Bloggers Search for Anonymity
On Friday, 13 April, BBC published a report by David Reid about bloggers need for anonymity. Because in many countries of the world the government is trying to track and limit bloggers, he recommends a handbook published by the media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, called The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.
You can read the article by clicking on the blue type above. Reporters Without Borders offers the booklet as a free download when you click here.
Reporters Without Borders has it’s own website here where they summarize some of the main events of each day. They also keep a tally of the number of people worldwide who are imprisoned for blogging related activities.
Is He a Keeper?
I found this today in the AOL Life coaching section. It is worth a read if you are experiencing any doubts whether to remain in a relationship or to leave.
1. Is he interested? When you first meet him, you should feel that he wants you. It may be conveyed by a look, a touch, a compliment or attention to detail. It should be backed up by his willingness to make a plan and move the relationship forward. Constant calling, e-mailing and text-messaging is not true contact since he cannot touch you, see you, adore you or get to know you.
2. Is he accomplished? Soon after meeting him, you will discover that he has appropriately achieved in at least one area of his life. If he went to college he now has a good job. If he inherited his parents’ business, he has learned how to successfully manage it. His efforts continue to generate new opportunities, new skills, new challenges or new possessions.
3. Is he a Stand-Up Guy? He says what he means and means what he says. And the words that he speaks are backed up by action that coincides. Even if he cannot give a guarantee, the relationship is always moving forward. Thus, you will never find yourself drunk-dialing at 2AM because you fear he is out with another girl.
4. Is he Into YOU? It will feel reciprocal and mutual. Do you feel that what he gives is as valuable and meaningful as what you offer? Is he as devoted to you as you are to him? Healthy relationships are based upon mutual give and take. If the only thing that you are getting out of this relationship is text messages, e-mails or occasional plans, you are not getting what you need.
5. Is He Consistent? He will have good friends and you will like who he is when he’s with them. You are confident that he is the man you know and love whether he’s with you or apart from you. When he’s out of sight, he does not turn into somebody else. Conversely, when you include him with your friends, you know who he will be — charming and engaging, enhancing instead of detracting.
6. Is He Understanding? He will like you for who you are. Even if you have a bad day or say something that he does not like, his adoration will remain steady and his view of you will remain the same. Beware of the guy whose perception changes whenever you deviate from his expectations. You should not feel that you must suppress your personality in order to hold onto his approval.
7. Is he Judgemental? He will never view you as unconditionally bad or make you feel terrible about yourself. Even in the midst of an argument, he will be able to see both the good and the bad in you. He will not stay mad at you once the argument is over. And he will move on instead of clinging to bad feelings or suspicions. He loves you and sees you as a good person, no matter what.
8. Is he Trusting? If he is right for you, he will tolerate the unexpected and the unknown because he trusts you. He will not pin you down or put a leash on you every moment of the day in order to feel secure. Instead, he will respect your boundaries and give you the privacy and independence you deserve. Conversely, he will not block you out or use distance to keep the upper hand.
9. Is He Willing to Talk? He has a learning curve. He is willing to learn from his mistakes and to modify his actions. For instance, if he begins a friendship with a flirtatious girl and you let him know that this is creating a problem, he will be concerned about your feelings and come up with a solution. When you discuss relationship obstacles, he works on them.
10. Is he Proactive? He will seek his own solutions. If he has a problem he will reach out to others for help, find resources, have a conversation, go to therapy, attend a 12-step program — anything that will move him closer to making the changes that he needs to make. Pride, laziness or stubbornness will not keep him from taking the steps that he needs to have a relationship with you.
11. Is He Controlling? He will not try to have power over you. He won’t leave you wondering where he is and what he is doing. Or leave you hanging just to prove a point. Even if he has more money, status and power, he will not make you feel that you would be nothing without him. He is willing to listen, meet your needs and include you in mutual decision making.
My comment: I agree with all of the above, especially Is he Controlling? Some women see a man who wants to know where she is at every moment and who she is with as charmingly caring . . .but these men can be monsters in a relationship, and the caring turns to suspicions and isolating the loved one.
