Headlines, Hurricanes and Haha's

Finally a biodegradable water bottle! It's about bloody time.
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A Florida professor finds out he is related to Genghis Khan...Want to know who you are descended from? Go here
(I would... but It's too creepy)
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Salon's 20 Best films to watch out for
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Why not to privatize water...
And for the privatization fanatics..though I know, nothing convinces the faithful:
The myths that drive privatisation
Water Privatisation Fiascos: Seven Case Studies
Water as Commodity - The Wrong Prescription
The global water crisis and UK aid
Econ-Atrocity: Should water assets and services be privatized or publicly managed?
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The state of the world's human rights 2006 edition by Amnesty
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What hurricane? The one that hit the Ministry of Information...Hurricane Al-Sanusi
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And finally, to the person who got to this blog by searching for "hairy Kuwaiti men"...Thank you for the laughs I got when I checked the stats page...it's not the weirdest search that got someone here, but it certainly was good timing for a chuckle. I hope that your 27 seconds on this blog were pleasant, despite the fact that there were no H.K.M to be found.

Scientists say that an 'invisibility cloak' is theoretically possible..
There's already a blueprint for it and they are buying the materials..
But while the scientists tinker with their toys and make something that probably won't make the world that much better:
You might not want to be invisible in the face of the following:

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Yogyakarta...Java..Indonesia...over 4,300 dead..200,000 people are sleeping in the pouring rain..you can help in the simplest way possible..just go here.
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East Africa is having a food crisis..and by East Africa they mean mostly Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania..Oxfam is caring for 700,000 facing starvation..click here to help.
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The crisis in the Sudan is far from ending..2 million families and children face the toughest conditions..to help go here
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Some women running for Parliament are being pressured not to... and receiving death threats:

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اعلنت المرشحة الزميلة عائشة الرشيد انها تلقت رسالة تهديد من شخص يدعى 'ابو نهار' يحذرها فيها من خوض الانتخابات وترشيح" "نفسها لمجلس الامة

Al-Qabas

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ونقل عن فاطمة المطيري قولها: «إن ضغوطاً مورست عليها من أطراف أسرتها حتى لا تخوض التجربة،

Al-Wasat

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تهديد "مرشحة" بالقتل

Al-Seyassah

It may not be 5 yet..(and who's to say that 5 won't mean that only the very, very rich will be able to buy their seats)..but we can still do everything possible to fight corruption.The bad news is that we have a very strong and pervasive culture of corruption..
In every part of life from business to social interactions and family life to politics, it is a maze of lies, pretence, buying and selling favours and personal interests and pretending to be one thing while you are actually another...
It is so sad that you hear of women saying they are going to switch districts so that they can vote in district 3 for the man who will pay for their vote and give them perks..you know who that is, they said his name but I don't need to..ya3ni women have learnt well from their male predecessors in the vote-buying/selling scheme...
You hear people say "well that's the way it is, you vote for the one who will 'imashy mu3amalatna"...
You hear people say that they will vote for a family member, even though that family member is against everything they support, just because it will mean that they will have someone with the same name in parliament..
I even had the unfortunate experience of hearing someone say that even though a candidate from the same family is the polar opposite of all things he believes in, he will vote for him because he wants a street named after the family and having a family member in parialment might make that happen!!! ?
I guess to hell with rights and progress and justice and freedom and all the other good things under the planet..votes are going to street names!
And what is it that is the problem really? I mean everyone is waxing poetic about how we have a long tradition of democracy...how the press is free..how diwaniyas are a form of our age old democratic principles...makes it sound just peachy..why is this country sooo steeped in democratic history sooo corrupt? Maybe because our democracy has always been about who you know and how much you're asking...Civil society isn't quite up on it's feet here..I'd be surprised if it even knew where it's feet are...
When is our sense of dignity and self respect as voters and as voices going to show itself? How do we change a public that has been so used to corruption and 'wasta' in every part of life? So used to it that they all think it's the way things should be.
A major problem as well, that come out in every conversation I have had with people who are more than ready to vote against their conscience is that they have no faith in the government anyway...That we all have to be corrupt because that's the language the system knows how to speak. So how do we go about changing that? How do we convince people that they can 'be the change'..?
And we still want five...Enough is enough.
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Always carry something you can use to tape and upload speeches and footage from campaign rallys and speeches and every maqar so everyone else can see...
It's imperative that we are polite and watch our anger and frustration so that it can't be used against us.
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The Corruption Fighters' Tool Kit
From Transparency International
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The Kuwait Politics Database
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IDEA
International institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance
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The Constitution
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After third day of registration, number of candidates hits 57
Brief profile on parliamentary nominess
Deciding Kuwait's Future
"Six more women yesterday registered to run in the general elections next month, raising the number of female candidates to 12"
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AT LONG LAST, HAVE YOU LEFT NO SENSE OF DECENCY? J. Welch

