I am willing to bet that some poor woman shared this photo somewhere, and the Nigerian scammer lifted it to include with this e-mail. If you want a hilarious read, check out I Do Not Come to You By Chance, by Nigerian author Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani.
msmzd456f456f46546@msn.com
Hello Dear,
With due respect and humanity, I am writing this mail with tears and sorrow to seek for your assistance regards to my present conditions since the death of my parents. My name is Miss Gwen Jennie, 21 years old Female, from Monrovia Liberia in West Africa presently seeking asylum in Dakar Senegal as a refugee.
I am now writing to seek for your assistance from Dakar Senegal where I managed to escaped to a nearby country through the help of United Nation authority and now seeking asylum in Dakar Senegal as a refugee,
I lost my parents and want you to stand as my foreign trustee to Receive this money from the bank Five Million United State Dollars deposited with a reputable bank in Madrid Spain while am the rightful next of kin to the deposited fund in Madrid Spain.
I tried to get this money out from the bank in Madrid Spain, but the bank management refused because of my age and present status as refugee, Now the bank management asked to look for a reliable partner abroad who can stand on my behalf and retrieve the fund and I shall send you the fund deposited documents and other information’s as soon as i hear positive news from you,
Please help me i am ready to give you anything from this total money Please if you can help me try to reply me urgently as i will explain more to you and we can discuss fully and God will always bless you for your help which I know you shall never regret.
Reach me faster on my Alternate email for security reason
Thank you, John Mueller, for forwarding me this story. We lived in luxury, next to a vacant lot where a few laborers lived with next to nothing. They were the lucky ones, but lived in fear of being caught without passports (their sponsors held their passports) and without any papers. The Indian and Nepalese were treated like animals, not like human beings. They are a means to and end, and treated as a resource, without humanity:
Boarding the bus back to their accommodation camp November 19, 2013
STANDING UP FOR THE LITTLE GUY
Azfar Khan: Laboring for Labor
February 07, 2014By Laura Secorun Palet
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Why you should care
Because migrant workers finally have an advocate worthy of their wants and needs in a place that believes they deserve none of the above.
Defending the little guy is a stance old as time, but you wouldn’t think the glitzy world of professional soccer would need that kind of advocate. But for the people who work so that others can play in new stadiums and watch from secure bleachers, it’s an entirely different story. And it’s the story being told by migrant workers in Qatar who are helping the city prepare for the world’s largest sports competition in 2022.
Cue Azfar Khan, a Pakistani native living in an increasingly unstable Lebanon because he sees an even greater threat facing the regions’ migrant workers.
“Sorry about the bad connection. There has been an explosion in the neighborhood,” Khan says in a surprisingly relaxed tone over the phone.
When you do something like this, it’s not only about the job — it has to be personal.
The senior migration specialist for the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Beirut, Khan monitors and advises Arab states on how to protect workers’ rights. He is talkative and cheerful, even in the face of bombs and sectarian violence.
Azfar Khan
“The security situation is pretty dire,” he says plainly.
If Khan doesn’t sound overly concerned about explosions, it’s because he’s focused on helping the countless immigrant workers who don’t make the headlines. As their champion, he is counseling the Qatar government on how to host the World Cup without violating any more international labor laws.
Working conditions in the region are “pathetic,” Khan says. He believes the kafala system — a traditional sponsorship scheme that binds each migrant worker to a single employer — is incompatible with modern-day labor because it puts workers in a very vulnerable situation.
Last year alone, 185 Nepalese workers — the single largest group of laborers in Qatar and also the lowest paid — died during the construction of the World Cup infrastructure. More than half, some as young as 16, died of heart attacks or workplace accidents, often after enduring 12-hour days and sharing unsanitary lodgings.
Surprisingly enough, Qatar has ratified most conventions on labor rights, which means all exploitative practices are technically illegal. But rules mean nothing if they’re not enforced.
”People with a little bit of assistance can do a better job about improving their lives than paternalistic policymakers.”
“The problem is an extreme lack of political will,” says Khan. “For example, Qatar has signed the convention on the elimination of forced labor but still allows the practice of withdrawing workers’ passports, which easily leads to forced labor.”
Source: Narendra Shrestha/EPA/Corbis
Nepalese domestic migrant worker Om Kumar Chaudhary, aged 23, fixes a goods lift at a 60 feet high construction building in Kathmandu, Nepal, December 16, 2013.
The Qatari government thinks Khan’s concerns are exaggerated, insisting, according to the Emir, that the country is “on the right track” and “truly committed to treating all workers fairly.”
