The ExPat Verses from Jeremiah
In our Old Testament reading from the prophet Jeremiah this morning, in the Lectionary, I read these old familiar verses, and they bring a smile to my face. I always thought of these as my instructions, living in alien lands, to pray for the welfare of the land in which I was living, to be a blessing there, and to live my life fully, trusting I would one day be living once again in my own land.
Jeremiah 29:1,4-13
29These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. 4Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. 8For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream,* 9for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the Lord.
10 For thus says the Lord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. 12Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart,
Harlem Shake, Qatar Style :-)
Loved seeing this from ILoveQatar:
Moorish Americans Claim Abandoned Properties
Fascinating situation. How do these nut cases convince one another that what they dream up is true??? Parents in nearby Navarre had a son killed, regretfully, by police because he claimed Sovereign Citizenship, and printed his own money. It would be funny, if the consequences were not so tragic. He’s dead and his parents are grieving. It’s not like the police LIKE shooting people; they have to live with the consequences, too. There are no winners when people try to claim these non-legal rights.
This is an AOL Original article by Graham Wood
Squatter Lamont Butler Puts Faith-Based Claim on Lavish Mansion
An interesting phenomenon has been popping up around the country: Squatters attempting to claim ownership of vacant or foreclosed homes because, they say, their religion gives them the right. That’s what 28-year-old Lamont Butler argued as he attempted to take over a gaudy $6 million home (pictured above and in the photo gallery at bottom) that, The Washington Post reported, was vacant and up for sale in Bethesda, Md. Butler (pictured below) said that he claimed the home as a Moorish American national and member of the Moorish Science Temple of America, a religious group founded in the early 20th century.
Some who say they follow its precepts preach that African-Americans lived in America before European settlement and so don’t need to abide by U.S. laws, such as those pertaining to property ownership. By this rationale, Butler claimed ownership of the Bethesda mansion.
“If only a palace will do,” the home’s listing says, “this is your home.” It’s a 35,000-square-foot juggernaut of a house with 12 bedrooms and 17 bathrooms, imported marble floors and limestone terraces. The home that once played host to political bigwigs such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, now was rightfully his, Butler said. According to the Post, Butler went to Maryland’s Department of Assessments and Taxation with a historic map and documents referencing peace treaties, then asked that tax records on the home be updated to reflect his ownership. The department refused to do so without a deed showing a transfer of ownership.
After that, Butler allegedly entered the empty home on two occasions. Neighbors alerted the home’s owner when they saw cars parked out front. When police arrived at the house after complaints, they found “No Trespassing” signs hanging in the windows, a stereo on full blast and food in the refrigerator. Butler sent emails to real estate agent Jordan Fainberg, who represents the home’s listing, stating: “Even though there was no false arrest made … by the Public Servant Trustee Police Enforcers for the private foreign corporate-for-profit entity styled as Montgomery County Police Department, and conversations ended on peaceable terms, I, as well as others, will be coming to the land property estate this week.”
Butler was eventually arrested, the Post said, and along with the case of breaking-and-entering against him in Bethesda, he’d already been charged elsewhere with identity theft and concealing a dangerous weapon. Authorities say that his claim on the Bethesda mansion holds no weight. But this very odd case is no isolated incident. People calling themselves Moorish Americans have been attempting to take over properties all over the country. “I can promise you that every state has had their challenges with these guys,” Carol Foglesong, a land records official in Orange County, Fla., told the Post. States including Virginia and Maryland are even passing laws to impose stricter penalties against those who attempt such property takeovers.
Earlier this month in Memphis, Tenn., a woman claiming to be a Moorish American was arrested after allegedly breaking into and squatting in a $3.1 million mansion, Memphis TV station WHBQ reported. In that incident, a SWAT team stormed the home to remove Tabitha Gentry and her teenage daughter. Gentry claimed that her status as a Moorish American national meant that the government could not control her.
Reports of Sexual Assault Increasing in India: Warning Issued
Another Woman Who Should Have Known She Was in the Wrong Place? She’s in her hotel room – near the Taj Mahal . . . is this another case of being in the wrong place in India? You’re not safe in your own hotel room? The manager of the hotel comes to your room to wake you for a wake-up call???
20 March 2013
Tourist balcony jump: Hotel manager and guard in court
A hotel manager and guard accused of sexually harassing a British tourist who jumped from a hotel balcony to escape have appeared in court in Agra.
A lawyer acting for hotel manager Sachin Chauhan said his client denied the charge and he had been trying to wake the woman up because she had asked for an early morning call.
The 31-year-old British woman was injured after jumping on Tuesday.
The Briton has been giving her statement at the court.
Initial reports suggested the woman told police she asked for a wake-up call at 04:00 local time and was offered a massage by the hotel owner when he knocked on her door.
She said the man would not leave so she locked the door and jumped from her balcony to the level below, injuring her leg, before fleeing the hotel.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the British High Commission in India said UK consular officials in Delhi had spoken to the woman and local police.