Thanks to the sharp eye of khalala over at Sand Dunes I took a closer look at the huge front page photo in Al-Watan (pardon my language) ...You know the Sunday one which had a caption saying that 'Thousands" gathered in opposition to the 5 districts...thousands!..
we already read the Sa7at il-Safat post about how many of those gathered that day were recognised as members of the security forces dressed up as civilians .
Well take a look at the photo..i know many of you might not have the stomach to be in the same space as those pages of trash, but the picture is certainly worth a thousand of those words they will have to swallow in time to come..
Khalala has the pic posted, and you will be able to see the lack of photoshop skills employed at that worthless paper if you get a nice close look..
There is a man missing a head in the middle of the photo next to the guy in black ( mourning his ethics i can only presume). The missing head guy has his arms folded and there is a floating head turned at a right angle hanging just by his arm..that is where the two shots were overlapped..
Around that area there are a lot of cut and paste people..each a different size and looking in different directions..it's actually fun to look for the completely ridiculous positions the people are in, in relation to each other and there are a couple of other half bodies if you feel like looking for them..
Look at the guy standing, or rather bending over right in the front row middle..if that was really where he was in relation to the guy on the right, then his rear has eaten off half the guys shoulder even though he is behind the sitting man..Physics like that might have to be reported to NASA.
Then there is the other phenomenon of kuwaiti giants..the person making the cut and paste didn't even bother with perspective..there are men double or triple the size of those right next to them, particularily in the back along the middle where they thought you wouldn't notice..
Thanks go out to the Sand-dunes blog...
Update: Sa7at il-Safat took the story and ran with it...they have the pictures with all the stuff pointed out in detail, if you are curious to look more closely at the forgeries..

When the disinformation goes into high gear you know something ugly is coming soon...

It occured to me while I was driving around tapping my fingers on the steering wheel in suppressed rage that there are a lot of 'p' words that describe goings on in this little part of the planet we live in..and if you say 'p' words out loud it blows off a lot of steam..
The main one that was running through my head was paternalism, thank you's for that go out to the speech last night...pessimism is also high on the list, same thank you's... our peaceful protests across partisan lines are penalized by paralysing parliament and poo-pooing the people's right to passionately participate in the political process...and that pathetic and predatory press and it's painful propaganda, piddling around prehistoric notions of patriotism...
the patriotism of the priviledged and patriarchial...where payola is a prerquisite for positions of power...what a pity my beautiful country...that the only place you still stay beautiful is in my heart...
Too bad I'm a little pissed..
Too bad I wasn't polite enough to not use that word.
Anyway, my playful and pure progressive patriots in pumpkin orange...the word i'd rather have going through my mind is Phoenix..

