Running Red Lights (3)
I first blogged about this on April 14 and then again in July. I was on this road again yesterday, and oh look – nothing has changed, except the one remaining red light has become even dimmer in the 6 months. I have seen other lights changed – and cleaned (part of the problem here is the humidity and the sand gumming up the lights) but c’mon, this should be a part of nightly traffic maintenance! This is a disaster waiting to happen at a busy intersection:
Can you even see the red light? You have to know it is there, I think. It is the top right light. Now – can you see it?
Traffic department: These lights are at the intersection of the southern Gulf Road/ 7th Ring Road/ 209 and Highway 30. Please, clean up these lights and put in fresh bulbs!
Pilot Impostor almost Succeeds in Kuwait
Very scary story from today’s Arab Times
Expatriate impersonates Brazilian pilot, ‘manages’ to enter cockpit
KUWAIT CITY, Sept 26: In a shocking incident that reflects on the level of security at Kuwait International Airport, an Egyptian expatriate is said to have managed to enter the cockpit of a plane ‘Al-Mottaheda’ impersonating a Brazilian pilot and when he failed to operate the plane, he allegedly tried to fly another, sources told Al-Seyassah. The suspect reportedly wanted to fly a Luxor-bound flight and asked an employee about the plane’s location. This time around he impersonated a Brazilian engineer whose identity card he found in the cockpit of the first plane. The alert employee, however, noticed that there was no similarity between the man on the ID card and the holder and promptly called securitymen who rushed to the scene and arrested the suspect.
Securitymen are investigating how the Luxor-bound passenger penetrated a high-security area and managed to reach the planes’ hanger. Minister of Interior Sheikh Jaber Al-Khaled is personally following-up the developments in this case and sources say stringent action will be taken against employees who are found to have been negligent in their duty.
By Mizyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times
Peter Bowen and Nails
Three men trundle a naked woman through the desert to a remote place, where she was placed in a container, 6 x 6 x 6 with only a candle, a cot, water and a holy book, until she could come to her senses and behave.
Four girls were strangled, one each day, for refusing the sexual advances of their father and his brother. The two youngest girls, their older sisters dead, complied.
Women with inconvenient views, women who start having thoughts of their own disappear. Many in this tribe are home-birthed and home-schooled, so there aren’t records of their existence, and when they disappear, no-one is the wiser.
Saudi Arabia, you ask? Pakistan? Afghanistan? Where on earth are women treated this vilely?
Peter Bowen, in Nails, gives vent to his frustration of minor fundamentalist Christian cults roaming the American West, many of them ending up in Montana where they believe they will have the privacy to practice their beliefs without interference, and where those who are well-funded can influence poverty-stricken school districts to toss out Science classes and incorporate Intelligent Design. Bowen has utter contempt for their studied ignorance, their need to be the sole authority on what the scriptures say, and their insistence on the utter submission of women.
His worst scorn is for their treatment of women – he attributes it to their fears about their own sexuality. Women are often the victims, Bowen states, when men worry about their size, worry about how to keep women faithful, tractable, and docile. (And let’s face it, who can successfully control a woman? 😉 )
This is the latest Gabriel du Pre novel, or at least the latest I have read. Gabriel du Pre is a retired brand inspector (he goes back every now and then when needed, when the brand inspector is overstretched, insuring that the cows sold are from the herds they are being sold from), Metis (French and Indian mix), a renowned fiddler, and a deputy sheriff when the sheriff – or the FBI – needs help solving a particularly tricky murder. It takes a while to get your ear used to his dialect, and he spends a lot of time in bars, but the man has a real knack for figuring things out.
Gabriel du Pre is everything a straight-living woman like myself shouldn’t like. He drinks, morning to night, keeps his flask of whisky under the driver’s seat in his car. He drives way over the speed limit. He doesn’t go to church, he goes to an ancient Indian spiritualist / medicine man when he needs guidance. He isn’t married to the wry, very smart woman with whom he lives. He breaks the rules, he goes outside the boundaries.