The Foreign Office recently updated its advice for women visiting India, saying they should use caution and avoid travelling alone on public transport, or in taxis or auto-rickshaws, especially at night.
It added that reported cases of sexual assault against women and young girls were increasing and recent sexual attacks against female visitors in tourist areas and cities showed that foreign women were also at risk.
Police arrested six people following an alleged gang rape of a Swiss tourist in Madhya Pradesh state last week.
The woman was attacked with her husband as they camped in woodland near a village in Datia district.
The arrests came as India’s politicians prepared to debate a new law against rape, following the outcry over the fatal assault on a female Delhi student last year.
Mobile Museum of Art
We were so efficient at the Mobile Botanical Garden that we had plenty of time to hit the nearby Mobile Museum of Art. Actually, we loved the whole park area; there is the Botanical Garden, the Museum of Art, also walking paths, a huge water . . . something, it might be a river or a large lake with a dam in it, I don’t know what it is, but it is a large amount of water. There are athletic fields and even some offices, not large office buildings but some smaller outlying kinds of state or county offices. It’s a nice park, it has a nice feeling, a lot going on.
It doesn’t hurt that it is one of the prettiest days of the year, not hot, not humid, and no mosquitos!
I love it that not all the art is inside the building. There is statuary outside, along the walking path, and this huge made-from-found-objects butterfly at the entrance. It is wonderful. As you enter the museum, looking through miles of glass out through trees at the water, you immediately think “what a place for an event!” thinking wedding, reception, small chamber group performance, etc. Truly beautiful spaces; I would show you but they have a really strict policy about photographing inside the building, so I didn’t.
They have some surprising pieces, surprisingly good for a small museum. They have some very odd pieces, par for the course in a small museum. They have an amazing art glass collection, beautifully displayed in a room with gorgeous natural light that allows each piece to shine. They had an exquisite visiting exhibit based on a Vietnamese classic, with intricate, ethereal pieces.
Too much to take in on one visit! I think our favorite piece in the exhibit were some gorgeous silvery angel wings on a wall near the gallery entrance on the top floor. When you get closer to the exhibit, you see it really, REALLY is silvery – it is silver spoons! The bowls of the spoons form the outer part of the feathers, hundreds of spoons, and the base of the spoon the lower part. It is whimsical and surprising, and made me whoop a little (trying to be respectful in a museum 🙂 ) with delight. We are eager to go back and to take our little grandson, as he gains in ability to focus his attention 🙂
Driving Directions From I-65
From I-65, take the Springhill Avenue Exit (Exit 5) and head west on Springhill Avenue. Go approximately 1 1/2 miles and turn left on John D. New Street (traffic signal). Take an immediate right onto Museum Drive. The Museum is the first building on the right.
Celebrating 4200
It’s a small celebration 🙂 We need to be celebrating ALL life’s triumphs, don’t we?
OK, that’s it. I told you it was a small celebration 🙂
Native Cafe at Pensacola Beach
Just when we think we know all the restaurants in town, Urban Spoon comes up with a Pensacola restaurant we didn’t even know existed. It’s getting a big buzz, too, listed as one of the most talked about restaurants in Pensacola. Hoping it is too early for the Spring Break crowd, we head for the Native Cafe after early church. OOps!Too late! And it’s not the spring breakers, at least I don’t think so, these look like locals.
We wait for maybe thirty minutes on one of the sweetest Sundays of the year, not too hot, not too cold, a tiny bit breezy – perfect beach day, and we don’t mind at all sitting outside, waiting for a table or booth.
Once we’re in, we can see why people like it. It’s not so original as Andy’s Flour Power in Panama City Beach, but they have original art on the walls, a funky decor, and a LOT of customers.
We see a lot of huge breakfasts being delivered. The Crab Cake Benedict seems to be a big hit, all the platters look huge. People are digging right in and look happy. Service is quick and efficient.
AdventureMan has been dying for some Biscuits and Gravy. His favorite place for biscuits and gravy, Adonna’s, in downtown Pensacola on Palafox, no longer serves biscuits and gravy. He says these are pretty good!
The little Alaska girl who lives inside me wanted crab cakes, but not all the bread and sauce that comes with the Crab Cake Benedict, so I asked, and was able to order the appetizer Crab Cakes, which was perfect. It came with Remoulade Sauce – yummm.
LOL, you can see, as usual, I forgot to take a photo before I started eating. There were three complete crab cakes; just be glad I remembered when I did!
The food was good, but we probably won’t go back until October or so, when the tourist season dies down. The Native Cafe has been FOUND! Too many people, too long a waiting line. We have the luxury of being able to go when no one else is around except those of us who live here. (You can live here thirty or forty years and you are still not a local; local is people who grew up and went to school in Pensacola 🙂 )
Mobile Botanical Garden Plant Sale: Plantasia
AdventureMan and I had one of the sweetest days of the year – nice cool sunny morning, heading into a warm afternoon as we got up early to head over to the Mobile Botanical Gardens Annual Plant Sale.
They do a GREAT job. Starting with publicity, ads in the Pensacola News Journal and information sent out to all the regional gardening clubs and extension centers raising the level of awareness and creating a buzz. Everyone wants to go.
