is a wild-eyed and vicious rant against the "ruinous breasts and vulvas of perfect beauty" that belong to famous actresses and dancers of today, and which lure youth away from religion.

Questions of good and bad taste aside, what such books highlight is the liberalism and vitality of publishing in Egypt. Although Al Azhar prods public prosecutors into ordering certain books off the streets every now and then and the vice squad has begun ferreting out the more overtly pornographic literature, there is no real censorship as such. The General Egyptian Book Organization (GEBO) registers everything that comes its way.

As for political censorship, there is little need. Ex-ministers and political players generally wait until the advent of a new president before releasing their tell-all memoirs. Only one book seriously critical of the present regime has appeared, Saad Eddin Wahba's The Third Looting of Egypt. The state-run Al Ahram demanded that Mohammed Hassanein Heikal amend his Secret Negotiations so as not to offend the present government, but rather than comply Heikal turned to an alternative, Dar Al Shurouk, the main publisher of Islamist politics. (On the other hand, when Al Ahram asked deputy editor of Rose Al Yousef Adel Hamouda to remove a chapter on Mubarak in How Egyptians Joke about their Leaders, he agreed to axe it.) Similarly, the state is incapable of stemming the flow of religious literature onto the streets, even that penned by Muslim Brotherhood figures. The price paid for the liberal publishing industry is that newspapers and television steer clear of book reviewing.

Respected publishers lament that sensationalist literature is another sign of a long process of cultural decline. They talk about the 1960s, when novels by major writers such as Mahfouz and Ihsan Abdel Qaddous would sell over 100,000 copies. Now, they complain, in an Egypt with a population of 60 million, a book that sells 10,000 copies is considered a major success.

The truth is that there is far more choice on the market than ever before and a greater turnover of titles. Fiction may be moving slowly, but other types of book are doing extremely well. GEBO statistics show that while in 1964 there were 4400 books published, the figure now hovers at about 10,000 yearly. And it¹s not just sex titles. Books by ex-advisors and major political commentators are proving to have an enduring popularity. There's no better example than the current top-seller, Heikal's 'Secret Negotiations,' the inside story on 30 years of peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt. The combined sales of the three volume set in the space of a year total 200,000 -- despite the fact that each volume sells at around LE30.

Pablo Picasso. The Dance of the Veils. 1907. Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia.

VINDICATED AT LAST!!!! 
Maria, (yes that's me) Is VINDICATED!!!!  A little background info:  As some of you may know, I grew up and lived in Brooklyn and Queens in NYC almost my entire life.  I am afraid of cows and farm animals.  YES, cows!  I have always insisted that they can attack.  Long story short, my seamstress here in Boulder lives about 30 miles east of me and has a small farm with, you guessed it, cows.  One day I went to her house to drop off some sewing work, and her cows were in the front yard, making sounds, not "moo", and I was petrified and insisted they were getting ready to attack.  People laughed, yes, they laughed, riduculed, called me a fool and a city girl.  I am often asked to repeat my "cow story" with sound effects at parties.  I, of course, oblige (being a frustrated comedienne).  Well, they shall laugh no more!  

From Boulder Daily Camera, Saturday, March 15, 2003
WOMAN ATTACKED BY COW
by Katy Human, Camera Staff Writer
excepts from article below: 

Jogger caught between cow and calf suffers serious hip injury.  A mama cow grazing along South Boulder Creek Trail rammed Elaine Kingston three times when the feather-weight jogger accidentally ran between the animal and her calf Tuesday.  "All of a sudden this cow put its head down and raced toward me and butted me," "I was airborne, and then I slammed into the ground". 

The attack was extremely unusual and does not suggest that such incidents between people and cattled are on the rise in city open space land," said Mike Patton, director of the city's Open Space and Mountain Parks Department. (Maria's note:  Yeah, sure!!!)  

"I recognize there are cows in the pasture, but cows just sort of sit there and chew their cud, right?" Elaine Kingston, injured jogger.  (Maria's note:  that's what they want you to think Elaine!)  

Another jogger, a middle aged man, saw Tuesday's attack from a distance and raced up to scare the cow away.  

