No Release, No Travel, reports Darwish
In today’s Kuwait Times, Badria Darwish informs us that:
“the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) has decided to ask all expatriates before exiting the country – whether on holiday or permanently – to obtain a certificate of clearance from the ministry. The certificate is only valid for one month. If the expat doesn’t have it, he will be returning from the airport the same day . . . “
On page 2, a news article confirms her report.
“The Ministry of Electricity and Water announced it is in the process of issuing a legislation. It said it instructed the Assistant Undersecretary Jassim Al-Linqawi, in charge of consumer affairs at the ministry, to coordinate with the Interior Ministry to enforce the legislation. The legislation, it added, will mandate all expatriates planning to proceed on vacation to obtain a clearance document from the Ministry of Electricity and Water that they are clear of all pending bills. All expatriates having arrears will not be permitted to travel either through the airport or the various surface borders around the country. The legislation is expected to be enforced soon . . .
The Ministry of Electricity also instructed the Interior Ministry to empower their employees, who collect electricity dues, to force their way into the residences of all those residences of al those residents who refuse to let them check the electricity meters. . . . “
Oh! Those pesky expats, running red lights and neglecting to pay their electricity and water bills. Yeh. Right.
This does present the bureaucracy with a fascinating challenge. First, to immediately construct a way in which all consumers can receive bills, like through a postal system. Second, to collect the accurate information for each customer, making sure that “no one is above the law.” Third, to bill consumers in a way that they know that they have been billed, and to have a follow up procedure – you know, like warnings, and a way to turn off the service? Fourth, a way to follow all this by computer – accurately. Oh, yes, and co-ordinating between the MEW and the MOI. And have it ready to be enforced “soon.”
Conversation in the Background (Fiction)
“Hey, ‘Bama, how’s it going?”
“I am so fried, Hilary. Hey, you looked great at the congressional hearing today. Who prepared your questions? They did a great job.”
“Thanks. You look tired. Are you getting enough sleep?
“No. Are you?”
“I don’t need a lot of sleep, remember? I’m there to answer the phone at 3 a.m.”
(Mutual laughter)
“Hil, my team is going to hit you tomorrow on your candor issue. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Is this necessary?” (she sighs)
“C’mon Hil. One of us has to take second place. You’ve given this a great fight, but I’m beating you everywhere.”
“It ain’t over ’till it’s over. Anything can happen. And I have Bill in my corner.”
“That’s a mixed blessing.” (They both laugh)
“You can stop any time, you can have the #2 slot on MY ticket. Besides, you really do look tired. You can sit back for four years, learn the ropes, and then we can talk about your presidency in four years – or so.”
“I don’t think so, Hil. Hey, good luck. Talk to you tomorrow.”
“Night, ‘Bama.”
Abandoned Baby
This is for my friend, Mrm, or Mirim the Mirim, a blogger friend with a fiendish eye for the sublime and the ridiculous. She hasn’t blogged for a while and I am concerned about her absence. I am hoping this photo, dedicated to her, will lure her back into the blogging world.
Actually, AdventureMan spotted the baby sitting on a garbage bin, but it was I who whipped the camera out and shot a photo.
Who would abandon this beautiful baby?
Who Will Tell the People?
This was the #5 e-mailed article from this week’s New York Times. It is a hard-hitting warning to Americans in an election year, and it has some analogies to election time in Kuwait.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: May 4, 2008
Traveling the country these past five months while writing a book, I’ve had my own opportunity to take the pulse, far from the campaign crowds. My own totally unscientific polling has left me feeling that if there is one overwhelming hunger in our country today it’s this: People want to do nation-building. They really do. But they want to do nation-building in America.
They are not only tired of nation-building in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with so little to show for it. They sense something deeper — that we’re just not that strong anymore. We’re borrowing money to shore up our banks from city-states called Dubai and Singapore. Our generals regularly tell us that Iran is subverting our efforts in Iraq, but they do nothing about it because we have no leverage — as long as our forces are pinned down in Baghdad and our economy is pinned to Middle East oil.
