Kuwait Times?
I heard today – on Global Voices Online: Kuwait that the Minister of Information has rescinded the restrictions on publications.
Either my Kuwait Times was stolen this morning, or it never came. I have tried to reach the Kuwait Times online, but get only blanks. Is there something going on?
Government limits freedom of expression
In the United States, news that people want buried comes out on Saturday night, when people are busy with other things and not paying a lot of attention. Does that happen in Kuwait?
I watched for anyone blogging on this yesterday, but saw nothing. I showed the newspaper to my Kuwaiti friends, who were shocked, and hadn’t heard anything about this. Some of it, I get. I am flummoxed by the forbidding of any mention of veterinary medicine!
From yesterday’s Kuwait Times.
KUWAIT: All newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and printing presses in Kuwait were yesterday issued a list by the government of the types of articles, advertisements and banners that can no longer be printed or published without official approval. Following is the list of the banned topics and the ministry concerned:
Interior Ministry:
1. Publication or display of slogans that glorify some countries against others.
2. Displaying pictures that glorify some political personalities or religious figures of countries where political or religious conflicts exist.
3. Publications or displaying slogans that glorify or support some political or religious parties outside Kuwait.
4. Publication of personal interviews with citizens who support or oppose a certain policy which may place the state at war with other countries.
5. Publication or displaying slogans that glorify or support some religious or political parties in Kuwait.
6. Announcement of seminars that may probe tribal or sectarian conflicts.
7. Sale of books on sorcery and magic.
8. Spiritual healing (without a licence).
9. Sorcery and ability to heal.
10. Massage without a licence (because those activities are subject to Law No. 15/1960 dealing with commercial companies).
11. Sale and trade of weapons by commercial companies, individual establishments and individuals (swords, sabers, daggers, spears, knives, arrows and arrowheads, pointy rods, spiked clubs, knives, brass knuckles, electric sticks), because licenses from the Interior Ministry to import these.
12. Sale of airguns without a licence from the Interior Ministry.
13. Fireworks and explosives.
14. Sale of surveillance cameras and listening devices (bugs) of all types without obtaining a licence from the concerned authority.
Education Ministry:
1. Publication of ads for private tuitions.
2. Publication of supplementary school notes.
3. Ads of private institutes and universities that are not accredited by the Ministry of Education.
Ministry of Health:
1. Conventional and veterinary medicine.
2. Botanic, animal or chemical formulae.
3. Foods that have health-enhancing effect, claimed to be prepared for treatment.
4. Preparations that claim to provide energy or reduce or increase weight.
5. Change of structures of body parts. (It is a must that a license be obtained from the licenses committee on advertisements related to health and nutrition).
Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor:
1. Donation and blood money ads.
2. Charity homes’ advertisements.
3. Ads for lectures, cultural and religious gatherings (unless a permission is obtained from the ministry).
The order was signed by Fahd Sayyah Al-Ajmi, Director of Local Press Affairs at the Ministry of Information.
Tornado Before and After
Imagery provided in Ogle Earth of the recent tornado damage in Greensburg, Kansas on May 4th.
If you go to Ogle Earth, you can see the before and after shots. The destruction is unbelievable. The immediacy with which the damage could be assessed with the help of these shots helps emergency workers and insurance assessors do their job more quickly.
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
When I saw this book at the Barnes and Noble, I thought “isn’t Kate Moss a fashion model?” but that is a different Kate Moss, a Moss without the ‘e’ at the end.
This book was a New York Times bestseller, but then so was the Da Vinci Code, which I thought badly written and sometimes incoherent. The premise was interesting, but it was done years ago by French authors Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Holy Blood, Holy Grail hypothesizes (and pulls together a load of hypothetical evidence to support) that the mystical grail is really a symbolic representation of the blood of Christ, that Jesus was not crucified but instead left Jerusalem with his wife Mary Magdeleine and went to France, and started a family there which eventually became the early French royal line.
I remember telling my son this story, as we travelled through the southern areas of France, and him saying in his smart-mouth-teenager way “only the French would be so arrogant as to believe the blood of God was flowing in their veins!”
We spent a lot of time travelling in France. We love France. So when I discovered that Labyrinth was about the beginning of the French crusade against the Cathars, I was delighted. We know this history. We know this area – it is one of the most beautiful areas of France. We know Carcassone, which in its renovation by Viollet-le-Duc is like Disney-does-fortified-city. It’s formidable, but it’s not entirely authentic.
