Barnes and Noble Reward
I’ve been so good. I haven’t spent much money at all, I have kept my shopping under control, even though there are things I see in the stores that make my blood run faster and give me the urge to pull out my credit card.
So I rewarded myself. I knew Philipa Gregory had a new book out called The Other Queen and so I allowed myself a trip to Barnes and Noble. I only came out with four books, and one is for someone else! Woooo HOOOOO on me!
A long time ago, I read a book by Katherine Neville called The Eight. It’s kind of like the Da Vinci Code would be if it were written by someone who kept track of his plot thread, researched his topic a little better and had something important to say about how international finance operations are run. I’ve read it more than once, I like it so much, so I am eager to see how this one works out. I like her characters, I like how they develop insight and put the puzzle pieces together.
Philippa Gregory writes total page-turners, and I always hated English history, but she makes it come alive, makes all those historical characters into flesh-and-blood human beings, so I feel like I know them. (Some of them I want to throttle. That’s a good author!)
LeCarre – he is amazing. He is brilliant. Have you read The Constant Gardener? This man has something to say, and what he says is deep, and troubling.
The Will Shortz New York Times Puzzle book is for someone a lot smarter than I am.
Maggie O’Farrell and The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
Maggie O’Farrel’s The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is also a book club pick, but oh, what a pick! I remember somewhere reading a review; I might never have picked this book up if I hadn’t needed to read it for the club. And oh, what I might have missed!
It’s like the scariest book ever written, scary in a Margaret Atwood kind of way, a reminder that women have not had rights for very long, and that those rights are still very fragile. When economies go bottoms-up, when unemployment begins rising, women are often the first to suffer, and women’s rights the first to go. In hard times, men will be preferred hirings, because they have families to support, laws to “protect” women are passed, especially laws which “protect” her finances, meaning gives the power of the money management to some man to do for her, or “protect” her person by requiring that some man accompany her to keep her from dangers. Protection = control. It keeps some smart, thinking women submissive to men who are in every way their inferior.
In Vanishing, Maggie O’Farrel writes of such a woman, Esme Lennox, who is a fey spirit, born in India, with the eyes of an artist. While her “good” sister Kitty obeys the rules, walks the straight and narrow path, Esme is messier. As she grows to adolescence, her eccentricity and her rebellion against the constricts of the life in turn-of-the-century Scotland chafe, she yearns for more room to breathe, intellectually, socially, as her family, her community and her society continues to pressure her to conform.
One of the key events in the book is the death of Esme’s baby brother, of typhoid fever. Abandoned, Esme sits holding her dead brother’s body for three days until her family returns (the baby-keeper also died and the other employees deserted while Esme’s family was away). Esme is devastated, but the focus is on her mother, who is wrought with guilt and isolates herself, and Esme, only a little girl, is forbidden to even say her beloved baby brother’s name. Part of what plays a huge role in this book is society, expectations, and all that is hidden and unspoken – as Esme becomes, a family secret, locked away for sixty years.
Their grandmother swept into the room ‘Kitty,’ there was an unaccustomed smile on her face, ‘stir yourself. You have a visitor.’
Kitty put down her needle. ‘Who?’
Their mother appeared behind the grandmother. ‘Kitty,’ she said ‘quickly put that away. He’s here, he’s downstairs . . . ‘
. . . .
Esme watched from the window-seat as her mother started fiddling with Kitty’s hari, tucking it behind her ears, then releasing it. . . . . Ishbel turned and, catching sight of Esme at the window, said ‘You, too. Quickly now.’
Esme took the stairs slowly. She had no desire to meet one of Kitty’s suitors. They all seemed the same to her – nervous men with over-combed hair, scrubbed hands and pressed shirts. They came and drank tea, and she and Kitty were expected to talk to them while their mother sat like an umpire in a chair across the room. The whole thing made Esme want to burst into honesty, to say, let’s forget this charade, do you want to marry her or not?
She dawdled on the landing, looking at a grim, grey-skied watercolour of the Fife coast. But her grandmother appeared in the hall below. ‘Esme!’ she hissed, and Esme clattered down the stairs.