Our president’s latest energy initiative was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg King Abdullah to give us a little relief on gasoline prices. I guess there was some justice in that. When you, the president, after 9/11, tell the country to go shopping instead of buckling down to break our addiction to oil, it ends with you, the president, shopping the world for discount gasoline.
We are not as powerful as we used to be because over the past three decades, the Asian values of our parents’ generation — work hard, study, save, invest, live within your means — have given way to subprime values: “You can have the American dream — a house — with no money down and no payments for two years.”
That’s why Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous defense of why he did not originally send more troops to Iraq is the mantra of our times: “You go to war with the army you have.” Hey, you march into the future with the country you have — not the one that you need, not the one you want, not the best you could have.
A few weeks ago, my wife and I flew from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Singapore. In J.F.K.’s waiting lounge we could barely find a place to sit. Eighteen hours later, we landed at Singapore’s ultramodern airport, with free Internet portals and children’s play zones throughout. We felt, as we have before, like we had just flown from the Flintstones to the Jetsons. If all Americans could compare Berlin’s luxurious central train station today with the grimy, decrepit Penn Station in New York City, they would swear we were the ones who lost World War II.
How could this be? We are a great power. How could we be borrowing money from Singapore? Maybe it’s because Singapore is investing billions of dollars, from its own savings, into infrastructure and scientific research to attract the world’s best talent — including Americans.
And us? Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, just told a Senate hearing that cutbacks in government research funds were resulting in “downsized labs, layoffs of post docs, slipping morale and more conservative science that shies away from the big research questions.” Today, she added, “China, India, Singapore … have adopted biomedical research and the building of biotechnology clusters as national goals. Suddenly, those who train in America have significant options elsewhere.”
Much nonsense has been written about how Hillary Clinton is “toughening up” Barack Obama so he’ll be tough enough to withstand Republican attacks. Sorry, we don’t need a president who is tough enough to withstand the lies of his opponents. We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.
Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.
I don’t know if Barack Obama can lead that, but the notion that the idealism he has inspired in so many young people doesn’t matter is dead wrong. “Of course, hope alone is not enough,” says Tim Shriver, chairman of Special Olympics, “but it’s not trivial. It’s not trivial to inspire people to want to get up and do something with someone else.”
It is especially not trivial now, because millions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said Shriver, “no one can touch us.”
Coen and No Country for Old Men
AdventureMan and I watched No Country for Old Men last night, and oh! it held us on the edge of our chairs. At the end, we ran for the phone to call our son and ask “Whoa! What happened??”
In short, we loved the movie (and I can hardly wait to read the book, although Cormac McCarthy goes a lot darker than I care to go). The Coen brothers also go darker than I care to go, but we find ourselves drawn to their movies because there is so much thought put into them, so many references to other genres, other films, and because the characters are so true to life. We first met them in Fargo, a movie we pull out and watch again from year to year – that’s a rare movie. We love the characters, even the bad guys are so human.
It’s the same in No Country for Old Men. Set in the desolation of West Texas, there are whole minutes when you listen to the wind whistling in the desert as the hero hikes down to a drug-exchange-gone-bad.
There is a good guy, a sherif played by craggy-faced Tommy Lee Jones, and an ordinary guy who finds a whole lot of money, and we really want him to get away with it, and then there is a really really bad guy, who is also smart, and . . . well, something inside of him is just bent. He’s not right. The Coen’s have a way of making him both appalling and just a guy doing his job very well. It’s not personal, but we wish he wouldn’t enjoy inflicting harm so much.
What I love about the Coen films is that they can capture the essence of a character so sparely, with just a few words, a few lines. There is a trailer park manager who refuses to give the very very bad guy an address. You hold your breath; she could get blown away, she doesn’t know it. She holds firm. In another scene, an older woman tells a Mexican man who has just helped her “You don’t see too many Mexicans in suits.” So so so politically incorrect, and so ordinarily normal, the plain-spokeness of the elderly. The Coen’s capture the West Texas-ness which permeates the film.
This movie is worth watching again.
