I'm trying to decipher the newspapers here. I've talked about the headlines before, now I'm diving into the actual stories. So far, my opinion of the writing isn't a very good one. I translated an article dealing with that entire debacle in Libya where a bunch of nurses were going to be executed for infecting kids with HIV. It seemed pretty clear to the rest of the world what happened, it was accidental and was caused by the substandard medical facilities there. Anyway, the article said that the punishment was reduced from execution after She(it) payed restitution to the victims. The prefix on the verb could have meant either a female or an organization or group whose word had the feminine gender. The article had mentioned the Libyan government earlier, and government is considered feminine, but that didn't make much sense. I asked Adel who or what paid restitution. "Who do you think?" Well I didn't know, I was expecting the article to tell me... "It's the Bulgarian government of course!" When I asked how on earth I was supposed to know that since they had not been mentioned in the article at all he said, "A native speaker just assumes that it would be the Bulgarian government, there's no need to actually say it."

I find that telling on two counts. First of all, an American newspaper editor would never let that slide. Second of all, the assumption of the Bulgarian government being involved, to the point of not mentioning it, says a lot about the political situation in this area of the world. The expectation of government supplied money goes deep here, I hadn't realized how deep until today..

My teacher, some other students and I went to lunch today. We ate at a local's place, which meant it was pretty dirty. The guy was "cleaning" the table when we sat down. Cleaning involved running a sponge over the metal table. I'm sure that that restaurant was soaking the sponge in a 3% bleach solution to keep the bacteria down... Anyway, the bread was put directly on the table, I wouldn't recommend eating that unless your immune system was up to snuff. At least we weren't on the floor. I find eating with my hands unappealing, but when I eat with my hands and I'm on the floor, I can't help but feel like a dog...

Anyway, this was one of the Salta places. Salta is a Yemeni dish, and it's pretty good. It's essentially a lamb stew, but with a Yemeni (as opposed to an Irish) flavor. The one thing I really don't like is the fenugreek (hulba in Arabic) that they put on top. I find it repulsive. It's added at the last minute and it's usually only a dollop on the top. The salta that was closest to me was totally covered in it and my teacher immediately stirred it all together. I couldn't eat it, it really tasted that bad to me. So Adel ordered Fasah, another lamb stewish type of thing, but they don't (at that restaurant) use fenugreek on it. Much earlier in my stay I had gone to a cooking lesson and they showed me how to make both Salta and Fasah. They started from the same lamb stock, but they differed significantly after that. Most places seem to only differentiate between the two by whether or not there is fenugreek on it... Anyway, it was good enough once we got the new dish, we all ate quite a bit.

My problem was that Adel had told me to come at noon instead of my usual 4pm so that we could have lunch. We had lunch, but he didn't show up for the lesson at 4. I'm not about to be charged a 2 hour lesson for a 1 hour lunch, one that I had to pay for incidentally. I'll have to talk to him tomorrow...

I'm pretty much an optimist when it comes to long term economic outlooks for the US. I assume that we will do what we need to do to be competitive in the world wide market. With any luck that will involve some things like implementing a flat tax, reducing the corporate tax, and going to a private social security plan. Yeah, I know, but I'm thinking really long term:-) Many countries have done these things, or are about to, especially eastern European countries.

In any case, Im pretty confidant that we will do what we need to in order to "Keep up with the Joneses." I do have some worries though. No, it's not about income disparity or environmental issues, it's about monetary policy. There has not been a world wide monetary standard in a long time. All countries used to be on the gold standard, but I don't think that there are any that do that now. It used to be that every denomination of currency was backed by a certain amount of gold (or silver). This means that the government could only print or circulate as much currency as it had in reserves. Today, we have what is called "Fiat" money, the government could print as much of it as it likes. The value of the currency is determined by simple(!) supply and demand. The more money the Fed puts into the system, the less any particular bill will be worth. The opposite is also true. The nice thing about the gold standard is that it restricted what the government could do with monetary policy. They couldn't intentionally deflate the currency or even just screw it up. By having the currency backed by something, it limited the government's impact and allowed the actual economy to do its thing.

Why does this matter? Since the entire world is using fiat money, it isn't out of the realm of possibility to have a world wide currency crisis. If America's dollar value really melts down, they are going to take a bunch of other countries with them. Many other countries have either pegged their currency to the dollar (like Yemen) or have just started to use US dollars as the local currency. Additionally, if the US dollar tanks, and I mean really tanks, we would no longer be able to afford the products from China or Europe. So their economies would feel it as well... We gotta hope that the Fed keeps their head and doesn't allow that to happen...

There are a handful of practical issues with going back to the gold standard, not least of which is that the government doesn't want to give up any control. Milton Freidman had some alternative ideas about stabilizing the currency. He suggested 100% reserve banking and an automatic, rules based mechanism (as opposed to using the discretion of the Federal Reserve) as possible remedies. I'm not really sure how they work, but he was pretty bright when it comes to things like this. In any case, I would eventually like to see some sort of stabilizing mechanism introduced. The recent weakness of the dollar brought this to my mind, I can only hope that our "leaders" get their financial act together before I really have to start worrying about monetary issues...

It was an unqualified success! Tami managed to season the meat well and we had Mexican food, oh God how I missed that... Amin had his first taco ever, he mentioned that it was similar to Yemeni food. It is really, the spices aren't that far off. I'm not sure why there isn't a single Mexican place here. It wouldn't be difficult to make tortillas, there's enough chicken and ground beef to make what one would need. There's not even a taco bell here despite the fact that there is a KFc and a Pizza Hut here. I'm pretty sure one company owns all three chains. I bet if someone were to try a Mexican place here, it would do well...

I just finished listening to the audiobook version of Mark Skousen's "The Making of Modern Economics." It was a good overview of the history of economic thought starting just a little before Adam Smith up to the late 90's. This time period captures all of the really big events, "The Wealth of Nations," Marxism, the marginal revolution, Keyensism, the Austrian school sorting things out (as usual), and culminating with Milton Freidman's Moneterist revolution and getting back to Adam Smith's ideas of freedom being the basis of economic prosperity.

