Halal?
From Kuwait Times, 9 June 2007
Bull Goes on Rampage
A number of citizens and expatriates were frightened after a raging bull escaped from a slaughterhouse and rushed to the streets of Jleeb al-Shayoukh. Meanwhile, passersby reported the matter to the Farwaniya police and the police moved to the spot and shot the bull. The bull was then transferred to the slaughterhouse.
My comment / question: To be halal, doesn’t an animal have to be slaughtered in a certain way, having it’s throat slit while hearing verses of the Qu’ran, without fear?
Isn’t a bull that has been shot on the street like carrion?
How could they transfer this bull to the slaughterhouse? How can this bull be made into meat?
Kuwait Cool Spell
When I checked Weather Underground this morning for Kuwait, I learned we are going through a little dip in the temperatures. From the damp, excruciatingly humid heat we have been having, the dry weather has returned.
And today, a cool spell. The anticipated high today will only be 111 degrees F. (44 degrees C.), but tomorrow it will go back up to 116° F. (47° C) and Wednesday it will be 118°F (48° C). Thought those of you suffering “heat” in the US might enjoy the comparison. 😦
The heat is dry, though. When you go out, you reall really need to have water with you; you lose water through evaporation, and often, you don’t even sweat, it just evaporates right off you.
Here are signs of dehydration:
The following are the most common symptoms of dehydration, although each individual may experience symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:
thirst
less-frequent urination
dry skin
fatigue
light-headedness
dizziness
confusion
dry mouth and mucous membranes
increased heart rate and breathing
In children, additional symptoms may include:
dry mouth and tongue
no tears when crying
no wet diapers for more than 3 hours
sunken abdomen, eyes or cheeks
high fever
listlessness
irritability
skin that does not flatten when pinched and released
This is from The University of Maryland Medical Center website.
In Kuwait, and other Gulf countries, religious individuals, mosques and cities provide drinking and washing water as a courtesy to the public. You will find water stations everywhere, and people filling up their bottles for drinking later or drinking from a tin cup attatched to the sabille by a chain. They come in all shapes and sizes. When we spot a new shape, we try to get a photo. This one is a very common shape:
“But We Have Final Exams!”
Kuwait Times, June 9, 2007
Three Teens Held for Rape Attempt
A source revealed that three 18 year old boys were walking on a pedestrian path in Mishref and they saw a 22 year old girl walking on the same path. The teens then tried to rape the girl, but she started crying and she tried to call police. Then the youths assaulted her. She recorded the plate number of the gang’s two cars then the teens got afraid and tried to fabricate a story and called police before her. When the police came, and saw the girl and the boys, she started crying and told police that they sexually assaulted her. First, they denied but following an intensive investigation they confessed and started BEGGING THE POLICEMEN TO RELEASE THEM BECAUSE THEY HAD EXAMS. (emphasis added by blogger) The police filed a case and referred the boys to the authorities.
My comment: You do the crime, you do the time. You have exams? What do you think you have done to this young 22 year old gal’s life??? You terrorized her!
And bravo to the judge in California who put that little ferret Paris Hilton back in jail, too.
Light a Candle Against Child Abuse
A good friend sent me this link: Light a Million Candles.com which is against child abuse. The don’t ask your address or for any donations – just that you light a candle and support their cause.
Kuwait Machine Gun?
From yesterday’s Kuwait Times.
Three Shot at by Teenagers
Two Kuwaiti citizens and a bedoon man were transferred to Jahra hospital after three teenagers shot them using a machine gun and ran away. The victims stressed they did not know why the assailants, who were travelling in a Japanese car, shot at them. The case is under investigation.
My comment: My husband, when I told him about this story, says that most people don’t know the difference between a machine gun and an automatic weapon, which can fire a series of shots in rapid succession. Somehow, the distinction fails to reassure me. Teenagers – children – with automatic weapons?? Where are these weapons coming from? How did they get their hands on them?
There has been a big to-do over Muna Al-Fuzai’s tongue-in-cheek article about Kuwait and subsequent defense of what she said.
Guys: Stop talking and listen for a change. Yes, Kuwait is a wonderful place, she is not saying differently. She is Kuwaiti and she loves Kuwait. She has a right to say what she sees and hears, and she has taken a courageous and controversial stand. You don’t have to agree with her, and she still has a right to her opinion. Did you notice? Her column is OPINION.
You are also entitled to your opinion.
First – Take a deep breath. Ask your mother, your wife, your sister, your maid – how safe she feels taking a taxi alone at night – if that is even an option. Ask her if she is careful where she walks. Ask her about her experiences with the police. Ask her if she will go to any ATM, or only “safe” ones.
As I see it, Kuwait has a huge bachelor population, and few options for these bachelors. Women here know to travel in groups, to be watchful, and to be wary. There is a problem.
And it’s not women, it is also children. It’s unthinkable.
Couple this with weak regard for the law and weak enforcement of the law, and you will see that there is a problem.
And where did these kids get automatic weapons? ? ? These problems are all connected to weak law enforcement, lack of respect for the law and a sense of entitlement. Entitled to take an automatic and shoot people? ? Entitled to TAKE sex from someone smaller and weaker than you? ?
It’s not just lack of respect for the law, it’s the law of the jungle.
Exercise After Eating
From BBC Health News:
Exercising after meals can help promote weight loss by boosting hormones that suppress appetite, say UK scientists.
Thanks to these hormones, active people feel less hungry immediately after exercise, and this carries through to their next meal, experiments suggest.
