Florida Ranks #1 in the Nation for Identity Theft and Fraud; Pensacola #10 Beauty-Obsessed City in US
Just yesterday, I gasped when I learned that Time Magazine ranked Pensacola of all the cities in the USA, #10 in “Obsession with Beauty” as measured by internet access to sites for buying make-up and cosmetics at sites like Sephora and Ulta. New York and Miami didn’t make the list.
Then I understood. We don’t have a Sephora in Pensacola. We don’t have an Ulta. To get specialized make-ups like Urban Decay, you go online, to Sephora. Yep. Guilty. But it must take a lot of Pensacolians buying a lot of make-up online to make us #10 of all the beauty-obsessed cities in the USA.
Pretty Face a Passport
This is from today’s A-Word-A-Day (the word for today is ‘machinate’) and you can subscribe by clicking on the blue type, above, which will take you to the website.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not, it’s a visa, and it runs out fast. -Julie Burchill, writer and journalist (b. 1959)
“You Brought the Sunshine!”
When I arrived in Seattle, my best friend from University said “You brought the sunshine!”
(This week’s weather in Seattle)
Now, when I fly back to Seattle, it takes a mere half day, not a day and a half. When I leave early enough, I can arrive mid-day, and beat the rush hour traffic. You’d think after driving in Kuwait and Qatar that I would find Seattle traffic tame, but Germany, with it’s wide-laned autobahn, and Pensacola, with it’s laid back version of going-home traffic have spoiled me.
Seattle is beautiful, although my trip is one of those more stressful ones, with things to be done to manage changing circumstances. My Mom may – or may not – have had a stroke. What is verifiable is that she has been very very sick, too sick to live on her own any longer, sick enough to need hospitalization, and professional monitoring from now on. The sisters have handled mountains of work and desperate calls for assistance, and now it is my turn to do what I can.
I stayed in Mom’s condo, but it was a little soulless, all her favorite pieces of furniture moved to her new place, her plants languishing, the stuff and detritus of life waiting to be cleared out.
Thank God for my best friend, and for the sunshine.
The sun just beginning to color the mountains as it rises off in the east.
The sisters had a full day of business, money, finances, and Mom’s recovery plan. We get a little goofy after a while; it’s a family culture. Our way of handling the worst, worst of times is laughter, and there were several times we were almost breathless from laughing. Yeh, I guess some would find it inappropriate, but for us, for our family, I think it is how we survive.
My second day there, we had a joyful family wedding. It was one of the sweetest events I have attended in a long time, and I loved the way the bride and the groom looked at each other, that they enjoyed their own wedding, smiling, laughing, dancing. Their signature was over everything; the colors (Purples!) and the food and the music and the ceremony, it was all perfectly thought through and delightful.
Sun setting in the west over the Olympic mountains
The rest of the trip was just hard work. And now, back in Pensacola, I have flights booked already for my next trip back. All part of life’s circle, I guess.
Through all this, we have met with kind, helpful people, who have made all the sorting out easier. Thanks be to God.
Colorado Student Quits Choir Over Song about Allah
Those who do not know that there is only one God often think Allah is not the same God we worship. Those who do not know the history of Islam do not understand that all our traditions stem from Abraham, and that Islam springs from Hajar, mother of Ishmael. They do not know that the prayers start with “There is no God but Allah” and I am willing to bet that linguistically, Jahweh and Allah are related, too.
The good news is, too, that this is not an official school activity, and the student has the freedom to sing – or not to sing. My bet is that the student is missing out on an interesting opportunity to sing some very different music.
A Colorado high school student says he quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric “there is no truth except Allah” made it into the repertoire.
James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing “Zikr,” a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland’s selection, Harper said, he quit.
“I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for students in a public high school to be singing an Islamic worship song,” Harper told KREX-TV. “This is worshipping another God, and even worshipping another prophet … I think there would be a lot of outrage if we made a Muslim choir say Jesus Christ is the only truth.”
But district spokesman Jeff Kirtland defended the decision to include the song.