The book has as it's main theme the idea that Adam Smith got it basically right and throughout the years people have either added more understanding to his basic model (Mises, Hayek) or have taken us down what looked like a promising path but ended in failure (Marx, Keyenes). I think that this is basically right and history certainly seems to back that up. I knew quite a bit about a lot of the bigger names but this book filled in some of my gaps when it came to people like Shumpater, William Bates Clark, and Malthus.

For the non-economic minded among you (what?), I'll give the you the punch line. If we hadn't listened to Malthus (there is a limited amount of resources and we're all doomed), and if the marginal revolution had come about a litte earlier, we could have saved millions of people. Marx had a lot to do with it, but his fatal flaw from a theory point of view was his labor theory of value (I'm ignoring the equally powerful, but much more involved Hayekian critique of central planning). Marx (among others at the time) thought that the value of any given thing could be found based on the cost of the labor that went into it. His whole theory sprang out from that. It wasn't until the marginal utility theory came around to explain subjective value that economists could point out the problems with socialism in general and marxism in particular. But it was too late, Marxist ideas had taken hold and millions upon millions of people paid for it.

Marx is an obvious wrong turn in history, but Keynes may be more pernicious. Keynes was the economist that popularized the notion of government interference being the only way to get out of depressions. He assumed that capitalism was inherently unstable and used the great depression as evidence. His solutions flew in the face of traditional (classical) Adam Smith inspired economics. Deficit spending, massive government projects, and a hatred of saving were the outcomes of his theories. Keynes' ideas took hold and basically ruled the roost for the next 40 years.

When you listen to Keynes, you end up with England in the 1970's. High unemployment, low to no growth, and government debt spiraling out of control. Maggie Thatcher (with some help from Hayek) cleaned that place up... It wasn't until Milton Freidman's ideas came into popularity did things start to come around. He proved that the great depression was caused by incompetent monetary policy, not any inherent instability of capitalism, and used that as a springboard to dismantle Keynes' theories.

Government incompetence and/or ignorance is another theme running through not only this book, but history in general. The great depression is a great example. The crash itself may very well have been a bubble popping, but the blame for the depression that followed can only be laid at the feet of the government. Milton Freidman showed that the Fed shrunk the amount of money in the economy by a third, thus plunging the country into depression. The Smoot-Haley tariffs caused an amazing amount of damage, and FDR's directionless fiddling prolonged it for another 8 years or so. It wasn't until the war ended did we pull out of it. If they had left well enough alone and not screwed with the money supply, the depression likely wouldn't have lasted nearly as long...

With Milton Freidman's contributions we may have seen the last bit of huge economic principles being introduced. There is still plenty of research into the finer points, but the big picture seems to have been pretty well explained. The hell of it is, Adam Smith pretty much did that way back in the 1700's, it's a shame that it took us this long to realize it...

Georgia is facing a problem with the current drought. They are running out of water and they don't seem to be able to come up with a way to fix the problem. This article tells, at length, the problems, the purposed "solutions," and the various groups involved in the fight. People are blaming the Corp of Engineers, a species of mussels that has some sort of protection, and too much growth in the area. I've got a much simpler explanation and a very simple remedy for their problem. Raise the price of water. The reason they are running out of water is that they have not been pricing it properly. There is a finite supply of fresh water, if it is underpriced, people will use too much of it. If you want to limit how much water is being used, if you want people to conserve water, if you want people to fix leaky toilets and water heaters, raise the price. Everyone will pay attention if their water bill doubles or triples, and I guarantee that water use will fall. Pass more "You can only water your lawns twice a week," laws and I'm sure not much of anything will happen. If the price is allowed to "float," with the supply of water, you'll never have to worry about water shortages again.

This is assuming that all people face the same prices. Frequently, businesses like agriculture, gold courses, and others get special (low) prices. Of course they are the largest consumers of water as well... If you are worried about "the poor," you can figure out a way not to charge them the extra amount. The key is to make sure that the largest percentage of water users feel the price increase. Viola, no more water shortages!

... the more I think that the recording that I call "Call to Prayer 1" (available here) is the same one that they use in the Dubai airport. This was the first call I had ever heard, and I thought it was really beautiful. The calls here in the old city sound mostly like yelling. Not quite as nice...

Tami and I went to Al-Houda supermarket tonight and found a few surprises. First up for me was a line of soft drinks based around ginseng. They had ginseng grenadine, ginseng ginger, and ginseng cranberry sodas. I have no idea what they will taste like, but they do sound interesting... The big surprise of the night was we found taco shells!! This is huge, we have been craving Mexican food for so long, this will be sweet. The only potential issue is that we will have to mix our own seasoning for the meat. If that goes well, it's taco time!

How does this happen? I think that it's because my teacher is curious about things he doesn't know about. But why does he have to ask such difficult questions and expect me to answer in Arabic? Today it started out with currency values and led to the function of a central bank, pegging currencies to others, and a brief discussion about why currencies fluctuate in value. Needless to say, I think I was only partially successful in explaining that stuff. It's difficult enough to do in English, try doing it in Arabic with someone that doesn't even understand the function of interest in an economy...

As that conversation was going nowhere, I pulled out the Q'uran that I bought yesterday. That shifted the conversation quickly, he was in his element. We spent some time talking about how the book was organized, what some of the extra marks mean, and some of the ideas surrounding the different styles of recitation. Of course we drifted to comparing the Q'uran to the Bible, and then Islam to Christianity. He claims to have read the New Testament but I'm not really sure how much he could have gotten out of it. I've never read the Q'uran (I hope to remedy that situation soon), but I know some of the real basic stuff.

He knows a little of the book angst I have about the Bible and I think he was trying to use that as leverage to steer me towards Islam. He asked me which book I thought was "The Truth." Obviously, that was a no win question for me, so I told him to be careful and not get me in trouble... He laughed at that and then got right to one of his main problems with Christianity, "How could Jesus be a man and Allah at the same time?" Woosh, how can anyone understand that, let alone someone that has been taught from a little boy that that was blasphemy? Sidestepping the direct question, I replied that it was one of the mysteries that Christians had to meditate on and wrestle with. "Why?" Well, this is where my Arabic deserted me. I said something to the effect that the only way that we can glimpse God was through these things that He accomplished that don't make much sense to us. He is so far beyond us, it is like your dog trying to understand you, anything that we do would probably seem mysterious to the dog (if they were capable of that sort of thought.).