You get there, and parking is well organized and handy to the sales area. Signage is great – ENTER HERE! EXIT ONLY! PERRENIALS! ROSES! SHADE PLANTS! TREES! And great signs telling you how each plant is color coded and you know immediately what the price is:
Lots and lots of healthy looking plants. We knew what we wanted and found it quickly, except for the ones that were already sold out. Check-out was friendly – and fast. There was an exit strategy; people with large purchases could leave plants, drive into a pick up zone and have them loaded up. It was an amazingly efficient and well-run operation. Perfect weather, great selection of healthy plants, well-organized and efficient – it doesn’t get much better.
Well done, Mobile.
It’s Your Fault if You Assume You Are Safe: Indian Officials
Horrifying. Disgusting. At the very least, if you are an official and tourists are gang raped in your area, keep your mouth shut. If you must say something, tell the visitors how sorry you are this happened to them. Never, never, never suggest that they should have ASKED if they were safe, NEVER blame the victim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You just look really, really ignorant.
These crimes will keep happening as long as there is such a preference for male children that there are not enough mates for the males once they mature. They will keep happening as long as men are not taught, as children, that women are to be equally respected.
Swiss Gang Rape Victim, Husband Partially To Blame For Attack, Indian Officials Suggest
The Huffington Post | By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 03/18/2013 12:13 pm EDT
Officials in India suggested that a Swiss tourist and her husband are partially to blame for an alleged attack and gang rape in a remote wooded area in Madhya Pradesh last week. They said the couple did not inquire about the safety of the region.
On Friday, a Swiss woman and her husband pitched a tent in a forest in Madhya Pradesh while on a three-month cycling excursion, according to the Associated Press. Around 9:30 p.m. a group of men attacked the couple, beat up the husband, tied him to a tree, gang raped the wife and robbed the pair, police said.
During a press conference on Sunday, police spokesperson Avnesh Kumar Budholiya suggested the tourists are partially to blame for the assault because they chose to travel that area without speaking to local police, the Independent reports.
“No one stops there,” Budholiya said. “Why did they choose that place? They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They would have passed a police station on the way to the area they camped. They should have stopped and asked about places to sleep.”
Another official also appeared to place blame on the victim and her husband.
“The rape of the Swiss national is unfortunate but foreign travelers should inform the police about their movement so they can be provided with adequate protection,” said Umashankar Gupta, the Home Minister of Madhya Pradesh, according to The Times. “They often don’t follow the state’s rules.”
Madhya Pradesh reportedly has one of the highest rates of crimes against women in the country, a fact the Swiss tourists were unaware of, according to the Times of India.
“They apparently lost track and took a wrong turn and decided to halt for the night by the side of a village brook little realizing that the district with 85:100 men to women ratio is not the safest place for women,” a senior official from the region told the newspaper.
Six men have been arrested in connection with the most recent reported gang rape, CNN reports. The victim, who was hospitalized after the attack, claims four of the men raped her. The other two reportedly robbed her and her husband. All six appeared in court Monday.
The most recent attack comes just three months after a 23-year-old woman was gang raped and beaten on a public bus by five men in New Delhi. The defense lawyer for three of the accused placed some of the blame on the now-deceased victim, saying a “respected lady” does not get raped.
Blaming a female victim of a sex crime is common in India because of a woman’s role in society, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
“This is the mentality which most Indian men are suffering from unfortunately,” Ranjana Kumari, director for the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research, told the newspaper. “That is the mindset that has been perpetrating this crime because they justify it indirectly, you asked for it so it is your responsibility.”
Spring Break Hits the Gulf Coast
This last week has to have been the sweetest week of the year; running into all my friends at Home Depot, the cool mornings and the warm afternoons, it all makes you feel energetic, and you tackle all those projects you’ve been mentally lining up.
For me, it was painting the front door. I think it used to be red. It faces west, and the strength of the setting sun over the years faded it to a rosy rose. It needed to go back to shimmering red, but that takes patience, and more than one coat, and it takes a special day, cool enough, warm enough, and entirely without humidity. To paint a door, you have to have it open, and then it has to dry open, and when you are painting a door red red, you have to paint it more than once, even painting over rosy red.
Done. And time for a field trip to the Botanical Gardens Sales in Mobile, with AdventureMan, now in another career as Master GardenerMan.
It’s all good this weather, this time of year – until you get on any road leading to the beach, especially on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Saturday, coming back from Mobile, there was a sudden jamming up as the cars went down into the tunnel running under the tip of the bay. As we are waiting to get through, we hear these banshee screams and yells, and my first thought, after years of living in the Middle East is “oh! it’s a wedding!”
No. No, I was wrong. It is no one’s wedding, but it does seem to be a major mating ritual, as colleges close for a week or so for Spring break and the students head for the beaches. These students were hanging out the windows of their cars – sitting on the window sills – waving bottles and screeching.
Animal spirits. I hope they packed their sun protection, and all kinds of other protections.
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