At home in South Boulder, Kingston, a psychotherapist, sits in her bed, propped up by several pillows.  Her right hand is covered in scrapes.  "My leg's all scraped up too". she said.  and then there are the two fractures through the left side of her pelvis.  

(Maria's note:  I won't say I told you so!" -or will I?)

ARAB WORLD'S BEST KNOWN TALK SHOW HOST: A WOMAN WITH A MISSION
(POSTED ON 2/27/01, FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS)

By Hamza Hendawi

CAIRO, Egypt - Only seconds before going live, the director was screaming his final instructions to the excited studio audience.  "Can we settle down please?  This is the world's most popular Arabic talk show and I expect you to conduct yourselves accordingly." Then: "Hala Sarhan is the host and I hope you'll give her a fitting welcome." 

The 200 men, women and children in the studio on the outskirts of Cairo broke into warm applause as Sarhan made her grand entry with an ear-to-ear smile and a loving look at the appreciative crowd.  "What a beautiful audience we have here tonight," she says.  And so begins another "Yahala" - "Hello" - perhaps the Arab world's most watched talk show and certainly the most controversial. 

"Yahala" - a pun on Sarhan's first name - was the Arab world's first American-style talk show when it started nearly 10 years ago.  The novelty of interactive television soon turned into shock when the program began to deal with topics that are taboo among Arabs, like sex, and to tackle politically sensitive subjects like Arab-American relations. 

"I think I am the first Arab woman to utter the word 'sex' on television," says Sarhan, a U.S. educated Egyptian who sees herself as "part Oprah Winfrey, part Barbara Walters."  Sarhan is often accused of sensationalism, arrogance, irreverence, and even pornography.  "If they criticize me, then they are watching my program" she counters. 

Mohammed Hassan, a former "Yahala" executive, believes the program merely provides balance for the "reactionary and (Muslim) fundamentalist" material also aired on the satellite network Arab Radio and Television that broadcasts "Yahala" to some 10 million viewers as far afield as Australia, Canada and South America. 

"The success of 'Yahala' is largely due to an excellent team of researchers and (Sarhan's) own charisma," Hassam said.  One fan, Cairo homemaker Ibtisam Ahmed, finds Sarhan "professional...she doesn't do what other talk show hosts do, which is interrupting guests all the time."  In a "Yahala" program titled "Our Mother America," Sarhan spoke of the United States and "the dream and the nightmare, the judge and the executioner" before one of their guests called on Arabs to fight Americans in a jihad, or holy struggle.  

A show on "Sexual Perversion" featured a Lebanese man, his face digitally masked, speaking about his sexual identity crisis.  "I have a male sexual organ but it doesn't function," he said. 

Sarhan recalls a female university teacher wearing the Islamic veil whom she invited as a guest on a program called "Divorce begins in Bed."  The lecturer refused to discuss sex, deeming it inappropriate for television.  The audience applauded the teacher, but also applauded Sarhan when she countered:  "If the Quran, which is Islam's holy book, talks about sex, why cannot we?"  Sarhan screamed in disbelief:  "You guys are ridiculous!"  "They knew that the program's subject was to be sex in marriage," the host says in an interview in her luxury apartment in Cairo's upscale Dokki district.  

"I don't try to change people, I just want them to think," she declares.  "In Arab societies, we love hypocrisy.  Arab societies show us red lights and ask us to stop.  My program says, 'Please, make it green, so we can cross.'"   Sarhan says Yahalla gives a Mideast twist to the tested formula of US talk shows.  To assert the program's pan-Arab appeal, Yahala has been beamed live from a dozen countries, including conservative Saudi Arabia, maverick Libya and relatively liberal Lebanon. 

In her mid-40's, Sarhan has worked for years in broadcast and print media.  The native of Cairo writes a satirical column in a Cairo weekly magazine and has written six books, mostly dealing with social issues.

She also wrote the story of the 1997 Ehyptian box-office hit "Dentella" - a film that deals with polygamy through the story of two best friends who fall in love with the same man and end up sharing him in marriage.  "I am always doing two things at the same time, maybe it has something to do with being a twin," she says of her busy schedule.  

