Why Skidboot?
On November 18 of last year, I published a short item, very short, four lines, on Skidboot. At the time, I was so new to blogging, I didn’t even know how to embed a YouTube video in the blog, so I just referred readers to the YouTube site.
For the last two weeks, it has been my top stat getter. I have Googled, I have tried everything I can think of to figure out why Skidboot? Why now, almost a year later?
If anyone coming here to read the Skidboot article will take a minute to tell me why, I would sure appreciate it. It’s not going to kill me not to know, but it is a mystery to me!
Here is the original video:
Idiot Custom Paint Job
I couldn’t resist. I carry my camera with me, and this was too good to pass up.
Just a car? Look again. You may not be able to see all the pink sparkles sprayed on, but they twinkle and sparkle in the sun. And this is a GUY driving a pink sparkly car.
But whoever he hired to do this – or did he do it himself? – was a genius. He also sprayed the tail lights and the back windsheild – did you see that?
Idiots!
Blog Header
My friend and frequent commenter, Abdulaziz, created a new blog header for me. I don’t have a customizable header with this format, and while I have looked at the customizable ones, I don’t understand enough to make the leap. But I want to share with you what he created, using the photo Adventure Man and I took last week.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Manly Cosmetics
I vacated my bathroom for houseguests recently, and as I was moving my toiletries back in, with wry amusement I noticed how many face creams I have. Creams for eyes, creams for lips, creams for night, creams for going out into the sun, creams for after having gone out into the sun, creams for day, creams for “noticable reductions in wrinkles in 7 days or less.”
(The problem is, seven days later when I am looking for a noticable reduction, I can’t really tell if it is working or not. I look, but I am wondering what I might have looked like if I HADN’T used the cream? I don’t know!)
And I was thinking about men, who have skin, too. Particularly I was thinking about Adventure Man, and what would it take for him to feel comfortable using a skin cream?
First – it would have to have a very manly name. None of this Homme stuff, it would have to imply that this is a product a RUGGED man would use. Like Manly Lather. “Lather” is a word that goes with men, like barbers lather up your face before they shave you. Women use foam, men use LATHER.
Another name I thought might work would be Extreme Unction because manly men like flying near that edge of the envelope, it’s a testosterone thing, and unction means anointing, like with an oil. If you are Catholic, you receive extreme unction just before dying, or before people think you are about to die, so even unction has an extreme connotation.
Maybe Braveheart? Maybe Rock?
Help me out here.
If you are a guy, (please, keep it clean) what kind of names would allow you to use a face cream with dignity?
If you are a gal (and rolling on the floor laughing) what names can you think of that would encourage a guy to actually USE a face cream?
Have fun with this!
Kuwait Public Transportation
There were two influences that came together for this post. First, a show on BBC about green taxes supporting green initiatives, like public transportation. Second, last night I saw a Kuwait public bus.
Does it seem to you that the buses in Kuwait are looking cleaner than a couple years ago? The one I saw looked new, was undefaced, looked modern, and the passengers on it looked orderly, cool and happy. There were no women.
So here is my question to you – what would it take to get you to use public transportation rather than driving your own car every day?
I have a shameful confession. I didn’t even learn to drive until I was 25. I didn’t need to. I was in Germany when I hit the driving age, and there was public transportation at reasonable prices nearly everywhere I needed to go. And it was trolleys; trolleys are a lot of fun. When I went off to university, I ended up in Seattle, which also had excellent public transportaton – in Seattle, public transportation is all integrated and includes buses, trolleys and ferries across the Sound.
The buses ran on time. Occasionally, I would hate the walk to the bus stop on a cold rainy day with a driving wind (hard on the hairstyle), but for the most part, the buses ran on time, and I could read or plan my work day on the way to work. I didn’t mind not driving, at least not much. When I did, I learned to drive.
What are the barriers to public transportation in Kuwait? What would it take to make me want to use public transportation?
First, due to the extreme weather, I would want almost door-to-door transportation. This could be done with a train/trolley system where you drive to a Park and Ride spot in your air conditioned car and then jump on an air conditioned trolley or bus. The bus or trolley would need to transit in an air conditioned facility, where we could switch to a mini bus which would drop us within half a block of our destination, i.e. frequent stops.
The system would have to have a schedule, to which it kept rigorously and reliably.
The system would have to have redundancies and back-ups, because mechanical failures and equipment failures happen.
The system would have to have well trained, knowledgable bus drivers who spoke some few words in multiple languages.
The system would have to have protected, non-damagable cameras on every trolley and bus, and would have to commit to prosecuting vandals and people who could not behave themselves on the bus.
