Move 30 times? Check. Manage finances? Check. Buy or sell a house? Check. Buy a car? Check. It’s not that hard. You figure it out, you do it.
Every now and then you have a crisis that’s outside your comfort zone. This week we ran into one of those.
We’ve had a microwave, a wonderful huge microwave, with a platter that runs back and forth, instead of a circular revolving plate. About a year ago, it started stopping in mid-cook and the display would show “F9”, not a big deal, with a little jiggling, a little work around, we could get it working again and it worked most of the time.
We bit the bullet. OK, just time to get a new microwave, go somewhere where we can buy it and have it installed, because installing is outside of what we can do well.
We get to the store and discover that 36″ microwaves are very special. So special that the only one carried runs in the over $1000 range. We go to another store, same story. Evidently 36″ was to go over a 36″ range, which we have, but is no longer so trendy. Oh aarrgh. We decide to go home and do some online research, only to learn that the 36″ version for over $1000 has very poor ratings and the same problem that we currently have, made by the same manufacturer. Double aarrgh, and double aarrgh again because while AdventureMan and I are good problem solvers, we are out of our pay grade when it comes to kitchen design and installation, but we know enough to know that it has to look right.
(Does it seem to you like American appliances don’t last as long as they used to? Some old appliances I have had run forever, but I feel like I am constantly replacing or having repaired the newer appliances)
When we bought our house, we bought it from a man who has a lot of fun redesigning and remodeling and updating houses. The kitchen is small, but beautifully high end. Fortunately, he is local and I have his number so I called him and asked for his design input. He gave me several good ideas, and even better, we had a great, wonderful chat and I was able to tell him how much we enjoy the little touches he put in the house to make it special. By the time I finished, I had a plan, and it dovetails with some other work we have scheduled, to have a tankless water system put in.
Years ago, a friend gave me a book mark I still have, a quote from Bishop Sheen that says “All worry is atheism, because it is a want of trust in God” and while I believe that is true, and have greatly banished worry from my daily life, every now I find myself that squirrel running on that wheel of anxiety, knowing I am worrying for nothing, but unable, in my own strength, to get off the wheel. Thanks be to God, in his mercy, for leading me off that fruitless path!
April 25, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Cultural, Customer Service, ExPat Life, Family Issues, Financial Issues, Florida, Home Improvements, Interconnected, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Shopping |
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“What will you be doing today?” asks AdventureMan as he heads out the door to the Extension Office gardens to work, helping get everything ready for the Great Spring Sale coming up the first weekend in May.
“Not much!” I grin in return.
I have always loved Thursdays, even when I was young. Thursday was always the day before Friday, a day to anticipate without feeling rushed. I am a planner. Planning takes time. You can’t plan well when you are rushed, you need quiet, uninterrupted TIME. (Have you noticed how precious time is, and we spend it like nothing?)
This week was a normal week – full. Monday we kept the grandkids because their school was closed;
Tuesday I volunteer, Wednesday I have a bible study . . . Fridays I have water aerobics and a trip to the commissary or whatever I need to do to prepare for the weekend, which tomorrow means commissary because we have guests again on Sunday. Dinners require planning, more so now that I don’t have people who help me get it all on the table, off the table, coffee and dessert served, leftovers into the refrigerator and dishes into the dishwasher or washed up. It used to be so easy. (sigh)
But today is my day. I can catch up, I can upload those photos, I can print them off for my upcoming visit to see my Mom for Mother’s Day, I can plan the menu for Sunday, check the pantry and freezer to see what I will need to pick up. I can catalog some photos, I can finish quilting one of the charity quilts. Today is sheer luxury, time!
I can even catch up with the blog a little 🙂
April 24, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Aging, Circle of Life and Death, Community, Cultural, Family Issues, Interconnected, Living Conditions, Pensacola |
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“Ouch! Ouch, Chimanda! Stop!”
(Oh wait.)
Don’t stop.
