Flash Mob Robberies
Found this today on AOL News:
http://o.aolcdn.com/videoplayer/AOL_PlayerLoader.swf
There is nothing scarier to me than what happens to morality in a mob. Look at their faces. They are robbing the stores, and they feel gleeful, and evidently they have no fear of being held accountable for their robberies.
Kuwait Time Lapse
My Kuwaiti friend sent this – these young people put together a fabulous video. Gorgeous work, you make Kuwait look so beautiful.
Sorry, Mom
“We’ve had a record number of days under 70°F” Mom says, and as I check today’s weather in Seattle, this is what I see:
You COULD be in Pensacola, Mom:
Did you notice the ‘feels like” temperature?
116?
It’s hot. It’s humid. I think I’ll go take a nap.
I Need Your Trust . . .
Here is my scam letter for today, and here is part of what makes me so sad and so mad about these letters. IF they were true, which they are not, someone thinks I am the kind of person who would be a part of stealing a substantial sum of money. There may well be other relatives, or others who need that money – IF it were true, which it is NOT.
I NEED YOUR HELP WITH TRUST,
FROM: MR REDA ABDALLAH,
Please read carefully,
This message might meet you in utmost surprise. However, it’s just my urgent need for foreign partner that made me to contact you for this transaction. I got your contact from yahoo tourist search while I was searching for a foreign partner. I assured of your capability and reliability to champion this business opportunity when I prayed about you.
I am (MR Reda Abdullah) a banker by profession from Burkina Faso in west Africa and currently holding the post of Audits and Account manager at the foreign remittance department, i have the opportunity of transferring the left over sum of ($9.2 Million Dollars) that belongs to late Mr Rudi Harmanto from Indonesia who died along with his entire family in the Asia Earth Quake (TSUNAMI,DISASTER IN INDONESIA / INDIA. 2004, and since then the fund has been in a suspense account.
After my further investigation, i discovered that Mr Rudi Harmanto died with his next of kin and according to the laws and constitution guiding this banking institution, stated that after the expiration of (7) Seven years, if no body or person comes for the claim as the next of kin, the fund will be channel into national treasury as unclaimed fund. Because of the static of this transaction i want you to stand as the next of kin so that our bank will accord you their recognition and have the fund transfer to your account.
I don’t want the fund to go into our bank treasury account as unclaimed fund. So, this is the main reason why i have contacted you, so that we will release the fund to you as the nearest person to the deceased customer ( next of kin).Please, I would like you to keep this proposal as a top secret or delete it if you are not interested.
Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you the full details on how the business will be executed, and an official copy of the ‘Application Form Of Claim’ of which you will fill, and send to the bank for the release of the fund into your receiving bank account. Also, note that you will have 40% of the above mentioned sum, if you agree to transact the business with me, and while 60% will be for me.
I won’t fail to bring to your notice that the risk to be taken is 100% free in this transaction, and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer of the fund into your bank account. Please, don’t ever forget to reply me this email urgently with your contact information’s like:-
(1)Name:……………………………………………
(2)Age:…………………………………………….
(3)Marital Status:…………………………………..
(4)Telephone Or Cell Phone Numbers:……………………
(5)Your Country:…………………………………….
(6)Your Occupation:…………………………………
I will like to receive the above following information’s from you as you reply this email to me for more trust, and better understanding of who you are. Looking forward to receive your reply urgently.
Thanks from,
Mr. Reda Abdallah
Thelma and Louise in Saudi Arabia
An editorial cartoon from my friend Grammy, in Texas, from today’s paper:
Men, Porsches and Peacocks
Women! If you want to get married, stay away from the guys who drive the flashy cars!
I found this hilarious study on AOL Health News:
Are Men Who Flaunt Flashy Cars Not the ‘Marrying Kind?’
Conspicuous spending often driven by desire to have flings, researchers say.
