Mr Bagel

Thursday, 25 January 2007

The People's Choice Award: Have you noticed? The award badges are all the same.

Well If you would like to differentiate between your award and the others you've come to the right place.

Now I've done all the badges, each name and each award level but

Pleeeeaseee don't use my hosting

.

Its a nightmare to think the top 42 awarded blogs would use my hosting for these pictures, as it would make my blog pages load even slower.

Grab the one you want.

They're 200pixels by 200 pixels. If you need a smaller badge then 'resize it',

Now there are 42 different badge pictures.

Heres what the Best Overall Blog banners look like.

Here are the other badges

[shown smaller than actual size.]
Due to the size of the badges, and the number to display (42),
they have been reduced temporarily to 100x100pixels for display.
The file is a 200pixel x 200pixel picture.

People's Choice Award: Best Pro-Israel Advocacy Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Jewish Religion Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Jewish Humor Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Slice of Life in Israel

People's Choice Award: Best 'New' Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Jewish Current Events/News Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Personal Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Jewish Culture Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Designed Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Group Blog

People's Choice Award: Best Podcast/Vlog

People's Choice Award: Best Kosher Blog

People's Choice Award: Recommended Blog

All the badges are there, it was one sleepless night for Bagelblogger.

All I ask is that you dont actually use the web address of the banner.

Save the picture file to your computer and upload it to your blog pictures.

I would like to congratulate all of the award winners for their People's Choice Awards

Shalom Bagelblogger

If you would like to return the gesture, simply consider putting Bagelblogger on your blog roll if you feel the blog is worthy.

Bagelblogger is in no way officially affilitated with The People's Choice Awards

Bagelblogger Get those badges up..!
* People's Choice Awards * PCA Jewish Blog Awards * Israel Forum * Jewish Blog Awards *Jewish Blog Awards Badges * Jewish Awards * JBlog Central * Jewish Best Blogs * Jewish Award badges * Israel Award Badges * Jewish Creativity * Jewish * Israel * Jewish
BagelBlogger * Bagel Blogger *

Wednesday, 24 January 2007

The Stench Of Desperation: A Time for Justice

The Stench Of Desperation

There's a Stench flowing over Beirut right now.
In amidst the hussle and bustle,
of normal people trying to get to work.

Some choosing to observe the Strike called by Hezbollah.
Most wanting simply to get on with life.
There's bills to pay,
food needed for the table, rent to pay.

The Stench is peculiar.
It's not something that has
recently ' just gone off',

its something that has beennoticeable for a very long time.
But recently its getting worse.

What's unusual is the stench seems to be carried from a wind emanating from Damascus across the border to Beirut, possibly even from Tehran, its carried across the mountains and along the coast of Lebanon.

Yet the stench is not at all apparent in Damascus, no one smells it, in fact people are vigorously denying its existence.

Yet the stench that plagues Beirut continues carried by an North Westerly breeze across the frontier from Damascus it swirls around certain Neighborhoods of Beirut
stronger than else where.
It Is the Stench of Desperation.

The smell has become so bad that many people are busy working away, trying to deny its existence.

That's the thing about bad smells.

No matter how hard you try to mask them,
once they have been smelt,
no matter how much cleaning is done they linger,
seemingly at the time, forever reminding you of their history and causes.

Sometimes,
you revisit a seldom visited place and the smell of something unusual will set of deeply repressed memory that you had either tried to suppress or through pain had forgotten.

Other times,
the smells recall pleasant experiences,
summer nights along a boulevard,
salt flickering through the sea air,
the smell of many restaurants hustling and bustling, people tooing and froing.

People seem to emit certain smells
when they laugh, they intermingle with fine perfumes, and expensive after shaves reserved for special occasions.

The atmosphere is thick with feelings of happiness and good fortune.

That was the smell of freedom,
of good times, of choices.

These smells are gone.
All that exist in much of Beirut is a stench.
A stench of Desperation.
A stench of Corruption. A stench of political interference.
A stench of vested self interests.