It’s me who can’t stop. I read everything Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes. I only started reading her by accident, when I was facilitating the Kuwait Book Club I never intended to belong to, and found myself reading so many books by authors I had never heard of. We were reading Half Of a Yellow Sun and all of a sudden, I WAS Nigerian. She can do that. She uses the senses, she uses the thoughts in our head. We are really not so alien, us and the Nigerians I start to think. I have Nigerian friends, from the church. We all get along. We have a good time together.
“Not so fast!” Chimamanda tells me in Americanah, her newest book, which I put off buying until I could find it in paperback. “You are very different! You think differently! And growing up in a country where there are black and white, race becomes an issue that it is not when you are black, and everyone is black, and you are growing up in Nigeria.”
Hmmm. OK. That makes sense. I mean, I thought I was Nigerian because in Half of a Yellow Sun, I was Igbo, living in an academic community in Nigeria, and hmmmm. You’re right, Chimamanda, there were no white people around. Just us Nigerians.
Chimamanda, with her sharp, all-seeing eyes, her sharp ears and her sharp tongue make me cringe as she comes to the USA and comes up against assumptions many have about Africa. Do you even know where, exactly, Nigeria is? Do you know where Ghana is? Most Americans can find Egypt on a map of Africa, and MAYBE South Africa, but the rest is . . . mostly guesswork. Because we send clothing and food aid to African countries, we have the idea that all Africans are poor, but that is not so, and is insulting to the middle-class and upper class Africans who travel elsewhere for leisure – and education.
I don’t know how much of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book is autobiographical and how much is fiction. I know that her observations are acute, she nails expat friendships, she spotlights our blind spots and hypocricies, and she holds you in her grip because she is no less harsh with herself – if, indeed, her Ifemelu, the main character in Americanah, is reflecting Chimamanda’s own experience. The experiences, coming here, the overwhelming differences in manners and customs, even volume of voice and width of hand expression, are so immediate, so compelling, so well described that they have to have been experiences she herself had, and had the eyes to see. She must have taken notes, because she totally nails the expat experience.
Book ads and book reviews focus on Americanah as a book about being black in America, and it truly is that – as seen from the eyes of a non-American black, as she often reminds us.
She is hard on herself, returning to Nigeria, and quick to note that much of the change is in herself and her changed perspective. While I love the romantic storyline, I was disappointed by the fantasy ending, given how self-disciplined Adichie is at keeping it real in every other facet of the novel. On the other hand, I am still trying to think of an ending that would work for me, and I can’t. While her ending wraps it all up neatly, it’s the one part of the book where her sharpness dulls.
One of the things I liked best about the book was going behind the scenes, being Nigerian, going to school, having coffee, working, going to parties with other Nigerians, chatting with my girlfriends. We’ve done things with nationals of different countries before, but you know as soon as you walk in that your presence changes things. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie takes me with her and no one knows I am there, observing, learning, figuring out how things are done when it’s “just us” Nigerians.
Here’s why I am a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie addict. She keeps it real. She has eyes that see, and ears that hear, and a gift for capturing what she sees and hears and a gift for writing it down. She has insight, into herself, into others, into character and motivations. She is sophisticated and unpretentious, she admires and she mocks, but when she mocks, it is as likely to be self-mockery as mockery of another person, class, ethnicity or nation. Reading Adichie, I understand our similarities – and our differences. I believe she would be a prickly friend to have, but I would chose her as a friend.
Awards
● Winner of the 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
● One of The New York Times’s Ten Best Books of the Year
● Winner of the The Chicago Tribune 2013 Heartland Prize for Fiction
● An NPR “Great Reads” Book, a Washington Post Notable Book, a Seattle
Times Best Book, an Entertainment Weekly Top Fiction Book, a Newsday Top 10 Book, and a Goodreads Best of the Year pick.
April 17, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Africa, Beauty, Books, Character, Civility, Community, Cross Cultural, Cultural, Customer Service, ExPat Life, Fiction, Interconnected, Kuwait, Living Conditions, Nigeria, Political Issues, Social Issues, Women's Issues | Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Igbo, Nigerian |
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Some dry, but fascinating reading. This is an excerpt from US Report On Human Rights In Kuwait State Department Issues Annual Assessment from the Arab Times: Kuwait. You can read the entire report by clicking on the blue hypertext which will take you to the Arab Times Website.
