I am still working on the question of header images. Viewers have voted against the image of the Mardi Gras Indian girl, because it is from a black and white photograph. They have voted in favor of the detail from the Casa de la Muerte at Copán, and I agree with them. WordPress, however, does not like that picture at all, at all, and I will have to do quite a lot of fiddling before using it here.
There has been a colorful slice of some Mardi Gras Indian men and boys, and another very colorful view of the market at Chichicastenango. There has been an impressive photograph from Chichen Itza, and a less impressive one from Machu Picchu. Now there is a view of a working class Zacatecas neighborhood under construction. This is my favorite so far, not least because I have not used it elsewhere. Below (I think) is the Mardi Gras Indian photograph I may also use.
I have been meaning to recommend read the retrospective on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Lafayette Independent. This contains some of the best writing on the storms I have seen. People interested in New Orleans may also want to read the books Ari Kelman reviews here, on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The politcs, horse-trading and general mismanagement were very interestingly similar.
In poetry, I recommend studying the fascinating life and work of Anna Akhmatova. Arab-American writers, and readers of Arab-American literature, may wish to send a proposal to this conference announced to us by Aramaic Carpenter Reel.
Finally, in news of women, Heart has a fascinating post on Malalai Joya, now a Member of Parliament in Afghanistan. And Momo leads us to Clara
Campoamor’s speech on woman suffrage, delivered in the Cortes of the Spanish Republic October 1, 1931.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
thanks for posting P Z! appreciate it. Rawi is a great organization and this is their second national conference. it will be in dearborn, michigan at the Arab American National Museum–only museum of its kind. should be exciting.
how are you liking wordpress? looks like lots of people are moving. I need to be a blogger longer than a few months –I need the easy template.
Afwan, ya Nayj! 😉 (I don’t speak Aramaic, so I am trying a little of my weak Arabic.)
I hope the conference plans go well. I’d go if it were any closer.
On WordPress, the templates are actually as easy as Blogger. I am not entirely sure yet on my opinions. I like the fact that you can edit every portion of every Blogger template. But I like the look of more of the WordPress templates, and some of them have more functionality. My main reason for moving was, I wanted a template with a white background that I liked. I found one on WordPress.
Also, it seemed to me that Blogger’s servers were going down, or out, more and more often. I am not sure whether that is actually them, or all their fault, or whether my ISP has a part in it as well. But WordPress seems to be up and running more of the time.
I have not figured out what to do about the question of photographs in WordPress — I have to play with it some more. When I look at Stephen Bess site on Blogger (Morphological Confetti), which is on the same template I am/was, and which features a lot of photography, I become nostalgic for my old site.
So all in all, I think it is really six of one, half a dozen of the other. I think that some of the people who have moved to WordPress, have done so for reasons slightly different than mine. A lot have gone because of the more sophisticated system for comment moderation. For me, that is more of a secondary benefit.
Looks really good!