6pm address by the Emir...and the elections will be held on the 29th of next month...according to the ticker running across the screen..and to hell with my travel plans I guess..
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'Threat to national security'? He said 'threat to national security'?
That's a bit strong..who is threatening security?
Besides corruption that is...
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Basically the Emir said he dissolved the parliament in order to give everyone a 'time-out', which is a sad reminder that we are still considered not citizens with rights but a country of children that need lecturing and decisions made for them..
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Still seeing the world through orange tinted glasses..
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"There is no blue without yellow and without orange" Van Gogh

Have my vice filled Turkish coffee in hand and am thinking of our dissolved, dissembling, and gaping wide empty Assembly that was always minus the Nation and is now minus the Assembly...

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The big guys with the big names and the bigger pockets, buy and sell each other around conference tables and roll their eyes like humble victims of the fanged Orange masses..saying things like.."tsk tsk..akhh..this is not the Kuwait we knew"...as if the people in orange with five fingers held in the air are bringing down property prices in their exclusive Utopia...their fairytale house of pretty cards..the one most of us are not invited into.
Well, I'm surprised if this is news to them but it's not the Kuwait we knew either...More importantly, it's not the Kuwait we want to know...Which is why a man stood on high for hours and hours, holding three flags on a warm Friday evening in front of the that building that reaches for the sky..and why every time we looked at him we felt like crying, because he was hoping so hard that building would bother to look down at all of us, just this once.
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Not the Kuwait they knew? Peaceful protesters demanding reform, progress, rights and justice...is there any other Kuwait you want to know?
These young people shot up our lazy arms with the rush of a better world waiting just round the corner...are they the ones that people who bought their gilded seats are clucking their tongues at like the overstuffed hens they are?
Has Kuwait been free of protests all these years? Or have they just forgotten, or never bothered to listen?
It hasn't been free of disappearing assemblies, that's for sure..1976, 1986, 1999...2006
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This isn't an appeal for one side or the other as much an exasperated sigh of longing for something honourable in this mess of a system we pretend is democracy...
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For my foreign readers..the story in short is this:
Kuwait is rife with corruption and gerrymandering..not to mention hobbled by extremes of fanaticism on the one hand and apathy and intoxicating consumerism on the other..yes this is what you helped 'liberate' us for, we're sorry..
There have recently been increasing calls for reducing the 25 voting districts to 5
This is what all the 'Orange' business is...the colour was adopted by the 'We Want 5' (Nabeeha Khamsa) movement calling for 5 districts to end corruption...this movement was as grassroots as you can get in Kuwait..students, youth and bloggers heading the call..
Originally 10 districts, they were changed to 25 in 1980 Thanks Idip :), in order to quash Shi'a numbers in the parliament and also empower pro-government/anti-liberal candidates.
That took care of minorities and government critics...I am sure you know how that feels, most of you having lived through democratic growing pains yourselves..and especially our Texan friends, you certainly know what I'm talking about.
With smaller districts the scene was set for the biggest pork-fest imaginable...you see politicians need tight leashes, because they get hungry for all sorts of things...and they have been feasting...vote-buying, favours, all sorts of things your mother warns you about..this was all fascilitated by small constituencies which could be bought and which then could later buy their MP's actions in parliament..
So..these past few weeks have seen protests by Orange, 5 district supporters..smear campaigns by the national papers, particularly those owned by the big guns..29 MP's vowing to stand by the 5 districts and a threat to grill the Prime Minister...and just today the National Assembly/ Parliament was dissolved and we await and evening address by the Emir..so that's about as short as it comes..
As of 4pm not a single news source googled has reported the dissolution of our parliament..
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here are some links.
Photos, Photos and more Photos..
Tension rises over districts standoff
Kuwaiti lawmakers to grill premier on election reform

Kuwait reforms crisis deepens

The New School had it's own Orange revolt this week...

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Saudi Arabia beats Kuwait in getting a film out there that challenges conventions...

It is opening in Cannes..

Produced in Dubai's Studio City

While some of us are having press roundups about just being in a festival audience..

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Well, on the documentary front, they don't have BuNaz, which keeps our hope alive..

Tonight..Graduates Society..

7pm.

"When The People Spoke"

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Nothing like spending a friday in solidarity with others...

