18 February 2011 Walstib in Egypt

“OP-ED COLUMNIST

Guru of the Revolution

By ROGER COHEN

Published: February 17, 2011

“LONDON — When the history of the Egyptian Revolution gets written, a large place must be reserved in it for Pierre Sioufi, the bearded, twinkly-eyed, chain-smoking, larger-than-life guru of liberation who threw open his sprawling apartment overlooking Cairo’s Tahrir Square to the “kids” who demanded the right to connect.



“I say a “large place.” Sioufi weighs in at some 300 pounds. If Tahrir Square during those 18 days had its elements of Woodstock — the plastic tents, the bleary-eyed folk at dawn, the all-we-can-really-do-is-love-one-another spirit — then he was its Jerry Garcia (with a touch of Allen Ginsberg). ..”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/opinion/18iht-edcohen18.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Cassi Creek: Cohen gets part of it right. Jerry Garcia was careful to avoid leadership roles whenever possible. There are a lot more 60’s icons who would fill the analogous position Cohen is postulating. It may very well be that Mr. Sioufi will become catalogued as a primary founder of the Egyptian revolution of 2011. He may also vanish into obscurity and receive little or no recognition. The interesting thread to pursue will be for Cohen to keep this column forward in his archives and then to revisit it in a decade. We’ll see then if it truly is a long strange trip or a passing encounter.

Odds and ends:

Today while driving to school, I saw a potentially horrible accident just waiting to occur.

I’ve noticed, driving on and near ETSU campus that people become absolutely buried in their cell phones/smart phones, they plug in internal headphones, sealing off some to most externally originating sound. They bury their faces in a head downward position, and ignore the world outside the screen on their phone. I’ve had them bump into me while I’ve been standing still. I’ve watched them step off a bus and stop immediately, blocking everyone else’s access to the doorway. I’ve watched them walk in front of cars, buses, and trucks.

Today’s potential accident involved a young woman who was standing in the center turn lane of a five-lane highway. “State of Franklin Road” is extremely busy as it parallels the ETSU campus. She was standing blithely in the turn lane, obviously responding to some message that demanded an instant text response. She was not watching traffic at all. There were vehicles in that turn lane approaching from both directions.

Cell phone service may become a means of weeding the gene pool. In pre-historic life, humans and humanoids who did not constantly watch the surrounding environment for danger became a lower part of the food chain than they previously held. Now failure to observe one’s surroundings for imminent danger may not place the unobservant in the food chain, in most parts of the world. It will, however, tend to remove one from the breeding pool.

Perhaps “smart phone” is not the best descriptor.