By Mary Elizabeth Dallas, HealthDay News
SATURDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) — Men who drive Porsches or flaunt other flashy possessions are usually not the “marrying kind,” a new study suggests.
Researchers from Rice University, the University of Texas-San Antonio (UTSA), and the University of Minnesota found that conspicuous spending by men is often driven by the desire to have uncommitted romantic flings. They also pointed out that although flashy spending may get a woman’s attention, she won’t be picking out china patterns any time soon.
“This research suggests that conspicuous products, such as Porsches, can serve the same function for some men that large and brilliant feathers serve for peacocks,” study author Jill Sundie, an assistant professor of marketing at UTSA, said in a news release from Rice University.
Just as peacocks flaunt their brightly colored tails to attract potential mates, certain men show off flashy products, like brightly colored sports cars, to draw the attention of women, the study found. The researchers also indicated that the men who pursued this strategy were only interested in short-term sexual relationships with women.
Freedom Greater Factor than Wealth in Happiness
Fascinating study, I found it today on AOL Health News
Freedom More Important to Happiness Than Wealth, Study Finds
Personal independence, autonomy trump money in data from more than 60 countries.
SUNDAY, June 19 (HealthDay News) — Personal independence and freedom are more important to people’s well-being than wealth, a new study concludes.
Researchers at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand analyzed the findings of three studies that included a total of more than 420,000 people from 63 countries and spanned nearly 40 years.
Their key finding: “Money leads to autonomy, but it does not add to well-being or happiness.”
The studies looked at data from three different psychological tests familiar to therapists:
The General Health Questionnaire, which measures distress in terms of anxiety and insomnia, social problems, severe depression and physical symptoms of mental distress, such as unexplained headaches and stomach aches.
The Spielberger anxiety inventory, which evaluates how anxious respondents feel at a particular moment.
The Maslach Burnout Inventory, which screens for emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment.
The analysis revealed “a very consistent and robust finding that societal values of [freedom and autonomy] were the best predictors of well-being,” wrote psychologists Ronald Fischer and Diana Boer in an American Psychological Association release.
“Furthermore, if wealth was a significant predictor alone, this effect disappeared when individualism was entered,” they added.
“Our findings provide insight into well-being at the societal level,” the researchers concluded.
The study appears in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: I Do Not Come to You by Chance
This book, the first novel from Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, is hilarious, with moments of pathos, and a fresh point of view.
Amazon.com recommended it to me as I was busy buying books by author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; I thought ‘OK, I’ll read a series of Nigerian books as part of my summer reading.
Young Kingsley Ibe is the family’s first born male, and with that status goes many privileges – and responsibilities. After graduating with a Masters in Chemical Engineering, he has no success in his search for a job with an oil company in Nigeria, and consequently loses the love of his life, Ola, to another who has secure employment.
Worse, his retired father has a stroke, and the family discovers that with all the fees required, they haven’t enough for his continued care, so Kingsley must approach his uncle, Boniface Mbamalu, more familiarly known as Cash Daddy, for funds to transfer his father to a long term care facility, and, later, for his father’s funeral.
Serious Kingsley’s eyes nearly pop as he sees the life his uncle is living, cars, women, designer watches, shoes, suits and all the trappings of new wealth. Soon, his uncle makes a convincing case for Kingsley coming to work for him, the better to help out his family of mother, brothers and sister, now that he is the senior male in the family.
Kingsley discovers he has a gift for the work – which is writing 419s, those scam letters which I frequently publish in this column. I loved being on the inside, learning how strong possibility e-mail addresses are netted, how response e-mails are massaged – not unlike fund raising techniques by charitable organizations in the US. Kingsley’s education helps him achieve enormous financial success in a very short time – but he finds that all the cash and designer goods in the word do not solve his problems nor make him happy.
