“But We Have Final Exams!”
Kuwait Times, June 9, 2007
Three Teens Held for Rape Attempt
A source revealed that three 18 year old boys were walking on a pedestrian path in Mishref and they saw a 22 year old girl walking on the same path. The teens then tried to rape the girl, but she started crying and she tried to call police. Then the youths assaulted her. She recorded the plate number of the gang’s two cars then the teens got afraid and tried to fabricate a story and called police before her. When the police came, and saw the girl and the boys, she started crying and told police that they sexually assaulted her. First, they denied but following an intensive investigation they confessed and started BEGGING THE POLICEMEN TO RELEASE THEM BECAUSE THEY HAD EXAMS. (emphasis added by blogger) The police filed a case and referred the boys to the authorities.
My comment: You do the crime, you do the time. You have exams? What do you think you have done to this young 22 year old gal’s life??? You terrorized her!
And bravo to the judge in California who put that little ferret Paris Hilton back in jail, too.
Light a Candle Against Child Abuse
A good friend sent me this link: Light a Million Candles.com which is against child abuse. The don’t ask your address or for any donations – just that you light a candle and support their cause.
Kuwait Couple and Police
This is a very strange report from the Daily Star. There was a similar report in the Thursday Kuwait Times, which claims there were two couples. Is there a police blotter where newspapers get their information, or do they use inside sources? The stories in each newspaper have different details, and sometimes the details vary significantly.
Culprits Freed, Cop Detained
In a very strange incident, the head investigator at Mubarak Al-Kabeer Police Station has ordered the detention of a first sergeant and released two persons who humiliated the policeman, reports Al-Anba daily.
A police source said the first sergeant arrested a 22 year old man and a 41 year old woman who were inside a car parked in the Abul Hasaniya at 2:00 in the morning, and asked them to hand over their identification documents but they refused to heed the policeman’s request.
The threatened to harm the first sergeant and dismiss him from service, but later handed over their IDs to another policeman who rushed to the area after receiving a call from the first sergeant.
The two persons were released and the policeman was detained but Director of the Security Directorate in Mubarak Al-Kabeer Brigadier Mostafa Khan and his assistant Brigadier Ibrahim Al-Tarrah ordered the immediate release of the first sergeant and referred the case to another investigator.
My comment: I cannot begin to figure out what happened in this story. It could be a hundred different things. The woman could be in the car with her son, escaping from an abusive husband. Or they could be unrelated and naked. There are endless possibilities in between those extremes. We don’t know.
The sergeant could be doing his duty and unjustly punished by superiors using wasta, or he could have exceeded his authority and been let to skate. We don’t know.
Stories like this in the papers mystify me. It all depends on the “police source” and his particular bias.
Kuwait Machine Gun?
From yesterday’s Kuwait Times.
Three Shot at by Teenagers
Two Kuwaiti citizens and a bedoon man were transferred to Jahra hospital after three teenagers shot them using a machine gun and ran away. The victims stressed they did not know why the assailants, who were travelling in a Japanese car, shot at them. The case is under investigation.
My comment: My husband, when I told him about this story, says that most people don’t know the difference between a machine gun and an automatic weapon, which can fire a series of shots in rapid succession. Somehow, the distinction fails to reassure me. Teenagers – children – with automatic weapons?? Where are these weapons coming from? How did they get their hands on them?
There has been a big to-do over Muna Al-Fuzai’s tongue-in-cheek article about Kuwait and subsequent defense of what she said.
Guys: Stop talking and listen for a change. Yes, Kuwait is a wonderful place, she is not saying differently. She is Kuwaiti and she loves Kuwait. She has a right to say what she sees and hears, and she has taken a courageous and controversial stand. You don’t have to agree with her, and she still has a right to her opinion. Did you notice? Her column is OPINION.
You are also entitled to your opinion.
First – Take a deep breath. Ask your mother, your wife, your sister, your maid – how safe she feels taking a taxi alone at night – if that is even an option. Ask her if she is careful where she walks. Ask her about her experiences with the police. Ask her if she will go to any ATM, or only “safe” ones.
As I see it, Kuwait has a huge bachelor population, and few options for these bachelors. Women here know to travel in groups, to be watchful, and to be wary. There is a problem.
And it’s not women, it is also children. It’s unthinkable.
Couple this with weak regard for the law and weak enforcement of the law, and you will see that there is a problem.
And where did these kids get automatic weapons? ? ? These problems are all connected to weak law enforcement, lack of respect for the law and a sense of entitlement. Entitled to take an automatic and shoot people? ? Entitled to TAKE sex from someone smaller and weaker than you? ?
It’s not just lack of respect for the law, it’s the law of the jungle.
Emergency Lane Rant
It’s not your arrogance that drives me totally crazy, as much as the fact that your arrogance puts us all at risk.
First, you are driving too fast, and weaving between cars. Yep, it looks like fun, but you’re cutting it a little close, brother. And if you are young and have all your wits about you, you might do OK, but if you are tired, if you are drinking, if you are on drugs, your reactions are impaired and so is your judgement.