Adel responded that he (and it sounded like he was expounding on a general Muslim belief) doesn't ned any more evidence for God than creation itself. There are, of course, many different possible explanations (big bang, evolution, etc.) for what we experience as creation but, and this is no slight on Adel, those theories are totally beyond him. Instead, I told him about the "Watchmaker's" theory. Basically, just because He made something doesn't mean that He cares about it or is involved in it. Creation may (may) be enough for some people to believe in God, but what difference does it make if He doesn't care? What Christians believe is that the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus is a sign from Him to show His continuing commitment and love for us. Now that got him thinking...

Too many Christians do not appreciate the more nuanced ramifications behind the crucifixion, there is zero chance that anyone in Yemen can appreciate it. Adel asked me straight, "Do you think Mohammed (PBUH) was a prophet for the Arabs?" I thought that the "for the Arabs" bit was interesting. I replied that yes, if he was going to phrase it that way, I did believe that Mohammed (PBUH) was a prophet for the Arabs. I then wrapped it up by making my point about God sending messages in a way that people understand and does not force them to be shoehorned into some other culture.

It went pretty well I think. We both had to do some serious thinking on our feet. I was at a bit of a disadvantage for a while as I attempted to do this all in Arabic, but I gave that up 2/3 of the way into the class. I'm glad that I was able to paint a little more complicated picture of Christianity than it just being corrupted scripture. At the end, I suggested that we do some newspaper reading next class, he seemed to think that was a good idea...

I was given some literature while I was at the book fair about "Signs and Mericals (sic) of Prophet Messenger." It's a substantial book, 300 something pages long and it has as its mission to educate me about Muhammad (PBUH) and the Q'uran. Needless to say, it's awful. I think it must be aimed at someone with about a 10th grade reading comprehension but with a 2nd grade mentality about religion. I can't imagine this being effective with anyone that already has a faith and certainly would not resonate at all with a real atheist.

The first part of it is all about how Muhammad was foretold by various texts from other religions. They pull stuff from the Old and New Testaments, an apocryphal gospel, some Hindu texts, and even some Zoroastrian texts. Of course this is after explaining that the other traditions texts' were corrupt and couldn't be trusted. Not a great idea to dismiss the credibility of your sources before you start to use them... Anyway, I did a little digging about the stuff in the Bible and of course they're way off. They claim that both the Old and New Testaments refer to Mohammed by name but that sloppy translation has kept the knowledge from the Christians and that outright deception has kept it from the jews. Um, yeah... whatever.

The best thing is the so called "scientific" proofs of things in the Q'uran. They point to a sura that talks about God sending down water to agitate the earth and make things grow and then exclaim that scientists didn't know how that worked until recently! They spend pages talking about how that sura was way ahead of its time in "explaining" how water makes things grow. There are other equally vague references to "green matter" in plants and iron falling to earth that the authors then say that there is no way that they could have known about them back when it was written, it must have come from God! It actually crosses from being preachy to insulting one's intelligence.

This has been the latest in a long line of ridiculous religious literature that I have read. Why is it that a religious organization (the Catholic church, The Church of LDS, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.) can have a well defined theology with many nuances and still sound idiotic when it prints literature designed to recruit people? How difficult is it to put down in writing what they believe and maybe some of the benefits of belonging to that particular denomination? Is it so hard to talk about the merits of your religion without disparaging the others? Can't it stand on its own? Why do they feel the need to "prove" things in 500, 1000, or even 50,000 words? Most of the Christian literature and all of the Muslim stuff I've read have tried to be logically rigorous, arguing from some sort of authority (A book, a prophet, a disciple, etc) and "proving" that they are indeed the correct religion. Of course it's much easier to use logic to refute the entire basis of religion, so I'm surprised so many people try that approach. The way I figure it, if Descartes couldn't do it, what chance do any of us have in logically proving this sort of stuff?

I think I'm going to have to do what I've had to do with all the other religions I've studied, namely not listening to the rank and file in that religion and consulting some actual texts. I've found both scholarly and religious books to help in this regard. Unfortunately, my Arabic is not nearly good enough to start reading the stuff I want, not yet. With a little more time, I'll do it. It's easy to get motivated to study something that you're actually interested in...

I've uploaded (assuming that everything has gone well) some audio files. There's a couple of calls to prayer and what I believe is the first sura in the Q'uran. Let me tell you, this is how a religious text should be, it can be downright beautiful. Unfortunetly, I've never heard anyone quite as good as this here. I think this guy is from Egypt and I think he's pretty good. Anyway, let me know if there are any problems...

My housemate came back from the internet cafe in a rotten mood. He had been reading the news and it made him really upset. The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are swelling to over 2 trillion dollars, and some people estimate that we reached "peak oil" reserves 3 years ago... OK, the wars are a disaster, and I don't know what else to do but get mad about that, but peak oil? What a crock.

The idea behind peak oil is "OMG, there's less oil available, we're screwed!" That's a summary of the stance, and I think it's pretty accurate. It's ridiculous on a couple different levels. We'll never run out of oil. That's right we will never run out of oil. There's a couple of reasons for that. The concept of peak oil was first brought up in the early 1900s. It was observed that there was not enough oil for the then current needs to be met in 10 years time. Well, guess what, more reserves were found. In more recent times, peak oil was again a worry. There wasn't enough oil to go around in the decades to come! Well then the shale sand up in Canada added another source of oil, and when the price of oil rose above $50 a barrel, Venezuela's reserves went online. They went from a minor player in the petroleum market to having the largest reserves in the world within the space of 10 years.

So, as prices rise, more and more oil is found. That's one reason not to worry too much about running out of oil. Another reason is that when "Peak oil" theories are thrown around, they are talking about the "light sweet crude" grade of oil. That is the stuff that has the least amount of junk in it and is the easiest to refine into various useful products. There is an enormous amount of "sour" reserves. That's oil with more impurities in it. Last I heard, the reserves of these sour grades is almost unimaginable. At some point, it will be economical to use these grades with more refining instead of the light sweet crude.

