Tired Sunrise
When I got up this morning I walked out to see how the sunrise was looking – and just had to laugh. You know how there are some mornings you wish you didn’t have to get out of bed? I think the sun was having that kind of morning, looks like he is struggling a little – it was just a tired sunrise this morning:
Saudi Men Arrested for Flirting
This is in today’s BBC News.
Saudi men arrested for ‘flirting’
Relations between the sexes outside marriage is against the law
Prosecutors in Saudi Arabia have begun investigating 57 young men who were arrested on Thursday for flirting with girls at shopping centres in Mecca.
The men are accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls, the Saudi Gazette reported.
They were arrested following a request of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.
The mutaween enforce Saudi Arabia’s conservative brand of Islam, Wahhabism.
Earlier in the month, the authorities enforced a ban on the sale of red roses and other symbols used in many countries to mark Valentine’s Day.
The ban is partly because of the connection with a “pagan Christian holiday”, and also because the festival itself is seen as encouraging relations between the sexes outside marriage, punishable by law in the kingdom.
You can read the whole article HERE.
I wonder . . . is this what is going to happen in Kuwait? So like they segregate the university. . . then they segregate all the schools, EVEN THE PRIVATE SCHOOLS, so there is no choice. . . then they start patrolling the malls?
I lived in Saudi Arabia, and I remember the mutawaaeen were NOT police, but sometimes they took on the prerogatives of the police. So I have to wonder, like who made the arrest in the malls? Was it the police? Was it the mutawa hitting the boys with their little sticks? Did they call the boys parents? I have SO many questions!
Founder or Flounder?
“Ummm, errrr. . . .is her campaign foundering or floundering?” I asked my very-intelligent-almost-a-doctor friend and she matter of factly and crisply said that it could be either, her campaign may be gasping and dying like a fish out of water, or approaching failure.
Don’t you wish you knew all those things? I do. I have to look them up all the time.
Founder has a lot of meanings. The one I was looking for is in bold type:
founder
n 1: inflammation of the laminated tissue that attaches the hoof
to the foot of a horse [syn: {laminitis}]
2: a person who founds or establishes some institution; “George
Washington is the father of his country” [syn: {beginner},
{founding father}, {father}]
3: a worker who makes metal castings
v 1: fail utterly; collapse; “The project foundered” [syn: {fall through}, {fall flat}, {flop}]
2: sink below the surface
3: break down, literally or metaphorically; “The wall
collapsed”; “The business collapsed”; “The dam broke”;
“The roof collapsed”; “The wall gave in”; “The roof
finally gave under the weight of the ice” [syn: {collapse},
{fall in}, {cave in}, {give}, {give way}, {break}]
4: stumble and nearly fall; “the horses foundered”
Flounder also has a lot of meanings:
A fish with a flattened body adapted for life on the seafloor.
http://www.reefed.edu.au/glossary/f.html
i) A small edible flatfish, ii)any small flatfish of the family Pleuronectidae or Bothidaes.
http://www.mi.mun.ca/mi-net/terms/nautical.htm
from flounce and founder
encyclopedia.kids.net.au/page/li/List_of_portmanteaus
a flat, bony saltwater fish which lives in bays and coastal waters. They are carnivores eating shrimp, small fish and crabs and are eaten by larger fish. Flounder is considered a popular food fish for people. …
http://www.lakeland.k12.in.us/limabrighton/nctrip07/glossary.html
stagger: walk with great difficulty; “He staggered along in the heavy snow”
any of various European and non-European marine flatfish
behave awkwardly; have difficulties; “She is floundering in college”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Flounder are flatfish that live in ocean waters ie., Northern Atlantic and waters along the east coast of the United States and Canada, and the Pacific Ocean, as well. The name “flounder” refers to several geographically and taxonomically distinct species. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flounder
Flounder is an Disney character that appeared in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. He is Ariel’s best friend. Ironically, he is not a flounder, but is more similar in appearance to a Regal Tang or similar fish.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flounder (The Little Mermaid)
I guess I can use either floundering or foundering, but now that I think of it, floundering will always remind me of a big flat fish, so I think I will try to think of founder.
Cold February Morning Sunrise
It is a shivery 5°C/45° F in Kuwait this morning, made more shivery by a brisk wind that blows and makes all the flags along the roads, hanging from apartments, decorating villas, etc. flap dramatically in the wind. I am hoping that National Day and Liberation Day holidays will make the roads less travelled as I zoom around, but I have been warned to steer clear of the Gulf Road, where youngsters are spraying cars with colored spaghetti and foam.
No more sandstorm, thank God, although there still seems to be grit in the air; your face feels dry and covered with an invisible coating when you come inside.
The sunrise this morning was beautiful – sharp, clear and, when I ran to get the camera, it was pink, but by the time I got back 15 seconds later, it had gone more orange:
How Decisions are Made in Kuwait
Here is the problem expats have in any country: you don’t know what you don’t know.
If you know you don’t know something, you can learn it. If you don’t know that you don’t know, there is this huge void in your understanding. Many times you can suspect there is a void, and if you ask, people will look at you like you are a little odd, and they will tell you there is no difference.
There IS a difference.
Working together with people of different nationalities, I have learned that some nationalities just forge on ahead and do things. Some nationalities use a more consultative process. Some nationalities expect to be told what to do and don’t do what they are not told to do.
In Friday’s Kuwait Times (February 21) is a column by Shamael Al-Sharikh, called The red, white, green and black. She talks about Kuwait National and Liberation Days, she talks about the shared heritage of all Kuwaitis (honestly, I would love to link you directly to this article but the website is still down) and then – I got a huge “AHA!” She talks about how decisions are made in Kuwait. I will quote a brief section, but I urge you all to find this column and read it in it’s entirety.
