Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Whats up with Egypt?

This is topic Whats up with Egypt? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 01-30-2011, 06:25 AM:

My thoughts and prayers go out to my Egyptian friends. After the bombing on new years, I called the director of the Bibliotheca Library in Alexandria and she said no one was hurt, but alot of friends and family were affected by it. Now riots and looting in Cairo? It's crazy. I've been there about a dozen times and now I can't call or e-mail any of my friends to check on them [Confused]

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 01-30-2011, 12:48 PM:

quote: Richard H
Now riots and looting in Cairo? It's crazy.

Well, whenever there is civil unrest, some element of the community will always take advantage of the situation and take to looting.

As for rioting, it's actually not been too bad. If you watch the American news channels, you would think the Egyptian public was killing bureaucrats and burning down entire cities.

The foreign press actually shows a slightly more restrained picture.

As you're aware, Egypt has effectively been run as a praetorian state for 30 years under the control of a dictator -- used in the traditional sense, not the "he's Hitler" inflammatory sense. It's interesting what Egypt was able to do, in re: cutting off the country from outside contact. There is a bill that's been floated by conservatives here in the U.S. that would give our government the right to do exactly what's happened in Egypt -- shut down all civil communication.

I was about to get into how the political implications of a big governmental change in Egypt are worst for the U.S. and Israel, but then I remembered the "no politics" rule. [Wink]

Posted by Martin McCaffery (Member # 37) on 01-30-2011, 01:16 PM:

Did you see the human shield people set up to protect the Eqyptian Museum from damage and looting. Can't imagine that happening at the Smithsonian.

Posted by David E. Nedrow (Member # 4981) on 01-30-2011, 01:32 PM:

quote: Martin McCaffery
Did you see the human shield people set up to protect the Eqyptian Museum from damage and looting. Can't imagine that happening at the Smithsonian.

Heh. Here, half the country would show up with cans of gasoline to burn "all them dirty pictures", books full of "sciency stuff", and maybe a curator or two.

Update 2011-01-30 14:39:

Mubarek and pals are in full panic mode now. They just shut down Al Jazeera's Cairo studios. Al Jazeera, and Al Jazeera English in particular, have been providing the best coverage of the struggle in Egypt. Particularly grating to the Egyptian government is that AJ and AJE aren't willing to gloss over the situation, as most American media does, by trying to paint the civil participants as murderous, looting thugs.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-01-2011, 02:39 AM:

Seems our stance is that we want to assure open and fair elections. We better be careful what we wish for.

Posted by Richard Hamilton (Member # 321) on 02-03-2011, 10:47 AM:

from a friend in Alexandria,

quote:
Mohamed wrote: "Thank you guys for your concern, we are in very critical situation and some media are trying to use it for their personal profits not to show the truth"

. I hope things settle down soon. At least he has internet access now.

latest website

Rick

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 02-16-2011, 06:20 PM:

When all this kicked off, several planeloads of Britain's finest were irradiating themselves on the beach in Sharm-El-Sheikh. Unfortunately for them, most had got there on no-frills airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet, who of course got the willies and cancelled all their flights anywhere near the place until the trouble blows over. Cue a bunch of stupid tourists moaning in front of whatever TV camera they could find, who of course hadn't bothered to read the small print on their plane tickets (that they can cancel the flight for whatever reason they like, refund what you paid for your ticket and then leave you high and dry) OR buy travel insurance. You'd have thought that after that Mount Eyfükkagolfball ash cloud saga and the amount of news coverage it generated, with thousands of people sleeping in airport lounges and so on, that these people would at least have made some contingency plans.