Mar 24, 2012

Saudi Women Climbing Mount Everest

Speaking of sports bras and what’s in’em, ten Saudi women are getting ready to climb Mount Everest in an effort to raise awareness of breast cancer.

“Destination Mount Everest” is under the patronage of Princess Rema Daughter of Bandar bin Sultan AlSaud, in association with the ministry of education and health.

The effort comes after the guinness world record achieved by Saudi Arabia for the largest human awareness pink ribbon in 2010.

All of the participants are either survivors of breast cancer or have a close relative that is battling the disease.

One of my best friends lost his mother to breast cancer, another extremely good friend’s wife has been going through her own journey battling the disease, so the subject affects me deeply on a personal level.

They say 8000 new cases are discovered yearly among Saudi women, 50-60% of them in late stages.

Shout out to American Bedu who is going through her own battle with the disease and raising awareness through her own blog and activities.

Mar 23, 2012

Where Are The Sports Bras?

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I am happy with the decision to let saudi women participate in the Olympics, I’ve been a supporter since the beginning on this blog, even though this stands against the original olympics where athletes (only males) would compete naked, plus, originating with the Greeks this event has pagan origins.

Now, looking back on this, where will they get females to compete? Not like athletes are made overnight, and It’s not like female sports are a favorite pastime for women (nor men, and we have an almost epidemic number of people suffering from obesity related diseases) and seeing how the millions spent on football (soccer) are a really good return on the investment, I am not really optimistic about women getting any medals… Unless they invent new sports of perseverance and ability, something many women all over the world are already champions in (ain’t that right John?)

Where are the sports bras is me making fun of the lack of women’s athletic apparel in Saudi, not the name brand expensive stuff, but the regular stuff you find in the cheaper stores.

Jan 18, 2012

Abaya on Wheels

Qusay Women 4 Comments

This is something I have not seen before

Enjoy your Wednesday

Oct 9, 2011

TEDxArabia 2011

Qusay Art, Culture, Saudi, Tech, Women 5 Comments

I was invited by Big_Hass to attended TEDxArabia on Thursday October 6th 2011, and I am glad I attended, it was interesting to say the least. The Theme of the event was “Live Your Dream”.

Registration was a bit lost, cards were everywhere, and… they couldn’t find the one with my name on it (or my friend Hameed’s card)

I did miss the first part due to me being late, but I didn’t miss much I guess.

Some talks were great, some were boring, and when the rep of the “angel sponsor” (Nestle) started talking, she almost made me hate coffee.

My friend Hassan gave a nice talk about hip-hop and what it should represent (hint: it is not the garbage on mainstream media, it’s a little more like this, or this). My friend Aziz Hamza also gave a presentation about a new iphone/ipad application of hijazi proverbs his company developed.

Ahmad Almehairy, gave one of the most memorable talks of the evening, encouraging small business, and encouraging investors to invest in small businesses. After checking him out online, it turns out he is a VP of a “Private Wealth Management Office LMC invests in Venture Capital, Real Estate & Public Equities. Slogan: Investing for the prosperity of our nation” so basically it was a sales pitch… most of the talks were somewhat more or less sales pitches.

The Smile of Swords as she translated her name (Dr. Basma Alseyofi) was also a very energetic and motivating speaker who wrote a few books and serves as a consultant on many governmental projects.

The nice thing about the event was a live music performance by a group called AlFarabi, who performed their song “story of a king” their musical style was fusion, the song was in Arabic, you can check out a studio version here.

There is a new cartoon coming out about the companions of the prophet, the main hero of the cartoon is the companion Bilal, a freed African slave and the first caller of the athan. The interesting thing is that they used forensic art to find what Bilal and his wife, and other companions looked like, which would be more authentic than seeing a light skinned actor with blackface playing the part as they usually do in films and series about the period.

I am also excited about a new art gallery which will take place in Jeddah in January 2012, I forgot the name, but not the date

All in all it was a good event, thanks to big Hass for inviting me, and thanks for the organizers of the event for making it all possible, it was way better than the videos I saw of last year’s event, and I know if it is done next year, it will be even better… and I hope I get an invitation to the event next year also… either that or I am giving a talk… the last guy on stage gave a talk because he updated a page on “the definition of genius” on Wikipedia.