OK, so reserves keep growing as prices go up. That'll be fine for the foreseeable future. If additional refining is needed, and nothing interferes, the cost of that refining will be minimized through compitition. There is a finite amount of oil in the ground, and we do use it at a much faster rate than it is created, there's no getting around that. That part of the peak oil theory is basicly correct, although I think that it's blown way out of proportion. The part of peak oil that drives me crazy is the tacit belief that we'll just stand around and watch the oil be used up until it's all gone. The idea is that we'll run out of oil and the entire world will grind to a halt. The people that worry about this really don't understand how markets work. As the price gets higher and higher, new ways will be found to find oil, new ways to conserve oil will be found (thus conserving the existing supply), and substitutes will be found. There are already substitutes available in the form of electricity and alternative fuels. This is why we'll never run out of oil. At some point it will be so expensive that no one will want to use it. There will be a transition to some other type or types of fuel and oil, like whale oil, will be a historical curiosity.

All of the peak oil gnashing of teeth is really fear of change and a general distrust of people and their ability to adapt and thrive. It's a really unnecessary and, IMO, obnoxious abject pessimism. Things will change, people will figure out how to use something else. Environmentalists the world over should be cheering the rise in oil prices, it's the quickest way to have alternative fuels become viable. Where's Julian Simon when you need him?

tags technorati : economics peak oil julian simon alternative energy

The annual book fair is going on at the Yemen Expo Center. It's an interesting affair. Vendors have come in from all over the gulf area. Saudi, Kuwaiti, and Emeratian, plus maybe some from other places as well. The book selection was noticeably different than what I've seen in the west. Most of the place was filled with textbooks and religious writings. There were a fair number of children's vendors as well. There was a heavy concentration on learning English in many booths, and there were even some English titles available. Oddly enough, I saw at least 3 booths filled with medical models, various types of internal anatomy and what looked like CPR dummies. I have no idea what they were doing there.

I had to buy some stuff of course. I can't be around that many books and not buy anything. I got a couple Qran recitation cds, I got my requisite Qran (I can't be in a Yemeni book fair and not get a Qran) and a few English titles. My Qran is pretty nice, although I did see some nicer ones. They have running commentaries alongside the suras. I decided not to get one of those since I don't know my commentators at all.

The English titles they had available were impressive. They were for people studying English, the English speaking population isn't big enough to support a dedicated market. A local asked me, in broken English, if I could make a suggestion for him. He explained that he was studying English and was midway through his course. He showed me a book called "The great cave" or something like that. It was sealed so I couldn't get a feel for the content, but it looked like a "young adult" book. I would guess the target age was 11-13 years old in the states. Then he showed me the other book he was thinking about getting, "A Tale of Two Cities." Hmmm, I like to encourage people to read the classics, but he was having trouble asking me which book I thought he should get. As diplomatically as possible, I told him that Dickens uses an older style of English and that it might be a little difficult for him.

They didn't just have Dickens there either. They had a slew of Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, Austen, and a few more. I picked up a copy of "Dubliners," a book that I would be astounded if any Yemeni could understand. My favorite purchase had to be D.H. Lawrence's "Women in Love." I have never read any of his stuff before, and I have no idea if I'll like it. I bought the book because of the delicious irony of finding what must be an incredibly haraam work at the Yemen book fair. Maybe this is a book about innocent love, but the title and the author's reputation makes me think that's unlikely. Anyway, I've got some new things to read, things that I would never have thought of finding here...

tags technorati : yemen books english

My teacher started today with a discussion about William Shakespeare. I can't remember how we got on the topic, he might have brought it up. Anyway, after I talked for a while about how we studied him in high school and which plays I had seen and/or read, he told me about a popular theory here. There are some that believe that Bill's ancestors came from Yemen! The evidence? C'mon, Sheik-spear? Seriously, some people believe that before Islam showed up, people dispersed from Yemen all over the world, including William's ancestors. I asked to make sure I was understanding this right, that his family members would hold on to the name "Sheik-something" for a 1000 years. "Right!" Right....

One other thing that came up with Adel yesterday is how he viewed Jesus. Moslems consider Jesus (Issa, PBUH in Arabic) to be the 2nd most important prophet behind Mohammed (PBUH). Adel believes that Jesus was sent to correct the followers of Moses and that Mohammed (PBUH) was sent to correct the mistakes of the followers of Jesus. I have a slightly different take. If I assume that Mohammed (PBUH) really was a prophet, I think that there might have been something else going on than "correcting" the Christians. After all, it's my understanding that most Arabs were not Christians when Mohammed (PBUH) started to preach, they were polytheists. It took some time before there was contact with a Christian nation, so when did the "correction" start? I think that God may have sent another prophet because the Arabs were not (and are not) able to respect, let alone worship, anyone they perceive as weak.

Even the Bible mentions the stereotypical Arab mentality when it describes the descendants of Ishmael. In Genesis 16:12 it says (referring to Ishmael), "This son of yours will be a wild man, as untamed as a wild donkey! He will raise his fist against everyone, and everyone will be against him. Yes, he will live in open hostility against all his relatives." To be fair, the bedouin life was pretty tough, and lead to some tough people. By all accounts, the people that Mohammed had to deal with were a little rough and tumble, and there's still a lot of that kind of attitude around today. The stereotypical Arab (and there's always a grain of truth in stereotypes) is quick to anger, prone to vengeful thoughts, and doesn't hesitate to judge. It shouldn't be any surprise that the concepts of self sacrifice, pacifism, forgiveness, and subjecting oneself to persecution does not sit too well with a lot of people over here. The culture that has been developed over millennia has systematically disparaged the the core teachings of Christianity.

Instead of "correcting" Christians, I believe that Mohammed (PBUH) was sent to the Arabs so that they could channel their culture into useful and good purposes. That hasn't always worked out of course (name one religion that has) but I believe that the overall impact on the Arab culture has been a positive one. There are many Christians that would like nothing more than the entire middle east to be converted to Christianity. That thought has some appeal, but aside from the obvious problems, I just don't think that it's realistic to expect Christianity to be persuasive in this culture.

