This was filmed in 1966, a bit propagandist in nature, especially where the announcer says some of their brothers and fathers cannot see their faces at home… at the same time the school door is opened by the school doorman who happens to be… a man.
According the the United Nations first-ever World Happiness Report, Saudi Arabia is 26th on the happy scale, the report is 158 pages, which I have not read in its entirety yet, but basically is says the more money you have the happier you are, as the happiest nations are more wealthy and less religious (while religion helps in areas where life is harder, even in wealthy nations like the US), and the least happy are poor countries… so they do lie, money does buy happiness (at least it pays for the search).
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.
Somethings are off limits, and cannot be criticized not even in a joke, like denying the holocaust in a number of European countries (it is illegal and punishable by law), criticizing the US support for Israel, and talking negatively about Prophets in front of Muslims, especially Prophet Mohammed.
So when most find someone as weak as little Hamza Kashgari, they will be on him like they were just waiting to pounce.
As I said, no one in his right mind, in our culture would dare tell someone that his father was a bad man, or that his clan is a bad clan, or that his tribe is not a good tribe, so how can one expect to get away with telling people that their prophet, who to them is the highest attainable human example of perfection, is, not really perfect.
Whether extremist or modern, Muslims try to find the examples from the prophet’s life to follow, if they are by nature kind and affectionate, they follow those examples, if they want to practice polygamy, they find what suits them, and the examples are plenty, and as any person who studied systems would tell you, we humans always find a way to play the system to our advantage (the best people to use this rule are politicians and lawyers)
Having said all that, Kashgari is being used as an example, he is a young man with no constituency, and when you are just a small person in an old world of cultural history, if you have no back… Well, you get eaten up and spit out without second thought, Bush did it during his re-election, we didn’t start the fire, it was always burning since the world was turning.
Afterthought: “In this white man’s world, I’m similar to a squirrel” 50Cent, and we all are like that in someway to someone.
So Saudi women are finally working in stores that they should be working in, what I find funny is that I have seen them working in hardware stores like Extra many months ago advising women on electrical appliances like toasters, microwave ovens, even air conditioners and washing machines (big screen TVs were and probably always will be a man’s territory… all those years looking up to the sky has had to have some kind of impact on our genes 
)
There are economic incentives behind this, 7 billion dollars being pumped out of the country in the second quarter of 2011 alone by foreign workers, anyone can see… it is not good for the economy… it is only good for the one vary famous bank which deals with them every month and gets a transaction fee for every transfer, I think I read that the owner of the back is one of the richest in Saudi, and one of the worst banks to deal with on a personal banking level, it doesn’t make sense… but it does make cents and dollars.
I assume, that once things settle, the big companies that own everything in the malls will begin to employ non-Saudi women, just like they do in other gulf countries, for all the obvious outsourcing (but inwards) reasons, and let’s see if netaqat is also applied to Saudi women, since the labor office says that employing a Saudi woman is equal to employing four Saudi men to fulfill their Saudization quotas, something all governments do in the form of affirmative action (don’t quote me on this, this is what I hear and I am have not seen the labor regulations). So if I had a multimillion dollar business to run, I would have a lot of leeway to play the system.
Some say the head of Hay’a was replaced due to this issue being a problem, I never knew his name until I heard he was being replaced, so good luck to the new guy… remember, change takes time.
If there is a picture that can put it all in perspective, then this is it.
From the Amazing Boston Big Picture post about Hajj and Eid Al-Adha
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Saudi Arabia will build a state of the art railway, this project has been in the works for years, I remember a few years ago I saw an article about it in the news papers, and an IPO proposal (I do not know what happened to it), but the architectural images look very impressive.
I see big signs on the road I travel advertising the time it would take to reach destinations from the new King Abdullah Economic City, so the train will be very fast.
The Saudi Railways Organization, which only operates a relatively small railway, will have its hands full from now on. (Current railway is in orange in the following picture) everything else is an expansion.
The winds of change are blowing, I just hope the guys from the monopoly film do not start squatting there, since homeless people like train stations.
Really impressive, what do you think?