Saudi Arabia: Women Driving Will Have Sex, Report Says
I am sorry, but if this were a joke, it would be hilarious. It IS hilarious, or it would be, if it didn’t impact so darkly on the lives of so many women.
So my friends in Saudi Arabia, here is the solution. Let the women drive. Tell the men not to have sex with these driving women, not until they are married. Tell the men that no matter how much the women beg, to keep themselves pure, and not to let these women tempt them away from their purity. Teach the men that it is a CHOICE, and that they can behave themselves honorably, and withhold themselves from these driving women who want to have sex with them.
That’ll teach those women 🙂
From the Huffington Post
Saudi Arabia: Women Driving Will Have Sex, Report Says
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — A report given to a high-level advisory group in Saudi Arabia claims that allowing women in the kingdom to drive could encourage premarital sex, a rights activist said Saturday.
The ultraconservative stance suggests increasing pressure on King Abdullah to retain the kingdom’s male-only driving rules despite international criticism.
Rights activist Waleed Abu Alkhair said the document by a well-known academic was sent to the all-male Shura Council, which advises the monarchy. The report by Kamal Subhi claims that allowing women to drive will threaten the country’s traditions of virgin brides, he said. The suggestion is that driving will allow greater mixing of genders and could promote sex.
Saudi women have staged several protests defying the driving ban. The king has already promised some reforms, including allowing women to vote in municipal elections in 2015.
There was no official criticism or commentary on the scholar’s views, and it was unclear whether they were solicited by the Shura Council or submitted independently. But social media sites were flooded with speculation that Saudi’s traditional-minded clerics and others will fight hard against social changes suggested by the 87-year-old Abdullah.
Saudi’s ruling family, which oversees Islam’s holiest sites, draws its legitimacy from the backing of the kingdom’s religious establishment, which follows a strict brand of Islam known as Wahhabism. While Abdullah has pushed for some changes on women’s rights, he is cautious not to push too hard against the clerics.
In October, Saudi Arabia named a new heir to the throne, Prince Nayef, who is a former interior minister and considered to hold traditionalist views, although he had led crackdowns against suspected Islamic extremists. His selection appeared to embolden the ultraconservative clerics to challenge any sweeping social reforms.
Prince Nayef was picked following the death of Crown Prince Sultan.
Eating after 8 PM? Higher BMI
I found this today on AOL Healthy Living; bad news for my friends in the Middle East who rise late, dine late and sleep late. You can read the entire article for yourself by clicking on the blue type above.
It seems to me that there needs to be more testing; the group studied was very small.
Sleeping Late, Eating Late Leads to Gaining Weight
A message to night owls: There’s news that your bedtime — and those late-night snacks — may be preventing you from dropping those stubborn extra pounds. A recent study took on an important, and under-examined, aspect of the sleep-weight loss connection: how the timing of sleeping — and of eating — can affect weight. Researchers at Northwestern University examined the effects of sleep timing on diet and body-mass index (BMI), and found that late bedtimes and late mealtimes can lead to less healthful diets and to weight gain.
A group of 52 adults — 25 women and 27 men — spent seven days keeping food logs and having their sleep and waking activity measured by a wrist sensor. The researchers divided participants into two categories of sleepers:
“Normal sleepers” reached the midpoint of their night’s sleep before 5:30 a.m. These sleepers were asleep by shortly after midnight, and woke around 8 a.m. Among the study group, 56 percent were normal sleepers.
“Late sleepers” reached the midpoint of their nightly sleep after 5:30 a.m. They went to sleep in the middle of the night, well after midnight, and woke in the mid-to-late morning. Among the study group, 44 percent were late sleepers.
Researchers tracked the eating habits of these two types of sleepers through the information provided to them from the participants’ food logs. Not surprisingly, “normal sleepers” and “late sleepers” were on very different schedules, in terms of when they ate throughout the day:
Normal sleepers ate breakfast by 9 a.m., lunch at 1 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m., on average. These sleepers reported being finished with eating for the day by 8:30 p.m.
Late sleepers reported eating their first meal of the day at about noon. They ate again in the middle of the afternoon, and did not eat dinner until after 8 p.m. Late sleepers did not finish their eating for the day until 10 p.m., on average.
