Sunday, June 28, 2009

Ten Breathtaking, Shocking or just Plain Brilliant Moments in Sports

Continuing on my series of Ten Amazing Moments in Sports (previous ones: here, and here, and here, and here ) ... here are another ten moments in the history of sports that made the world stand on its feet, or just get shocked for a few seconds, showed an extraordinary skill that will never be matched again. Very unusual, strange and freakish moments...

Make sure you raise the volume!


1- Monica Seles Stabbed

She was on ruling the tennis world winning one tennis tournament after another, when a psycho threw a knife at her back during a game. The man was German and he wanted the number #2 player Graf to climb to the number one spot instead of Seles. Indeed she did.

Seles came back to play 2 years later but did not reach her pre-injury level.



2- Wrong Way!! Wrong Way!!
I don't watch 'American' football, but this incident in 1964 happens once in a million years. This Vikings player grabbed the ball and ran with it without any resistance from the opposing team for a very good reason: he was running to the wrong side of the field.



3- Maradona Fighting Back
While playing for Barcelona in 1984, Maradona was deliberately injured by Atheltico Bilbao's defender Goikoetxea. Goikoetxea was proud of injuring Maradona and kept the shoes he used to injure him in a glass box. Maradona suffered severely but was able to return for the second part of the league, and this time Maradona started a terrible fight against Bilbao players. Many of his teammates joined him and the field was a mess.

It took an intervention by the Spanish King, yes the King Juan Carlos to end the war between both campaigns after he called both players together to his palace days later and asked them to shake hands.

Here's the fight:


4- Panenka's Precious Penalty
It was the final game of the 1976 European Championship (Euro 76 if you like!) between Czechoslovakia and Germnay. It went to penalty shootouts. Germany missed a penalty and the Czechs had one last penalty, if scored would give them the championship. Antonin Panenka stepped up and in this critical moment decided to experiment with this new penalty kick. This type of shooting a penalty was named after him. Zidane scored from a Panenka penalty in the 2006 World Cup final.

Check the video to see whether or not Panenka scored.



Trivia: the German player who missed (Hoeness) is currently the director of Bayern Munich.

5- Three Seconds.
This is possibly the most controversial gold medal match in Olympic history. USA and the USSR played the final game in basketball. Up to that game the US had never lost a single game in their Olympic history. It was close game however with the Americans leading 50-49 with 3 seconds remaining. The Russians played those 3 seconds without scoring, however those 3 seconds were replayed three times for various reasons and following mixed decisions from different people. In the third replay the Russians scored and won 51-50. The Americans refused to accept their silver medals. They were sent to them by mail but they returned them. Today, 37 years after the game, the original players of the US basketball team still refuse to accept their silver medals.



6- Answer The Question, Jerk!

Tennis players can get pretty upset at the referee's decision, but nobody was nearly as crazy and rude as John McEnroe. This is one of his very angry moments at the refree.



7- Very Fair Play

Italian footballer Paolo DiCanio was well-known to have bad manners on the field. His career was filled with fights and red cards. However in this game for his team West Ham against Everton, the Everton goalie was on the ground after injuring his knee, and DiCanio refused to score against him. DiCanio, among all others, received the 2001 FIFA fair play award for this unexpected act from DiCanio (who happens to be a very proud fascist)




8- Samir Bannout wins Mr. Olympia

Mr. Olympia is the most elite competition for bodybuilders in the world. In 1983, Samir Bannout of Lebanon competed and won the title, becoming the first and only Arab to date to win the competition. Here is his performance in that competition. He reminds me of my body in 10th grade.





If you're wondering what Jordanian Mustafa Hassanin won, it was an amateur world competition. Great achievment, but it wasn't Mr. Olympia.

9- The Gift

West Germnay played Argentina in the 1990 World Cup final. Argentina played with 10 players after a player was sent off, defended brilliantly and the game was close for a 0-0 draw. However, 5 minutes before the end, Argentinian defender Sensini cleared the ball from Voller. Voller decided to fall inside the penalty kick and Mexican referee decided to call it a penalty. Germany scored and won the World Cup 1-0.