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Apologies for the fuzzy images...I like things blurred..And also, I haven't figured out this pain in the ^%*# camera yet..

To the big orange family that is gearing up for an evening of hope...I wish you all well..I wish you peace and patience and progress...and I wish you strength of will and strength in numbers...

I also wish us power over any anger that might be incited by those who are trying to elbow their way into the field..under the outward forgeries of faith while behaving in ways that only hypocricy can envy...let their behaviour show them for who they really are and let the smiles and the determination of the United orange reformists be their foil.

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Ways to Win a Nonviolent Campaign

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“Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.”

M.L King

News news

One step forward...5 thousand year steps back...the virulent form of religious literalism has managed to infect British schools as well as those across the atlantic puddle.."Creationism debate moves to Britain"..but while they pretend to be even more regressive than us folks in these parts of the non-thought spectrum, and grumble about not being related to apes- the apes themselves have finally decided it's time to let their idiot cousins know that we don't have a monopoloy over syntax..putty-nosed monkeys use sentences to communicate, something which our well publicised arrogance made us think was a uniquely human trait..well the putty-nosed monkey is rubbing our nose in it.. what a shocker, I know...next we will find out that we are not the only planet in the vast galaxy that has life on it..what will our human centered world-view come to..

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Taliban forces? 40 dead in a day? Wait didn't the war in Afghanistan end, uhm, like way before everyone got shuffled closer to here? Or is that something we aren't supposed to talk about? Like not mentioning that women are still being oppressed, or that in the liberated Afghanistan "No place is safe. It's all scary, all the time"

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Another place that is all scary all the time is Darfur..you know, that place that doesn't have oil or an oil pipeline project and so genocide there is not much of an issue..at least not enough to grab hearts and foreign troops.

MAKE SOME NOISE

Silence is complicity, we can't say we didn't know.

click the link and join Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) and others in just saying enough..

Not much but it's something..

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To mark the week that Blair signed onto more N-Power...here are photo essays from Chernobyl 20 years later and from a town near India's major Uranium facility..hope the lined pockets are worth it Tony..

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To do List:

1- Quit- Done

2- Celebrate quitting by smiling a lot- Done

3- Boycott Al-Watan newspaper- Pretty much been doing that for a while, but now I'm doing it with a 'hhrrumph' sound running through my head when I think of it.

4- Tell bloggers and Orange tinted warriors that they rock- You all rock!-Done.

5- Take a nap- About to be done..

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Congratulations on the life that has been breathed into the Kuwaiti spirit...

It's a beautiful day...

Thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald, I will be losing a few more nights of sleep kicking myself for having spent my youth eating half the cows in England...Every time my memory falters I wonder whether it's the ol' spongy brain cow death starting up..and now we have this pleasant info to deal with:

Too late to shut the gate on this killer:

As "mad cow" disease spreads outward from Britain, a silent epidemic of carriers in humans has begun to emerge.

Jennifer Cooke reports.

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(The maps are nice and alarmist too)

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Ah vegetarianism..why didn't you come to me sooner..

I may be deaf from the speakers but I would say it was worth an evering of wearing orange..even though I would have loved to see oceans of it..but a good sized lake of orange will do nicely for now..I hope that those sleeping out in the tents have the peaceful slumber of the righteous...Stepping up and out for a better future is plenty to dream of while awake...G'nite..

Wow..it's been a while since I've felt the pliant and familiar keys on this rickety old slow pc in my messy little room...using public computers doesn't feel quite as intimate..this pc knows my moods.
Right now it's about getting used to being back in this place and getting used to the orange fever that has happily gripped the country... Too bad about the dust...but that won't stop anyone...I guess tomorrow will be a sea of orange speckled with the familiar and unfamiliar faces of the blogger community...moving in and out of their shadows...enjoy these days of solidarity everyone..see you tomorrow...

"Orange is the Happiest Color" Sinatra

Good luck and bravo to all the orange revolutionaries that are making their voices heard and their presence visible!