Women
Rape and Domestic Violence: Violence against women continued to be a problem. Rape carries a maximum penalty of death, which the country occasionally imposed for the crime; spousal rape is not a crime. The media reported hundreds of rape cases, but government statistics indicated that only 34 cases were reported to the police. Social stigma associated with publicly acknowledging rape likely resulted in underreporting. Many victims were noncitizen domestic workers. Police occasionally arrested alleged rapists. The courts tried and convicted three rapists during the year, but authorities did not effectively enforce laws against rape, especially in cases of noncitizen women raped by their employers.
The law does not specifically prohibit domestic violence, but courts try such cases as assault. A victim of domestic violence may file a complaint with police requesting formal charges be brought against the alleged abuser. Each of the country’s 83 police stations reportedly received complaints of domestic abuse. Victims, however, did not report most domestic abuse cases, especially outside the capital. Police officials rarely arrested perpetrators of domestic violence even when presented with documented evidence of the abuse, such as eyewitness accounts, hospital reports, and social worker testimony, and treated such reports as social instead of criminal matters. Individuals also reportedly bribed police officials to ignore assault charges in cases of domestic abuse. Although courts found husbands guilty of spousal abuse in previous years, those convicted rarely faced severe penalties. Noncitizen women married to citizens reported domestic abuse, and inaction or discrimination by police during the year.
A woman may petition for divorce based on injury from abuse, but the law does not provide a clear legal standard regarding what constitutes injury. Additionally, a woman must provide at least two male witnesses (or a male witness and two female witnesses) to attest to the injury. There were no shelters or hotlines specifically for victims of domestic violence, although a temporary shelter for domestic workers housed victims during the year. The government completed construction of a high-capacity shelter for domestic workers in 2012, but the shelter was not fully operational by year’s end.
Harmful Traditional Practices: The penal code penalizes honor crimes as misdemeanors. The law states that a man who sees his wife, daughter, mother, or sister in the “act of adultery” and immediately kills her or the man with whom she is committing adultery will face a maximum punishment of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 225 dinar ($790), slightly less than a month’s earnings at the public-sector minimum wage. Sentencing guidelines for honor crimes do not apply to Bidoon. In February the court convicted and sentenced five foreign residents to life in prison for the June 2012 “honor killing” of a 19-year old female family member.
Sexual Harassment: No specific law addresses sexual harassment, but the law criminalizes “encroachment on honor,” which encompasses everything from touching a woman against her will to rape, and police strictly enforced this law. The government deployed female police officers specifically to combat sexual harassment in shopping malls and other public spaces. Perpetrators faced fines and jail time. Nonetheless, human rights groups characterized sexual harassment against women in the workplace as a pervasive and unreported problem.
Reproductive Rights: There were no reports of government interference in the right of couples and individuals to decide freely the number, spacing, and timing of children. Decisions regarding access to contraceptives, family size, and procedures involving reproductive and fertility treatments required the consent of both husband and wife. The information and means to make those decisions, as well as skilled attendance during prenatal care, essential obstetric care, childbirth, and postpartum care were freely available. While the government did not provide any formal family planning programs, contraceptives were available without prescription to citizens and noncitizens.
Discrimination: Women have many political rights, including the right to vote and serve in parliament and the cabinet, but they do not enjoy the same rights as men under family law, property law, or in the judicial system. Sharia (Islamic law) courts have jurisdiction over personal status and family law cases for Sunni and Shia Muslims. Sharia discriminates against women in judicial proceedings, freedom of movement (see section 1.d.), marriage, and inheritance. Secular courts allow any person to testify and consider male and female testimony equally, but in the sharia courts, the testimony of a man equals that of two women.
