Stop Means Stop!
From time to time, we can hear the police pulling people over outside our residence. It gives us a big grin. One of the things they say, in English, is:
“Hey Buddy! Pull over!”
And the other thing they say is:
“Stop means STOP!”
We hear these two phrases over and over, so it must be part of their training.
Stinni’s New Blog?
About twice a day for the last few days, I have seen new blog messages from Stinni. Stinni? you there? Hello?
What’s going on, Stinni? I am guessing you are trying some new formats, maybe working on moving your blog from one place to another?
We are waiting, Stinni! We are eager to see what you come up with! All these teasers are building up the suspense!
Leon: Friends in High Places
After reading two stinkers, I needed a read I could rely on for a good fix. I needed escape, mixed with good food, good clothes and some social awareness. I needed Guido Brunetti, Donna Leon’s Venetian detective, and his smart, savvy wife Paula, and his family meals of pasta with soft shell crabs and risi e bisi, his children, his disgust for the politics that impinge on his doing his job.
If you think Kuwait has “wasta” (doing business by connections, influence, calling in favors), you aint’ seen nuthin’ till you’ve seen how Byzantine Venetians operate.
Friends in High Places opens with Commissario Brunetti lying on his couch re-reading Anabasis when he receives a visit from a building inspector, who determines that the apartment he owns, on the very top of a building in Venice, was probably built illegally – there are no plans or restoration approvals on file at the bureaucracy regulating residential buildings in Venice – and may have to be torn down.
Wouldn’t that be a shock? It’s a shock to Brunetti and to his family, just as it would be to us. We learn all the ins and outs of housing codes, the impact of becoming part of the EEC, and how the clever Venetians devise ways around the codes, all while Brunetti is investigating one murder – and then three other murders.
It is a VERY satisfying book. I will share with you a lengthy quote from Friends in High Places as Guido and Paola discuss how to deal with the problem:
At no time did it occur to him, as it did not occur to Paola, to approach the matter legally, to find out the names of the proper offices and officials and the proper steps to follow. Nor did it occur to either of them that there might be a clearly defined bureaucratic procedure by which they could resolve this problem. If such things did exist or could be discovered, Venetians ignored them, knowing that the only way to deal with problems like this was by means of conoscienze: acquaintances, friendships, contacts and debts built up over a lifetime of dealing with a system generally agreed, even by those in its employ, perhaps especially by those in it’s employ, prone to the abuses resultant from centuries of bribery, and encumbered by a Byzantine instinct for secrecy and lethargy.
I am sorry to tell you that the only copy of this I could find on Amazon.com cost $99.98. I must have bought this one in England, where, I promise you, it was the normal cost of a paperback book.
I will warn you in addition, I was looking forward to reading a second Leon novel, Quietly in their Sleep, only to discover when I started that I had already read it, as The Death of Faith. The books published by Leon in England are often retitled for the American market. Leon fans, beware!
New Fatwa; Sabeeh set to survive
In today’s Friday Kuwait Times (it’s not online today, so I can’t reference it directly) is an article by B Izzak stating Sabeeh set to survive vote.
It’s a very interesting article, telling how some of the key players are lining up.
In paragraph five, we find this:
In a related development, MP Duaij Al-Shimmari, a member of the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM), or Muslim Brotherhood, yesterday distributed a Fatwa (or religious edict) which clearly supports women being appointed as ministers.
Duaij said he received te Fatwa from Sheikh Ajeel Al-Nashmi, a highly respected cleric, which said that a minister’s post is allowed by Islam for women and thus supporting the no-confidence vote against Sabeeh or opposing it should entirely depend on her replies and not on her being a woman.
Wooo Hooooooooo! Equality means just that – judge women, as men, on the issues and their performance. Hold them accountable – just as you would a man.
Kuwaiti Women, Minors from Cradle to Grave
In an article in today’s Kuwait Times sure to raise discussions throughout Kuwait, staff writer Ahmad Al-Khaled brings up the laws requiring Kuwaiti women to have a husband /father/ guardian present to apply for a passport and other legal papers:
Published Date: January 15, 2008
By Ahmad Al-Khaled, Staff writer
KUWAIT: The issue of gender equality under the law has come under fire of late after an exasperated Kuwaiti woman wrote to a local Arabic newspaper telling the tale of her frustrated quest to renew her passport and was told the law required her to be accompanied by her male guardian. “It is frustrating that we are not considered equipped to act as our own guardians in 2008,” said a middle-aged Kuwaiti wife and mother of five, Um Talal, who read the woman’s letter describing how she was denied the right to renew her passport unless her husband accompanied her to the ministry.
While Kuwait is a Muslim nation, Kuwaiti law is not solely Sharia based, although it uses Sharia as a primary source of legislation according to the Constitution. Adult-aged Kuwaiti women are required under the law to be accompanied by their husband or father to renew their passports. If their father and husband are deceased or should they be divorced from their husband, they may be required to provide authorities with proof of their male guardian’s death or proof of their marital status.