“Choral music is often devoted to religious themes. … This is not a case where the school is endorsing or promoting any particular religion or other non-educational agenda. The song was chosen because its rhythms and other qualities would provide an opportunity to exhibit the musical talent and skills of the group in competition, not because of its religious message or lyrics,” Kirtland told FoxNews.com in an email while noting that the choir “is a voluntary, after-school activity.”
“Students are not required to participate, and receive no academic credit for doing so,” he said.
At an upcoming concert, the choir is scheduled to sing an Irish folk song and an Christian song titled “Prayer of the Children,” in addition to the song by Rahman.
“The teacher consulted with students and asked each of them to review an online performance of the selection with their parents before making the decision to perform the piece,” Kirtland said, and members who object to the religious content of musical selections aren’t required to sing them.
Rahman, who has sold hundreds of millions of records and is well-known in his homeland, has said the song is not intended for a worship ceremony. He told FoxNews.com in a written statement that the song, composed for the move “Bose, the Forgotten Hero,” is about “self-healing and spirituality.”
“It is unfortunate that the student in Colorado misinterpreted the intention of the song,” Rahman said. “I have long celebrated the commonalities of humanity and try to share and receive things in this way. While I respect his decision for opting out, this incident is an example of why we need further cultural education through music.”
The song is written in Urdu, but one verse translates to “There is no truth except Allah” and “Allah is the only eternal and immortal.” Although the choir sang the original version, Wieland distributed translated lyrics.
Grand Junction High School Principal Jon Bilbo referred questions to Kirtland.
FoxNews.com’s Joshua Rhett Miller contributed to this story.
Scanning Obituaries
Who knew? I certainly didn’t, and yet I find that I’m not alone. AdventureMan does it, too, and other friends. One friend says she thinks she scans the obituaries to celebrate the fact that she is still alive. That may be it for most of us, but in addition, I find that there are people living among us with amazing histories, and we don’t even know. Sometimes when you read an obit, you can tell that the person wrote it himself or herself, and what that person considered important in his/her life. Sometimes the obituary is not very loving.
Southern newspapers, in my experience, are much richer in extraordinary detail that newspapers in bigger cities, like Seattle. In bigger cities, only the rich and famous or notorious get much space; it may be that the space is far more expensive in the bigger cities, or that families are less willing to shell out from the estate for the bigger coverage. Southerners value family, and history; it’s a part of the culture.
Yesterday, when I took the Pensacola News Journal in to AdventureMan, I had circled something in one of the obituaries, knowing that he, like me, only reads them now and then. I didn’t want him to miss this line:
(Name) was a Past Mighty Chosen One of the Zelica Daughters of Mokanna, Ladies Auxiliary to the Grotto.
Holy smokes! I thought it might be one of the Mardi Gras Krewe things, but AdventureMan googled, and discovered that is a Masonic offshoot, and their larger groups are called Cauldrons. (!)
In America of the early 1900’s, social affiliation groups were important. People belonged to religious groups like Knights of Columbus, Ladies of the Church, etc, quasi-religious groups like Masons and Shriners, and social groups like the Elks and Moose and Lions Club. Some groups still exist, and are still going strong, like Rotary Club, and special interest groups. In Pensacola, there is a Tea Party AND a Coffee Party. There is a Philipino-American Republican Club. When people gather together regularly to share something in common, they can form a group. All of these groups help people be connected in their communities and in their lives, and help people to look after one another.
I belonged to a group once that called ourselves the Aqua-Babes. To be perfectly honest, we might not be total babes, but hey – it’s our group, we can call ourselves what we want, right?
But oh, my, to be a Mighty Chosen One . . .
RealAge Test
Have you taken the RealAge Test?
I took it five years ago, when one of the Kuwait bloggers published the link and we all tried it to see how we measured up. I was shocked to learn that because I was not exercising enough, nor seeing a doctor regularly, I was actually OLDER than my age. It shocked me enough to see a doctor and take her advice.
Today I took it, and now, with regular exercise, I came out eight years younger than my age, and younger than I was the first time I took the test, Woooo HOOOOO!
The test has changed, but only updated by the newest findings. It now measures social factors, like how many people you are close to, how many you help, etc. You learn a lot about what is important just by taking the test.
I challenge you. Take the test, and tell me how you did.