Number nine is kind of funny – most men need some time to think about things before they are ready to talk, and as hard as it is, we need to give them some space before trying to have one of those “we need to talk” conversations! 😉
If you have brothers, they are good people to ask about Is He a StandUp Guy? A brother can often sense things about another guy that they can warn you about – and may hear things about him in the male grapevine that you will never hear. If your brother, or good male friend warn you off, LISTEN!
These guidelines are excerpted by AOL from ‘Deal Breakers: When to Work on a Relationship and When to Walk Away’ by Dr. Bethany Marshall. Copyright © 2007 by Dr. Bethany Marshall.
Available for $15.61 + shipping from Amazon.com.
Kuwaiti Customs
As we came in through Kuwaiti Customs, I had a few seconds concern – would the vanilla I had packed among my cosmetics be detected? Would my vanilla be confiscated (it contains a tiny bit of alcohol)? Would my DVD’s be objectionable? Would my books be a problem (in addition to the fact that I can barely lift my suitcase)?
I needn’t have worried. Everyone is so well trained, the bags are loaded on the conveyer belt, into the machine, and gathered on the other side. My husband is chuckling and I ask “what’s so funny?” and he says:
“There’s no one checking the bags.”
And he was right. Bags were going through the screening machine – and there was NO ONE there watching the screen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In spite of all the NO SMOKING signs in the airport, I smelled like cigarettes when I got home, just from the time waiting in the airport for the bags to arrive. I hate it. One guy waiting for his bags made it a point to blow his smoke in my direction. Pure evil or just bad manners?
And at the exit, pure chaos. Huge police presence – squad cars, lights flashing, lots of police – and they are doing nothing! They are greeting their friends, chatting – but no traffic flow control, and we all know how quickly the airport arrivals and departure areas can gridlock.
Our taxi driver was an older guy, not friendly. He got us home in nine minutes, normally a 20 – 30 minute drive. Ahhhh, Kuwait!
Google Earth Adds New Layers
Google earth, according to OogleEarth has just added some new layers, one in particular of which highlights what is going on in Dharfur, and ties it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which tracks deaths, attacks, and refugees in the Dharfur region.
Many thanks to my source at GoogleEarth and greetings, Earthling! (I love saying that!)
Mediawatch: Covering the new Darfur default layer in Google Earth
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 (10:38 UTC)
Hundreds of media organizations carried news about the new Darfur layers in Google Earth — and that’s just in English. In Sweden alone, over 40 papers ran the news (an example). In the US, many local news organizations and papers ran the AP or Reuters story. Here’s a rundown of links to some of the larger and/or more interesting ones, with some observations at the end:
Using their own correspondents: The Los Angeles Times (business), BBC (front page feature), CNET (front page, and as a top headline for media 2.0), CNN (technology), Washington Times (business), PC World, ABC News (world news) and a good article/blog in Wired.
Reuters: Australia’s The Age (under technology), New Zealand Herald (world news), The Australian (world news) and Scientific American (science news).
AP: Seattle Post Intelligencer (business), MSNBC (technology), The Guardian (world news), Sydney Morning Herald (technology), the Houston Chronicle (markets), Seattle Times (world news), CBS News (technology), Baltimore Sun (world news), Washington Post (technology), San Jose Mercury News (breaking news), San Francisco Chronicle (business), Denver Post (world news), International Herald Tribune (Americas??) and the Sudan Tribune (which is a great resource for Darfur news, it turns out — pity they don’t have RSS).
AFP: Times of India (world news), iAfrica (technology) and Baku Today (technology).
IDG News service: IT World and InfoWorld.
What’s interesting is that there is no consensus among news editors as to where such a story belongs: Is the story’s most important news component the fact that there is a genocide being perpetrated in Darfur (world news), that new technologies are being employed to educate people about Darfur (technology), or that Google is involved (business)? In a sense, the situation in Darfur is not itself a “news” story, in that we all already (should) know what’s going on there. (If anything, the news is that it’s getting worse at the moment, and people I know who work there are doing so without much hope of a resolution anytime soon.) But putting the story in the technology section relegates it to a spot not followed by the people that the technology is most aiming to reach.