Yet Qatar refuses to sign one convention — the very one Khan considers most crucial: the freedom of assembly and association. “Without any organization to adequately represent their interests, no matter how much we discuss, we are going to have problems,” he says.
And if you thought it was just a regional issue, think again. This unwillingness to take action is not unique to the Gulf states. According to Khan, “Labor law doesn’t get much attention anywhere, whether it is in developing countries or in developed ones.”
Pushing countries to implement these laws without the momentum of political will is like pushing water uphill, but Khan perseveres in his quest with modesty and conviction.
“I know that what I can do will not be earth shattering, but at least it is a cog in the wheel,” he explains.
Khan is himself a former immigrant who moved to Canada with his mother and sister from his native Pakistan at age 14. Raised in a household partial to Sufi philosophy, he was instilled with a sense of social justice from an early age.
“We were told that we had a commitment to people, and I guess championing the underdog was implicitly part of this teaching,” he says.
Source: Amnesty International/Corbis
Migrant worker sitting on a bunk bed in his accommodation in Qatar.
While in Canada, Khan’s dreams of cricketing stardom turned to aspirations of fighting for social justice. He studied economics at McGill University, specializing in development economics before moving to the U.K. and completing his Ph.D. on the impact of international migration on rural Pakistan. In the 1970s and ’80s, Khan noticed how many Pakistanis moved to the Gulf countries to earn money to send home and became concerned about the trend’s long-term effects.
In 1995, Khan started working for the ILO, where he promotes legal and social protection for migrant workers — a dream endeavor, but far from easy. A crucial part of his task is raising awareness among international organizations as well as the governments he already counsels. He thinks institutions should do more to empower those they seek to protect and stop viewing the poor as just another statistic.
What we really need are good institutions that will protect the workers like the unions used to.
Which explains why working face to face with people is Khan’s favorite part of the job. While running experimental community workshops in the region of Kochi, India, he realized “that people with a little bit of assistance can do a better job about improving their lives than paternalistic policymakers sitting in high offices can.” Grassroots work has become just as important to him as presenting reports in well-appointed meeting rooms.
Source: Fadi Al-Assaad/Reuters/Corbis
View of Doha city, under construction
The key to moving things in the right direction, he asserts, is public support — and Khan isn’t shy about using the media to get politicians’ attention. In Ukraine in 2003, for example, he surveyed how the restructuring of enterprises promoted by liberal policies was affecting workers’ security. The morning after he shared his results with the press, the issue was discussed in parliament, and his recommendations were adopted by the government.
Information is useful, Khan notes, but taking action is a whole other matter. “So what we really need are good institutions that will protect the workers like the unions used to,” he adds.
Unfortunately Khan’s work is as slow going as it is important, but he’s more than willing to put in the effort. Any moves toward social justice are worthwhile, he says, “regardless of the size.”
Khan’s genuine love of people seems to be the secret behind his boundless enthusiasm. After 20 years of working for the ILO, he will soon be forced to retire, but he plans to keep fighting for the proverbial little guy.
“When you do something like this, it’s not only about the job — it has to be personal. Do you believe in it or don’t you believe in it?” he asks rhetorically.
Spend a minute with Khan, and you too will believe.
A computer generated image shows the stadium to be built in Al-Wakrah.
Today in Pensacola, from the Pensacola News Journal What I wonder – did the guy selling the ring get to keep the full $4,500 that his attempted abductors were buying from him?:
Two people have been arrested in connection with a kidnapping and shooting of a man after a botched robbery attempt in a Wal-Mart parking lot, an Escambia County Sheriff’s Office arrest report said.
Darius Beasley, 21, and Jamichael Tucker, 19, were arrested Tuesday afternoon after deputies responded to reports of shots fired near the intersection of Pensacola Boulevard and Hood Drive, according to the report.
A victim at the scene said that he had met Beasley in the parking lot after arranging to sell him a $4,500 wedding ring on Craigslist, the report said. The victim allowed Beasley into his vehicle, where they exchanged the ring and an envelope containing cash.
The victim said that immediately afterward, Tucker approached the driver’s side of the vehicle and pointed a gun inside. Tucker then allegedly opened the door of the vehicle and attempted to put duct tape around the victim’s wrists.
The victim was able to get out of the vehicle and run away, and the two suspects returned to their car and drove off, the report said. The victim began to chase the pair in his truck, and Tucker reportedly leaned out of his car window and began shooting at the victim.
