Saudi Terror Alert: Two Qaeda suspects, policeman shot dead

Image via Wikipedia

This report from southern Saudi is not good:

RIYADH — Two suspected members of Al-Qaeda were killed and a third was arrested in a firefight in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday that also resulted in the death of a policeman, the interior ministry said.

The official SPA news agency quoted ministry spokesman General Mansur al-Turki as saying the early morning shootout took place at a police checkpoint in Jizan province on the southern border with Yemen.

Turki told the agency that two of the three suspects, who had been on board a vehicle, were wearing women’s clothing and wore explosives vests and carried grenades.

“More grenades, automatic weapons and bomb-making materials” were also found in the vehicle, he added.

More info as we get it.

Update: No more info readily available. The Saudi security forces apparently did a good thing, and had the instincts to share right away. But that may be the last we hear about this specific case for some time.

via AFP: Two Qaeda suspects, policeman shot dead in Saudi.

Filed under: Al Qaeda, Islam, Politics, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

For U.S. journalists, two good reasons to stop complaining

Taking photos of the Iran protests landed countless journalists in jail. (Image by buridan via Flickr)

It’s a sad, woe-is-me kind of time for journalists. Newspapers shuttered! Internet ruining everything! No jobs! Ads disappearing! But two excellent stories in my favorite paper of record give a little perspective.

The first, from Iran, is the gut punch: Journalists there are not only losing their jobs at a record clip — 2,000 in recent months, by some reports — but they are being jailed, tortured, and exiled. The New York Times gets the story of one riveting escape, a photographer who made it to the comparative safety of northern Iraq:

For two months Ehsan Maleki traveled around Iran with a backpack containing his cameras, a few pieces of clothing and his laptop computer, taking pictures of the reformist candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi during the presidential campaign. He did not know that his backpack and his cameras would soon become his only possessions, or that he would be forced to crawl out of the country hiding in a herd of sheep.

The second, from a small town in New Mexico, is maybe equally inspiring. In it, we learn about the new life of the ex-D.C. correspondent for a now-shuttered western paper. Moving to tiny Guadalupe, M. E. Sprengelmeyer could either afford to buy a house… or one of the town’s two weekly newspapers. He chose newsprint over stucco:

Eight months ago, Mr. Sprengelmeyer, 42, worked as the sole Washington correspondent for The Rocky Mountain News, the Denver newspaper that went out of business in February, but his job these days is a far cry from the Senate press gallery.

In August, he embarked on a new life in this isolated little town as owner, publisher, editor, primary writer and sometime ad salesman, photographer and deliverer of the weekly Guadalupe County Communicator, circulation about 2,000.

Sprengelmeyer is actually making pretty good money, he says, and he’s even considering bringing his new paper out twice a week. “I couldn’t do this if I had a family,” he tells the Times. “But it feels like it matters, and I’m having fun.”

So as we mourn the apparently bygone days of Conde excess, Time Inc grandeur, Hearst munificence, and Times Co glory, don’t underestimate the scrappy reality on the ground.

For every laid-off Senior Editor in Manhattan there are 500 wildcats roaming foreign lands with pen and paper, braving FSB intimidation or Basij batons. And for every jettisoned Staff Photographer in L.A. there’s a wily entrepreneur doing it her own way in small-town USA.

Buck up! Others actually do die — or at least move to New Mexico — trying.

Extra credit: Check out Sprengelmeyer’s bitchin’, unapologetic story about owning two of Jack Abramoff’s old suits.

via Reporter Resurrects Career – Buys His Own Paper – NYTimes.com.

via Iranian Journalists Flee, Fearing Retribution for Covering Protests – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: Don't be lazy, Economy, Jobs, Journalism, New York Times, Iran, Jack Abramoff, New York Times Company, Newspaper, United States

Are Arab dudes here really getting calf implants?

Is there silicone in them there calves? (Image by Mr.Thomas via Flickr)

Gross. A  friend here in Riyadh told us last night about his gym, where buff Arab dudes from Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan get even more ripped. How do they get so monstrous? Partly, it’s steroids, partly it’s hard work. But our friend told us something else that blew my mind: Some men here get implants inserted into their calves.

