Absolutely...... No Trash

Ok, I know the picture isn't great, but that is what you can expect from my mobile camera.
Anyway, the green sign (almost illegible) says:
يمنع منعاً باتاً إلقاء القمامة تحت طائلة المسؤولية ودفع غرامة مالية
I had the idea of taking this picture (which I will replace with a better one if I can) when I saw a girl walking gracefully across the street to throw their home trash under this sign... Too bad.
The sign literally reads in English: "It is absolutely forbidden to throw trash here, responsibles will be fined"
This is a daily scene by the way, and not a solitary incident.

Coupling

I am not sure how many of you have seen the sitcom, but I am going to talk about it. So my brother got the whole series with him and lured me into watching it. I watched the whole 30 episodes in 2 days; almost twice now.
The sitcom, for those who don't know it, is a sex/relationship oriented series. The first comparison that comes to mind is "Friends"; three girls, three boys and lots of sex talk. There is one exception though: you can't compare apples and oranges, and sure enough you can't compare intelligent with stupid. That is my opinion anyway. I heard there is an American version of Coupling to be available soon; another mimic of Brit programs. I am not very optimistic about it.
I thought I shall describe the characters too, and here they are.

Steve: (the equivalent of Ross of Friends, maybe) is the most reasonable guy in the sitcom. Have the most stable relationship (relatively) and is with Susan. Always finds himself in humiliating situations in which he has to explain himself with more humiliating reasoning. He means well, but usually gets misunderstood, and after all, he is a "bloke". But when pushed to extremes, he finds honesty and... "wisdom" if you can call it that.
Susan: (has no equivalent) is the most sensible of the girls, and the most close to a reality character. Very analytical, reads between the lines and is very witted and smart, relationship wise. She likes perfect relationships (like any female), but Steve is just a "bloke" (like any other male).
Patrick: (has no equivalent too) is self confident, when it comes to females (except for one failure). His "equipment" is his major asset, and as his ex phrases it "some men are born lucky, some are very lucky; Patrick is a 'tripod'". His thinking is very abstract and can't get any subtext. He is focused on dating any woman, sleep with her, make a video of her, and dump her.
Sally: (can be Monica) is self obsessed with eternal beauty, aging and bottom theories. She is not very fortunate in her relationships, and has tried to get Patrick to bed all along, on and off. She developed famous sayings about "body parts".
Jeff: (Joey's equivalent) is described by Steve as "strange and disturbing man" and a "pioneer of paranoia". He reacts based on impulses, and thus can't control himself. Those impulses, anyway, are basically sex-oriented. He gets nervous in front of women for no reason, and usually has to embarrass himself. He is unable to conduct a normal conversation without ruining it. Apparently he is also mother-phobic, and sex-obsessed.
His has weird theories such as: "unflushable", "the sock gap", "celebrity marriages", "melty man", nudity buffer", "captain subtext", "the giggle loop" and "the prickles, the blurts and the head-laugh".
Jane: (is Phoebe like) and is the most self centered, "blond-brained" (but in a brunette form). She has very abstracted thinking, and usually naive and irrelevant. Her theories are not any stranger than Jeff's.

And here are some of the jewel of the first episodes, some of which cannot be understood out of context.
-Jeff: the pause is like a whole third person in the conversation, just no saying much.
-Sally: spend the night with me means let's have sex, I'll cook means let's have sex and I'll cater.
-Susan: you can come and watch... in that order.
-Jeff: the sock gap, miss it and suddenly you are a naked man in socks
-Sally (to Patrick): what do you call people you go out with but don't sleep with?
Patrick: Men!!
-Sally: death is the argument for moisturizers.
-Susan: most marriage proposals are the result of more than average pause.
-Jeff: men are disgustoids in human form.
-Sally: a woman's breast is on a journey, her feet are the destination
-Steve (to Jeff): every morning I wake up glad I am not you
-Sally: bottoms are our natural enemies, they follow us all our life, right behind us, and constantly growing.
-Susan (on foreplay): men have the techniques of an affectionate dog, without the loyalty
-Sally: bottoms are our enemy; they flirt with men while we are looking away.

