Thursday? Friday? Saturday?
Today’s Kuwait Times quotes an “official source” as stating that Kuwait will move to a Friday Saturday weekend as of the 1st of September, and that Kuwait is also looking at daylight savings time starting next Spring. Seems like this trial balloon has floated a time or two before, do you think it will fly this time?
Somehow, it feels in Kuwait like the weekend now is Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The expats seem to be working a six day week (except for the maids, who work 24/7) and everyone seems to take it easier all three days. Wonder if this is really going to happen?
Big Brother and ‘The Look’
Last night I was caught up in the hormone laden chaos of Marina Mall.
Surrounded by hundreds of thuggy looking 11-year-olds and adolescent trollops, I wondered what kept the atmosphere from becoming explosive? All that testosterone, all that rampant estrogen, what an unpredictable combination! So I watched, and then I saw it.
The girls are mostly behaving themselves. Most are dressed modestly, but are ready for that “we had a moment” glance, and half-hoping, half-fearing that it will come. “Eeeeeee!!” they scream, thinking someone might pass them a phone number.
But what keeps the young monkeys, hopped up on testosterone, from getting carried away?
Big Brother.
Not is a mean way, not in a threatening way, just being a big brother.
I would see the gangs of kids, and I would see a white thobed guy, maybe with a friend, maybe with his family.
And I would see “the glance”. “The Look”.
The look said “I see you.”
The look said “I know who who you are, underneath the gel and goofy clothing.”
The look said “I know your family.”
The look said “Remember your manners, little brother.”
And I saw the boys catch the look, and remember who they are. The look was enough. The look is effective. It breaks through the mob mentality and reminds the boys that they will soon have the responsibilities of young men, and that this mob mentality roaming around the Mall will pass. The look reminds the boys of the need for SELF control. The look might even say “I remember those days, and those days are over.”
It’s enough.
Amazing Dubai
Today AOL’s Money section has an article on “Amazing Dubai. It starts off:
The Wonders of Dubai
“As one of the seven emirates that make up the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, Dubai has attracted world-wide attention through some mind-boggling, innovative real estate projects.
Sit back and peruse our photo gallery of some of the most amazing construction being done in the world today.”
You can access the article and the fabulous photos by clicking HERE.
Horrifying Violence
My reaction to the violent and unnecessary deaths at Virginia Tech is literally visceral. It makes me feel like throwing up. I can barely wrap my mind around it.
In a place where young people should feel so safe, should be focused on the laws of physics, or learning critical thinking skills, or discussing Shakespeare, or learning lab procedures, they shouldn’t have to worry about a random, psychotic gunman. It occurs to me that he has a higher kill rate than any suicide bomber has attained. He successfully escaped after the first round and went on to trap and claim the lives of a huge number of victims.
Irrelevant questions come to mind – How do you shoot so many people with such lethal accuracy under chaotic conditions? What motivates a young person to kill so many, at random?
And I am reminded that our friends to the north in Iraq live with this same random, chaotic violence every day of their lives, not knowing if husbands will come home safely, if children will survive their day at school, if Mom will survive her trip to the market. Where do you find hope?
Bloggers Search for Anonymity
On Friday, 13 April, BBC published a report by David Reid about bloggers need for anonymity. Because in many countries of the world the government is trying to track and limit bloggers, he recommends a handbook published by the media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, called The Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents.
You can read the article by clicking on the blue type above. Reporters Without Borders offers the booklet as a free download when you click here.
Reporters Without Borders has it’s own website here where they summarize some of the main events of each day. They also keep a tally of the number of people worldwide who are imprisoned for blogging related activities.
Google Earth Adds New Layers
Google earth, according to OogleEarth has just added some new layers, one in particular of which highlights what is going on in Dharfur, and ties it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which tracks deaths, attacks, and refugees in the Dharfur region.
Many thanks to my source at GoogleEarth and greetings, Earthling! (I love saying that!)
Mediawatch: Covering the new Darfur default layer in Google Earth
Wednesday, April 11, 2007 (10:38 UTC)
Hundreds of media organizations carried news about the new Darfur layers in Google Earth — and that’s just in English. In Sweden alone, over 40 papers ran the news (an example). In the US, many local news organizations and papers ran the AP or Reuters story. Here’s a rundown of links to some of the larger and/or more interesting ones, with some observations at the end:
Using their own correspondents: The Los Angeles Times (business), BBC (front page feature), CNET (front page, and as a top headline for media 2.0), CNN (technology), Washington Times (business), PC World, ABC News (world news) and a good article/blog in Wired.
Reuters: Australia’s The Age (under technology), New Zealand Herald (world news), The Australian (world news) and Scientific American (science news).
AP: Seattle Post Intelligencer (business), MSNBC (technology), The Guardian (world news), Sydney Morning Herald (technology), the Houston Chronicle (markets), Seattle Times (world news), CBS News (technology), Baltimore Sun (world news), Washington Post (technology), San Jose Mercury News (breaking news), San Francisco Chronicle (business), Denver Post (world news), International Herald Tribune (Americas??) and the Sudan Tribune (which is a great resource for Darfur news, it turns out — pity they don’t have RSS).
AFP: Times of India (world news), iAfrica (technology) and Baku Today (technology).
IDG News service: IT World and InfoWorld.