And here is a U.S. clinic — with offices in L.A. and Miami — that can do it for you, too! So it’s not just swarthy meatheads in the Middle East. (In the clinic’s defense, the website says such implants can be valuable for victims of polio and other wasting diseases.)

Still, regardless of such legitimate applications, calf implants are giving me nightmares. I wish for it not to be true. But here I am — in Saudi Arabia of all places — learning for the first time about another sick thing people do to themselves to look “good.” Signs of the apocalypse abound, even so close to Mecca.

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Filed under: Economy, Health, Islam, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Health, Lebanon, Middle East, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Syria

In a land without vice, Saudi men LOVE to smoke

You can't always get what you want. (Image via Wikipedia)

I live in Riyadh, where booze is officially absent, movie theaters are banned, music in public is basically nonexistent, most women are covered head-to-toe in black, and the call to prayer rings out six times a day from mosques that seem to pop up every ten blocks across this dusty metropolis of several million people.

So what do Saudi men do all day? Smoke. Not all of them, but a significant proportion of them. In fact, a pretty standard image of a modern Riyadh Saudi male is a goateed 24-year-old, expensive watch on one wrist, Bluetooth headset in one ear, immaculate white thobe covering body from head to neck, fancy pen in breast pocket, red-checked head scarf in place… and a cigarette in one hand, the smoke mingling with heavy perfume.

Coffee and tea are the other principle releases (along with Whoppers and Pepsi, though slightly less ubiquitously) but again and again, it seems the picture of a male here is almost always incomplete without a burning butt.

All this is mainly a prelude to sharing this image: I walk through a mall here every day around 10:45 a.m. It’s mostly deserted at this time, except for the far western end, which is home to several offices of a major bank. Without fail, there are always two dozen to three dozen Saudi men standing around, smoking, their office IDs swinging from smoke-spewing necks.

What caught my eye today was this: The glass wall they often congregate along was tattooed with a brilliant smear of hand-prints, of all sizes, each illuminated by the weak morning light. Sizing up the crowd, I thought to myself how much the smudged glass wall was a kind of accidental art, a result of smokers leaning against glass in a mall and simultaneously a strange throwback to the ancient cave paintings in France and elsewhere. What of equal durability could any of this leave behind?

With that question unanswered, I quickened my pace, fleeing the tobacco haze, happy at least to have excavated beauty out of habit.

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Filed under: Health, Politics, Religion, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Cigarette, Health, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tobacco

Wife witnesses Yemen, Saudi bureaucrats foiling refugee aid

Image via Wikipedia

I don’t have anything particularly enlightening to add to the discussion, which has included theories that Yemen is the new hotbed for Al Qaeda. That said, I do want to point out with some pride that one of the journalists mentioned in this story, from the Saudi-Yemen border, is my wife! She’s the best.

ALB, Saudi Arabia — Yemen and Saudi officials stopped a UN aid shipment destined for refugees from fighting between Yemen troops and Shiite rebels on Saturday, unable to agree on border procedures.

Three trucks laden with tents, mattresses, soap and other necessities were halted by a dispute over how to transfer the goods from Saudi trucks to Yemeni trucks at the border.

This delayed for at least another day the delivery of much-needed humanitarian supplies for 3,000 hard-struck Yemenis sandwiched between the Saudi border and the centre of fighting further in to Saada province.

The aborted delivery, witnessed by journalists traveling with the convoy, underscored how local distrust and bureaucratic inertia can prolong the suffering of people who have lost homes and face food shortages in war-torn northwest Yemen.

Wife travels with convoy; husband writes about it. More importantly — if there is a point — is a reminder that the people behind all these weird stories from far-off lands are just that: people, with husbands. Yessir.

via AFP: Yemen, Saudi bureaucrats foil refugee aid shipment.