I think this is above all a story about how new technology is letting us all be witnesses to a genocide in progress, and how that raises our own responsibilities — so perhaps this is a story best also told in the glossy Sunday newspaper magazines, read when people have more time to play with Google Earth and where there is more room for long-form stories about larger technology trends coupled to humanitarian crises such as Darfur, but also Katrina/New Orleans and the Pakistan quake from 2005. How about it, New York Times?
My opinion: This has got to be one of the greatest blogs on earth. And he emphasis added in the above paragraph is mine.
Easter Sunday 2007
For the second year in a row, we were able to celebrate Easter in the United States. Today was so special to us. We went to church surrounded by many families. Although we were strangers, people were very friendly and happy to see us. We were very happy because we were with family!
Although it was our style of worship, every church does things a little differently – and this church does two things I have never seen done before. As the priest entered the church, he knocked at three different doors and said . . . something, and the entire congregation responded with “Allelujia! Christ is risen!” and then as the priest and choir processed down the center aisle, they made a joyful NOISE – and it was a huge noise, every choir member and many members of the congregation had BELLS which they rang as they sang the opening hymn and it was unexpectedly marvellous!
Here is a photo from the entry to the church:
The church entry has several shadowboxed collections of crosses from around the world – totally gorgeous. This is just one part of the collection:
After church, we had a wonderful family dinner with the parents of our daughter-in-law. The dinner was fabulous. We are in the Southern part of the United States where the cooks have a reputation for being THE BEST. They are the best because they use all the ingredients that make food truly tasty – fat, sugar, eggs, real cream, etc, things that we forbid ourselves most of the year, and oh, how delicious everything was. We had a big green salad with a choice of dressings, green beans with slivered almonds, a big ham, scalloped potatoes and freshly baked biscuits with butter and jam.
I would have to say, this was a wonderful Easter meal; fabulous food, great conversation, lots of laughter. For dessert, the hostess made two of my husband’s very favorite things, coconut cake with a white/coconut icing, and banana pudding with a baked meringue topping – oh oh oh! We hated to leave.
A note of interest – my neice, Little Diamond says that this is one of the rare years when Easter is celebrated on the same day by all the major Christian religions – a rare occasion indeed.
And for those of you who are going to ask, no, I am not going to take up swearing again just because Lent is over. The whole goal was to break myself of a very bad habit that crept into my life on the roads of Kuwait. I will continue to strive to clean up my act!
In Passing
“Uhm, Mom, I have to sit there” said my son as I slid into a booth in our favorite Vietnamese restaurant and prepared to order some of those tasty salad rolls with peanut sauce that we love.
“Why is that?” I ask territorially, unwilling to move.
“I like to see who’s coming in,” he states flatly.
“So do I” I argue back.
“But I’m the prosecutor,” he says with a sigh.
I move. His need trumps my preference.
He has to watch his back. It’s not one of the happier realities in life. People you “put away” don’t always stay there. And they’re not always happy to see you when they run into you in the gym, or in the Target, or in the grocery store.
My son laughs and tells stories of running into former associates, usually when you are unarmed, and vulnerable in some way. Most of the time it is OK. We’re glad he is careful.
The Important Messenger
In most ways, my husband, Adventure Man, is a very kind man. He is a big-picture kind of guy. Most of us attend to the details, but he is good at seeing how to get from A to Z, even when everyone else is saying it isn’t possible. I love that about him – most of the time he can see possibilities.
He is VERY unkind about my Arabic.
For example, I would be telling him how we learned such and such in Arabic, and he will interrupt me and correct my pronunciation.
So I would go back to my teacher and say “Adventure Man says we are supposed to say it like this!” and she would laugh and say “oh those Lebanese men say it that way but we Qatteris say it like this.”
So when he would correct me, not being as submissive as I ought to be, I would say “Oh you Lebanese men say it like that” (but he is not Lebanese) “but we Qatteri’s say it like this.” (I am not Qatteri) and I could make him fall out of his chair laughing.
But he really hurt my feelings. I was telling him about my problems on the road and how this “important man” who must have been in a big hurry was driving so rudely and he started laughing at me which totally annoyed me.
“What is so funny?” I demanded.
“I think you mean ‘rajul muuhim'” he gasped out, between spasms of laughter.
“That’s exactly what I meant and that is what I said!”