I learned a lot about how successful many of these scammers are, and how the money made is spread throughout the Nigerian communities. The author takes a balanced view, balancing the way the cash makes life easier for people – a lot of people, because the rich man has many obligations to his community, balanced against the disgust, and sick fear felt by his religious mother and aunt, and his one time girlfriend, when they learn the work he is doing. They are disappointed that a man of such promise has sunk to making so much money in a dishonest way. The book also does not deal sympathetically with those who have given or lost money to the scammers, nor, in my opinion, does the ending satisfy.
This is one of the funniest parts of the book – a group of Nigerian scammers is about to meet with a representative of a major US investment firm. He thinks he will be meeting with the Nigerian Minister of Transportation to discuss building a new airport; the reality is that Cash Daddy, in disguise, will be pretending to be the minister. Kingsley protests that Cash Daddy looks nothing like the minister, and Cash Daddy responds:
“Let me tell you something . . . Me, I really like these oyibo people. They’re very very nice people. See how they came and showed us that the ground where we’ve been dancing Atilogwu has crude oil under it. If not for them, we might never have found out. But Kings,” he dragged in his dangling foot and sat up in the tub, “white man doesn’t understand black man’s face. Do you know tht I can give you my passport to travel with . . . Even if your nose is ten times bigger than my own, they won’t even notice?”
It was a fascinating book. I understand better now why 419 scams work. (419 is the section of the Nigerian criminal code making scam e-mails a crime; thus the crime is called ‘a 419’) There are some very funny and very insightful moments in the book. It is no where near the level of literature that you experience with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, but there is more humor, and the book shows a more modern day Nigeria. Not a bad summer read, but not great literature.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Thing Around Your Neck
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has compiled a series of elegant vignettes in her most recent book, The Thing Around Your Neck. I had just read Half of a Yellow Sun, and was still wallowing in stunned admiration, when I heard an interview with the author on BBC, and learned she had written this book, The Thing Around Your Neck.
I loved Half of a Yellow Sun. I loved Purple Hibiscus. I felt I began to understand just a little bit about life in transitional Nigeria, with all the social and political forces blowing to and fro, straining the very fabric of nationhood.
In The Thing Around Your Neck, something else happens. It shares with Cutting for Stone and other books I like the impressions of those who come to live in the USA for the first time.
“Would that the wee wee giftie gi’e us, To see ourselves as others see us . . . ”
I’ve had a lot of experience going to live in foreign countries. One of the things I learned is that most of what I learn the first couple years isn’t much. You learn a lot of things wrong. You filter everything through your own cultural biases; you judge, you interpret, you try to make sense of things that just seem wrong.
I love to watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s characters do this in reverse, come to America and make judgements based on their own cultural expectations. I love to see us through these eyes.
Once, many many years ago, we entertained a Nigerian in our home, and when we served dinner, steaks, he looked at his plate and said “This would feed my family for a week.” We kind of laughed. We kind of thought he was exaggerating, or even kidding. We just didn’t know. We had never seen anyone truly hungry, we had always lived in this land of plenty. We had no idea what we didn’t know. We saw only what we knew.
Each story is a gem. Each treats the expat experience, coming here, or the reverse, coming to America and then going back and seeing Nigeria through eyes which have changed.
One story I had read before, in the New Yorker magazine and loved reading again, The Headstrong Historian. It starts with a smart woman, weaving her way among the ways of her people, whose husband’s family wants her husband to take another wife. He doesn’t want to. These two chose each other, and managed to live their lives together as best they could, by their own standards. Her son disappoints her, but her granddaughter – she sees her husband’s brave, courageous spirit in the eyes of her little grand daughter. You’ll have to read the story to find out the rest.
Other stories have to do with newlyweds, with students, with love and marriage and affairs – the full spectrum of human experience, through Nigerian expat eyes. There are settings common from all three books, the college campus at Nsukka, a prison outside of town, small villages outside the city. If you read all her books, you recognize place: “Aha! I’ve been her before, in Purple Hibiscus!” You learn how to bribe the guards so you can bring in food for your imprisoned family member, you learn to keep your eyes down to show respect, you learn how Nigeria smells when the rains come, and how dry and dusty it gets during the harmattan.