The chase ended when a deputy arrived on the scene and advised the suspects to pull over. Tucker and Beasley were taken into custody without incident, and no one was injured in the event.
Both men are facing an array of charges including aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and attempted kidnapping.
Tucker is being held on $125,500 bond, and Beasley is being held on $103,000.
This is big news for people in my area, because they often flash lights to warn of speed traps ahead.
Warning Drivers Of Speed Traps With Flashing Headlights Is Free Speech
A federal judge in St. Louis has set the benchmark
A federal judge in St. Louis ruled Monday that a driver flashing their lights to warn other drivers of an impending speed trap is protected free speech.
On November 22, 2012 Michael Elli received a ticket for flashing his lights to warn fellow drivers of a speed trap, according to Fox 2. The American Civil Liberties Union helped Elli fight the $1,000 ticket all the way to federal court.
Judge Henry Autrey of St. Louis ruled a driver has the right to flash their lights under the First Amendment. Autrey issued an injunction to stop Ellisville Police from enforcing the policy.
“If you’re at the gas station on the corner and someone says ‘Hey be careful over there, there’s a speed trap,’ that’s protected speech. You can’t be ticketed for that. This is no different,” Tony Rothert, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, told Fox 2.
A lawyer for the police in Ellisville said the department isn’t affected by the ruling, as this kind of ticket has only been issued five or so times in the last decade. Across the country, however, the ruling will be considered the benchmark for such cases.
“Are you catching colds?” our friend asked as the funeral ended.
“No, no, I said, funerals just find us very vulnerable, and we have to deal with losses, past, present . . . and future. We have an ongoing fight over who is going to bury whom.”
We did not know the man well who had died, but we knew him as a stalwart. He was a greeter and usher at our service, and he was only rarely ever not there. He served the church. He was always there. I had asked his wife to help me with tickets, and she had laughed and said “of course, I’ll be there because my husband will be there, and if you need me just holler.”
They weren’t there. It made me uneasy, it nagged at me. I didn’t need her, but I missed her, and as I said – they are ALWAYS there. Sometimes it’s what is missing that catches your attention. It caught mine.
When I learned her husband had died, suddenly and unexpectedly, just as the Antique Fair was starting, it came almost as a physical blow. It’s not that I knew him that well. It’s that his presence at the church was something we took for granted, he was stalwart. You could count on him. We attended out of respect, respect for him, support for his wife.
And I know that the two of them spend (spent) as much time together as AdventureMan and I do. I don’t like to think that it could happen to me, that I could be suddenly left. AdventureMan was a military man, he would often leave, all these years, and he might tell me where he was going but I never knew for sure where he was going. We had a code to use if he was lying, but although he never used the code, I know there are times he lied, all for that bitch, national security. Yes, yes, I know, strong language from Intlxpatr, but strong times call for strong language. We both knew that there were times when there was a risk he wouldn’t come back.
We didn’t have to deal with death a lot in our life abroad. Of course, in the military, everyone is young. In all the countries where we worked in the Gulf, there were upper age limits – people retired and people left; you can’t live out your years in Qatar or Kuwait, there are laws against it. You can’t even be buried there without special permission. We learned to deal with the losses of people coming into our lives and leaving, but we didn’t have to deal with the great finality of death. We’re learning.
AdventureMan insists he is going to go first. I am tough in a lot of ways, but I don’t know that I am tough enough to go through his funeral. The very thought of it makes me sick to my stomach.
He tells me not to worry. He wants a Viking funeral; he wants to be sent out in a kerosene soaked ship and for archers to set it on fire as it sails off, disintegrating in flames. Isn’t going to happen, AdventureMan, but if it did, I might give some thought to pitching myself on the ship as it departs . . . otherwise, I’m afraid I might live the rest of my life as the one of the walking wounded.
Vanity, vanity. When I was in university, along with our studies, we all picked out our china patterns and silver flatware. We were preparing for the rest of our lives, which meant getting married. My parents gave me six place settings when I graduated university and through the years, AdventureMan and I added settings. We used the sterling all the time, military people entertained more formally. We haunted French and German antique markets and flea markets, seeking obscure pieces we didn’t have, it was fun.
These days, not so much. I haven’t bought any silver for years. We do very little formal entertaining. My sister and her daughters have taken to using their good silver for every day. I haven’t reached that point – yet – but I am thinking about it.
In spite of the fact that we are not often using our silver flatware, at the recent Christ Church Antique Fair, a woman celebrated having found gumbo spoons.