Sarhan's own life could make a provocative "Yahala" episode.  Mother of a teenage son, she had an acrimonious and intensely publicized divorce from Imadeddin Adeeb, himself an Arab-world TV celebrity with a popular talk show on a rival network.  She told a magazine interviewer recently that her marriage was "cruel, painful, sad and disappointing." 

Evil Eye Haunts our Superstitions 
(from Denver Post of 12/7/00)

By Selcan Hacaoglu - Associated Press

GORECE, TURKEY - Blue Amulets swing from the rearview mirror of Ozlem Izgier's car.  One hangs on her neck in a gold necklace.  Dozens dangle off her key chain.  Like many Turks, she believes they protect against "the evil eye". One day, the geology engineer dropped her keys, cracking many of the blue beads.  The amulets, she says, had absorbed evil powers and protected her against the envy of a friend who had "jealously" praised her beauty a few hours earlier.

From newborn babes to cars, houses, farm animals and even submarines, almost all that is Turkish is under the protection of mysterious staring eyes set in blue glass beads.  Belief in the evil eye - blamed for evils ranging from damaged property to death - is the strongest superstition in Turkey.  Like Izgier, most Turks believe the eye-shaped blue beads absorb evil powers, just as a metal rod on a barn attracts lightning. "The evil eye is an ancient tradition that survived millenniums in Anatolia," said Torben Sode, a glass expert at the School of Conservation in Copenhagen, Denmark.  "It is a very strong belief that is held in a very conservative way." 

The Turks are not alone, though.  Belief in the evil eye exists around the world. The earliest references to the evil eye - which is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible and in the Quran, Islam's holy book - were found on Sumerian clay tablets dating back to 3000 B.C. in today's Iraq. In many traditions, strangers are often accused of casting an envious or malicious stare.  One theory is that the belief emerged from the fear of being watched by wild animals, hostile tribesmen or jealous gods. In Africa, tribes believe cross-eyes people possess the power of the evil eye.  In 18th century Europe, the color red - a symbol of good health - was seen as a protector against the evil eye. 

The superstition is extremely widespread in Turkey, and the blue evil-eye beads, made near the Aegean port of Izmir, are unique to this country, Sode said. In the village of Gorece, bead maker Hayati Kutuk flattens melted glass, colored blue with copper oxide, then pastes white and yellow glass in the form of an eye.  The opaque white glass is often made from melted bottles of Old Spice after-shave or Malibu liqueur. 

Fifi Abdu slaps her way to the courtroom
(This article is a few years old as of 11/2000) 

Mohammed Mursi Special to the Middle East Times

Last week, a Cairo court postponed a misdemeanor court ruling against belly-dance superstar Fifi Abdu until March because of the dancer's ailing knees.

Fifi Abdu is charged with taking the laws into her own hands and is accused of smashing the face of Egyptian singer Adel Al Far for imitating her in one of his songs during a performance last September at a five-star hotel in Cairo. Far is widely known to imitate the lyrics of other artists in an unflattering manner to amuse his audience.Abdu and her muscle-bound bodyguard reportedly mounted the stage and assaulted Far.Abdu has been accused several times in the past for using her team of unruly bodyguards to settle scores with opponents.

In 1992 she was accused of hitting a police officer in the face when he tried to book her for speeding.Last New Year's Eve, Abdu, a former housekeeper, let her bodyguards rough up an official from the office of the arts censor who did not approve the dress she wore at a show at the Gezira Sheraton. According to witnesses, she appeared almost nude at the performance. The censor has filed a case against her.

Abdu aside, members of Egypt's prestigious artistic establishment are widely known to be the most notorious group using the services of armed thugs to settle scores with antagonists.Egyptian belly dancer Dina punched a police officer at the Pyramids police station after she was arrested for attempting to exchange counterfeit American dollars at the Europa hotel.Dina reportedly gave up the fake dollar bills and the police agreed to turn a blind eye to the incident.