10- Slow, Miserable Death on the Circle.

This is a dark moment in the history of Formula One. In 1973 Roger Williamson was racing in the Dutch Grand Prix when he lost control of his car which caught fire and hit the barriers. He survived the collision but was trapped inside his car which was on fire. Another driver (Purley) stepped out and started extinguishing the fire. No emergency crew showed up to help. There was only one fire extinguisher available and Purley had used it. He heard Williamson's screams from inside asking for help. The first fire truck arrived EIGHT minutes after the accidents. Williamson by then had died of asphyxiation from the fumes.



Hope you liked them,
Hareega

Saturday, June 27, 2009

A Tribute to Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett died on the same day. That was a very bad day for white women.

Here's a tribute to Michael Jackson, a real artist who was destroyed by child abuse, extreme stress and whatever he was rubbing on his skin.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Let Them Wear Burka


I think burkas are crazy, and I always look at the woman wearing it (if I can) and wonder why is she wearing it. I even felt like throwing a question at a student working with me once just out of interest to see if she truly believes that me seeing her face will trigger my hormones and change me into an uncontrollable raging bull. What have always prevented me from doing so is my manners, or whatever remained of them. I always felt it was a personal decision by that woman, a result of multiple religious and cultural factors that I probably do not agree with, but the last thing that woman needed is someone who she doesn't know coming on and asking her questions about something like her clothes.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said in a speech last week that burkas are not welcomed in France. The Parliament is preparing for a law that bans the wearing of burkas in France.

I have a major problem with that.

First, they are banning something because they do not like it. A woman who is shopping or walking down the street is not taking away the freedom from anyone else. She is minding her own business. We should not lock people up because we don't like how they look, otherwise we'd be locking up men covered with tattoos, fat people wearing shorts and Nadia Al-Jundi from existing.

Secondly, they're doing the same thing that the religious police is Saudi Arabia and Iran is doing, chasing women and giving them a fine or locking them in jail because of something they are wearing (or not wearing for that matter). It's exactly the same concept. The French government would lower itself to the level of Saudi or Iranian government in interfering with the woman's own freedom to wear what she wants to wear.

Abuse is another excuse the French have for banning the burka. They assume every woman wearing the burka is being forced to do so by her husband. This is actually true in a few cases. However in France a woman can get a divorce is she is being abused by her husband, and there are shelters everywhere for women who suffer from domestic abuse.

Integration into the society is another concern, but you cannot enhance that by forcing a woman by law into wearing what you want her to wear. Besides, passing such law would cause many women covered with burkas to stay home rather than go outside their house.
If you want them to be integrated you have to influence the way they think, if possible, by many other methods that do not violate personal freedoms. It has to be their own decision to put on or take off whatever cloth they want. You will not suddenly open up their mind by dropping a piece of cloth.

Do not treat a cough by a cough suppressant. Treat it with excising the cancer that's causing it.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Hard Days for Arabic Football

Arab teams had a terrible week. Egypt defeated the World Champs Italy 1-0 and hardly lost to Brazil 4-3 only to be humiliated by the US 3-0 (Don't forget that the Americans scored a 4th goal that the referee did not see). Iraq failed to score in 3 games and was relegated from the first round of the Confederations Cup along with Egypt. Tunisia failed to score at home against Nigeria and drew 0-0, Morocco failed to score against Togo and drew 0-0 and are now technically out of the World cup.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia failed to score at home against North Korea, drawing 0-0 and giving the North Korean the ticket to their first World Cup in 34 years. Bahrain, Qatar and UAE lost 15 out of their 24 matches in the qualifications.

Don't get me started on Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait and our national team (which lost to Bahrain 4-0 recently).

Egypt's great victory against Italy was a great one but apparently due to a lot of luck and a good goalie. To be fair they played a wonderful second half against Brazil. They can do something, but I'm hoping for Algeria to qualify instead of them to the World Cup. Algeria has been one wonderful surprise so far, they finally woke up after two decades of disappointing results.

Let's wish them the best.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Are Jordanian Blogs Not So Great?