Who are the Cathars? The Cathars were a break-away sect who were called by others ‘bons hommes’ or ‘bons Chretiens’ (good-Christians), but, pre-Luther, they saw many flaws in the way the Catholic church has become more political than spiritual.
They valued inner faith above outward display. They needed no consecrated buildings, no superstitious rituals, no humiliating obeisance designed to keep ordinary men apart from God. They did not worship images, nor prostrate themselves before idols or instruments of torture. For the ‘Bons Chretiens’ the power of God lay in the word. They needed only books and prayers, words spoken and read aloud. Salvations was nothing to do with alms or relics or Sabbath prayers spoken in a language only the priests understood. . . In their eyes, all were equal in the Grace of the Holy Father – Jew or Saracen, man and woman, the beasts of the fields and the birds of the air. There would be no hell, no final day of judgement, because through God’s grace all would be saved, although many would be destined to live life many times over before they regained God’s kingdom.
They believed the earth was created as a trap, by Satan, and that our lives here keep us apart from the glory of God. They believed we keep coming back, until we purify ourselves spiritually, and that in the end, if we get it right, we end up back where we came from, with God. And they believed we all have the right to read the bible, and to talk directly with God, without the necessity of a priest to interpret or to direct.
But this Crusade, the Fourth Crusade, is little known. This Crusade, declared by the Pope to wipe out the Cathar heresy (sometimes known as Bogomilism or Albigencian heresy) was really the tool of the nobility that was then France, less than half of the France of today, to grab the rich, lush southern lands of the Pays d’Oc. The Fourth Crusade was an opportunity for knights to increase their holdings. And it doubled the size of France.
The Labyrinth takes you inside the walls. The main character is not Cathar, but it didn’t matter – this war wasn’t really about wiping out the Cathars as much as subjugating an independant land and making it part of France. You may have heard one famous quote from this Crusade – as the Crusaders were attacking Besiers, the Abbot of Citeaux was asked how the soldiers could tell the good Catholics from the heritics. “Tuez-les tous. Dieu reconnaitra les sien,” he replied – Kill them all. God will know his own.
The book is lightweight, an easy read. The heroine, Alice, seems to have lived before, as Alais, and has memories she has never lived. You jump back and forth between today, and the time of the Crusade, in the early 1200s. Some of the plot mechanisms don’t make a lot of sense, but you do get a real sense of life in a fortified town during the 1200’s, and of the injustice done to this beautiful area in France. For a book I am lukewarm about in retrospect, I read it avidly, and enjoyed the read.
What I like about this book is that it brings to life a time in history that few pay any attention to. Somewhere in the book, it says that “history is written by the victors.” We see France today, and we know little about the struggle that united these diverse areas into one nation. This book illuminates a slice of time, a grave injustice, and a sense that religion is too often a tool for political ends.
Like the heroine, the big church in Carcassone, where the trials and tortures of the ‘heretics’ took place sends a cold chill up my spine, I can hear the screams of the tortured. I love churches, and I can’t go into this one. It feels unholy. Did you know that the origination of the Inquisition was not in Spain, as most people believe, but in this area of France? And it was aimed, first, at the Cathars.
All in all, not a bad book. Though light in plot, it is heavy in content, a book you will remember and think about in terms of issues, if not the main characters.
“Who Am I?”
As DNA testing becomes more and more common, surprises are popping up everywhere. This article from BBC is about two Englishwomen who discover they have Native American blood when they send their DNA in for testing.
It’s fascinating to think that migration and trade has left it’s traces generations later. I love the work that is being done with bloodlines these days.
Native American DNA found in UK
DNA testing has uncovered British descendents of Native Americans brought to the UK centuries ago as slaves, translators or tribal representatives.
Genetic analysis turned up two white British women with a DNA signature characteristic of American Indians.
An Oxford scientist said it was extremely unusual to find these DNA lineages in Britons with no previous knowledge of Native American ancestry.
Indigenous Americans were brought over to the UK as early as the 1500s.
It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?
Doreen Isherwood
Many were brought over as curiosities; but others travelled here in delegations during the 18th Century to petition the British imperial government over trade or protection from other tribes.
Experts say it is probable that some stayed in Britain and married into local communities.
Doreen Isherwood, 64, from Putney, and Anne Hall, 53, of Huddersfield, only found out about their New World heritage after paying for commercial DNA ancestry tests.
