Sexual Harassment & Blaming the Victim

Reading the comments on this article, I had a hard time controlling my blood pressure. The article discusses sexual harassment against women and how it is still present in Ramadan. First of all, what did ya expect? With all due respect, who doesn't have moral standards for the 11 months of the year isn't going to suddenly develop some, holy month or not. Second of all, the prevailing mentality seems to always blame the women and practically fear them for their "fitnah".

Now I understand that there is such a thing as a provocative outfit that could attract more attention to a female, but any female above the age of 12 who has spent more than one hour walking a street in Jordan will tell you, the demeaning comments will come whether you're wearing a Jilbab, a veil or a a normal jeans and t-shirt. Also, there is something very wrong with a culture that divides women into fully veiled and therefore decent and not veiled or not properly veiled and therefore have no morals.

So it really pisses me off to tell me that it's my fault for being insulted by an asshole with no manners who considers my walking down the street an invitation for him to express his carnal thoughts.

And for the commentators who blame the women, are you comparing yourselves to animals who just can't control themselves at the sight of a woman? By what logic should we lock up the women at home -several comments seemed to suggest that-, if you're the animal that cannot be controlled? I say we should lock YOU up.

I know I'm preaching to the wrong audience here, but sexual harassment is an issue that hits a nerve for each woman. It is an issue that needs to be strictly dealt with, and not by blaming the victim but by punishing the offender. I'm not one to encourage violence, but I think every woman should buy a taser and stun the hell out of any asshole who dares to come near her.

What's the Deal With Quest?

Ok so it seems a lot of people are entering this supposedly lucrative business of network or multilevel marketing, namely this company called Quest. If you've been approached, probably one of your friends or acquaintances has tried to wow you with this fascinating presentation about the business. You can become a millionaire with the least effort possible, all you have to do is buy JD500 worth of their so-called unique online products and you're in. Now what you have to do is keep making these presentations for people in order to recruit them so they'd buy the products in turn. And the more people you recruit, the more money you make.

Frankly I've done some research about it, and the whole thing is just too fishy, I'm not buying it. Their products are incredibly overpriced and you can only get them if you want to get in the business. Old members have to recruit new members in order to make money, but won't this have to stop at some point? Eventually the new members will be unable to recruit any more members, the very basis of what is called a pyramid scheme. Moreover, they fascinate you with their endorsements from FIFA and United Nations (even the Vatican!) but when I actually looked it up, I couldn't find a source other than the Quest websites themselves to verify this information.

Now some people I know have actually made some money already, but I fear they're making it from their friends and family who may very well lose. So my question is, does anyone know anything about this?

Dear Orange, YOU SUCK

The Black Iris is trying to make a campaign or a social experiment to see if we can do something other than complain, and I am more than happy to participate because God knows how much Orange piss me off. We don't get the speed we're paying for, if you try calling their customer services you're left to wait for a number of hours and the only thing they are persistent at is practically threatening their customers to pay. So spread this letter around if you agree that Orange SUCK.

Dear Orange Telecom (and all Jordanian service providers),

It’s been a while since I’ve written. In fact, I’m simply terrible at keeping in touch, so let me get straight to the point. You have a problem and it’s starting to affect others around you. Just like that guy at the gym who refuses to wear deodorant, we’ve started to notice. Indeed, something stinks terribly about your level of service, which I was for-warned about but was prepared to forgo in order not to deal with the hassles of third-parties. I wanted to deal directly with the source. Instead, the source has given a daily blinking red “disconnected” light.

All in all, I feel bamboozled. Swindled. Cheated. Robbed. And to a large extent, those adjectives are not far from the truth. For the 2MB connection that I receive from you, and which I pay a generous 50JDs a month for - has now, on average, gone down to around 0.60MB. It’s still the beginning of the month so I know I haven’t used up any of your very limited download capacity. I know that much.