Canadian Family Found Guilt of Honor Killing
From today’s AOL / Huffington Post: World:
KINGSTON, Ontario — A jury on Sunday found an Afghan father, his wife and their son guilty of killing three teenage sisters and a co-wife in what the judge described as “cold-blooded, shameful murders” resulting from a “twisted concept of honor.”
The jury took 15 hours to find Mohammad Shafia, 58; his wife Tooba Yahya, 42; and their son Hamed, 21, each guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in a case that shocked and riveted Canadians from coast to coast. First-degree murder carries an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
After the verdict was read, the three defendants again declared their innocence in the killings of sisters Zainab, 19, Sahar 17, and Geeti, 13, as well as Rona Amir Mohammad, 52, Shafia’s childless first wife in a polygamous marriage.
Their bodies were found June 30, 2009, in a car submerged in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, where the family had stopped for the night on their way home to Montreal from Niagara Falls, Ontario.
Prosecutors said the defendants allegedly killed the three teenage sisters because they dishonored the family by defying its disciplinarian rules on dress, dating, socializing and going online. Shafia’s first wife was living with him and his second wife. The polygamous relationship, if revealed, could have resulted in their deportation.
The prosecution alleged it was a case of premeditated murder, staged to look like an accident after it was carried out. Prosecutors said the defendants drowned their victims elsewhere on the site, placed their bodies in the car and pushed it into the canal.
Defense lawyers said the deaths were accidental. They said the Nissan car accidentally plunged into the canal after the eldest daughter, Zainab, took it for a joy ride with her sisters and her father’s first wife. Hamed said he watched the accident, although he didn’t call police from the scene.
After the jury returned the verdicts, Mohammad Shafia, speaking through a translator, said, “We are not criminal, we are not murderer, we didn’t commit the murder and this is unjust.”
His weeping wife, Tooba, also declared the verdict unjust, saying, “I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother.”
Their son, Hamed, speaking in English said, “I did not drown my sisters anywhere.”
But Judge Robert Maranger was unmoved, saying the evidence clearly supported their conviction for “the planned and deliberate murder of four members of your family.”
“It is difficult to conceive of a more despicable, more heinous crime … the apparent reason behind these cold-blooded, shameful murders was that the four completely innocent victims offended your completely twisted concept of honor … that has absolutely no place in any civilized society.”
Hamed’s lawyer, Patrick McCann, said he was disappointed with the verdict, but said his client will appeal and he believes the other two defendants will as well.
But prosecutor Gerard Laarhuis welcomed the verdict.
“This jury found that four strong, vivacious and freedom-loving women were murdered by their own family in the most troubling of circumstances,” Laarhuis said outside court.
“This verdict sends a very clear message about our Canadian values and the core principles in a free and democratic society that all Canadians enjoy and even visitors to Canada enjoy,” he said to cheers of approval from onlookers.
The family had left Afghanistan in 1992 and lived in Pakistan, Australia and Dubai before settling in Canada in 2007. Shafia, a wealthy businessman, married Yahya because his first wife could not have children.
The prosecution painted a picture of a household controlled by a domineering Shafia, with Hamed keeping his sisters in line and doling out discipline when his father was away on frequent business trips to Dubai.
The months leading up to the deaths were not happy ones in the Shafia household, according to evidence presented at trial. Zainab, the oldest daughter, was forbidden to attend school for a year because she had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend, and she fled to a shelter, terrified of her father, the court was told.
The prosecution said her parents found condoms in Sahar’s room as well as photos of her wearing short skirts and hugging her Christian boyfriend, a relationship she had kept secret. Geeti was becoming almost impossible to control: skipping school, failing classes, being sent home for wearing revealing clothes and stealing, while declaring to authority figures that she wanted to be placed in foster care, according to the prosecution.
Shafia’s first wife wrote in a diary that her husband beat her and “made life a torture,” while his second wife called her a servant.
The prosecution presented wire taps and cell phone records from the Shafia family in court to support their honor killing theory. The wiretaps, which capture Shafia spewing vitriol about his dead daughters, calling them treacherous and whores and invoking the devil to defecate on their graves, were a focal point of the trial.
“There can be no betrayal, no treachery, no violation more than this,” Shafia said on one recording. “Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows … nothing is more dear to me than my honor.”