There was also a moment of silence while standing up for the passing away of Steve Jobs, who without his vision, none of this would’ve probably been possible.

Sep 27, 2011

Shoura Council and Ten Lashes To Go with That

Qusay Saudi, Women 2 Comments

As my cerebral cortex tries to make sense of all the news coming out from pure secrecy, which makes it all sound like an Apple keynote speech where not even a leak comes out a little bit beforehand, King Abdullah announces that women will be able to participate in municipal elections, as voters and run for elections , and women’s participation in the shoura council, all great news, they need to be represented to make sure they get their rights… another bit of news irks me.

Ten lashes, not like the fake ones sold and worn by many (they do irritate me and make me want to go and pluck them out) but the ones a woman in Saudi was sentenced to for driving a car in Jeddah, and no one knows who she is (all anyone knows is her name is Shayma’a) or was before the news of the sentence came out.

Ten lashes for a woman for driving a car, not hurting anyone, not getting into an accident, not using her car for illegal purposes, yes she broke Saudi law (not sure if she did, I’ve been hearing that it is a “social issue” for so long because women do drive on a daily basis outside of the cities), but that law has no defined penalty for breaking as far as I know… otherwise Manal Alshareef would’ve been slapped with one, and Maha Alqahtani would’ve been asked to pay more than the 100SR for violating traffic laws.

Any light shed on this matter, would really be good to my grey matter… because something tells me this news is fake… wait… news could be fake? I mean… don’t they always tell and convey the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help them God?

Jul 6, 2011

Swarovski Abayas – Jawaher

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I find it very interesting to see two extremes in the same day, the first by Bill Maher in his mocking of fashion shows in Saudi Arabia, and instead of Christian Dior he calls the designer “Muslim Dior”.

The second, is Swarovski crystals actually finally catching up with what local shops have been doing for a while, I guess they thought they should sell the whole thing and not just the crystals.

From this picture, I also see they plan on moving into putting their crystals on soccer balls (footballs if you call them that) I would hate to see that crystal ball make any contact with a person’s head.

Jun 27, 2011

Western Media and Saudi Women Driving

Qusay Politics, Women 6 Comments

I have made my stance clear on women’s right to drive in Saudi Arabia, what I would like to make clear is to say that Western media does not really care which way the boat sails, and the American congress is not going to do anything regarding the issue of Saudi women driving.

“Never put your trust in Hilary Rodham, cuz I can tell you now it will turn out rotten” Ice Cube

I saw a few excited individuals happy that the issue of Saudi women driving is getting western media attention, of course it will, people will watch the news about this because it is “exotic”. It is big money and the news agencies now that, Saudi is a rich country, we import everything, and they will watch and forecast their projections for their soon to be profits.

America does not care about women, they make a fuss over a few young girls getting married to old men in Saudi but when little girls start becoming prostitutes in Haiti for food (or the equivalent of $2-3 per customer), little attention goes that way (and this has been in the news, with very little attention for over six months), who cares about people when they have no money? If they cannot profit from your situation, then little to nothing will be done.

When I say this, I get hit with a counter argument, but what about the Qatif girl? What about Samar Badawi, what about Fouad Alfarhan?

Those were individuals, it is a different story, media (all of them) were in it for the ratings, the issue was highlighted, and the problem for them was solved… But it is not always like that.

Applying the same and expecting results when it comes to 50% of the population, you get a whole big ball of messy goop, even neqabi women who have never been to Saudi Arabia and compare Saudi streets to New York get air time on CNN! that’s how much they want to fill the airwaves with money making rate increasing programming, who cares about anything else?

And like every thing on the news, people will get sick of it, the ratings will drop, and then they will find another story that interests the masses… Remember, we had two seasons of Arab revolutions, Tunisia and Egypt… then… no one wanted to watch anymore of that kind of news.