“Can You Help Me Get to Bangladesh?”
I have a dilemma. I don’t know how to handle it.
I carry small bills with me, because I am often asked for money. I keep it so I always have money to give to the people who help me get groceries to my car, the people who deliver propane, people who give good service – I don’t mind. Part of the blessing of having work is the obligation to pass that blessing along to others. We know that God Almighty knows where there is real need, and he moves us to give where giving is needed; he gives us a little shove in our hearts.
Yesterday, a well dressed man with a steady job told me he wants to go home to Bangladesh to see his parents. Could I help him?
I understand about aging parents. I’ve made a few trips myself. I totally understand what it is like to be far away when crises strike. We have always had funds set aside for emergency trips, and, by the grace of God, we haven’t had to dip into those funds often.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
“I need money,” he responded.
Money for a ticket to Bangladesh – that’s not small change. Along with that thought is the thought that were I to “help” this man, word would get around, and I would have many people knocking on my door for serious help with funds.
I don’t think he wants the kind of help I could easily give – showing how to set up an account and contribute to it faithfully, letting the money accumulate until you reach your goal. I don’t think he wants to do what my parents did with me, and what we did with our son – matching funds. (You save up half and we will match your savings dollar for dollar.) He wants an outright big gift.
In our church, we sing a song that says “Freely, freely, you have received, Freely, freely give.” I’ve always believed that with all my heart, it is like a magnified spiritual Locard Exchange Principal especially for blessings; what you have received you give, and it comes back to you doubled, tripled, magnified.
We tend to give larger charitable donations to organizations that make the money work hard – Medicins Sans Frontiers, African schools, our church fund. I consider a ticket to Bangladesh a relatively large charitable donation, large especially for one individual, one individual who is well employed.
So I ask for your prayers for clear guidance. I am not feeling that shove in my heart.
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:
Three Movies
Most of the time, I work in silence. I have a lot of things I need to think about, and the silence helps me think. When I am ready for some entertainment, I usually listen to BBC. Occasionally, as in the last three days, I turn on the TV, more for background noise than anything else.
Most of the shows I like the best have sharp women as main characters – I love Veronica Mars! I enjoy The Closer, and Crossing Jordan. I love how they overcome their dysfunctions, and how they use their smarts to solve cases. I love it that they screw up from time to time, and have to suffer the consequences, but that they overcome their screw-ups and prevail.
The last three days, I watched parts of three movies. In the first, Braveheart, we were watching Mel Gibson playing Braveheart, but I was constantly distracted by his preening. Have you seen Braveheart? It’s like he is conscious of the camera on him every minute, we the viewers are merely mirrors, absorbing and reflecting his glorious countenance – how annoying! His vanity distracted from a pretty good movie.
Then I watched segments of Dracula playing Ludwig von Beethoven. I am from a family of movie watchers; my son and husband know all the names and rush to IMDb to check out anachronisms, historical inaccuracies, goofs in continuity, etc. All I know is that every time he went to kiss one of those Viennese women, I wanted to scream “Watch your neck!”
The movie was interesting, and they made good use of all Beethoven’s most loved music, and they used it appropriately. Oldman did a good job of bringing Beethoven to life and making his deafness tragic and believable. He also shows the fickleness and cruelty of the audience for whom he made his music.
Then, yesterday, there was Jack Bauer playing Paul Gauguin! In the early parts of the movie, he lived in a luminously violet painted interior, one I am dying to copy. But that is not the point. Jack Bauer is a stoic. Stoicism is great when it comes to playing a guy who has so many bad things happen to him in the space of 24 hours.
(this is also beside the point, but can you imagine being married to a guy like Jack Bauer? Like he would never tell you what he was really up to, the most exciting times in his life are not with you and his children but off protecting the United States of America, he comes back to you addicted to heroin, or totally burned out and just when you have him all patched up again he gets a call that his services are needed, and you don’t hear from him because he is all caught up in his latest adventure and then after 24 hours he comes home again, a total wreck? What kind of family life is THAT??)
As Paul Gauguin, he leaves his stockbroker existence and becomes a starving painter, then a starving painter who somehow makes it to the South Seas to paint some of the most amazingly colored art every created but his facial expression never changes much. Paul Gauguin was all about passion – and it is just too much a stretch for Jack Bauer. He is not a believable Gauguin. He is not even a believable Frenchman. He barely moves his hands! I would watch the movie again, however, just for a glimpse of those violet colored walls.
It must be a problem for actors, especially TV actors who become too closely associated with one role. I had to look up his real name: Kiefer Sutherland. Fortunately, a new season of 24 starts in just three days. If you ever want to feel sorry for Kiefer Southerland, look at his dad’s resume’ of movies: Donald Sutherland. It wouldn’t be easy to live up to that legend.
The Qatteri Cat Makes the Bed
As quietly as I can, I take the sheets out of the linen closet and into the bedroom. Almost silently, I strip off the old sheets, and pillowcases. I stuff the pillows into new pillowcases, and then quietly, quietly I unroll the bottom sheet. I don’t dare give it a shake and a whip to get the wrinkles out; the Qatteri Cat might hear.
Slowly, I put the first corner on the bed, and move to the second, but it is too late. Although dead in sleep, the Qatteri Cat has detected the sound of sheets, and has made a bee-line for the bedroom.
He wants to help. He jumps into the middle of the bed, then, thankfully, he moves to one corner. I get three corners settled on the mattress, and something intrigues him to move to the center of the bed, so I can get the fourth corner.
Now, for the part the Qatteri Cat loves the best. The top sheet! I shake the sheet out and it drapes over the Qatteri Cat. He is in ecstacy; “No one can see me!” he purrs.)
