Sunday, November 08, 2009

1.
كانت بانتظار ابنها عند باب المدرسة كاي يوم أخر, لم تكن تتوقع او تنتظر اي امر أخر. كان هناك الكثير من الاباء والامهات لنفس الغرض. كان هناك رجلان ملتحيان وباثواب قصيرة في انتظار ابن احدهما. كان ذلك في احدى مدن اسبانيا. لاحظ الرجلان ملامحها التي دلت بوضوح على انها من مسقط راسيهما في المغرب. لم يستسيغا انها لم تكن محجبة. كان من الممكن ومن المنطقي ان ينتهي الامر عند هذا الحد ويعود الكل الى بيته مصطحبا ابنه اوابنته. لكن ذلك لم يحدث, على الاقل لم يحدث للسيدة ولا للرجلين اللذين برزت عليهما علامات التدين. هي انتهى بها المطاف بالمستشفى وقد انتهى بها الضرب المبرح التي تلقته على يد الرجلين الى اصابات نتج عنها فقدها لجنين انتظرت قدومه. اما بطلا الامر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر ففي انتظار قرار المحكمه.

2.
برنامج تلفزيوني شبيه بكاش تاكسي, تثبت كاميرا خفية في تاكسي ويتحدث فيه السائق (مقدم البرنامج) مع ضيوفه الركاب في اي موضوع وهو مقتبس من برنامج امريكي . ركب في التاكسى رجل ملتحي ومعه زوجته المنقبة وكالعاده قام السائق بالحديث مع (الضيوف). بادرت السيدة المنقبة بالرد ففاجئها الزوج بصفعة على وجهها وسط دهشة السائق. فقد نسيت للحظة ان صوتها عورة وجاءت هذه الصفعة لتذكرها ان كلها عورة .. كلها دون استثناء.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Nothing efficient ...is very Efficient


Nothing efficient is the name of the band. I have strong feeling that the name was made up by my son Hesham. He was initially playing the Clarinet and he made it to the school advanced band. Then he decided to switch gears and learn Guitar. The clarinet was put aside to collect dust. Last summer he gave us the news that he formed a band, more precisely a rock band. The band was made of four, a lead guitarist Rocky, the Drummer Andrew, the Vocalist Jamar and the Bassist Hesham. They write their own music and they are pretty good. The band members are quite diverse in their ethnic origin. A vietnamese, an african american, a half american half hispanic and finally a middle eastern. They have attracted attention where ever they play.. I found myself attending all of their GIGS and with that I learned some of the lingo...(gigs for example!!). Today they had a gig in a car show. I leave you with this picture for the band doing their thing and one of their originals. Hope you like it.. If you want to hear more search youtube for nothing efficient and visit their web site at www.nothingefficient.com.



This is a really hard song "Back in Black" by AC/DC and I think they did a good job playing it.. Jamar was remarkable

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

My first town hall meeting..

I have never attended a town hall meeting before. Few weeks age a colleague at work forwarded me an email that was sent to him and to all his church members asking them to attend this particular town hall meeting. In this meeting the city council will vote on permission to build a big islamic center in Saginaw. Similar email have circulated from the Jewish community here asking for attendance. No wonder I had to struggle for a parking space in the usually empty parking lot of the city hall. Finally I parked at the police station facing the hall (this would make it easy to pay the ticket if I get one!). I was few minutes late, the hall was jam packed as well as the corridors and there was few people outside. I guess they preferred the outdoors over hearing nothing in the corridors. I managed to sneak further in and I managed to hear the heated discussion. One of the city council members pointed out that there has never been such attendance in the history of the city!.. some one answered "put interesting agenda like this one and we will come!" a lot of people commented on the interesting topic..few voiced their objection; some claimed the the noise of the call for prayer will annoy them, others voice their concern that the city by permitting the Islamic center to be built at the proposed site will reduce the farm land and hurt the environment! One guy complained that the increased traffic expected with this center will make it hard from him to sleep as he is sure the headlight of cars entering and leaving the center will hit directly through his bedroom windows. One man even suggested to build a hill to surround the center and isolate it form the nearest neighborhood! another guy insisted on getting an answer regarding who many prayers a day in Islam and what time each one is conducted! One lady demanded a written contract that a microphone will not be used in the center!
And the finale of stupid comments came from a man who said the center is close to his house and that area has drainage problem and was wondering where would all the shit go with expected sharp increase in toilet use if the center is built!!
Americans are way more outspoken!! People in the middle east are more likely to shut up then show their ignorance..
If you noticed I referred to the comments above as "few voices" because the majority of Americans attended the meeting were there to support the Islamic center. The circulating emails that I talked about were a call for the church members and the Jewish community to attend and show support to build the Islamic center. Avery straight forward council women described the earlier comments as "shameful" and " you would not dare make the same comments if a church is being proposed" .
Finally it was time to vote.. all those in favor raise hands and say Ayyyyy.. all the city council members raised hands and all said "Ayyyyyyy"

