I Am Going Away! Far Away.

One of the nice things about moving to France is learning the importance of vacation time. It's even kind of imposed upon you because everybody basically peaces out in August, leaving you with nothing to do but ruminate over all those closed restaurants and ponder WHY YOU'RE NOT ON VACATION.

And one really nice thing about being expatriated is having suddenly-accessible friends all over the world. So about a week ago, I decided I'd shove off to Egypt and crash at my friend Candace's* swank-ass Heliopolis pad with all its Bedouin rugs. As a plus, I'll finally be able to hang with Sandmonkey.

My taxi arrives in about a half-hour.** I'll catch you guys in about 10 days.

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*Fun fact: Candace is from Minnesota and we never physically met before she moved to Egypt and I moved to Paris. We have been friends for 8 years.

**Fun fact #2: as evidence of my general traveling wackness, I actually thought my flight departed at 13h30 today. It doesn't. It leaves at 06h45. And I found out because Candace checked my docs for me AT TWO IN THE GODDAMN MORNING. So also, I've had no sleep and way too many cigarettes.

From Egypt, with Love

One of the biggest challenges following the Jasmine Revolution was attracting tourism back to Tunisia. It was a challenge that sparked creative efforts of goodwill from entrepreneurs, like Patrick Robin's "1 Billion Ad Pages in Tunisia."

Egypt faces the same problem; no pleasure-seeking tourist likes the sound of structural volatility. But videos like this one, which demonstrates the immense gratitude, depth of heart and diversity that characterises today's Egyptian, may make the country's work easier.

In addition to stories like this. (And this.)

Via @CandaceHetchler.

The Revolution, In Your Newsfeed

One of the most curious things Sandmonkey said during this week's AdVerve was that the Revolution in Egypt was posted as a Facebook event before it began.

In the same spirit, an apartment in the middle of Cairo has become a crashpad for young Egyptians taking a break from the protests (16 days and counting) to broadcast everything happening on the ground floor to Facebook. The Group on which they leave their daily testimonials is called Tahrir Square, and the "About Me" section says plenty in three small words: "The misunderstood movement..."

The page is cool because the perspectives are so diverse. It's also another example of what vocal social media users in Egypt have tried painstakingly to do: correct misunderstandings about what is happening, emphasise their unity and reiterate their why's.

This is an articulate revolution, composed of people who thought about their reasons, and the consequences of their failure, before committing themselves.

For more ongoing up-to-date information, balance whatever news you're reading with Al Jazeera English. It's updated daily and providing good coverage of day-to-day developments and the significance of small occurrences. I also highly recommend you follow @sandmonkey on Twitter: he's publishing and RTing information near-compulsively. What he's seeing and writing about have served as eyes for many who can't be in Egypt.

'This Revolution, If We Can Call It That, Has Evolved Beautifully.'

Mahmoud Salem, better known to you as Sandmonkey, talks to MSNBC about why Egypt's revolting, and Twitter and Facebook's role in the uprising.


"This revolution is not ideological and is not class-based ... Everybody's here."

You can hear him elaborate on all this in our special episode of AdVerve.

AdVerve Episode 64 - Revolution 3.0: Sandmonkey on Egypt, the Internet and the Connected Fight

Egyptians hold shoes up high following Mubarak's speech on February 1. Showing the sole of your shoe is "a grave insult in Arab Muslim countries," sayeth MSNBC. Weird, no Kenneth Coles in sight.

Play the show now.

The revolution will be podcasted.* We’ve brought you a very special show this week. Renegade freedom blogger Mahmoud Salem (on Twitter as @sandmonkey), takes a good hour out of his revolution schedule to give us the skinny on what’s going on in Egypt (which is here, not here).

Salem was thrown into prison last Thursday for carrying medical equipment to injured protesters at Tahrir Square in Egypt. That same morning, he'd published this incendiary piece of blogging magic, and his blog was consequently shut down most of that day. After a hefty beating and the destruction of his goods (including his car), he was released when the police failed to put two and two together identity-wise.

As he says in the interview, “Every generation has a moment.” To that point, we dive deep, past Elliot Spitzer’s CNN segment on him to where this all started.

Humor me ››

A Day for Egyptians + Other Liberty Seekers

I was there! they placed newspapers and towels on the floor so we wouldn't pray on the hot asphalt, I love Egyptian Christians and although I am Muslim I would die defending any one of them.

This picture of Christians protecting fellow Muslim protesters as they prostrated themselves to pray is worth bearing in mind while Mubarak talks his nonsense about not being able to leave lest the roiling mob destroy the country.

Egypt, our hopes and energy join you today. Get what you're fighting for and don't stop until. The time for in-between is over.

PLEASE HELP SANDMONKEY

UPDATE: Sandmonkey's been beaten and released. If you happen to see him, don't say where. I think the best we can do now is spread the word about what's happening, what he's seeing and what they're fighting for.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE (18H15 PARIS): I just spoke with him and he says a major reason why he was released was because of police pressures from prominent connections and a mounting media storm. For whatever any of you did, however large or small, even if it was just a RT on Twitter, thank you. The trick now is to change the atmosphere so significantly that nobody has to fear pursuit for telling the truth. Keep telling the story.

Everybody: the guy I cited, prominent Egyptian blogger @sandmonkey, in my last post was arrested about an hour ago while delivering medical supplies to Tahrir (he mentioned he would be doing this on today's blog post). A source says he's currently being held at Abdeen Police Station.

Security forces are at his parents' home and are responding to phone calls there. Someone is also responding to calls to his mobile. They are threatening people who attempt to contact him with the same fate.

The blog has been shut down.

Humor me ››

'The battle for the soul of Egypt isn't over and done with.'

They know, like we all do, that this regime no longer cares to put on a moderate mask. That they have shown their true nature. That Mubarak will never step down, and that he would rather burn Egypt to the ground than even contemplate that possibility.

- "Egypt Right Now," Sandmonkey's first-hand account of what's happened in his country over the last 9 days ... and 30 years.

When you read this, take into account that there's no room left to behave as if human equality is a subjective thing. There is no more space in an increasingly connected world to say that what a tyrant, a tyrannous government or a tyrannous enterprise does with its dependents is its own business.

Faster communications makes territory less important and distances insignificant. That means institutionalised repression and blows to free thinking, to the liberty that sparks innovation, becomes everybody's business. The world is now too small for this.

I'm going to say something cheesy now, but I think it has to be said this way. Technology is where it is today because of higher numbers of ever more ambitious hackers fighting odds, rigid corporate standards, suspected limitations and attempted castrations of the internet's liberty. They are dogged, they self-organise and recognise no authority but the merits of what works, cutting away what doesn't, and we have all advanced because of it.

In this world and tomorrow's, that hacker culture belongs to everyone: people with access to the tools to fight governments, self-organise and speak out against human injustices without having to go through prescribed channels.

The channels that matter now belong to us. Use them wisely, tirelessly and fearlessly. United, able and armed with knowledge, we can make civilisation a kinder, more efficient machine, worthy of its name and richer because of the dynamism that serves one god: freedom. The freedom to think, be educated, feel safe, ask hard questions and decide our destinies.

This is what Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Yemen and other countries, newly inflamed, are fighting for now. This is what we should be defending every day, even if we feel like it's not our fight.

It's always our fight.

Maybe Kids Should Rule the World.

Or just this one.



And I like her little insight at the end on the cops.