Bitch be Stealing My Name!

There's an American woman living in Sana'a, Yemen, who has been blogging since January 2008 under the name Yemenista (theyemenista.blogspot.com - unable to insert links). Since I have been Orientalista since last June, months before I even moved to the Orient, she has obviously stolen the practice of adding -ista to create awesome blogging names. انتقام I demand, and انتقام I shall have! It's like that time in high school when, as captain of the cross country team, I made team shirts that said "I'll cross your country!" only to see other girls' teams with identical slogans the following year! Totally!

The only solution, obviously, is a duel. I shall have to fly to Yemen immediately and slap her. Then I will throw clearly superior Shami sweets at her until she can't handle the 'ishta-goodness and explodes. And changes her name.

Actually, I doubt she's even seen this blog, and her name is probably a play off "fashionista" as she used to work at a woman's magazine, whereas my name is a reference to both Orientalism and my leftist politics. Fine then, Yemenista, you may keep your name without fear of bodily harm. If I expect Israelis to give up al-Quds and Palestinians to agree to financial compensation in lieu of Right of Return, I guess I can accept the existance of another -ista in the Middle East. For peace.

Suck on it, World Bank

There's a great article in the NYTimes today: Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts that explains how Malawi has gone from begging for food aid to exporting food. How? The president finally told the World Bank to suck it. Malawi is one among many nations that the World Bank, IMF and rich donor countries pressure to open up to market forces and cut back on subsidies. It will hurt now, they say, but the payoff is down the road.

Wrong! So suck on some subsidies, World Bank!