The summary: screw Friends, watch Coupling

MasterCard 2 – the wedding version

Ok then, my brother is here, he is getting married after 4 months, and he with his fiancée are struggling through making decisions as to what service they should get, what flowers they should pick, and who should do this and that, etc...
It is not easy to get married I figured. It's a hassle; constantly thinking of what-ifs. What if it this doesn't work, what if people do not like this or that... What if this guy fooled me, and what if I didn't have an erection (ok, the last one was a bit too paranoid). But anyway, why aren't wedding as simple as days of old anymore?? What has changed in the human race so everything now must be big and expensive and one of a kind?? Is it the jealousy of others? Or the fear of others? Or do we really like to have it this way?? I guess people think differently about this; there are some who want and can, some who can but don't want, some who want and can't, and some who can't and don't want... and each of you must find a category to fit him. There will be more talk about this, I hope; these are just ideas on the spot.
So what about the MasterCard? For those of you who know their ads this will look familiar. And why is it number 2?? Because I created number one 5 months ago. And here it goes... (The numbers are arbitrary with some truth to it, but I don't know how much everything costs)

Renting a church: 25K
Bishop at wedding: 15K
Car rental: 8-15K
Invitation cards: 25 - 40K
Flower ornamenting: 90 - 400K
Video recording: 100K
Still photos: 20K
Lighting: 90 - 150K
DJ or Live performance: 35K - name-your-number (for famous performers)
Wedding gown: 50 - 200K
Tuxedos: 30K
Best man and maid of honor dress: variable 30 - 200K
Jewelry: variable 200K - 2M
2 Tylenols for the headache all of the above is causing: 5 SP
3 Boxes of Tylenol because 2 pills are not enough: 200 SP
Liver failure hospitalization and liver transplant (Tylenol overdose): 1 - 2M
Flying to Las Vegas and getting married on the spot (aka الزواج خطيفة بدون عرس وحفلات): Priceless

There are things that money can't buy, for everything else there is MasterCard

So when my turn comes, I don't know what will happen to me with all this. But now I have a glimpse into the future. And because my fiancée doesn't like marriage, maybe we will save ourselves the hassle, LOL, just kidding.

Research – Subject: Truck muffler exhaust

I will write this as if it was a research study. As me and my brother were going back from Aleppo I came up with the idea of checking how many trucks or buses (anything bigger than a car, usually used for non private transportation) emit visible exhaust or black smoke from their muffler. So here it is...

The Prevalence of Ill-Maintained Vehicles with Smokey Mufflers from Homs to Maaloula

Authors: Me, and My Bro

Introduction: public transportation and cargo transportation is taken care of by buses, trucks, and pick-ups. A transient visitor to any highway in Syria, or any street inside a town or a city, would notice a dusty cloud of all colors: black, white, grey, and some with red sparks. The comer to Damascus from the north is bound to notice the dark cloud that starts to form beginning in the early morning, and last until the last light of the day. I call this the muffler smoke cloud. It really looks like the ugly cloud in Independence Day or War of the Worlds movies. Of course all these vehicles have "passed" the biyearly test it has to undergo in order for registration. Oh... really?!!!!
So the idea was to check how many of these trucks mentioned above have bad muffler and combustion system.

Methods: all trucks and pick-ups and buses from Homs to Maaloula were enrolled. Inclusion criteria were: a vehicle that is not for private operation (سيارات سياحية يعني) i.e. trucks, pick-ups, trailers, and buses. The vehicle has to be moving. Only one side of the highway counts (the one we were on). Exclusion criteria: stopped vehicles, tourist cars (private use), opposite side of the highway.
Tools used: bare eyes and a piece of paper.
Counting: included all eligible cars that were passed (it should be noted that no car took us over so there are no duplications). A mark was made for every vehicle as smoking or non smoking.
Results were analyzed afterwards.

Results: 220 eligible vehicles were included in the final survey. The study was stopped at Maaloula as then the road was descending and many would not use push the pedal to save fuel.
Of the 220 cars: 140 cars had clearly visible exhaust from the muffler. The quality of smoke ranged from thin the very condensed. Most were in the mid density range. The quality ranges from disgusting to horribly disgusting.
80 cars were not visibly smoking from their mufflers.
The ratio of bad cars to seemingly-not-so-bad cars is 7:4 equaling 1.75

Discussion: the above number is just a small proportion of the trucks traveling everyday between states and cities. It is a major underestimation due to the inclusion criteria set. But we believe that the above ratio is real but very much underestimating the real ratio.
The real ratio is actually bigger due to the following reasons: 1) it is difficult sometimes to notice the smoke if not big while moving 2) the amount of insects killed on the windshield blurs the vision sometimes 3) if the muffler is on the side of the vehicle facing the shoulder it may not be noticed.
So many cars were deemed good while they may have been faulty.

