I really do not believe in career “freedom fighters” who make a living out of their writings and appearances, usually this turns them into mercenaries, they say sometimes the end justifies the means, but when push comes to shove, no one likes the lime lights to be taken away from them.

You see, there is some good money talking BS, take Thomas or Maureen for example, other figures are trying to get some of that light to shine on them, and had they really had their hearts in the right place (with the oppressed) then you would think they wouldn’t care who took the credit as long as the world becomes a better place in the end.

The world keeps turning.

The first bought $60,000 Bottle of Champagne at The Tippler, in New York in March, the other splurged $136,000 on a bottle of champagne at Dubai’s glitzy Cavalli club.

The names were never mentioned, but being the one percent, they know who the other is, if the news is true, I am sure.

It is their money, and they can chose to spend it however they want, I will not get into that, had they not been Saudi, their names would’ve probably never made it to the news… except, spending that much on a bottle of bubbly, you want the world to know

However, no one will ever mention a particular issue… even though buying alcohol is forbidden, and wasting money, according to the Quran, makes a person a “brother to the devil”

But what do I know… If I ever struck it rich someday… I might get myself an iced grill… but for now, I’m just gonna brush my shoulders off.

I have a very good friend who is from Homs, where most of the rioting is taking place and I cringe every time I hear anything about it in the news. I know he is well, And I hope he and his family and the rest of his country are all well.

It saddens me that the world (including me) are just looking like what’s happening is in a movie.

(source of picture: Rachel Roberts)

Now driving in Saudi is not for the faint hearted, and the drivers are reckless… Of course this has a bit of what George Carlin said “anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac” I will not exempt myself from that.

So with me, it goes like this, a guy cuts me off, abu shaklak… a guy cuts a red light, abu shaklak… a guy does not stop at a stop sign, abu shaklak… a guy opens the window and throws his rubbish out on the streets, abu shaklak… and so on.

So one day, I was driving with my son in the car, the road was clear and I was approaching a traffic light which was green, it turned yellow just as I was on the zebra, so I kept going, it turned red just as I finished crossing the intersection… all was cool… except that my son looked at me in bewilderment and all wide eyed and said… and I quote “Daddy! Now WE are abushaklak!”

All I could say was… yes we are… yes we are.

I have not been away, but unfortunately some russian hackers injected some bad code into my blogs and redirected people to their website, it took me a looooong time to clean it all up, especially with how busy work and personal life has been lately.

So here’s to a year I will never forget, I just hope there are no more surprises… However, if the Mayans were right, then we have not seen the beginning of it.

While far fetched,  and no release in Arabic of this news at the time of this post, and no names of who from the counsel approved and submitted the claims if women drive in Saudi “there will be no more virgins” and homosexuality will be rampant, I cannot buy it, something must have been lost in translation.

And the guy who says he was at a cafe in a neighboring country and a woman was checking him out, alright Muhannad, even Kanye with his ego is not that sure if a women was checking him out (link to song).

If this is true, then it would not be more far fetched then the WA Liberal MP who claims Australians are unknowingly being converted to Islam by eating Halal meat, in a speech addressed to the Australian Parliament nonetheless… I just wonder how those people make it all the way to the top like that, but then I remember George W. Bush and I get even more frustrated, oh well, it ain’t all good like Shaka khan sang with De La Soul, that’s the truth.

“It is with deep sorrow and grief that the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud mourns the loss of his brother and Crown Prince His Royal Highness Prince Sultan Abdulaziz Al Saud.” (source)

Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz passed away on October 22, 2011 in his mid-eighties, may he rest in peace. His passing is significant on the world scene because of his position as Crown Prince of the country which sits on more than a quarter of the world’s known oil reserves.

The issue of succession is raised again.

In Saudi (and the world), there is this fear, that the next inline would be more controlling or less controlling, more “religious” more “liberal”, more this, that or the other depending on who you talk to and what they would like to see. The rumors and so called “intelligence reports” about King Abdullah that were online back when he was crown prince, were nothing to be optimistic about, yet in reality, his impressive accomplishments are something most of us are proud of (I sure am, here, here and here as an example, and I don’t think I am alone in that).

Prince Sultan left behind him a legacy also, while some do question it, he was still a man that left an impression on the people, mostly due to his infectious smile and his generosity as I read from reports, and many on twitter on the day of his passing.

