Things I am Not Going to Miss About New York

Well now that I'm leaving, I'm also going to leave the pity party. So here's some shit I'm not going to miss about New York:

- prices: movies, drinks, food, every fucking thing

- dodging asshole cars who don't want to share the road with bikes; dodging asshole pedestrians who neglect to watch for bikes

- the ubiquitous creepy/voyeuristic/increasingly porny American Apparel ads: No thanks, I really don't want to see a 5-foot cooch.

- getting yelled at by construction workers on my bike - really, what reaction do they expect? Am I going to get off my bike, fuck them, and then continue on my way to work? I really don't budget that kind of time into my commute.

- the person who stole my bike seat

- the hotdog guy who was right next to my bike but apparently didn't say a word while a guy stole my fucking bike seat

- Flight of the Conchords - because the season actually ended so there is nothing to miss

- did I mention the price of shit in New York?

- if I have to hear "Umbrella ella ella" once more time the stabbing begins

- shitty clubs where the focus, instead of on the dancefloor, is on assholes with AmEx cards who reserve the privilege to drink Grey Goose for $300 a bottle

- I-bankers who have to make up for a 70 hour workweek by being the biggest douches at the bar

- handbags and shoes - why do people give a shit about this shit?

- hipsters

- those Sunday mornings when you think "I should go work out or go outside because it's so nice" but then its 3:00pm and the store is too far away and you're very hungry so you scrounge for leftover forgotten soup crackers from your roommate's takeout last month

- beauty standards - people in New York be so pretty!

But of course, I'm going to be about three times prettier when I step off the airplane in Damascus on Friday night. Ahh, for once my pasty skin is a blessing, not a burden.

Things I am Going to Miss About New York

I've left New York - only one week until I leave for Syria. Of course I already miss it: Specifically, I miss:

- anonymity on the street - this does not exist in Damascus, where I might as well wear a sign that says "FOREIGNER"

- PDAs - not exactly down with the culture in the Middle East

- Flight of the Conchords, Weeds, The Office

- free concerts all the time

- that I can see any movie on a big screen from mainstream to indie, the latest to something from 1936

- Baked (in Redhood)cakes and cookies

- everything that makes the red states cringe: on-demand abortions, abundant gays, and craploads of immigrants


- a city so liberal that Manhattan Mini Storage can put on a billboard "Your closet space is shrinking faster than her right to choose" with a picture of a coat hanger

- breakfast anytime, which means greek omlette anytime

- a variety of restaurants, from Indian to Ecuadorian

- biking daily through at least two, and often three boroughs

- the view from the Williamsburg bridge

- the view of all of Manhattan from my apartment in LIC

- bars with pool and kareoke

- all my lovely friends, of course

Douchebaggery! I hate the NY Post

This really should be no surprise as the New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the only man capable of being evil and a "Rupert" (it just sounds like such a friendly name). And though I don't read it, it looks fun when I see others on the subway leafing through - always so many puns! And how can you but feel warm fuzzies for a paper in which the article "AIDS-Bite Threat from 'Hooker,'" appeared today with the following: "A hefty hooker threw a hussy fit yesterday when she was collared for trying to pick up an undercover cop... threatening to bite him and give him AIDS"?

But it continues to harangue Debbie Almontaser, former principal of the upcoming dual-language English/Arabic school Khalil Gibran International Academy, as well as the school itself in both two news items and editorial column today (as if editorial and news are seperate at the Post). The new principal to replace Almontaser is a non-Arabic speaking Danielle Salzber, and as the name suggests she is indeed a Jew. "New Principal 'Chosen'" is the headline - get it, she's a Jew? Previously she worked at the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools that is helping to fund the Academy and worked with Almontaser and the teachers to develop the curriculum, so this is no left-field pick as the Post suggests.

And then there's the column, "School Bad Idea Even Before Hebrew-haha" - get it, she's a Jew? - in which Andre Peyser calls the Jewish principal of an Arabic school "the worst joke ever to hit Brooklyn" before getting on with the business of assailing the very idea of the school: "Some bright combination of political correctness and insane guilt has determined that New York needs a public school catering to Arabs." "Using the public schools to segregate Muslim students seems antithetical to every societal ideal."

Peyser's head is so far up her own ass she doesn't even know that "Jew" and "Arab" are far from mutually exclusive identities (ask all the Mizrahim here in New York!) The school is not a "Muslim school" or for Arab students, nor a "potential hotbed of anti-Semitic and anti-American sentiment". Have you ever worked in a public school in New York? The shit you say is monitored. I once wore a t-shirt that was a little out-of-line and had to wear a jacket over it the rest of the day. Furthermore, there are Spanish, French, Mandarin, Korean, Haitian Creole, and Russian dual-language programs and schools already in New York. Why not Arabic? The political affiliation of the columnist is not hard to discern (see: owner of paper) and I bet I could also guess her views on the "war on terror". How do these Islamophobes expect to gather intelligence for their favorite war when they oppose the teaching of Arabic?