Filed under: Al Qaeda, Politics, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Al Qaeda, Middle East, Refugee, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Twins embrace ancient art of NY bartending

New York: It's hard -- always has been. (Image by Paraflyer via Flickr)

I do feel sorry for Kristy and Katie, twins from the Midwest who’ve lived difficult and unrewarding lives in New York for a year. College graduates and aspiring journalists, the ladies describe their year-long job search to The New York Times:

SEVENTEEN months out of Rutgers University, they live in an unwelcome continuum of mass rejection. Between them, Kristy and Katie Barry, identical twins who grew up in Ohio, have applied for some 150 jobs: a magazine for diabetics, a Web site about board games and a commercial for green tea-flavored gum; fact-checking at Scholastic Books, copy editing for the celebrity baby section of People.com, road-tripping for College Sports Television.

The story —  by N.R. Kleinfield — goes on to list the pair’s travails. Highlights include:

• Eating too many canned beans.
• Busking for business cards — networking! — not money.
• Having their mom tell them she’s embarrassed by them.

Like I said, I am sympathetic to the ladies: It sucks to tend bar and be broke and eat beans and wonder if things will work out. (Hint: They will or they won’t.) But I’m still annoyed.

After all, aside from a select few — the rich, the lucky, the talented, or a combination thereof — most everyone’s first year in New York is less than glamorous, not the “lush time of stimulating work, picturesque travel and a rich social orbit” the twins say they expected.

Filed under: Economy, Islam, Jobs, Journalism, New York City, New York Times, Economy, Islam, Jobs, Journalism, New York City, New York Times

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

My mind is blown. This feels like a very big deal. When I saw the breaking news banner on the Times site, I actually felt like someone had kicked me. Up almost instantly, the accompanying story says the possibility Obama would win the prize was a surprise until minutes before the announcement. This is history, ladies and gentlemen.

So why give it to a sitting U.S. president? Again, according to the Times, the committee said it “wanted to enhance Mr. Obama’s diplomatic efforts.” Chief among them, the committee cited the president’s efforts to curtail the spread of nuclear weapons.

Well consider my attention enhanced!

Time will tell, though, if Oslo’s stunning decision to give the award — and the $1.4 million it comes with — will in any meaningful way aid in Obama’s efforts to reach out to other countries, such as our temperamentally unimpressable friends in Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea.

(And what’s he gonna do with all that cash?)

via Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama, Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, Peace Prize, The New York Times

Will Saudi religious police attend tonight's concert in Riyadh?

A ticket to a film screened without a hitch this December in Jeddah, Saudi's comparatively liberal city on the Red Sea.

This evening I’ll be among men and women, watching live music played on a stage.

Such a scene would be typical in many parts of the world. (Oh, how envious I was of a barn-burning show in New York Monday night!) But I live in Saudi Arabia, where a delicate brew of competing interests helps discourage co-ed, public gatherings — especially if they aren’t connected to Islam or traditional Saudi culture.

As such, it’s worth noting that the Mexican Embassy here is sponsoring a three-piece marimba band. More noteworthy still is that this trio will be playing to a mixed crowd at a venue that holds 4,000 people.

This is the third event of this kind at the venue, Riyadh’s King Fahd Cultural Center. (The first, in May 2008, was a night of classical music; the second, in February 2009, was a crew of traditional Japanese drummers; and a previous contender for the third, a concert this spring by a Cajun band sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, was canceled at the last minute.) But whereas the classical music and drumming hearkened centuries back, this is the first time men and women are permitted to gather together in a public space to hear something akin to contemporary music.

And that’s why I’m eager to attend. This summer, organizers at the same venue attempted to show a feature film. Titled Menahi, the film grappled with modern life in Riyadh, portraying the plight of a rural Saudi who’d relocated to the capital. But on the first night, conservative Saudis attempted to disrupt the screening, reportedly yelling at attendees both before and during the show. (Religious police told a local newspaper the intruders “were not commission members and the commission did not have any role in the disruption”; I wasn’t there but have heard differently, including a report that chairs were thrown.)

Will there be another such disruption tonight, perhaps with an official visit by the religious police, known as the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice? Or does such an event no longer merit their attention? Will men and women interact without incident? Or, out of practice and unaccustomed to such freedoms, will there be an incident?

