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One of the new words I learned when I started working in Amman is (Asfeen). My colleagues define it as (anyone who says something negative about another employee to their supervisor). Personally I would qualify that definition to (anyone who complains to the employee’s supervisor without first trying to work out the problem directly with the employee).
I was born in Jerusalem. My father was born in Hebron, and my mother in Nablus. I lived half my 31 years in Ramallah. My full name is Hani Yaser Amer Ali Ismaeil Obaid. The Ali Ismaeil part repeats 13 times. The last Ali-Ismaeil-Ali trio moved to Dubai a few years back. I have family in Egypt, UAE, Germany, England, Canada, and America. I have more aunts and uncles than i could ever count, but it is easy to count the 4 that still live in Palestine. As for myself, I now consider Jordan home. Are we destined to scatter ?
I tried to recount below some random memories related to my somewhat sheltered childhood under the occupation, and subsequently. They’re disjointed, and ordered by recollection.
The following is a mixture of science, fiction, voodoo and an over-active imagination.
Natural Selection is the term Darwin proposed to describe the idea that favorable inherited (genetic) traits would become more common after several generations, because the unfavorable traits would make it less likely to survive. Keep in mind that the definition of favorable varies based on your location, and its “stress factors”. Basicaly anything that can affect survival (too much sun, not enough water, etc…)
Can the principals of natural selection be applied to modern day humans ? Research published in the past few years has not only found evidence of very recent natural selection in the human genome, but several studies even suggested geographic origin (African, Asian, or European) can be linked to both the rate of selection, and the type of genes that are undergoing changes.
However, such research is restricted to biological traits. Humans are too socially complex to be judged based only on their genetic makeup. What about other inherited social, cultural, and geographic traits that greatly influence our survival, quality of life, and even our frequency of reproduction ?
Yesterday, 3 colleagues and I were on lunch break and headed for a restaurant. It was 1PM and too hot for my taste. On the way, we saw a horse tied to a tree. The horse seemed to be looking directly at us. For a moment I could have sworn it said: Help!
Nearly 45 minutes later, we came back:
Hani: The horse is still there, poor thing.
S: That’s not a horse it’s a mule (Ba3′el).
Hani: Who works harder, the mule or us?
S: We do. It’s out enjoying the fresh air, it will only have to go for a stroll.
Hani: Are you seriously envying a mule ?
W: Hey, at most they’ll whip its ass a couple of times.
H: Well, at least they could put it with a female mule (ba3′leh).
S: Mules are produced when a donkey rides a horse, they can’t mate.
W: They’re sterile.
Hani: (Thinking: where does one learn about donkey mating rituals, my youth has been wasted)
Hani: Damn, not only does it have to stand there tied up in the sun, it can’t have sex, and you were envying it!
W: It doesn’t have a penis! Why are we discussing mule penises! Who brought up this subject?
(all laughing)
Before answering a tag, it is customary to say who tagged you, but then you will be ungrateful to the person who tagged them, and the person who tagged the person who tagged them, and the person who tagged the person who……you get the picture (it all goes back to who created God, but that’s another story). Surely I can find a way to thank these people. As any blogger can tell you, the ideal tool to illustrate exponential tag progression is a flow chart. However since the universe is infinite, and Hani only perceives 3 dimensions (me myself and I), we will only be covering 3 recursions. To keep this educational, and spread link-luv, the flowchart is also an image map. I recommend clicking KJ, but watch out for smeagol err Moogle :P