I’m writing to you now about how your problem is affecting me, because you are someone who has been consistently communicating to me your own needs, and a good relationship always requires a two-way street when it comes to communication. You constantly send me your news in the form of an SMS. Something that states:

Dear Orange internet customer you have reached 70% of your download capacity, to extend your download capacity & avoid speed downgrade, please call our customer care at…

or…

Dear Orange Customer, we would like to kindly remind you to settle the bills due on your internet service within 1 week. Thank you from Orange internet.

See? You’re always communicating your needs to me. And I would kindly oblige to your requests but see, our relationship has sort of become like that broke uncle who’s always asking to “borrow” some money, and you just know you won’t get it back. As far as I know, that’s not how our relationship should be. Our relationship is supposed to be based on give and take: I give you something, you take it, and I expect a little giving in return.

To put it bluntly, I expect to get what I paid for.

And please do not ask me to call your customer service because that’s like asking me to explore new levels of frustration and I’m just not in to masochism. The person on the other end of the phone never knows what they’re talking about and you end up wasting 15 minutes with them (which I suppose is good for Orange Telephone), and this is after waiting 30 minutes to get through to a representative. They end up arranging for a visit by one of the technical crew, and that is a visit that requires at least a week of being Internet-less.

No, it’s not just you. I have met few people who are genuinely happy with the level of service they receive from the telecom sector in general. It seems the only good thing these companies are excellent at is taking their customers’ money. And by the way, even that requires me to line up for 40 minutes while tellers are busy servicing other people who are shopping around for a phone; why counters dedicated to bill payments cannot be arranged, I don’t know.

So how can I help but feel cheated?

And I won’t even mention my dropped cell phone calls in this letter.

If there’s one conclusion to be drawn from experience in the Jordanian sphere, it’s that we are relatively good at providing a serivce but terrible at delivering a service. In other words, we’re great with coming up with the next great marketable idea and taking money for that idea, but exchange is never mutual. We never get what we paid for.

And I know. This post might fall on deaf ears as others have. After all, why should any company that makes a great deal of money every year bother listening to its customers?

But fellow blogger Jad may have been on to something when it comes to starting an online campaign. It might need a better name, but I’m betting that bloggers and their readers alone can force a change simply by blogging about a company such as yours, and simply by putting Orange Jordan in their post titles, a little bit of tagging, a little bit of twittering, digging, Facebooking and other nifty weapons at our disposal, we can probably have our posts reach Google’s top ten ranking. So every time someone searches for your company, some of the most pertinent results they’ll get involve unsatisfactory reviews from your customers. And if you think that’s never made a difference, well, Google around and see if it ever has (try Dell for starters).

How else is a customer supposed to react when their satisfaction is no longer guaranteed? When they can no longer communicate effectively with their service provider?

I wanted this relationship to work out; I really did. But I feel like you haven’t given me any choices. It’s just been one bad thing after the other and I’m writing to let you know that I might be ready to move on. I know, I know. Our relationship didn’t last too long, but we all deserve a little happiness in our life. You once wrote to me that “Internet = Life”. I saw your message all over town in fact. It was sweet. But if that equation is true then I’m afraid, it seems, I can’t have that kind of happiness with you. So I want you to know, just so this is all out in the open, that I am starting to look for other people.

But whatever happens, I promise to stay in better touch with you (depending on the stability of my connection).

Yours Sincerely,

Naseem Tarawnah

Cervical Cancer Vaccine: The Controversy

Last month's "Living Well" had an interesting topic over Gardasil, the vaccine against cervical cancer. Definitely one of the greatest breakthroughs in the medical field over the past few years has been the development of this vaccine which prevents 70% of cervical cancer cases, the second most common form of cancer among women worldwide. The vaccine should be given to girls ages 9 to 25 as three shots over the course of 6 months with each shot costing 150 JD if memory serves.

