No more, No Les.

I would like to take this opportunity to officially ask Les Horton to put down his crayon, once and for all. His 'column' in the GDN is bland, pointless, rambling and seemingly written by someone in the 8-10 age group. His opinion(s) are flaccid and his arguments are unsubstantiated. His prose is shockingly colourless and infantile. I, and many others like me, have had enough of his patronizing tone. We, the people of Bahrain, do not deserve to be treated like retards. The Gulf Daily News, for all it's many, many shortcomings, remains one of Bahrain's only forums for discussion and opinion. Surely the literate masses deserve better than 'As I See It', the ramblings of an unspectacular mind scrawled onto paper by a lacklustre hand and published in all their monotony in the monochrome pages of mediocrity that has the audacity to label itself the 'Voice of Bahrain'. 

It is clear that the GDN struggles to find content. It is obvious that original thought is included as a mere afterthought; as padding between advertorials, press releases and cinema listings. So it is nothing less than tragic to think that something as rare as opinion be relegated to the desk of a second-tier hack with a genuine inability to explore an idea, an opinion or even a passing thought. Try as I might, I have never once been enlightened, excited, enthused or even merely interested in Mr. Horton's unstructured mumbling. If anything, I sympathise with his position, as unstructured rambling is something I do often, as can be evidenced right here on this blog. And that, Mr. Horton, is where your opinion should be confined. To some easily-accessible, inexpensive, tree-saving, entirely avoidable nether-region of the world wide web. Donate your printed words to someone interesting. To someone intelligent. To someone opinionated. To someone who will relish the opportunity to enlighten, argue or inform. Not Ali Al Saeed. Put down your crayon Mr. Horton. And then, use that point-and-click device the young 'uns love so much to 'surf' to www.blogger.com. It's free, easy and thankfully, obscure. 

Am I being harsh? I provide links to RANDOM columns for your perusal. Judge for yourselves. 

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=269522
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=269386
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=269313
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=269183

When confronted in the heavily-edited forum that is the letters section of the GDN, Mr. Horton had the decency to defend himself. In his own words (with comments in bold):

"I try to write about a broad mix of local or international issues, or personal experiences that I think others may relate to. (Try harder, or stop trying) "Some are intended to be light-hearted, since I don't believe people need lecturing to day after day and some are just thoughts about life which I believe will touch others. (i.e. shallow and/or lame) "Not everyone will like or relate to every column, but I like to think that each one touches someone. (They might, but only because the GDN is soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent) "I once wrote about being reunited with my brother after many years and received, as a result, a letter from one man who had been inspired by it to pick up the phone to his own brother for the first time in 20 years. (Way to save the world Les) "One lady in Saar wrote in response to my more personal columns that when she read them in the mornings, it felt like she was having coffee with a friend. (There it is... your audience. That one lady in Saar) "I hope you continue to read the column and find something to interest or entertain you, at least occasionally. (We live in hope, but the trees keep falling)

Enough Les. We've had enough. Please stop. The only people who will miss your scrawls as the stockholders of Crayola. We wish you well in all your future endeavours. 

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Yeah, I know... I've been lazy again. I couldnt be bothered to complain, though that does not mean there isn't plenty to complain about.

(Wayward rant begins)

Parliament. Yeah, those guys. The bearded club of overpaid ignorance. They've been spouting and spewing again.

This time their gripe is, once again, with the profession for which Bahrain has garnered so much international attention recently: prostitution. A couple of weeks ago an urgent inquiry into the scale of prostitution in the Kingdom was launched. Necessary, I suppose. They voted to set up said inquiry after our one and only Ministeress of Culcha and Informayshon told them that they were 'exaggerating' the scale of prostitution in the Kingdom. Fair play. The Ministeress also took the time to blame our MPs for the 'misleading information that other countries were getting about prostitution in Bahrain'. According to her, the government is doing it's best to combat vice and the situation is 'under control'. Hurrah?

The smell of bullshit is overpowering. For once, the MPs seem to be on the right side. They took matters into their own hands after being blamed, lied to and patronized by the Ministry. It would seem, perhaps, that a pandemic of sanity was affecting our democracy. Not quite.

For whilst there are reasons enough to launch an inquiry that will inevitably be biased and pointless, they couldnt stop there. One overeducated, underpaid muppet took the time to blame Bahrain's 40% divorce rate on the prevalence of prostitution in the Kingdom. That's right ladies, germs and gentlemen... the reason so very many people in Bahrain hate their spouses enough to legally terminate their union is prostitution.