Having half their classes in Arabic is no more going to turn students into radical Islamists than learning Russian will produce alcoholic communists or French smoking avant-garde existentialist filmmakers.

That's it - I won't talk about the Post again. It's just too maddening.

Principal Resigns After Explaining Meaning of Word

New York Department of Education is opening a small public Arabic secondary school that will eventually serve grades 6-12, Khalil Gibran International Academy. About half will have Arab heritage and half will not have any experience in Arabic or have Arab heritage - it will be the latest of several dual-language public schools in New York. The school's been generating some controversy since the beginning, with some claiming the school would promote radical Islam. Being a DOE school, a public school, they will presumably be teaching the same topics as other public schools, only in Arabic. It furthermore is not even an Islamic school (there are several private Islamic high schools in New York), but a regular ol' public secular school in Arabic. How is Arabic alone going to radicalize students? Apparently because Arabic words themselves are way too contentious:

The principal's stepped down because of the controversy over statements she made last week at a press conference. Debbie Almontaser was asked by The Post about the phrase "Intifada NYC," on T-shirts being sold by Arab Women Active in the Arts and Media, group that has no relation to the school. Her response was apparently the wrong one:

"The word basically means 'shaking off'. That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic. I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any kind of that in New York City. I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society... and shaking off oppression."

Oh my god every body freak out! The Post certainly did, calling her the "Intifada Principal" in a headline. Somehow, this quote has morphed into "comments that seemed to support the violent Palestinian Arab uprising known as the intifada" (The Post). More from The Post:

The school hasn't even opened yet. But the hijab-wearing principal of a taxpayer-funded school founded especially for Arab students has issued a fatwa against the kids of New York. She said there is nothing wrong with intifada. And the principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy - scheduled to open next month less than two blocks from that hotbed of radical Muslim thought, Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue - argued about the definition of the word that has sent so many to their graves.

First of all, why was she even asked about some unrelated group's t-shirts? Her only association is that the group with these t-shirts is in the same building as the Saba Association of American Yemenis, of which Ms. Almostaser is part. And second, she didn't argue about the meaning of the word - she gave the actual meaning of the word. She even acknowledged the connotations of the word in the Israeli-Palestinian realm, but offered her thought (because she doesn't know for sure, not being part of the group that produced the t-shirt) that the shirt was probably invoking the meaning of intifada, not the Palestinian intifada. Really, there's no way she could have answered this question "right", short of ripping off her hijab and offering to join the IDF (notice the dig about the hijab and the incorrect information about the school being only for Arab students).

Congratulations! She's resigned.

I'm going to Syria...

I love saying that, but I shouldn't. I was at a hep rooftop party in Soho (okay, hanging with kids that lived on my floor back freshman year of college) and the conversation turns, as it does, to studies and future plans. This conversation is one I have had many times, with the parents of the kids I tutor and babysit, random men at bars, my friends parents, my podiatrist, others, and is one I am likely to have again - and love.

The other participant inquires about my studies - Politics and Middle East Studies. Since the latter is not a common major, something along the lines of "We could sure use people to fix up that place" or "that's a useful major nowadays!" is said. I ask about their studies, or job, or life, depending on their current phase of life.

"So, where are you living next year." And then, I get to say the delicious words themselves: "Oh, I'm going to Syria for a year."

"Syria??" Then I get to hear about how crazy I am, or was North Korea too tame, or why not Iraq? Cocktail in hand, I can regail them with stories of renting a car and driving through Southern Lebanon - Hezbollah country - before the 06 war or "almost getting kidnapped" at the Syrian border or of protesting with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And my political opinions on various Middle Eastern governments, movements, or foreign policies are respected (despite my sometime unpopular positions) because I am a crazy motherfucker who is going to go to Syria for a year - I must know shit.

I shouldn't like the reaction I get from "Syria" because it reveals how the media here makes us believe the image of angry mobs of Middle Easterners is the only one. True, a lot of people in Syria (and a good many other countries) are not fans of our government, as are many people here. But as an American in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan I heard much more about the cousin in Virginia and the brother in New Jersey than rants about America. People know that venting such feelings to me is not going to change shit since I'm a lowly backpacking student with no hand in American foreign affairs - at least not yet.

So I shouldn't enjoy the adventurous and brave image of me people create when I tell them I'm going to Syria. Rest assured, I'll get sick of it soon, just as I got sick of telling people that no, I didn't have to wear a burka in Egypt. But for now, I'll enjoy it. And I promise that this will be my first and last intentionally pretentious entry.