He makes a quick dash for safety as I start to put on the quilt, rushing back to the corner of the bed. I arrange the quilt around him and walk away – if I am not there for him to obstruct, he loses interest quickly.
He thinks it is a game we play. He is sad when it is finished. He brings Dolly in to the finished bed and grieves that I won’t play the bed-making-game with him any more.
Older Brother Stunts Your Growth
Scientists just think differently. Who woulda thunk to study how having older siblings affects height? This is from BBC Health.
Having an older sibling, particularly a brother, can stunt growth, work suggests.
Experts said the condition of the womb after the first pregnancy may be a factor.
The study of 14,000 families was presented at the BA Festival of Science.
The research, by David Lawson, of University College London, also showed children in larger families were likely to be shorter than average.
Researchers found that children with three siblings were 2.5cm or one inch shorter than the average height for their age.
If you are one of the younger ones, then you can expect to be shorter than your older siblings
Dr Lawson
It was suggested siblings may dilute resources – time, money or love – that parents are able to invest in children.
The researchers followed children born in the 1990s and who were enrolled on the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, one of the largest public health studies to be set up in Britain.
Each year, the children’s height was recorded, along with other details of their development.
While having older siblings of either sex affected a younger child’s development, the effect of older sisters was more mild.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
A Moment for Mirth
As we complain about traffic, write passionately about the environment, and wonder what on earth is going on with our government(s) (What? you thought it was just Kuwait?) and even worse, as we start to talk about the good old days, back in the day . . . whoa! Oh no! We are starting to sound . . . like our parents!
So, for a moment of fun, take a look at a song from a very old musical, The Music Man, set over a hundred years ago, where he talks about the new phenomenon corrupting the youth of the country. Watch how the parents get all worked up. And remember – it is all part of his agenda.
Staph Fatalities Alarming
This is from AOL Health News but it is also featured on Good Morning America today. The government says there has been “an alarming increase” in staph infections, and the number of deaths due to these common infections could soon be overtake death from AIDs infection.
My own father spent a year dying, fighting of MRSA, which is common in many hospitals – even here in Kuwait. The old are particularly vulnerable, but so are all those with open wounds, recent hospitalizations, and compromised immune systems.
CHICAGO (Oct. 17) – More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph “superbug,” the government reported in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.
Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. Tuesdays report shows just how far one form of the staph germ has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.
The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That’s an “astounding” figure, said an editorial in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.
Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections – those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.
Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system – people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure to medical equipment are major ways the bug spreads.
In recent years, the resistant germ has become more common in hospitals and it has been spreading through prisons, gyms and locker rooms, and in poor urban neighborhoods.
The new study offers the broadest look yet at the pervasiveness of the most severe infections caused by the bug, called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. These bacteria can be carried by healthy people, living on their skin or in their noses.
Your best protection? Wash your hands frequently, and stay out of hospitals.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
“Committee” Cracks Down on Education in Kuwait
This is a small article from yesterday’s (October 16) Kuwait Times:
MOE Cracks down on foreign schools:
Kuwait: The council of undersecretaries at the Ministry of Education chaired by Minister of Education Nouriya Al-Sabeeh will discuss after Eid holidays the demands of the committee about the negative effects of some traditions to the Kuwait society.
(Excuse me? What committee is that? What negative effects of some traditions? Could you make this any more opaque? Or is the goal to have us ask these very questions?)
It continues:
The committee demands to stop foreign schools from making foreign trips until the regulations to control these trips and stop mixing girls and boys together have been issued. The committee also demands that foreign schools inform the ministry about any parties they intend to have and the agenda of that party to ensure that the nimistry is present and in order to make sure that the school abides by the MOE’s regulations.
The committee also asked the ministry to implement a plan for segregation among boys and girls in the high school classes, as it is more important than segregation at universities. The committee noted that segregation should start in school activities as a preliminary step an foreign schools should be instructed by this through a circular to be distributed to them.
Comment: Let’s face it, foreign schools have strange foreign ways, including the mixing of boys and girls. They believe it creates healthier relationships down the road when people learn to get along with all kinds of other people at a very young age.
Even now, fewer western families are coming to Kuwait because of the education situation. It is often discussed among expat groups that the quality of education available in Kuwait is slipping dramatically.
Of those expat families that do come, many are choosing to home-school to avoid the problems developing in the local schools, even the “foreign” schools. It seems to me that local people who send their kids to the better “foreign” schools do so because these schools have a reputation for providing a better level of education than the public schools – is this correct? It also seems to me that if the “foreign” schools are doing better than the local schools, perhaps it is a good idea to keep letting them do their thing, rather than regulate them too closely?
I saw a group of home-schooled kids on the beach recently, having PE. They were playing volleyball, big kids, little kids, boys and girls all together. They were having a wonderful time. They were polite, respectful and modestly dressed. There wasn’t a sign of romance, just good, healthy fun as they played.
A friend who teaches in one of the local schools tells me of little Abdul, whose pencil fell on the floor the other day and he said to her – his teacher – “Pick that up.” She just stood there, half in shock that he would speak to her – or to anyone – so disrespectfully. Abdul looked up at her with those charming big eyes and grinned. And said “You’re not going to pick it up, are you?” She laughed and said “No, you are!” and he did. Little Abdul is learning some strange foreign ways.
Some of you went to foreign schools, either here in Kuwait or elsewhere. What do you think?
He’s Take-Away
This is for someone very special – hope it gives you a good laugh today.
YOU are dinner by candlelight; he’s take-away. 😉 OK, OK, he can redeem himself, but it has to be substance, not drama.
Kitchen Before and After
Wooo Hoooooooo! The ugly kitchen is gone! The new kitchen is finished!
Before:
After:
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