So what's the problem? We've come up with a vaccine for cancer! Why would any parent refuse such a vaccine for their daughters? All cervical cancer cases are caused by strains of a virus called HPV which is sexually transmitted. And when the words sexually transmitted are involved, the average middle-eastern parent will become utterly offended by the fact that they're even offering a "sex shot" as it was referred to in the magazine. Such a vaccine will be seen as a green card for girls to start having sex, as if the only thing standing between them and promiscuity is the chance of contracting cervical cancer. One interviewed mother said she would not give the vaccine to her daughter, but were they to develop it for males she would give it to her son.

Tell me one thing, though. Do you tell your child to go play with rusty nails after giving him a tetanus shot? Would you kiss a flu patient because you've had your flu shot? Of course not. A vaccine is not a green card for anything, it is simply a rational precaution against a known disease. And to have anyone die from something completely preventable is absurd, in my opinion. One woman said "I'd rather live with the unfounded suspicion of my daughter sleeping around than to bury her one day because of my irrational decision".

I think at least there needs to be awareness about the subject so parents can know about it before it's too late. I for one had no idea the vaccine was available in Jordan.

So what do you think? Should Gardasil be given to girls? And for the ladies under 25, would you take it? For the parents, would you give it to your daughters?

My Thoughts on CEDAW

A little late to the party, I suppose. I honestly didn't think the discussion would keep going till now, but people can't seem to give it a rest. And by people I mostly mean organizations pertaining to the Islamic Brotherhood.

Firstly, let me state something very clearly, I KNOW that Jordan is an Islamic country. I know that the personal status law which applies to people of all religions living in the country follows the Islamic law. I do know that.

What seems to bother the Brotherhood and more recently the Council of Ifta' are articles 15 and 16, which in a nutshell, guarantee women the freedom to travel and reside freely, as well as equal rights in marriage, occupation, etc. I will not go into discussion as to why would Islam disagree with the previous notions, because in the end it is a personal opinion. But this i will say: Jordan is not Saudi Arabia. We don't apply Islamic teachings to every part of our lives. We don't force women to wear headscarves, we don't force people into mosques at prayer time and we won't chop your hand off for stealing. The Jordanian constitution guarantees freedom of religion, and by that I don't just mean the right for non-Muslims to practice their rites of worship, but also the right for Muslims to choose whether to apply the teachings of Islam to their lives or not.

And that is why I don't think CEDAW should pose a problem. If certain women don't believe it is their right to travel freely, then by all means, don't. No one is forcing you to. What CEDAW does is guarantee this right for people who don't agree with that. What it does is provide women with the choice. I find nothing wrong with that, and if truly there is no compulsion in religion, then this shouldn't even be an issue.

Go ahead now, proceed to chopping my head off in the comment section xD

About the Recent Swine Flu Outbreak in Jordan

It's all in the newspapers by now, 13 teenagers have come back with swine flu from a camp in Ajloun, the largest number of people to contract the disease at once so far. I know a couple of people who were at the camp so I have a second-hand account of the events.

Firstly the camp, organized by Christian churches, takes place each summer and a couple of times throughout the year, and most of the participants are about 16 or 17 with older leaders and supervisors present as well. After the camp ended on Friday, two of the participants tested themselves after coming down with the symptoms and were found positive, so all those who took part in the camp were brought to the Prince Hamza Hospital, and those with a temperature of 38 or higher were quarantined and had samples taken to be tested. The results take about a day to come out.

From what I heard, the parents and those who were kept at the hospital were very disappointed with the way things were handled. The hospital is not well-equipped, conditions are far from sanitary and the section where they stay is very understaffed, with only one doctor and two nurses. The parents struggled to find a doctor to answer their questions. It makes me wonder if we really are as ready to handle an influx of cases should they happen as the Ministry of Health has been saying.

Contrary to what's being said in the newspapers, there weren't any participants from the UK, and only one from the US and one from Lebanon, and both tested out negative, so till now the source of the outbreak is still unknown. And with 6 new cases discovered today, I doubt the disease can be contained any longer.

