The Family Gathers
The flight from Amsterdam to Seattle runs around 10 hours – more or less depending on headwinds and tailwinds. Thanks to my almost-fully-flat seat, I was able to get about 6 good hours of sleep, just exactly what I needed to face immigration, customs, car rental and a drive through Seattle (four to five lanes of traffic in both directions) to a northern suburb.
It is COLD in Seattle – like the high is about one degree above freezing. It is also a damp cold that makes you shiver, and when the wind blows, it feels freezing. It is supposed to drop down below freezing tonight. I just hope it doesn’t snow again; driving can get problematic in the snow.
Grabbed a quick Pepperming Mocha (I don’t know why they don’t do these in Kuwait, but they tell me there would be no market. How do they know? Have they ever tried it?) and headed for my Mom’s. One sister, her husband, and Little Diamond were also waiting for me there, Little Diamond’s sister, Precious Diamond (sometimes called Pregnant Diamond; she is due to have a baby any minute!) and my other sister, her husband and son came by a little later, and we all had dinner together.
Mom has asked me to make a kind of photographic tribute to my Dad for the service on Saturday, so we got out all the photo albums, collections, boxes and had a lot of fun going through and remembering all the good times with Dad. I have a stack of photos from different times in his life, and will take them in to get them copied, enlarged, etc somewhere where they can do it FAST. Little Diamond will help with the graphic design and Fonts – she wrote the obituary for the paper and did a truly masterful job.
Thanks to the sleep I got on the plane, I was fairly fresh . . . well, I did fall asleep for a while after dinner, but rallied and got another couple hours of work done.
I am guessing I will get a good night’s sleep and dive in to all the work that needs to be done tomorrow. With everyone in the family taking a part, it should all work out smoothly. I found the photo of me sitting almost on top of the mountain. I will see if there is a way I can blog it.
The Oldest Mosque in America
My niece, Little Diamond, writes about The Oldest Mosque in America here. Fourth and fifth generations of Moslems in Iowa!
Divinity Origins
Someone asked about the origin of divinity candy, and as I looked it up, the first words I came across were these:
“Candy. A term derived from the Arabic qandi, meaning a sugar confection.” That’s in the Oxford Companion to Food. Much much more on candy at Food Timeline.
I have never heard that word used for sweets – is it still used?
In the Headlights: Holiday Eating Tips
While looking for a photo of Rotkohl this morning (see previous post), I found this delightful and funny blog, In The Headlights.
She blogs mostly about food, recipes, cooking equipment and restaurant experiences, but the December 20 entry is Holiday Eating Tips and starts with 1. Avoid carrot sticks.
That got my attention!
She suggests you go next door, find a place where they are serving rum balls. The whole list is of a similar nature – this is the holiday, enjoy it. Love this blog!
Rape in Kuwait
This is a very difficult post. Rape is a terrible subject. Coolfreak in his blog IheartKuwait wrote a heartbreaking post about a young woman raped recently in Kuwait, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.
Rape has been the subject of several editorials in the Kuwait Times. Rape of children, abduction and rape of young women, abduction and rape of domestic servants, rape of domestics on the job site, abduction and rape of young men. . . rape is prominent DAILY in the crime column. Rape is epidemic in Kuwait, so common that people seem to think that there is nothing that can be done.
People can wring their hands. People can moan about how wrong it is. But what is being done for the victims of rape?
In California, volunteers put together rape crisis centers. At first, these centers were totally staffed and funded by volunteers and volunteer fund raising. The volunteers, with their own funds, established a 24 hour hotline, with an answering service, that rape victims could call and reach a rape counselor.
Counselors would accompany victims to the hospital, explain procedures, and explain the victim’s options. Counselors would help the victim on the long journey to feeling safe once again, and to feeling some remnant of control over their lives.
Members of the rape crisis centers created education programs, and worked with both police and hospitals to establish procedures working with rape victims. Police were counselled on how to work with the traumatized victims, and police worked with the crisis workers to create new, enforceable laws against the rapists. It was the beginning of the victim advocacy program that is now common in most western countries. Most law enforcement agencies now have paid staff to work with crime victims en route to criminal procedings against the “perp” and subsequent counselling. Victims can testify at parole hearings against probation.