Mrs Isherwood told BBC News: “I was expecting the results to say I belonged to one of the common European tribes, but when I got them back, my first thought was that they were a mistake.
“It rocked me completely. It made think: who am I?”
You can read the rest of the article at BBC Science/Nature News, here.
Dark, Disturbing Road
Do you remember the happy books you read? Those that are light and breezy? Those with happy-ever-after endings? Most of the time, my bet would be you don’t. You read them, and they’re gone.
Not this book, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. I found myself hesitating to even review this book, it is so disturbing to me. The prose is simple, even stark. The atmosphere is relentlessly bleak. The main character, whose name we never know, spends most of the book foraging and scavenging to feed himself and his starving son. The cover says it takes place in America, but it could be anywhere.
It is post-apocalyptic literature at it’s bleakest. All we know is that there were huge balls of light and then everything burned, and kept burning. It is still burning, in some places, during the time span of this novel. It rains or snows most of the time, and the rain is grey and the snow is grey. It is bone-chilling cold, and gathering wood for a fire to keep warm is a constant task.There is never a clear sunny day, only lighter or darker shades of grey. The nights are dark, no moon, no stars, just blackness.
It’s another one of those books I grabbed on the way to the airport without looking too carefully. I saw this was an Oprah Book Club choice and didn’t even read the cover. These books I just grabbed have grabbed me in return – I have read five in a row, books I have to talk over with my husband while I am reading them, they are so full of ideas I need to explore, unsettling settings, shaking to insecurity all that we take for granted.
This one, though, is seriously dark. I read until past midnight last night, adrenaline pumping through my system, as the man and his son evade marauders, thieves, and cannibals. I needed the human warmth of my husband’s body next to mine to drive away the alienation of this book. Even safe in my own bed, though, my sleep is troubled and I wake feeling scared and depressed. As you read The Road, you realize how very thin the veneer of civilization is that holds us together in community, and how that veneer rips when there is no longer law holding back the more powerful, those with weapons, those with more resources. When food becomes scarce, when people become very hungry . . . the rules break down, in serious and unthinkable ways.
If one book can have such an impact on my emotions and feelings of security, I can’t help but think how the trauma of the Iraqi invasion must still be resonating, invisible, below the surface, but an uninvited guest in the daily lives of those who experienced those horrors and trauma in Kuwait. You wonder if you will ever trust in “normal” again?
When your world suddenly shifts in a heartbeat, when your wealth disappears, when you suddenly have only your wits to survive on, how will YOU do?
As the Father and Son travel The Road seeking a warmer climate, and “the good guys”, goodness is remarked by its absence. Our protagonist refuses to help a lost child, a cellar full of people being kept as a food supply, and a couple of men along the road whose situation is even worse than their own. His son, born just after the event which forever changes the world, begs his Dad to share, but the Dad, knowing how spare the food supply is, refuses.
Beyond a crossroads in that wilderness they began to come upon the possessions of travelers abandoned in the road years ago. Boxes and Bags. Everything melted and black. Old suitcases curled shapeless in the heat. Here and there the imprint of things wrested out of the tar by scavengers. A mile on and they began to come upon the dead. Figures half mired in the blacktop, clutching themselves, mouths howling. He put his hand across the boy’s shoulder. Take my hand, he said. I don’t think you should see this.
Yes.
It’s OK Papa.
It’s OK?
They’re already there.
I don’t want you to look.
They’ll still be there.
He stopped and leaned on the cart. He looked down at the road and he looked at the boy. So strangely untroubled.
Why don’t we just go on, the boy said.
Yes. Okay.
They were trying to get away, weren’t they Papa?
Yes. They were.
Why didn’t they leave the road?
They couldn’t. Everything was on fire.
I dropped other things I really needed to do so that I could finish The Road. I can’t spend another night wondering how I would survive in this dog-eat-dog world. I need to move on with my life. I need to shift my focus.
And yet . . . I recommend McCarthy’s The Road to you. It is dark, it is brutal, it is relentlessly bleak, but still there is a thin golden thread of the father and son relationship weaving through the tapestry of despair, which redeems the book. You can’t help but admire the determination to persist, when the signs are all around you that nothing is going to get better. Somehow, in spite of all the despair, there is redemption, and even hope.
Changing Times
The Kuwait Times has a different look these days – a lot more advertising. Now that the LuLu has opened, grocery stores are starting to advertise. Just wait until Carrefour opens! Choice has come to Kuwait, and things are going to start to get much more interesting!
