Doha Tribeca Film Festival

This weekend saw the launch of the first Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Now I really like film festivals so when tickets went on sale three weeks ago friends and I ambitiously purchased tickets to see eight movies over three days.

Now I'm still not feeling 100% but I am going back to work next Monday so I figure going to the film festival would be a good test to see how I was doing. Friday was our busiest day as we had tickets to see four movies. I wound up going to three but I think that overdid it a little -- I should have just gone to two films and then rested at home. Today I am scheduled to go to three films but I'm just going to go to the first two.

So, what did I see? And what did I think? Here's the movies I saw and the rating I gave them, based on the viewers voting cards that they gave to every attendee, five-point rating scale, with a one being "not recommended" to a five being "highly recommended".


Capitalism: a Love Story -- Michael Moore

Attendance: 100% -- full house

I have of course seen his documentaries before and I will give him credit -- whatever you think about the content at least his films are not dull. Sometimes a bit theatrical, a lot of times pulling on your heartstrings with anecdotal stories of tragedy and from this leaping to broad conclusions, occasional glossing over of facts, but his films are entertaining to watch. This one is no exception.

Rating: 4. I would recommend people see the movie as it is interesting, but do not accept what he says at face value. If you're concerned about an issue that he brought up please do additional research afterward.


Bright Star -- Jane Campion

Attendance: ~75%, surprised me that there were a number of seats available. Well, I guess this is the first year of the film festival.

Period piece set around 1818 in England, a romance between the poet Keats and the young lady who lived next door.

Man, was it boring.

Now before anyone gets all dismissive, figuring I didn't like it because men generally don't watch English period pieces, take a look at my previous blog post at the movies I watched while recovering. You see Sense and Sensibility there? The period piece with Hugh Grant? Yup, I do watch the occasional period piece, not ashamed to admit it.

Sense and Sensibility was a decent movie. Bright Star sucked.

No chemistry, most of the supporting cast had no personality, there was not much intrigue or drama. Dull. I'm not even sure why Keats would have fallen for the lady since she generally comes across as a bit of a bitch. At one point in the movie when Keats was leaving for the summer I was whispering "Run man! Run!"

Rating: 1. The lady's family had a cat and it stole every scene that it was in, what does that tell you?


Kobe Doing Work -- Spike Lee

Attendance: ~30-40%!! I definitely was not expecting such a low turnout. No idea why, the movie was at 8 p.m. so it's not like was a midnight screening.

A documentary on basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, at least I thought that's what it was going to be. Actually the film covers a Lakers game with Kobe providing a voice-over narrative. What was he thinking at the time, why did he do that move, what does he think of this player and that player etc. That's literally the movie.

It turns out that Kobe is an interesting speaker. He's didn't have the attitude I expected, he was mature and modest, but not so modest as to be annoying. Let's face it he is currently the best basketball player in the league, you know it, he knows it, and he knows you know it, so he doesn't spend time going on about how good he is. Tactics, strategy, team communication, are covered instead. After listening to Kobe for an hour and a half he seems like a down-to-earth, nice guy.

Rating: 3. While the movie was not dull per se since basketball games are usually high-energy I think I can only recommend this movie to a basketball fan. This is a fanboy movie. If basketball is not your thing you're better off watching Hoop Dreams if you want to see a basketball movie. Spike Lee may have directed but in truth pretty much anyone could have set up 6-8 cameras to film a basketball game so fans of Spike Lee movies I don't think will be that impressed.



Two more films today, I'll post my reviews after.

Recuperating

Been spending the week sitting at home recuperating. Laying around all day gets dull after a while. So what have I been doing with my time?

Movies I've watched:

The Big Lebowski (Dude!)
Powder Blue (last movie with Patrick Swayze, which is a shame because it was not that great)
Pan's Labyrinth
Apocalypse Now
Burn after Reading (completely surprised by what happened to Brad Pitt!)
The Lives of Others (German film, definitely see it)
Futurama -- Benders Big Score
Sense and Sensibility (and I'm not afraid to admit it)
Dig!
Amadeus
The Green Mile
The Pursuit of Happyness
a Polysics documentary

And I also watched a number of episodes of the Chappelle Show, and a Pablo Francisco special

Maybe I should read a book instead. Oh wait, I've been doing that too:

Empires of the Word -- Nicholas Ostler
The Varieties of Scientific Experience -- Carl Sagan
The White Castle -- Orhan Pamuk
Multicultural Manners -- Norine Dresser
The Confessions of Lady Nijo -- Lady Nijo

Maybe next I'll start on a re-read of The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins, and study some Arabic as well.

Should be back at work sometime next week, which I think is a good thing because I am going a little stir crazy.

Happy Birthday Aiden!