Rape is an outrage – against the individual, and against the community. Rape is less about sex than about power and humiliation. Have you noticed when serial rapists are caught, they turn out to be pathetic losers? They carry a huge burden of inadequacy combined with feelings of entitlement. The most appropriate penalty is their exposure through the court systems, and imprisonment, with those who, like themselves, think like predators.
But we must do what we can do to help the victims, to provide them with counselling and resources to speed their recovery. To create strong laws which protect the community by keeping the predators off the streets. To create procedures where evidence can be gathered and stored, and DNA samples compared so that offenders can be charged, and tried, and convicted.
Hats off, by the way, to the young man Coolfreak with the courage to first blog about this outrage. I find his blog brave and creative and refreshing and amusing and stimulating. Check it out.
Circumcision NOT complete protecton against HIV/Aids
One of my favorite source blogs Sociolingo reports the significant news from Africa. On December 14th, he quotes a United Nations report stating that while circumcision halves the risk of HIV infection, it should not be relied upon without condoms.
“Although these results demonstrate that male circumcision reduces the risk of men becoming infected with HIV, the UN agencies emphasize that it does not provide complete protection against HIV infection,” they said. “Circumcised men can still become infected with the virus and, if HIV-positive, can infect their sexual partners.
“Male circumcision should never replace other known effective prevention methods and should always be considered as part of a comprehensive prevention package, which includes correct and consistent use of male or female condoms, reduction in the number of sexual partners, delaying the onset of sexual relations, and HIV testing and counselling,” they added.
Time Magazine Person of the Year
Time Magazine announced it’s person of the year – it’s YOU! It’s me! Here is what they had to say:
TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year: You
NEW YORK (Dec. 16) – Congratulations! You are the Time magazine “Person of the Year.”
The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals _ citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.
You can read the rest of the article
here.
WordPress Blockage + Website Unblocked
I’ve been fiddling all morning and I can’t get onto WordPress through Safari. Checking around, I can’t look up any of my favorite WordPress blogs on Safari today – Jewaira, Africa Blog, Sociolingo – nothing happens. All kinds of other things are working, though, including a site that has been blocked for months – Go Fug Yourself.
It’s not what it sounds like. It’s an unfortunate name. It’s a very funny, nasty, mean-spirited blog about fashion mistakes. Did I mention it is very very funny?
I pity anyone who wants to be a celebrity. Imagine having to look perfect 24/7 and occasionally not getting it right. These critics are merciless. Did I mention they are also hysterically funny?
Every month, I write a note to QualityNet saying they’ve made a big mistake blocking this site, that it has NO sexual content, and, in fact, mocks and scorns women who show too much of their “lady parts”. I was shocked today to see it is no longer blocked!
Off the Charts
Yesterday I was stunned to discover this blog on the WordPress Top 100 Blogs. It was #87, near the bottom, but I was astonished to even see it there at all, and delighted. Alas, such success is fleeting, and it was only for the one day. Checking this morning, I am now off the chart.
In the meantime, it is so much fun watching what people are downloading – Mom’s Fruitcake. Christmas Divinity. There is such a need out there for EASY recipes for time-challenged Christmas celebrators.
In the meantime, dear ones, time is flying! If you need two easy recipes, these two are the very easiest: Chocolate Macaroons and Russian Tea Cakes. Happy baking :-)!
Cross Cultural Flummox
Scanning through the blogs yesterday, I saw one I almost didn’t check. It seemed to be a no-brainer. LaialyQ8 asked if you would share your password with your husband/wife.
Sheerly out of idle curiousity, I checked. And I was stunned to see the responses. Almost every person said they WOULD.
I’ve thought about it all day. It has to be a cultural difference. Hands down, I bet most of my friends would say “no way!” It isn’t a question of how much you love someone, to me, I just need some areas of my life that are private. I don’t keep secrets from my husband – I share things with him gladly.
But do I think he needs access to my correspondence with old girlfriends, friends I knew before I knew him? If they confide details of some crisis to me, does he need access to that information?
He trusts me. He should! And he would never, never ask me for my password, and I wouldn’t ask for his. Of course we share passwords for financial records and access, but not for our e-mail accounts.
It never for a heartbeat occurred to me there was another way of thinking about it. I was flummoxed (that’s for you, Zin!) And it is good information; I need to think about this and integrate it and try to understand it. That’s one of the things I love about living in a foreign country; challenges my assumptions and forces me to think differently, outside the box.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 