I am exhausted just from writing the title. Perhaps I can just stop with the title, and you can use your imagination for the rest. I would hate to be a faithful reader of this blog – it is difficult enough to be the writer. You must never know where this is going. If it is of any comfort to you – I do not know either. Some idea comes to me, usually after Fajr prayer or somethings during Fajr prayer and I am off and running.
Off and running means making a good start, progressing well. Off to a running start means that one has an initial advantage. Perhaps that is me – increasingly so but because of my own efforts and because I have not been burdened with children (by choice by the way). It is not as if I said: “Oops I forgot to have children. “ Never regretted it. Managed to have eight grandchildren, now hat is an accomplishment. They are no longer in my life. In some ways that can be blessing. One cannot expect one’s grandchildren to choose between their parents and you, the Granny. Those London days were ones of such pain. However, if not for my serration from them I never could have become a Muslim. Being of the Islamic Faith is central to my identity. One can survive without grandchildren but I could NEVER survive without Allah (SWT) in my life.
I write from the breakfast buffet of my current home – a rather humble hotel in Bahrain. The clientele of this hotel are an interesting groups of people. It is a long term residence for many. Many working on the Navy base here in Bahrain and many men from India who work at Oracle. I have great fun with the men from India. Here is a sampling of our conversations.
Me: I am SO glad I became a Muslim. Now if a man wants to marry me HE has to pay a dowry. If I were in your country, and a Hindu I would have to pay for one of you. And none of you would be worth it. Hahaha
They: Actually they do laugh and shrug their shoulders.
They are constantly and continually with one another. So I say to them.
Me: You guys work together, eat together. Do you guys sleep together?
They: NO
Me: It is probably because you snore.
I am hardly a typical Muslim woman. There are sometime other Muslim women, usually from Saudi Arabia. I must freak them out. Announce that I am a Muslim – I am not covering here in Bahrain at the present moment. It is a choice. It is cultural and not religious. Of course I covered in Mecca and Medina. My Malaysian Sister promises to teach me how to tie my hijab – I definitely need help. If I go to Nigeria I will not cover. Praiseworthy’s mother said not to cover my hair. Did not ask her why, just said “I will not.” Some Muslim women believe if they wear a hijab they are doing exactly what is expected of them – that is all they have to do. They hide behind their hijabs and face coverings do self righteously, so passively, so lazily. They do nothing to further the faith – only take advantage of the privilege it affords them. Sorry Sisters, it is true.
Later at the breakfast buffet I met a fascinating woman who works on boats, traveling around the world. She works for Sail Drone. Go to their website – it is fascinating. They are a California company, based near the County of Marin, where I worked for fifty years and then was beat up by a Marin County Police Department because I became Muslim. Those Drones can do almost everything. Nigeria has access to the North Atlantic because of Muslim armies, by the way. It is so interesting to read the history of Northern Nigeria.
Back to the title. No News is Good News is an idiom whose origins can be traced back to , James 1 of England (VI of Scotland) wrote, “No News is better than evil news”. That definitely is applicable today – when all we get is evil news, showing us the worse situations in other countries so that we will be happy in our own miseries. This has been the focus of US news reportage for eons, It is flooding in Afghanistan so we should be happy with no gun control etc etc etc. The conditions in Gaza certainly make Americans forget their decaying infrastructure lack of adequate health care, no maternity leave, no adequate vacations and no retirement programs. The adage “No news is bad news” resonates because it emphasizes the importance of consistent communication, if it is founded on truth and not lies.
That is news to me is an idiom I am discovering (all this) for the first time. Meaning it is new: recent, unused, opposite of old. It is often used to express surprise at some information that you have just heard. Wheres, “I’ve got news for you” is an aggressive and even belligerent utterance. It’s use implies that the speaker disagrees strongly with opinions or purported facts you have presented and is about to offer a contrary interpretation of the circumstances under discussion, often accompanied with a threat.
The lastt, and final, news item in the title is All the News That is Fit to Print.
In 1897, Adolph S. Ochs, the owner of The New York Times, created the famous slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” which still appears on the masthead of the newspaper today. He wrote the slogan as a declaration of the newspaper’s intention to report the news impartially.
I am going to break this to you gently Adolph S. Ochs, but it may have been your intention to report the news impartially but something has happened along the way and I am not convinced of the impartiality of the The New York Times.
Impartial is treating all rivals or disputants equally; fair and jus. Other words expressing this impartiality are: unbiased, unprejudiced, nonpartisan, objective, open-minded, with no axe to grind.
But do have to admit that Thomas Friedman certainly got this right about Saudi Arabia and Israel. He summed it up beautifully:
To put it bluntly, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has put his country’s worst religious extremists in jail, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put his country’s worst religious extremists in his cabinet.
That does say it all in an unbiased, open-minded and even-handed manner. Friedman does go on to say.
M.B.S.’s government did something appalling when it killed Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a liberal critic living in the United States, in Istanbul in 2018. M.B.S. has also done something none of his predecessors dared: break the stranglehold that the most conservative Islamists held over Saudi social and religious policy since 1979. This shift has proved so popular among so many Saudi women and young people that women’s participation in the work force jumped to 35 percent from 20 percent between 2018 and 2022, according to a report by the Atlantic Council, and is even higher today.”
That article continues to speak of conditions in Saudi Arabia being most laudatory of the advances made by MBS in a short period of time. The facts will be discussed at a later time. It is absolutely necessary when speaking of a country, any country, to have investigative journalists on the ‘ground’ to evaluate the conditions, not just the ‘hype’ put forth for consumption by those in power. . It is also necessary to have knowledge of the Islamic Faith and knowledge of Saudi history. I am uniquely qualified in this regard.
I have spoken of Investigative Journalism in the past. The search engine reveals six entries. The December 6, 2023 blog is entitled: Investigative Journalist, a Dying Breed; How to Be a Rare Person; Wikipedia Tells All About Investigative Journalism: My Experiences Ferreting Out the Truth; Making Out Like a Bandit; It Doesn’t Take a Rocket Scientist: A Fuzzy Photo and a Yummy Juice Concoction.
I used Wikipedia to define investigative journalism:
“Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms “watchdog reporting” or “accountability reporting” Most investigative journalism has traditionally been conducted by newspapers, wire services, and freelance journalists. With the decline in income through advertising, many traditional news services have struggled to fund investigative journalism, due to it being very time-consuming and expensive. “
I provided proof that it was a dying breed.
“Proof of it being a dying breed is confirmed. “The growth of media conglomerates in the U.S. since the 1980s has been accompanied by massive cuts in the budgets for investigative journalism. A 2002 study concluded “that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation’s commercial airwaves.”
Enough about all of that at this moment. It appears that I have successfully managed to make reservations from Bahrain to Penang yet again. You have no idea of the hassles I have been put through yet again. I shall leave Bahrain on Tuesday to begin a new life. Yet again.
There is absolutely no doubt about it. I have the most interesting life of any almost 81 year old person in the world. Praiseworthy accuses me of being born in 1903. I accused him of being born in 2016 because, as I said;
Me: You act like you were. Gotcha again. Hahaha
No response from him but that is typical.
The two photographs are from my Malaysian Muslim sister. A good morning greeting and a tea time greeting. Also a photograph of my travel attire for the flight to Malaysia. I shall arrive colorfully.
