“Taking McLuhan Seriously”: video of my December 18 talk at Bilkent University, Ankara

speaking on Lovecraft in Baltimore next month

HERE.

Pete Seeger dies at 94

Singing the famous civil rights anthem– very simple but still quite moving.

assassination in Egypt

A high-ranking Ministry of the Interior official has apparently been assassinated in Giza (the site of the Pyramids, and part of the Cairo metropolitan area). HERE.

The Interior Minister himself was very nearly killed in September.

This is a troubling development, if not a surprising one. There will probably be more stories like this. It looks as though the Sinai militant groups (if that’s who did this) are now operating in Cairo. The bombing of the police headquarters a few days ago already proved this.

new interview with Stuart Elden

It can be read HERE.

how quickly things change in Egypt

Today, General El Sisi was promoted to Field Marshal and also allowed to run for President in an upcoming election that he will surely win.

It wasn’t all that long ago that things were extremely different, as witness this August 12, 2012 article about the now-deposed President Morsi brazenly FIRING THE ARMY CHIEFS Tantawi and Anan. Only in Paragraph 11 of the story do we even hear the name of their replacement, El Sisi.

I well remember that stunning news on August 12, 2012, which reached me on a lecture trip in Brazil. It seemed like a bold and shockingly successful maneuver by Morsi, and at the time I (and others) couldn’t believe he got away with it. It seemed like Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were about to pull off a much faster version of what Erdoğan did in Turkey with his more gradual disembowelment of the army. It was even widely believed by critical observers that El Sisi was a sort of Brotherhood stooge or weakling. After all, why else would Morsi have chosen him?

Less then a year later, Morsi was out, most of his associates were jailed, many of his followers were dead, and El Sisi was on his way to the top of the government, cheered by many as a national savior.

At every stage of Egypt since January 2011, there’s been a convincing conventional wisdom about what would happen next, and every time it’s proven to be wrong. It certainly does feel like things are different this time and the next few years look pretty clear, but it’s felt that way 4 or 5 times by now. Expect to be surprised again in some way. Post-2011 Egypt is full of surprises.

Khaled Fahmy’s assessment of Egypt today

This is actually from January 14, but I just ran across it now, and nothing has happened in the past two weeks to make this piece feel dated. HERE.

joint appearance with architect David Ruy, January 31 in Vienna

Flyer HERE.

severe damage to Cairo’s Museum of Islamic Art

The museum is next to the police headquarters that was targeted, and the damage seems to have been more severe than originally realized. HERE. Quite heartbreaking, actually.

 

Hawking’s new view on black holes

HERE.