"Because of sleaze, our divorce rate in the country is around 40pc and our women and men have become victims of its effects."

Top notch ignorance. A+. First bloody class. I would pay to see his research. Actually, I wouldnt, but I reckon someone somewhere might. It's cause and effect, starting backwards.

Scenario A

Mr MP was sitting at home, staring at the latest figures for divorce, shaking his head in dismay, wondering how his beloved Kingdom started to lose it's lustre. And then, naturally, he started to think about prostitutes. As one does. And then it occurred to him: we have a divorce problem and a prostitution problem, so they must related. Directly. And his 'theory' was born.

Scenario B

Mr MP was recently divorced, owing to some indiscretions on Exhibition road and a possible STD. He started to think about how many of his peeps had suffered from the same itchy, lonely combination. Of his 10 homies, 4 had recently been divorced because of those darned whores. A few hours of number crunching and he had a figure: 40%. We must do something about this problem, he thought. So he went to parliament and spewed his new fact to the GDN.

Scenario C

Mr MP was standing outside a shop in Muharraq, staring at a plastic female mannequin. After several hours of leering, he went home to realise he'd missed his wedding anniversary and his wife filed for divorce. Sleaze was the culprit and he was the victim. Of the ten people he hung out with outside that shop window, four ended up in divorce court.

Scenario D

Mr MP just made up some random statistic to spew at his weekly meeting of Ignorance Anonymous

Anyway, Shaikha Mai was at the parliamentary house of logic to respond to a question by an MP on the "reasons behind the closure of discos and dance floors and a ban on alcohol and live entertainment in one and two-star hotels, while higher-rated hotels were spared the ban."

"The question is -- are dance floors, alcohol and prostitution against Islamic values in one and two-star hotels and not in the rest? "For years, MPs in this chamber have addressed the issue and demanded real solutions to the problem, but there has been no significant achievement in combating sleaze and it continues going on unchecked."

Decent question. Fair point. And then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid, again. He said, again according to the GDN, that hotel car parks and surrounding areas were filled with GCC-registered cars throughout the week and especially during weekends, with men coming from other countries for the prostitution and nightlife. And that "No action has been taken against these hotels where those cars are parked".

Umm... they're hotels. HOTELS. Where people from, yknow, other countries stay when they come to Bahrain. Would you prefer a scenario where there were no cars outside the hotels, or perhaps you envisage a Bahrain where the only patrons of our hospitality industry are Bahraini? Cause that wouldnt be sleazy. Nah. That'd be normal. Lets spend time and money discussing ways to 'take action' against the hospitality industry because of GCC-registered cars. Fucking genius. Yeah, the hotels are jam-packed full 'o sleaze. But is it really fair, or practical, or actionable, or even remotely sensible to approach something as endemic as Exhibition Road's sleaze from such an idiotic, bottom-up approach?

The goverments position is rather clear, in a totally vague kinda way.

"We have a respected hospitality industry and demanding a curb on our tourist facilities and describing them all as being full of sleaze, gives the impression that there is no need for a probe, considering that the judgement has been already made." ... " The proposal has to be changed to some and not all facilities, because these things have to be proven by a probe committee"

I'm losing track. MP's are against sleaze and hospitality, but the goverment says the sleaze is under control and that the hospitality industry is respected. No one wants to damage Bahrain's reputation, but both sides manage to do so by engaging in such a fruitless, unsubstantiated debate. MPs love Bahrain, but not one with foreign cars (or foreigners) in it. Government made rules about 1 & 2 star hotels but say that things have to be proven by a probe committee, eons after the rules came into effect, which just aint fair.

Whatever. I'm just complaining. The real culprit here would seem to be the lack of objective, professional journalism, courtesy of the GDN. Has it not occurred to the 'reporters' to ask questions? Is that too much to ask from the 'Voice of Bahrain'? It would seem so.

And now I'm off in search of direction. I need something new to complain about. Suggestions?

HAH!

Just after posting the last post about whatever I noticed a headline on the side of the screen where the headlines like to hang out that made me laugh. I didn't read the story, but I can guess what's in it. Anyway, the headline read:

Weiner Condemns Bahrain.

Awesome.

Free-dumb!

Last week Reporters Sans Frontiers released their annual world index of press freedom. Who knew? It wasn't in any of the local news. Not even a mention. Care to guess why?

Because the only time our precious media is keen to report anything about league tables of whatever is when Bahrain climbs up in the rankings. And this year, according to RSF, Bahrain have plummeted a whopping 23 places, down from 96 to 119. Impressive. We're tied with Angola, and just one measly place ahead of Bangladesh - also recently dubbed 'the most corrupt country on earth' or something to that effect. We're well behind Qatar, Oman, the UAE and Kuwait, but not to worry - at least we're ahead of Iraq, Iran, Saudi, Egypt and Libya.