In other news it is my nephew Aiden's birthday today! He's a cute little fella, his favourite activity is sharing all of his toys and things with everyone. He would diligently grab anything within reach and hand it to you or someone else nearby. If you then handed it back he would either give it back to you or take it to someone else to give to them.

Below is one of my favourite pictures of us, though he is a bit older now than in the picture. I have no idea who took it but it is priceless.


Don’t we look Canadian!

Anyway Aiden I hope you have a happy birthday, have Mum and Dad give you a kiss for me.

More health

Man, what a week. I was informed by the doctor not so long ago that I would need to have a minor surgical procedure done (no, not the wisdom teeth that I mentioned in my last post, something else). Last week the doctor decided that it was time to get this taken care of so I had to go visit a surgeon to schedule it. Those of you familiar with this blog may recall that earlier this year I had another surgery done and I had remarked on how fast it was for the surgery to be scheduled. This was no different -- I had the consultation on a Thursday and the surgery was scheduled for the following Tuesday. Everything went fine, I was in the hospital for about 48 hours, and now I'm resting at home and taking some medications. Plenty of people have come by or called to see how I was doing which is nice.

Next month I have surgery for the wisdom teeth. That means I'll have undergone three surgeries in a year, previously I don't recall ever having surgery in my life! I guess I'm officially getting old. *sigh*

Wisdom teeth.

I went to the dentist the other day for my usual cleaning and she decided to take an x-ray, the first one I had had since I arrived in Qatar. It showed what I already knew (though my dentist didn't), that my bottom wisdom teeth were pushing against the teeth next to them. She was surprised that I was not in pain. I think about five years ago another dentist exclaimed the same thing to me but my wisdom teeth had never bothered me. But now there was a new twist -- a cavity had formed where a wisdom tooth was pressing up against another tooth, and there was no way she would be able to get to it without a wisdom tooth being removed. That and at the rate it was pushing into the tooth it won't be too much longer before I'm in real pain. *sigh*.

So I had an appointment with the dental surgeon today. All four wisdom teeth are have to come out. Even worse it has to be under a general anaesthetic. You see one of my wisdom teeth is almost sideways and is practically resting against a nerve in my jaw. If he tries to straighten the tooth to pull it out it will press against that nerve (which I guess is bad), so he will have to cut the tooth into horizontal slices to get it out. If that's what he wants to do then a general anaesthetic sounds like a good idea to me!

Appointment is mid-November. Apparently I will have to stay overnight at the hospital then sit at home for five days with painkillers. Ugh.

Qatar H1N1 Update

While I was away on vacation most schools closed for a week due to H1N1 concerns. Not sure why exactly, maybe there were a few sick kids discovered in the schools. People might be getting a bit more nervous now, I noticed that small bottles of hand sanitiser are a lot harder to find and the newspapers have frequent updates as to when the vaccine will be available.

I've not found updated info as to the number of cases in the country but based on those older estimates by the Ministry of Health (average of 25 new cases a week) I assume the number of cases are at around 600 to 700 now.

Japan and travelling Muslims

As you know I just spent two weeks travelling through Japan with a Qatari friend. He is a devout Muslim which meant we had to make sure that he did not eat pork or anything with alcohol.

Avoiding the latter was not too difficult as Japanese cuisine does not cook with alcohol (or at least the dishes I know about). The Japanese love to drink beer or sake but it is easy to not have it if you do not want to. Pork was of more of an issue. The Japanese like to combine many things together in their food. Ramen, donburi, okonomiyaki, teppenyaki, all of these combine a lot of things together so we had to make sure there would not be pork in the dish every time we visited a restaurant. Thankfully my friend had memorised the Japanese phrase for "I do not eat pork" and no one seemed too fussed about it, perhaps because a lot of Japanese are Buddhist so maybe many are vegetarian. Good thing too since for some Japanese dishes it is difficult to tell what is in it. While pork is not as widely used in Japan as it would in other countries like China we did not have much luck at ramen restaurants, apparently pork is used in almost all of their dishes. We even had to walk out of one ramen place because they had nothing available for my friend the eat. Other restaurants were fine, with the exception of sushi places every restaurant had some pork dishes but they also had plenty of other foods available my friend could eat. Still had to be careful though, I even ordered a "burger" that I had never heard of from a Japanese McDonald's and it turned out to be pork, or at least I think it was. But in the two weeks I only recall one instance where my friend was served something that we were told was chicken but I thought was actually pork (so he did not eat the meat just to be on the safe side).

Fish was of course plentiful as it is the main Japanese meat. Fish of all types are halal (acceptable for Muslims) so a Muslim has a wide range of dining options.

I'm back

Okay made it back safe and sound!