It might have to have separate seating for unaccompanied women. *Sigh* It seems to be a fact of life here that women are fair game for harassment. I am thinking there could be advertisements along the upper over-window area, like in London and Germany, and some qur’anic inscriptions about respect for women. And maybe also the environment. Every vehicle would need to have at least one trashcan.
To have a usuable transportation system would require, also, a nationwide campaign for respecting the law, and rules. It would also need a nationwide public-stewardship educational program, “this is your country, keep it clean, no littering, etc.”
And it would need methodical, impartial enforcement of the laws. That would be a whole separate campaign, educating the public to respect the law enforcement officers (in the last two weeks, there have been multiple reports of police officers being beaten by citizens, police officers! Unthinkable!) And there would need to be a parallel educational campaign for law-enforcement, training on what the law is (i.e. a police officer is not “insulted” by being passed by a taxi that is under the speed limit) and their mission – and I think policework is a holy mission – to see that power is not abused, the weak are protected against the bullies, and that the laws are enforced gently and impartially.
Let’s face it, driving in Kuwait can be a real drag. Many times of the day you are caught in gridlock, there are yahoos on the road totally lacking in brains, there are drunks and druggies on the road – and parking is a nightmare. Public transportation could be a godsend.
And just to show we are serious, let’s make it FREE! How is that for an incentive?
When I was going to live in Saudi Arabia, my primary concern was not being able to drive. I quickly learned it wasn’t so bad. There was a well stocked small store on our beautiful compound, and you saw all your friends there, and there was a message board, and a video store, a laundry, and most of the basics. There was a shopping bus that ran twice a day, and a group that met once a month to set up the shopping bus schedule, so it went where people wanted to go.
In addition, when you needed a car and driver, the compound had a few available, you could reserve them for a very reasonable fee.
It worked beautifully.
There is potential in Kuwait for a visionary transportation system. What would make it work for YOU?
Night of Light
Last night I found myself awake around three, and took a walk to my window on the world. Off in the distance is a sight I find very comforting, a band of the old fishing boats, the shoowi, along the horizon, maybe twenty to thirty of them, each with a light on stern and bow, making a twinkling band of light like a necklace twinkling in the dark.
But over the boats was a light. A bright light. I had to look and look, like is it an aircraft coming in? It’s too high to be something off the boats, and it is so bright. What can it be?
Then I notice . . .I can see stars! I’ve always thought I didn’t see the stars because there are so many streetlights nearby, but last night I realized that the sky here is so hazy most of the time, we don’t see the stars. Last night – there were STARS! Lots of stars! And one of the brightest was near the horizon; maybe it was Suhail? (Canopus)
Here is something so cool. You can go to Weather Underground for Kuwait and go down the page below where they show the phases of the moon.
Click on “View the Full Star Chart.” You can put in the time you want; for example, it showed me exactly what I might have seen at 3 a.m. You can tell it you want it to look North, South, East or West, or you can tell it you want to see the whole sky, horizon to horizon. I LOVE this feature!
FYI, it also shows Kuwait cooling down. It won’t go over 109°F / 43°C this week. 😉
Tattoo Regret
The American Academy of Dermatology reports tattoo regret is common in the United States. Among a group of 18- to 50-year-olds surveyed in 2004, 24 percent reported having a tattoo and 17 percent of those considered getting their tattoo removed.
This is just an excerpt from a much longer article that you can read on CNN Health News.
A Room with a View
Kinan and I have been having an ongoing desultory conversation about views. He likes my view in Kuwait and he loves a good view in general.
I have challenged him to close his eyes, sit back and envision HIS perfect view.
And so I challenge you, my readers. Even if you have never commented before, yield to this temptation. Commenting is easy – you don’t even have to give your name, just choose any old pseudonym.
Close your eyes. Lean back in your chair. Think of what you would like to have outside your window, to look at day after day. And then – tell us about it.
(Window frame courtesy of castelli marble)
I will tell you, for me it has to do with water, and even better, water and mountains. I love my Kuwait view, and chose a smaller living space just to have the breathtaking view. I have never, not for a heartbeat, regretted that choice. The view out over the Arabian Gulf thrills my heart, and I can lose hours watching ships, watching beachcombers, even watching fish jumping out of the Gulf waters. A beautiful view is a precious gift to the soul.
For my husband, I am would guess it would be Zambia, looking out over a hippo pool, watching elephants cross, watching the lions come down to drink – or to feed.
What view would feed your soul? What would you love to look at day after day? Speak now!
Cannabis WORSE than Tobacco
From BBC Health News:
Cannabis harm worse than tobacco
The impact of cannabis is worsened by how joints are smoked.
A single cannabis joint could damage the lungs as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes one after another, scientists in New Zealand have said.
