Saudi Arabia has authorized regional governors to approve executions by firing squad as an alternative to public beheading, the customary method of capital punishment in the Gulf Arab kingdom, the Arab News reported on Monday.
The English-language daily gave no explanation. But another newspaper, Al Youm, reporting the measure on Sunday, said the reason for the change was a shortage in the number of swordsmen.
An Interior Ministry spokesman said he was not immediately able to comment but would look into the report. The Arab News added that a ministerial committee was looking into formally scrapping beheading as a form of execution. The kingdom has been criticized in the West for its high number of executions, inconsistencies in the application of the law and its use of public beheadings.
Capital crimes resulting in the death sentence last year included murder, armed robbery, drug smuggling, sorcery and witchcraft.
Saudi Arabia has executed 17 people so far this year, Amnesty International said this month, compared to 82 in 2011 and a similar number last year.
In its Sunday edition, Al Youm reported a circular by the government’s Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution as saying that the use of firing squads was being considered because some swordsmen were arriving late to the public squares where executions are normally carried out. “A shortage in sworsdmen and their unavailability in a number of areas” meant the executioners had to travel sometimes long distances to get to the place of executions, making them sometimes late, the newspaper reported the circular as saying.
The circular stated that death by firing squad was not a breach of sharia, or Islamic law. The Saudi legal system is based on strict version of sharia.
Al Youm said a firing squad had been used to execute carried out the death sentence against a convicted female in a case in Ha’il in northwestern Saudi Arabia a few years ago.
It is one of those glorious days in Pensacola. I love winter here anyway, I love the cold temperatures and a chance to wear some of my old German sweaters and coats, but today, the threat of deep freeze seems past, it is just warm enough to prune the roses and the bougainvilleas.
I used to garden, I gardened well. I gardened in Seattle, and in Germany, mostly, although I also had gardens in Jordan, and in Qatar. In Qatar, I will admit, my function was mostly to buy the plants and buy the pots and tell the gardener where to place them. He came to my door when I tried to do it myself, and he said “Madam, this is MY job. Please don’t take my work away from me.”
Now that AdventureMan is also a Master Gardener, my gardening responsibilities – and my gardening prerogotives – have declined substantially. I tried gardening when we got here; I can garden just fine in November – April, but the summer heat and humidity and mosquitos defeat me. Oh? Yes? You’ve heard this before? I am so sorry!
I still retain personal interest in the bougainvillea and the roses. I love the bougainvillea, and it is now three years old. I am trying to grow it tall, so it will cascade over the end of my porch area, as it does in the more tropical countries. Yes, it is a challenge.
I also love trimming, rooting, and creating new rose bushes from the beautiful old white rose bush we have, with it’s delicate coloring and scent.
Old White Roses
I was careful. I wore leather globes. But when you are working with bougainvillea (great big huge thorns!) and with roses (smaller, but equally lethal thorns) you can get very scratched up. I did, indeed, get very scratched up, but I succeeded in getting the bougainvillea gathered and trimmed, some new bougainvillea starts made, and several new rose bushes started. I think next time I will at least wear long sleeves; my Master Gardener suggested long leather gauntlets!
The Master Gardener pruned the roses. 🙂 He had a class in pruning roses a couple weeks ago, and wanted to tackle the roses, but he wanted our marriage to survive. Today was the perfect day; a day we could both be outside. We discovered we have very similar styles in pruning roses, and our marriage is better than intact 🙂
There have been some good moments in the course of this nasty cold, good enough to finish my work on a quilt for a baby who is fast making his way into this world, a Kuwaiti baby :-). This is a quilt he can crawl on, snuggle under, take to school for nap time, and then take off to college to put on his wall:
We had some wonderful moments in Kuwait, many of which, for me, were spent in the fabric souks of Kuwait with other quilters from many nations, including Kuwait. Many of those fabrics are quilted into this piece, along with my everlasting gratitude to the friends we had there who made the experience so much the richer for us.
The National Public Radio website recommended this book as one of the best historical fiction reads, and I had never heard of it, so I ordered it. I ordered it in spite of the little voice I had in my head reminding me that this was the second in a trilogy, that the first is Sea of Poppies. I was too eager. I wanted to jump right in, and the review said it could be read stand-alone. I had read Ghosh’s Glass Palace a couple years ago for book club, loved it, and was eager to read this one.
With a raging cold and no possible way I can be around humanity, it was a good time to start. Just picking up the book, it has a dense feel. Once you start, it is like being suddenly in a whirlpool, drowning in new words, characters who have more than one name and more than one identity, whirling between England, Mauritius, Hindustan, Gujerat, Hong Kong, Macau and China, whirling between cultures and professions and trades, but oh, what a ride.