What were the consequences for sleeping later and eating later? Researchers found that late sleepers suffered across the board, in terms of the quality and quantity of both their daily sleep and eating:
Late sleepers slept less overall than normal sleepers — an average of more than an hour less per night.
Late sleepers consumed more calories at dinnertime than normal sleepers. They also consumed significantly more calories after 8 p.m.
Late sleepers had poorer quality diets than normal sleepers — they ate more fast food, drank more sugar-laden soda, and ate fewer vegetables.
These habits of late sleepers — sleeping less, going to sleep later in the night, and eating more after 8 p.m. — were all found to be associated with a higher body mass index. Among these habits, eating after 8 p.m. was the strongest predictor of a higher BMI. What does this mean? It’s not just what you eat, but when you eat, that can affect your ability to lose weight. And your sleep habits can have a significant influence on the timing of your eating, as well as on how much you eat.
My First Chevy – the Full Ad
Thank you, Hayfa. We’ve ween this ad on TV, and it is always moving, but it is totally cool to be able to see the whole story. I love this ad!
Where is Apalachicola, FL and Why Would You Go There?
We fell in love with Apalachicola, FL back when our son was in school at Florida State, and we would be in-country visiting him. During the day, he had college student things to do (like his own life to lead, LOL) so we would go out exploring, and one of our favorite places to end up was Apalachicola, one of the great oyster capitals of the world.
Where is Apalachicola, FL? (Hint: look down at the lowest point of land on this photo and you will see it; it is at the mouth of a wide estuary)
Apalachicola is another one of the oldest cities in Florida, and has a long history relating to shipping and warehousing. Before, we have always gone there to eat oysters at a really funky place, Boss Oyster. This time we actually took a tour on a golf cart, which was really fun, and took a nature hike, and ended up learning a lot more about a place we really like.
We went to Apalachicola, too, to avoid the Black Friday craziness that seems to have taken over. I know a lot of people are still hurting, economically, and it is painful to me to hear people being encouraged to CONSUME to the point of mindlessness. I understand some of the prices are unbelievably low, I understand that. It makes no sense to me that stores would be open all night, that they would require their employees to come in for an opening Thanksgiving night, or at midnight, or 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. That is sheer consumerist craziness, and I won’t have any part of it.
Apalachicola is just a lovely place. I want to share so me photos with you. This is approaching Apalachicola from the East, on highway 98, which comes in over a long long bridge:
The Apalachicola working boat marina:
An old merchant mansion, The Ormond House, now a State museum, beautifully decorated for Christmas:
The Nature Walk out to the Estuary is hidden behind the shrimp boat marina; you have to know it is there – as our guide did. It was a really nicely done walk, with just a few mosquitos (ouch!)
This is a detail from the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington DC, the only place in the United States allowed to have this statuary just like the original monument:
Trinity Episcopal Church, founded in Apalachicola by John Gorrie, the same man who originated the thinking behind modern air conditioning. He had patients with cholera, and he figured out that they got better when it was cooler, so he designed ways to keep patients cooler in the long, humid, hot summers of Gulf Florida . . .
There are many beautiful old homes, and a lot of money going into restoring them to their old grandeur in Apalachicola. You can stay in many of them; they are now hotels and bed and breakfasts or inns. Many, however, remain private residences, and retain their allure.
. . . Hurray for the Pumpkin Pie . . .
“You’ve worked HARD!” our water aerobics instructor told us. “You get a free pass tomorrow; you can eat anything!”
I wish she hadn’t said that. We did work hard, but it wasn’t just one day of feasting, it was pretty much four days, and we enjoyed ourselves too much. No matter how hard we had worked Wednesday morning, it wasn’t enough to cover four days.
Arriving at Papa’s and Grammy’s we were welcomed with a bubbling gumbo, a combined effort of Papa and Grammy; Grammy did all the shopping and chopping, and PaPa worked the roux, which is the butter and flour combination that makes that smoky flavored base for the gumbo. They had just finished cleaning and deveining about 40 pounds of shrimp for Thanksgiving, and threw a few in the gumbo. Oh YUM. The next morning was full of preparations, and then, mid-morning, the feasting began, with all the guys shucking oysters and eating boiled shrimp. As you drive up, you can smell smoke from an outdoor fire, and chairs and tables are out everywhere, but the shucking goes on down near the creek:
The house is beautiful, spacious and welcoming for so many people. The happy baby, who is now a happy toddler, was in heaven – he was surrounded by boy toys – tractors and golf carts and a Model A and all sorts of age appropriate toys, as well as cousins, aunts, uncles and a lot of hilarious rough housing. Why is it kids just love the terror of being turned upside-down?
