Best Mother’s Day Story
In honor of the upcoming American Mother’s Day (I don’t know why we have it on a different day from the rest of the world) a friend sent this hysterical story, which I am sharing with you.
So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently
died. Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on
him and nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long
on this mat in our bathroom.
Well we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years
old, 3 years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves
chapstick. LOVES it. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing
it. So finally one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my
chapstick and how he could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put
it right back in the drawer when he was done.
Last year on Mother’s Day, we were having the typical rush around
and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on. My
two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am trying to nurse
my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up. Everything is a
mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a wonderful day to honor
me and the amazing job that is motherhood.
We finally have the older one and and the baby loaded in the car and
I am looking for Eli. I have searched everywhere and I finally round the
corner to go into the bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my
chapstick very carefully to Jack’s . . . rear end. Eli looked right into my
eyes and said “chapped.” Now if you have a cat, you know that he is
right–their little butts do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn’t
seem to mind.
And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it
was the FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat’s behind or the hundredth.
And THAT is my favorite Mother’s Day moment ever because it reminds
us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these glorious little
creatures, there will always be that day when you realize they’ve been using
your chapstick on the cat’s butt.
MOC Bans Porno Film Sites
Today’s Kuwait Times:
Internet Porno Film Sites
The Ministry of Communication has closed down all new sites that advertise pornographic films. The ministry of Communication represented by Undersecretary Eng. Abdulaziz Al-Osaimi and his counterpart at the Ministry of Information achieved this new step. This move was done in order to have control over the sites, which are being followed by the Ministry of Information. Al-Osaimi has assigned administration director Nassar Al-Kandari to work on closing those sites from the Internet and ensuring that companies do not use other systems to re-open it. The ministry succeeded in coordinating with local internet companies to close all porno sites, but lately the ministry realized that there are new sites marketing through drama films to porno films.
My comments:
I truly hate porn. I hate it because it creates a fantasy world that real women can barely compete with. I bet if men spent half the time and attention on their wives and families that they spend on porn, there wouldn’t be so much divorce. And guys – those women are PAID. They’re ACTING. Most of them would rather be doing anything but what they are doing, but they do it for the MONEY. It’s about as real as the World Wide Wrestling Federation Matches, it’s all staging and airbrushing and making money off YOUR fantasies.
Rant over – reality strikes. How do you ban pornography?
First, how do you define pornography? When I was a student in political science, we spent a week of class time trying to come up with a definition that everyone could buy into. We never succeeded.
There is some pretty powerful erotic literature, erotic art out there, stuff I don’t find pornographic in the least. So what are the guidelines?
Second, WHO defines pornography?
Third, how on earth will the Ministry of Communication and the Ministry of Information keep up with all the new porn sites that keep popping up? These sites make people a LOT of money, they have the money to pay ingenious high tech guys to keep devising new ways to get their product to market.
And last, who is the poor porno-guy who has to watch all this garbage and enforce the ban?
And – is your internet phone still working? 😉
It’s about Fat, Not Weight
A new study tells us you can be normal weight, but still at high risk, depending on where you carry your weight. Women at highest risk carry more fat around their organs. From BBC Health News:
A test has been designed which can show if people of normal weight are at an increased risk of heart disease because they are carrying “hidden” fat.
Developed by South Korean researchers, it checks blood-flow via a cuff on the ankle or arm.
Professor Paul Stewart, an obesity specialist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, said: “The take-home message of this study is that having more fat around your the belly area puts you at increased risk of heart disease.
“it’s not so much about general obesity; it’s about middle-aged spread and where fat lies that’s the problem. . . . .
Writing in Clinical Endocrinology, the team say those with the poorest blood flow had more fat around their organs, and so were most at risk.
“This is one more test that can indicate risk.”
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: “This study confirms what we have known for some time; good heart health seems to depend more on our shape than our weight. ”
”Visceral’ fat inside our abdominal cavity – surrounding our intestines – increases our heart disease risk more than fatness in other parts of our body. “It’s possible in future that measures of waist circumference will be included to refine the heart disease risk assessment.
Read the entire article Here.
“Make This Case Go Away”
This is from today’s Kuwait Times.
MP Intervenes to save rapists
by Hanan Al-Saadoun
Kuwait: Two men accused of kidnap, rape and assault were let off the hook after pressure from a lawmaker and a senior police officer. A captain from the Traffic Department was on duty in Khaitan when he saw a parked car with an Asian maid in it and a man standing next to the car. The maid suddenly pointed to the officer and cried for help, so the captain rushed to the car and found another man inside with the maid.
The captain asked the man outside what the problem was. The main replied that this was a runaway maid and he was a detective. The captain asked for his ID but the man refused. The captain then realized that the man smelled of alcohol.