The research, published in the journal Thorax, found cannabis damaged the large airways in the lungs causing symptoms such as coughing and wheezing.
Read the rest of the story HERE.
And don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t addictive as well as damaging to your health.
The Nativity of John the Baptist
This will be a long, technical post that you can skip if religious matters don’t interest you. It is aimed at my colleagues who enjoy comparing points of religion.
This week, we celebrated the feast of the birth of St. John, known as The Baptist. There were several scriptural readings (see below which is from the online Lectionary on my blogroll)
We had a reading I hadn’t heard before:
An account of the mercy of thy Lord bestowed upon his servant Zachariah, when he called upon his lord in low tones, praying: My Lord, my very bones have become feeble and my head has turned hoary with age, but never have my supplications to Thee, Oh Lord, remained unfruitful. I am apprehensive of the behavior of my relations after my death, and my wife is barren. I beg Thee, therefore, do Thou bestow upon me from Thyself a successor to be my heir and to be the heir of the blessings of the House of Jacob; and to make him one who should be pleasing in Thy sight, O Lord . . . .
(it tells of Johns conception and birth)
We commanded Yahya (John): Hold fast the Book; and we bestowed upon him wisdom while he was still young, as a token of tenderness from Ourself and to purify him. He grew up righteous, and was dutiful towards his parents and was not haughty or rebellious. Peace was on him on the day of his birth, and on the day of his death, and peace will be on him on the day he will be raised up to life again.
As I am hearing this reading, I am thinking “I am pretty familiar with our scriptures, and while it sounds familiar, I don’t think I have ever heard this reading before,” and I thought maybe it was from one of the less often read books that not all churches agree is part of the scripture.
And then – the reader said “This reading on John is from the Qu’ran.”
I was amazed. First – I had no idea John was mentioned in the Qu’ran. I know Jesus is in the Qu’ran, and my Saudi women friends told me Jesus’ name is in there more than the name of the Prophet Mohammed. (Peace be upon all the prophets!) But I had no idea John was in the Qu’ran, Chapter 19, which is called the book of Maryam, and also tells of the life and ministry of Jesus.
Second – I’ve never heard the Qu’ran read in a Christian church service before, but why not? It added, not subtracted, from our understanding of John. I thought it was pretty cool.
Here is what our Lectionary has to say about John the Baptist:
THE BIRTH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST
(24 JUNE NT)
Our principal sources of information about John the Baptist are
(1) references to his birth in the first chapter of Luke,
(2) references to his preaching and his martyrdom in the Gospels, with a few references in Acts, and
(3) references in Josephus to his preaching and martyrdom, references which are consistent with the New Testament ones, but sufficiently different in the details to make direct borrowing unlikely.
According to the Jewish historian Josephus (who wrote after 70 AD), John the Baptist was a Jewish preacher in the time of Pontius Pilate (AD 26-36). He called the people to repentance and to a renewal of their covenant relation with God. He was imprisoned and eventually put to death by Herod Antipas (son of Herod the Great, who was king when Jesus was born) for denouncing Herod’s marriage to Herodias, the wife of his still-living brother Philip. In order to marry Herodias, Herod divorced his first wife, the daughter of King Aretas of Damascus, who subsequently made war on Herod, a war which, Josephus tells us, was regarded by devout Jews as a punishment for Herod’s murder of the prophet John.
In the Book of Acts, we find sermons about Jesus which mention His Baptism by John as the beginning of His public ministry (see Acts 10:37; 11:16; 13:24). We also find accounts (see Acts 18:24; 19:3) of devout men in Greece who had received the baptism of John, and who gladly received the full message of the Gospel of Christ when it was told them.
Luke begins his Gospel by describing an aged, devout, childless couple, the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth. As Zechariah is serving in the Temple, he sees the angel Gabriel, who tells him that he and his wife will have a son who will be a great prophet, and will go before the Lord “like Elijah.” (The Jewish tradition had been that Elijah would herald the coming of the Messiah = Christ = Annointed = Chosen of God.) Zechariah went home, and his wife conceived. About six months later, Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary, a kinswoman of Elizabeth, and told her that she was about to bear a son who would be called Son of the Most High, a king whose kingdom would never end. Thus Elizabeth gave birth to John, and Mary gave birth six months later to Jesus.
After describing the birth of John, Luke says that he grew, and “was in the wilderness until the day of his showing to Israel.” The people of the Qumran settlement, which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls, sometime use the term “living in the wilderness” to refer to residing in their community at Qumran near the Dead Sea. Accordingly, it has been suggested that John spent some of his early years being educated at Qumran.
