Amer Al-Hilal Steps Up to the Plate
He eyes the pitcher. He swings the bat! He connects! He hits the ball out of the park!
OK, OK, sometimes I carry an analogy too far. But seeing our fellow blogger Hilaliya: A Kuwait State of Mind on the front page of today’s Arab Times, taking a swat at the recent ban on internet phone services made me feel like dancing.
He encourages all of us to raise the cry against this ban, a ban which is unenforceable (think of all the IT people running around Kuwait who know just how to get around this blockage) and counter to the best interests of the state of Kuwait. As Amer says – Kuwait needs a Minister of Communications who looks toward the FUTURE, and makes policy decisions for the long term good of the state and community, not one who barely comprehends the new technologies and is unwilling to go with the times.
You can’t hold back technology. The genie is out of the bottle. So how can you use the new technologies to better serve the needs of the wealthy state and its inhabitants?
Intlxpatr: The Name
People keep asking about my name: Intlxpatr. There’s a part of me that wants to keep quiet and let you think it has some deep mysterious meaning. But no, here is the truth.
I didn’t really intend to start blogging as soon as I did. I wanted to think about it, and part of that is exploring the environment, right? So I would look around the hosting sites, and I ended up being asked questions almost immediately. At first, adreneline pounding through my system, I signed back off, thought about it a while, and then signed back on. They wanted commitment; I had cold feet.
I wanted a clever name, but it seemed to be that all the names I liked were already taken, or just not right for me. Even the blog name, which isn’t particularly clever, was a “just for now” sort of thing, I always thought I could go back and change it later. Here There and Everywhere just stuck, and has grown more and more appropriate as I write about all sorts of things. I never much liked boundaries!
For the blogger name, I wanted something unlikely to be duplicated. And something that wouldn’t give me away. Intl – international, xpatr – expatriate. So dull, so simple. . . so vanilla. And, as it turns out, so annoying to people who have to type it . . .
There is a little bit of a joke in the name. . . but I am going to maintain SOME mystery. Anyway, I know it isn’t clean and simple, but it’s who I am. At least for now.
Warning to Egyptians
Please, please, somebody else read this and tell me what it means. From today’s Kuwait Times:
Informed souce at the Ministry of Communications revealed that the closure of websites of companies that offer illegal international telephone call service was successful because the number of international calls from Kuwait and coming to Kuwait from other states increased following their decision.
On the other hand, the Egyptian ambassador to Kuwait Ahmad Abdullah warned Egyptian expatriates in Kuwait against violating the Kuwaiti laws expecially following a number of complaints were filed against Egyptian citizens of cheating residents with providing illegal residence permits and driving licenses. The ambassador asked all Egyptian expats to avoid this kind of illegal actions because the expats who commit such crimes will be deported from Kuwait, reported Al-Qabas.
My comment: Excuse me? How are these two paragraphs even related? How is banning telephone calls successful due to an increase in the banned telephone calls? And for what will Egyptians be deported – using an illegal phone? Providing fake residencies? Fake driver’s licenses? All of the above?
Manshar Mall: Rotana Hotel Open
One day it was not open – and then it was! I haven’t seen any announcements for the Rotana, but it is indeed open for business. There are signs all over Fehaheel indicating the Rotana Hotel’s whereabouts, but those have been up for months.
And – the Villa Moda signs are back up, indicating they will be opening soon. Interesting. Wonder when “soon” will be?
Last but not least – Al Kout and Al Manshar appear to be related, at least architecturally. Why have they not connected the two with a walking bridge from the top floor? Crossing that road is deadly! And parking in the Al Manshar Mall parking lot is severely limited.
And why so much security? There are security guards everywhere, and they are very very firm (my big smile did not sway them) about NOT taking photos.
The very cool thing about Al Manshar Mall is that there are a lot of small shops; it has a very souk-y feel about it, and they aren’t the shops you find in all the usual (ho hum) malls.
