What is This?
Does anyone know what this is? On the right of the (whatever) in the foreground is some kind of station with a shack and machinery. A boat comes and visits it from time to time. Whatever this is stays a few days, and then the boat comes and moves it somewhere else. At one point, maybe they were drawing nets up, but it was night. I could see silvery flashes – fish? – but it also may have been moonlight. . .
The two pieces shown seem to be related. The closest seems to be rusty pipe on floats. The second is linked floats . . . but I cannot figure out what they are doing.
Top Posts
The Top Posts column in WordPress statistics disappeared for a few days, and oh! I really missed it. I’m not so interested in the total numbers as in what people find the most interesting. I love the new Top Posts system, where you can click on a little icon that looks like a graph, and it shows you the total history of that particular post – how often people look for it and choose it, not coming from some aggregator, but from somewhere like a google search. I like it that WordPress keeps improving itself, and listens to our feedback.
Targeted
On my way home from a meeting today, there was a guy in a big hurry. First he was behind me, in his great big beat-up black Chevy SUV, then passing me, and then, there he was, right in front of me at the next light. Here’s what gets my attention. On his lower left rear, just above the bumper, are three bullet holes, pretty closely spaced, too. It’s not easy to place three bullets that close together, and I can only imagine that it was done while at least one car was in motion, if not two.
So I’m impressed; someone around here is a sharp shooter.
But why would anyone be shooting at another car here in Kuwait? I can’t remember seeing another car with bullet holes.
Bloggers and Productivity
A teeny note found at the bottom of page 36 in the October 9th
-
New Yorker
(yeh, I’m a little behind in my reading . . .)
“A report last week by Advertising Age Editor at Large Bradley Johnson noted that about 35 million workers – or one in four people in the U.S. labor force – spend an average of 3.5 hours, or 9% of each work day reading blogs.”
I’m not all that great in math, but wouldn’t 3.5 hours of a work day be more than 9%? Depending on whether you work a fairly standard seven – eight hour day, that would be nearly HALF your working day. They must have meant 9% of the work week . . . still, significantly cutting into productive working time.
Fundamentally Green
Yesterday on National Public Radio, they did a segment on evangelical churches going “green”, i.e. environmentally conscious, and the problems it was causing the Republican party, who count on fundamental support.
Many of the churches are focusing on our stewardship of the environment, and setting up all kinds of recycle programs, calling in their “environmental tithe: (10% of your income.)
The problem is, the Democratic party is the party focused on the environment. So with the November elections coming up, NPR was examining how the shift in thinking will influence the voting.
There are other issues on which Democrats and Republicans differ – my guess is that those issues will have more influence on how people vote. But it is interesting that the “green” issue was raised – it could be a growing influence. The baby-boom generation are still a big voting bloc, and things may shift as they near retirement, and focus differently.
Kuwait Skyline
I used to use Nikon. I had ones with big lenses, and a small one. Then, one day, my sister put a Panasonic Lumix in my hands and said “just try this. Don’t even read the instruction book, just see if you can figure it out.”
She was ordering one for her daughter and wanted to know if I wanted one, too. Five minutes later, I said “yes” and I never looked back.
The first year, I shot both film and digital, but this little Lumix (Leica lens, Panasonic body) just knocks my socks off. It fits in my purse, it is light as a feather, and has the equivalent of a 420mm lens. It shoots in low light, and it shoots fast. It is quiet, just a little tiny “tink” when you shoot.
My only regret is that I didn’t go digital sooner.
I hate concrete box apartments. I love it when people add a little interest. It may not always be my taste, but it brings a grin to my face. Here’s an apartment building in Salwa that we watched going up – underneath this fabulous Yemani-style facade is – a plain, dark, concrete block! But you would never know it from the outside:
And the next is just down the road from it – I think the two are related, and I believe both are facades. They brighten my day.
The photos are weird because I shot them through the window driving along 30/Fehaheel Expressway – not the camera’s fault. And no, I wasn’t driving. 😉
Get Out of Jail Free Card
Who could be whispering my name?
I was in the Jarir bookstore, on my way to the airport after a three week visit to Saudi Arabia. My husband wanted me to get a feel for the place before moving there to be with him. To my surprise, I really liked Saudi Arabia, what little I had seen of it. And I really wanted to be with my husband. But who could be calling my name?
“I can’t believe it! Is that you, teacher?”
I turned to see a traditionally garbed man, whom I instantly recognized as my former student in classes I had taught back in the US.