One of the things that has stuck with me from my Buddhist studies is the concept of "skillful means." In that context, a Buddha can teach in a way that makes sense to that person in order to lead them to enlightenment. They were adamant that there wasn't one way of doing that, there were an infinite number of ways. I don't think that it's unreasonable to think that God does the same thing. Or maybe actually is the same thing... Anyway, I'm willing to believe that some messages will be accepted by some people and not by others. And I'm also willing to believe that none of us have the complete picture, none of us is capable of it. So different people get different glimpses and do the best they can with things that make sense for them...

Adel (my teacher) and I were talking about various things between Christianity and Islam today. One thing that came up was how the Bible was constructed. He had actually heard of the Apocrypha but didn't really understand what they were. Ooog, I gave up trying to explain in Arabic and did the best I could. I've found that teaching is the best way to learn how much you really know. I have had several instances when a question was asked and my first reaction was, "I don't know that.." but with a little reflection it turned out that I did, I just hadn't thought of it before.

His question about the Apocrypha brought a lot of loose ends together in my head... I explained that for a long time, there wasn't a single text that Christians based their faith on, there were many texts that purported to tell some of the story. What has become known as the Catholic (and guess the Orthodox) church had ecunenical councils in 692 (the so called Quinisext council) and the more famous council of Trent in 1545 to determine what books were orthodox and which were not. They based this decision on the practices of the church which supposedly had been passed down from Peter and the rest of the Apostles down to the present day. They already had an idea of what was orthodox, the church had its practices down and the Bible was going to reflect those practices. When the Bible was put together, it was corroborating the church's practices. I'm sure that the people involved at the time would never have thought to try to understand the Bible separate from the church's beliefs and practices.

Of course when the Reformation came along, the attempt was made to strip the Bible from the church that created it. Nowadays, a basic article of faith in most Protestant churches is that the Bible is the word of God and infallible. But I've never heard of any serious attempt to reexamine what books make up the Bible despite the fact that the newer churches don't look or practice anything like the Catholics.

Here's where my issues come into play. I really don't think that the Bible is complete without the background that the church brings to the table (as the Orthodox and Catholics believe from the teachings of the Apostles). This is totally missing from the Protestant churches, and I can't really take them seriously. On the other hand, I have issues with the Catholic and Orthodox churches. So Adel asked me, "So which is it? The book or the church?" Of course it's neither for me. I gotta believe that there's some truth in both, but that neither by themselves pass "The smell test" and that in combination they (IMO) reek of humanity and have very little holiness in them. Adel was of the opinion that I was going to have to choose a church, I don't think that's true. Things have been going just fine without having to rely on a book or an organization completely, and until that changes, I don't see why I should have to subjugate myself to something that I can't believe...

My teacher was telling me about some of his experiences when he went on Haj. That is the pilgrimage that all muslims should take to Mecca if they can. He, his wife, and his mother all went together by bus. When they got to the Saudi border, the men and the women were separated into different busses. From that point onwards, the only time he could actually be in the presence of his wife and mother was in the main mosque in Mecca, everywhere else it was forbidden for the sexes to mingle. There were even separate hotels for the men and the women, even though he was married to one of them. The idea was that he needed to be protected from seeing any other man's wife, it might incite lust in him...

It gets better than that, he learned of some real bizarre practices by some Whabis. There are apparently hadiths (Islamic writings used by the faithful to guide their practice) against men hugging or kissing their sisters or daughters because of the fear of arousing sexual feelings. Also, if a husband and wife have sex, it must be in total darkness. To be fair, I think that the orthodox Jews have similar restrictions, or at least the ultra orthodox Hasidim do... Here's my favorite one, some people believe that it is dangerous for women to chop cucumbers or carrots. Yes, it's for the reason that you think. How twisted is that? Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if they don't want women to cut those vegetables due to fear of them getting vengeful ideas in their heads...

At some point you have to wonder if all of these restrictions have the opposite effect. Instead of avoiding lustful thoughts, people will get the idea that every single thing can, and does relate to sex and sexual feelings. By keeping it in the forefront all the time, they may be twisting people more than protecting them.

We talked a little about the treatment of women in Saudi, you know its repressive if a Yemeni thinks they are crazy. It wasn't too long ago that the law in Saudi allowed women to go to school and work unescorted, but many people do not approve of these laws. My teacher is constantly pained by the idea that people world wide associate wahabism with muslims in general. As a matter of fact, I have yet to meet a single muslim that didn't think that the wahabis are crazy. Unfortunately, I think that many people do think of wahabis when they think of muslims, especially in the US. It's too bad... My teacher believes that the reason that the Arab world is in such bad shape is because God is punishing them for the actions of the Wahabis. Now there's something to think about....

I don't know what my problem is, no matter what time I go to bed, I can only rouse myself at noon. I'm blaming ramadan for this, I'm still sleeping on a ramadan schedule. It took me a couple of weeks to get into it, and I guess it'll take a couple of weeks to get out of it as well... Luckily, my class isn't until 4, so there hasn't been too many problems. Of course the diretor of the school leaves at around noonish, so I'll have to drag my carcass out of bed at the crack of 10 O'clock one morning so I can pay him.

So I was still having trouble with my ATM card. I had verified the transactions that I had made, but the next time I used it, I was refused again. I called up the bank and they explained that I was OK by them, but that VISA had put the card into the fraud investigation category. My bank put me in touch with VISA, I answered their questions and was told that I was now clear to use the card. OK, so that night I go to the ATM and... it was refused again. Grrrr... So I called again today, was told that VISA had put a hold on the card for the fraud investigation. I mentioned that I had already jumped through VISA's hoops, the lady on the other end did some clicking away at her keyboard and confirmed that I had done it, but the guy that had been helping me neglected to pass the info along to the necessary person to clear the card. So I answered a few more questions successfully and the lady said that the card would be ready to use in 5 or six minutes and there was nothing else for me to do. I thanked her and then told her that I would stay on the line until she told me that the card was ready. That did the trick. A couple of minutes later, she informed me that the entire process was completed. Tonight I went back to the ATM and... Success!! Whew! Now I can proceed to spend all of my money...

My teacher and I had another interesting chat today. The concept of interest came up for some reason and I asked him how Islamic banks get around the prohibition on usury. Turns out that is a sore subject with him. The way he explained it, if you give the bank money and you earn a certain percent interest on it, that is harram (forbidden). But if you give the money to the bank and they agree to give you a certain amount more back after they complete a transaction, that is OK by Islamic bank standards because it is directly tied to another transaction. My teacher feels (quite correctly I think) that it doesn't matter, the bank customer is earning interest in both cases and so it should be harram in both cases.

