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?
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.
Al Ahmadi Singers Concert
I hate it when I read in the newspaper about an event – the day after! Usually it is something really cool I would have liked to do. That is why I am sharing this with you:
One of the greatest things about the expat life is coming together with people from all over the world with similar interests. This coming Friday night, May 4th, is one of those special times when we can all gather together, and regardless of our differences, enjoy an evening of fun and entertainment, and a group united by its interest in music.
Ticket price of 10KD includes a buffet supper at the Al Hashemi II (Radisson SAS).
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!
“Make This Case Go Away”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times.
MP Intervenes to save rapists
by Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait: Two men accused of kidnap, rape and assault were let off the hook after pressure from a lawmaker and a senior police officer. A captain from the Traffic Department was on duty in Khaitan when he saw a parked car with an Asian maid in it and a man standing next to the car. The maid suddenly pointed to the officer and cried for help, so the captain rushed to the car and found another man inside with the maid.
The captain asked the man outside what the problem was. The main replied that this was a runaway maid and he was a detective. The captain asked for his ID but the man refused. The captain then realized that the man smelled of alcohol.
The men suddenly assaulted the captain and bit his hand, injuring him severely (emphasis added by blogger.) After the captain subdued both men, they confessed that they were drunk and that they had tried to rape the maid. The captain then tried to file a case at the Khaitan police station against the two men, but the MP intervened and tried to stop the captain from registering the case. The captain persisted and kept pushing to file a case for a week, until his superior intervened too and told him to “forget the incident.”
My comment: If I ever stop getting outraged when I read reports like this, God forbid, I will be dead.
First, the maid’s life is seriously damaged. Any victim can tell you that the terror of abduction, with or without rape, resonates through your life. When you are in a situation where you have no power, and are at the mercy of someone stronger or more powerful than you are, it is a life-changing event. And would her sponsor accept her back, even though it were no fault of her own? Would they not be afraid she might be diseased? They might even accuse her of inviting the assault – and this was an assault.
Second, these young men lied to the police, impersonated a police officer, resisted arrest and caused bodily harm to a senior police official. Did you notice – THEY CONFESSED.
Third, the police captain had the guts and integrity to persue filing this case against these wicked young men, inspite of pressures from above. WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO on you, brave one, for your integrity.
Last, kudos for Hanan al-Sadoun who does such a great job presenting so many of these outrageous stories in an objective manner, letting us fill in the details and express our outrage in our blogs. Brava, habeebti.
Evidently this air tight case will never get to court.
And what have these young men learned about accountability? That their name and wasta will make their despicable actions go away? What is the fitting punishment for what they have done? C’mon readers, check in on this one.
OK, OK, I’ll take a deep breath and stop now.
My Addiction
Even though I know it is hopeless, I always look. It’s never there, or only once in the entire time I have lived here, and that was at the BIG Sultan Store in Salmiyya. But without any real hope, I looked and there it was!
When I was a kid growing up in Germany, there was something called PX rules. PX means Post Exchange, it is the place where American military people, or state department, or Canadians or British peoples would shop for things that the local German economy didn’t carry. The first rule is “if you see it, buy it.” The second rule is “if you see it and like it, buy several, as you may never see it again.”
So I bought all four bottles:
Even knowing that this behavior is known as “hoarding” and that hoarding leads to shortages and that is probably why I see it so rarely, and knowing I should leave a bottle or two for someone else . . . knowing all that, I still bought all four bottles. I couldn’t help it. I’ve been conditioned. The rules are too strong; I can’t resist.
When I first go back to the US, and see it plentifully on the grocery store shelves, it is still hard to just buy one . . . except that there, you can even buy a litre size, and that usually lasts me a week or so.
Vanilla Caramel . . . ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .
Google Earth Fantasy Flight
The same good friend who shared the quotes with me, sent this connection yesterday to an 8 minute video compiled with music by a GoogleEarth fan who takes you to some of the oddities you can see with the high resolution of GoogleEarth, including sunbathers and what I can only describe as EarthArt.
Saudi Dies in Court
As an ironic tie-in to an earlier blog article today about Kuwaiti women seeking legislations on Women’s Rights, here is a related article from today’s Kuwait Times 23 April 2007:
JEDDAH: An elderly Saudi man dropped dead in court after it banned him from stopping his three daughters from getting married, newspapers reported yesterday. The man apparently had a heart attack once the cassation court judge in Makkah told the three women, aged 36, 39 and 40, that they could marry over their father’s objections, Okaz reported.
The women, whose father had on several occasions turned down their requests to marry, can now marry “honest men” who follow their religious duties, the Islamic court ruled, according to Al-Madina newspapers.
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.
Kuwait conference calls for document on women rights
In yesterday’s Kuwait Times, there was a tiny paragraph in the reporting about Personal Law in Kuwait pertaining to women that stated
“Among the loopholes of that must be corrected is the provision empowering a woman’s father to marry her to whoever he likes or divorce her without consulting or even informing her . . . “
Is this possible? Does this still happen? I thought in Islam, a woman had to agree to accept a man as husband, and had a right to have clauses put into her marriage contract? And a father can have his daughter divorced from her husband without her even knowing about it, much less agreeing to it?
Here is today’s reporting from the Kuwait Times on the recommendations for legal changes:
KUWAIT: Participants in the Conference on the “Kuwaiti Women in National Legislations” have recommended the preparation of a comprehensive national document to facilitate women participation in the country’s development aspects under the sponsorship of the legislative and executive authorities as well as the civic society institutions.
At the conclusion of the one-day conference, organised by the National Assembly’s women affairs committee, the participants demanded improvement of legislative performance, promotion of the existing legislations and completion of the legal system in an introduction for the rise of women’s rights in the society.
To read the rest of the article, with the recommendations made by the committee, click on Kuwait Times, here.
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