Gumbo spoons? I have a lot of pieces, mostly French and German. I have asparagus servers, yes, really! I have pieces for all kinds of exotic foods, but no. No, I did not have gumbo spoons. I had never even heard of gumbo spoons.
Gumbo spoons are a little larger than soup spoons, wider, rounder, a little deeper.
As it turns out, they don’t even make gumbo spoons in my sterling, but they had some beautiful ones that will go with my everyday flatware; these had shells on the base of the handles. They are beautiful, and I can hardly wait to eat gumbo in such grand style. These will be well loved – and well used!
Oh Hayfa, this is one of the best flash-mobs ever! I wanted to be there!
I always thought Kuwait was ripe for a flash mob at the junction where the Fintas Expressway joined 6th Ring road. Never had the courage; even though you’d have to wait 6 – 9 light changes to get through. Figured the morality police would have me up on charges, LOL.
“I was scratching their heads and ears and noticed that they were nice and warm! I wondered how they were managing to keep so warm in the awful cold, but I was glad they found a nice warm place,” my friend said, when I asked her how her outdoor cats had fared in the bone-chilling cold we experienced in Pensacola last week.
“Then I got my Gulf Power bill, and Intlxpatr, it was over a thousand dollars!” she exclaimed, her eyes huge.
Her normal bill is probably around what I pay. Not nearly a thousand dollars, not even on the hottest month of summer when I have to keep the air on full blast 24/7 on just to survive.
“So I called the heating people,’ she continued, and they had to crawl under the house, imagine, in this weather. . . ”
I imagined.
“. . . And they discovered the cats had clawed a hole in one of my air ducts and had luxuriated, down there under the house, while my heater tried to heat up half of Pensacola!”
We laughed, but a thousand dollars . . . that knocks a hole in anyone’s budget. It was one of those laughing-because-if-you-don’t-laugh-you-will-cry kinds of laughs.
I am an energy nerd. It comes from growing up in Alaska, I am convinced, where I had neighbors who fished in the summers and had to get by all year on that income, plus what they might come by with odd jobs the rest of the year. My friends had a huge garden in their back yard, and a root cellar where things were stored. In the root cellar, they had a chalkboard, where every potato, every carrot, everything they had stored was listed, and numbers subtracted as they were used. They had to keep track, to be sure they would make it through the winter.
In Pensacola, Gulf Power has a really cool feature on their website. You set up an online account, and you can check on your daily energy usage. LOL, this is mine for January. It has huge ups and downs – mostly we don’t need to have the heat on, but when the temperatures go down and stay down – it shows. There are also a couple days when we used our oven, and that shows up, too, but not badly.
I remember living in Germany, where I didn’t have a dryer (or any space for one) and my landlady brought me my energy bill. We lived in a very small farming village, where they were also all very frugal, but she couldn’t believe my bill was so small. I just smiled; I could hear her dryer going every day, and dryers are also a huge source of energy usage. Anything that heats up – or cools down – is an energy eater.
On the website, you can also compare this year against previous years – and my bill this year is nearly a third higher than last year, but last year we did not have a three-day arctic freeze!
This is a daily meditation from Forward Day by Day, and I know what you are going to say – you are going to read this and say “but she only got back $10; she got exactly what she gave.”
You would be wrong. She also got the joy of giving sacrificially, giving all she had. She didn’t know she was going to get anything back. She got the feeling of doing the right thing.
You give more, you get more. There are so many things that money cannot buy, peaceful sleep, loving family, faraway friends who call you out of the blue because they are thinking of you . . . the Lord blesses a cheerful giver 🙂
FRIDAY, January 31
John 6:6. Jesus said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do.
Sue’s young daughter barely got her offering in the collection plate in time. It was her entire allowance of $10. She’d given the money, she said, because she felt God called her to give all she had. But before the young girl could even take her seat, someone in the row behind gave her a folded $10 bill. Obedience had been rewarded.
Like Sue’s daughter, we are prompted to do things that might challenge our comfort zone. It could be the nudging to give more than we think we can afford, or to take on a task we are uncertain we can accomplish, or to provide a sacrificial act of grace or kindness for the sake of another. God often calls us to give beyond what we can see and reason, whether time, talent, or treasure. Perhaps then we can better see how much God can make of our little.
Jesus’ feeding of the multitude, told in the gospel we read today, did not depend on the disciples having enough food but on their willingness to bring what they had to him so he could increase it. As they served the food, the supplies grew until there was enough to satisfy the hungry crowd with leftovers. Our willingness to give always results in food that keeps on feeding.
Here There and Everywhere 