The law prohibits marriage between Muslim women and non-Muslim men. The law does not require a non-Muslim woman to convert to Islam to marry a Muslim man, but many non-Muslim women faced strong economic and societal pressure to convert. In the event of a divorce, the law grants the fathers custody of children of non-Muslim women who fail to convert. A non-Muslim woman who fails to convert is also ineligible for naturalization as a citizen and cannot inherit her husband’s property unless specified as a beneficiary in his will.
Inheritance is also governed by sharia, which varies according to the specific school of Islamic jurisprudence followed by different populations in the country. In the absence of a direct male heir, a Shia woman may inherit all property while a Sunni woman inherits only a portion, with the balance divided among brothers, uncles, and male cousins of the deceased.
In June the National Assembly passed an amendment that gave divorced and widowed women additional house ownership and rent allowance rights and allocations, but authorities had not implemented the law by year’s end. In July the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor granted a “housewife allowance” to nonworking women age 55 and older.
Female citizens remain unable to pass citizenship to their noncitizen husbands or their children; exceptions were made for some children of widowed or divorced female citizens. Male citizens married to female noncitizens did not face such discrimination.
The law states a woman should receive “remuneration equal to that of a man provided she does the same work,” although it prohibits women from working in “dangerous industries” and in trades “harmful” to health. According to international assessments, the average working woman earned 6,600 dinar ($23,385) annually, compared with 18,691 dinar ($66,231) for the average working man. Only 14 percent of managers, legislators, and senior officials were women. Educated women maintained the conservative nature of society restricted career opportunities, although there were limited improvements. Women comprise 72 percent of annual college graduates, according to statistics from 2011, but account for just 53 percent of the 270,000 citizens working in the public sector and 44 percent of the 60,000 citizens working in the private sector.
The law requires segregation by gender of classes at all universities and secondary schools. Public universities enforced this law more rigorously than private universities.
Two members of the 50-seat parliament elected in July were women. By early December a parliamentary committee for women’s and family affairs had not yet been established or staffed, although such a committee existed in previous parliaments. Some women attained prominent positions in business as heads of corporations. Two women served as ministers in the cabinet.
There were no female judges. For the first time, however, the Judicial Institute accepted 22 women during the year. Graduation from the institute is a prerequisite for employment as a prosecutor or judge.
April 11, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Kuwait, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Marriage, Social Issues, Women's Issues |
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From todays Arab Times Kuwait:
‘Wasta’ Major Setback In Battle Against Crime; Some Police Not Keen To Tackle Issues
In this week’s online poll, the Arab Times probed the factors that are blunting the efforts to fight crime in Kuwait. A majority of the voters felt that Wasta is a major setback to the fight against crime. About 56% of the voters felt this way.
Speaking to the Arab Times, respondents said criminals use Wasta to escape the long arm of the law. “I know a citizen who routinely cuts red lights. He pats his back and says that he has Wasta to dodge penalties. This is a traffic offence, and may not be considered a crime. However, if this is possible in the case of traffic offences, it should be possible in major crimes too.” Another respondent shared a personal experience when one of his neighbors had a conflict with the landlord.
The neighbor decided to go to the court, and he was asked to pay the rent there. However, the person in charge of collecting the rent in the court gave lame excuses and avoiding collecting the amount in time. The landlord used this as a pretext to procure an ejection notice from the court. “It looks like some authorities in the court were in cahoots with the landlord to deny justice to my neighbor.”
About 13% of the voters felt that law keepers themselves become law breakers, and that’s why it becomes hard to fight crimes. Respondents cited the example of the recent case that made headlines when cops raped a woman in her flat, entering her flat under the pretext of looking for residence violators. “This is an example of policemen stooping to the lowest level, becoming worse than criminals.” Others brought up a report that Arab Times had published some time back about the ‘Trolley Mafia” in the airport. “The workers in the airport literally extort money from the passengers forcing the trolley service on them for a charge of 500 fils.
