I was absolutely shocked when I discovered in an early translation of Traces of a Tattoo that the translator has decided to spice up the plot a bit by changing the outcome of a crucial scene. “With these changes,” he wrote in an e-mail, “you can call it a a great novel. You may want to consider adding my name as co-author rather than pushing it down almost on the verge of the cropping...
Random Is Not Chaos
TRACES OF A TATTOO: CHAPTER 10
Shortly thereafter Aroub went into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Her panic turning into an elaborate exercise of self-condemnation, she leaned back against the door and started pounding her thighs with her fists and biting at her lower lip with her eyes fixed on her pelvis. “Oh, my God!” she repeated frantically. “What’s happening to me?” Aroub experienced countless natural vaginal...
The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Published on The Nation () The Decline and Fall of the American Empire Alfred W. McCoy | December 6, 2010 This piece originally appeared at TomDispatch [1]. A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don’t bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American...
ORIGIN OF SATAN
“Satan (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן Satan, meaning “adversary”; [1] Arabic: شيطان shaitan, meaning “astray” or “distant”, sometimes “devil”) is a figure appearing in the texts of the Abrahamic religions [2][3] who brings evil and temptation, and is known as the deceiver who leads humanity astray. Some religious groups teach that he originated as an angel who fell out of favor with God, seducing humanity into...
HOW OLD IS THE MALTESE LANGUAGE?
(This is an etymology chat as many Maltese citizens joined us yesterday and today at the Beehive Literary Circle, not a paper I’m going to upload to Academia.edu., so relax a bit). I miss professor Wettinger, Malta’s Outstanding Authority on its Medieval History. I visited his flat several times, one with my eldest son, Sammy, met at the University and we talked at length about the origin...
IS OURS THE AGE OF PORN?
PROTECT YOUR GIRLS. THEY ARE THE FUTURE MOTHERS OF HUMANITY AND EACH ONE MAY BE A TARGET OF THE PORNOGRAPHY INDUSTRY Guests on Google plus pages would have noticed that aside from a relatively very few cases, those eager to collect the largest number of views may have no easier choice than to engage in promoting soft or softish sex images available from hundreds of websites by the cartful. Not...
PORNOGRAPHY
Human beings are excellent at detecting patterns. It is a primeval skill vital for survival. A man-eating lion is watched carefully. With time, the watchers become familiar with its basic behavioural habits and prepare a trap to kill it. Because human beings mastered the skill of pattern identification they taught it to computers which can do it much better and on huge scale involving super-fast...
5,000 YEARS OF MAN SUPREMACY MAY SOON END
Both sexes have to be prepared for the coming huge social turbulance that could test humanity (1 of 5) Like seasonal migratory birds, thousands of boys and girls of many nationalities flock to the Islands of Malta in the summer to celebrate their youth. Almost empty during the months of winter, a small bay in the northern part of the Island begins to overflow with fresh life. Like arteries, the...
THE STORY OF NATURAL ARABIC NUMBERS
THE STORY OF NATURAL ARABIC NUMBERS* The second greatest gift of Ancient Arabs in Southern Arabia to humanity after the alphabet We have two stories to tell in The History of Arabic Numerals, both of which have never been told in a book before. Because they are naturally simple, they may sound outrageous. This should not be of concern, since shocking one’s readership with simple facts is one...
Traces of a Tattoo, Chapter 24
Scene: Amman, Jordan: Wissam’s aunt houseOne week later Haytham had to lower his head in order to look inside the taxi that had just pulled over in the middle of the road, right in front of his house. He then ran, opened a metal gate, crossed a large terraced garden and shouted, “Mama! Wissam’s arrived.” He went back to the taxi and waited for Wissam to finish paying the driver.“Haytham!” Wissam...