I had a great time. Japan really is a different world from anywhere else but at the same time really good to travel through since the country is quite modern and no one hassles you.

Rather than fill the blog with tons and tons of description (it was a two-week trip so really I could go on forever about it), here are some snippets but I'll leave it to you to Google what the heck I am talking about:

-- went to Kyoto, Tokyo, and Osaka
-- in Japan it takes five people to help you to exchange money
-- at the airport there was an elderly gentleman whose job appeared to be to bow at everyone getting on the escalator
-- in Kyoto we stayed in a traditional ryokan (tatami mat floors, futons etc)
-- I like yukatas. I bought one.
-- saw tons of temples and the old Imperial Palace
-- vending machines are everywhere outdoors, including ones for beer or cigarettes. In North America the life expectancy of an outdoor beer or cigarette vending machine would be sundown.
-- okonomiyaki is usually topped with some kind of fish flakes that shrivel and move when the okonomiyaki is put on a hot plate so it looks like your food is topped with some living thing
-- if you go shopping for pillows the store will have a bed for you to try them out
-- no one hassles you, to the point of even ignoring you. Even Japanese standing on street corners handing out flyers/brochures usually will not give you one.
-- the bullet train system is amazing. Kyoto to Tokyo (~550 km) took around 2 1/2 hours, including stops. There were trains about every 10 minutes.
-- the Harajuku style is starting to go out of fashion. Short skirts with boots is the new thing for ladies.
-- the Japanese really go high-tech when it comes to toilets, the most elaborate one we encountered had 12 buttons and a heated seat.
-- ate at a restaurant where you are led in handcuffs to a jail cell that contains your table. Drinks are served in chemistry flasks with dry ice to give them that spooky fog.
-- natto is pretty good!
-- I discovered I was born in the Year of the Dog.
-- Toyota has this really cool centre where you can test drive vehicles, use simulators, and view some of their high tech experimental devices like robots that can play the trumpet.
-- if you go to Roppongi a black guy named Tom toting for some club, who dresses a bit like a pimp, apparently has "got what you need".
-- went to Shibuya and crossed that famous road crossing where thousands of people cross all at once
-- Super Kids Land sells the widest range of BB weapons I have ever seen.
-- I advise looking at every vending machine and trying any weird drinks it offers, it is both adventurous and entertaining. Jelly Coffee was the weirdest thing we tried.
-- a clerk at a heavy metal shop got bent out of shape because I didn't take my shoes off when using the change room
-- yet no one cares if a man reads pornographic comics on the subway, even sitting next to women.
-- there are cafes in Akhiabara where the waitresses all dress in sexy French maid outfits (cafes, as in plural)
-- everyone likes the bow and thank you for the most minor things
-- but they usually will not give up their seats for ladies or an elderly person
-- got lost at Shinjuku Station trying to find a certain Metro line and wound up at a different station, without having gone above ground
-- look at the schedules for Kabuki plays well in advance. The theatre is not open every day.
-- same with bunraku
-- same with Noh theatres
-- and the Kyoto Museum
-- and sumo wrestler stables
-- I drank a lot of Fibe-Mini
-- "Please teach the commodity wanting it with the cash register". (I have no idea what it means either.)
-- went to a traditional tea ceremony. Be sure to stop to admire the flower and calligraphy when you get in.
-- there is a (smaller) replica of the Statue of Liberty in Tokyo
-- Best Internet cafes I've ever seen. Free coffee and sodas, lounge chairs, manga library you are allowed to browse through for free, even private booths where two people can sit on a couch and use separate computers
-- Eleeno watches are cool
-- apparently having a large statue of a dog pulling down a boy's underwear is someone's idea of a great way to advertise that your business is a restaurant.
-- if a store gives you a complementary can of Final Fantasy Chaos Potion don't drink it (blah!)
-- but feel free to keep the can.
-- considering Japanese tourists are well known for taking tons of pictures wherever they go it is ironic that a lot of places in Japan have signs telling you not to take pictures there. Including a shoe repair kiosk.
-- some restaurants have instead of a menu a huge bank of buttons somewhat like a vending machine. You put the money in the machine, press what you want, then sit down and the waitress will bring it to you once the kitchen cooks it.
-- Polysics are cool!
-- the Japanese really hate wet umbrellas being brought indoors. Stands were you can lock your umbrella, machines that will wrap it in plastic, even an "umbrella dryer", are in use in most buildings.
-- 10 hours is a brutally long flight

Okay I think this sums up everything pretty well. I had a great time, everyone should check out Japan if they get the chance.

Vacation time

Okay everyone, Ramadan is almost at an end. Thanks to the 3-day holiday to celebrate Eid I've turned it into a two week vacation. This summer's destination...


Japan!

