This is a poem by a contemporary Maltese poet, Ġakbu (James).
He posted the poem in a previous article on the oldest Maltese literary work, Il-Cantilena. I translated the Cantilena into English using only my knowledge of Arabic and trying to decipher the old orthography and the modern orthography of Maltese.This was a nice mental challenge, and an experiment in culture, history and of course, linguistics.
News from Jerusalem yesterday showed Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks exchanging kicks and punches, with many of them featuring bruises and bloodied faces.
Of course it is odd that these are religious figures fighting inside a holy site, but if one examines the news deeper, he will see that this is a frequent occurance.
Earlier in 2008, Armenian and Greek Orthodox fought like they did yesterday.
A hilarious video on The Matrix running Windows. Really funny, and a mention of Ubuntu too.
Via Matt Assay.
A while ago, I wrote an article on pumice on south Mediterranean coast: a remnant of the Thera eruption? This is mainly from observations from my childhood days being intrigued by the pumice embedded in the sand stone.
After I posted it, I got a few emails offering or requesting pumice as a commercial supplier.
Here is one that is a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for
As reported by the Ottawa Citizen, Momin Khawaja was convicted of several charges and acquitted from the major one: aiding a terrorist ring in targeting London England.
The trial was under Canada's Anti-terror Law, quickly enacted after the 9/11 attacks in the USA.
I don't think that Khawaja is innocent, given all the evidence, included an ex-fiance from Dubai.
Also known as Il-Kantilena ...
In a previous article on Arab heritage in Malta, I touched upon how the Maltese language (Ilsan Malti) is definitely derived from Arabic, and more specifically, from the North African dialect of Arabic.
A visitor to the site raised a nice challenge which was very interesting to me: He started on the off note and having his comment titled "Maltest are not arab", and by saying:
First, it was the move of executive offices from Dayton to New York City's World Trade Center.
Now, it is the Worldwide Customer Services' turn. Peachtree City, Georgia, long time warehouse for spare parts, will now house 916 more jobs in customer services as well.
Of course, Dayton and Ohio officials are concerned about this.
Like I have said before, digital media and file formats will be a serious challenge in the future.
Dr. Jerome P. McDonough of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne (UIUC) warns of a digital dark age because of digital media not being as resilient as physical media. He teaches graduate studies on Library and Information Science.
A very good article indeed.
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