In the drawing room, she plumped down in a chair with high arms in the corner. She wound her ankles round its polished legs and eyed the suitor. The same as ever. Perhaps a little more good-looking than some of the others. Blond hair, an arrogant forehead, fastidious cuffs. He was asking Ishbel something about the roses in a bowl on the table. Esme had to repress the urge to roll her eyes. Kitty was sitting bolt upright on the sofa, pouring tea into a cup, a blush creeping up her neck.
Esme began playing the game she often played with herself at times like this, looking over the room and working out how she might get round it without touching the floor. She could climb from the sofa to the low table and, from there, to the fender stool. Along that, and then –
She realized her mother was loooking at her, saying something.
‘What was that?” Esme said.
‘James was addressing you.’ her mother said, and the slight flare of her nostrils meant, Esme knew, that she’d better behave or there would be trouble later.
As with many inconvenient women, Esme ends up committed at a loony-bin, and sixty years later, is released into the custody of a grand-niece who never even knew Esme existed.
The thoughts, trials and escapades of three women, Esme, her sister Kitty, and Iris, the grand-niece, intertwine through out the book, and the picture is cloudy at first, blurry, shifting, fragmented The pattern becomes more and more clear as the three threads of thought are woven – ever more tightly – together.
I could not put this book down. Finding out how the picture came together became more important than checking my messages, my blog, or fixing dinner. It was compelling, and resulted in a quick and unforgettable read.
Obama and Dreams From My Father
It took me 20 days, but I finished Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father. I didn’t read it because he is President of the United States, although that would be a good reason, but I read it because our book club is reading it, and I know how busy the next few months are going to be, so I read ahead during the slower times of summer.
And the trick to finishing it was not allowing myself to read anything else until I had finished – I had a stack of really intriguing books to urge me on. “As soon as I finish, I can read . . . ” Even with all that incentive, Obama’s book is a slog.
He is a gifted orator. He is a plodding writer. There is also a problem I find with autobiographies by anyone – we all fool ourselves, we all position ourselves in a better light, and we have no idea how transparent we are when we do so. Fellow bloggers, do you ever read anything you have written a couple years ago and squirm with embarrassment, or even delete? To be an author is a very very brave thing, when you have a book published, there is no going back, your transgressions are all right out there, and the public can be cruelly critical.
What I liked about the book is Obama-as-Third-Culture-Kid, a man of mixed identity. Most kids who have grown up moving or grown up in different countries from their own, or who have immigrated, can tell you, being an alien is no fun. Obama learns how to adapt, how to look for clues to fitting in, how to pass. It’s a common theme in Third-Culture-Kids.
My favorite part of the book was his return to Kenya, his openness to his African roots, the open-armed love with which his Kenyan half-brothers and sisters welcome him and his response. He had some truly extraordinary adventures, working out just who his father had been as a person. He was blessed to recognize the richness of his inheritance.
The book plods along, but it was worth the time. For all it’s flaws, I find I like that man, and I understand more about where he is coming from. (for grammarians, I understand more about from where the man is coming.) 🙂
Ex-Wife Confesses to Setting Kuwait Wedding Tent Fire
From today’s Kuwait Times So like, you are the taxi driver, a woman gets in your cab with two containers full of gasoline, and you drop her off at a wedding tent? (It doesn’t say if he was told to wait) Like wouldn’t that make you a little concerned?
Her maids knew about her threats. Wouldn’t you think someone might warn her family?
I know that there is a way of looking at this that makes it more comprehensible, but it is so far beyond me, except that I have heard multiple times about in-laws interfering in marriages, and I imagine it could make you homicidal. But oh, this is the stuff of legend.
If she was married to the groom in this wedding at one time, isn’t there a likelihood that she is from that same family?
Ex-wife consumed with burning anger
Published Date: August 18, 2009
By A Saleh, Staff writer
KUWAIT: The woman arrested in connection with the Jahra wedding tent fire, which killed 42 people and injured dozens more, some critically, has confessed to starting the blaze. The woman, the ex-wife of the bridegroom, made her confession during police questioning, which began at 2:30 am on Sunday morning. The questioning was personally supervised by Brigadier Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah, the Assistant Director General of Criminal Detectives for Governorate Affairs.