What’s interesting is that there is no consensus among news editors as to where such a story belongs: Is the story’s most important news component the fact that there is a genocide being perpetrated in Darfur (world news), that new technologies are being employed to educate people about Darfur (technology), or that Google is involved (business)? In a sense, the situation in Darfur is not itself a “news” story, in that we all already (should) know what’s going on there. (If anything, the news is that it’s getting worse at the moment, and people I know who work there are doing so without much hope of a resolution anytime soon.) But putting the story in the technology section relegates it to a spot not followed by the people that the technology is most aiming to reach.
I think this is above all a story about how new technology is letting us all be witnesses to a genocide in progress, and how that raises our own responsibilities — so perhaps this is a story best also told in the glossy Sunday newspaper magazines, read when people have more time to play with Google Earth and where there is more room for long-form stories about larger technology trends coupled to humanitarian crises such as Darfur, but also Katrina/New Orleans and the Pakistan quake from 2005. How about it, New York Times?
My opinion: This has got to be one of the greatest blogs on earth. And he emphasis added in the above paragraph is mine.
In Passing
“Uhm, Mom, I have to sit there” said my son as I slid into a booth in our favorite Vietnamese restaurant and prepared to order some of those tasty salad rolls with peanut sauce that we love.
“Why is that?” I ask territorially, unwilling to move.
“I like to see who’s coming in,” he states flatly.
“So do I” I argue back.
“But I’m the prosecutor,” he says with a sigh.
I move. His need trumps my preference.
He has to watch his back. It’s not one of the happier realities in life. People you “put away” don’t always stay there. And they’re not always happy to see you when they run into you in the gym, or in the Target, or in the grocery store.
My son laughs and tells stories of running into former associates, usually when you are unarmed, and vulnerable in some way. Most of the time it is OK. We’re glad he is careful.
10 Weird Things Tag
. . . or things you didn’t know about me.
1. When I was ten years old, I won a prize for getting five shots under a dime. I was a sharpshooter – at 10!
2. How many people do YOU know who are born in Alaska? I’m one.
3. My high school proms were held in the Heidelberg Castle.
4. My high school graduation was held in the Heidelberg Castle.
5. My sister was married in the Heidelberg castle.
6. I met my husband during my sister’s wedding preparations, and we eloped 6 weeks later because we wanted to be married, but neither of us like the stress and visibility of a wedding.
7. Some of my photos have won prizes.
8. I won a set of encyclopedias once by writing an essay.
9. I surprised myself by being a highly successful fund-raiser. I never thought I would be good at asking people for money, but when it was for charity, I was really really good.
10. I am an introvert who looks like an extrovert.
I tag Skunk
Kinan
1001 Nights
Little Diamond
Elijah
Tell us 10 thing weird or that we wouldn’t know about you.
U.S. Continues Proud Tradition Of Diversity On Front Lines
Funny in a very sad way . . .from The Onion. Note the Kuwait dateline – folks, this is satire, one of the bleakest forms of humor.
CAMP COYOTE, KUWAIT—With blacks and Hispanics comprising more than 60 percent of the Army’s ground forces in Iraq, the U.S. military is continuing its long, proud tradition of multiculturalism on the front lines of war. “Though racism and discrimination remain problems in society at large, in the military—especially in the lower ranks where you find the cannon fodder—a spirit of inclusiveness has prevailed for decades,” Gen. Jim White said Monday. “When it comes to having your head blown off by enemy fire, America is truly colorblind.”
Bad Laws Encourage Breaking the Law
Going to university in Seattle, I did a paper on Washington State “Blue Laws” and how they were repealed. In Washington State, they have some really cool ideas that encourage citizen participation – one is called the initiative, and the other is called the referendum.
What this means is that citizens, just common, ordinary citizens like you and me, can gather support and signatures, and initiate proceedings to get a proposal on the ballot, in front of all the voters. They can also refer an existing law to the voters to get it repealed (made not a law anymore.) It’s hard work – but citizens do it all the time.
I just used my internet phone to change my car reservation, because KLM has “delayed” my flight by one night. I broke the law. It’s a bad law, and I am not by nature a law-breaking kind of person.
I also break the law by bringing in real vanilla flavoring when I enter Kuwait. Yes, it contains alcohol. I only use it for cooking, and I never serve it to Moslems. I have alcohal-free vanilla, too, that I use for when I cook for Moslems, but it doesn’t taste the same.
I probably bring in books and DVD’s that I am not supposed to, although I have never seen a list telling me what books might not be allowed. Most of my books are about ideas, and yes, ideas can be a dangerous thing.
Bad laws force normal law-abiding people to break the law.
(This does not apply to speed limits, which are good laws, and if they were obeyed, would save hundreds of lives in Kuwait every year. Think of every life as something precious, a resource, and you will see that disobeying the speed limits is like throwing resources down the drain.)
I know this entry is really all over the map, but I have all this angry energy and I don’t have anywhere to expel it. If I could, I would kick KLM all over Kuwait for what they have done. They have robbed us of one day with our son and his wife and I am really really angry. They didn’t even tell us, just changed the reservation. One flight was “delayed” 24 hours, so all the passengers on the next flight were also “delayed”. That’s not a DELAY! You cancelled a flight! And now you are going to have hundreds of angry passengers, angry phone calls, and people PO’d at KLM. Shoddy way to do business.
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