We can’t help but bear witness to your carnage along the sides of the road. It’s not like they sit there for weeks. The tow trucks haul them away, and they are replaced overnight with new, bloodier, twisted wreckage. The highways are littered with your crumpled bumpers, and shards of your shattered windshields.
Worse, as traffic piles up, and ambulances arrive to try to save those who survive the impact, no-one moves aside! When time is critical, when seconds can literally mean life or death, the ambulances are stuck trying to get past cars which won’t move out of the way.
As for the rest of us, stacked up along the highways, waiting for the wreckage to be cleared, it doesn’t help to have these drivers zipping by in the EMERGENCY lanes. Hello???? What part of EMERGENCY is so hard for you to understand?
You’re not special. We all have places we need to be. And – you are in the emergency lane. You endanger us all.
No Credit
I discovered this site had linked to my Black Magic Chocolate Cake recipe. When I went there, they have published my recipe, but didn’t credit me, my blog, didn’t give any credit for having snatched the entry from my blog, word for word.
I tried to leave a comment, but you have to be signed in, and there was no where to sign in. I am SO totally annoyed.
Rare Case of Lying
In today’s Kuwait Times is an article I found utterly hilarious – WHAT WAS HE THINKING????
Exam Fraud Discovered
Kuwait: The director of a secondary school in Khaitan discovered a first of a kind cheating case wehre an unidentified young man sat for a Quran exam instead of one of the school students, reported Alam Alyawm, noting that being unable to identify the young man and suspecting him, the director requested an ID to verify his true identity.
Sources said that the examined young man confusingly showed a driving license belonging to the student he had substituted. Realizing his fraud had been discovered, the young man fled the school leaving his exam paper and driving license behind.
Upon contacting the real student, he told the police that his driving license had been missing and that he had lodged a report with the police in this regard. Further investigations are in progress.
Uh . . . yeh, I bet they are. 🙂
I am sorry, this just gives me such a giggle. Cheating on a Quran exam? ? ?
Before I wrote the above, I had to do a lot of thinking . . . like the bible, our book, does not say “thou shalt not lie” as one of the 10 commandments, neither is it one of the two great commandments in our New Testament (love the one true God before all others, love your neighbor as yourself), so what does the bible say about lying? Fortuntately for us, there is Google, and the internet, and you can click on What the Bible has to say about lying if you want the specifics. It reminded me that Satan is called “The Father of All Lies.” *shiver* That’s good enough for me.
There are several places in the bible, however, when even good people lie, like because they are scared or because they don’t want to face the wrath of God. One is Sarah, when the messengers tell her she is going to have a baby and she is something like 80 or 100 years old and she laughs, she can’t help it, Sarah laughs. And God says “Sarah! Are you laughing at me! I can do anything!” and Sarah lies and says “oh no, Lord, I wasn’t laughing.”
Since the Bible and the Quran spring from the same spiritual source, I am willing to bet the Quran also has a few things to say about lying and dishonesty, and fraud, and how you can’t fool Allah or cheat him.
Anyone out there willing to step up and educate us?
Al Qaeda Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays
If I knew how to embed video replays in my blog, I wouldn’t have to make you click on Al Qaeda Fed Up with Ground Zero Construction Delay to watch a video interview with two critics of the Ground Zero construction so far, saying almost identical things, but with a twist, oh what a twist.
The video interview is hysterically funny. Give yourself a grin for the day. It’s from one of my favorite websites: The Onion.
Cat Meat Rumors Refuted (Ho ho ho ho ho)
Front page of todays Kuwait Times is this article:
KUWAIT: A ministry of Commerce official denied rumors that a local restaurant has been closed for selling cat meat. According to Ali Baghli, assistant undersecretary for commercial supervision affairs at the Ministry of Commerce, no violation has been registered against the Arabic restaurant in the Jahra governate as of yet. . . .
My comment – So here is what we know for sure:
A ministry official says the restaurant has not been closed for selling cat meat.
He says no violations has been registered AS YET.
He does not say the restaurant was not selling cat meat; he is saying the restaurant was not closed for selling cat meat.
What was interesting, is that both the Kuwait Times and Arab Times, when they reported this cat meat restaurant closing, said that because of connections in the government, this restaurant was unlikely to stay closed.
It is not unlike Make This Case Go Away where two youths are caught with a maid they have abducted and raped, they fight the arresting officer and bite him on the hand, they confess to what they have done . . . and no violation is registered, because the police officer is pressured by his superiors to drop the case.
It’s not like your next schwarma is guaranteed not to contain fresh cat meat. It’s only guaranteed not prosecuted.
If I sound angry, I am. Police and law enforcement officials are supposed to protect the public – that’s you and me. When the system is broken so badly that laws are not enforced against the transgressors, and worse, when courageous policement are punished for doing their job, it is a very very sorry state of affairs.
And I am convinced that God has a very special place in hell for those who abuse the trust the public places in them.
I sure wouldn’t eat any schwarma in Jahra.
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.
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