The men suddenly assaulted the captain and bit his hand, injuring him severely (emphasis added by blogger.) After the captain subdued both men, they confessed that they were drunk and that they had tried to rape the maid. The captain then tried to file a case at the Khaitan police station against the two men, but the MP intervened and tried to stop the captain from registering the case. The captain persisted and kept pushing to file a case for a week, until his superior intervened too and told him to “forget the incident.”
My comment: If I ever stop getting outraged when I read reports like this, God forbid, I will be dead.
First, the maid’s life is seriously damaged. Any victim can tell you that the terror of abduction, with or without rape, resonates through your life. When you are in a situation where you have no power, and are at the mercy of someone stronger or more powerful than you are, it is a life-changing event. And would her sponsor accept her back, even though it were no fault of her own? Would they not be afraid she might be diseased? They might even accuse her of inviting the assault – and this was an assault.
Second, these young men lied to the police, impersonated a police officer, resisted arrest and caused bodily harm to a senior police official. Did you notice – THEY CONFESSED.
Third, the police captain had the guts and integrity to persue filing this case against these wicked young men, inspite of pressures from above. WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO on you, brave one, for your integrity.
Last, kudos for Hanan al-Sadoun who does such a great job presenting so many of these outrageous stories in an objective manner, letting us fill in the details and express our outrage in our blogs. Brava, habeebti.
Evidently this air tight case will never get to court.
And what have these young men learned about accountability? That their name and wasta will make their despicable actions go away? What is the fitting punishment for what they have done? C’mon readers, check in on this one.
OK, OK, I’ll take a deep breath and stop now.
Saudi Dies in Court
As an ironic tie-in to an earlier blog article today about Kuwaiti women seeking legislations on Women’s Rights, here is a related article from today’s Kuwait Times 23 April 2007:
JEDDAH: An elderly Saudi man dropped dead in court after it banned him from stopping his three daughters from getting married, newspapers reported yesterday. The man apparently had a heart attack once the cassation court judge in Makkah told the three women, aged 36, 39 and 40, that they could marry over their father’s objections, Okaz reported.
The women, whose father had on several occasions turned down their requests to marry, can now marry “honest men” who follow their religious duties, the Islamic court ruled, according to Al-Madina newspapers.
Senior Citizens in Kuwait Taking Hospital Beds?
Tacked on to another article in yesterday’s Kuwait Times was this tiny bit of news, with much larger social implications:
“In other news, sources revealed that senior citizens have changed the rooms of public hospitals into old aged homes due to the low fees that are imposed on reserving a room at the hospital.
The rooms at public hospitals are worth KD 1 per day, and if the patient stays for two months, then he will pay only 500 fils per day.
Effective measures must be adopted by the Ministry of Health such as giving a determined time for each patient in order to enable hospitals to receive other patients.”
In a related article several months ago, a article in the same newspaper said that the hospitals were overrun with old people because people couldn’t take care of them at home, and it was much less shameful to say “my Mother is in the hospital” than to say “my mother is in a home for old people.”
It sounds to me like the solution is for the Kuwait government to open a state of the art “hospital” specializing in Gerontology, which in reality would be a retirement center for people unable to take care of their own physical needs, and whose families cannot meet their needs (believe me, after my father’s lengthy and debilitating illness, I know there is only so much a family can do), and they can still say that their parent(s) are in a hospital.
It would meet the need of “hospitalization,” would provide the older people with the intensive and personal services that they need, and would free the beds in traditional hospitals for the seriously ill and damaged citizens.
It’s only words.
Kuwait conference calls for document on women rights
In yesterday’s Kuwait Times, there was a tiny paragraph in the reporting about Personal Law in Kuwait pertaining to women that stated
“Among the loopholes of that must be corrected is the provision empowering a woman’s father to marry her to whoever he likes or divorce her without consulting or even informing her . . . “
Is this possible? Does this still happen? I thought in Islam, a woman had to agree to accept a man as husband, and had a right to have clauses put into her marriage contract? And a father can have his daughter divorced from her husband without her even knowing about it, much less agreeing to it?
Here is today’s reporting from the Kuwait Times on the recommendations for legal changes:
KUWAIT: Participants in the Conference on the “Kuwaiti Women in National Legislations” have recommended the preparation of a comprehensive national document to facilitate women participation in the country’s development aspects under the sponsorship of the legislative and executive authorities as well as the civic society institutions.
At the conclusion of the one-day conference, organised by the National Assembly’s women affairs committee, the participants demanded improvement of legislative performance, promotion of the existing legislations and completion of the legal system in an introduction for the rise of women’s rights in the society.