Anyhow, Tamiflu was distributed to those who tested out negative and their families as a precaution, and those who do have swine flu are quarantined and prohibited from seeing anyone for the next 5 days. They're all doing fine though, they've got their laptops, DVDs and cards to entertain them! If you're going to go down with swine flu you might as well end up with your friends, I suppose!

7amdella 3al salameh to all.

Free Hugs in Jordan!

Yes, yes, I'm a terrible blogger I know it. But this I just have to blog! Remember this video? It's one of my favorite videos ever. Well apparently the Sunny FM people got one of their employees to dress up in a ridiculously stupid costume and carry the Free Hugs sign around different places in Jordan, just like Juan Mann, the man who originally started the campaign. I kinda wish I would've bumped into them, but man what's with the costume?



But Jordanians, you need to get better at the hugging business. Maybe what we needed was a free cheek-kissing campaign. Now that we would be good at! Anyway kudos for Sunny for thinking this up! And for the brave dude who went around Jordan offering hugs. Maybe the purpose of the costume was protection against being beaten up? Kidding, kidding, we're very friendly people. Most of the time.

Souk Jara and Jadal

One of my favorite things about Amman during the Summer is Souk Jara, the annual summer flea market in Jabal Amman. This year it kicked off just last week. Booths situated on each side of one of the oldest streets in Amman, selling unique merchandise, from antique jewelry to locally made Jo Bedu t-shirts. There are also small tables reminiscent of a "kan zaman" setting where you can sit and munch on saj sandwiches and have yourself an argeeleh. The best thing about it though are the concerts by local bands every week. We've got some seriously talented Jordanians!












































Yesterday's concert was by Jadal, an Arabic rock band formed a couple of years ago. It was my first time seeing them in concert, and I loved it. Listening to the combination of slang Arabic lyrics and electric guitar tunes while enjoying the view overlooking the Citadel and al Balad was really quite an experience. Plus, the drummer is the cousin of a personal friend who requested her name be mentioned here (so here you go, Diana :D).






My favorite song is "Salma", I've been playing it non-stop since yesterday. You can download it at their website. Here are the lyrics as well.





سمِّي سلمى يا أختي سلمي أمرك و اتكلي
سلمى صغيرة راح تبكي من أول وهلة راح تشكي

سلمى عيونك يشوفوا الخير يشوفوا أمك بتصلي
تشوفي و تسمعي كل خير ما يهمك خالك بيغني

سلمى صغيرة راح تبكي و راح تملى بيوتنا بالضحكه
و بأعلى صوتها راح تحكي أنا بحبك يا أمي

Chorus:
سلمى عيوني بتستنى تشوف عنيكي و تتمنى
العمر كلو يا سلمى العمر الي بتمناه
العمر الي بتمناه العمر كلو يا سلمى

Verse :
سمِّي سلمى يا أختي سلمي أمرك و اتكلي
سلمى صغيرة راح تبكي من أول وهلة راح تشكي

سلمى عيونك يشوفوا الخير يشوفوا أمك بتصلي
تشوفي و تسمعي كل خير ما يهمك خالك بيغني

Chorus:
سلمى عيوني بتستنى تشوف عنيكي و تتمنى
العمر كلو يا سلمى العمر الي بتمناه
سلمى عيوني بتستنى تشوف عنيكي و تتمنى

سلمى عيوني بتستنى


P.S. Uploading photos to blogger is a major pain effft.

Good Blogger. Nice Blogger.

Exploring the weird species that is bloggers.

If Zain Send Me One More Message....

No I don't want to know the Manchester Barcelona game score or whatever that message was about, I don't want to receive your health tips and I most certainly don't want to send a joke so I can be "rewarded" by receiving two free jokes (oh joy!). So STOP sending 10 stupid message a day, or take your wonderful world and shove it somewhere. Jeeeez.

Queen Rania Joins Twitter!

