Bits and pieces

A few things that I picked up around the web but I have nothing special to say about:

A fun story from the October 1854 issue of Harper's called The Oriental Merchant. Rummage around the site and there are some great 19th century orientalist stories.

Mona Baker's site, which leads with an important appeal to defend Columbia University Assistant Professor Joseph Massad, who is coming under attack by the usual suspects for having opinions of his own.

Shebab Misr (the youth of Egypt, in Arabic) is a subversive but relatively apolitical online magazine that prints what's usually not available in the print publications. A worthy project.

We've mentioned Al Hurra a few times here in the past few weeks, but Abu Aardvark has a bit more with rumors of impending shake-ups. Also check out his links covering protests over human rights activist Abd al Hadi al Khawaja's arrest, which we've covered before. Update:

He's also right that Chan'ad Bahraini is a must-read on Bahrain and this affair in particular.