It would have been helpful to be reading River of Smoke on an iPad, where I could poke at a new word and it would give me the meaning, but in truth, you can guess a lot of the meaning of the vocabulary from the context. The seafarers all speak a language sort of like Jack Sparrow, a pidgen language filled with simplified grammar and with words from many nations and cultures. It forces you to slow down. It’s worth it. It would also be nice if you could poke on a place-name and have Google Earth show you where it is. There used to be a website called Google Books, and you could put in a book and it would show you the places in which actions in the book took place; that would be particularly handy reading this book, provide context in place-relations.
But reading slowly is it’s own reward. This book has depth, depth of character, depth of textures and senses, and depth of morality. I love a book like this where you can smell the smoke drifting over the water, where you can smell the sewer and bloated animal corpses floating outside the foreign hongs of the Canton traders, you can feel the textures of the textiles and see their colors, you can taste the exquisiteness of Macau cuisine and you can hike in a Hong Kong not yet settled by anyone, Chinese or foreign.
The scope of time covered by the major part of the story is short, although there are years of back-stories for several characters. The period is 1837-8, during which the Chinese Emperor decides to put teeth in the long established edict against opium trade to China. The edict had been in place, but not enforced, and China watched her citizens sink into opium addiction and lowered productivity. The traders were making fortunes – shiploads of money. Opium was grown in India and shipped from there to China.
When the ban against shipping opium into China is announced, many traders believe it is just another attempt to attain greater bribes on the part of the mandarins, and decline to obey. There is great debate, and while it is lively in the book, it is based on documents from that era, many of the arguments word for word. Traders stood to loose a great deal of money, in truth, it would ruin most of them to lose their shipments.
There is a side story I also like, that of the botanical trade between China and England, and the importation of many of the garden plants we take for granted today, which were unknown until sent from China. Camellia – one of which is the plant for tea, did you know that? Roses, azaleas, orchids – many many familiar plants would be missing from our gardens were it not for their introduction during this period.
Ghosh gives us disparate characters of many cultures and upbringings, and slowly weaves them together, each one tangential to all the others, some closely interwoven. It is a fascinating read, and I can’t wait for the next volume. I may have to go back and read Sea of Poppies while I am waiting.
This is one of the best videos I have ever seen on youTube. I was looking for a video to share on Mali Djembe drummers; this puts the drums and the drumming all in context. Thomas Roebers does an amazing job of stitching it all together, and we get to watch that tree from selection, to first cuts with the ax, through roughing, hollowing and covering with a skin . . . watch for it, interspersed with rhythmic aspects of village life.
The first day of our New Year was a lot of fun – we had little Q overnight, so after breakfast he and I walked to a near by park while AdventureMan cooked up a big pot of Turkey Gumbo, accompanied by a salad that had apples and cranberries and a fabulous Roquefort dressing, our son and his wife came for lunch and picked up their son, and then we had a free afternoon. I started a new quilt, a complicated quilt, one that takes a lot of planning and a lot of cutting before I can even stitch the very first piece.
Then last night we watched District 9, a movie we had seen before. I always find it troubling, and I know I shouldn’t watch a movie like that which stirs me up, before I go to bed.
So today is the first normal day of the new year, I hit the pool for aqua aerobics and then I come home to do some more cutting for the quilt. I’ve been cutting all day. I still have more cutting to do. Aarrgh.
The good news is – it is my choice. I want to do more quilts, I want to make time. I want to do all the small work that goes into a truly grand quilt. It’s just tedious when you are in the middle of the preparation stages, and the light today is not bright, it is dark.
Maybe better light tomorrow. I am working with wonderful colors; colors of the desert and colors of the Arabian Gulf. 🙂
So many times when I go to look for information (much of which I share with you on this blog) the first and most comprehensive place to pop up with the information I need is Wikipedia. Today, when I was gathering information on school shootings, I saw, for the second time (the first time was a couple years ago) a banner asking me to donate to keep Wikipedia going.
I did. And I hope you will, too, if you use Wikipedia.
If you donate, you will get one of the nicest thank-you letters you will ever receive. I used to write these letters. I know how hard it is to strike just the right tone. I applaud the people at Wikipedia who wrote this one. (What is the goal of a fund-raiser’s thank you? To be sure you donate again the next time 🙂 )
Dear Donor,
Thank you for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation. You are wonderful!
It’s easy to ignore our fundraising banners, and I’m really glad you didn’t. This is how Wikipedia pays its bills — people like you giving us money, so we can keep the site freely available for everyone around the world.
People tell me they donate to Wikipedia because they find it useful, and they trust it because even though it’s not perfect, they know it’s written for them. Wikipedia isn’t meant to advance somebody’s PR agenda or push a particular ideology, or to persuade you to believe something that’s not true. We aim to tell the truth, and we can do that because of you. The fact that you fund the site keeps us independent and able to deliver what you need and want from Wikipedia. Exactly as it should be.