I have a LOT to complain about when it comes to how our country is run, but one thing I love is how the Royal Family are humble and try to stay connected with the people, especially technologically speaking. First a YouTuber, now Queen Rania has moved on to the next popular internet craze, Twitter, the microblogging website. She started her account only yesterday and has updated her status over 17 times. It's the real deal, in case you're wondering, her account has been confirmed by the Royal Court.


It seems that as with her YouTube page, the Queen intends to use this website to raise awareness about certain issues, this time being educating children. In her first and second tweets she says: "Salaam! Last time you heard from me, we worked together to breakdown stereotypes. This time, I want us to tweet together to get every child an education."

But what will probably interest you more are the personal tweets which give people an amazing insight into her life as a royalty. Check these out:

• Wknd begins for us, watching Matthew McConaughey in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Glad I'm not single. It's vicious out there!

• Nice movie to watch with girls; husband (real life action man) mumbling "chickflick!'' under breath. Spoilsport. Just kidding! Watch it... (haha my favorite)

• Just choppered to airport to receive Pope. Husband piloting, he got acrobatic to quiet butterflies in stomach :) told u he was action man
  

• Taking kids 2 meet Pope, just about convinced eldest 2 wear suit. Now negotiating with my 4 yr old!

Queen Rania is following 23 people at the time of this post, including Oprah, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Al Gore. She has over 3000 followers, and is personally replying to some of the messages people are sending her. Can't wait to see what she's coming up with next! I sure hope the King makes his own account.

Oh and in her bio, she describes herself as "A mum and a wife with a really cool day job.." Haha, you gotta love her!


h/t: The Observer

Swine Flu? Nah, They're Just Kidding

I don't understand this poll on Alghad's website. It's asking if people think Swine Flu is an actual disease in reality. And over 30% so far have voted that they do not. They don't think it's a real disease? So what is it?

Encounter With a Creep

One thing I like to do is walk. I usually go for a walk early in the morning, at like 6, when the air is still crisp and the streets are relatively empty. I mostly circle around the neighborhood. I've done it for the past three years I think and today for the very first time, I've had an incident with a creep.

I was walking like usual, with one of my iPod headphones in my left ear, so I can still hear any approaching cars or so. I am always aware of my surroundings. I noticed that there was a man walking behind me but didn't think much of it. He was medium built, wearing black pants with a black jacket, clicking away on his mobile. At some point I notice that he's walking exactly behind me, as in two steps away, so I thought it be best to just turn around, go in the other direction and let him go past me, what I usually do in such situations. So I turn around, but the bastard turns right with me. Staring at him I watch him put his phone right in front of my face. I realized at that point that he's been following me, presumably shooting a video or photos. Why else would he stick the mobile in my face. I flipped out. Screaming at him, I snag the mobile out of his hand but he manages to take it back and starts running. I start running behind him and chase him down for half a street but then he takes a turn, so I decide to turn around so I'd catch him from the other side, but he had disappeared. I'm thinking he hid in one of the garages of the apartment buildings in that area.

Why the hell was he photographing me is beyond me. I was wearing black, baggy sweat pants and my older brother's over-sized hoodie. Other than the pony tail, I swear I looked like a teenage boy.

A man driving in his car saw what happened and asked what's the matter and said he would drive around and see if he can find him. I kept walking around in the area hoping I'd run into him. I'm not sure what would have happened if I had caught up with him. I wish I had snatched his mobile so I'd be able to find out who he is. I don't think I've ever gotten this angry in my entire life. I wanted to beat the shit out of him so bad. I think he was surprised when he saw that I was chasing him. He wasn't expecting that.

But all is well. The whole thing is just a tiny incident, and other than a cut in my finger (I think from when he snatched the mobile back), nothing happened. I'm gonna keep taking my morning walks as usual. I hope I run into him again, though.

This is just to say to all you ladies out there to be careful. Be aware of your surroundings. And fight back. Creeps do exist.

Arab Stand-up Comedy!

Apologies about the lack of blogging, people, I've been kind of busy with midterms and the such. But check this out. After the huge success of the Axis of Evil comedy tour, Showtime put together Minority Rules, a stand-up comedy show of Arab comics. I'm posting a couple of my favorites.