I'm going with Abdulla, a Qatari friend of mine. He always wanted to see Japan, and I always regretted not going to Kyoto when I went there back in 1995, so we decided what the heck, let's go!

Qatar Airways flies direct from Doha to Osaka, from the airport we go straight to Kyoto and are staying in a traditional Ryokan for six nights, then we train it over to Tokyo for five days before returning to Osaka for a day before catching the plane home. It should be a great time. My friend Serdar lived in Tokyo for six years so gave us a number of great tips about the city.

I'll post when I return, see you in two weeks.

Islam & Marriage

Everyone knows that under Islam a man can have up to four wives. Not surprisingly, most don't. As one Bahraini taxi driver told me, "*groan* Don't do it!! Big headache!!"

Under Islam if a man has more than one wife he has to treat them equally. If he gives one a gift he has to give the other a gift, if one has her own house the others have to have their own houses and so on. The man also has to pay a dowry to a woman that he marries, and pay for the wedding, so that gets expensive. These days, at least in the Arabian Peninsula, one generally has to be wealthy to have multiple wives. (I'm also still not sure how a man breaks the news to his first wife that he is going to have a second wife. In the West you would likely "accidentally" fall on a knife in the middle of the night with that kind of news.)

But most westerners do not know that there are other types of Islamic marriages as well. These are not as well known as a traditional marriage we are used to but certain types of marriage are occasionally used in some areas of the Islamic world:

1) Mu'tah marriages. This is practised amongst Shi'a Muslims, under Sunni Islam it is forbidden. It is in essence a temporary marriage. Marriages in Islam are a contract between a man and a woman, and in some parts of the world such as the Gulf the contract to be quite specific (is she allowed to work? How much bride-price she will receive and so on). In a Mu'tah Marriage the marriage contract has a specified ending time, once that time is reached the marriage is over, no divorce proceedings required.

Now I believe such a structure could be used for very temporary marriages, such as a day or a week, but I'm not sure how prevailant that is. The bride still gets a bride-price of course. Sunni Islam forbids Mu'tah because they believe the intention of a marriage contract is that the couple intends to be together forever and putting a fixed end-date on a marriage violates that principle.

Wiki has a good articleand there is a huge paper on Mu'tah here.


2) Misyar marriages. This type of marriage is practised amongst some Sunnis. In a misyar the woman gives up the right to be treated equal to the man's other wives and may give up other rights such as reduced bride-price etc. Unlike a Mu'tah marriage there is no time limit. Apparently some women who are widows or divorcees agree to this type of marriage to get some companionship, in other cases it is used as a means by which a man can get to better know a woman without violating any religious prescriptions -- they will be able to go out together and he would be able to see her without a veil. By being able to "date" so to speak the misyar could lead to a standard marriage. Apparently you can even have a misyar where the contract stipulates no sexual activity will take place between the couple.

A friend forwarded me an interesting article from the Guardian on misyar. There is also a wiki article. Misyars can be controversial, some imams frown upon them as they believe many just use them as a way to have a boyfriends/girlfriends without really being interested in a long-term marriage commitment. A Qatari friend of mine said misyar was not usually practised there but it is not forbidden.


3) Bride exchanges. This occurs in Central Asian countries such as Turkey and Pakistan. Two families, who usually don't have a lot of money to be paying bride-prices for their sons to get married, agree that Family A will marry their son to Family B's daughter in exchange for Family B's son being allowed to marry a daughter from Family A. So a brother and sister from Family A marry a sister and brother (respectively) from Family B. The agreed bride-price paid to each bride is exactly the same so in the end the families are no worse off monetarily.

Exchanging brides can be problematic if the two marriages are treated as a linked-exchange, which means that if one couple divorces the other couple has to divorce, even if they were happy together. There can also be retribution consequences. If one man abuses his wife, her family might take revenge by abusing his sister. Authorities in Turkey are trying to encourage people who enter into bride exchanges to make them "unlinked" so that if one couple is happy together they do not have to divorce if the other couple divorced. I am not sure how common is types of marriages are in Central Asia except for Pakistan were about 10-15% of marriages are due to bride exchanges.

Al Jazeera had an interesting documentary on this type of marriage a while back but I do not think it is available online.


4) Bride kidnapping. I saw a documentary on this and it is apparently common in Kryzgystan (sp?), mostly in rural areas. Bride kidnapping is exactly that -- when a guy wants to get married his best man and a group of guys goes out and finds a woman that they think is suitable and kidnap her. This is not some cute custom, the woman has no idea what is going on. She is kidnapped by a bunch of strange men and brought to some house where she is married to a stranger. From what I could tell in the documentary when the bride is brought to the house a couple of ladies just wave some pieces of white linen over her and that's it, she's married. Some of them are resigned to their fate, others flee back to their families anyway even though they are "spoiled".