For all his flaws, du Pre has a deep down, rock solid core of decency, and a way of looking at life and situations that is practical and . . . forgiving. He is charitable toward his brothers and sisters. He detests cruelty, especially when the strong take advantage of the weak or the arrogant walk all over the humble. There is something about this flawed hero that keeps the reader coming back for more.
His Gabriel du Pre novels are not heavy reading. You can toss one off in about half a day, but they are not so simple as they appear. You find yourself thinking about the issues he raises, and you find yourself looking to see when the next Gabriel du Pre mystery will appear.
You can find this on Amazon.com for $16. new or from $3.07 used, plus shipping of course. (Yes, I own stock in Amazon.com.) 🙂
Rapists Arrested
From today’s Arab Times:
2 wanted Bedouns involved in ‘rape’ case held
Kuwait : Personnel from the Law Enforcement Department have arrested two Bedouns who had been sentenced in absentia for life imprisonment with hard labor for their involvement in kidnapping and raping an unidentified expatriate woman, reports Al-Anba daily.
The daily did not give more details.
I don’t know how the system works here, but it is a great step forward when rapists are arrested and jailed. These two have already been convicted, so we can hope they will be off the streets for a while.
Damages, Glen Close and Paradise Road
AdventureMan and I could hardly wait to get home – we started Glen Close’s Damages, a critically acclaimed, award winning legal drama that hit the screen in 2007, but only recently came out in DVD form. As I am always on the watch for series that will grip us – and give us hours of speculation and conversation over dinner – I snapped this one up en route back to Kuwait, knowing with Ramadan here, we would have quiet hours we could spend watching.
Holy. Smokes. Damages is gripping. Damages is amazing. Damages has you sitting on the edge of your chair, and panting for more!
You have to get used to the cinematic style – we start in the present and throughout the entire 13 episodes, we go back into the past – from years ago to months ago to weeks ago, as we get closer to the end – days ago – to follow the career of new lawyer Ellen Parsons, as she goes to work for the top-of-the-heap firm Hewes and Associates. Hewes, played by Glen Close, is simply breathtaking.
Hewes and Associates are in the process of going after Arthur Frobisher, an egomaniacal developer who, similar to other big rich crooks in the US, took his funds out of his company when he had inside information it was about to tank, leaving his 500 employees unemployed, pension fund bankrupt and without the financial security they had invested in for so long. We know there is more going on here, and from week to week, we learn a little more of the puzzle. The puzzle is intricate and complex, and with each episode – man, the hook is set. We are addicted.
We hurried through the last three episodes to share it with some good friends who appreciate the same kinds of shows we do. We look forward to sharing it with our son, who shared Deadwood with us – it’s that good. It’s Deadwood level.
Glen close plays Patty Hewes as a driven, hard working woman, feared, admired and hated in a field which allows little room for mistakes. Part of what keeps you coming back is the revealing of all the different layers of her personality – the vulnerable mother, the trophy wife, the tough-minded head of her firm, the manipulator of all around her. Her motto (reminiscent of the old X-files) is Trust No One. We certainly have questions about how far we can trust her.
Did she try to have her protegee murdered?
We can hardly wait for Season 2.
UPDATE: 22 Sep 08 Last night Glen Close won Best Actress in a Drama (Emmy Awards) for her role as Patty Hewes.
Did you ever see Glen Close in Fatal Attraction? Did you see her as the police chief in The Shield? She is the most amazing actress, such subtlety in her expression, such vulnerability, such toughness.
My very favorite movie with her in it is Paradise Road.
It has to do with a boatload of women and children, and how they survive in a Japanese prison camp during World War II. I don’t buy a lot of movies, but I bought this one – it’s that good. You can watch it once a year and feel equally inspired every time you watch it.