Like the smell of cheap
perfume that fills a hotel
when its too late at night,

it permeates and attaches to things,
creating associations, thoughts, feelings,

memories which all lead to
the thought of wishing
there was some thing better.
Nasrallah thinks deodorant
will mask his desperation.

Nothing masks desperation.
Desperation is beyond masking.

It can be forgotten, pushed aside,
ignored but once the stench makes you aware of itself,
it can't be masked.

The Lebanese people are tired
of the cheap perfumes, and deodorants, masking the truth.

Is it not time to smell the Cedars again?

Original by Bagelblogger

Bagelblogger Always Fresh..!
* Lebanon * * Cedars * * Lebanon Corruption * * Lebanon's Better times * * Lebanon Politics * * Political Interference *

Tuesday, 23 January 2007

The Inaugural 1st Edition of J Pix the Photocarnival is coming up...

After speaking to Muse over at Me-ander and Shiloh Musings, the thought struck me just how many Jewish Bloggers are great Photographers. Now I'm a great fan of Haveil Havalim and this is not designed to distract from that great carnival, but the simple truth is there is no Pictorial themed carnival in the Jewish Blogging world.

All these photos are Taken by JBloggers, we're a talented lot.
[Credits were skipped, so as people may guess who took each of these]

Some that Jump to Mind are:
Muse from

Me-ander of course
ASJ from ASimpleJew
Sara with No H [She has just moved to California!]

Sarah from where else but ~Sarah's View~
Mottel from Letters of Thought
Evan from Planet Israel
Rafi G from Life in Israel has be known to take the odd Photo
Cosmic X in Jerusalem is a man with many Talents

Now I'm going to make a point of inviting these folks.

If you like to take photos and feature them on your blog,
then submit a post for the upcoming carnival.

If you know of some one who is a Photograph Blogger then let them know.

Now make sure your name is one of those
included in the first inaugural JPix carnival.

Muse the 'Princess of Photos' was saying it would be great
to have a JPhotocarnival, well Check out the new JPix Carnival coming up.

A carnival especially for all those Jewish Blog Photographers and 'Artiste' out there.
_________________

This is the inaugural 1st Edition of J Pix, the Photocarnival. Now I know there's a lot of budding 'J' photographers out there. Well this carnival is to give those 'J'photographers, 'J'Arty types and 'J'Photo historians somewhere to showcase their work.

Submissions by 1st Feb
Carnival Hosted Feb 5, 2007

Volunteer hoster for the 2nd Carnival of JPix the PhotoCarnival
and beyond are most eagerly sought.

Check this page out for more details of the upcoming carnival

Latest Carnival

Theres a whole heaps of Jpix buttons anyone is welcome to 'snaffle'
they're on my left hand side in the ever increasing 'button' area.

Shalom Bagelblogger
_____________________________________

This Photo Carnival concept was partly inspired by a great Idea,
Chaim at LiveofRubin came up with.

We have much to be proud of with our Blogging community,
let us increase the awareness we have for other Jewish blogs.

If you have any questions you can email JpixcarnivalATgmailDOTcom

Bagelblogger Get those entries into JPix..!
* Jpix * Jewish Photography * Jewish Photography Carnival * JPix Carnival * J Pix Carnival * Jewish Art * Jewish Photos and Blogs * Jewish Photo Blogs * Jewish Photo Essays * Israel and Photos * Jewish Creativity * Jewish * Israel * Jewish * BagelBlogger * Bagel Blogger *

News Just In:...What a Heartbreaker! Shahar Peer Beaten 8-6 in tie breaker! ..So Close!

The Australian Open -
One of Four tournaments designated as a 'Grand Slam' event.
Unbelievable! Beaten by a tie break point.

She won the first set, fought for the second,
and looked like winning the third,
until a change of luck went Serena Williams way. Shahar Peer is only Nineteen,
we will see many more achievements from her.
Mazal Tov to Shahar Peer for a superb effort,
She has gone so close to making the Australian Open Semi Finals