kuwait

July 31, 2006

July 31, 2006 – Kuwait Gives $694 To Each Citizen to help them with “life’s expenses.”  To quote D, “Ahhahahahaha!  Yeah, living expenses!”  As of this writing, 1 Kuwaiti dinar is roughly $3.5, i.e. $694 is equal to 200 dinars (damn, the dollar has slid since I was a kid living in Arabia).  The average [...]

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Day 320: It’s A Small World After All

July 14, 2006

This is too wacky not to share with the internet, given that it was the internet that caused it.  A few hours ago, I received an email from a woman who lives in Abu Dhabi (that’s in the Middle East, for you geographically-challenged).  Sifting through the Kuwait forums on orkut (which I haven’t touched in ages [...]

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Day 289: Insult To Injury

June 13, 2006

God was full of wine last night, So full of wine that he let a great secret slip. He said, there is no man on this earth who needs a pardon from me, for there is really no such thing, no such thing as sin. – a loose translation of Hafiz C’s parents’ two-storey house in [...]

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The Silks Of Time

June 27, 2005

Fear was the real excuse for putting off Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. Somewhere in the course of the novel, a rash of alarming incidents outside his control would invade the idyllic life of an Afghan child, and I would have to face the dreaded words once they arrived. The demon awoke on Page 112 [...]

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Kuwait: Progress With A Caveat

May 20, 2005

VatulBlog proudly announces that Kuwait Approves Women’s Political Rights. An admirable 35-23 vote gave Kuwaiti women the right to vote and stand in parliamentary elections. No parade is memorable without some rain; traditional archconservatives successfully tacked on a caveat to the law which requires the newly-empowered women to adhere to Islamic law. What an ambiguous [...]

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And Once Again In Kuwait …

May 11, 2005

… the men have unfurled their peacock feathers (or their baboon asses) in a heady display of chauvinism. Lawmakers Block Women From Voting in Kuwait My initial incendiary reaction has given way to accepting that it is existing power which stays the hand of the conservative Kuwaiti man from granting voting rights to a group [...]

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Belated International Women’s Day Greetings

March 9, 2005

It completely slipped my mind that yesterday (Tuesday) was International Women’s Day. Bad feminist – no massage! Perhaps it is my disdain for mere days, weeks or months that celebrate such essences of living as women, the earth, nationalities, etc. that caused me to forget. Regardless, it enrages me to know that the only two [...]

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The Great Night Of Siva

March 8, 2005

Do you know what time it is, boys and girls? That’s right, it’s “the 14th night of the new moon during the dark half of the month of Phalguni,” which means tonight is Maha Sivaratri. An eerie childhood memory of this holy day still gives me chills. *all motion ceases, lights dim, someone turns on [...]

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Teddy Scares

February 22, 2005

AaaaaaAAAAAAAaaaaahhhhh!!!! Teddy Scares reminds me of my teddy bear, Brandon, whom I lost to the ransackers of my home during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. My wishful thinking is that Brandon had gone to a better place like the loving arms of some needy Arab kid. Great, now I am going to see [...]

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Of School Pictures and William S. Burroughs a.k.a. Kidnap This

December 11, 2002

I remember once watching a late-night cop show that warned viewers not to put up pictures of our family members in our places of work. Someone who gets pathologically obsessed with us may exact revenge by stalking, kidnapping, or killing those near and dear to us. The rationale: If they know your vulnerability, they can [...]

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