Conclusion: the situation of automobiles in Syria is in deep shit. New regulation should prevent bribing at the vehicle inspections and force all such automobiles to fix the mechanical problems it acquired prior to being allowed to run again. Those who fail to do so after a certain period of time should be deprived from their vehicles; such vehicles should be disassembled and discarded. The government through the Ministry of Transportation should force inspection to be every six months for these vehicles. It should also initiate a "Clean Syria" initiative to convert black clouds over cities to clear sky.

For correspondence please comment on the entry below..

Military Service – Cheating the Stationary Service

As some know, I have changed my status in the military to stationary, and now after paying the بدل there is no more duties to worry about. Or so it seems, as recently, while meeting with some people, I was told that by law a person who pays is still subject to 6 months service.... ta da... but fortunately the law is not applied. Imagine what would happen if they did apply it. Lots of angry folks, and some more who will be excited to see it happen. Those who will be excited are the ones who can't pay for whatever reason, and those who tried and failed....
And of these who tried and failed, I will speak. Since the law was changed to allow Syrian citizens to re-challenge their health exam and then enter the process of بدل, or the monetary military waiver, lots of people have tried to cheat the examination committees in various ways. Some may succeed, and some may not. And these are examples of those who didn't make it (of course this is happening with the help of some not-so-straight-forward doctors):
- One guy has faked a surgical operation of his back for "disc problems" and brought films with him. Apparently his doctor made a skin incision without any additional thing and closed the wound, on purpose of course. He was caught and was handed to investigators.
- Another, with three of his brothers, got MRIs of the same sick person and changed the names on the copies. They were figured out and also investigated with.
- The other guy had 3 siblings who are deaf-mute and was easily able to act like them and be convincing, to the point that he fooled the examiner.
- One of the most things or diagnoses I heard being misused is: cardiomyopathy (اعتلال عضلة قلبية), can you imagine all this young generation affected with such a thing??
- But the best one is this doctor who is giving "mental retardation" labels to many people. They figured this out as one of the "mentally retarded" patients is the manager of a bank!!!Are you kidding me? A bank manager gets the mental retardation stigma for evading the military service??? I think he should have gone for the cardiomyopathy one.But in retrospect, I thought to myself: why should this be an awkward thing?? Aren't many managers and people in high official posts "relatively" mentally retarded for their positions?? I think they should think it over again.
I am glad I got a real medical problem to pave my way. عقبال العايزين

Watching Sport

I think I mentioned that earlier, but currently if anything drives my attention on TV, it is Eurosport. Constant events are showing all the time. Some need tactic and brain, some need physical fitness. But in general there some kind of enthusiasm that accompany watching a game.
Even in what can seem as a stupid game (for example: Nordic combined. A bunch of men jumping off a high slope to fly at a rate of 90 km/h and land after 120 m or so); so even in this kind of games there is some kind of euphoria watching people repetitively doing the same move over and over again. And the reason is this: there is something that feels good about human achievements, even if it wasn't me doing it, or if it was a fraction of a second difference. There is nothing like victory in a fair play. The feeling or the victory is eventually transmitted to me through that representative of the human race who, for example, just beat the world record in 400 m free style swimming. Or a new record in 100 m hurdles, and so forth.
We all experience something similar everyday. It may not be physical sport, but mental. For example, in this new game I got introduced to, Sudoku (a puzzle made of numbers), I get so excited when I solve a very hard level one, and so frustrated and limited when I can't.
Challenges are what bring our society forward, one hopes so. The necessity is the mother of inventions. And despite that there is no "invention" at sport, apart from making better equipment. But the challenge lying within is the mother of the quest to excellence, I believe.
I wish every time I watch a game that I was a player. I also wished that I could perfectly play an instrument, or had a lovely voice so I can sing, and so forth... But I think knowing the limit is good, not because you can work within them, but because once limits are known, you can work to surpass them.

Euthanasia - الموت الرحيم

Yesterday I lectured on the euthanasia subject to a group of young people (19-22 yrs) who form the musical band of the Church of the Cross (كشاف الصليب). The topic although controversial, thus very interesting, was requested by them (and the offer to me through one of them who I know). I intended the whole thing to be interactive to check on personal experience, previous interpretation of the subject and so forth.
So I presented cases to define whether they were euthanasia (aka mercy killing) or not. To my delight the group was very interactive and opinionated.
My personal take on the subject is that I am not totally in favor of it. Not for religious purposes, nor legal, nor social, but based on personal convictions. And the reason I am saying not totally is that when faced with the situation things may change as far as decision making, especially when sympathizing (as opposed to empathizing) starts to take its effect.