Lightness of Being
We prayed for Kuwait today. At great length, we prayed for your elections, for your leaders, and that wisdom and wise choices will prevail.
(I am sure you will be glad to know that we didn’t interfere in any way by praying for any specific candidates!)
In the sermon, our priest talked about God and his glory, and the WEIGHT of his presence, and I was really listening, but that was a new concept to me.
Jesus talks a lot about the Kingdom of Heaven, and one of the things he said, sort of one of those mysteries, is that he says the Kingdom of Heaven is all around us “if you have the eyes to see.”
When you think of God, what do you think?
I don’t think of weightiness, although the weight of my own sins might weigh on me. When I think of God, and when I think of the Kingdom of Heaven being all around me, I close my eyes and envision sparkling lights surrounding us, lights we can’t see, and energy, boundless energy, enough energy to create paths and opportunities we don’t even know exist. I think all we have to do is to believe, and to breathe, and we breathe in the Kingdom of Heaven, that he feeds us just by our believing.
All of a sudden, the very irreligious idea of an old computer game – one of the very earliest – came to me. Do you remember PacMan?
Mostly PacMan existed to eat energy dots. He would eat all these energy things and gain energy and win or not, I don’t really know, I never really played it because AdventureMan and LawAndOrderMan hogged the computer all the time to play the early games.
So where do ideas like this come from? Maybe the creator of PacMan had a vision and got part of it right, maybe if we have the eyes to see, maybe we gain sparkling spiritual energy from the Kingdom of Heaven surrounding us? Maybe prayer is like one of the magical tools you find in these games that opens doors, that allows something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen.
Sorry, RevQ8 if I got a little off topic here, I honestly was listening as you gave your fine sermon! Sometimes, the mind will go where the mind will go (and I guess mine is going fast . . . 
)
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
This is another one of those books I picked up on the last day of my last travels in the US. I had been through the Barnes and Noble nearby several times, picked this up and looked at is at least a dozen times, then put it down, just not that interested. On the last day, who knows why, I bought it and stuck it in my outer pocket of my suitcase. Maybe it was the only thing I could see that would fit, I don’t know. I had rejected it so many times before.
It hasn’t even been on my night stand, the books I really really intend to read. It has been on a shelf of books I will read someday when I don’t have anything else to do. Every now and then, it caught my eye. The Zanzibar Chest was on the same shelf. . . and that turned out to be a pretty good book. So recently, after I had read some books I had to read but were a little dry, and a couple books I wanted to read which were a little light, I grabbed Water for Elephants.
That was day before yesterday. I couldn’t put it down. I had a whole list of things to get done yesterday, but once I started Water for Elephants, I was lost, totally immersed in the tawdry world of circuses, bound in the magic of the illusion and performances, mesmerized by what goes on behind the scenes to make the spectacular possible.
The main character loses his parents in a totally unnecessary car accident just as he is about to take his final exams in Veterinary Science, at Cornell University. (You might think I am throwing in too much useless detail here, but it matters.) Stunned by the triple loss of both his parents, and the discovery that they had hocked everything to the bank to fund his education, he blanks on his exams and hits the road, ending up with a second rate circus.
What is so amazing about this author is that once you start reading, you are THERE.
The above mentioned Zanzibar Chest keeps you hooked by it’s painfullness, but for both AdventureMan and myself, we never liked the author, we found him a little full of himself. It doesn’t take away from the Zanzibar Chest being a worthy read, and unforgettable read.
Water for Elephants, on the other hand, has a hero you love to love. In a world of strict boundaries, a heirarchical social structure, he manages to cross all the boundaries. He truly loves the animals, and in one scene, that love just radiates, emanates, it illuminates the book from the inside, and makes you feel light and crazy with that same sort of love, love of the whole of creation. Jakob is loyal to his friends, and loyal even to his enemies, he is sacrificial in his loyalty, and, in the end, he is vastly and abundantly rewarded for his good character.