We then started talking about banks in the US. He was blown away by the idea that I rarely handled actual cash back home. I had direct deposit and I used an ATM card for most transactions. "But it's just numbers, how do you know that you have the money?" That sounds like a strange question, but coming from someone in a cash economy, it's a logical one. "If you wanted a million dollars in cash, could you get it from your bank?" Needless to say, the concept of fractional reserve banking was incomprehensible to him. To be fair, a lot of Americans have never heard of this and get a little nervous when they find out that the bank doesn't actually have all of it's money in cash. It was a challenge trying to differentiate between M1 and M2 in Arabic, I'm not sure if I suceeded... The concept of bank runs came up and so I tried to explain the great depression, bank runs, the FDIC, etc. All in all, it was quite a work out for my Arabic, and I was told a fair number of new words.

The upshot of all of this is that not so many people keep their money, or at least a large part of their money in a bank here. Either they worry about religious obligations, or they just do not trust the banks. There is no insurance here, and without earning interest, it doesn't make a lot of sense to put their money in a bank. People that have a lot of money and are worried about the prohibition on earning interest simply invest their money in land and businesses. I get the feeling that a lot of the people with money aren't so worried about religious problems with earning interest, maybe that's why they are rich, and the rest of the country is pretty poor. If there isn't a good reason to save your money (i.e. making money off of it) then there is a powerful incentive to simply spend it all. It's almost impossible to create any wealth at all if there isn't much saving going on. The straightforward prohibition helps explain a lot of the poverty in this part of the world. Money should be able to work for you without you having to monitor every single aspect of your investments. But what can they do? It's a very explicit command, there isn't any wiggle room. It sucks that they have to choose between adhering to their religion and following a sound method of wealth creation.

We just got in a new housemate from Italy. We talked with him for a bit last night and got some basic info about the whys wheres and hows of him being here. Turns out that he's a programmer and his employer wants someone that can communicate in Arabic and/or read instructions in Arabic so that they can branch out into this world. So what did they do? They sent him here for 3 weeks. He doesn't know a lick of Arabic and he will be here for three weeks to learn what his boss wants. He'll be taking 6 hours of class a day, but even with that, there's no way in hell anyone could be useful in this language in three weeks. With 6 hours a day, the chances of him remembering a majority of what they go over in class is close to zero. I've been in this country 8 or 9 months and I'm just now getting confident enough to talk to people regularly. No, I'm not the world's best language student, but still, this is a tough language, three weeks? Give me a break...

My uncle just had a heart attack a couple of days ago. He went into the hospital complaining of chest pains and subsequently had the attack while he was there. They took care of him, installed a stent, and it sounds like he's doing OK. If you're going to have a heart attack, having it in the hospital is probably the best place to do it...

I started thinking about what would have happened here. People tend to avoid the hospitals here, and for good reason. I have yet to hear of a good report of any hospital here, and the amount of questionable medicine practiced here is unbelievable. If someone felt chest pains, they probably wouldn't go to the hospital. If they had a heart attack, they would just have to pray that they would survive it. Even if it happened in the hospital, I'm not sure there's too much that they could do. I'm pretty sure that installing stents and angioplasty are out of the question. My teacher's uncle was in really bad shape, he needed heart bypass surgery but get this, they don't do that in Yemen. Bypass surgery is serious stuff, but it is fairly common in the US, it just isn't done here. They just don't have the expertise. Luckily for my teacher's uncle, a team from Europe was here to train people, so they used him as a teaching aid.

We moan and gripe about our healthcare in the US, but the fact is that a homeless man now can receive better care than the president of the United States did in the 1950's. We've come a long way, and Yemen has a long ways to go...

One of my housemates left today and I can't say I'm unhappy about it. He was unusual for a housemate that I didn't care for in that he didn't do anything big wrong, but he did every little thing wrong. He didn't do his dishes, he (and his room) smelled, he constantly interrupted me while we were talking, was always asking to borrow things, and generally got on my nerves. He was from Austria and lectured me several times about the domestic American political situation. If that wasn't bad enough, he even made me jealous by doing things that I can't do through his connections at UNDP. Anyway, he's gone, and after we air the place out a bit I'm sure I'll get back to normal...

Morris also left yesterday. He's an odd guy, probably in his mid 60's and from North Carolina. He's had an interesting life, including living in various parts of Africa for 13 straight years in the 80's and 90's. He is the only person I have ever met that could drop lines into conversations like, "That reminds me of a time when I was working on a railroad in Gabon..." An educated redneck, that's what he called himself, he's got degrees from American U. and UVA. While he had many interesting stories to tell, he could be a bit difficult to be with for a while, hard drinking and smoking are two attributes that describe him well. With a few drinks in him, his North Carolina redneck self came out, he dropped N___ bombs without compunction.

We get an odd group here at the school. i guess it's fair to say that it takes an odd person to come here at all. Even the people I don't like add a little something to the experience here, I'll remember all of them.

I had just started to get into the swing of Ramadan. I got used to the idea of not drinking or eating outside, I even switched my sleep schedule to align with everyone else's. Usually, things would be pretty loud all night. People were walking and talking up and down the streets and starting around 1:30 AM, the prayers and chants were blasted throughout the old city. The other night, Michael and I were up talking. We chatted past 1, then 2, and around 3AM we realized that it was totally silent, wow, Ramadan was over.

Then started Eid Al-Fitur, a 5 day celebration. The first day was very much like Christmas day back in the states. I felt like it was 9AM on Christmas morning, not a thing was open and there were very few people on the street. Later on in the day, all the kids came out with new toys and new clothes. Many of them had toy guns, which from a distance looked a little too real to me. They were very charming, "shooting" each other and especially the foreigners. Tami got a blast in the face from a water gun... Many of the girls were wandering around in their new dresses and other types of clothes, showing off their purses and other accouterments. There seems to be more open today, I think things are getting back to normal.

