Edward Said, Fabricator and Plagiarist [Michael Rubin]

Did Edward Said Really Speak Truth to Power?
Edward Said's influence on academe looms even larger in death than during his life. On September 25, 2003, the day that he died, students and staff of Columbia University gathered in the garden outside Philosophy Hall, where the longtime professor of English and comparative literature had his office, for a candlelight vigil. It was the first of several memorials held in his honor on campuses across the United States, Asia, and Europe. Celebrity admirers, from novelist Salman Rushdie to actors Danny Glover and Vanessa Redgrave, joined a "huge crowd" at a March 2004 service in New York.[1] Almost four years later, Said's life is the subject of two documentaries—Charles Glass's Edward Said: The Last Interview and Sato Makoto's Out of Place. On May 25-26, 2007, Boğaziçi University in Istanbul held a major conference to provide revisionist luminaries including Israeli historian Ilan Pappé (now at the University of Exeter), British anti-Zionist academic Jacqueline Rose, and Said's former Columbia colleagues Joseph Massad and Rashid Khalidi an opportunity to "pay tribute, revisit, and engage with the richly variegated erudition and seminal scholarship" and "reflect critically on the location and significance of Said's intellectual legacy."[2] The conference not only examined Said's literary criticism—his professional field—and his writing on the Palestinians but also included a panel on "Said, the Public Intellectual Speaking Truth to Power." Lionizing Said as an intellectual warrior casting aside falsehood in a quest for truth regardless of consequence is a myth that may persist, but examination of his works suggests such popularity also reflects the triumph of politics over scholarship in the academy.

the full article is here
http://www.meforum.org/article/1811

The tasks of philosophy

The tasks of philosophy do not fluctuate, in any way, from one period to another. It is basically the origin of all sciences. When there is less concern to obtain wisdom, philosophy, therefore, would aid a lot to crack this issue by what it has to teach. This theory raises the questions: what are the principles that philosophy is supposed to teach? Why it ought to be considered? And to what extant it is related to liberated learned man?

Actually, the value that philosophy does, or should teach, is the interconnection between its partial relation to thoughts and its partial relation to feelings. Philosophy should broaden the rational imagination, and free the mentality from the chauvinisms of what are ordinary people. These people are those who identify only material needs, and those who depend only on food, to feed their stomach. Besides, the value of philosophy teaches that feeding the mind is just as significant as the body. It is exclusively the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be originated, and only those who are not indifferent to these goods can profit from the philosophical ideas.

Moreover, philosophy, which is the origin of all sciences, aims mainly to knowledge. It gives a way out door to separate our selves from the here and the now, from the moment and the space. Also, through the study of philosophy, it increases our awareness of comprehension, removes the stubbornness, and it keeps alive our sense of speculation by showing recognizable things in an unusual aspect. In addition, there is a widespread philosophical propensity towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that space, the moment, and the world of universals are properties of the mind. If there is anything not created by mind, it is unknown and of no accounts for us.

Up to this point, everything that depends upon a habit, self-interest, or desire, distorts the object, and therefore impairs the union which the intellect seeks. The intellectual will look at things from a perfection point of view. Out of moment and position and without hopes and fears, peacefully, for the sake of pure knowledge. Furthermore, free intellects will signify much more the abstract and universal knowledge, as such information, must be upon an limited and personal point of view and a body whose sense-organs distort as much as they reveal.

In conclusion, Philosophy is meant to be studied, not for the sake of finding response, but for the sake of subjects themselves. These subjects expand our idea of what is probable, supplement our intellectual imagination and reduce the inflexible assurance which locks the intelligence next to hearsay.
Abdelmalik Essaadi University
Abdelkrim Amrani
English Study
S5

Veolia Morocco arm opens capital to institutions

RABAT, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The Moroccan arm of French utility group Veolia Environnement (VIE.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) opened its capital to two financial institutions on Tuesday, saying the move would underpin its development in the north African kingdom.
Fipar, a unit of Moroccan state investment vehicle Caisse de Depot et de Gestion, acquired 9 percent of Veolia Environnement Maroc, while AIG Infrastructure Fund took 10 percent, officials said at a signing ceremony in the Moroccan capital Rabat.
"Through this stake acquisition ... Veolia Environnement wishes to have by its side top-tier national and international institutional partners able to accompany its development," Veolia said in a statement distributed at the ceremony.
The deal was worth 494 million dirhams ($63.83 million), based on the nominal value of Veolia Environnement Maroc's 26.49 million shares.
The utility, which owns water and power concessions in the northern Moroccan towns of Tangier, Tetouan, Rabat and Sale, said its annual consolidated turnover was 4.4 billion dirhams and net profit was 85 million dirhams.
AIG Infrastructure Fund is managed by Emerging Capital partners, a private equity group which oversees investments across Africa. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer, editing by Richard Chang)

from this website :
http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSN1153027520071211