Here's a video of Egyptian Ronnie Khalil describing the stages of "ya lahwi" that Egyptian women experience!



And this is one of Wonho Chung. Yup, Won Ho. LOL. Wonho is a South-Korean who's lived in Jordan all his life. So i'm guessing it's part of our genetic structure then, that we are unable to breed funny people.

h/t: Laura

Earth Hour In Jabal Amman

Yesterday I joined the candlelit march across the Rainbow Street in Jabal Amman and I must say I thought it was really nice. People gathered up at Wild Jordan Cafe where they were showing Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", then at 8.30 the switch was turned off -really, there was a switch to turn the light off the entire street- and people walked around the street a couple of times with their candles and gathered back again at the Cafe till the lights were turned back on. The Minister of Environment Khaled Irani was also there and he walked along with the crowd.

Although the weather was pretty cold, and keeping the candles lit was almost impossible, the scene from Jabal Amman with the lights turned off and with the ambiance of the candles was beautiful. Maybe overall, it didn't provide the awareness it ought to have, but I think given it's our first year doing this, it wasn't so bad. Baby steps, I suppose.

I couldn't take any pictures (the grainy one on the right is the best thing I could take with my mobile camera), but I'll post if I receive any.

Earth Hour 2009: Turn Your Lights Off!

• Where?

Amman

• What?

Turn your lights off

• When?

Today from 8.30 till 9.30 PM

• Why?

To raise awareness about Global Warming, Amman is one of the participating cities in the global campaign Earth Hour. Several streets in Amman will be turning off their lights.

There will also be a candlelit march in Rainbow St. in Jabal Amman at 8.30.


The irony is that I have two electric circuits exams tomorrow. Ugh.

Stop Getting So Offended

Ah, just another boycott, this time against Alghad newspaper. I woke up today to find several invitations to a facebook group calling for the boycott of Alghad for publishing the Imad Hajjaj cartoon shown here.

[Cartoon shows Abu Mahjoob welcoming and baptizing Tony Blaire with filthy water in the baptism site, with the minister of water on the other side announcing that the contaminated waters did not affect the drinking water and were rerouted to the Jordan River.]

The cartoon spurred the catholic union to send a letter to Alghad's editor denouncing the cartoon because of the "hurtful insinuations it carries that offend not only Christians, but every good-willed citizen", also mentioning that this isn't the first time they've been offended by a Hajjaj cartoon.

This in turn caused Hajjaj to post a clarification on his website, that the caricature was not in any way a mockery of Christians or their traditions, but a sarcastic commentary of how the minister of water and irrigation announced that the water contaminated by Israel was disposed of in the Jordan river just a few days after the opening of the baptism center with Tony Blair attending the ceremony.

هذا الرسم لا يستهدف من قريب أو بعيد الإساءة للديانة المسيحية وأتباعها. ومن المهم هنا التأكيد على القضية الأساسية التي يبرزها الكاريكاتير وهو إعلان وزير المياه أن جميع المياه الملوثة قد تم التخلص منها في نهر الأردن بعد أيام من تدشين معمودية مغطس نهر الأردن بحضور السيد توني بلير. أي أن حل مشكلة التلوث كان بتلويث النهر المقدس الذي يتعمد فيه الحجاج المسيحيين من كل العالم، وهذا ما يرفضه رسام الكاريكاتير شكلا وموضوعا.

The cartoon was posted yesterday and already 3 groups have been created calling for boycotting the newspaper and Imad Hajjaj, created by people who, I'm sure, have no idea of the underlying meaning of the cartoon. The sensitivity of people when it comes to anything bordering religion is unbelievable. You do not object the fact that what you regard as a holy site is being pumped with sewage but a cartoon offends you? Seriously save your energy and outcries for bigger things, like oh I don't know, drinking sewage and radiation infested water.

[On a completely unrelated note, this is the 100th post on this blog!]