“No, you keep talking about some rude ‘important messenger'” he croaked, and rolled over on the floor because he is laughing so hard he can’t stand up.
Razool sounds a lot like rajool to me . . .
Adventure Man is SO rude. He thinks he is so rajul muhim!
Mouth Guard
Last summer, my dentist told me I needed a mouth guard to wear at night to keep me from clenching or grinding my teeth.
I’m a little cynical about what I think of as “dental fundraising”. There always seems to be something beyond teeth cleaning now that my teeth no longer develop cavities. Whitening? Special electric toothbrush? Gum treatments? Hey, lets dig out all those old fillings and replace them with gold? And then let’s replace the gold with porcelain? He is always pushing for something new.
And I think my husband would have said something if I were grinding or clenching my teeth.
But on my way down seventh ring the other day, as one guy whooshed by me doing 40 km/hr over the speed limit and the guy on my right zipped right through the RED light as if it weren’t there, and the Gucci sunglassed dame got right on my bumper even though the passing lane was clear as could be and I had a cement truck on my right, I noticed I was clenching my teeth.
For one thing, although I have not succeeded in my Lenten goal of not saying ANY swear words on the road, I am down to only about one per long trip. For example, I hardly ever swear on the way to go grocery shopping, just a short trip to the co-op.
It is only on the ring roads or the speedways that sometimes a bad word pops out before I can stop it. The exercise in NOT swearing has been good for me in that now I am very aware, even alone in the car, when a word just popped out or almost pops out. And down to one per trip and holding back the others – hey! – all this is good. The goal is still zero-defects. But I have to applaud my progress.
So I am thinking I should probably wear my mouth guard while I am driving, because that is where I am clenching my teeth. But I wish they also made one that would guard my mouth from those very bad words that want to come out.
10 Weird Things Tag
. . . or things you didn’t know about me.
1. When I was ten years old, I won a prize for getting five shots under a dime. I was a sharpshooter – at 10!
2. How many people do YOU know who are born in Alaska? I’m one.
3. My high school proms were held in the Heidelberg Castle.
4. My high school graduation was held in the Heidelberg Castle.
5. My sister was married in the Heidelberg castle.
6. I met my husband during my sister’s wedding preparations, and we eloped 6 weeks later because we wanted to be married, but neither of us like the stress and visibility of a wedding.
7. Some of my photos have won prizes.
8. I won a set of encyclopedias once by writing an essay.
9. I surprised myself by being a highly successful fund-raiser. I never thought I would be good at asking people for money, but when it was for charity, I was really really good.
10. I am an introvert who looks like an extrovert.
I tag Skunk
Kinan
1001 Nights
Little Diamond
Elijah
Tell us 10 thing weird or that we wouldn’t know about you.
TanUrEen in Fehaheel
A friend asked me if I had ever been to TanUrEen, in Fehaheel. Not only had I never been there – I had never even heard of it! When she took me there, I was astounded. I had driven by it a million times, and never even knew it was there.
TanUrEen is at its best at this time of the year, when you can sit outside in the gardens. The night we were there was very comfortable, not too cool nor too hot. This is the perfect time of year for a visit.
There are tables all through the gardens as you enter, in the “see and be seen” section, and then, off to the right, there are private cabins and to the upper right, larger family cabins, near the children’s play ground. Although any given evening there are a LOT of children, they are all behaving themselves (at least they have been when I am there) and there isn’t a lot of noise. For being near a major road, and in the middle of a city, it is a very quiet restaurant, even with lots of people, and if you get there early enough to choose a cabin, quiet AND private.
The food is Lebanese, with a concentration on mezzes and grills, but being Kuwait, they also have a good selection of fish and shrimp. I can promise you that both the grilled shrimp and the hamour are excellent. The mezzes are all freshly made, and, of course, they have their own baker, and the thin, hot, puffy bread is delivered to your table fresh from the oven. It doesn’t get any yummier.
The service is excellent, very personal, and the waiters are all in suits and ties. We find this a great place to go with friends, where we can enjoy one another’s good company and excellent conversation.
Above are the tables in the open garden area, where there is also a waterfall.
These are the cabins in the family section, open so you can keep an eye on the kids. There is another section of cabins that are more circular, more private, if you don’t have children with you.
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