All of the gospels tell us that John preached and baptized beside the Jordan river, in the wilderness of Judea. He called on his hearers to repent of their sins, be baptized, amend their lives, and prepare for the coming of the Kingship of God. He spoke of one greater than himself who was to come after. Jesus came to be baptized, and John told some of his disciples, “This is the man I spoke of.” After His baptism by John, Jesus began to preach, and attracted many followers. In fact, many who had been followers of John left him to follow Jesus. Some of John’s followers resented this, but he told them: “This is as it should be. My mission is to proclaim the Christ. The groomsman, the bridegroom’s friend, who makes the wedding arrangements for the bridegroom, is not jealous of the bridegroom. No more am I of Jesus. He must increase, and I must decrease.” (John 3:22-30)
John continued to preach, reproving sin and calling on everyone to repent. King Herod Antipas had divorced his wife and taken Herodias, the wife of his (still living) brother Philip. John rebuked him for this, and Herod, under pressure from Herodias, had John arrested, and eventually beheaded. He is remembered on some calendars on the supposed anniversary of his beheading, 29 August.
When John had been in prison for a while, he sent some of his followers to Jesus to ask, “Are you he that is to come, or is there another?” (Matthew 11:2-14) One way of understanding the question is as follows: “It was revealed to me that you are Israel’s promised deliverer, and when I heard this, I rejoiced. I expected you to drive out Herod and the Romans, and rebuild the kindom of David. But here I sit in prison, and there is no deliverance in sight? Perhaps I am ahead of schedule, and you are going to throw out the Romans next year. Perhaps I have misunderstood, and you have a different mission, and the Romans bit will be done by someone else. Please let me know what is happening.”
Jesus replied by telling the messengers, “Go back to John, and tell him what you have seen, the miracles of healing and other miracles, and say, ‘Blessed is he who does not lose faith in me.'” He then told the crowds: “John is a prophet and more than a prophet. He is the one spoken of in Malachi 3:1, the messenger who comes to prepare the way of the LORD. No man born of woman is greater than John, but the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.”
This has commonly been understood to mean that John represents the climax of the long tradition of Jewish prophets looking forward to the promised deliverance, but that the deliverance itself is a greater thing. John is the climax of the Law. He lives in the wilderness, a life with no frills where food and clothing are concerned. He has renounced the joys of family life, and dedicated himself completely to him mission of preaching, of calling people to an observance of the law, to ordinary standards of virtue. In terms of natural goodness, no one is better than John. But he represents Law, not Grace. Among men born of woman, among the once-born, he has no superior. But anyone who has been born anew in the kingdom of God has something better than what John symbolizes. (Note that to say that John symbolizes something short of the Kingdom is not to say that John is himself excluded from the Kingdom.)
Traditionally, the Birth of Jesus is celebrated on 25 December. That means that the Birth of John is celebrated six months earlier on 24 June. The appearance of Gabriel to Mary, being assumed to be nine months before the birth of Jesus, is celebrated on 25 March and called the Annunciation, and the appearance of Gabriel to Zechariah in the Temple is celebrated by the East Orthodox on 23 September. At least for Christians in the Northern Hamisphere, these dates embody a rich symbolism. (NOTE: Listmembers living in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, southern South America, or elsewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, press your delete keys NOW!) John is the last voice of the Old Covenant, the close of the Age of Law. Jesus is the first voice of the New Covenant, the beginning of the Age of Grace. Accordingly, John is born to an elderly, barren woman, born when it is really too late for her to be having a child, while Jesus is born to a young virgin, born when it is really too early for her to be having a child. John is announced (and conceived) at the autumnal equinox, when the leaves are dying and falling from the trees. Jesus is announced (and conceived) at the vernal equinox, when the green buds are bursting forth on the trees and there are signs of new life everywhere. John is born when the days are longest, and from his birth on they grow steadily shorter. Jesus is born when the days are shortest, and from his birth on they grow steadily longer. John speaks truly when he says of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
(Of course, it is to be noted that none of this symbolism proves anything, since the Scriptures do not tell us that Jesus was born on 25 December. The symbolism of the dates is used by Christians, not as evidence, but as material for the devout imagination.)
FIRST LESSON: Isaiah 40:1-11
(Isaiah speaks of someone who will cry out, “Prepare the way of the LORD.”)
PSALM 85
(The long exile is over, God has retored his people, mercy and truth are reconciled.)
SECOND LESSON: Acts 13:14b-26
(Paul preaches about Christ, and how the prophets, including John the Baptist, all pointed forward to him.)
THE HOLY GOSPEL: Luke 1:57-80
(The birth of John the Baptist; his father Zechariah’s song of praise.)
by James Kiefer
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