What it means to have a festival

I'll be sharing more older posts for the rest of January, sharing more comments from Google+ and tying into Islamic subjects that are of interest to the wider public.
Can't think of much off the top of my head, except the writing I've saved onto the home PC, for the moment, but I'm sure I can come up with other interesting original things to say soon. Insha Allah.

Today, "What It Means To Have A Festival" about the problems at a cultural event held in the US, which had (I'm guessing, educatedly) both Arab Christians and Arab Muslims, and many non Arab Americans.
Probably some bigotry or hate on both sides who were involved.

More bitmaps for readers, about the blog, comments and stats. Also bitmaps from Twitter, which are a new thing on the blog I'm introducing and will try to do more of in the future as well.

Since I can't comment on google+ these days, I have other ways to get around that by sharing on the blog, but probably there is a solution to that; also, readers comments welcome on the blog. I have commented myself here, so don't see why others can't or are unable. Maybe that's not so?



Also, photos and video this week.



Comments on blogger



Flickr Is Worth Browsing More Often

It's been a very long time since I have been to my Flikr account. Well, this morning I finally took the opportunity to see some amazing photos on Flikr. In particular, the first photostream I happened across was by Kijal. My favorites are some taken at the Masjid Al Haram, as well as many pretty photos of flowers. I'm not done browsing yet, but thought to do a quick write up on why I think browsing is a worthwhile activity. Browsing on Flikr is enjoyable and one is bound to come across many photos of interest and artistic value.

Browsing is something we can only do online. To make it a good experience and not something stressful, which it shouldn't be or you are not doing it right, you should have accounts in the best places for browsing which are of course, Flickr, for photos, Pinterest, I suppose (which I don't have) and places for videos, which might mean YouTube, but also might mean other online sharing, such as your email account/s and the useful and popular apps like SkyDrive or the Cloud apps. People complain that browsing videos takes a lot of time, which is true. Watching videos can take a lot more time than one anticipates as well (particularly if the internet connection is very slow). Every cloud has a silver lining, or in this case every action on the internet has it's good and bad. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kijal/

Many people prefer not to share their photos on Facebook, Twitter or the other usual places. They allow you to grab a link though (copy/pasted as above) and while you can't display the photo on your own site, you can still share it with others, which is an easy way of "sharing the love". You might be inspired to take more of your own photos, and publicly display those, which will showcase your own particular interests and any special talent you might have in photography. I haven't found many photos of my own which deserve special mention, the few I have shared from several different accounts (emails, Google+, Flickr) are noteworthy; on Flickr, perhaps the most memorable (possibly the ONLY photo I've ever posted there (a milenia ago) is of a pigeon. It was taken out our apartment's balcony and shows a pigeon, probably migratory, roosting on the corragated tin (or aluminum) roof above our parking space (at the time, we lived in East Riffa, in a third floor "flat" (Bahrainis say flat, not apartment). It fills me with nostalgia still, because around the same time it was taken, I started my first blog (My IslamFeed) which ended (and was removed).

For me putting myself out there (especially writing) is kind of like pulling off a bandaid. It has to be done, because I continue to want to write publicly, but also it isn't something I would describe as pleasant. I often feel ill at ease or trepiditious when posting something new; I suppose it comes from the desire to please others, and not disappoint, plus the fear of a public flogging (or readers scorn).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kijal/

[Revising: I couldn't find the pigeon, maybe I had two accounts and one is now obsolete, rather I forgot about it and created a second account, which is still there. (But that means no more pigeon photo, I will have to dig into my old digital photos to find it, which could take some doing!)]