This is from Wikipedia and is a summary of the movie Paradise Road:
Singapore falls to the Japanese in 1942 and the women and children are put on boats to be shipped to safety. Japanese fighters, however, sink one boat and those on board must swim for their lives. Landing on the Japanese controlled island of Sumatra, the women, including Adrienne Pargiter (Glenn Close), a British graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Susan Macarthy (Cate Blanchett), an Australian nursing student, Topsy Merrit (Julianna Margulies), a pessimistic American, and “Margaret” Drummond (Pauline Collins), a sweet missionary, are captured and imprisoned in a Japanese POW camp. Suffering from cruel and inhumane treatment, tropical diseases and the uncertainty of their future, the women band together for moral support. Others, including Dr. Verstak (Frances McDormand) and Sister Wilhelminia (Johanna Ter Steege) do what they can to tend to the physical and spiritual needs of the group. As the years pass, the women, led by Adrienne, form a “vocal orchestra” that not only softens the guards’ demeanor, but also lifts the women’s spirits as it provides a purpose in their lives.[1]
Paradise Road announces itself in large print to be “based on a true story”. The film is said to be centred on a group of women who are on a ship fleeing Singapore. Having survived the bombing and sinking of the ship they think that “the worst is over”, but they find that the tough times are in the prison camp, and that is when they face their harshest test of survival. However, when introducing viewers to setting and characters, and getting the characters into a prison camp, Paradise Road makes an obvious change from true incidents.
Long Way Gone in PB
Just a quick note to say that if you have been waiting to read Long Way Gone in paperback, it is now on the shelves.
“Silver Lining of a Down Economy”
I found this in yesterday’s Seattle Times:
Highway crashes kill more than 41,000 in 2007
Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday.
By KEN THOMAS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON —
Traffic deaths in the United States declined last year, reaching the lowest level in more than a decade, the government reported Thursday.
Some 41,059 people were killed in highway crashes, down by more than 1,600 from 2006. It was the fewest number of highway deaths in a year since 1994, when 40,716 people were killed.
The fatality rate of 1.37 deaths for every 100 million miles traveled in 2007 was the lowest on record, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in its report.
“Thanks to safer vehicles, aggressive law enforcement and our efforts, countless families were spared the devastating news that a loved one was not coming home,” said Transportation Secretary Mary Peters.
California had the largest decline, 266 fewer fatalities than the previous year. The largest percentage decreases were in South Dakota and Vermont.
North Carolina’s death toll increased the most in the nation, up 121 over the previous year. The District of Columbia and Alaska had the highest percentage increases.
Motorcycle deaths increased for the 10th straight year. There were 5,154 motorcycle deaths last year, compared with 4,837 in 2006.
Peters, an avid motorcyclist who keeps a scuffed helmet in her office that she credits with saving her from a severe head injury in a 2005 crash, said the rise in motorcycle fatalities was disappointing. The increased deaths have come while the number of registered motorcycles have surpassed 6 million, compared with 3.8 million in 1998, and vehicle miles traveled have risen.
Peters said with higher fuel prices, more people may use motorcycles or scooters that can get 50 to 60 miles per gallon.
Transportation officials said they plan to target motorcycle drivers in a $13 million anti-drunk driving advertising campaign running during the upcoming Labor Day holiday. The department has also discussed new safety and training standards for novice riders, increased training for law enforcement and curbing counterfeit safety-labeling of helmets.
Still, safety officials said they were encouraged by the overall trends.
Fatalities in crashes that involved a driver or motorcycle rider with a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent, the legal limit, declined to just under 13,000 deaths in 2007, a 3.7 percent decrease.
Traffic injuries fell for the eighth straight year, to fewer than 2.49 million injuries in 2007, compared with 2.58 million in 2006. And the number of people killed in large-truck crashes fell by more than 4 percent.
Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, said the sluggish economy was likely a factor in the declines.
He predicted that the combination of a slowing economy and gas prices approaching $4 a gallon throughout the U.S. could lead to further reductions in highway deaths in 2008. Many states have reported double-digit drops in fatalities during the first part of this year.
“Fewer highway deaths is always the silver lining of a down economy,” Lund said.