“Why should we be required to offer such proof. It is insulting to be treated as if we Kuwaiti women are in need of guardianship. Shame on the government for continuing to allow such a law to remain in the books,” said a 30 something Fala Jassem. “It is not Islamic to treat women poorly, we are not children! Shame on anyone that calls this law Islamic,” said 65-year-old Bedour Bader.
While Kuwaiti women speaking to Kuwait Times were staunchly against the law, Kuwaiti men were divided with some going so far as to call the law a necessary requirement to keep their women protected. “It is a husband’s duty to act as a guardian for his wife. We must lead our families and this includes the wife,” said 53-year-old father of four Abdullah Nasser.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
Favoring Co-ed Schools
Fascinating defense of integrated classrooms in today’s Arab Times, entitled Students Will Be Made More Comfortable under Co-ed written by Kuwait University student Dalal Nasser Al-Otaibi.
I learned how American Universities became co-ed, and why. (I had no idea; you grow up thinking these things are a given.) This article must have been used as a paper for a class, as it is well documented, cites sources, etc.
Inheritance of Loss
Most of the time, if I don’t like a book, I won’t even bother telling you about it. This book, The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai, is an exception for one reason – it IS worth reading.
Inheiritance of Loss showed up on the book club reading list for the year, and I ordered it. I read the cover when the book came, and it didn’t sound that good to me, so I read other books instead. The next time it came to mind was when a friend, reading the book, said she was having trouble with it, and asked me if I had started it. This friend is a READER, and a thinker. It caught my attention that she would have problems reading a book, so I decided to give it a try.
This is a very uncomfortable book. The characters live in the shadow of the Himalayan mountains. The most sympathetic character is a young orphaned girl, sent to live with her grandfather. With each chapter, we learn more about all the characters, how they came to be here, what they think, what their lives have looked like.
The author of this book has a very sour look on life. She has snotty things to say about every character. You can almost feel her peering around the corner, eyes slit with evil intent. She is that vicious neighbor who comes by and never says anything nice about anybody, and when you see her talking with your neighbor, you get the uneasy feeling she could be saying something mean about you, and she probably is.
The book covers a wide range of topics – Indian politics, Ghurka revolts, English colonization, Indian emigration to the US and UK, everyday vanities and pride in petty things, how people destroy their own lives, how people can be cruel to one another, oh it’s a great read (yes, that is sarcasm).
At the same time, this vicious unwelcome neighbor has a sharp eye for detail. You may not like what she is telling you, but you keep listening, because you can learn important tidbits of information from her. In my case, I learned a lot about how life is lived in a small mountain village in India, the struggles of illegals in America and how class lines are drawn, ever so finely, when people live together. I learned a lot about the legacy of colonialism, and the creep of globalization. This unwelcome neighbor has a sharp tongue, always complaining, and yet . . . some of her complaints have merit.
I don’t believe there was a single redeeming episode in the book. There was not a paragraph to feel good about. I am glad to be finished with the book – but, yes, I finished it, I didn’t just set it aside in disgust, or give it away without finishing.
Here is the reason I am telling you about this book – as uncomfortable as this book is to read, I have the feeling, upon finishing, that ideas and images from this book will stick with me for a long time. I have the feeling that it contributes to my greater understanding of how things work, how people think differently from other people, and on what levels we are very much the same.
Here is an excerpt from the book, at a time during which the Judge is a young Indian, studying in England:
The new boarding house boasted several rooms for rent, and here, among the other lodgers, he was to find his only friend in England: Bose.
They had similar inadequate clothes, similar forlornly empty rooms, similar poor native’s trunks. A look of recognition had passed between them at first sight, but also the assurance that they wouldn’t reveal one another’s secrets, not even to each other.
. . . Together they punted clumsily down the glaceed river to Grantchester and had tea among the jam sozzled wasps just as you were supposed to, enjoying themselves (but not really) as the heavy wasps fell from flight into their laps with a low battery buzz.
They had better luck in London, where they watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, avoided the other Indian students at Veeraswamy’s, ate shepherd’s pie instead, and agreed on the train home that Trafalgar Square was not quite up to British standards of hygiene – all those defecating pigeons, one of which had done a masala-colored doodle on Bose. It was Bose who showed Jemubhai what records to buy for his new gramophone: Caruso and Gigli. He also corrected his pronunciation: Jheelee, not Giggly. . . .
This it was that the judge eventually took revenge on his early confusions, his embarrassments gloved in something called “keeping up standards,” his accent behind a mask of a quiet. He found he began to be mistaken for something he wasn’t – a man of dignity. This accidental poise became more important than any other thing. He envied the English. He loathed Indians. He worked at being English with the passion of hatred and for what he would become, he would be despised by absolutely everyone, English and Indians both.
I consider this a review, and not particularly a recommendation. I read the book, I finished the book and I learned from the book. I didn’t like the book. I recommend it only as a challenge, for people who like to read and stretch their minds in new directions.
Salary Belongs to Husband?
Muna al-Fuzai had a column yesterday in the Kuwait Times entitled Kuwaiti Women Accept Discrimination. (You can read the whole article by clicking on the blue type.)