I did a little survey on my blog where visitors voted on the overall quality of Jordanian bloggers. This survey is by no means a scientific and the results may be skewed. Besides, those who voted are actually people who visited my blog. Obviously it's people who read blogs so the results might actually be a little better than what they actually reflect.

Worldwide, most blogs are awful. Most blogs are created by people for no obvious reason and they stop existing a few weeks to few months after nobody really reads them. A lot of them are copy+past+youtube blogs and those are doomed to fail. In the US at least I've been through a lot of "mommy blogs" where a mother, usually a housewife with a kid or two posts stories and pictures of her husband and kids. Those are nor awful blogs, but are extremely boring for anyone who doesn't know the person. Finally there are blogs where you feel the person is trying to say something but you can't understand what are they trying to say, or they write in a bad style or very large or very small fonts or whatever reason there might be to keep one away from reading them.


For that reason I'm not very concerned that a lot of Jordanian blogs active right now will disappear. Mine might be among them sooner than I expect. However I am concerned that we have not had any good blogs in a while. It feels to me like many blogs were created over a period of 2-3 years and some of them were great. They discussed many controversial issues, they used a language many journalists in the mainstream media never used, they had pictures and videos of things we encounter in a typical Jordanian daily life. With time a lot of them faded away, and nothing special came by to replace that vacuum. Besides, most blogs were in English and most Jordanians prefer to read and comment in Arabic. A well-written blog like the black iris is written in English and despite the fact that it's well-written not a lot of Jordanians are able to access its content. Mab3oos is clearly a very clever and humorous guy who often crosses many political red lines in his blog but again, he's writing in English and his blog's name is mab3oos and this is a very major obstacle for people to access his blog. A few other bloggers have very interesting articles and I depend on them in knowing about what's going on in Jordan, but again there are many basic issues that we are afraid to discuss. We're afraid to write something that we'll regret writing later on, or from a random comment an anonymous commentator might drop.

Finally, and I don't have the statistics to support this but it sounds like the case, when it comes to reading news or opinions, Jordanians would rather read a newspaper or watch TV than read something online. We are still not a very internet-friendly society especially when it comes to the not-so-young.

Overall, I don't think Jordanian blogs are terrible, but we have plenty of room for improvement. I'm hoping for stronger, more challenging, more controversial and well-written blogs especially in Arabic to start appearing on the internet. As for myself, Hareega isn't going to get any better, medical school has irreversibly damaged all of my brain cells and 70% of my hair.

June 1993

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Ahmadinajhad Won. Accept it.

They had elections, whether or not they were fair is something we don't know and I don't think anyone will have the ability to tell. I hate Ahmadinajhad but I like democracy and when people vote, their opinion needs to be respected. I hate it how the US's attitude towards every other country where if "our guy" wins the elections would have been fair and the people spoke up their mind, but when the "bad guy" wins the elections are unjust.

Let Iranians vote for whoever they want to, and if they're taking the streets and are going bring down Ahmadinajhad let them do it themselves. The last time the bad guy was brought down by a criminal military invasion things did not go very well and it was a country a little bit close to Iran both geographically and alphabetically.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

This Picture is Not Photoshopped



that's a female guard behind him
and he's wearing a tie under the military uniform
and has a goatee at the age of 67
and he is still Libya's leader after 40 years
And he has the picture of late Omar Al-Mokhtar on his chest, like a prostitute wearing a cross.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Becky's Heart

One of my busiest and most stressful months as a medical resident was the one on cardiology service, where we had to admit and treat patients with heart disease. What made the rotation easier for us was Becky. Becky was a nurse practitioner who knew enough about cardiology that she used to do all the paper work and prescriptions necessary for patients, which normally would take a very long time.

Some residents didn't like her much, perhaps because she occasionally would show that she knew about heart disease a little more than they did, something that harmed their ego. Either way she always did her job pretty well.

Recently she started going home a little early. Other than the occasional complaints when the resident didn't find her around at 5 pm, nobody else complained because she continued to work hard, although not as hard as usual.