Now while these people profess to be Muslims from even my limited understanding of Islam bride kidnapping is not in any way Islamic. Under Islam it is quite clear that a woman cannot be married against her will. I also cannot see how kidnapping people is justified anyway. There is also no contract, and I don't think there is any bride-price paid. I suspect this is some cultural tradition in Kryzgystan that predates Islam and the people shoehorn it into their beliefs somehow. It was a really sad documentary to watch, a Kryzgystan group trying to get rid of the practice estimates that up to 50% of rural marriages occur in this way. Ugh. The sooner this type of practice is gone the better.


That about covers it. One day I hope to be able to attend a Qatari wedding (which will be a standard traditional marriage, not one of the ones mentioned above).

Annoying things

Since I'm in an annoyed mood this afternoon (long story that I am not going to get into) let's entertain the internet world at large by going over 10 weird things that annoy me:

1) Stores that sell chess sets and the displayed sets are not set up properly, like having Knights where Rooks should be or are putting the Queen on the wrong colour square. If you are going to sell chess sets at least learn the proper way to set up the pieces!

2) Speedos, you can search through this blog for the whole story on that. I will reluctantly wear them if for some reason I am swimming somewhere where they are standard issue (like some public swimming pools in France). Thankfully that hasn't happened yet and I doubt you'd want to see me in them.

3) Having two news anchors sitting side-by-side giving the news. It always seems to be a man and a woman. When did this trend happen? It seems to me about six or seven years ago the news always had one anchor, nowadays so many seem to have two and they annoyingly exchange witty banter and finish each other's sentences. Thankfully Al Jazeera hasn't succumbed to this annoying trend.

4) Tomatoes. Sorry, just don't like them. I inevitably pick them out of sandwiches.

5) Bluegrass country music. The twang sound grates on my ears.

6) Aerosol deodorant. I had one once and as soon as I'd spray it I had to leave the room as I could feel myself breathing in some of the mist. Blah. Why do some people prefer aerosol over stick?

7) Slush. Not a problem here of course but I always considered trying to walk along slushy roads and sidewalks to be one of the most depressing times during winter in Canada. I was never in a good mood after walking on slushy sidewalks.

8) People who write or use highlighters in library books. If you want to do that to your own books I have no problem with that -- it's your book -- but it always annoys me when I open a library book and someone has circled/underlined/highlighted parts.

9) Pieces of fruit on a chocolate desert (this is just a minor annoyance though). Sorry, I like my chocolate "pure". I always pick the fruit off and eat it before starting in on the desert.

10) Movies that contain scenes with really bad science or a gaping hole in logic. Yes I realise that these are just movies and some elements are fantasy but that does not excuse blatant ignorance of science and it really irks me. I probably annoy my friends when I point these things out during the movie. Examples: Twister (surviving an F-5 Tornado by using a belt to attach yourself to a small pipe), Armageddon (pretty much everything in the entire movie), the Core (ditto), the Saint (the e-mail scene), any scene involving computer hacking where security systems are bypassed simply by the character randomly typing on the keyboard for a few seconds, and so on.


How about you? Go on, let it out.

That ol' H1N1

A few days ago the Health Ministry, in an article regarding whether schools should be closed, noted that the number of cases of H1N1 in Qatar was around 450 with about five new cases being reported every day. That would mean at this time there are around 470 cases, averaging 33.6 cases for every 100,000 people. I believe there has still only been one death though, which is good news as it means that the virus is still relatively mild.

33.6 per 100,000 is starting to approach the rate of cases in most western nations:

In Canada that would represent around 10,700 cases,
In Britain that would represent 23,400 cases,
In the United States that would represent around 100,000 cases

One can hope that the rate of new cases in Qatar will peak soon and start declining. I am assuming it will be a couple of months before a vaccine reaches here.

As for school closures the Health Ministry advised that schools should remain open. The Ministry did issue an order that all barbers/hairdressers must wear masks while working, and when I went for a haircut yesterday sure enough all the barbers were wearing masks.

Switzerland

Okay, I'm back safe and sound.

I hate Switzerland -- in an envious way. It's green, pretty, clean, nice scenery, excellent Metro and train systems. Shame I don't live there but I'd need to be a millionaire to afford it. Switzerland is probably one of the most expensive countries on earth. Yep, more expensive than Paris I found. Just to give you an idea a super-sized Big Mac combo would cost you about US$13, and a 75 sq metre apartment is around $450,000. Lunch in a regular restaurant would be $30 at a minimum.

