The Love Of Family

This is something that we cannot have too much of. I am really feeling it as I spend these few weeks with members of my family. It’s a sweet thing when your children grow up and you find yourself in a situation of roll reversal with them caring for you when you need it. God has really Blessed me in this way.

I had to have two molars extracted from where their crowns had broken off down to the roots in preparation for implants or a permanent bridge. Al Hamdulillah the Qatar Foundation has provided me with an excellent health and dental insurance policy that allows me to seek treatment anywhere in the world. So at 11:30 today my precious daughter took me to the oral surgeon and stayed with me as I got silly under the nitrous oxide in preparation for the intravenous anesthetic that knocked me out completely. Apparently I started giggling with the nitrous oxide and told the Doctor I’d like to take some home with me. My daughter said the doctor said the tank was too big to fit in my carry-on! LOL! Then I waxed poetic to the doctor and nurse anesthetist about how much I love my daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren; and how I would like my daughter and son-in-law to be surrogate parents to another grandbaby for me that I would, of course, give them to raise! ROFL! I was informed of all this after I woke up and I seem to have entertained everybody

I woke up after 1.5 hours to my dear daughter’s smile and she brought me home (stopping by Wendy’s for a large frosty so I could take my antibiotic and pain meds) and got me settled in bed, laying down beside me until I was fully functional. Then she went to get my post-op prescriptions filled (had done the others yesterday) and picked up a dozen of my favorite yogurt (Yoplait whipped Key Lime Yogurt) and cranberry juice; made me mashed potatoes and home made beef barbecue from a left over roast that she chopped real fine and mixed with a very mild homemade sauce; and brought me the best medicine of all — my grandchildren! Maash’Allah, I do truly feel like I am the luckiest woman in the world and I thank God for the guidance He has given me on this path.

Protected: What Time Is It? It’s GRANNY Time!!!! (Includes Pics)

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AWRLBTWWII: Brides for Sale In “The Kingdom”

The following appeal by Maha Fahd Al-Hujailan was published in the Arab Times today:

Alarabia.net reported on Friday that a 60-year-old man in Hail Province would shortly marry a 10-year-old girl. This report comes on top of another stating that the Hail Province has the dubious distinction of being home to the youngest husband and wife in the world. There could, no doubt, be several unreported instances of old men taking minor girls for wives in other regions of the Kingdom.

While a Saudi newspaper, Shams, expressed outrage at the reported practice of “selling” brides, several people wanted the government to step in and stop the marriage. “Selling” in the context refers to the fact that a girl’s father would agree to marry her to an old man only if he offered an enormous amount of money to the father. Such reports not only bring a bad name to the province but also tarnish the image of the country and the religion, not to say anything of a minor girl being traumatized by the horrors of a forced conjugal union.

[...]

Recent studies on the victims of pedophilia, a situation comparable to the suffering of minor brides, show that they are reluctant to talk about their strange experience. They become vulnerable to depression and self-detestation as the years pass by with the growing realization that they have been exploited in the most horrendous manner.

[...]

An Arab, with his present cultural and religious background, may not accept that legitimate sexual life would mentally harm a girl between 15 and 17. But this does not mean that a minor’s sexual experience is beneficial, or harmless, to her. If the studies showed that even 17-year-old girls suffered mental illness after sex, what could be the state of a child who had to sleep with a man older than her own father.

[...]

The practice of marrying small girls may also lead in several cases to undesirable moral situations. By the time a child-wife becomes a fully grown-up woman with increasing biological and emotional needs, her husband would have reached a stage devoid of physical vigor and emotional warmth. An aged husband can hardly understand the feelings and needs of a young wife. Even if he understands, he is helpless against the advancing senility. The situation may prompt at least some young wives to seek illegal relations with young men. While other women of her age lead a romantic life with their young and strong husbands, the young wife would be nursing her old husband rendered totally weak by the overdose of virility drugs.

[...]

A Saudi woman said that as a girl she used to listen with terror to stories told by her married friends. One day she happened to overhear her grandfather and mother discuss her marriage. She was then in the fifth standard at a primary school. She was so shocked at the grandfather’s plan that she began to perspire profusely, her mouth turned dry and was gasping for breath and she was shivering like anything and fled to her bedroom. Even the memory of that overheard-conversation used to make her shudder and never after that she sought the company of her grandfather.