For me, this was the best Thanksgiving with the family; finally I am beginning to figure out who is who from year to year. I still have to ask questions, but they seem more comfortable with me, and I had some really good conversations, sort of beyond the polite-passing-the-time conversations. I’m not that great in big crowds, but now I am beginning to have some good one-on-ones, and for me, that’s a great Thanksgiving.
And on, man, the food. Tables and tables of food. I don’t know how they do it, but I saw the list of cakes, and there must have been twenty cakes on THE LIST. They each have responsibilities, and somehow, it all works.
Three turkeys, all carved, and so much dressing (which I grew up calling stuffing, it all depends on where you grew up):
That green container is AdventureMan’s first foray into cranberry chutney. This one was a little tart, but tasty. As are darling daughter in law so diplomatically put it, “I would probably like it more if my taste buds were accustomed to having cranberries without sugar.”
About half of the sides were sweet potato casseroles; you can’t believe how good these are. This year this front dish was one of the favorites, squash cassarole:
This photo doesn’t begin to do justice to the desserts – holy smokes:
So the biggest brother blessed the food and we ate around one, then we visited for a few hours, people going back and grazing a little. Then the next generation cleaned everything up and got all the food packaged up and put away. About an hour later, that broccoli salad started calling me, and I went out to try a little more and discovered it was all put away, but a partner in crime knew where it was, and we pulled it out and had some, which started a whole landslide of second-platers, just when everything had been all put away, LLOOLLL!
It was a great day, a day full of thanks for all the things in life that really matter.
Over the River and Through the Woods
. . . . to the co-grandparents house we go!
This is preparation week, and we are scurrying to get things together for Thanksgiving with the large family group. When we were first invited, one of the aunts told us “You’re not invited, you’re family! You’re expected!” It made us feel so welcome, and the gathering is so much fun we look forward to our time together.
Mom’s Cranberry Salad
Christmas Punch, Rum and Rumless
Rosettes
The world’s cutest grandbaby will be there; we are all having so much fun with him as he is in the steep learning curve phase, and pops out with language which astonishes us daily. While bathing him the other night, I was explaining about washing with soap and he said “I know.” I almost dropped the soap! He adores his BaBa, and whenever he sees me, he gets a big grin – and looks for BaBa to be behind me. LOL!
He loves going to his other PaPa’s house; he has a TRACTOR! And a Boat! The happy baby loves trains and motorcycles and buses; he loves anything that GOES.
We have so much for which we are thankful. God has blessed us mightily with family, and with friends, and with a wide and spacious place in which to live our lives. He has surrounded us with his grace, and we feel blessed, so blessed.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Law and Order SVU: How Did They Know and When Did They Know It?
What a tragedy. Joe Paterno, fired in disgrace. Joe Paterno, the much admired, the Penn State football coach who embodied integrity, fired, disgraced. “What did he know and when did he know it?” people ask.
What astonishes me is that the situation almost exactly parallels a recent episode of Law and Order SVU about which I recently blogged, in September.
In that episode, a much-admired football coach is reported to be preying on young men in his foundation, young men for whom he gave an opportunity to ‘be someone;’ he trained them, gave them motivation and the possibility of a lot of money, fame and good things for their very poor families. His victims were burdened by a debt of gratitude, combined with the shame of male-on-male sex, which they did not want to become public knowledge. The combination of gratitude and shame kept them silent, until one spoke out. It took a lot of courage, but finally, a big star who had come through this depraved coach’s program went public, appeared before the grand jury, and set the example.
The similarities are eerie. In Law and Order, however, the coach who had preyed on young players in the showers and locker rooms did not bring down a highly regarded top-ranking program director, and a university president.
Joe, we are so sorry this has happened to you, and we hope that posterity will recognize that one poor decision is counter-balanced by a lifetime of integrity. We pray that young men victimized by Defensive Coach Jerry Sandusky will come forward, have their voices heard, and be able to move on with their lives, knowing that Sandusky will be punished. We pray for their families, who had no idea what was happening in their sons’ lives. It’s a sad time all the way around.