Last week Becky asked to take Friday off because she had "things to do". On Saturday she was found dead in her house. She had written a letter about how much depressed she had been, how much struggles she had in her life, then grabbed a gun and shot herself in the head. Apparently she had previously attempted to kill herself by swallowing many pills but she recovered from that incident. She gave life a second chance but life didn't smile back so Becky decided to go and this time she made sure she would go for good and indeed she did.

This was sad and scary. This very pleasant lady has been working with us and was extremely depressed to the point where she wanted to end her life and had a plan for it without anyone of us, doctors, knowing about it or even detecting any warning signs. We treated an enormous number of patients with depression. Every doctor had previously held numerous patients in the hopsital against their will just because they were considering ending their life. We study depression and we know what to do with a depressed person. But all that time we did not pay attention to that lady working with us who had died inside long before we heard about the bad news on a Saturday morning. Depression is a very real disease, and like Becky its victims often seek permanent solutions to temporary problems. I hope she's in a better place.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Unpolished Stupidity

I have a Polish friend, say his last name is Kaczynski. He introduced me to his wife and her name was Polish too. In less than a nano-second I forgot her name.

I wanted to invite them to dinner, and couldn't remember her name and didn't feel like addressing her as "the wife" because that would be a little rude. So I looked his facebook friends and found it: Gizela Kaczynski.

I sent him a text message, "Hi Roman I would like to take you and Gizela to dinner this Friday".

He replied, "Thank you, but why do you want me to bring my mother from Poland to the dinner?"

I'm pretending not to have received the message just trying to come up with an explanation.

Morale of the story: if there's a funny story involving Polish people, the stupid people in the story might not be the Polish.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

BiMonthly Video: Obama in Denny's!!

The Onion news network is a fake news network that is very culturally insensitive and offensive to everyone on the planet as well as incredibly super funny.

Every few days they post a new video that can be incredibly funny, like this one today!


Saturday, June 06, 2009

Jerusalem Remembered

That is Jerusalem right after the Israeli occupation on this day 42 years ago. A little painful to watch.
We were a miserable broken nation then.
And I wish we'd be just as miserable and broken as we were right after that defeat.

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Virgin For Sale

I'm not talking about the record company, but a real virgin.

Natalie Dylan is a 22-year old student (and prostitute in the making) who is suffering in these tough economic times, so she decided to sell her virginity and the price offered was 3.7 million dollars.



Man, I know with this economic recession everyone was saying , "we're so --ked", but I didn't know it was going to be that real.

Anyway , for that man who's ready to pay those millions, if Natalie doesn't show up, you know how to reach me honey, love and kisses :)

Do You Want to Live Here? Bagdad, Nothing, Why?

Those town names are not only funny, but the story behind naming them is very interesting.

Nothing.

First, we have Nothing, Arizona. This is really a town called Nothing. The locals say that a bunch of drunk guys gave it the name in 1977!







Why
This town was located at a point where 2 major freeways interesected in a Y-shape. They wanted to name the town "Y" but the state refused to give it a one-letter name, so they named it Why.
Here's a store in this town named "Why-Not"

Bagdad
It's a little strange to have a very small town of 3000 people in Arizona named Bagdad. It's basically a copper mine town, that was named after a son and father working in a mine long time ago, and the son asked the father, "Can I have a bag, dad?" Hence the name Bagdad (with the "h" missing)
All of these towns are located in Arizona. Never been to any of them, and not planning to do so.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Outrageous

Per CNN:
"Dick Cheney said today that he does not believe Saddam Hussein was involved in the planning or execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

He strongly defended the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, however, arguing that Hussein's previous support for known terrorists was a serious danger after 9/11."


I don't think that those 100,000 who perished or the 30 million who saw their country fall apart because of him necessarily agree with his statement.

Comments of Al-Arabiyyah Readers Over the Air France Plane Crash


I'm ashamed to say that I have all the 289 comments on the news so far.

I don't know much about flying routes, but I'm sure a plane flying from Rio de Janero directly to Paris can never pass through Bermuda triangle!!

Also, some Arabs need to learn how to shut the f--- up.