From the Arab Times – let’s hope this is also a silver lining:
350 motorists booked for not wearing seat belts, using phone while driving
Kuwait : During a crackdown on reckless motorists and traffic law violators, the Hawalli Traffic Department has Thursday issued 350 citations, reports Arrouiah daily. Upon instructions from Major-General Mahmoud Al-Dousari of the General Traffic Department, the Hawalli traffic police erected surprised checkpoints at entry and exit points throughout Hawalli and issued citations for motorists for not wearing seat belts, talking on the cell phone while driving and not complying with safety regulations. The source added the campaign will continue in various parts of the country to impose security and ensure compliance of traffic rules and regulations.
Superlative Day: Gone Fishing
I’ve had some great and memorable days in my life, and this is one of them. My good friend said “Hey, you want to go fishing Friday?” and I said “Yes!” I had to go get a one-day fishing license, and I could add crab for a mere 50 cents, so I did.
We met up at 6:30 a.m. and were on the water by 7 a.m. on one of the hottest day’s in Seattle’s summer. As we left the marina, we passed an Eagle. (We thought of you, AdventureMan!)
AdventureMan must have heard us talking about him, because as the sun rises, he calls from Kuwait, eating Felafel sandwiches and ice cream as we watch the sun rise:
And set the crab traps – this is what an empty crab trap looks like. We put turkey legs and old fish heads in the bait box to attract the crabs:
It is a gorgeous morning. As my friends dig out the fishing polls, I admire the mountains and the sparkles on the waters of Puget Sound:
My friend has baited my hook and hands the rod to me. I lower the weight to the bottom, pull it up just a little and – an immediate nibble:
He’s a good size and he’s a keeper. My friend grabs my camera to take my photo with my first fish of the day, I hold the fish up – and just as she is snapping the shot, the fish does a little flip right off the hook and back into the water!
It doesn’t matter – the fish are biting and we are hauling them in. Some are too small; we take them off the hooks and throw them back, telling them to have a good life, grow big and we will see them again, we hope!
After about an hour of superlative fishing, we go back to check the crab pots. They are HEAVY with crab!
You can’t keep any female crab, or any male under a certain size, so any crab you think you might want to keep, you have to measure. You get a HUGE fine if you are caught with undersize crab. As we bring in the crab and the fish, my friend notes them down on our licence records, which have to be sent in to the state at the end of the season, listing fish we have caught, crab we have caught, and how many we threw back.
We catch a couple rock crab – those you don’t have to measure, and you can keep. Most of what we catch is the sweet and delectable Dungeness Crab – my very favorite after Alaska King Crab.
We had just decided to quit for the day – it was getting really, really HOT for Seattle, like 90°F/33°C (and there is an advisory for hot weather, and air stagnation) and we have nearly our limit for crab, and a respectable amount of fish, and we are happy, happy fisherpeople! Just as I am about to raise my line, I get a big bite, and catch the last fish!
Here is our bucket, full of fish. The cooler is full of crab. What a great day to be alive.
It’s The Law
There is something about Oregon I love. I don’t know if this is true anywhere else in the country, but in Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gas. So when it is cold and rainy and foggy and drizzly, you can sit in your warm car and someone else fills up your tank.
Just like Kuwait!
I asked the very nice young man who filled my tank if people ever tip him, and he said “Some people do!” with a big smile. I was happy to tip him for filling my tank.
(I asked him if I could take his photo for my blog, and he said “sure” it was fine. )
Wooo Hoooo, Oregon!
Phones, Computers and Blackberries
You can hear his loud voice all through the lounge.
“You have my blackberry!” he says when someone answers the phone. “I left it in the restaurant. How can I get it back?” (pause) “I’m in the lounge.”
Within minutes, two security men are in the lounge, checking his ID and handing over his blackberry.
“We had a difficult time trying to find you, sir,” says the polite, but firm, security guy, in a loud, carrying voice. “Let me make a suggestion that will make your life easier if you ever lose it again. In your contacts, put YOUR name first. You can put two spaces before your last name, and then your last name will be at the head of the list. That is the smartest way to make sure people can return your lost electronics.”
I look around. Half the people in the lounge are quickly inputting their names, with two spaces, into their phones, computers and personal data devices.
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