They do not let us take the trolley.” Respondents said it’s highly improbable for this mafia to work in this fashion without the knowledge and blessings of the concerned authorities in the airport, especially after the report coming in the newspapers several times. One of the respondents said that he had an altercation with one of the workers in the airport over the trolley. “I used an expletive in the course of the heated exchange, and the worker complained to a policeman in duty.
The cop came over to me to inquire if I had used the bad word, but as he didn’t speak our language I told him that it was only an impolite word, and not a bad word. The officer went to the extent of calling another passenger, who spoke our language, to verify if what I was saying was true. To my good luck, the passenger concurred with me.
The officer let me go, but then I complained to him about the worker who was trying to extort money from me. The officer walked away as if he couldn’t care less.” The trolley mafia is continuing to operate without any hassles, and people suspect the tacit support of the authorities.
About 16% of the voters said that the police are not very keen on solving crimes, and that is encouraging criminals. Other reasons for the increase in crime in the society, according to the poll, included unemployed youth wanting to make quick money, corrupt politicians and crime getting accepted as a part of life. However, these only won very small percentage of votes. A very tiny fraction of voters felt that criminals are getting smarter.
By: Valiya S Sajjad Arab Times Staff
April 11, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Community, Crime, Cultural, ExPat Life, Kuwait, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Local Lore |
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Abdullah Al Dawood, Saudi Islamic Cleric, Claims PE Classes For Girls Is First Step To Prostitution
Saudi Arabia is getting closer to adding physical education classes for girls to public schools, but some conservative Islamic clerics are slamming the move as a “Western innovation,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
After the kingdom’s advisory Shoura Council voted 92-18 on Tuesday to advise the Ministry of Education to look into girls’ P.E. classes, conservatives made their ire known on social media — and they got very dramatic.
“If we keep silent about the step of adding PE classes to girls’ schools then we are giving the Shoura Council a green light to continue the steps of Westernization and these steps will end in infidelity and prostitution,” tweeted Abdullah Al Dawood, according to WSJ.
Saudi Arabia is currently facing a health crisis, as a study found that a shocking 44% of Saudi women are obese.
Though gender roles remain traditional in the Islamic nation, Saudi Arabia made history two years ago when it included women on its Olympic team for the first time.
Reuters reports that the Shoura Council asked the Ministry of Education to look into gym for girls with the caveat that all classes conform to sharia regulations regarding attire and gender segregation.
April 11, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Cultural, Exercise, ExPat Life, Health Issues, Living Conditions, Local Lore, Saudi Arabia, Women's Issues | Abdullah Al Dawood |
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Today the church prays for the diocese of Byumba, in Rwanda. There is Rwanda, below, right in the heart of Africa, nestled between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi.
Rwanda was in the news this last week for something very special. Most of our western news stations gave it zero coverage, but you could catch a glimpse online. This, from the Christian Science Monitor: on an amazing event just twenty years after one of the worst genocides in my memory. To me, it is wonderful and inspiring that they forgive one another and love one another to live in peace with one another. It gives me hope for our world.
What to celebrate in Rwanda’s genocide anniversary
The 20th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide should focus as much on how the African nation worked toward reconciliation through forgiveness as on the mass slaughter itself.
This month, Rwanda marks the 20th anniversary of an event that its name is most associated with – the 1994 mass slaughter of the Tutsi minority and many in the majority Hutu. Over 100 days starting April 7, more than 800,000 people were killed, many by neighbors incited to ethnic hatred by a political elite. It is a genocide often cited since then to justify military intervention in similar ongoing atrocities.
But another lesson from Rwanda’s experience deserves to be remembered – an amazing reconciliation of killers and survivors through individual confession and forgiveness in nonjudicial village courts.
This type of reparative justice in an intimate setting could prove useful in countries that will need post-conflict healing, such as Syria, Colombia, andMyanmar (Burma). It might also help prevent a cycle of revenge and retribution in those countries, as it has in Rwanda.
Most of Rwanda’s main perpetrators in the genocide have been tried in regular courts, either in Rwanda, Europe,, or the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up by the United Nations. But for hundreds of thousands of others who were charged with killing, the Rwandan criminal-justice system was too weak and its jails too full. Legal trials would have taken decades. The country had to fall back on a form of community-based traditional justice known asgacaca.