I’m just sorry there isn’t another book by this author – yet – that I can read!
I guess these books that I love deal with a theme dear to my heart – that we are culturally blind to so many things, and that as human beings we are more alike than we are different. Short of packing up all our lives and our assumptions and moving to many different countries, the best we can hope for in learning different ways of thinking is for books like these by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which show us how differently we perceive things, depending on our cultures, and how alike we are in the things that we feel, as human beings.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Purple Hibiscus
A couple of years ago, when we had a great book club in Kuwait, I read Half of a Yellow Sun, by this author, and I was blown away. Some books you just read for entertainment, and some books have such a strong, compelling voice that it comes back to you, again and again, and you think about it for a long time.
So when Amazon.com recommended Purple Hibiscus, I bought it, along with The Thing Around Your Neck. Purple Hibiscus is the author’s first book, and The Thing Around Your Neck is her most recent. In 2009, I found an interview with her online; you can watch it by clicking here: An Interview with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She is an enormously talented author.
When I read Half of a Yellow Sun, I became Igbo, growing up in Nigeria. While that story was told through many eyes, I was able to be a boy from the bush brought to the college campus to be a houseboy, I got to be a wife, her sister, her professor husband. We experienced the Biafran succession, the insanity of several regime changes in Nigeria, the total fog and waste of war, through the eyes of the Biafrans.
Reading Purple Hibiscus was a little different; the story is told through the eyes of a girl, Kambili, who lives in a very controlled environment. We know from the very beginning that things are not right in her wealthy, beautiful world. Her father and mother love her, take good care of her, feed her, clothe her – and that is just a part of a bigger picture. Her father has an idea of the way things should be; he attained his position and wealth through his education by the Catholic priests and he has a rigid idea of how everything must be done. Vary from his strictures, and you get beaten, or scalded, or you little finger is broken and disfigured.
Part of what makes this book so compelling is that while the environment is Nigeria, and, to us, exotic, the climate of abuse is the same everywhere. It’s a dirty little secret, even in the wealthiest of families, you keep your mouth shut to stay alive, and to protect your family’s image. Abuse is no stranger to rich or poor families, and can only stay alive because people stay silent.
Kambili, fifteen when we meet her, lives a tiny, small, scared life, following the weekly schedules her father prints out for her and her brother and posts over her desk. She hears her mother beaten over the smallest failure, imagined or real. Her mother miscarries twice due to these beatings, and her father tenderly cares for the mother whose miscarriage his beatings caused. It is crazy-world. Kambeli and her brother are expected to take first in every class; if they do not, they, too, pay a severe penalty.
Just as the political climate in Nigeria starts to tremble and fall apart, so, too, does Kambili’s life, and in the falling apart, comes new ways of doing things, new perspectives, new risks and even learning to run, to laugh, to be ‘normal’ as other children are. She is blessed to have an aunt at the university, no where near so wealthy as her family but able to cajole her father into letting the children visit with her. The aunt, Ifeoma, laughs, and encourages her children to challenge other’s opinions respectfully, and who grows the very rare Purple Hibiscus. Her heart aches for Kambili and her brother, and she tries to give them space to figure things out for themselves, and to chose what they want for themselves.
It is a scary time in Nigeria, a time when men can come to the door and take someone away, and you don’t know if you will ever see them again, or how damaged they will be if they return. Kambili’s own life is full of a similar terror, but the terror is inflicted by someone who she loves, and who loves her.
I love the soul of an author who can write a book like this, a book that makes me feel like in another life I was a Nigerian. I can’t begin to think I know much about Nigeria now, but having read three books by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I have the broad outlines of the divisions which traumatize and fracture Nigeria to this day. Even better, I understand how very different the cultural expectations are from our own, and how very similar we are as human beings.
This is a great read. It is inspirational. You might even learn something. You can find it on Amazon.com.
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