Here are some genius comments:



مثلث برمودا -



لغز الرقم 6 ........تابعو معي رقم الرحله 447 ومجموه هذه الارقام هو 7 + 8 = 15 ومجموع 15 يساوي في النهاية 6 ... وعدد الركاب مع الطاقم هو 216 و15 اجمعو هذه الارقام فتكون 9 + 6 = 15 اي الناتج النهائي 6

......والشهر هو رقم 6 بالميلادي والهجري وساعة اختفائها كانت السادسه .......اليس امرا" غريبا" ؟؟؟


ما كنها عدت من جنب مثلث برمودا ؟ -



كانت الطائره تحمل 228 شخص أو 230 شخص أو 231 شخص ... لغز الاسبوع ؟ ؟ الجائزه رحله الى فرنسا على متن طائره مشابهه



لا يكون ادخلت مثلث برموداااااااااااااااااا


ولكني أتسائل ,, متى موعد سقوط البوينج ؟؟ لأنه لو تلاحظون ,, كل ماتوقع طيارة أيرباص ,, لازم تلحقها طيارة

بوينج علشان يحافظوا على نسبة المبيعات ,, و سلم لي عالركاب



والله حسيت نفسي في مطار هيثرو بلدن......الذي لا زلت اتذكر فيه انني عندما نزلت اول مرة للندن ....كيف تجمعت حولي المعجبات الشقراوات الجميلات الساحرات........والله لولاتدخل الشرطة واعوان المطار لتفريقيهن عليا.....لوقعت حاجة في نفس يعقوب فقضاها..هاهاهاهاهاهاهاها



نسيتي الرقم 330 اللي يشير إلى نوع الطيارة فـــ 0 +3+3 يساوي ست رقمية وليست أنثوية ، الله يلطف

بالمسلمين منهم وينجي أهل الكتاب المحصنين والمحصنات منهم




لا يفعل مثل هذه الاشياء الا مثلث برمودا.... لا احد يخرج منه ابدا ... الله يستر .... دعيبس الشرير




هل تعلمون يا اخوتي الاعزاء ان هنالك العديد من الطائرات التي فقد اثرها ما ان تكون قد مرت فوف مثلث برمودا هذا

المثلث الموجود في المحيط قد جلب استغراب وحيره العلماء فلا احد يعرف الى هذا اليوم لما تختفي الطائرات فوق هذا المكان بالتحديد




الله ينجيهم بس انا اعتقد انهم نزلو في المحيط الاطلنطي والينزل في المحيط الاطلنطي والله صعب يطلع من هناك لان في سمك القرش ينتظرهم هناك




القرصنة الصومالية الجوية ههههههههههههه




اعتقد انهم دخلوا او اعتقد اان الطيار ان اخطاء الطريق او انه ميل قليل الى مثلث برمودا



نتمنى أن تعرض العربية برامج وثائقية عن مثلث برمودا .. وشكراً


.....


من مسار الطائرة ..... يبدوا انها اختفت في مثلث الرعب




ياناس صدقوني كان عندي شك ان هاي الطائرة تصيبها مكروه رغم التطور والتكنلوجية الموجودة في الطائرة لكن هذ

القدر



ركاب هذة الطائرة الذين جلسوا فى درجة رجال الاعمال حدث لهم نفس المصير ام ان الطائرة من الامام لها حماية خاصة ؟

Monday, June 01, 2009

BiMonthly Video: Awesome Meshwaaar

I posted part of this song 3 years ago but the clip was removed since then from youtube.

Now it's being posted again, full version.

Great song if you've lived in Jordan in the 1980s.

Singers: Ronza and Wahid Jalal (who was played the voice of the Silver, the pirate with the wooden leg in Jazeerat al-Kanz!!)

Crazy Southwest

You can easily find many reasons to love or hate Southwest Airlines. I'm leaning more towards loving these days, mostly because they are the coolest airlines ever. No seating is required, they still do serve you refreshments, they don't charge you 15 dollars for each bag you check-in (which is the most insulting thing ever to any passenger), all their planes are 737s, and that thing above. This is a commercial for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit competition with the picture of a model on the body of the plane.

I guess the person sitting in seating 10F is having a bumpy ride more than the other passengers :)


Another example of their coolness:



and yes they are bitches for money, but everyone is.