I've got a slight cold, that plus the really dry air here is making it uncomfortable for me at night. Last night I basically didn't sleep, I was up until 8AM. I'd like to blame it on the noise, but I think it was me... The good news is that I'll probably crash tonight no matter how much noise there is outside...

I'm a month or so into the project, and I'm not convinced that I'm going to keep it. I've been introduced to the joys of grooming as opposed to shaving it all off, what a pain! I almost said the hell with it yesterday, I had the razor in my hand, but I held off. Later that night Tami (a newish American student) told me that I needed to keep with it. She asked me how else was I going to get my "terrorist beard?" Hmmm, I'll see how it goes, gotta blend in, right:-)

Isaac

There has been some new information brought to light on the Yemen nuclear situation in a recent news article. You can read the original here. The company that wants to do the work for Yemen is based in Houston, Texas. It is called the Powered Corporation. It is owned by two guys, one American and one Yemeni. It looks like the Yemeni partner and the Yemeni electricity minister were classmates in college in the US. That's not necessarily a big deal, but in the big picture it sounds bad... The Yemeni partner used to work for a power utility and was fired for falsifying his credentials. He was also charged with fraud against the shareholders. He is also accused of stealing a lot of money from another company based in the middle east. It also turns out that the Powered corporation has never completed a project and was only registered two months ago! Folks, this contract is worth 15 billion dollars and it reeks of corruption and/or of scam artists. Anyone who is familiar with the way the government works here will instantly assume that there is something fishy going on. I really, really, really hope that both the Yemeni, and especially the US law enforcement people look into this. In the US, this deal would be killed immediately after PR like this, I'm not so sure about it here in Yemen...

It seems as though every issue of the local papers have a story on corruption. It is a problem, there's no doubt about that. The reporters always end their piece with a lament that the government is not doing enough to combat corruption. They clamor for new laws to break the back of the corruption here. Maybe new laws need to be passed, but not the ones that they are thinking of.

The result of too many laws being passed to "protect us" can be seen in the US. Many people (myself included) do not like the amount of influence that large corporations, people with money, and special interest groups have with lawmakers and the resulting laws that favor them. But what to do? Many people want laws aimed at corporations and special interest groups in order to prevent this from happening. The problem with that approach is that as long as lawmakers are going to make laws that affect special interest groups, the groups will have the incentive to influence the lawmakers. This isn't always a money thing either, often times it is votes that the highly motivated groups promise the politician and lawmakers will always respond to that.

The underlying assumption is that these problems come up because there are evil, greedy people in the government. I do think that's part of it, but it is not the driving force. People need to understand that government is a human institution and it is naive to think that it will work in the way that we think it should or that it will always do what is in the public's best interest. Humans respond to incentives, and politicians have a set of incentives that are similar to everyone else's in some ways, but very different in others. One set of incentives that they have is to be reelected. This causes them to do many things that cause problems for many many people. Things like farm subsidies, price controls, "anti-rich" regulations, and maybe most noticeably deficit spending are examples of them doing what they need to do to get reelected at everyone's expense. It is the incentive structure that we have now that makes lawmakers so responsive to special interests and very few lawmakers are able to resist those temptations. Term limits are an ideal way to try to combat this, if they are not worried about being reelected, they have a much better chance of not responding to those incentives to be reelected.

Corruption has a similar cause. It is the incentives to be corrupt that are the main problems. Evil people will be evil most of the time, but if regular people are tempted to be evil, only a certain number will be able to resist. There are many possible incentives to be corrupt (it may be the easiest way to get money, it may be the only stable way to live comfortably, it may be the only way to succeed in that country) and those are what need to be addressed if you want to make a dent in the corruption problem. In a country like this, there is also the additional problem that the ability to be corrupt is a strong incentive to join the government! If new laws are going to be passed in order to combat these problems, they will inevitably need to be ones that limit the power of government. The trick is to create the incentives to get those laws passed. Political economy is dicy, and it has the pronounced effect of making one very cynical about the political process in general...

Thinking a little more about this, I think I've come up with some possible motivations for Yemen's pursuing nuclear power. I've talked about this before here and here. There's no question that Yemen needs more power but I wondered why they didn't go for the much more affordable (to build) natural gas power plants. I think the answer comes from their goals of installing desalinization plants. Yemen is facing a sever water crisis, mostly caused by the wasteful agriculture methods (see here). Desalinization takes quite a bit of power, and power costs money. Nuclear is, I believe, one of the most cost effective methods of power production, the government here always takes great pains to make sure that people understand that the nuclear power will be cheaper than the current production methods. I think that they are trying to kill two birds with one stone.

And it might work, IF getting the Uranium here isn't a problem, IF the price of Uranium doesn't start to go up like other fuels have and IF the public and opposition political parties can wait that long. It is expected that the first power plant will come online in 2012. If my calculations are correct, that will make up for the power deficit that they currently have. They will then have to build more power plants to provide for the desalinization plants. And of course they will have to build the desalinization plants... That timeline will not head off the water crisis that is expected to hit here very soon. It is estimated that Sana'a will run out of water by 2015, and other cities and rural areas will probably run out sooner. Ta'izz is already experiencing water problems... People are agitating for change right now. I actually think the government is doing what it can, but nothing will be immediate. If real elections are held and the current ruling party is thrown out (I'm not holding my breath), I'm not sure that whoever comes in will have such a long term view. Investing in infrastructure is always a long term project, but it is made more difficult in third world countries by impatience inspired by the current conditions.

A while back, my cousin asked me if I observed Lent, and if not, why not. I don't. The reason I don't is that I simply do not have the background needed for it to make any sense to me. The same thing goes for Ramadan. I don't fast. The muslims are supposed to go from sunrise to sunset without any food or water, sex, tobacco, or any other luxury. I could do the food part, but I really can't imagine doing without water in place that is so dry. People that are sick, women that have their period, young children, and "travellers" are exempt from the fasting as I understand it. I think the women are supposed to make up the lost fasting time afterwards. I also believe that the traveling exemption was made in a time when people travelled by camel if they were lucky, and more often they travelled on foot. I don't really think airplanes count. As with every religious observance, some adhere to the strict letter (as they interpret it) and some go more by the spirit of the law. They cheat a little IMO, they change their eating habits significantly, they eat "breakfast" at 3 or 4 AM, have their first big meal after the evening call to prayer, and usually eat late as well. I have noticed that the English language papers use the word breakfast literally, when they talk about breakfast during Ramadan, they mean break fast, it's the meal right after the sun sets, not their first one of the day.