All this in a year where Bahrain has been talking up it's free press credentials. Just a pointer- pretending that we have free press does not make it so. And publishing an endless tirade of propaganda in local media about how free our press is doesn't make it any more free.

Maybe we just misinterpreted the rules. Maybe the Minsteress for Informology and Culturisation thought that ensuring the BNA website was free of charge for all those brave enough to wrestle with the lingo was enough. Maybe they studied the price of our newspaper(s) in relation to the rest of the world and determined that while we weren't quite free (not counting Al Waseet of course), at least we are pretty cheap. I don't know.

But the biggest gripe I have is that our press is too fucking scared to even talk about how free our press isn't. Not even a whisper. Nothing. The Emirates mentioned it a bit, but that's because they only fell by a measly 17 places in the rankings, despite having new laws that make it illegal to say bad shit about anyone or the economy or someone's horse. We on the other hand, despite all our CAPITAL LETTERS professing Bahrain's awesomeness managed somehow to plummet a whopping 23 places. Our 'media' loves to talk about rankings - be it how 'Free' our economy is, how 'good' we are at football, that we are ranked 'high' in the UN human development index... but when it comes to talking about one of the only rankings that really matters... we get silence. It could be down to incredibly bad reporting, which we know is a chronic Bahraini disease. Maybe the GDN and whoever else didn't get emailed a press release to cut and paste. Whatever. We should all be ashamed.

Obama became president and the USA climbed 16 places or so. We get ourselves a new Minister of Informativeness and we plummet 23 places. Hmmm... If that's not a measure of job performance, what is?

Seriously, did anyone think Bahrain's press could get any worse? Any less 'free'? Lets blame democracy. And education. If people couldn't read, then publishers could print whatever the hell they felt like. Maybe if we made reading illegal, like most of the internet seems to be... Alternatively, lets just pretend we already know everything. Then there'd be no need for press, and hence press freedom would be irrelevant. Wait, don't we already do that?

Wahuuuuh?

Another year, another mascot. Wahoooooooo, the oft-delayed waterpark in the City Centre mall, has done the one and only thing that Bahraini PR firms seem to be able to do these days: invented a mascot.

According to various media outlets, the "coolest turtle in town will be called Squirtle".

Now, Squirtle is an infinitely superior moniker to the BIC's Speedy. But... and this here is a nice, chunky, supersized but... It's the name of a Pokemon.

Yup. Bahrain's latest home-grown creation, named after a publicity spree and a competition in English and Arabic, with the help of 25 schools and over 500 participants, also just happens to be the name of a popular character from a thoroughly incomprehensible Japanese franchise.

They went with Squirtle because, according to Gulf Weekly, 'it rhymes with turtle and has a squirting water association'. And here's the best bit... three different participants, all aged 11, all from St. Chris, submitted the same name.

Mitchell Sandy, 11, from Jannusan, was the first to suggest the name and won a Wahooo! family pass to enjoy all the facilities once the waterpark is open and a goodie bag. Scarlet Robinson, 11, from Riffa, and Rebecca Dench, 11, from Janabiyah, also came up with Squirtle and won a family pass and tickets for the waterpark respectively.

The youngsters attend St Christopher's School and had no idea they all had individually come up with the same brainwave until they met at the awards ceremony on Saturday!

Bravo. It was a 'brainwave'. Or perhaps it could have had something to with the fact that the target demographic for Pokemon is children under the age of 12.

That nobody questioned the name is rather bewildering. For three separate individuals to submit the same name - a name that the management and PR peeps of Wahoooo! believe to be an original creation from the exceptionally gifted minds of 11 year old students - is somewhat suspect. Especially if they all spelt the name the same way, which I assume they did. Surely someone somewhere in the process would have gone to the extent of consulting the Google oracle, y'know, just to be sure. Nope.

Yes, this is rather mundane. Trivial in fact. And yes, I admit, I knew that there was a Pokemon character called Squirtle, thanks to a brief attempt at deciphering the children's craze of yester-decade - a task at which I failed miserably.

Pokemon is a registered trademark of Nintendo. I would assume that the trademark and copyright extends to the characters and their likenesses. And yes, there are likenesses. Squirtle the Pokemon thing is a Turtle-type creature thing that squirts water. And Squirtle the Wahoooooooo mascot is a Turtle that squirts water. The only real difference is that Squirtle, the Nintendo character, might possibly be part squirrel or something.