“. . . it has become painfully clear that there are nationals of this country who have no sense of belonging to it whatsoever.
However, the storm is about to subside. In a move that shows just how ready Kuwaitis are to mobilize for the sake of their national pride, a few diwaniyas in Kuwait signed a petition and sent it to the Takatul Shaabi political alliance at the National Assembly. It stated that unless MPs Adnan Abdulsamad and Ahmad Lari are asked to withdraw their membership from the Takatul Shaabi, none of it’s members will be welcome in Kuwait’s diwaniyas nor at weddings and funerals.
The move worked: the MPs have been asked to leave. . . the petitions included diwaniyas from all corners of the Kuwaiti society, both Sunni and Shiite, and it covered all sorts of ethnic backgrounds. . . I have never been more proud to support the red, white, green and black than I have now, and I am so proud to be a Kuwaiti.”
Not being welcome in diwaniyas, at weddings or at funerals is not something I would have considered political pressure. It matters here. It mattered enough that when diverse communities within Kuwait made the threat, it was effective. Who knew? Thanks to this column, I learned something I didn’t even know I didn’t know.
Keystone Cops
As you all have seen from US Crime tapes, this news story could happen anywhere, but it happened in Kuwait. I would love to see a video of this!
Kuwait Times, 21 Feb 2008
Drunken Man
The operations room received an anonymous call reporting that a drunken man had been dancing in the streets of Fehaheel and terrifying passersby. A police patrol rushed to the scene and managed to arrest the suspect, who initially resisted arrest.
However, after being cuffed and forced into the patrol vehicle for just a couple of seconds, he managed to step out and ran for dear life while police were busy putting some gear into the vehicle’s trunk. A wild goose chase ensued with police hot on his trail, while the man returned to the spot where the vehicle was parked, got in, stepped on the gas and sped to his freedom again. Police later tracked the vehicle that was dumped in a deserted area in Jleeb. A manhunt has been launched to arrest this man.
I commend the writer on the correct use of the plural “passersby.” Bravo.
Your challenge: how many cliche’s did this staff writer use to write this article?
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
The Kuwait Times website seems to be down so I can’t link directly to them, but this is at the top of the crime news on yesterday’s page 5:
5,000 Real Estate Deeds Missing
Kuwait: An owner of a real estate office registered a complaint with the Khaitan police claiming that 5,000 real estate deeds were stolen from his office’s locked-up drawers. However, both the owner and the police were baffled because the thieves could have carried off furniture and other valuable items, but preferred to steal the deeds instead. The case was handed over to special detectives who immediately launched an investigation.
This seems to me like the deeds were the target of the break-in. Aren’t deeds registered somewhere? So like even if these paper copies are stolen, can’t they be replaced? What would somebody gain by stealing these deeds? Can they claim the properties? Can they claim the properties were transferred to them? Can they hid transfers that someone doesn’t want disclosed? This sounds like a great mystery to me!
While You Were Sleeping
It’s not that I’m that good, that obsessive, that I would get up every morning to photograph the sunrise. No, AdventureMan has to get to work, I have projects I am working on – AND there is the Qatteri Cat.
His little pea-brain doesn’t know it’s Friday morning. All he knows is that his food dish is empty. He goes around the house, pulling over the trash bins (they are small, they don’t make a lot of noise) and then he scratches at boxes and closets, thinking somewhere there might be food. I am guessing it goes back to some deep instinct, looking for food, from his street days.
I had forgotten to fill his dish last night.
I was so tired, I kept falling asleep over my latest Donna Leon book. Finally, around nine, I turned out my light. When the Qatteri can started sniffing around, pulling over trash cans, opening cupboards (what you hear is thump. thump. thumpthumpthump as he tries to paw it open) and scratching at boxes, I was mostly ready to get up, even though it wasn’t quite six.
Good thing! Cold, clear morning, no sand, not a cloud in the sky and just look at that sunrise:
It is 46°F/8°C this morning. There is a wind, and it feels colder.
Sunrise 21 February 2008
This morning, the sand storm is gone, but there is still a very stiff breeze, keeping everything cool. It is 9°C / 48°F at 7:00 in the morning.
I don’t know if it has anything to do with the lunar eclipse, but as I got up – about an hour ago – I saw one of the lowest of all the low tides I have ever seen in Kuwait. I was tempted to go out on the beach and look for shells, but I don’t go on the beach alone, and I don’t have any dogs to protect me. The Qatteri cat has tried the leash – we call it ‘taking the cat for a drag,’ and he just isn’t fierce enough to protect me.
Kuwait has a LONG weekend! Friday and Saturday are the normal weekend, Monday and Tuesday are Liberation Day and Kuwait Day, so the government also declared Sunday to be a holiday, giving a nice 5 day break. The sandstorms have gone, at least for now, and it looks like it is shaping up to be a beautiful weekend.
Blonde Joke
A friend send this in the e-mails this morning and I can’t resist sharing it with you –
Two bowling teams, one of all Blondes and one of all Brunettes, charter a double-Decker bus for a weekend trip to Louisiana. The Brunette team rode on the bottom of the bus, and the Blonde team rode on the top level.
The Brunette team down below really whooped it up, having a great time, when one of them realized she hadn’t heard anything from the Blondes upstairs. She decided to go up and investigate.
When the Brunette reached the top, she found all the Blondes in fear, staring straight ahead at the road, clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles. the brunette asked, ‘What the heck’s going on up here? We’re having a great time downstairs!’
One of the Blondes looked up at her, swallowed hard and whispered… ‘YEAH, BUT YOU’VE GOT A DRIVER!?!’
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