Even when their meals were bigger, sporty people gained fewer calories overall because they burned off more.
The Surrey University and Imperial College London work is published in the Journal of Endocrinology.
Exercise may alter people’s appetite to help them lose weight
Twelve volunteers were fed the same breakfast.
An hour later, half of them worked out for an hour on an exercise bike while the other half sat quietly.
Both groups were left for another hour and then allowed to eat as much as they liked.
Unsurprisingly, people who exercised burned more calories than those who sat quietly, 492 kcal compared to 197 kcal.
And when given the chance to eat afterwards, people who had exercised tended to eat more, 913 kcal versus to 762 kcal.
However, when the amount of energy burned during exercise was taken into account, the sporty people took in fewer calories overall – 421 kcal compared to 565 kcal for the inactive group.
And levels of hormones called PYY, GLP-1 and PP, which tell the brain when the stomach is full, increased during and immediately after exercise.
Volunteers also said they felt less hungry during this time.
Researcher Dr Denise Robertson said: “In the past we have been concerned that, although exercise burns energy, people subsequently ate more after working out. This would cancel out any possible weight reduction effects of exercise.
“But our research shows that exercise may alter people’s appetite to help them lose weight and prevent further weight gain as part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle.”
My comment: We keep hoping we can lose the weight with no sweat, but it seems like everywhere we turn, the secret seems to be . . . eat less . . . exercise more. You can read the rest of the story HERE.
Emergency Lane Rant
It’s not your arrogance that drives me totally crazy, as much as the fact that your arrogance puts us all at risk.
First, you are driving too fast, and weaving between cars. Yep, it looks like fun, but you’re cutting it a little close, brother. And if you are young and have all your wits about you, you might do OK, but if you are tired, if you are drinking, if you are on drugs, your reactions are impaired and so is your judgement.
We can’t help but bear witness to your carnage along the sides of the road. It’s not like they sit there for weeks. The tow trucks haul them away, and they are replaced overnight with new, bloodier, twisted wreckage. The highways are littered with your crumpled bumpers, and shards of your shattered windshields.
Worse, as traffic piles up, and ambulances arrive to try to save those who survive the impact, no-one moves aside! When time is critical, when seconds can literally mean life or death, the ambulances are stuck trying to get past cars which won’t move out of the way.
As for the rest of us, stacked up along the highways, waiting for the wreckage to be cleared, it doesn’t help to have these drivers zipping by in the EMERGENCY lanes. Hello???? What part of EMERGENCY is so hard for you to understand?
You’re not special. We all have places we need to be. And – you are in the emergency lane. You endanger us all.
Competitive Family Values
Even within national cultures, there are family cultures. You don’t really think about it when you are a kid, you think all families are like your family. It isn’t until you get older that you understand just how unique – even quirky – your own family is.
In our family, we were bred to be competitive. We started early, with simple card games and board games. We swam on swimming teams, we competed for grades. Doing well, doing our best was expected of us.
And then, we turned around and did it to our own children!
We used to have big family reunions in a small town along the Oregon beach. We stayed in an old complex, where there were two large units that shared a deck, and then several small cabins. The very social parts of the family shared the two large units – my mom and dad, and her brother and his wife – and the rest of us had the cabins, one to each family, althought the kids roamed from cabin to cabin – our children have always had the freedom of belonging to one great tribe!
Daytimes would be full of adventures – not everyone doing the same thing, but smaller groups having dodge-boat competitions, groups going on shopping expeditions to nearby towns, hiking in the parks, having some beach time – jumping the amazingly high waves in the amazingly cold Pacific ocean.
Around 5, people would start to gather on the big deck in preparation for dinner. Dinner might come out of the kitchens, or we might order food in, but once dinner was out of the way, the BIG competitions would begin.
Every year there was a huge hearts tournament, and a Liar’s Dice tournement. The family took these very seriously, from oldest to youngest, everyone entered, everyone competed. We took it so seriously that we had trophies that would be engraved with the winner’s names and passed along from year to year. We took it so seriously that sometimes there would be injured feelings when someone lost. Everyone wanted to be the winner, and in a family full of people used to winning, feelings ran high.
Giving up needing to win all the time has been seriously hard. There are still times when I am in a situation where I feel the adrenelin start pumping and I have to stop myself and say “Do you want to win this battle or do you want to win the war?” i.e., like chess, sometimes you have to sacrifice a pawn to achieve a greater victory down the road. Do I need to win every arguement at the cost of losing a friend? Do I need to win at the cost of my community?
I also think needing to win takes its toll in one’s health – when I allow myself NOT to need to win all the time, I feel calmer, more serene, and happier. I can’t help but think that being calm, serene and happy are probably good things to be in terms of health. Competition gets your heart beating faster, pumping through the veins, but can also take it’s toll in bad eating, bad sleeping and bad exercise habits.
My parents did a good thing encouraging us to be our best, to seek personal excellence and to strive for personal achievements; I honor them for that. When it comes to winning, however, I want to stop and count the cost before I proceed full steam ahead.
What does your family value? What attributes did they encourage you to develop?
Dead Man Walking
An Irish joke:
Paddy’s wife bought a new line of expensive cosmetics guaranteed to make her look years younger.
After a lengthy sitting before the mirror applying the “miracle” products she asked, “Darling, honestly what age would you say I am?”
Looking over her carefully, Paddy replied, “Judging from your skin, twenty; your hair, eighteen; and your figure, twenty-five.”
“Oh, you flatterer!” she gushed.
“Hey, wait a minute!” Paddy interrupted. “I haven’t added them up yet.”
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