The Mad Arab's Channel

Coming from someone with his roots in Turkey, why is it that Atatürk himself condemned the violence against the Armenians, while parliamentary nowadays, with Atatürk's portrait on the wall, refuse to even debate the issue?

Why are Turkish journalists and reporters shot for their activities in tr...

@BekurahToshin: You have the most awesome grandmother.

roder59: ..you do know Taqiyya is a typically Shi'ite concept? That's completely absent in Sunni Islam?

You do know the difference between those two sects, don'tya?

hnh4: dunno. probably didn't think it important enough. Also Rick Danko played some awesome fiddle that can't be heard too well on most recordings, which is a shame.

Ah, the laxness of our custom officials. Makes me proud to be Dutch.

I want a fez. I want one badly ._.

Dutch..teletubbies o__O

Rick Danko is THE MAN. So awesome. Listen to that bass resonating all the way through the song. Genius.

What kind of awesome hat is Rick Danko wearing?

The very concept of "fundamentalist Muslims" is sadly based on a wrong assumption. The Wahabbi movement is based mostly on the works of Ibn Taymiyya, a 13th century Islamic writer and theologian who, in his own time, was imprisoned several times because of his deviating point of view. It is not f...

God, coming from an Arab, can we please get over this anti-Israel business? Can't we just all enjoy great music as it is?

Thank you. And sorry, Jewish friends, if you are offended by Arabs acting like idiots. We seem to have too many right now.

@mingalabaa: That is something of a wrong interpretation of why the Muslim presence in al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal faded away). There are three main factors:

1) Infighting between the Muslim states in al-Andalus (the tawaif)

2) A lack of manpower, which led to a severe military deficit

3) A la...

Bitchin'.

This is brilliant. Rick and Levon are awesome.

@z1mtschnecker1ch: well, he did sing from time to time. He sang along to "Slippin and Slidin" and "Ain't No More Cane" and another song from time to time. You can actually hear him ad-lib "alright" during the Festival's Express "Slippin and Slidin". It's on YouTube too!

@marco39120: I think I'm probably one of the few Arab guys that loves this kind of music, outside of America at that!

@ericx777: Well the irony here is that pretty much all the songs we see in the film The Last Waltz were overdubbed (except Levon Helm's parts). Rick Danko's bass was slightly out of tune, Garth Hudson had some problems organising the organ and synthesizer part properly and Robbie Robertson re-rec...

Beautiful version of "The Weight" with such an extensive brass section. Shame it wasn't reproduced in any other recordings. Gives it a completely different feel, but I love it just the same.

@TheBarkingAtheist: What you should probably realise is that the Taliban and Iran are enemies. It's very unlikely that the Iranian government would support the Taliban as they are not on good footing at all.

Is that a Lowrey Festival organ? O_O

ICELAND, WHAT THE HELL!?

This is brilliant. I like Bob's delivery as well, it's just such a pointless song.

@Cig2010: Mensen die de Islam beschuldigen van intrinsiek extremisme is zich volledig onbewust van de ontwikkelingen in de Islamitische wereld vanaf het jaar 1800. Vooral de werken van Sayyid Qutb (die zich weer baseerde op Ibn Taymiya, een 13e eeuwse theoloog) uit de 20e eeuw waren de belangrijk...