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The list

http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/PressR/English/2008/list.pdf

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

الحلقة الاضعف

بوفاة سعيد النجاس وصلاح الحليبي وأسماء العود (رحمة اللة عليهم) بلغ عدد ضحايا فقرالدم المنجلي واحد وعشرون في عشرة أشهر.
معظم الضحايا كانو في ريعان شبابهم . عاشو حياة قصيرة. ورثوا الالم وكان رفيقهم الدائم الذي تمنوا فراقه. فكان الفراق ابديا. عانوا الحسرة والتمييز, لم ينصفهم احد. واكرر لم ينصفهم احد. لم ينصفوا على مقاعد الدراسة ولا في فرص العمل والزواج ولافي الرعاية الصحية.
وفي المجال الاخير فالمرضي واهاليهم لديهم من القصص مايندى له الجبين.
ومع كل تظلم وشكوى تكون النتيجة معروفة سلفا, لا تقصير"وكله تمام".
لا ننكر ان المرض يصاحبه مضاعفات خطرة قد تودي الى الوفاة حتى مع الرعاية االصحية المشددة. لكن الاكيد ان الاهمال هو الاخطر على حياتهم.
كم مريضا يتوجب موته لكي نقر بأن هناك مشكلة؟ وان الرعاية المقدمة "مش تمام"!
لكننا نفعل ما نحسن فعله عادة وندفن رأسنا في الرمال. فلم نوجع رأسنا بالبحث عن حلول ان لم تكن هناك مشاكل؟
لكن لغة الارقام لاتقبل الجدال فواحد وعشرون ضحية أمر لايمكن كنسه تحت سجادة. وهو يصرخ ان في الأمرخطاء. وفي كل مرة يتم البحث عن طبيب أخطا التشخيص او العلاج فلا يجدون وأحيانا يكون المريض هو المخطي فهو الذي لم يقبل (خوفا على حياته) سريرا في جناح لا يعرف ممرضوه عن مرضه شيا . أنهم يبحثون في المكان الغلط وبعقلية غلطَ.
المشكلة هي في النظام الصحي المقدم لمرضى السكلر والذي يراهم عبء و"عوار راس" ولا يمتلك رؤية او ادوات تصحح مساره فيتم تكرار نفس الاخطاء مرات ومرات.
تشكيل جمعية لمرضى السكلر وأهاليهم وانشاء موقع لهم على الانترنت تثير قضاياهم هي خطوة في الطريق الصحيح. ويجب تشكيل جماعات ضغط لتحسين الرعاية الصحية لمرضى السكلروتحسين فرصهم في العمل والحياة.
فهم بيننا الحلقة الاضعف و(الطوفة الهبيطه).

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Tomatoes ..the honor system at work!



It caught my attention while driving my son to school. A cart with tomatoes for sale in the front yard of a house. The owner of the house plants these tomatoes in his back yard. So I made a stop on my way back home. Nobody was around and nobody is watching just you and the tomatoes with the price written on the side. There was a box to put the money and take change if needed. I picked 10 tomatoes and placed the money in the box .. which had money in it from previous buyers..It is working .. the honor system does work.
Just wondering if something like would work back home??

Friday, August 29, 2008

Commited..

I missed the orientation day for middle school. So next day I took my son to find out where his classes are located. During our tour we met old women using a walker to get by in the science class. There were 2 young girls with her and all of them were cleaning and decorating the science class. Talking to the nice lady, I found out that she is the mother of the science teacher and those lovely girls are her grand daughters. The whole family have been comming for the last 4 days to clean and decorate the class to make it ready for the student starting next week. People like them is what makes this country great.