Other post-conflict countries in transition, notably South Africa, have relied on a similar process with their truth-and-reconciliation commissions. But the bodies have usually been more formal and national in scope. Rwanda’s gacaca are far more personal, designed to achieve the end result of allowing people who knew each other to resume living in the same community. They also bring together an entire village to witness a confession, attest to its sincerity, encourage forgiveness by the victim, and agree on some reparation, such as helping till a victim’s fields for a time.
It hasn’t worked in every case. Many Tutsis who killed Hutus have not been tried. Many victims could not bear the trauma of hearing how their loved ones had died. And many Hutus disappeared or were able to hide from the truth.
The government under President Paul Kagame, despite its drift toward authoritarian rule, has encouraged the process by outlawing formal use of ethnic identities. “The divisionism of before is gone. All of us now have equal access to opportunities,” a young Rwandan told The Christian Science Monitor.
The gacaca rely on the guilty to listen to the stories of their victims with empathy, admit their acts with repentance, and rethink their self-identity within the community. For the victims who forgive, the process can lift feelings of rage and bitterness. Much of the justice lies in the restoration of relationships as much as in material reparations.
Rwanda is not yet a “post-ethnic” African nation. But the possibility of a future political class inciting Hutus and Tutsis to take up violence now seems slim. More Rwandans have a higher sense of identity.
As the world helps Rwanda mark the 1994 genocide, it should also spread the lessons of this post-genocide reconciliation. Dispute resolution is a common technique in every society, whether in families or courts. But when almost every village in an entire nation goes through it, the lesson is worth repeating elsewhere.
April 11, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Africa, Charity, Circle of Life and Death, Civility, Cultural, Events, Faith, Leadership, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Relationships, Social Issues, Values | Genocide, Rwanda |
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It happened to me. I was working in the best job I ever had, working harder than I had ever worked and loving the work I was doing. Then raise time came, and I got a raise, but I knew it was not as much as the young guy who had started after I started. I liked the young guy; we worked together a lot and we worked together well. Sometimes he disappeared, sometimes for a long time. As it turned out, he suffered from depression, and I ended up doing a lot of his work.
So I confronted my boss, and said it was unfair that he had gotten the larger raise and I the smaller. My boss said “Intlxpatr, you have a husband who makes a lot of money and this young man is just getting started.” It had nothing to do with merit, quality of work, productiveness – it had to do with me being a woman who had a husband who provides for me. I know that to some of you reading this, that makes sense, but to me, even from the time I was a young girl, it makes no sense at all. You pay what the work is worth, regardless of sex. Regardless of nationality. Regardless of marital status. That’s FAIR.
I didn’t quit. The boss moved on and the next boss gave me a giant raise to stay. I loved that job 🙂
WASHINGTON — Democrats’ push for pay equity between men and women is “condescending,” one of the top women in the House Republican leadership argued Tuesday, suggesting that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women’s contributions to the workforce.
Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.), the GOP conference’s vice chair, made her comments flanked by her fellow leaders in the House at their weekly news conference, and suggested that the campaign for equal pay for equal work reflects a lack of understanding of women’s contributions to the workforce.
“Please allow me to set the record straight. We strongly support equal pay for equal work, and I’m proud that I live in a country where it’s illegal to discriminate in the workplace thanks to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” said Jenkins. “Some folks don’t understand that women have become an extremely valuable part of the workforce today on their own merit, not because the government mandated it.”
Jenkins went on to belittle Democratic efforts on the issue.
“Many ladies I know feel like they are being used as pawns, and find it condescending [that] Democrats are trying to use this issue as a political distraction from the failures of their economic policy,” Jenkins said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), speaking on the Senate floor Tuesday morning, appeared to slam the Democrats’ push as cheap political showmanship and accuse Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who had just addressed the issue, of playing games.