In this article is one small paragraph that sends shivers down my spine:
A religious Islamic ruling was made recently to approve the husband’s right to take his wife’s salary because the time she spent outside was his own and thus he is entitled to take her salary, which she has worked so hard to earn.
It doesn’t sound to me as if it has the weight of law – like the first question I ask is:
• “do all Islamic religious rulers believe this to be true, or is this one guy’s opinion?”
• is it possible for this ruling to receive enough support to make it law?
• if it becomes law in Kuwait, does this law apply to all people living in Kuwait, or just to Kuwaitis?
This, to me, is a very scary ruling.
I’ve been married to AdventureMan for a long time. We’ve always discussed finances together, and we’ve both agreed on how to allocate our money and salaries. Sharing is very different from my earnings being controlled by someone else, no discussion. Or maybe discussion, but not necessarily.
But I am not Kuwaiti. If you are working, have ever worked, or intend to work, how does this ruling strike you?
Naughty or Nice?
Blogger N. at One or the Other asks readers and visitors to vote on whether they are naughty or Nice? Blogger Fourme, rightly comments that we don’t have any definition of naughty or nice by which to define ourselves and that she will refrain from voting.
Most of the voters are naughty, by the way.
It gave me a big grin.
Isn’t “naughty” or “nice” greatly in the mind of the beholder?
Once, when I was the young wife of a young army officer, I got up my courage and wrote a letter to the editor. It turned out to be a controversial letter; I got one very sarcastic response from the authority I questioned, and then, a week later, all hell broke loose as readers from all over Europe bombed the one who replied. I felt scared, but a little proud to have raised the issue.
I was working in the library. THE COLONEL’S WIFE (that is how we thought of her) walked in and said to me “we don’t get our names in newspapers. It isn’t done.” And then she walked out.
Then I really felt scared. And I really felt naughty. And at the same time, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Sometimes, don’t you have to say something? When you see something that is not right? And is that really naughty?
Walking Old Damascus (2)
You know how it is, when you are flat-out totally in love, you can’t see the flaws. In moments of clarity, I can understand that there could be hardships to living in Damascus. There could be problems meeting the codes for historical preservation while trying to install modern plumbing. There could be bureaucrats to bribe, there could be problems with labor, I don’t know any of this, I am just guessing.
None of it matters to me, I am so head-over-heels happy. Thanks be to God, AdventureMan shares my insanity, and we are having a wonderful time walking, walking, walking. He is SO patient with me, and all the photos I have to stop to take.
Today we visit the Ummayyad Mosque which also contains the tomb of John the Baptist. I think this is one of the reasons we love Damascus so much – the co-existence of Islam and Christianity, and the sharing of sacred spaces.
The parking area in front of the mosque is full of vendors. My favorite are the bread carts:
Non-Muslims have to go to the entrance where you can rent an abaya with a hood, so that you can visit the mosque. All visitors are welcome; entire tour groups are going through, French, German. You also have to take off your shoes, and the beautiful marble flooring is VERY cold! In some places, there is carpeting.
This is a tree-of-life detail from the treasury:
Once inside the Ummayad Mosque, they have that in-floor heating, so you can warm your tootsies back up while experiencing the magnificence of the mosque interior (please note the horseshoe arches):
The tomb of John the Baptist:
A funny story: as we are leaving the Mosque, AdventureMan says “where is this tomb of John the Baptist you wanted to visit?” and I looked at his in puzzlement. We had finished touring the whole mosque, and I had photographed the tomb.
“We already visited it!” I told him.
“When?” he asked.
“It was that beautiful tomb in the main mosque area surrounded by people praying!” I replied.
“No, that was somebody named Yahyah,” he corrected me.
“Yahyah is the name for John the Baptist,” I told him. Guess he would have appreciated it more if he had known at the time. I just assumed he knew.
I must have been a magpie in another life. I don’t know why, but I love these glittery Chinese decorations. AdventureMan bought one for me, a golden crown with big red “jewels”. The shops always catch my eye:
This is a famous ice cream place in the Souk Hammadiyya:
This shop was on the traditional medicine shop street. It had herbs, and dried creatures which can be used in healing, and unusual soaps, and also seashells:
This is the traditional souk at the beginning of the Street Called Straight (al Mustaqeen) which is undergoing renovation. Just wanted you to see the bulletholes through the roof:
I don’t know if you could find a truly bad meal in Damascus. I think you would really have to try! We found this wonderful restaurant, Al Kawali, not too far from our hotel, and we loved their food and we loved the atmosphere, and we loved having the bread baked right under our noses:
For those of you who, like me, are addicted to spaces and details – look at these gorgeous light fixtures, Damascene glass:
And last, but not least – we find the food so fabulous that we are eating too much. Our first time at Al Kawali, we order just some favorite mezze dishes and soup. When the tastes are so perfect, it takes less to fill you up, and this food is perfection.
We found this old house as we were leaving Al Kawali to walk back to the hotel:
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