Defense lawyers argued that at no point in the intercepts do the accused say they drowned the victims.
Shafia’s lawyer, Peter Kemp, said after the verdicts that he believes the comments his client made on the wiretaps may have weighed more heavily on the jury’s minds than the physical evidence in the case.
“He wasn’t convicted for what he did,” Kemp said. “He was convicted for what he said.”
Doha Reunion and Marching Madness
We just finished a five day Doha reunion, a group of us who used to gather frequently in Doha, ironically most of us introverts, but who found gathering together forced us to exercise regularly, helped us to run our errands downtown, and helped us laugh a lot at our own foibles in a strange land. It’s not all that often you can find four women who all get along equally well with one another, but this group was that rarity, and having them in my house was a joy. We were together in worship and in friendship for several years, so having another opportunity to gather was just magical. (We also gathered in May, for a wedding.)
Yes, for those of you who are wondering, AdventureMan was here, and what a blessing he was. He cooked dinner and cleaned up two of the nights, after days when we had been out exploring all day. We could not have had so much fun without his help. I think the other husbands were jealous; they like to be a part of the conversations, too. We always have so much fun together, and such great issues to cover, big topics, small topics, family issues, political issues, fund raising, social and cultural challenges. We share frustrations and experiences, we share resources and brain-storm solutions. For us, it doesn’t get any better, these gatherings feed our souls.
Cat-like women, they all arrived on their own time and schedule, as it would fit, so there was a couple days of total overlap, and some days with fewer. The day the first visitor arrived was also the day of Pensacola’s newest parade, Marching Madness.
“Want to see it?” I asked her? They were going to try to set a new record for the largest number of people in the world doing a line dance.
“Sure!” she said, always a good sport.
This parade was hilarious. First, it was a daytime parade, and most of the parades I have been to in Pensacola have been night parades. There were like fourteen marching bands and many floats, so it was LOUD! The Happy Toddler would have loved it. Lastly, they were generous with the beads, people were loaded with beads, and some of the beads were special!
“I’ve never seen anything like this!” shouted my friend, over the bedlam of trumpets and drums in a compelling jungle rhythm. She was dancing and waving her hands madly at the passing Krewe, hoping for a strand or two to come her way. She ended up with a LOT of beads.
It was so much fun!
This isn’t New Orleans. This was a family parade, lots of babies, lots of children, lots of grandparents, so no one was underdressed, or showing off the wares, if you catch my drift. The people throwing beads were generous across the board, especially to the babies. 🙂
Pensacola is amazing. As we walked back to the car, the street cleaners were standing by, and the street was cleaned and re-opened to traffic within an hour. How amazing is that?
Social Network Interactions
I do go to FaceBook now and then, and I have connected with old friends, college friends, high school friends, and people from the many ‘places I remember’ in my life . . .
It’s pretty public, don’t you think? And you do one little thing, and it’s like glue, you’re stuck with that relationship. I am now careful who I ‘like’, because I seem to end up linked to them, and honestly, I try to be careful to limit my connections to people I know, or have known, people I have something in common with, like a family member, etc.
It’s like if you indicate any interest at all, you get linked. Is it just me? I don’t think of myself as isolationist, but time is precious, and I try to spend it wisely, focusing on genuine long term relationships, family relationships and people with whom I have commonalities.
I find that magazines who which I subscribe, cultural organizations, charitable organizations are all sending me surveys; they want to get to know me better. (? ? ? )
It’s too much relationship for me. I know there are people who can handle a huge number of social acquaintances . . . that’s not me. I am civil, even cordial. I don’t want to get to know organizations through surveys, nor businesses, relationships take TIME. So many of the ‘relationships’ make me feel rushed, and when I feel rushed, or pushed, my reaction tends to be to drop the relationship; it just doesn’t work for me.
I do believe we are all supposed to be connected, to be kind to one another, to care about one another. It’s asking too much of me to expect it to happen quickly. Am I the only one? Does anyone else have any problems with the instant sort of intimacy that seems to spring up so commonly on the social networks?
Martin Luther King Day
From A Word a Day, in honor of Martin Luther King Day:
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. -Frederick Douglass, Former slave, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)
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Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 