In yesterday’s Kuwait Times is a FULL PAGE ad for the Villa Moda sale starting today with prices up to 90%! It does not say “up to 90% off” it says “LUXURY DESIGNER STOCK CLEARANCE SALE UP TO 90%” and it goes on to say the sale is today, Sunday, May 6 from 10 am to 10 pm “while stocks last.”
It also encourages Villa Moda fans to go to at http://www.villa-moda.com for more information and special offers and events, and to send you e-mail with your full name, mobile number and date of birth to NEWS@villa-moda.com.
MOC Bans Porno Film Sites
Today’s Kuwait Times:
Internet Porno Film Sites
The Ministry of Communication has closed down all new sites that advertise pornographic films. The ministry of Communication represented by Undersecretary Eng. Abdulaziz Al-Osaimi and his counterpart at the Ministry of Information achieved this new step. This move was done in order to have control over the sites, which are being followed by the Ministry of Information. Al-Osaimi has assigned administration director Nassar Al-Kandari to work on closing those sites from the Internet and ensuring that companies do not use other systems to re-open it. The ministry succeeded in coordinating with local internet companies to close all porno sites, but lately the ministry realized that there are new sites marketing through drama films to porno films.
My comments:
I truly hate porn. I hate it because it creates a fantasy world that real women can barely compete with. I bet if men spent half the time and attention on their wives and families that they spend on porn, there wouldn’t be so much divorce. And guys – those women are PAID. They’re ACTING. Most of them would rather be doing anything but what they are doing, but they do it for the MONEY. It’s about as real as the World Wide Wrestling Federation Matches, it’s all staging and airbrushing and making money off YOUR fantasies.
Rant over – reality strikes. How do you ban pornography?
First, how do you define pornography? When I was a student in political science, we spent a week of class time trying to come up with a definition that everyone could buy into. We never succeeded.
There is some pretty powerful erotic literature, erotic art out there, stuff I don’t find pornographic in the least. So what are the guidelines?
Second, WHO defines pornography?
Third, how on earth will the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Information keep up with all the new porn sites that keep popping up? These sites make people a LOT of money, they have the money to pay ingenious high tech guys to keep devising new ways to get their product to market.
And last, who is the poor porno-guy who has to watch all this garbage and enforce the ban?
And – is your internet phone still working? 😉
Save the Dates: May 31, June 1 + 2
A friend asked me to publish this. Did you know there was an international group in Kuwait for people who love textiles? The Sadu House is a part of this association, and the local quilting group, with over 50 members, and people who weave, knit, do tapestry work, needlepoint, embroider, sew, collect hand loomed carpets – they all belong to this group.
As you can see, their annual exhibit is coming up at the end of this month. You won’t want to miss it if you love original work, especially work with textures. There may be items for sale; many items will be on display only so that you can see of the original and artistic work being done in your community. There is a glorious quilt being raffled, and tickets will be available at the exhibit.
The KTAA holds meetings once a month with lectures on textiles from various parts of the world – this year they had lectures on the Miao Chinese, Afghani carpets, Indian marriage costumes, art embroidery, hand dying fabrics and several others – all embellished with bright examples of the works lovingly collected by KTAA members. It is a richly artistic group, meeting at the Dar al Cid, just around the corner from the Tarak Rejab Museum.
Sparkle Plenty Jumps In
Sparkle Plenty has always loved good jewelry. She is on first name terms with the major jeweler in our home town, and they always grin when she walks in. Her blogging name is well chosen!
She is my sister, although almost of another generation. She is the youngest aunt, the “fun” aunt. Everyone likes hanging around Sparkle Plenty’s house – and all the cousins gather there around the pool – or the pool table. Sparkle Plenty and her husband have all the fun toys, the fun gatherings and her house is full of laughter.
Her house is also full of pets. She and her husband, Mariner Man, have a soft spot for anything lost or injured or abandoned. One by one, they have gathered a menagerie of cats, dogs and birds who are all grateful not to be out on the streets. They take the ones who limp, the ones no-one else wants. Sparkle Plenty and Mariner Man are all about heart.
After a couple months of commenting, now she had jumped in to the blogging party, and her theme, Flashes of Light that catch the eye, the mind and the heart is perfectly expressive of her goodness and her compassion and her yearning to be a force for good in the universe. Welcome Sparkle Plenty, and may the force of good be with you!
Please visit Sparkle Plenty and welcome her to our virtual community.
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Early Voting in Florida