There is something for everyone, just like a circus. Like a circus, too, it has illusions, it distracts with one hand while the trick is performed with another, there is sensuality, there is sexuality, there are photos from old circuses. There are things which could offend just about every sensibility; there is kindness, there is cruelty, justice and injustice and cosmic justice. Sometimes you just have to suspend judgement and go with the read. This is one of those books.
I would say this is one of the finest reading experiences I have had for a long time. Brava, Sara Gruen. Worth every penny.
I’ve told AdventureMan as soon as he finishes The Zanzibar Chest, he has to start Water for Elephants. I can hardly wait. It’s that good.
You can find Water for Elephants in paperback at Amazon.com for $8.37 + shipping.
Meat Eating Drives up Costs
I first heard this idea weeks ago, on BBC, as I was listening back in the project room. “How can this be?” I thought, as I first heard the idea that as the poor become richer, their diets are changing and they are demanding cars. That the burgeoning middle-class in China and India are changing everything, and changing it quickly, in ways we never foresaw.
This article has to do with a shortage of fertilizer, and when you get down to the middle of the article (where I stopped) you learn that what is driving up the cost of fertilizer is that so much food that used to go to human consumption is now going into feeding animals for human consumption.
So how are we, as a world community, going to fairly allocate the world’s resources so that nobody goes hungry, everyone has “enough”?
From today’s New York Times; you can read the entire article by clicking here)
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN
Published: April 30, 2008
XUAN CANH, Vietnam — Truong Thi Nha stands just four and a half feet tall. Her three grown children tower over her, just as many young people in this village outside Hanoi dwarf their parents.
The biggest reason the children are so robust: fertilizer.
Ms. Nha, her face weathered beyond its 51 years, said her growth was stunted by a childhood of hunger and malnutrition. Just a few decades ago, crop yields here were far lower and diets much worse.
Then the widespread use of inexpensive chemical fertilizer, coupled with market reforms, helped power an agricultural explosion here that had already occurred in other parts of the world. Yields of rice and corn rose, and diets grew richer.
Now those gains are threatened in many countries by spot shortages and soaring prices for fertilizer, the most essential ingredient of modern agriculture.
Some kinds of fertilizer have nearly tripled in price in the last year, keeping farmers from buying all they need. That is one of many factors contributing to a rise in food prices that, according to the United Nations’ World Food Program, threatens to push tens of millions of poor people into malnutrition.
Protests over high food prices have erupted across the developing world, and the stability of governments from Senegal to the Philippines is threatened.
In the United States, farmers in Iowa eager to replenish nutrients in the soil have increased the age-old practice of spreading hog manure on fields. In India, the cost of subsidizing fertilizer for farmers has soared, leading to political dispute. And in Africa, plans to stave off hunger by increasing crop yields are suddenly in jeopardy.
The squeeze on the supply of fertilizer has been building for roughly five years. Rising demand for food and biofuels prompted farmers everywhere to plant more crops. As demand grew, the fertilizer mines and factories of the world proved unable to keep up.
Some dealers in the Midwest ran out of fertilizer last fall, and they continue to restrict sales this spring because of a limited supply.
“If you want 10,000 tons, they’ll sell you 5,000 today, maybe 3,000,” said W. Scott Tinsman Jr., a fertilizer dealer in Davenport, Iowa. “The rubber band is stretched really far.”
Fertilizer companies are confident the shortage will be solved eventually, noting that they plan to build scores of new factories. But that will probably create fresh problems in the long run as the world grows more dependent on fossil fuels to produce chemical fertilizers. Intensified use of such fertilizers is certain to mean greater pollution of waterways, too.
Agriculture and development experts say the world has few alternatives to its growing dependence on fertilizer. As population increases and a rising global middle class demands more food, fertilizer is among the most effective strategies to increase crop yields.
“Putting fertilizer on the ground on a one-acre plot can, in typical cases, raise an extra ton of output,” said Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Columbia University economist who has focused on eradicating poverty. “That’s the difference between life and death.”
The demand for fertilizer has been driven by a confluence of events, including population growth, shrinking world grain stocks and the appetite for corn and palm oil to make biofuel. But experts say the biggest factor has been the growing demand for food, especially meat, in the developing world.
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