My memories of Prince Sultan are only that of passing by his palace in Jeddah on my way to school most of my schooling years, always wondering if he was there or not, now I know… he won’t be living there anymore.

Most Pictures are from alriyadh online newspaper, the last one is mine.

The album plays like a documentary, a rapumentary if I have to describe it, because this guy is Public Enemy and Tupac, Michael Moore and Malcolm-x and more at the same time.

It is artful, in the way it stirs your emotions, flows in a way that doesn’t lose you, entertains without being boring and saddens to the point it brought tears to my eyes more than once, and powerful to a degree I have yet to hear something like it.

I do feel so helpless when I hear and see those stories, stories that make my struggle feel irrelevant, I have never been through what people in occupied lands have been through, and I hope the day suffering on earth ends… but basing that on human history, extrapolating anything out of that which isn’t ugly is a stroke of nonsense, if autumn, winter and summer are destroyers, only spring is a builder, and then it’s still three to one.

Kareem Dennis is talented and has a good head on his shoulder, talent enough to take the best rapper out there, and true to himself that he didn’t sellout to this big marketing machine which tries to make you feel like success is money, cars, and women and then try to tell you that greed and misogyny is bad, then sell you some antidepressants to make you numb enough to reprogram you again and again.

This album is what rap is all about, relating the story of the oppressed, in a message that will should shake something  inside the listener, and if it cannot make the listener do something for the betterment of this world, it would at least open his/her eyes to the injustices that are not covered in mass media… and knowledge after all, is power.

Power to the people who realize they are the 99%.

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Music

After a quick survey and visits to kindergartens (involving me staying in the car outside because I cannot enter, all female staff and all) we settled on a Montessori style school, he is in preschool now, and while Saudi has a new optional age for entering first grade at five and a half, provided he can read and write in Arabic a little bit, we couldn’t and didn’t want to do that, both my parents have spent their lives teaching, and they were against him entering school at such an early age.

We hope it is good, he just completed his first week, but there are things we didn’t like… and do not like in all of them.

First thing, no music, that to me is unnatural, the policy is no music, because to them, it is forbidden in Islam… which brings me to the second thing… religious training, say what you say about this, but here is my reasoning.

In Islam, a child is asked to optionally pray five times a day when he/she turns seven. Prayer is a pillar of Islam, and prayer becomes mandatory at ten, so why should a child before the age of 7 go through that. He is already asking us questions about death (before he entered the school) and they are uncomfortable, mainly because he saw pictures of my grandparents and asked where they were and how they died and what happens to them now and such… and if they comeback.

And no, I am not the only one having these concerns, a while ago a YouTube video of a Saudi kindergarten caused some rage because they taught kids how to perform an Islamic burial and funeral, things that many kids witness anyway, but should not learn.

There is the option of letting him go to an international school. It is very expensive for us to go with that option, so at the moment it is not an option at all.

His first experience with school is from our time in Australia, where addressing his caretakers was done on a first name basis, he used to call women who had grand kids older than he was, by their first names, now he does not understand why he has to call them “Abla (teacher)” and not their first names.

We also do not like that they sell junk food (they all do, even when I was a kid, and I loved it, but I am a parent now so chocolates and gummy candy should be consumed only when we let him… of course his grandparent do not care about our reasoning so I guess the imaginary control we have is useless).

At the end, we hope his “schooling does not interfere with his education”.

Could it be, that we just don’t believe in the process?

Maybe we don’t believe in democracy?

Maybe we don’t believe that Municipal councils would change anything (but do we think twitter and Facebook do)?

Or maybe the king’s decree to allow women in Saudi to vote and run for municipal elections and shoora council (not now but in the next elections), made men just not want to have anything to do with it as a sign of protest, but that still doesn’t explain the low number that registered a few months ago.

I didn’t vote.

I can only talk for myself, I didn’t vote because I registered in Jeddah, then moved to Yanbu, and I knew of no way to change where I was registered to vote.

I also had no idea who was running for what and what their agenda was, politics is full of hot air, and promises filled with dreamy words are hard to believe especially without precedence of political or social activity in the country, everything is ran by the government.

The previous municipal council electees did nothing to help with anything, it is tough to follow that, none of them are known to have shown up to help Jeddah rain victims as a simple example.

So why didn’t we vote… The simple… Very simple answer is… No one knew about them, and those who knew didn’t care.