And there is a small but very very busy Chili’s.
Raise Your Voices
My blogging friend Hilaliya raised HIS voice in an article entitled Kuwait ‘Ministry Of Communications’ Attempts To Extort Internet Users and found an elaborated article on the Ministry of Communication ban. You can read his rant, and go to the Arab Times article by clicking here.
It FEELS Personal
A good friend who is also a psychologist often talked about how things FEEL personal even when they are not.
• When your best friend betrays your deep dark secret to another friend because she lacks self confidence and it made her feel important for a couple seconds
• When your young wife sleeps with your brother because after two babies she wants to feel exciting and attractive and young again
• When your brother uses drugs again, after you paid for rehab and he swore up and down he would never never use again
• When your father divorces your mother and leaves her to raise the kids alone
• When your oldest friend in the world stops returning your calls and communicating with you and you later learn that she if fighting a losing battle with cancer
• When your aging husband buys a small red convertible and turns you in for a younger model, too, because he wants to think he’s hot
• When your internet phone service is declared illegal and gets shut down to spare “government wastage”
In every case above, the situation has more to do with personal issues than with you, but man, it sure FEELS personal. The fact that is doesn’t have to do with you is almost insulting, because the impact can be so painful.
And so it is with internet service. This morning, I was missing internet service for a while. It happens sometimes, but rarely longer than three-four minutes. This time it went on and on. Of course my first reaction is “oh no! Am I being penalized for having written about internet phone service being blocked???” But no, this time it wasn’t all about me. It was just an outage, and – for now – just temporary. Alhamdallah!
But this policy is going to impact on all of us painfully. Please, please raise your voices. You know better than I do where it will be the most effective. It’s important that we be able to communicate with our family and friends in a reasonably priced way. The internet phones don’t hurt anybody. Let’s keep them legal.
Internet Phones Blocked in Kuwait
Watching the news lately, I became more and more uneasy as Indian telephone service providers – evidently clandestine – were raided with frequency and shut down. All these men want is a few minutes chatting with their families, without paying an arm and a leg.
We’re all in the same boat.
In a tiny little article in the Kuwait Times yesterday, they announced that ALL internet calling services would be blocked. Those that are not already blocked soon will be.
I had heard rumblings from friends, phones not working, etc. We all subscribe to Vonage, or Skype, or one of the myriad internet phone services; it’s part of what makes living and working in Kuwait DO-ABLE.
This last year, with my father dying, the phone was my lifeline. Because it has the same area code as my family, my Mom felt free to call me anytime and give me an update on how Dad was doing. When I know we are going back for a visit, I can get on that phone and make dental appointments, schedule a doctor’s appointment, harangue my bank when they have made a mistake.
I don’t even have a private land line into our dwelling. There is a phone, but it goes through the desk where the guard doesn’t really understand English that well. All my calls come through my cell phone . . . OR the internet phone. The price of the service was well worth it in terms of my peace of mind, and my mother’s, and my sisters. Our son feels free to call us when he chooses – it is a Godsend.
The land lines here are notorious. I am outraged. The international call rates are extortionate, and the call quality is horrorific.
When we lived Qatar and the internet phone services were blocked, the major international companies in town all went to their ambassadors and had them formally protest to the government. The ambassadors made the case. And the ban was reversed.
Please. If you are Kuwaiti, use your wasta. If you are a guest-worker here in this country, protest to your Ambassador, and ask her or him to get involved, to take this to the highest levels. This ban on internet phone services hurts the morale of ALL people here in Kuwait who have family in other parts of the world. It makes Kuwait look greedy and mean-spirited, and we all know that is not the true nature of Kuwaitis.
Offices Full of Germs: Women the Worst
From – I am not kidding – The Nigerian Tribune.
