11 February 2011

looting antiquities

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I know Toucans are not from Egypt, but there is a connection between ancient Egypt and ancient America and I want to contemplate that instead of all this creepy stuff I'm also attending.
Former Egyptian museum director Wafaa el-Saddik said the National Museum in Cairo was looted by its own security guards and that the Memphis Museum, south of Cairo, was "completely emptied" by looters.

"I alerted an army general but it was too late," he said.

Looters also emptied an entire warehouse at the Qantara Museum, near the city of Ismailia, that contained 3000 objects from the Roman and Byzantine periods, a tourism police source said.

Egyptian museum official Mohamed Megahed said there had been "immense damage" to the ancient burial grounds of Abusir and Saqqara.

"Only the Imhotep Museum and adjacent central areas were protected by the military. In Abusir, all tombs were opened with gangs digging day and night," he said.
It seems the looting has been quite more extensive than I've seen so far, and I'm bummed about this, and:
This lies in the background of President Mubarak’s appointment of Egypt’s antiquities Tsar, Zahi Hawass, to a cabinet level post. Given Hawass’ own background and connections to the western elites, this is not a surprising move, but it is one that subtly implies that elite’s interest in Egyptian antiquities.
So I, along with the irascible Phil, am not feeling comforted by this elevation of the prime headache for Egyptologists... often seemingly completely at whim.

Anyway, It's 11am in Cairo, and hour before Friday prayers, and Tahrir Square is already full. In addition, there are people blocking ingress to State TV and various government offices and no word of the contingent that lit out for Mubarak's palace last night, but more on the way.

The army brass have been meeting this morning—without Mubarak or Suleiman—and have promised a statement before prayers. So I will try to stay awake for it... but I'm fading fast....

The people seem to hotly desire that the military take over the interim government. They want them to take out the regime. This is a very, very popular opinion, with also quite a few who feel Mubarak has been tamed and they can wait a few more months. Some of those will be wishing that out of gratitude for what they think Mubarak did for them in the past, some out of weariness and fear, and some because their businesses are tanking beyond help if this goes on much longer.

They are expecting 20 million demonstrators across the nation today.

I'm hoping the military will just announce to everyone before any violence kicks up that they have escorted Mubarak out of the palace and will be running things and facilitating the writing of the new "connestetution" is being written... but you know me. Fairy dust hippie and all....

This post, as with yesterday's, will likely be updating all day, so the people on the feed might want to know that.

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love, 99
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15 comments:

  1. Mubarak has fled to a Red Sea resort.

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  2. I know you actually meant Cheerful Phil. What's this Mubarak Steps Down?

    DSM-IV-TR Framework

    The narcissist has to condition his human environment to refrain from expressing criticism and disapproval of him or of his actions and decisions. He has to teach people around him that these provoke him into frightful fits of temper and rage attacks and turn him into a constantly cantankerous and irascible person. His exaggerated reactions constitute a punishment for their inconsiderateness and their ignorance of his true psychological state.

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  3. Mubarak has stepped down. Power transferred to the military. The crowd is happy. For now.

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  4. This should inspire the movements in Jordan, Algeria, and Yemen.
    (Hope it's not a trick.)

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  5. I slept through it. I'm skeptical/happy. I was becoming worried when AJ was going to a bunch of crowd members who sounded Scottish trying to sound Egyptian speaking English to ask them if they wanted the Army to take over. Everybody was saying, "Yes! Yes! That's what we've been wanting all along." I don't blame them. I want the military to boot out OUR regime, but I, of course, realize that our Pentagon might as well be Egypt's Pentagon and so... it's a trick. It'll still be no good, but maybe the people will be happier... if not better off.

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  6. Phil, you don't have to be a narcissist to be irascible! I'm irascible all the time. Many of us are, lately. Obama's speech writers are very good at writing speeches for narcissists....

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  7. Mubarak, Suleiman, and the Prime minister are all military men, so it remains to be seen who's really running the show. It might still be Mubarak.

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  8. It might still be Mubarak.

    Why would I not be surprised?

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  9. Precisely why I'm not leaping right on any opining on this. Fucking rats' nest of evil space lizards any way you turn. Hillary Mann-Leverett was on AJ earlier. She went to school in Egypt and served there during the Clinton Administration. She and her husband are renegade sense-talkers about the Middle East and she's uneasy as hell about this too and said so in no uncertain terms. The hairdo interviewing her was clearly uncomfortable with it and cut off the interview.

    So I'm just waiting for my synapses to start firing before I get into this any further. OR... I might just drop it, because I don't want to be a wet rag about all those jubilant citizens we whipped up to block Mubarak's dynastic ideation, and EVEN if this is all straight up out of Barackenaten's control right now, which I heavily doubt, he's GOING to get that control back in spades soon enough. Make no mistake.

    In fact, I'm thinking heavily about his coup in Honduras. Coups seem to be his forté. Lots of people are saying this puts him in the Carter/Iran zone. I think that's dead wrong.

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  10. The MAIN thing is a stop to the torture, but... I doubt even that will stop. It will most likely just be cloaked better now.

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  11. It will most likely just be cloaked better now.

    The down side to Wikileaks...

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  12. No. That's the upside to them. They can get the cloak off. Obama was cloaking it from Day One, before he knew what WikiLeaks would do.

    He "abolished" torture, NOT by stopping it, but just by yanking it from the news and renaming things and reshuffling things and putting in a bunch of bogus rules that just snapped off more avenues to get to the truth.

    I tellz yiz he's MORE evil by far than those who went before... EVEN if he's just doing the bidding of his masters.

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  13. My point is that now that wiki has come out in the open the powers that be will be clamping down the info more tightly than ever.

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