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Archive for January 29th, 2007

Fred Salik – Treq Sslema Sahabi

29 Jan

Fred Salik

It is with a sad and very heavy heart that I reprint a comment left earlier this evening.

“Author : abdou
Comment:
Dear All, Salama alykoum and peace be upon you. I just heard the news that our friend passed away last night (Sunday
28th Jan07). He has gone through 13 months of coma and all of us,,all over the globe were praying for his well being, and for his family in this tight situation. We are all sadened by the news. May we all pray for his soul to be blessed! Fouad Salik lightened so many hearts and put a smile on many many people’s faces. I only me him once in London about 5 years ago, and all I could say of him he was the sweetest and lented most intelligent person I have met.Please spare him prayers. Inna li Allahi was Inna Ilayhi Raje3oon.”

I only spoke to Fred on the phone, but he was one of the kindest and most helpful people I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. He spent a lot of time helping me sort out a problem with tickets bought from an airline consolidator, even going to far as to tell them I was his sister so they’d discuss the issue with him! I’m sorry I never got a chance to welcome him to our home in Morocco, I hope his family sees this and knows that they’re just as welcome. I’d like to hug his poor mother right now.

This was such a stupid and senseless death.

 
7 Comments

Posted in Blogroll, Personal

 

Owning an Animal

29 Jan

BarbaroAs some of you may have heard, Barbaro was euthanized this morning. What makes it even sadder is this statement from his owner:

Gretchen Jackson admitted during a May 24 news conference that the couple may have broken the golden rule of horse ownership.

“I’m very afraid so,” she said when asked if they loved Barbaro. “One of the things that one is supposed to do when one becomes a horse owner is to not fall in love with the animal, because it’s so painful when something like this happens. Yes, we’ve experienced this before to a greater and lesser degree.

“It’s part of life. There are losses and births again. With each loss, we have to pull ourselves together and look to the future of another great racehorse.”

You know, people who own horses for racing suck, and I’m not fooled by Gretchen’s “We loved him” bullshit. What they loved was the potential for stud fees, which some estimated could be as high as $30 million. Like Kevin Noonan wrote,

“So why did we care?

Maybe it’s because people understand that animals are dependent on us and, at the same time, vulnerable to us. That was true in Barbaro’s case, as humans exposed him to the dangerous sport that cost him his life and humans spent countless hours and millions of dollars trying to save that life.”

While I’m at it, people who own any kind of animal who think of it purely as meat or a machine (I’m talking to you, Moroccan donkey owners) suck.

 
7 Comments

Posted in Animals, Blogroll

 

Tourist Stereotypes

29 Jan

Did you ever wonder what the “boys in blue” (that is, the faux Tuareg tribesmen) were saying about the visiting tourists?

Before I begin, these are stereotypes, so don’t send me a lot of blowsy indignant comments about your nationality and how your peeps are just not like that. I do not care. This is how people are viewed in Morocco by the tourism industry in general. And by that I mean the side businesses of tourism – all the things they’re trying to sell you while you’re there. Carpets, fossils, leather bags, guided walks in the medina, camel rides, you name it. I’ve learned these by eavesdropping at various places – hotels, carpet shops, L’Escale in Marrakech (where all the guides hang out), etc..

Dutch: Look-look no buy. (Said in a very bad Dutch impression, “kakey kakey nit koper”)
French: Comes on group tour for 300 euros inclusive and expects five star service.
American: Gullible, will buy almost anything.
German: Fat like Americans, do not buy anything.
Japanese: Cattle mentality, very demanding, buy rarely.
Spanish: Prefer to get drunk, don’t buy anything.
Italian: Like to sing songs, buy sometimes.
Swiss: Polite, buy occasionally, hard bargainers.
British: Look like Americans but have bad teeth, buy almost as much as them.
Moroccan: Worst kind of tourist to get, wants everything “gratis”

I’m not going to tell you my personal stereotypes regarding the above groups, but I will admit to favoring Dutch and Italian visitors, for reasons of my own. (entirely unrelated to their shopping habits)

 
10 Comments

Posted in Blogroll, Business, Tourism