Author Archive for Samier Saeed
To Kabul With Love: An Open Letter to President Hamid Karzai
I hope that this letter finds you in good health aside from the constant security threat to your person, which grows exponentially whenever you leave Kabul. Allow me to ask you, friend: what is irony? A short Asian Nazi? A grandmother who bakes cookies with marijuana in them? Perhaps it is starting a war (ostensibly) [...]
Tweaking for Twitter? How to Get Help Now!
“I would say I issued about 1,000 tweets per day,” John tells me, his face gaunt and his fingers twitching like he really needs to hit some keys. I’m sitting in the Life, Media, and Order (LMAO) Rehabilitation Center in Laguna Hills. Founded just six months ago by Bernie and Shannon O’Heath, the clinic has [...]
An Afghan Quagmire
Remember when President Obama took more than a month to formulate a new strategy for Afghanistan, deciding whether or not to send more troops? It seemed like every analyst had a different opinion about what the decision should have been.
It has been clear for a while now that nobody can look at the situation in [...]
Election Fail in Afghanistan
The American effort to achieve anything in Afghanistan has reached a point of darkly humorous failure. The country is called “the Graveyard of Empires,” and for a good reason. In the face of this reality, American goals in the country have shifted again and again from “ensuring stable, democratic government” to “simply defeating Al-Qaeda and leaving nation-building to the Afghanis” in a farcical attempt to justify our presence there.
‘Goats’ Fails to Hypnotize
PSYCHIC: The political satire “The Men Who Stare At Goats” lacks the gut-busting laughs viewers expected.
Flying Fail! Pilots Overshoot Airport
When you get on an airplane, where does the biggest threat come from? From the mumbling, abnormally stiff gentleman to your right who requests seat belt extensions? Perhaps it comes from the bearded fellow with the exotic name. Maybe it comes from a crying infant who threatens your sleep, or a flight attendant whom you nagged incessantly and now wants to poison your food! Actually, the biggest problem with air travel can sometimes be the pilots themselves.
Pakistan’s Art Scene
Pakistan doesn’t have much cultural currency in the West. When most Americans think of the culture of the Indian subcontinent they think of India. America is missing out on sophisticated and enjoyable works of art. Pakistan’s exportable cultural output is a mixed bag; gems are buried underneath pathetic attempts to copy Indian and/or American artists. Thanks to religious fanaticism and financial issues, Pakistani culture is sliding down the slippery slope to destruction. The country isn’t completely devoid of an art scene, but it is, unfortunately, a very small scene. Can it survive as the country inches further away from stability everyday?
A Foreign Dilemma: Pakistan’s Militant Woes
Last week, the Obama administration hosted Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., for talks and friendship-building fun-tivities. Usually, the mutual failure to deal with the Taliban and its associates is a source of tension between the two countries. But on this trip, Pakistan could not deny that it was the primary architect of its latest problems. Luckily, the solution lies within as well.
Ethnic Alcoves: Lil‘ Gaza
Little Gaza, an ethnic enclave centered around Brookhurst Street in Anaheim that is home to thousands of Palestinian-Americans, has quite a few restaurants to offer, and one of the best things about it is that one doesn’t have to be too adventurous to try the food; most Middle Eastern places like to serve kabobs, and who doesn’t like a kabob?
Scott’s Seafood Bar and Grill
Anyone writing about restaurants for this paper would be remiss if they failed to recognize the fact that UC Irvine is situated within poking distance of gastronomical greatness.
