Qatteri Cat’s Paw
The Qatteri Cat has some desert cat in him, or so the vet says. She says this on the basis of his very very hairy ears, the better to keep sand out, and his very hairy paws. His paws crack me up – desert cats have hairy paws so that they can walk on hot sand without burning their feet.
There is another meaning to cat’s paw than the literal meaning. When a person is referred to as a cat’s paw, it means that person is acting, knowingly or unknowingly, to do the will of another person. Here is what answers.com says about the term cat’s paw:
cat’s-paw also cats·paw (kăts’pô’)
n., pl. cat’s-paws also cats·paws.
A person used by another as a dupe or tool.
A light breeze that ruffles small areas of a water surface.
Nautical. A knot made by twisting a section of rope to form two adjacent eyes through which a hook is passed, used in hoisting.
cat’s paw
A dupe or tool for another, a sucker, as in You always try to make a cat’s paw of me, but I refuse to do any more of your work. This term alludes to a very old tale about a monkey that persuades a cat to pull chestnuts out of the fire so as to avoid burning its own paws. The story dates from the 16th century and versions of it (some with a dog) exist in many languages.
I know that some of you out there in etherworld share my love of words and phrases, and of knowing their origin. This is for you! 🙂
Sukkar Mat-hoon
I love it. Thanks to Kinan, I even know how to pronounce it, Suk-kar Mat-hoon. I love it.
And it worked great in the very chocolate chocolate frosting. Here is what it looks like. If it had looked like this, I wouldn’t have had any problem.
And here is what it looked like on the shelf.
NYT Article on “Shiitization of Syria”
My neice, Little Diamond wrote this morning referring to an excellent piece entitled Catalytic Conversion about persistent rumors of “Shiitization” in Syria. The article, by Andrew Tabler, is from today’s New York Times Sunday Magazine section, begins here:
The Middle East is abuzz with talk of “Shiitization.” Since the war in Lebanon last summer, newspapers, TV news channels and Web sites in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere have reported that Sunnis, taken with Hezbollah’s charismatic Shiite leader Hassan Nasrallah and his group’s “resistance” to Israel, were converting to Shiite Islam. When I recently visited the semi-arid plains of eastern Syria, known as the Jazeera, Sunni tribal leaders whispered stories of Iranians roaming the Syrian countryside handing out bags of cash and macaroni to convert families and even entire villages to Shiite Islam.
You can read the original article from the New York Times Sunday Magazine section HERE.
Audio and Video Streaming Stopped?
My neice, Little Diamond, checking on Kuwaiti Censorship went to the Ministry on Information where she found this statement:
الإذاعة والتلفزيون
على الإنترنت
حتى إشعار أخر
Audio & Video Streaming is stopped
until further notice
And I just checked it, but I can’t figure out if it means they are discontinuing audio and video streaming from their site, or if they intend to discountinue audio and video streaming into Kuwait?
Anyone know anything?
Humor in the Military
My friend Abdulaziz shares these with you. They had me weak from laughter.
“Aim towards the Enemy.” – Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher
“When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.” – U.S. Army
“Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground.” – U.S.A.F. Ammo Troop
“If the enemy is in range, so are you.” – Infantry Journal
“A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit.” – Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance
“It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.” – U.S. Air Force Manual
“Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo.” – Infantry Journal
“Tracers work both ways.” – U.S. Army Ordnance
“Five-second fuses only last three seconds.” – Infantry Journal
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.” – Col. David Hackworth
“If your attack is going too well, you’re probably walking into an ambush.” – Infantry Journal
“No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection.” – Joe Gay
“Any ship can be a minesweeper … once.” – Anon
“Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.” – Unknown Army Recruit
“Don’t draw fire; it irritates the people around you.” – Your Buddies
(And lastly)
“If you see a bomb technician running, try to keep up with him.” — U.S.A. Ammo Troop
Adventure Man was always suspicious of a soldier carrying a clipboard. Clipboards always make a person look busy and official, but actually the persons carrying them are usually goofing off.
A Beautiful Apology
Gere apologises over Shetty kiss
The kiss:
Actor Richard Gere has apologised for causing offence when he kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.
The incident, at an Aids awareness event in Delhi, prompted public protests and then an arrest warrant for both stars over the “obscene act”.
Gere, 57, said he had misread Indian customs and that he regretted any problems he had caused Shetty.
You can read the whole story here, at BBC News.
I am guessing both Gere and Shetty got a lot of mileage out of the storm of publicity from his onstage behavior, and now he has graciously and sincerely apologized. Pardon my cynicism, but he has been in India before, I would think he would have been more sensitive.
Nonetheless, he made a beautiful apology. And I wonder why politicians don’t do the same? Why, when you realize you have stepped on someone’s toes, don’t you just make a full and gracious apology? No, it doesn’t change what has happened, but it can sometimes calm the troubled waters.
What if the Danish papers had made a full and gracious apology for publishing the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed? It would not have changed the fact that they had been published, but it would not have hurt to acknowledge that they had hurt the sensitivities of a large portion of the world, and to apologize for the offence.