Lastly I urge the National Human Rights Society and related agencies in Hail and other places to make every effort to stop the wedding, particularly when it has become clear that the relatives of the 10-year-old girl have no pity on her, nor do they care for her rights as a human being.

Ya’Allah! What the hell is wrong with these people??? The only answer to such ignorance is education and that is not a strong point in Saudi Arabia where keeping the people ignorant seems to be at the top of the Islamist agenda. Perhaps with the opening of Western universities introducing critical thinking, stories like this will become fewer and farther between.

Political Pandering: Why Do They Do It?

I’ve always had respect for John McCain’s military service and his willingness to march to his own drummer in his earlier days in Congress. But I can’t help but feel queasy when I read about him pandering to Pennsylvania voters in Newsweek:

For John McCain, memories seem to be malleable things.

Take yesterday, for example. Stumping in Pittsburgh, Penn., the Republican presidential nominee told KDKA-TV that the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of Steel City is its football team. “The Steelers really made a huge impression on me, particularly in my early years,” he said. In fact, the impression was so huge, added McCain, that when “he was first interrogated [as a POW in Vietnam] and really had to give some information because of the pressures, physical pressures on me, I named the starting lineup, defensive line of the Pittsburgh Steelers as my squadron mates.” “Did you really?” asked the reporter. “Yes,” McCain said. “Could you do it today?” asked the reporter. “No, unfortunately,” McCain said.

In his own memoir Faith of My Fathers McCain went on record saying he gave the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive starting line — which has also been noted in the A&E special of the same name. In fact, this is something that McCain has mentioned on several occasions and yet in the face of this snafu, his campaign is saying it was a case of faulty memory. Maybe so, but it sure seems to be convenient faulty memory when he was campaigning in PA — and rather smacks of political pandering to me.

AWRLBTWWII: Rasha — Sold To The Highest Bidder!

From Arab News comes this latest:

TAIF: When Rasha registered for high school a few years ago, she discovered that her estranged father had married her off without her knowledge to a man in his 80s in exchange for a SR30,000 (about $8,000) dowry payment. Now a court has denied her appeals to divorce the man.

“The officials at the girls education department discovered that my file had no birth certificate except a temporary one from the hospital where I was born,” Rasha told Al-Riyadh daily in a report published yesterday.

“They asked me to bring my father’s identity card or a printout from the Civil Affairs Directorate. After searching through my papers, they gave me the shock of my life when they told me that my father had married me to an 85-year-old man when I was just 10 years old, and that I am his fourth wife.”

Now the 18-year-old resident of Taif is appealing to the government and the National Society for Human Rights to intervene after a local judge declined to grant the divorce, even after a donor agreed to reimburse the dowry money that the old man was demanding to terminate the marriage.
Rasha’s father and mother split up before she was born, and her grandmother raised her. She says she has never met her father or the man that she was married to without her knowledge.

Islam forbids forced marriages. Though fathers must grant permission for daughters to marry, they cannot force their daughters to marry somebody of their choice. Furthermore, dowry is supposed to be paid to and left under the control of the woman getting married.

Officials at the Civil Affairs Directorate, which is under the Interior Ministry and in charge of registering the civil status of Saudi citizens, told Rasha to file a suit against her father and the old man in court. The court ordered her to take out newspaper advertisements to find the old man. A tip from somebody who read the announcement led to the discovery that the old man is demanding a refund of the dowry.

“I waited for a year looking for someone who would pay me this amount until Princess Jawhara bint Abdul Aziz took the initiative and donated the entire amount. When I took the money to the judge to complete my divorce procedures, he said the case was closed,” Rasha said.

Shut out of the legal system, Rasha is now appealing to the government and human rights activists to help her out of this predicament.

How many times do we have to read these stories and all the excuses about how this isn’t Islam before Muslims will demand REFORM?! Our societies are backwards and the way we are implementing religion misogynist. How can there be a legal system in the so-called “Kingdom” that does not allow this young woman the most basic of human rights — freedom from slavery? This is nothing but human trafficking!

And to those of you who defended them, can you not see the relationship between those sicko “scholars” who tell us that children can be married at any age and this kind of abuse?

I’m utterly disgusted.

REFORM!

I was delighted to discover that I’m not the only one with these ideas. I’m referring to the way the interpretation and implementation of Islam is subverting critical thinking and tolerance in the quest for political control. And the ray of hope is coming from Saudi intellectuals! Listen to Turki Al Hamad:

Now listen to Sa’ad Al-Sowayan:

I pray this will become a trend before it is too late.

