Book Pick of the Week: Be a Scribe

Be a Scribe!

This is an extraordinary translation of a papyrus dating from ancient Egypt’s Middle Kingdom era by Michael Hoffen, the 16-year-old author of Be a Scribe! with the help of co-authors Dr. Christian Casey and Dr. Jen Thum.

Michael Hoffen became fascinated by the text, known as The Instruction of Khety, when he learned that it tells the tale of a teenage boy living almost 4,000 years ago—Pepi.

Pepi wonders what career path he should choose, an important matter still contemplated today by millions of teenagers forty centuries later. His father Khety takes him on a long journey up the Nile to enroll him in a school far away from home, where Pepi will learn to read and write. Along the way, Khety explains 18 other terrible jobs Pepi could end up having to work at if he is not hired as a scribe.

This tale of a teenage boy in ancient Egypt shows readers that working for a living has never been easy!

Sail up the Nile with an ancient Egyptian father and son and discover what daily life was like along the way. Experience the wonderful world of ancient Egypt with the help of countless artifacts and paintings. Delight in four-thousand-year-old humor and immerse yourself in the choices facing a teenage boy in Egypt then.

Link: https://www.amazon.com/SCRIBE-Working-Better-Ancient-Egypt/dp/B0CCZF76SJ

Balloon Crashes Near Luxor in Egypt

Read all about it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-21584413

Soccer Hooligans to be Punished

Just this week, lots of soccer hooligan stories.

Riots followed a soccer game in Colombia this week, but big news out of Eqypt.

Egypt's leading prosecutor on Thursday charged 75 people in connection with a deadly soccer riot last month in the Mediterranean city of Port Said in which authorities said fans were thrown to their death off the stadium walls and others killed by explosives as they tried to flee.

The fans face murder charges and nine police officers were accused of complicity in murder, in the Feb. 1 riot that left at least 74 people dead. It was the world's worst soccer-related disaster in 15 years.

The mass riot began minutes after the final whistle in a league game between Cairo club al-Ahly and al-Masry of Port Said. The home side won 3-1 but its fans set upon the rival supporters in a killing frenzy that witnesses said lasted 30 minutes. Many witnesses claimed that policemen at the venue did nothing to stop the bloodshed.

Oakland Raider fans aren't so bad after all.

RickLimpert.info Picture of the Week: Freedom?

Egypt celebrates, but what is next?

President Obama delivered a speech about Egypt calling for "nothing less than genuine democracy," not just a government aligned with U.S. interests.

It wil sure be interesting to see what happens in Egypt over the next few months. 

Another Shark Attack in Egypt Closes Beaches

Egyptian authorities called in an international team of marine biologists after a shark killed a German tourist yesterday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the Tourism Ministry said.

The killing was the fourth shark attack in the resort within a week and the only fatality. Authorities closed beaches for a second time and banned tourists from swimming and snorkelling.

"We are concerned," Tourism Ministry spokeswoman Omayma El-Husseini said by telephone in Cairo. "Any incident that threatens the safety of tourists is a cause for concern and the proof is that beaches have been closed."

Eighty per cent of tourists who visit Egypt spend time on the eastern coastline seeking sun, sand and diving, El-Husseini said.

Tourism accounts for 13 per cent of jobs in the country. In 2011, Egypt aims to attract more than 16 million tourists, generating more than $14 billion in revenue, minister Zoheir Garranah said in an interview in October.

Egypt invited four international shark experts to "assess and advise on the best course of action" after the attacks.

The biologists traveling to Egypt include George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research and curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History; Marie Levine, head of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, New Jersey; and Ralph Collier of the Shark Research Committee of Chatsworth, California, the diving chamber said. A fourth, Erich Ritter, a shark behavioural expert, is advising from his research centre in the US.

Most areas in Sharm El-Sheikh will be open for experienced divers with at least 50 logged dives, the diving chamber said in its statement.

The government doesn't expect the ban on swimming and snorkelling to last more than three days, South Sinai Govenor Abdel-Fadeel Shousha said today in a live interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera television.