777
This week I saw an accident, and called 777. My experience was very positive – my call was answered on the first try, and although the lady didn’t speak English, we managed. The ambulance people called me, the police called me multiple times, the ambulance showed up, the police showed up. All in all, not bad.
It would have been better had I spoken better Arabic, but we all managed. One guy put me on the speaker phone and had everyone listen to me and then someone said what I was saying. It was one of those Woh is der Bahnhof experiences where they would keep asking me “Where? Where?” and I would tell them and tell them, and then they would say “”Oh! You are saying . . . ” and it would be EXACTLY what I had been saying! Exactly!
But I could also hear them smiling as they talked to me, and I was glad I knew a few words. I probably sound like a four year old, but a four year old with enough sense to make a much-needed call and get the police and ambulance where they are needed, al hamdullah!
“You’re Fired!”
Today on AOL Jobs Section is an article on how difficult employers find firing an employee, even employees they know are lazy, have addiction problems, or are persistently late or absent. The Fonz discusses this, and other work related issues while blogging from one of his two or three different jobs.
“You’re fired” isn’t a phrase that rolls off Ed Cook’s tongue. The owner of a Stone Mountain, Ga., State Farm agency, Cook recently became concerned about an employee who spent far too much time chatting on her cell phone at the office. The last straw was an hour-long personal call she made while he was out on business. When he confronted her and she shrugged it off, Cook decided — then and there — to let her go. In his 30 years at the agency, that was only the sixth time he had ever fired anyone.
“It kills me to have to fire an employee,” Cook says. “I lose sleep over it. But when I’m paying someone to work, I expect them to work.”
While television bosses — from Trump, to Montgomery Burns on The Simpsons, to Michael Scott on The Office — gleefully terminate employees with abandon, real-world employers are far more hesitant.
In a recent national survey, 61 percent of small-business owners said they find it hard to fire employees — even bad ones, according to SurePayroll, a Chicago-based small-business payroll firm.
“The survey confirms our belief that small-business owners struggle with many HR issues and would prefer to focus instead on growing their businesses,” says SurePayroll president Michael Alter. “Firing employees is particularly difficult.”
That’s why as many as 78 percent of business owners said they prefer to put it off as long as possible, the survey found.
Francisco Dao, the founder of StrategyandPerformance.com, a San Francisco-based executive coaching and consulting firm, remembers working at a financial firm alongside a full-blown alcoholic.
Senior Citizens in Kuwait Taking Hospital Beds?
Tacked on to another article in yesterday’s Kuwait Times was this tiny bit of news, with much larger social implications:
“In other news, sources revealed that senior citizens have changed the rooms of public hospitals into old aged homes due to the low fees that are imposed on reserving a room at the hospital.
The rooms at public hospitals are worth KD 1 per day, and if the patient stays for two months, then he will pay only 500 fils per day.
Effective measures must be adopted by the Ministry of Health such as giving a determined time for each patient in order to enable hospitals to receive other patients.”
In a related article several months ago, a article in the same newspaper said that the hospitals were overrun with old people because people couldn’t take care of them at home, and it was much less shameful to say “my Mother is in the hospital” than to say “my mother is in a home for old people.”
It sounds to me like the solution is for the Kuwait government to open a state of the art “hospital” specializing in Gerontology, which in reality would be a retirement center for people unable to take care of their own physical needs, and whose families cannot meet their needs (believe me, after my father’s lengthy and debilitating illness, I know there is only so much a family can do), and they can still say that their parent(s) are in a hospital.
It would meet the need of “hospitalization,” would provide the older people with the intensive and personal services that they need, and would free the beds in traditional hospitals for the seriously ill and damaged citizens.
It’s only words.
Big Brother and ‘The Look’
Last night I was caught up in the hormone laden chaos of Marina Mall.
Surrounded by hundreds of thuggy looking 11-year-olds and adolescent trollops, I wondered what kept the atmosphere from becoming explosive? All that testosterone, all that rampant estrogen, what an unpredictable combination! So I watched, and then I saw it.
The girls are mostly behaving themselves. Most are dressed modestly, but are ready for that “we had a moment” glance, and half-hoping, half-fearing that it will come. “Eeeeeee!!” they scream, thinking someone might pass them a phone number.
But what keeps the young monkeys, hopped up on testosterone, from getting carried away?
Big Brother.
Not is a mean way, not in a threatening way, just being a big brother.
I would see the gangs of kids, and I would see a white thobed guy, maybe with a friend, maybe with his family.
And I would see “the glance”. “The Look”.
The look said “I see you.”
The look said “I know who who you are, underneath the gel and goofy clothing.”
The look said “I know your family.”
The look said “Remember your manners, little brother.”
And I saw the boys catch the look, and remember who they are. The look was enough. The look is effective. It breaks through the mob mentality and reminds the boys that they will soon have the responsibilities of young men, and that this mob mentality roaming around the Mall will pass. The look reminds the boys of the need for SELF control. The look might even say “I remember those days, and those days are over.”
It’s enough.
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