I spent my time in Basel for the seminar. I had heard that Basel was more of an industrial city so was not as impressive as other parts of Switzerland. Well if it is I wonder what the other parts of Switzerland are like because the city was pretty impressive to me. The old city, with its 14th and 15th century homes overlooking the Rhine River, was great to wander around. It reminded me somewhat of Bratislava.

I landed at the airport in Zurich and the train station was on the bottom floor of the airport so it was easy to catch a train to Basel, which was a little more than an hour away. My hotel was across the street from the train station and only about 150m from where the seminar was being held so it was really convenient. Even more surprising when I checked in they gave me a ticket which allowed me free use of all buses and trams in the city for the length of my stay! Does anywhere else in the world do something like this?

Whether was generally cool, in the mid-20s, and it rained a number of times which was great. I hadn't seen a decent rain for at least six months. The seminar organiser was a little amused that I wanted it to rain while I was in Basel. Even better, when it rained I was always in a cafe, bar, or in my hotel, so I was able to enjoy rain without being caught in it and getting soaked. English was widely spoken and in the occasional place where it wasn't my limited French was fine. I hope they pay waitresses and store clerks well because as far as I can tell you need to know at least three to five languages to communicate with most people who come into your store/restaurant: German, Swiss German, French, English, and Italian. I popped into a bookstore and was looking at their directory trying to decipher the German when a clerk walked up to help me and immediately shifted to English to point out what I was looking for (their English-language science fiction books).

I also found it amusing that local beer was around the same price as bottled water. Hmmmmm, should I have water or a Swiss beer? It was a tough call.

So I had a chance to wander around, took some pictures, and had a nice dinner in a Swiss restaurant in the old city courtesy of the seminar organisers. I bought some chocolate and cheese for home (no alcohol of course) and had an uneventful flight back. I miss Switzerland already.

Switzerland

Off on a business trip to attend a seminar at the Financial Stability Institute (FSI) in Basel Switzerland. The FSI is an educational centre for regulators initially developed by the Bank of International Settlements for educating banking regulators but has since expanded to providing seminars and training for insurance and securities regulators as well. I am attending a three-day seminar looking at reinsurance and other types of specialist risk transfer strategies.

I'll post again when I return. No chance I will be seeing Basel's most famous resident, Roger Federer, since he will be at the US Open. Shame, it would be really cool to be walking along a street in Basel and see him eating in a restaurant or something.

Mementos

At home I have a couple of shelves where I keep little mementos, photos, and other items that I picked up during my travels or are given to me as gifts. Looking at it now it is interesting to look at the items and recall their history:

• United Nations desk flag -- a souvenir of when I visited the UN building in New York
• two Remembrance Day poppies, British style. Can't remember where exactly I had picked these up, I have kept them so that I will have a poppy handy when it approaches Remembrance Day since they are not widely distributed here in Qatar
• pewter clamshell for holding business cards -- received in Dubai at a conference.
• Three Christmas cards from friends over the years, two from Doha and one from my friends Knut & Petra in Bermuda. My cleaner sometimes tapes them up on the wall of the shelf when he sees them loose there.
• One wooden recorder (the instrument), Slovakian. Given to me by my Slovak friend Martin as a going away present when I left Bermuda.
• Small Egyptian ankh, might be some type of soft stone like sandstone. From a merchant in Luxor.
• Empty box for holding a small wooden box for use as a business card holder. The wooden box is currently on my desk at work and has the faces of Chinese opera characters on the top. The empty box has a silk interior and is labelled " The World Congress of Scientific Inquiry and Human Well-Being: Improving Science Spirits and Building Harmony Society (no, I am not accidentally misspelling or missing any words). This was a science/critical thinking conference that I attended in Beijing in 2007.
• birth announcement of my friends Carrie and Kamahl's daughter
• stuffed toy, Panda wearing a blue silk Chinese apron -- purchased at the airport in Shanghai as I had some small bills of Chinese currency I wanted to get rid of.
• Goodbye card from the Bermuda Monatery Authority signed by the staff. Karen in the Communications Department made the card herself using pictures of me taken over the years at work functions and in the office (the cover is a picture of me sleeping on a couch in the breakout room, someone had made decaf coffee that day and not told anyone so by the afternoon I had a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawal!! I took some aspirin and lay down for a second on the couch. I fell asleep and people immediately called Karen over to take a picture)
• five pictures of family members, mostly of my niece but one photo of my brother's wedding. (I do have some pictures of my nephew Aiden but they are on the desk at work.)
• Small silver decorations (6-7cm) in two frames, one of a shisha that I received at a conference in Dubai, the other of an Omani dagger with a sheath, purchased in Oman.
• A tray containing items gathered from various Qatar Natural History Group field trips:
o five desert roses, ranging in size from 5 to 25 cm
o two fossilised shark teeth
o three fossilised shells about 2-3 cm in size
• carved wooden box, Nepalese -- given to me by my friend Mary when she stayed over in Doha for a few days on her way back to London from Nepal. She had been in Nepal teaching secretarial skills to teenage girls at an orphanage. I use the box for holding the contact details of various friends.
• Two iron spikes from the Al Boom restaurant in Kuwait City, a large wooden boat that now serves as a floating restaurant. They give you the spikes as souvenirs.
• A set of wooden salt & pepper shakers, purchased from a market stall in Poprad, Slovakia
• a small stone urn carved to resemble a canopic jar with the head of Horus. Purchased from a merchant in Luxor.
• A thin metal ashtray, carved with a picture of a camel in the desert and my name in Arabic -- from Tunisia. A Tunisian-French colleague got married there and brought these ashtrays back everyone in the office.
• . . . and a partridge in a pear tree! (just kidding)