Bonus: Wonder what happened to the Cajun band’s Riyadh stand? It was insane.

Update: In the end, there was no commotion. Still, the night was as interesting as they come, and I’ll have a full report for you soon.

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Filed under: Islam, Journalism, Music, Politics, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Islam, Middle East, Music, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Homesick again: Envying a rollicking, piano-banging gravestone benefit in NY

Duke Ellington woulda been jealous, too. (Image via Wikipedia)

If yesterday’s news that a Denver newspaper was hiring a pot critic made me homesick for America, this story describing a crowded New York nightclub made me desperately miss the Big City.

A definition of righteousness: about 75 people, crammed into the West Village club Smalls, watching a series of pianists play James P. Johnson on a grand piano in a benefit concert to buy a headstone for his grave.

I don’t know much about Johnson, but the set — which featured 12 different pianists slapping keys for five hours — sounds like it would’ve been an excellent introduction. Here’s critic Ben Ratliff’s description of the turn at the ivory taken by Ethan Iverson, of the excellent if sometimes overly nerdy Bad Plus, the band responsible for that jazzy cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”:

[Iverson] played “Carolina Shout” with sensitivity and clarity, keeping the stride rhythm steady in the left hand. Then he went off into his own updated, posteverything style, full of explicit dissonance, repetition and strange dynamics.

“The Charleston” was his killer: it started with deliberately messy tone rows, his two hands playing at cross-purposes, the left staccato and slow, the right flowing and medium-tempo. Inevitably, and with humor, he finished in the song’s proper style.

Johnson died in 1955 and was buried in an unmarked grave in Maspeth, Queens. When the concert promoters finally erect his stone, hopefully we’ll read about it and I can schedule some rainy afternoon to make a visit. I’ll bring my friend Tim, who’ll appreciate the trek, and I’ll tell him — as I’m telling you know — about the time in 1921 that Johnson and Duke Ellington stayed out hollering until 10 a.m.

Duke reportedly said a night with Johnson was worth more than a semester at a conservatory. Here’s to you, Mr. Johnson; may you teach us all.

via Music Review – James P. Johnson – Raising the Roof (and a Headstone) for a Giant of His Era – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: Don't be lazy, Homesick, Journalism, New York Times, Arts and Entertainment, Duke Ellington, Music, New York, United States

Denver rag to hire pot critic? Now I'm officially homesick

Is the next weed wordsmith pictured here? (Image via Wikipedia)

Here’s a story that smacked me squarely in the face with the fact that I live in Saudi Arabia: Denver’s alternative weekly is accepting job applications for a freelance pot critic.

No kidding: The mile-high city is now home to as many as 100 medical marijuana dispensaries, the New York Times reports in its piece, and the Denver paper is eager to help consumers pick the best ones.

The idea is not to assess the green stuff itself, but to review the dispensaries that have sprouted like, um, weeds in Denver this year.

“We want to see what kind of place it is, how well they care for you and also how sketchy the place is,” said Patricia Calhoun, editor of Westword. “Do they actually look at your medical marijuana card? Do they let you slip some cash under the counter and bypass the rules?”

The applications, evidently, are totally wicked, bro.

Last week, the paper published a call for a regular freelance reviewer with a real, doctor-certified medical need — asking each candidate to send a résumé and an essay on “What Marijuana Means to Me” — and received several dozen applications within a few days.

“Every time an application comes in, it’s like opening a little birthday present, because most of them are quite hilarious,” Ms. Calhoun said.

So why am I so homesick? Not for the product on offer and not for the job, as fun as it might be. I miss the crazy brew of highs and lows that come with a culture like America’s. The needle just doesn’t bounce as much here in the big desert, where we’re all stone-cold sober.

via Wanted for the Denver Newspaper Westword – A Marijuana Critic – NYTimes.com.

Filed under: Homesick, Journalism, Medical marijuana, Saudi Arabia, Cannabis, Denver, Drugs, Medical cannabis, Saudi Arabia, Westword