You should know: your donation isn’t just covering your own costs. The average donor is paying for his or her own use of Wikipedia, plus the costs of hundreds of other people. Your donation keeps Wikipedia available for an ambitious kid in Bangalore who’s teaching herself computer programming. A middle-aged homemaker in Vienna who’s just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A novelist researching 1850s Britain. A 10-year-old in San Salvador who’s just discovered Carl Sagan.
On behalf of those people, and the half-billion other readers of Wikipedia and its sister sites and projects, I thank you for joining us in our effort to make the sum of all human knowledge available for everyone. Your donation makes the world a better place. Thank you.
Most people don’t know Wikipedia’s run by a non-profit. Please consider sharing this e-mail with a few of your friends to encourage them to donate too. And if you’re interested, you should try adding some new information to Wikipedia. If you see a typo or other small mistake, please fix it, and if you find something missing, please add it. There are resources that can help you get started. Don’t worry about making a mistake: that’s normal when people first start editing and if it happens, other Wikipedians will be happy to fix it for you.
I appreciate your trust in us, and I promise you we’ll use your money well.
“In general,” the man next to me said winking to signal the pun, “he was inappropriate, and we had to let him go.”
In The Lectionary, the New Testament reading for today is in Revelations, always an ominous book, and I thought of this verse in the reading for today:
Rev 19:21And the rest were killed by the sword of the rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.
I haven’t even checked the news for today, yet, took care of a few household chores and read my lessons for today. When I saw this last verse, I thought of the conversation last night, and of the carrion birds flocking and twittering and crowing over the carcasses of three generals.
Sadly, each of them is – or once was – an honorable man. One is brought down by greed, one confesses to lust, and one may be innocent of everything but having received 20 – 30,000 e-mails from what AdventureMan calls a “General Groupie.”
It isn’t just generals, it is what happens to men who become, in some way, important. Little birdies with their admiring eyes flock around “important men” as if the scent of their power were an aphrodisiac, or as if his power or aura might rub off on her. People jump to do your will. It is tempting to begin to think you might deserve this special treatment, to be so admired, to have the taxpayer fund your excesses . . . It is particularly difficult, I think, to maintain a proportionate sense of who you are when the world starts tempting you to think you are special.
The general brought down by greed was brought down by those serving him, those who were disgusted by his excesses and his misuse of taxpayer monies. It wasn’t just one person or two – it was many people documenting his greed, arrogance and misappropriation of funds.
The two other generals have lost their reputations, their futures and their peace, as the news-carrion birds feast on their carcasses. Sadly, these were good men who yielded to temptation. General Petraeus could have been President of the United States. General Allan may be entirely innocent of all wrong doing, but still, the birds are feasting. Their reputations and their dignity are stained and torn, and their humiliations are thrust upon their innocent families. The accusations against them have become grist for gossip and jokes across the nation. It’s a sad day for those who served our country so well.
We tell our children the story about Jonah and the Whale, but often, the story ends there, with Jonah deciding to trust God and be obedient. To me, it is the rest of the story that is more interesting.
First, I have pious acquaintances who will pronounce “God never changes his mind” and yet . . . here, and in many other places, God relents against a prior judgement. He listens, and he has compassion.
Second, what is this toddler-like behavior when God does not destroy Nineveh? Jonah was rescued from the belly of the great fish/whale, and yet he pouts and is angry when God delivers Nineveh from a fiery destruction? He is downcast when the bush withers?
Third, At the very end, God asks should he not be concerned, when there are so many people, 120,000, who don’t know their right from their left AND MANY ANIMALS. I love it that God is also concerned about the condition of the animals, and shudder to think of the price people will have to pay in the after life who treat an animal with cruelty.
3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
4But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3 And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ 4 And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
6 The Lord God appointed a bush,* and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, ‘It is better for me to die than to live.’
9 But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?’ And he said, ‘Yes, angry enough to die.’ 10 Then the Lord said, ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’
LOL, his former teacher said teaching him science would be a waste of time? And today he wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine! From AOL News/Huffpost:
LONDON — Teacher knows best?
That doesn’t appear to be the case for one teacher who called a future Nobel Prize winner’s dreams of becoming a scientist “quite ridiculous” in a scathing report card.
John Gurdon’s future success was almost nipped in the bud in 1949 when a schoolmaster at elite Eton College wrote on his report card that pursuing science would be a waste of time.
“His work has been far from satisfactory,” the teacher wrote. “If he can’t learn simple biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be sheer waste of time, both on his part, and of those who have to teach him.”
The teacher said that the teenage Gurdon had gotten into trouble several times and didn’t listen.
The scientific community could argue it’s a good thing he didn’t.
After starting out studying classics at Oxford, Gurdon switched to zoology. In 1962, he showed that the DNA from specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, could be used to generate new tadpoles – a breakthrough rewarded Monday with the Nobel Prize for Medicine, which he shared with Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka.
Scientists are trying to build on the work of Gurdon and Yamanaka to create replacement tissues for treating diseases like Parkinson’s and diabetes.
Here There and Everywhere 