For the purpose of the lecture I bought the movie "The Sea Inside", a 2005 winner of best foreign movie Oscar, in addition to many international awards. The movie is about a quadriplegic for 28 year after a neck fracture event, who wants to terminate his life. He considered his life without dignity and wanted to do that through legal channels.
The movie is set in Spain where euthanasia is not legal. Eventually it is done through the help of a friend. The movie is very powerful and interesting. It is the kind of movie that may make you change your mind regarding certain things, and is a must see for everyone. And once again it just proves that European movies are better than US.

In comparison to that, the last year winner of Academy Awards (Million Dollar Baby), interestingly approaches a similar subject but not as complex, and in my opinion, contrary to the common belief, does not represent euthanasia but represent a person's right to withdraw life sustaining treatment.





It is of note though that both movies were done outside the medical setting were this would usually happen. It gives an idea that such things happen in the public unaccounted for usually and unnoticed.
As a consequence to this, it is possible I will talk about the same subject in two different events in the future.

أرقام في الطب

هذه المعطيات أخذتها من "الصفحات الطبية"، يعني صفحات صفراء ولكنها للأطباء والموارد الطبية وكل ما يتعلق بها (ممرضين، صيادلة، معامل، وكالات.....)
وإليكم ما ورد فيها، وطبعاً كان بالامكان تفصيل الأمور أكثر من ذلك ولكني لن أقضي وقتاً الآن في فعل ذلك:

عدد الأطباء البشريين في سورية لعام 2005 يعادل 25890 أي طبيب واحد لكل 694 مواطن
أعلى نسبة طبيب لمواطنين هي في القنيطرة وتساوي طبيب لكل 114 مواطن، وأخفضها في الحسكة: طبيب واحد لكل 1553
عدد أطباء الأسنان لعام 2005 يعادل 15312 أي طبيب أسنان واحد لكل 1174 مواطن
أعلى نسبة أطباء أسنان هي في القنيطرة أيضاً: طبيب أسنان واحد لكل 336، وأخفضها في الحسكة أيضاً وتعادل طبيب أسنان واحد لكل 3643. والخلاصة: أدرس طب أسنان واذهب إلى الحسكة.

أما بالنسبة للصيادلة ففي عام 2005 كان هناك 12724 صيدلي مسجّل، وللمفارقة لا يوجد أي صيدلي مسجل في القنيطرة!!! أتمنى على أحدهم أن يفسر كيف يمكن لهذه المحافظة المنكوبة أن تحظى بأعلى نسب أطباء بشريين وأسنان في القطر ولا يوجد أي صيدلي؟؟؟
استطيع تعليل ذلك بعدد من الفرضيات: أولها أن المرضى في القنيطرة لا يحتاجون لأدوية... (أظن ذلك بعيد الاحتمال) وثانيها أن صيادلة متجولون على عربات من المحافظات المجاورة يقومون ببيع الأدوية. ثالثها أن سكان القنيطرة متطورون جداً، وهم يطلبون أدويتهم عن طريق الانترنت وتصل بيوتهم في اليوم نفسه أو ثاني يوم. والرابع أن الحوانيت المحلية تقوم بالبيع بدلاُ من الصيدليات. وخامساً أن أهالي القنيطرة لا يشترون إلا الأدوية المهربة من الحدود والدول المجاورة. وإن كان لأحدكم ما يعلل ذلك فليعلمني رجاءً.

أما الممرضون فيوجد منهم 28665 في سوريا عام 2005 أي ممرض واحد (أو ممرضة واحدة) لكل 627 مواطن، وبمعدل 1.1 ممرضـ/ـة لكل طبيبـ/ـة (يعني لا يجوز احصائياً أن يغش الطبيب أو الطبيبة مع أكثرمن ممرضة).
وأما ما يدهش بالموضوع هو أن أكثر الممرضين هم في دمشق (4819) وهذا مفهوم، لكن يأتي بعدها محافظة طرطوس (3557)!!! ثم اللاذقية (3508)!!! ثم حمص (3145)!!! ولا أجد سبباً لهذا التوزيع الذي يستثني حلب كثاني أو أول أكبر محافظة بعدد السكان من المراتب الأربع الأولى. ومن الخسارة أن المرجع أعلاه لم يقدم أي نسبة للمرضين والمواطنين في المحافظات كافة (رغم سهولة استنتاج ذلك ببعض العمليات الحسابية). وتفسيري الوحيد لهذه الظاهرة هو التوزع الديمغرافي المميز للسكان (وفهمكم كفاية).