I fasted by accident yesterday. I did drink water, but I didn't have anything to eat until 7PM or so. I had expected to have a nice, big bowl of cereal when I woke up. It turns out that the milk that I thought I bought the other day was actually buttermilk... YECHH! That was a bit of a surprise. When people ask me if I'm fasting, I reply, "La, anna mahseehee meskeen fahkat." Which translates to "No, I am only an (unfortunate) Christian..." That usually will make people grin and avoid the ensuing "why" conversation. I'm still a little fuzzy on the actual "why" of Ramadan for muslims. I have heard that it is to make people experience what it is like to be poor, but that doesn't really seem like a good fit, they gorge themselves at night. I assume that it is like the Christian fasting, it is used to hone one's vision of oneself and to keep God in mind. I've only heard one muslim tell me this, and she's not even in this country anymore. I'll ask around some more here, but as usual, I don't know if I'll find an answer that makes a lot of sense here.

I'm salivating over these books. I have been waiting for a collection like this, and it looks like a great one...

OK, I have read that the nuclear power plants that will be built here will be run by Americans with Yemeni forces securing them. That makes me feel better, but I'm still not convinced that it is the best idea. If the same crews, or at least the same quality of crews that run plants in the US run the ones here, I really won't worry too much about a Chernobyl type of incident. On the other hand, political instability is still an issue, as is the ability of Yemen's forces to secure these places. It is common knowledge that bribes can be made to get just about whatever you want here. It seem probable that a wealthy backer could get access to the plants with some well placed money, either to steal stuff, or just do some damage. In any case, I feel a little better, but we should still be cautious.

I'm getting sick and tired of all of this saber rattling from the US. The president of Iran (I'm not going to attempt to spell his name) recently spoke at Columbia University. The guy's a jerk, and he has some views that are indefensible. Be that as it may, Columbia did invite him to speak, so I find the remarks of Columbia's president to be way out of line. He called Iran's president a "petty dictator" which really showed his ignorance of Iran and it's political situation. Iran elected him, and as much as he might want to be a dictator, everyone knows that the real power is with the clerics. Any problems you might have with Iran (and there is plenty to be upset about) can be laid at the clerics feet.

What is really frosting me is the fact that the US has never, and probably will never admit to any of the reasons why the Iranian government does not like the US. The US had an instrumental role in overthrowing the elected leader of Iran and installing the Shah in 1953. By all accounts, the Shah was an awful ruler, but he wasn't a communist! That's all the US cared about. In 1978, the Iranians deposed the Shah, took over our embassy, and held the embassy workers hostage for over a year. Now that's pretty bad, but I still gotta say that overthrowing their government and installing a dictator was probably a worse thing... Later on we backed Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran. As far as I can tell, we did this mostly out of spite, still stinging from the whole embassy thing. The Iranians know what a monster Saddam was, he used chemical weapons against the Iranians while we were backing him. That war was the equivalent of WWI for Iran, they lost an entire generation, the number of casualties was awful. The US is currently backing an organization called the MKO. They have been responsible for numerous bombings in both Iran and Iraq. By any other measure they would be considered a terrorist organization, but we refuse to allow the Iranians to strike their base of operations that is inside Iraq.

What's pretty clear to me is that the US has systematically screwed around with the Iranians for decades, and for what? For the Iranian's retaliatory storming of our embassy and holding our people hostage? Is that enough of a reason to continue to hound and badger them? What danger do they pose to us? What danger have they posed to us? It seems to me that we could go a long ways towards a peaceful middle east (that is the goal, right?) if we simply recognized our belligerence and apologized for our meddling throughout the years. We don't have to forgive them for whatever "terrorist" activities they have been supporting, but just putting our past sins on the table will allow us to get past the whole, "You are evil!" method of diplomacy. It would also help get rid of some of the smell of hypocrisy surrounding the US actions over here. In my mind, the Iranians have every reason not to trust us, and they have done very little to us to deserve the scorn and judgement that we heap on them...

Well, I think I was right about the corn subsidies screwing things up. The latest copy of the Yemen Observer has a representative of some trade group defending the rise in wheat prices. He mentions that the EU, Russia, and Australia had lower than expected harvests, but he says that the corn subsidies caused a decline in the US production of wheat. I know this isn't "proof," but I think that it shows corroboration of my theory. The representative expects the market to correct itself early next year, but until then, we're going to have to live with higher wheat prices...

Our downstairs neighbor invited us to dinner the other night. They are a muslim couple from South Africa and have rented out the entire bottom floor so that she doesn't have to be covered up all the time. After he got back from the mosque, we broke the fast with him. It was quite good, biyarini, some juice, and some other little finger foods. Here's the thing, we all knew that his wife was the one who prepared all of this, but we never saw her. We expected this, the men and women simply do not mix, if I go to someone's house I not only do not talk to any women, but I never see them. I'm almost (almost) used to this. The thing I still have problems with is that it is impolite to even mention the wife. I cannot compliment his wife's cooking, cannot inquire about her health, and I especially can't ask what her name is. I have to pretend that she doesn't exist.

I mentioned to Diana (a fellow American student) that I am still uncomfortable with this sort of arrangement but that I figured that I would have to get used to it. She said no, I should never get used to it. I think she's right. It's one thing to be accommodating to a culture, it's quite another to go against your beliefs. I'm not going to piss anyone off, but I will still think of the wives, even when I'm not supposed to...

Well, it's 3Am and I'm not going to get to sleep for a while. People stay up pretty late during Ramadan, the kids are still running up and down the street, cars are honking their horns, and there are continuous prayers being sung by the innumerable mosques in the neighborhood. I was up until 2, and then I was too tired to stay up, so I've been laying in bed listening to all of this for an hour. Things won't start to quiet down until after the morning call to prayer. Normally, I wouldn't really care, I'd just sleep late like everyone else does, but tomorrow I need to be up at 8:30 to go take care of some things for my new visa. I'll be pretty zombie-like in the morning...