As time goes on I'm sure I will add more things, and this does not include other items I have from Bermuda that I keep in another part of the apartment.

Warhol

Spent a bit of time on the weekend rereading what I consider one of the most bizarre, yet interesting, books -- The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again). Basically it is random musings from the King of Pop Art, and if he had lived in this decade it would probably be an internet blog. The guy's mind worked in very weird ways. Here's a sample, from three different parts of the book:

American money is very well-designed, really. I like it better than any other kind of money. I've thrown it in the East River down by the Staten Island ferry just to see it float.

I believe in living in one room. One empty room with just a bed, a tray, and a suitcase . . . . Everything is more glamorous when you do it in bed, anyway. Even peeling potatoes.

But being famous isn't all that important. If I weren't famous, I wouldn't have been shot for being Andy Warhol. Maybe I would have been shot for being in the Army. Or maybe I would be a fat schoolteacher. How do you ever know?


Now a lot of what he writes about I disagree with as he embraces materialism and fame, and sometimes borders on the obsession with brands and being rich, people looking rich, or how fascinating people who are rich and famous are (he must mention Elizabeth Taylor at least two dozen times). Of course, this type of thinking was the inspiration for his most famous works and I must admit a lot of his perceptions really hit the mark about American Culture. If you get the chance to track this book down, read it. You will probably finish it and wonder what his life must have been like. He really was on a completely different wavelength from most people.

Ramadan

The holy month of Ramadan has started. For the next 28 or 29 days Muslims will be fasting from sunrise to sunset, and all restaurants in Qatar will be closed throughout the day. For us non-fasters that means brown-bagging it to work every day, and not having any water or coffee at your desk. The ubiquitous snacks and candies that are in every office have been put away. On the bright side the traffic in the mornings is better than usual but you do not want to be on the road when the sun is setting -- that is when Muslims are racing home so that they can break their fast with their families. I always felt that the driving was a little nuts here but imagine it when most of the drivers have not had anything to eat or drink all day and are in a rush (more of a rush than usual). Don't go out onto the roads until after the sun sets!

Karis's Birthday!

It is my niece Karis's birthday today! Let's do a little photomontage to celebrate from when I was last in Canada.

There she is!


And there she is hugging Daddy!


And there she is at the mall, where she grabbed this and started exclaiming she was a "Hootchie Mama" (I am not kidding. I figured someone in the mall was going to call social services.)



Whew, what an exhausting day!



Happy birthday Karis! Have some cake for me.


Love, Uncle Glen

Weighing evidence

There's been a bit of press coverage recently in the US about people who people deridedly call "Birthers". These are people who believe that President Obama was not actually born in the United States and thus not eligible to be President. This is a criticism that came up during his campaign and the Obama campaign countered by releasing a copy of his birth certificate showing that he was born in Hawaii. Other evidence has also been presented such as the birth announcement in a Hawaiian newspaper, confirmation of his birth by the Hawaiian Government etc. Birthers have fired back that the birth certificate was faked (offering all sorts of analysis is to how they can tell it is fake), government cover-ups and so forth. Never mind that once his candidacy became a possibility you could bet your boots that the Republicans poured over every detail of his life to try to dig up dirt on him. If he had not been born in the US you can bet they would have announced it. Hillary's team would have gone over everything as well. Yet the Birthers persist to this day.

Recently an anonymous source sent a birth certificate to one of the more vocal Birthers claiming it was Obama's birth certificate issued in Kenya. This was quickly hailed by some Birthers as the "smoking gun", but research by others managed to track down its origin -- an Australian birth certificate that a man had posted on a genealogy website, which was altered with Obama's name, Republic of Kenya, and whatever other relevant tidbits of information was needed to create the fake certificate.