(A recent) study pointed out that for a woman, her office desk may harbour far more bacteria than the workplace restroom and the office desk of men. In fact, women have three to four times the number of bacteria in, on and around their desks, phones, computers, keyboards, drawers and personal items than men do, the study by University of Arizona Professor Charles Gerba found. Gerba, a Professor of Soil, Water and Environmental sciences, tested more than 100 offices on the UA campus and in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon and Washington, D.C. in a study commissioned by the Clorox Co.
The researchers swabbed the offices of 59 women and 54 men in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington, D.C. They sampled eight sites in each office: the phone, desktop, computer mouse, computer keyboard, exclamation key on the computer keyboard, pen, bottom of desk drawer, and handle of desk drawer. The researchers also swabbed workers’ personal items at the office, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), women’s purses and makeup cases, and men’s wallets and found women have more germs on their office desks than men.
“I thought for sure men would be germier,” Gerba said. “But women have more interactions with small children and keep food in their desks. The other problem is makeup.” The tendency is high to doubt this statement. But much as a woman’s desks may typically look cleaner, the germs are likely to be more abundant. Cosmetics and hand lotions make prime germ-transfer agents, Gerba said. Makeup cases also make fine germ homes, along with phones, purses and desk drawers. Food in desk drawers also harbour lots of microorganisms, and it is more abundant among female office workers to have food in their desks and munch while on an assignment, on the computer or even picking a call.
Then, they tend to be around children more often than men, and we all know how easily kids transmit germs. And finally, they use makeup, which tends to absorb germs. Then it rubs off the face or gets scattered by brushes and sponges. The news was not all negative for females though. Gerba in the study found the worst office germ offender is men’s wallets. The back pocket is nice and warm; it’s a great incubator for bacteria. Another hot spot for bacteria in men’s offices: the personal digital assistant.” Men tend to play with their palm pilots more, thinking they’re playing video games or something,” Gerba said.
The top three bacteria hot spots in women’s offices, in order of germs amount : Makeup case, phone, and purse and in men’s offices starting from the highest to the least: Wallet, personal digital assistant and phone. Though a similar study by the Clorox Company, a manufacturer of disinfectant in February 2006, reported that in a study of nine office-based jobs, teachers had the work space with the highest amount of germs and lawyers had the least, Gerba said everyone should arm their office with a germ arsenal that includes: disinfectant wipes, disinfectant spray, paper towels and fruit (for drawer).
According to Gerba, people should clean cell phones and desk phones to get rid of bacteria. “You need to use a disinfectant wipe, or spray disinfectant on a paper towel, and clean the phone off. Never directly spray disinfectant cleaner on phone,” he said. “Do not use soap and water — that just pushes the germs around.” “We recommend that you use a wallet or purse that can be easily wiped off — like leather. A fabric bag is harder to clean and just holds more germs.”
Finally, Gerba said office knickknacks and accessories should be given the same thorough cleaning as everything else , explaining that “people tend to touch and pick up the germs on their desks. It’s a vicious cycle of germs transferring from hands to objects to desks. Hand sanitizers are great in eliminating the transfer of germs from your hands.” The level of germs on office desktops and telephones came in gender neutral; women had three to four times more germs on their keyboards and computer mice than their male counterparts. Desk drawers at women’s desks contained seven times more germs than men’s. Surprisingly, the research showed that the average office desktop has 400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat.
What Gerba found among the bacteria was coliform — intestinal bacteria generally found in human waste — on the restroom handles and faucets, in the kitchen sink and sponge, and even in candy basket. That “indicates to me somebody’s not washing his or her hands after coming back from the bathroom,” Gerba said.
That’s why Gerba found hundreds of thousands of bacteria on hot spots like a printer button and the button for the first floor in the elevator, touched by hundreds of fingers each day. Even though none of the bacteria Gerba found was life-threatening, they could lead to more colds and flu.