“Yesterday, here in the Senate, Republicans were hoping the Democrat Majority Leader would finally work with us to pass a job creation package that contains ideas from many of our members — legislation with provisions several key Democrats support too,” McConnell said. “But that’s not what the Majority Leader chose to do. Instead of focusing on jobs, he launched into another confusing attack on the Left’s latest bizarre obsession. Democrats chose to ignore serious job-creation ideas so they could blow a few kisses to their powerful pals on the left.”
However, shortly after this story was posted, McConnell’s office said his remarks were being misconstrued. Spokesmen pointed to his use of the word “yesterday,” and said that he had been referencing Reid’s Monday speech targeting the billionaire Koch brothers, rather than his procedural motion, also on Monday, to begin work on the Democrats’ Fair Pay Act.
According to many independent assessments, women who do the same job as a man are often paid significantly less, on average earning just 77 cents to a man’s dollar. Even when many of the factors that lead women to make different job choices are controlled for, significant gaps remain.
Jenkins did not address the issue of women getting paid less for the same job, but suggested that women simply tend to choose different jobs.
“When it comes to employment, the fact is many women seek jobs that provide more flexibility for their family over more money, which is the choice that I made as a young working mom,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins’ and McConnell’s opinions notwithstanding, women overwhelmingly backed the Democratic ticket in the last election, running up the largest gender gap in the history of Gallup polling. Women supported President Barack Obama over GOP nominee Mitt Romney by a 12-point margin.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) chose his words more carefully than his colleagues at the press event when asked whether there was anything in terms of legislation that Republicans would consider doing to address the gap.
Though Cantor demurred from offering new ideas, he did tweak the White House, noting reports that women working there get paid about 88 cents on the dollar, compared to men.
He said a better idea than passing new laws was trying to enforce the old ones.
“I point to the White House, and say what it is that they’re doing? They’ve got a problem in the White House,” said Cantor. “Let’s put the politics aside.”
He suggested that repealing part of Obamacare would help, and pointed to a bill the House GOP passed last week that would change the definition of full-time work in the law from 30 hours a week to 40.
“If you look to see those most impacted, it’s women. Sixty-three percent of those impacted by the 30-hour workweek rule are women,” Cantor said. “If the Senate Democrats would pick [the bill] up, we could help women right now.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, employers must provide health insurance for full-time workers, currently defined as people employed more than 30 hours per week. Republicans argue that because of that, employers are pushing people — in this case, mostly women — into part-time work, although independent fact-checkers havefound that claim to be false.
This article was updated after a spokesman for McConnell clarified the intended meaning of his remarks.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post.
April 8, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Family Issues, Financial Issues, Leadership, Living Conditions, Political Issues, Relationships, Social Issues, Women's Issues, Work Related Issues |
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From Doha News:
At this time last year, Alison Patterson was celebrating Mother’s Day in the UK with two of her three children. Her eldest daughter Lauren was working in Qatar, and sent a gift and a card home, as she always did when she was away.
Today, things are very different for the Patterson family. Daughter Lauren was killed in October by acquaintances in Doha, and on Thursday, a criminal court here found two Qatari men responsible for the 24-year-old teacher’s murder.
One of the defendants, 22-year-old Badr Hashim Khamis Abdullah Al-Jabar, was given a death sentence.
The other, 24-year-old Muhammad Abdullah Hassan Abdul Aziz, was handed a three-year jail term for helping Al-Jabar burn Patterson’s body, which was considered damaging and erasing evidence.
At the time of the sentencing, Alison Patterson told media that “justice was served” in the case of Al-Jabar, but that she was deeply upset with Abdul Aziz’s lighter sentence.
In an interview with Doha Newstoday, Patterson said she is worried that neither of the convicted men will pay for what they did to her daughter.
“Is it something that’s just been said – and that’s never going to happen?” she asked.
At the root of her doubts is a scene she witnessed after Thursday’s verdict inside the courthouse. Patterson had gone in search of her two younger children, and ended up passing a sitting area where the defendants were being held.
“They were just laughing and joking with each other,” she said. “It just almost makes me feels that they were laughing at what happened. They have no respect for the sentence they’ve been given.”