This ultimately gets to the point of what I want to say. In this world there are many proponents of alternative views, speculations, and theories about things. Occasionally they are right (Mpemba effect, Watergate) but more often than not the evidence just does not add up and it moves into the realm of conspiracy theories or pseudoscience (JFK assassination, Moon landing hoax, 9/11 conspiracies, Bigfoot, alien abductions, cold fusion). One of the hallmarks of when it moves into the latter is . . .


proponents never subject evidence that supports their view to the same level of scrutiny as evidence which opposes it.


So when Obama's birth certificate is presented and confirmed as legitimate by the Hawaiian government Birthers immediately pour over every square centimetre of the scan, accusing fakery, doing detailed analysis of folds, accusing the Hawaiian government of being involved in the cover-up, and all sorts of stuff. But the moment a certificate which supports their view magically appears, provided by an "anonymous source", it is immediately accepted at face value.

If you see that a group appears to not subject supportive evidence to scrutiny it is a yellow flag that it is some kind of crankdom.


The "intelligent design" folks can follow this as well. Thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers exist whose contents support evolutionary theory and they are dismissed by creationists and ID supporters. But if one paper is published that may be construed as supporting their views it is immediately hailed as important and valuable evidence. Shelves of books about evolutionary theory are ignored but many creationists have no problem jumping on a single quote by an evolutionist which could be interpreted as supporting their view (and in fact the quote always turns out to be just an example of quote mining and is not what the speaker meant at all.)

It's sad, but it happens all the time. Best to keep an eye out for instances where people do not appear to be objective in analysing evidence, it could save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

Traditional food

In the last month or so I have had the opportunity to try a number of traditional cuisines. It was not that I was hunting them out per se it just happened that I attended dinners or functions where traditional food was served:

Scottish: One night I was invited to dinner hosted by my friends Carrie and Kamahl. Carrie is Scottish and the main highlights of dinner were black pudding , and haggis with a traditional whisky sauce. Now I had never tried either before so I thought it was pretty cool that I was going to get to try these things for the first time -- especially haggis, which has a reputation in North America as a strange and icky food only eaten by Scots. Not surprisingly both dishes were not weird and they tasted pretty good. Haggis has a lot of oats and barley in it so it does not have a strong meat taste. Far exceeded my expectations. If anyone has a chance to try haggis or a black pudding don't turn it down or wrinkle your face, it is actually good stuff. Would definitely eat them again. (Maybe I should get out to Scotland one day)

Qatari: I was also invited to a Qatari's house one evening for a casual dinner and then watch a movie. There were four of us at dinner which was held in a small separate building called a majlis. In Arab society male visitors are generally not invited into one's home, the host has a separate area outside the home where the men meet. Sometimes it would be a tent, but many Qatari families have built separate small buildings adjacent to the house instead. This majlis consisted of a carpeted area about the size of a standard North American livingroom with cushioned benches lining the walls, a couple of coffee tables, a television, air conditioning (of course), and a washroom.

While we chatted a servant came in and unrolled a large piece of plastic on the floor for the dinner as we would be eating on the floor. Dinner was rice, Arabic bread, and what could best be described as a mild shrimp curry. It's Arabic name escapes me, I'll try to find out. While Qatari food can be what westerners would consider traditional Arabic cuisine (Lamb on rice, kebabs, hummous, etc) there are also a number of dishes with roots in Indian cuisine. The Gulf countries had traded with India for centuries, to the extent that it was only in the last 40 years or so that Qatar ceased using the Rupee as their currency, so many of the Indian spices and cooking techniques were adopted into Qatari cuisine. We sat on the floor and chatted away while eating dinner, the Qataris used their right hand for eating and had graciously provided cutlery for us non-Qataris. Traditionally Arabs eat with their right hand, never the left (you use your left hand for, um, wiping and stuff when you go to the bathroom, remember in the old days there was not a lot of soap and water around in the desert so in the interest of good hygiene Arabs would always eat with their right hand and never touch food with the left). After dinner we sat back on the benches and were served tea and traditional Arabic coffee. Dinner was great as expected, while I had never had that particular dish before I have of course had Arabic cuisine a zillion times while I have been in Qatar.

[A blog post with more Qatari dishes can be found here]


French: naturally during my recent trip to France I had plenty of opportunity to eat French cuisine, primarily at the wedding reception but whenever I was in a restaurant in Paris I always tried to order French food. Coq le vin, foie gras, croissants and pain de chocolat, baguettes, stake tartare, chicken tarragon (is that French?), veal in a cream sauce, a variety of amuse bouche, I had all sorts of things. I can't say I had any bad food the whole time. Aside from the pastries I like meat with the sauces that are a cornerstone of French cuisine. Potatoes and vegetables were not as exciting. I still have no idea why French people tend not to be as overweight as Brits or Americans, if I was French I would be constantly eating meat and pastries.