Asked about her motives for starting the fire, the unidentified 23-year-old woman said that she had wanted to take revenge on her parents-in-law, whom she accused of destroying her marriage. She added that she had argued continually with them, saying they wanted to “burn” her heart by making her ex-husband marry another woman. Asked by the interviewing officers whether she had experienced problems with her husband, she said these problems had increased because of his family, adding that he had begun to beat her and create problems due to believing what his family told him about her.
She said she had been considering setting the wedding tent alight since she learned about the wedding party, adding that nobody else had known about her plans. Asked if she had intended to kill those in the tent, she told officers, “Of course not. I only wanted to disturb the party.
When the officers questioning her asked if she knew that more than 40 people had died due to her actions and the number may increase, she collapsed and began crying. After calming down, she explained how she had set the tent on fire, telling officers that on the night of the wedding she had taken a taxi to the home of her parents-in-law in Jahra, carrying two bottles filled with petrol. On arriving, she simply walked up to the tent, poured the petrol on it and set it alight before fleeing. She then took an
other taxi and returned to her home.
While on her way there, she received a text message from her in-laws accusing her of starting the fire. She then called her brother and told him that she was going to Rabiya police station to register a complaint about the message. When the officers asked her if her brother knew that she was behind the fire, she said, “Of course not. I told him I was going out and he didn’t know about the fire.
The woman said that once she arrived at the police station to make the complaint, however, she said that the desk officer there refused to register it, telling her that nobody had accused her of anything. After that, she said, she had gone to her parents’ home until “you arrested me and sent me to the Criminal Investigation Department in Salmiya.
A total of 43 women and children have died and 90 other people were injured in the inferno, fire chief General Jassem Al-Mansouri said, the deadliest civilian disaster in the modern history of the Gulf state. Health Minister Helal Al-Sayer said that 38 wounded women have been discharged after receiving the necessary treatment. Of the 52 wounded still in hospital, at least five are in critical condition with extremely severe burns, the minister said, adding that some others have suffered moderate burns.
Thirty-one of the dead were buried on Sunday and yesterday while forensics officials are still busy trying to establish the identities of the other victims. At least seven of the dead are children. Specialized medical teams from Germany and Britain were scheduled to arrive yesterday to treat the injured.
Kuwait Wedding Fire: Did Bride Survive?
AOL News is carrying this report, saying “it is unclear whether the bride survived.” I know I read in the Kuwait Times yesterday that the bride did survive, but her mother and sister did not. Which is true?
Fatal Wedding Fire Called Criminal Act
Kuwaiti Newspaper Says Groom’s Angry Ex-Wife Started Deadly Blaze
By DIANA ELIAS, AP
KUWAIT CITY (Aug. 17) – Kuwaiti authorities have apprehended the person suspected of setting fire to a wedding tent and killing 41 people and said Monday the motive was personal. Local newspapers reported the groom’s ex-wife was the arsonist.
The inferno Saturday night in the tribal area of al-Jahra, west of Kuwait City, ate up the women’s tent in just three minutes and left behind bodies so charred they were unrecognizable. Guests likely crushed one another in a desperate attempt to flee. It was still unclear if the bride had survived.
Kuwaiti authorities said Monday that a deadly wedding tent blaze was set by someone for personal reasons. Local newspapers identified the suspect as the groom’s ex-wife. The intense fire, which lasted only three minutes, killed 41 women and children. Fifty-two others were hospitalized. Here, burnt debris litters the area in Kuwait City.
‘A Horrific Scene’
Kuwaiti officials said 41 women and children died when a fire broke out at a wedding party in Kuwait City on Saturday. The deadly inferno lasted just three minutes. Authorities said 58 injured were still in hospitals, including seven people in serious condition with severe burns. Here, burnt debris litters the area.
The alleged arsonist has been identified and “confessed to committing the crime for personal reasons,” Interior Ministry spokesman Col. Mohammed al-Saber told state-owned Kuwait television.
Al-Saber’s statement made no reference to an ex-wife, and he did not answer telephone calls seeking comment Monday. But Kuwaiti newspapers speculated on the cause of the fire, saying that the groom’s former wife was to blame. The headline in the English-language Kuwait Times was “‘Scorned’ Woman Unleashed Fury.”
The independent Al-Qabas daily said the groom’s former wife, who is 23 years old, poured gasoline on the tent and lit it because she felt her ex-husband mistreated her when they were married.