Also in 1997, Egyptian actor/producer Sami Al Adl disfigured the face of fellow actor Mohammed Lutfi, in what was then described as a cowboy raid on Lutfi's property in the Agouza district in Giza.Only a few months later, Adl was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison by a Giza court for punching Ahmed Attiya, a police officer in the left eye. Attiya, who was on duty at the Marriott Hotel lost his eye in the showdown.Egyptian comedian Said Saleh is being investigated for allegedly breaking into a furniture store with a bunch of thugs in Heliopolis and causing substantial damage to property. Mahmoud Hassanein, who owns the store accused Saleh of thuggery and trespassing, but has so far failed to get the comedian and his comrades to court.At the end of 1997, actress and dancer Hayatim and actress Magda Al Khatib fought it out in front of colleagues and a small crowd at the Rehani theater in downtown Cairo. Khatib claimed that Hayatim who was also producer of the play "Iya ana, iya anta" (Either me or you), owed her money in back payments. Chaos broke out just as the play was about to start. The crowd believed that the fight, which reportedly involved the services of thugs, was in fact a scene in the play. They were stunned when the police were called in to intervene. Magda was hospitalized with near-fatal injuries.

In an attempt to contain the use of thugs, the People's Assembly last week approved new legislation that sets a minimum sentence of one year in jail for persons convicted of thuggery. It remains to be seen, however, if the new measures will control thuggery which many Egyptians find a convenient path to justice as it bypasses the sluggish judicial system.

A SNAKE STORY:

WOMAN GIVES UP 104 PETS
from Boulder Daily Camera, Friday 7/28/00

A Boulder woman couldn't stomach snakes eating small mammals, so she began collecting them in her garage.  On Wednesday, when the smell got to be too much for her neighbors, she turned over 76  mice, 12 gerbils, nine rats and seven rabbits to the Boulder Valley Humane Society. 

City spokesperson said the woman was convicted under an animal-nuisance ordinance for harboring the small mammals.  The spokesperson said the complaints began last May, and the woman was warned.  "I think from her perspective she was honestly trying to do some good for the animals," a Boulder Animal Control Supervisor said.  "The mice she had were feeder mice, and the rabbits and the rats and the gerbils.  From what she thought, she was saving them from a worse fate of having them sold to some-one who would feed them to snakes." 

The woman was purchasing the animals from pet stores.  

The captions are a little hard to read, so I will type it here.  "If Mozart and Michaelangelo were students in today's American schools.............
"Wolfgang! Mike!  Stop wasting time!  Your should be doing PRACTICE DRILLS FOR THE STATE EXAM!"

From Boulder Daily Camera

Sin eaters: Sheiks condemn charity meals from bellydancers 
February 2, 1997
                      
From Cairo Bureau Chief Gayle Young                   

CAIRO (CNN) -- As the sun sets during the holy month of Ramadan, volunteers prepare a meal for the poor.  Muslims fast during the day, abstaining from food and drink, then break the fast with an evening meal, known as Iftar.  It's considered a good deed to offer an Iftar to the poor -- except when the charity comes from the likes of Fifi Abdou, one of the most famous belly dancers in Egypt.  She and other bellydancers earn big money -- and are known for their generosity to the poor. 

But some religious leaders say their behavior shakes the foundations of Islam, and their Iftar offerings are tainted. Religious leaders from the prestigious al-Azhar University, who wouldn't consent to be interviewed during Ramadan, have preached that accepting an Iftar or charity from a bellydancer is a sin. 

The pronouncement is being fiercely debated in Cairo. Al-Azhar is one of Islam's highest authorities. But many here are poor and rely on charity for the meat and vegetables they cannot afford. Volunteer Madam Hanaan says Fifi Abdou's nightly Iftars flow from a generous heart. "May God give her a long life," she says of her patron. Bellydancer Dalia Fuoad says she considers herself a good Muslim, faithful wife and devoted mother. 

"How can it be sinful to give charity to those who have less than we do?" asks Fuoad.  

Bellydancing is wildly popular in Egypt. One study suggests it represents the country's fifth largest source of income. And for the poor who benefit from the dancer's gifts, the sheiks' decree may be difficult to swallow. 

click here for quick-time movie from CNN 

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