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 🙂
Saudi Arabian Court Refuses to Charge Saudi Blogger
Raif Badawi: Court refuses to charge Saudi blogger
By Sebastian Usher
Arab affairs editor, BBC News
It is unclear what Mr Badawi’s fate will be now the court has refused to charge him
A court in Saudi Arabia has found that a liberal blogger accused of apostasy has no case to answer.
The court had the power to sentence Raif Badawi to death had it found him guilty.
But it refused to charge him, referring his case back to a lower court.
Mr Badawi, the young co-founder of a website called the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested last year and accused of insulting Islam and showing disobedience.
His lawyer, Waleed Abu Alkhair, says he became a target for Saudi authorities after declaring 7 May last year a “day for Saudi liberals” – in order to have more open discussion about social and religious issues.
The evidence against him included the fact that he pressed the ‘Like’ button on a Facebook page for Arab Christians”
His wife, Ensaf, has stood by him but told the BBC of the personal cost of the case, with friends and family distancing themselves or even turning against them.
She now lives in Lebanon, but says she has received threatening messages.
“Two or three days after Raif’s hearing, I started to receive phone calls from unknown people, saying ‘we are going to kill your husband’. But I didn’t respond to them.”
This was after a judge in a lower court recommended that Mr Badawi should be tried for apostasy – for which he could have faced the death penalty – if the higher court had backed the charges.
The evidence against him included the fact that he pressed the “Like” button on a Facebook page for Arab Christians.
It is unclear what happens next, but sources close to Mr Badawi say he believes he will now be shuttled between various courts to keep him in prison without attracting the further international criticism that a guilty verdict might bring.
Mr Badawi’s case is not unique. It highlights the constant push and pull between reformist and deeply conservative forces in Saudi Arabia.
A prominent writer, Turki al-Hamad, is currently under a form of house arrest for recent tweets criticising Islamists – he, too, could be charged with apostasy.
Another writer and blogger, Hamza Kashgari, was extradited from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia almost a year ago on similar charges. He has repented in court, but remains in jail.
Horrifying Parenting
After our boat trip, we took a walk to the diving platform to watch the manatees. When we lived in the Tampa/St. Pete/Safety Harbor area, we saw Manatees all the time, and it was heart breaking. They are big, stupid, clumsy animals who do no harm. They love to congregate where there is warm water on a cold winter’s night. Sadly, these slow moving sea cows are often hit and damaged by boaters; the blades of the motors scarring the manatees, often wounding them fatally. They have no defense against the casual, callous cruelty of the oblivious boater.
Here, in Wakulla Springs, they are safe. The only boats allowed in the Springs areas have caged blades; they cannot hurt the manatees.
No, only people can hurt them.
As we were watching the manatee, there was a family there. I try not to judge parents; parenting is hard. I will just make some observations. It was 40 degrees F – not that far from freezing – and the two little girls were dressed in beach clothes and their feet were bare. They were running on the diving platform, while Mom was trying to take photos of the manatees with her iPhone, and dad was trying to keep the little ones rounded up. On the second level, two stories above the ground, one little girl, maybe four years old, runs out to the edge of the diving platform and her dad snatches her back, just in time, as mom continues trying to film the manatees. All this is their business, although I fear for little girls who are raised carelessly, it is not my business.
Then, the older little girl reached down in her pockets and pulled out handsfull of breadcrumbs, which she spread into the water WHILE HER PARENTS WATCHED. Did you not see the signs? Did you not hear the guides? We are not to feed the manatees anything! Bread and breadcrumbs are not a part of their diet! Parents, what are you using for brains? ? ?
No. I did not say anything; I don’t look for trouble. I write it in this blog, and then, God willing, I let it go.
Polish Your Silver in Seconds! It’s Like Magic
Just in time for Christmas – I have to try this tomorrow! Thank you, Stephane, at My French Heaven:
Tant de Brouillard – Foggy Morn in Pensacola
I learned a new word today, le brouillard, from a blogger who liked my Pensacola parade post. I always take a look to see, and this time, it was like taking a brief vacation to a place I love – the villages of France, and the morning market, or marche. His blog is My French Heaven, and he writes in French and English, good exercise for those of us who need to polish up our language skills. Warning: the photos on his blog are EXPLICIT. You will want to eat those oysters, vegetables and sweets right off the page.
He was waiting, this morning, for ‘le brouillard se dissipe’ and I smiled because on my way home from the early service this morning, I had to stop and take some photos of foggy Pensacola and the foggy bayou:
If, in the midst of this crazy time of the year, you can give yourself a small gift and a short virtual vacation, take a moment to have a cup of green tea and visit my friend Stephane at My French Heaven.
Fairbanks, Alaska or Brazil
I would have loved to be able to actually watch and see when the actual 2 millionth visitor visited, but as it does, life got in the way. There were things that needed doing, people that needed time and attention, and I by the time I got back to check, I had already gone over.