Another issue that troubles her is that Qatar has not executed any prisoners in more than a decade, according to Amnesty International.
Prior to her daughter’s death, Patterson said she never gave the death penalty much thought. But after being told that Al-Jabar sexually assaulted her daughter, stabbed her to death and then attempted to burn her remains at a farm outside of Doha, she said she supported the punishment.
“Lauren came home in a box the weighed 7 kilos,” Patterson said with regards to her daughter’s remains. “She weighed 50 kilos when she died.”
Other questions
Patterson has also been unable to shake an argument she read on a recent blog post about her daughter’s case on “Muslims Worldwide,” which she found while googling Lauren’s name.
The site appears to be full of hate speech about Islam and its adherents, but the post on Patterson struck a chord with Lauren’s mother because it questioned whether the quick sentencing of Al-Jabar was done so that officials could close the book on this crime, which the prosecutor called “heinous, foreign and shocking to a society as conservative as Qatar’s.”
The blog post reads:
“Sharia gives no justice to a kafir (non-Muslim/non-believer). And it never gives a death sentence to a Muslim over a crime committed against a non-Muslim…
So why would they announce the ‘death penalty’ if it is not given out? To appease the media. This case has been circulating all over the world. Arabs can’t stand negative media attention…These Arab countries make bogus claims of justice only to get the media off their back. In reality they keep them in prison and release them after 1-2 years.”
The last sticking point is that the verdicts must pass through two appellate courts here before they’re officially final, meaning closure could be some ways off for Patterson and her family.
Waiting
Speaking to Doha News, Patterson’s partner Kevin Crotty said they were grateful for all the Qatari government has done to ensure a speedy trial.
“They’ve been more than generous and more than reasonable,” he said. “Everything’s been done that should have been done. But them (the defendants) smiling – and the lighter sentence for the second one… Ultimately, we’ve always felt the political angle was there. Is there something that we should worry about?”
The Pattersons’ lawyer, Sami Abu Shaikha, has said he plans to appeal Abdul Aziz’s three-year sentence, asking for a more severe penalty.
Meanwhile, Alison Patterson, who has started smoking again after 15 years due to the stress of all that’s happened, said she knows that whatever the outcome, the pain will likely never go away.
“There will never be peace. (But) I just really don’t want to be let down,” she said.
April 6, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Crime, Cultural, Doha, ExPat Life, Law and Order, Living Conditions, Safety |
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Yesterday we had a crew at our house helping us get the gardens cleared out and some replacements put in. Most of our plants had survived the first great freeze, but the second freeze did them in – or so we thought.
Even the bougainvillea, which people assured me would not thrive in Pensacola, shows signs of coming back. The Plumbago, originally a native of South Africa, is showing some tiny signs of resilience. The grasses survived; we even took part of the Pampas grass and started a new area elsewhere. The mints, the lavender, the thyme, oregano, cilantro, the parsleys, the rosemarys – they thrived. The sages are coming back with a vengence. The drift roses are blooming early. It is truly a fabulous Spring, full of hope and a little replanting.
One of our very favorites, the Mona Lavender (which is not a lavender at all, but a gorgeous shrubby plant) totally bit the dust. My cherished begonia looks melted. I have accepted that it’s not coming back.
Pensacola this week is a sea of azaleas. Who knew azaleas came in so many vibrant colors? While many yards are that intense fuchsia, there are also yards full of white, pink, deep coral, light coral, deep burgundy azaleas. I smile every time I see them and think of our Saudi friend living here, who called them Ah-za-LEE-as. We call them that now, too, just between AdventureMan and me. 🙂
I can only guess that something in the great Pensacola freeze ignited in the azaleas an urge toward survival that resulted in the most amazing display of luxurious, abundant blossoms I have ever seen.
April 4, 2014
Posted by intlxpatr |
Beauty, Cultural, ExPat Life, Florida, Gardens, Living Conditions, Pensacola, Weather |
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Here There and Everywhere 