A statement Monday from the Interior Ministry carried by the Kuwait News Agency said the perpetrator was in custody, but no name or details were given.
The “final and exact” death toll discussed in a high-level security meeting Monday was 41, said Kuwaiti Fire Department chief, Brig. Gen. Jassem al-Mansouri. Earlier reports Monday had raised the death toll to 43 after two people died overnight from burns. But al-Mansouri said after further investigation authorities determined that only 39 people died during the initial blaze. He said the bodies were so badly burned, it was difficult for investigators to determine how many people perished.
The chief, who described the fire as the worst disaster he’s seen in almost four decades of service, said 6 bodies were still unidentified and it was not known if the bride survived the carnage.
You can read this entire account by clicking HERE.
At Least 41 Dead in Wedding Tent Fire in Kuwait
AdventureMan called first thing this morning on his way to work and said he heard this on the radio. We are so sorry this has happened. What a sad, sad ending to a joyful occasion.
AOL News and Associated Press report the death toll is at least 41 women and children.
KUWAIT CITY (Aug. 15) – A fire at a wedding tent Saturday has killed at least 41 women and children guests and injured 76 others, authorities said.
The official Kuwait News Agency quotes the fire department chief, Brig. Gen. Jassem al-Mansouri, as saying 41 bodies have been recovered from the scene in Jahra, a tribal area west of Kuwait City. KUNA said 76 people have been hospitalized with burns.
Jahra wedding fire kills dozens
Published Date: August 16, 2009
By Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait Times
KUWAIT: Dozens of people were killed late yesterday when a fire broke out in a wedding tent in the Ayoun area of Jahra. Sources said all the victims were women. Rescue efforts were hampered because the burning tent collapsed on the women and the power supply failed. Many of the women were also killed in a stampede that ensued. Twenty fire trucks and dozens of firemen battled the blaze, while the injured were rushed to hospitals.
TV channels put the toll at more than 44. Incidentally the victims of yesterday’s fire, said to be from the Al-Enezi family, are relatives of a few ill-fated women who died in a similar accident in Jahra a few months ago.
The Director General of the Fire Department Major General Jassim Al-Mansouri earlier said fire fighters teams were continuing to recover dead bodies from the tent, noting that preliminary estimates put the number of fatalities at 13. Al-Mansouri said that the death toll could rise due to the large number of injuries as result of the stampede that followed the eruption of the fire at the tent that was packed with people.
The official added four fire fighter teams were mobilized, including Al-Jahra, Al-Jahra Al-Harafi, Al-Sulaibiya and Al-Ardiya departments, in addition to help from specialized departments in combating the fire and transferring those injured to nearby hospitals.
An investigation was opened to probe the reason behind the fire, Al-Mansouri added.
Not Good News: More Foreclosures in USA
U.S. home foreclosures set another record in July
Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:11am Reuters
By Lynn Adler
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. home loans failed at a record pace in July despite ongoing federal and state programs to avoid foreclosures, which have severely strained housing and the economy.
Foreclosure activity jumped 7 percent in July from June and 32 percent from a year earlier as one in every 355 households with a loan got a foreclosure filing, RealtyTrac said on Thursday.
Filings — including notices of default, auction and bank repossession — have escalated with unemployment.
“July marks the third time in the last five months where we’ve seen a new record set for foreclosure activity,” James J. Saccacio, RealtyTrac’s chief executive, said in a statement.
“Despite continued efforts by the federal government and state governments to patch together a safety net for distressed homeowners, we’re seeing significant growth in both the initial notices of default and in the bank repossessions.”
More than 360,000 households with loans drew a foreclosure filing in July, a record dating back to January 2005, when RealtyTrac started tracking monthly activity.
Notices of default, auction or repossession have reached nearly 2.3 million in the first seven months of the year — with more than half a million bank repossessions, the Irvine, California-based company said.
Making timely payments keeps getting more harder for borrowers who have lost their jobs or seen their wages cut.
The unemployment rate is 9.4 percent and President Barack Obama has said he expects it will hit 10 percent.
Obama’s housing rescue is gaining traction in altering terms of loans for struggling borrowers, but slowly.
Earlier this month the U.S. Treasury Department detailed the progress of the top servicers in modifying loans and prodded them to step up efforts to stem foreclosures.