To read the rest of the article, with the recommendations made by the committee, click on Kuwait Times, here.
India’s dangerous secret sex lives
In a BBC article by Linda Pressly, we learn that India has the largest HIV case-load in the world with an estimated 5.7 million people living with the virus. And that women are at highest risk of getting the HIV virus – from their husbands.
More people are living with HIV in India than anywhere else but activists in Gujarat say that until sexual diversity is accepted, prevention may be impossible.
In India’s conservative society sex lives are kept very secret
“Just as other people live their lives, my husband and I maintain our normal family life, even though he has boyfriends.”
Gita was relating some of the most intimate details of her marriage.
“We look after each other, so that’s why I don’t have a problem with his homosexuality,” she said.
“At first I was shocked because I didn’t know anything about it. But I discovered that homosexuality is completely natural in some people, so I’m OK with it.
“I never thought it would create any problems for me.”
Gita’s husband Vijay, has been having sexual relationships with men ever since they got married.
You can read the rest of this fascinating article here.
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.
James Morrow’s The Last Witchfinder
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read. I can’t even claim to have picked it up on any recommendation – I was on my way to grab a cup of coffee when my eye fell on the book. I don’t know why. Anything having to do with witchcraft is repugnant to me. And yet . . . my eye fell on it. I picked it up. I read the back cover – the write-up wasn’t that great. And yet, I bought the book.
It is a very weird book. It is written from the point of view of another book, Sir Isaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, and starts off in the late 1600’s, as the Newton’s book falls in love with the main character of Morrow’s Witchfinder, Jennet Stearne.
As the book begins, you are reminded of sitting with a friend who talks too much. The book chats on and on, goes on detours, tells you too much about people you don’t even care to know, but somehow . . . you like this friend anyway, and tolorate the annoyance because somehow you come away better for knowing this person/this book.
And I really, really liked the main heroine, who is only 11 when we meet her, living in England, and studying with her aunt Isobel, who does all kinds of cool scientific experiments to demostrate principles from Newton’s books, using prisms and microscopes and calculations, and it all sounds very dull, but somehow – it isn’t. Jennet and Isobel are so irrepressably intelligent! and funny! and down to earth!
But there is a viper in all this merriment, and the viper is Jennet’s father, a witchfinder, who, when his sister-in-law, Isobel, is accused of witchcraft, proves the charges against her.
How do you prove a charge of witchcraft?
The signs, according to Jennet’s father were very clear. A witch caused bad things to happen, like your best rooster dies after you have cheated the witch, or your wife miscarries, or your crop fails. A witch had a “familiar spirit” around, like a cat. (You can see how that might make me very nervous.) A witch had a blemish, a mark of Satan, somewhere on her body, that doesn’t bleed when you stick a needle into it. A witch, when thrown into the water, will sink, not float. They had special equipment for testing for witches. Most people – a very few accused were men – failed the test.
Thousands of people, primarily women, failed the test throughout the 14th, 15th, 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. Entire villages near Trier in Germany were killed for the accusation of practicing witchcraft. Women were burned at the stake in France by the hundreds. Women who acted as midwives, or used herbal medicines were particularly vulnerable to the accusation of witchcraft, although men were also, from time to time, accused and convicted. And the accusers were often the jealous, the ignorant, the spiteful and at best – the misguided.
Jennet’s aunt Isobel failed the test. She failed, and she was burned at the stake. As she was lit afire, she shouts out to Jennet to create a “grande arguement”, a proof, using Newton’s Mathmatic Principles, that witchcraft / sorcery does not and cannot exist.
Jennet’s life is bigger than most people’s lives. Her family moves to the Americas – actually, her father is sent there because his profession as witchfinder is becoming an embarrassment in England. She is captured by and lives with American Indians for several years. She returns to “civilization” in time to experience the horrors of the Salem witch trials. She meets Benjamin Franklin, with whom she is shipwrecked on a Caribbean island. And those are just the bare bones!
The book is loaded with great characters, huge ideas, and visionary people, struggling to escape the tangles of the small minded religious fanatics, clinging to old and superstitious ways. And yet, the book is both scientific AND religious, coming to some grandly unifying propositions.
It sounds so dull, but it isn’t. There are lots of big words, but also a lot of humor. It is a book for people who loved Kurt Vonnegut, and who have read and relished John Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy of Dunces. It has a lot of the tongue-in-cheek theology of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The characters are so alive, and so likable, and you will find yourself reading when you have other things to do, because you are eager for Jennet to succeed at her grand endeavor.
Read this book. You won’t be sorry. Available at amazon.com for a mere $10.85 plus shipping. I paid $15.95 plus tax at B&N ;-(
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Early Voting in Florida