Prof Oluwole Adebo, a cardiothoracic surgeon commenting said this is a study Clorox, maker of a disinfectant commissioned and is motivated at helping them sell more of their products.” Without being in an office, the surface of our hand picks up germs throughout the day, but you don’t get infected by them because the skin is a barrier against germs. Some of the germs are not in a state to infect, especially in places that are dry and hot, but where humid, it can incubate bacteria. So when you are to eat, wash your hands because there are bacteria on your hands. These bacteria are not in a position to harm us and therefore these is no reason to clean with disinfectants.
“America is full of studies like that. They study everything and make money out of it. The fact is this, in the air you breathe in, there are bacteria in it. Do you sterilize it? No, the body is sufficient to keep the germs at bay. It is all out to pursue people to buy their product”, he concluded.
My Comment: Remember Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics where we talked about who structures the survey? It works the same for studies. The sponsor of this study is Clorox, who make Clorox bleach and multiple cleaning disinfectants. It is in their interest for Professor Gerba to find a very germy environment. The more disinfectants we buy, the higher their profits soar. Prof Oluwole Adebo is right! Germs are everywhere, and we survive, and even develop immunities to them. This study is purely to sell more Clorox products by convincing us we have an epidemic of uncleanliness.
On the other hand . . . it may be time to clean out the make up case and throw away that candy bar . . . 🙂
Bringing in the Harvest, Kuwaiti Style
Fresh seafood is one of the great blessings of living in Kuwait. Visiting Fehaheel with a friend one morning, I was delighted to see a boat docked, and fish being loaded into trucks.
You have this old old style boat, and everything they are doing is state-of-the-art in terms of hygiene. The fish are all iced as soon as they are caught, and transported with more ice. Some of the fish is delivered straight to the fish market in Fehaheel, where auctions are held almost daily.
I am only missing Kuwaiti shrimp, which is now out-of-season, to protect the shrimp production for future needs. I am willing to sacrifice for the long-term greater good, and besides, I can still find fresh-frozen Kuwaiti shrimp in my local co-op.
Yesterday I had a new treat – hammour kufte. Have you tried it? I saw it at the Sultan Center, and decided to try it. I sauteed it gently, not sure how it would respond, until it was cooked almost through, then flipped it and cooked the other side. Total WOW. I am a believer! If you haven’t tried it, you are in for a treat. How can anything taste that good AND be good for you?
(Segue) Have you visited the Al Kout Mall in Fehaheel recently? I often take visitors there – it is SO different from Marina Mall and Sharq Mall. There aren’t the bands of teenage marauders there, children are kept under control by their caring parents, and the cafes and restaurants along the fountains are busy day and night, mostly with families and quiet people, not the people who are more concerned with being seen. The stores often have things that are already shopped out at the other malls. There is a serenity in the architecture, and the way it incorporates the waterfront location, and a feeling of everything coming together as it ought.
Sometimes I am the only Westerner I see, outside the Sultan Center.
I took a friend there who had lived in Kuwait a long time ago. She was astounded when I took her there. “This is FEHAHEEL?” she exclaimed. She was in wonder and in shock. She remembered Fehaheel as being at the end of the earth, and a dangerous place to be.
It can still be a dangerous place to be, on a Thursday or Friday night, in competition for a parking place. It will get worse, once the Rotana Hotel opens in the Manshar complex. And the signs for the Villa Moda at the Al Manshar Mall are now disappeared – is Villa Moda NOT coming to the Manshar Mall?
Party Busted
Wouldn’t you love to know the rest of this story? I sure would! From today’s Kuwait Times:
Detectives arrested a group of over 40 Kuwaiti and Western students of private school who were enjoying themselves at a private party in a very luxurious apartment in Salmiya, said security sources. Officials added that some neighbors heard them arguing in the building’s parking area about who would be allowed in and who would not be; for not contributing in the party’s expenses. An hour later, the apartment was busted and the strangely dressed young people (in devilish costumes) were arrested along with the building’s security officer who rented them the apartment.
My comment: Sounds to me like these kids have too much money, and too little sense, a la Risky Business. These are school kids??? And what were the costumes?
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