SUN BELT STILL SUFFERING
States where sales and prices surged most in the five-year housing boom early this decade remain hardest hit.
California, Florida, Arizona, Nevada accounted for almost 57 percent of total U.S. foreclosure activity in July.
Illinois had the fifth-highest total filings, spiking nearly 35 percent from June, in an example of how moratoriums often delay rather than cure an inevitable loan failure.
Default notices spiked by 86 percent in July, from artificially low levels the prior two months. A state law enacted on April 5 gave delinquent borrowers up to 90 extra days before foreclosure started, RealtyTrac said.
Michigan’s foreclosure activity fell 39 percent in July from June, mostly due to a 66 percent drop in scheduled auctions. A state law that took effect July 6 freezes foreclosure proceedings an extra 90 days for homeowners who commit to work on a loan modification plan.
Other states with the highest foreclosure filing totals last month included Texas, Georgia, Ohio and New Jersey.
Nevada had the highest state foreclosure rate for the 31st straight month, with one in every 56 properties getting a filing, or more than six times the national average.
Initial notices of default fell 18 percent in the month, with a new Nevada law taking effect on July 1 requiring lenders to offer mediation to homeowners facing foreclosure. Scheduled auctions and bank repossessions each jumped more than 20 percent, however, boosting overall foreclosure activity in the state by 4 percent from June.
California, Arizona, Florida, Utah, Idaho, Georgia, Illinois, Colorado and Oregon were the other states with the highest foreclosure rates.
(Editing by Kenneth Barry)
Things are turning around in the USA, but these foreclosures were already in the pipeline, and more are coming due principally to people borrowing more money than they could really afford, and people who have lost jobs and can no longer pay their mortgage.
Now I am going to sound like your MOTHER: Do not take an adjustable rate mortgage. Fix your credit, get a good score, and take the very best 15 or 30 year FIXED mortgage you can get, and before you buy, make sure that you figure taxes and insurance as well as the monthly mortgage and interest when figuring your monthly payment. Make sure you can still eat, and have a little left over for emergency car repairs. It is so much better to live in a house that you can afford than to lose everything you have invested in a house you can’t afford.
If you get into trouble, talk to your lender right away. Lenders do not want to foreclose; it is in their interest as well as your own to find a way to allow you to reduce payments for a while to keep the relationship on track. There is some flexibility. Negotiate.
Written Communication, Plusses and Minuses
I was e-mailing back and forth this morning with a dear friend who is traveling. She was about to visit an old school friend, and before visiting, dug out all the letters she had received from the friend – an enormous collection – and read through them all. She said it was a very moving experience, and I could tell that even before visiting her friend, she was feeling close from having read all those letters.
When was the last time you got a letter?
I have some letters my husband has written, saved away. 🙂 Most of my written communications these days are done by e-mail, instant-message, or texting. I used to have files of e-mails, but as they grew bigger and bigger, I sort of stopped saving them, except for important ones, or business-related ones.
These blogs are also written communication, but more like books, less personal and you never really know who is reading on any given day, and who isn’t, so like it is not the most reliable way to communicate something important, especially to one person or a small group of people; e-mail just makes more sense. Or picking up the telephone, which I don’t do all that often as I am not so much of a telephone person and many people I would call are in different time zones.
But it makes me wonder what record we will have of these times? I told my friend when I was in college, I worked part time in the university xerox department, and most things in the Northwest Collection came to me. I could read them as I copied them – diaries, letters, to-do lists, shopping lists – ephemeral things, but written on paper, and they give us a tiny peephole into the daily lives of people who lived a couple hundred years ago.
Think of your life, and how things have changed, even if you are in your twenties. Two hundred years from now, people will have so many questions about our lives, how we lived, why we did the things we did. With fewer lasting pieces of paper, will the record be so complete?
Think of our electronic storage devices – remember floppy disks? My computer wouldn’t even be able to read a floppy disk! Think of the tiny little USB devices we are saving onto now – how long will that technology last? In another generation, it will be as opaque and accessible as the ancient inscribes stones buried in the deserts.
As we go more and more paperless, how are we saving the ephemera?
As I upload a couple years worth of photos to be printed, I think of the scrap booking craze, how you take a few photos and decorate all around them, but do the resulting albums give you truth, or do they give you a fantasy of the truth?