And thanks be to God, we live in a society where the trustees made the right decision, they fired the men who looked the other way as Sandusky victimized his young men. Thank God, this dirty laundry was not buried away to be forgotten, but brought forward, the perpetrator arrested and shamed publicly. There are times, in this world, when in the interest of the God of football, or the respect of position, when a scandal victimizing the poor and voiceless is shoved under the table, ignored, the victims sent the message that they don’t matter. As bitter as this pill is, I thank God for it, and for the increasing transparency in our society which begins to equalize justice for rich and poor.
My Saudi Shoes
“I love your shoes!” my friend cried. “Where did you find them?”
“It was thirteen years ago, in Saudi Arabia” I told her.
“Thirteen years? They look brand new!”
(These are not my shoes. These are shoes Saudi women can buy in Saudi Arabia.)
Ummm, well . . . when you live in super hot countries during those thirteen years, you don’t often wear closed toed shoes. It’s more comfortable to wear sandal style shoes, and more hygienic – when you live in the dry heat, your feet can get hard and cracked, and are vulnerable to feet fungus. Your feet need to breathe. Most of my shoes are open, but we are starting to have occasional chill weather in Pensacola. The flowers of the South have all pulled out their heavy sweaters and are wrapping wool scarves around their necks, even wearing winter coats.
Since the current cold snap features daily highs that are normal for Seattle or Germany in the summer, and since I thrive in the cold and suffer in the heat, I am in long sleeve lightweight t-shirts and sweaters, and – closed toed shoes.
I dread close-toe shoe season. My feet no longer like to be confined in shoes or boots. My toes hurt when I walk too much in them. So I have only a few pair of winter shoes, but really good ones. 🙂
Saudi Arabia was one of the best places for buying shoes I have ever lived, with entire floors of malls devoted entirely to shoe shops. Prices were reasonable; French and Italian shoes were cheaper in Saudi Arabia than they were in France and Italy, maybe because of the taxes imposed by the Eurozone.
Think about it. When you live in a country where women are all covered, wearing abayas, and they are supposed to keep their hair covered (most of us shameless westerners carried a scarf but did not wear it unless ordered to do so by the religious police / Muttawa) and the most modest women even cover their face, what is there to wear that people will notice? And women ARE women . . . Yes! Shoes!
The Saudi women wore fabulous shoes, and they wore delicate black lace gloves, and they wore scent. They bought Berkin bags and Hermes headscarves, and fabulous Chopard watches. When a group of Saudi women would walk by, you would be enveloped by a cloud of the headiest, most seductive scents in the world. And oh, holy smokes, the shoes . . . Saudi women were just beginning to experiment with a little embellishment when I left – a little Swarovski crystal leaf on a scarf, or a sprinkling of crystals on the neckline of an abaya, some embroidery on a hem, a dark green abaya instead of severe black . . . women are women, no matter where we are. We like a little sparkle, and we buy things that make us feel special.
The shoes my friend liked are Italian, navy leather heels with a kind of leather lace around the toe area. They are lovely, and I wear them happily (for a short while) during closed-toe season. They are classic, and I am hoping I can wear them another twenty years or so, which is entirely possible if I only wear them during cold snaps in Pensacola. 🙂
Eid Mubarak
So alike, but a jarring difference . . .
Our Moslem friends are celebration the Great Eid, when God / Allah (remember, the Hebrew word is Yah’weh, sounds a lot alike, doesn’t it?) told Abraham not to kill his son, as his son was lying on the altar, trusting his father – and provided a ram stuck in the nearby bushes. We Christians say that son was was Isaac, son of Sarah; our Moslem friends say it was Ishmael, Abraham’s first born son by Hajar, banished to the desert.
Right now, millions of Moslems from all over the world are making the Hajj. The men are dressed in two snowy white large cotton towels, symbolizing purity. The women are dressed plainly. I think the rules are no veils and no hair coverings, all just as they are, but it may be that the rules are changing from what I have observed and overheard on blogs.
Millions of Moslems, from all over the globe, gathered to fulfill one of the pillars of Islam, to make the Hajj at least once in one’s life. It is a very holy time for our Moslem friends, a time of forgiveness and purity and spiritual renewal.
May you find peace in your hearts, love for your fellow beings, and an overwhelming sense of joy and gratitude for God’s unfathomable mercy.
Eid Mubarak.
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