“Khalid! Khalid! I am so glad to see you!” I exclaimed, and I was. Khalid was one of my very best students, before he disappeared from classes. He was bright, he studied hard, and from time to time, he would even practice hard and tell a joke in English. He was a student any teacher would remember. He had more maturity than the other students, who treated him with respect, but he also had a delightful sense of humor.
Instantly, my husband and two other men who had come with us to the bookstore were standing between Khalid and me. I knew they were protecting me, so I quickly explained who Khalid was, and introduced him to the men with me.
“You remembered my name!” he said with an astonished look.
“Of course!” I assured him, “You were one of my best students. I missed you when you left.”
“Truly God works in mysterious ways,” Khalid looked dazed. “I never dreamed I would see you again, and here you are, in my country.”
We had to leave. Khalid gave me his card, and asked that I call so his mother could invite me for tea. I told him I wouldn’t be back for a couple months, and he said he was hoping to start legal studies in London in January.
In the car, my husband and the other two guys were cracking up, slapping their knees, almost howling with laughter. I was annoyed; what was so funny about my running into an old friend?
“He’s a muttawa!” they exclaimed, continuing their cackles, “You’re friend is a muttawa!”
The muttawa, the religious police in Saudi Arabia, are kind of the boogeyman, and we scare one another telling Muttawa stories. The problem is that you never know what new rules are going to go into effect, or what old rules they will begin enforcing. Our embassy guidance, for example, was that we were NOT to cover our hair, that it was a choice made by Moslem women, but not a requirement for non-Moslem women. We were also told to carry a scarf and not to argue if a muttawa told us to cover our hair, but to cover, and to take it off again when out of sight.
We were told that if our abaya was too short, a muttawa might hit our legs with sticks. We were told not to laugh, and to keep our eyes lowered to the ground to avoid problems. We were told that sometimes you might be arrested and not even know what you were being arrested for, and to always carry your cell phone with the embassy number on speed dial. In short, we lived in terror of arbitrary powers of the dreaded muttawa.
“Khalid is muttawa?” I couldn’t believe my ears. My husband explained how you could identify muttawa, the short robes, the lack of egal, the sandals, and that Khalid had probably broken the rules he was in Jarir to enforce by having spoken to me.
I never saw Khalid again, not in the Jarir bookstore, not anywhere. I am guessing by the time I returned to live in Riyadh, he was in London studying. But I often think of his amazement, and my own, in that one-time encounter. I often think, as he said, that “God works in mysterious ways.” I wish him well.
For me, I was never again terrified of the Muttawa. Khalid was muttawa, and he was a good man. I carried Khalid’s card with me, and figured if ever I was arrested (never even came close) that I would tell them to call Khalid, and he would help me. I thought of it as my “Get out of Jail Free” card.
Going back to the Locard Exchange Principal . . . knowing Khalid as a student and as a person made a difference to me. It colored my ideas about the muttawa, made me less afraid. If the Locard Exchange Principal works on a social and spiritual level, I wonder if knowing me has colored his perceptions?
The Mermaid of Mangaf
This was just another apartment block going up until they started adding the glass. I was WOWed.
It’s called the Mermaid, and the glass going up has the feeling of ocean waves. It’s so much more interesting than the hideous blocks of concrete with their tiny windows. Waves of glass . . . cool idea.
Would you even know you’d been INSULTED?
A friend sent these in today’s e-mails. Some are so smooth I wonder if I would catch them just hearing them spoken . . .
When Insults Had Class
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” — Winston Churchill
“A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” — Winston Churchill
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”
— Clarence Darrow
“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”
— William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”
— Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
“Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” — Moses Hadas
“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” — Abraham Lincoln
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” — Groucho Marx
“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” — Mark Twain
“He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” — Oscar Wilde
“I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend… if you have one.”
— George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
“Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second… if there is one.” — Winston Churchill, in response
“I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here.” — Stephen Bishop
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” — John Bright
“I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” — Irvin S. Cobb
“He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others.” — Samuel Johnson
“He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” — Paul Keating
“He had delusions of adequacy.” — Walter Kerr
“There’s nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won’t cure.” — Jack E. Leonard
“He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.”
— Robert Redford
“They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.”
— Thomas Brackett Reed
“He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them.” — James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
“In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” — Charles, Count Talleyrand
“He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.”
— Forrest Tucker
“Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?”– Mark Twain
“His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.”– Mae West
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.”– Oscar Wilde
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.”– Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
“He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.”
— Billy Wilder
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Here There and Everywhere 