I think of the photographs from a hundred years ago – people with somber faces. Serious faces. No one ever smiled for the photos. There are photos of my earliest relatives in Seattle, they are truly a grim looking bunch, I think it was the style then, and I have a feeling that they didn’t look like that most of the time; our family culture is pretty jokey. So I am also wondering about family lore, family history and realities. Like most of us expunge the photos of us that are unflattering – and destroy letters we would never want anyone to read. In so doing, we don’t change the real history, but we do change the transmission of history! Much of what gets transmitted ends up being censored, by us!
(This is not my family, just a photo from the early 1900’s from rootsweb.ancestry.com)
For years, I have taken my photos and put them in books – and they are heavy. But we actually take them out and look at the photos from time to time, whereas now, most of my photos are stored on the computer, and rarely do I take the time to upload them to be printed. I wonder what the photographic record will be, if there will be a downturn in photos showing what was going on because so few are printed in a relatively lasting format.
I have so much on the internet – photos, writing, etc. What is something happens to the internet. I haven’t even been saving back ups of the blogs. I used to, like the first six months, but, frankly, so much of it is trivial that I stopped backing it up. And if I lost everything, would it be a tragedy – or a huge relief? I think of friends who have lived through terrible events and who live their lives more lightly now – fewer purchases, fewer emotional turmoils – going through something horrible can truly streamline your life.
I guess I am just babbling.
Think Pink Walk October 30th
This is what I love – advance planning and advance notification so I can mark my calendar now and look forward to the walk on October 30th. Not only that, I can tell all my friends, so they will be there, too. This is a grand event, a great way to exercise and show support for a worthy cause at the same time.
Women all over the world die because they are afraid to talk about breast cancer, afraid they will be shunned, afraid they will be treated as damaged or inferior. Fear can kill us. Silence can kill us. Supporting one another and encouraging one another can be part of the coping process and the healing process.
Please – mark your calendars, too. I want to see you there.
Breast cancer support group gears up for annual event
Web posted at: 8/9/2009 2:57:6
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: Think Pink Qatar, a Doha-based support group for breast cancer patients and survivors, has set the ball rolling for upcoming events it will be organising.
Drawing approximately 30 volunteers to an organisational meeting yesterday, the group initiated the process for one of its major annual events, the Think Pink Breast Cancer Walk of Life. Due to take place on the evening of October 30 at the Corniche, volunteers have been mobilised to make the event as much of a success as last year’s event.
The recent meet will lead up to other events the support group will be undertaking in September and October include a Pink-Out Day at schools, the Think Pink Benefit Gala, a Pink Hijab Day, and Proctor and Gamble sponsorship. There will also be a Harley Davidson Women’s Ride for Life, organised by Margarita Zuniga, courtesy of the Harley Davidson’s Women’s club.
Due to growing interest from community members, Think Pink Qatar is organising its 1,000 plus volunteers and members into a coherent line-up in time for event. “Today’s meeting is to start organising for this event, as many have volunteered, and we have now found it necessary to devise teams, covering sponsorship, music, event planning,” said Karen Al Kharouf, Founder of Think Pink Qatar. “Because the group has grown from 200 to 1,000 members, there is the need for consistency and a centralized system.”
More volunteers are hoped for, to take the currently part-time organisation full–time, and to add to numerous out-reach programmes the group currently runs. This includes adding more to the survivors groups, and the Pink Candies, a group of older teenagers who provide morale support for breast cancer sufferers. Al Kharouf underlined the need to create greater awareness in Qatar, as many women dislike talking about the disease, hence its high death rate.
PS: I see Peninsula says the walk is on the 30th, Gulf Times says it is on the 31st. Hmmm. . . .
Mixed Message: Doha Dressing
With all the advisories going out, to both men and women but seemingly especially pointed at women, telling us to cover up, and be respectful of local culture and traditions, and especially not to dress disturbingly during Ramadan, I had to smile today in the mall (no not The Mall, another mall) when I saw these darling dresses in the window. OK, so we buy the dresses – who could resist? WHERE can we wear these dresses?
(They really are adorable dresses, and the Ramadan sales are already cranking up, Wooo HOOOO!)
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