abu wilyam ~ أبو وليام

Since I’m on an Obama kick, I might as well get it all out there. Here are are some translation/summaries of articles about Obama’s inauguration in the Syrian press that I did just after the fact. Best line:

Because we are rational, we must judge that Obama will not erase what is called the state of Israel from the map, he will not bring to life the martyrs of Gaza, he will not heal her wounded sons, nor will he return Baghdad to its previous secure era, nor will he erase from the memory of Syrians how his American army killed civilians in Albukmal, because, in all simplicity, he is Barack Obama and not the Awaited Mahdi nor Jesus the savior son of Mary.

The link is to the blog of a website called Meedan where I’ve done some work helping with their beta testing. The idea is to translate news between the Arabic- and English-speaking worlds, and foster dialogue. Cool.