Using StatCounter, I was able to go back 78 people and figure out that it was either the visitor from Brasil or a visitor from Fairbanks, Alaska.
A couple times, I have thought I would quit blogging, like when I hit 5 years, then six, or maybe when I hit 2 million hits . . . Now, I don’t know. There are times when it is hard to get inspired, hard to think of anything I might have to say that you might find interesting, too.
I have a little trick. When I am stumped, I think of our aqua aerobics group in Doha, Qatar. We weren’t very serious, but we were very committed. We had to show up because the others counted on us. Our motto was “any exercise is better than no exercise” and on very cold days in January, exercise counted as sitting in the hot tub and kicking. We talked to pass the time, and not to think about exercising. We talked about books we had read, dishes we had cooked, movies we have seen, and events in the news. So when I can’t think of anything much to say, I think about my friends, the Aqua Babes (LOL!) and I can usually come up with something.
A long time ago, in Kuwait, there was a blogger called (something) Red, I followed, and she thought about quitting and asked us to give her reasons why or why not. I remember writing that we blog because it’s what we do, we write because it is something in us that needs to be written. Until I wrote that to her, I didn’t even know that I thought that. I guess that is why I keep on, because there is something in me that needs to do what I am doing, and when I don’t need to do it, I will stop.
Summer in Seattle Comes to Pensacola
(LOL, not quite there yet)
Today is a gorgeous Seattle summer day, lows last night in the low 40’s, and high today MIGHT hit 60. It’s a great day for being outside, trimming back the rose bushes, taking cuttings for some new starts. It’s a great day for mulching, weeding, all those things I dread when the weather is hot and humid.
Only tiny drawback is the mosquitos; we have both nile fever and dengue to worry about with those pesky mosquitos, as well as other mosquito borne illnesses. I actually have a beautiful mosquito netting we bought in Bruges for when we lived in Germany, with our windows open all summer, but we have our windows open so seldom it is hardly worth it to put it up, and I think it annoys Adventureman having to get in and out of bed with the net, LOL!
We still have tomatoes and peppers and eggplants ripening, our pomegranates are ready, and our lemons are beginning to ripen – it is a great day to be alive.
2,000,000 Today?
I think I am going to receive my 2 millionth visitor today, but I need to go to water aerobics, I can’t just sit by my computer and watch!
Milestone 4,000
I have passed a major blogging milestone, and I am about to pass another. The last post, the biblical verses from the apocraphyl book Sirach, was post number 4,000.
One day, it looks like in the next two weeks, I will hit 2,000,000 visitors. 🙂
. . . . I still miss the Kuwait sunrises . . .
Your Vote – The Power of We (Blog Action Day 2012)
This year, in the United States we are going through a vicious process, that of choosing one candidate over another for political office. Many people are so put-off by the mechanics of the process that they opt out of the choosing altogether. Others are just too busy to vote, beset by the needs of family, job, car pool, church, social activities, etc. in spite of the ease with which one can ask for and receive an absentee ballot.
You need only live in a country where people have no meaningful vote to quickly learn the value of your vote. Your vote may be just one, but in a democracy, where just one vote can turn an election – your vote counts. Together, with other voters of your persuasion, your vote counts.
There has never been a country where women have the vote and men don’t. Sadly, the opposite is true; there are still countries where women are not considered fully qualified to vote. Less than 100 years ago, our own country was one of them. Yes, it’s true, we didn’t get the vote until 1920. I reprint the following from a post I wrote several years ago, a post I have never forgotten, because it was so shocking to me when I read the price these women paid that I might freely vote today.
“The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often
mistaken for insanity.’”
We may have different preferences for who gets elected; that doesn’t matter to me. What matters to me is the power of we – that we care enough about our country and its policies to exercise our right as citizens, to get out there and vote.
This is reblogged from July 17, 2008:
WHY EVERY WOMAN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they
lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted
the right to go to the polls and vote.
Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at
the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson
to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow
Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. The women were innocent and
defenseless. And by the end of the night they were barely alive. Forty
prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a
rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk
traffic.’
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head
and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They
hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed
and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was
dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the
guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching,
twisting and kicking the women.
For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their
food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms. When one of the
leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a
chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until
she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was
smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why,
exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote
doesn’t matter? It’s raining?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO’s new movie
‘Iron Jawed Angels.’ It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women
waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my
say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the
actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women’s history, saw the HBO
movie , too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked
angry. She was–with herself. ‘One thought kept coming back to me as I
watched that movie,’ she said. ‘What would those women think of the way
I use–or don’t use–my right to vote? All of us take it for granted
now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.’ The
right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her ‘all over again.’
HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social
studies and government teachers would include the movie in their
curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women
gather. I realize this isn’t our usual idea of socializing, but we are
not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock
therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a
psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be
permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor
refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her
crazy. The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often
mistaken for insanity.’
Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard
for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic,
republican or independent party – remember to vote.
History is being made.
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