Move over Denzel and George — I’ve added Gordon To The List

I find myself feeling a little warm under the collar when my Chef flexes in the kitchen… and it’s not because of the heat from the oven!

If you love Gordon like I love Gordon, check out Kitchen Nightmares. I think I’m going to have to find out when he’ll be onsite at his Dubai restaurant next and make a booking… for dinner as well

Or as Gordon would say, “You dirt-y girl!”

UPDATE: According to our local papers Gordo is seriously contemplating opening a restaurant on the Pearl (Qatar’s man-made island for the fabulously rich and famous), as well as a family relocation to Dubai. As Gordon would say: F*ck Me!!!

Le Cirque Musulman: Now Bark Like A Dog!

In honor of the latest in what seems to be an endless barrage of utterly ridiculous Muslims taking offense at the most absurd “transgressions” of our ever-so-delicate sensitivities, I have decided to add a new category to my blog: Le Cirque Musulman [The Muslim Circus], henceforth CM. And now, for our first installment (and a hat tip to Sydney).

Seems some hyper-sensitive Muslims are just one step away from trying to get their government to jump through hoops and bark like a dog for “offending” them by using a photo of a precious puppy to advertise the police non-emergency number. Yes, you read that right and here is the offending canine:

But thank God some more reasonable voices have prevailed; such as Mahmud Rathor who pointed out in The Scotsman “This puppy is a harmless little thing, and we know Britain is a place where people love animals. The fact it was a picture makes it more ridiculous to say it was offensive. Muslim shopkeepers sell dog food with pictures of animals on it.”

I didn’t know the Scots were so adept at satire until I discovered The Spoof:

Postcards showing police dog puppy Rebel, a German shepherd born in December, caused anger among the Billions of Muslims in Dundee who believe dogs are “ritually unclean,” and fit only for “white man’s curry take-away”.

Polygyny: Muslims’ Answer For “Biology” — Straight From The Source

I could accept all adult parties happily choosing polygyny, but how often is that the reality? Instead we are faced with an almost overwhelming barrage of jealousy, anger, hurt feelings and neglect while two or more women fight over some loser of a man who is probably totally getting off on playing one off against the other and feeling so sought after. I know that was the case with my ex-jerk.

The following clip is only one man — but he certainly represents the mindset of many, many more. Most would not be so foolish as to expose thei stupidity on TV, but for our viewing pleasure this one did (embedding was disabled on youtube).

It amazes me how easy it is for a Muslim man to justify giving in to his urges without considering the feelings of wives and children. If we allow ourselves to be ruled by what we perceive as a natural biological function (in this case polygyny), then I have a right to alternate nights between Denzel Washington and George Clooney

The Imbalance of Power

Can you imagine a place where people are afraid to do their jobs because of job insecurity in the host country that hired them in the first placeif they do their job correctly? Can you imagine a place where children call the shots over the adults who have come to do every job in their country, including wiping their bottoms? Can you imagine a place where a 9-year old mouths off to a theater manager and a pair of adults (both ex-pats), using a foul mouth to tell them he can do whatever the hell he wants in his country and have us all kicked out if we don’t like it? And the manager shrugs his shoulders and tells the adult ex-pat couple they should go to the movies in Bahrain (ANOTHER FREAKING COUNTRY!) where there is a rating system and children are not allowed into mature content films. Can you imagine this place? I can. Welcome to the new Doha.

Qatar has changed in the 10 years I have been here and in some very serious ways, not for the better. Sure there is much better educational opportunity which I think has lessened the chance that young people are sucked into Islamic extremism. But the changes that I am referring to here are the result of unmitigated wealth, a dramatic rise in the standard of living which has lead to people thinking money can buy anything and that the whole world is their slave for the hiring.

But it can’t. It can’t buy manners, goodness and human decency. And that is in short supply in this changing Qatar. The answer for me will probably come in the form of me leaving this “new Qatar”, although at one time I thought I would spend the rest of my life and die here, insha’Allah. But the growing devaluation of human rights and decency, coupled with the increasing greed and lack of respect for others make Qatar a place I am struggling with.

My apologies to the good, decent Qataris. I am not referring to you but profoundly saddened by the changes I see taking place in this country I have come to love.