Category: Photography

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2OJE0Jf Nature is always at its own pace. #wcharaf November 26, 2019 at 09:50AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2KNumnE “The creation of irreality has always been the Intelligence Community’s darkest art”. Edward Snowden

#snowden
#wcharaf November 23, 2019 at 03:06PM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2mCmtbO Photo: Gertrude Bell with King Faisal in 1923 Iraq. .

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her knowledge and contacts, built up through extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia.Along with T. E. Lawrence, Bell helped support the Hashemite dynasties in what is today Jordan as well as in Iraq.
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She played a major role in establishing and helping administer the modern state of Iraq, using her unique perspective from her travels and relations with tribal leaders throughout the Middle East. During her lifetime she was highly esteemed and trusted by British officials and exerted an immense amount of power. She has been described as “one of the few representatives of His Majesty’s Government remembered by the Arabs with anything resembling affection”.
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She has single handedly helped document and establish the archeological records of the area. She established the Iraqi museum By appointment from King Faisal. Her correspondences are the best source for the inner politics of the region after world war 1. .
#thegreatarabrevolt
#wcharaf September 28, 2019 at 11:41AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2nRly7J “We often use technology to save time, but increasingly, it either takes the saved time along with it, or makes the saved time less present, intimate and rich. I worry that the closer the world gets to our fingertips, the further it gets from our hearts.” @jonathan.safran.foer #wcharaf September 27, 2019 at 09:31AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2m83t4L Truly one of the most peaceful & civilized cities in the world.
#wcharaf #amsterdam September 26, 2019 at 04:04PM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2m0kD42 Adriana: I can never decide whether Paris is more beautiful by day or by night.
Gil: No, you can’t, you couldn’t pick one. I mean I can give you a checkmate argument for each side. You know, I sometimes think, how is anyone ever gonna come up with a book, or a painting, or a symphony, or a sculpture that can compete with a great city. You can’t. Because you look around and every street, every boulevard, is its own special art form and when you think that in the cold, violent, meaningless universe that Paris exists, these lights, I mean come on, there’s nothing happening on Jupiter or Neptune, but from way out in space you can see these lights, the cafés, people drinking and singing. For all we know, Paris is the hottest spot in the universe.
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris: The Shooting Script

#paris #wcharaf #woodyallen September 26, 2019 at 08:08AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/30dmrcU Our forgotten Arab hero’s:
Look at him serving the Arab world not being identified by any of the Sykes Picot divisions. .
Born in Kfar Chima (Lebanon) in 1869.
He was educated at Abaya High School and the American College of Beirut.
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He worked as a teacher in Lattakia for many years.
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He was one of the members of the Almuntada Aladaby which established the Arab nationalist movement in early 20th century. .
He then went to Egypt to serve as the Chief Justice of the Sudan Government Agency.
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Is one of the biggest leagues and translators in this Era, and published his scientific and social articles in major magazines such as Crescent and extract. Known for his proofreading.
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Published many books and articles and published three books of poetry, many of it written to describe the historical events of his time. .
He died in Cairo in 1935. .
He is Asaad Khalil Dagher. .
#wcharaf
#thegreatarabrevolt September 21, 2019 at 02:54PM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/32WcRYO “ I don’t know much Arabic yet and have to deal with Arabs largely through interpreters, though I retain something of what I learned in my expedition down the Euphrates in 1903. The Arabs are vastly superior to the Indians in type and civilization, fine independent men with great ideas of hospitality and the kind of chivalry of their own; and they live in excellent brick houses … One here is great tales of Turkish correctness and incompetence. But I have a sad suspicion that, even so, the Arabs are happier under them then they eventually will be under us when we have irrigated the Mesopotamian deserts and regularized everything and screwed everyone up to concert pitch and allow no dirt or slackness and rule with the vast and crushing minuteness of our records.
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So I look up on it as an act of providence that I have been sent here to help in laying the foundations and to have an opportunity of countering from the very beginning the methods of excessive red tape. If I have my Way, everything will be done to revive a true Arab civilization, and the lines of administration will be so set that an increase in prosperity shall not mean spiritual decay and the dying out of all local custom and native force of character.” From a letter of Sir Henry Dobbs in February 1915 to his mother.
Dobbs was educated at Winchester College and Brasenose College, Oxford. He joined the Indian Civil Service in 1892 and after several posts served as the Chief Commissioner of Balochistan 1917–1919. Dobbs was the British Representative on the Kabul Mission in January 1921, during which he met with Afghan Foreign Minister Mahmud Tarzi to discuss Anglo-Afghan friendship.

The result was the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 22 November 1921, which confirmed the Indo-Afghan border, established diplomatic ties between London and Kabul, and defined special trade agreements.[1] He later served as High Commissioner to the Kingdom of Iraq from 1923 to 1929, the longest time this position was held by anyone during the course of the Iraq Mandate.
#wcharaf
#thegreatarabrevolt September 21, 2019 at 11:02AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2V7JoZy “Fitting people with books is about as difficult as fitting them with shoes”. Sylvia Beach
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Founded in Nov 19, 1919 by Sylvia Beach to become a hub for English book lovers and writers in Paris.
#wcharaf
#paris
#sylviabeach September 20, 2019 at 09:43AM

via Instagram https://ift.tt/30kvIPX Sometimes I feel that most of the modern philosophy and political & social thinking were shaped in Paris cafes. .
The café was opened in the 1880s, during the Third Republic. The name is taken from a sculpture of Flora, the goddess of flowers and the season of spring in Roman mythology, located on the opposite side of the boulevard. Authors Joris-Karl Huysmans and Remy de Gourmont were two of the first well-known regulars. In the late 19th century, Charles Maurras wrote his book Au signe de Flore on the café’s first floor, where in 1899 the Revue d’Action Française was also founded.[2]

The Café de Flore became a popular hub of famous writers and philosophers. Georges Bataille, Robert Desnos, Léon-Paul Fargue, Raymond Queneau were all regulars, and so was Pablo Picasso.[3] Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was known to be a frequent patron of Café de Flore during his years in France in the 1920s.[4] The classic Art Deco interior of all red seating, mahogany and mirrors has changed little since World War II.
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Café de Flore appeared in the 1963 film The Fire Within.
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The café is mentioned in the 1975 song “Et mon père” by Nicolas Peyrac.
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Amanda Lear filmed her music video “Égal” in Café de Flore in 1981.
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The café was featured in the 3rd episode (“Paris”) of series 4 of Absolutely Fabulous in 2001.
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The coffeehouse appeared in the lyrics of the 2002 song “L’Entarté” by Renaud.
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It’s subject of Les Amants du Flore (2006), a film about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
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Parts of the 2011 film Love Lasts Three Years were filmed in Café de Flore
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#cafedeflore
#wcharaf September 19, 2019 at 03:02PM