But seriously... Nobody in the entire process looked it up? Nobody thought that the imagination of children could be skewed by some lawsuit-crazed behemoth of intellectual property? It would seem not. More worryingly, none of the parents thought to bring it up. Perhaps because no parents can understand what the hell Pokemon is, but that's not really an excuse. If you don't know what it is your children are watching, playing or whatever, you probably shouldn't be letting them do it.

I'm hoping... no, I'm praying that we get ourselves a nice, big, international-headline grabbing lawsuit. It wont come to that. I might, y'know, email the legal department of Nintendo just for giggles. And if something this blatantly actionable doesn't get a PR monkey fired, nothing will.

Google 'Squirtle'. Google 'Squirtle Bahrain'. It's all Pokemon. Do you think the Ministry muppets who occasionally harass Bahrain's good ol' fashioned bootleg DVD stores will hanging around City Centre shouting and poking and whining as only the Ministry can do?

Is this news?

It's been a while since I did myself the displeasure of attempting to read anything on the Ministry of Information's one and only Bahrain News Agency website. But, against my better judgement, I clicked on a link to a story that sounded like it'd be jam packed full of nonsensical goodness. And it was. So here it is.

The block capitals belong to the BNA, cut and pastified from their 'website'. The bold italics are all mine. Enjoy.

BAHRAIN NATIONAL MUSIC IN OCTOBER

MANAMA, SEPT.30 (BNA) -- THE CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE SECTOR WILL ORGANIZE THE 18TH BAHRAIN INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL ON 10-16 OF NEXT OCTOBER.

Next October? Does that mean October 2010?

THE FESTIVAL WILL BE HELD AT THE CULTURAL HALL NEAR BAHRAIN NATIONAL MUSEUM WITH THE PARTICIPATION OF GULF AND INTERNATIONAL MUSIC BANDS TO ENTERTAIN THE AUDIENCE WITH LOVE, BEAUTY AND PEACE SONGS AND MUSIC.

Awesome... I love beauty and peace songs and music. It's so much better than ugly and war songs and music, don't you think?

THE FESTIVAL, SINCE ITS FIRST INCEPTION ON SEPTEMBER 26, 1992, HAS PLAYED A VITAL ROLE IN THE GROWING CULTURE AND ARTS ARENAS IN BAHRAIN AND STOOD AS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MUSIC ACTIVITIES IN THE GULF.

Yeah. It's like really, totally popular, and millions of people flock to our Kingdom to enjoy the 'beauty and peace songs and music'. Every year, since 1992, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and Bahrain invented happiness.

THE MUSIC FESTIVALS WHICH WORLD PEOPLES CELEBRATE REPRESENT SUITABLE OCCASIONS FOR PEOPLES AND CIVILIZATIONS TO MEET AND BUILD BRIDGES OF ACCULTURATION, SPECIALLY THAT MUSIC IS A FORM OF INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE.

Ladies and gentlemen... a lesson in sentence construction from the Ministry of Information. 'World peoples', because they are better than, well, aliens. So, the world peoples celebrate music festivals, and these music festivals are 'suitable occasions' for people to get together and try to love one another right now. Hey, I think I just infringed me a copyright. Woo hoo. Maybe the BNA just got the lyrics to 'Get Together', used Google Translate (they blocked it to keep it all to themselves), and after translating the English lyrics to German, then Dutch, Swahili, Arabic and then Back to English, we got ourselves this 'story'. And if music is a form of 'International Language' (lets not even get into the 'Specially'), surely all music would be 'blocked for violating the laws and regulations of the Kingdom of Bahrain'. Just Like Google Translate.

THE CULTURE AND HERITAGE SECTOR SEIZES THE OPPORTUNITY TO EXTEND THANKS AND APPRECIATION OF BROTHERLY AND FRIENDLY COUNTRIES' EMBASSIES, MINISTRIES AND ESTABLISHMENTS FOR THE SUPPORT THEY OFFERED TO THE ORGANIZERS.

What's a nice bit of news without some good ol' fashioned ass kissing?

And that's that. Don't y'all feel enlightened. It's really nice to see the positive impact Shaikha Mai's had since she took over the Ministry of Informativeness. I suppose the news would be important, if it didn't keep getting in the way of her dictatorial pointlessness. Do you think she's ever even seen the BNA website? EVER?

Inglorious Bastards.

Bahrain used to be a polite country. Bahrainis have forever applauded themselves for being hospitable, friendly and courteous. It's just one of the ways they pat each other on the back. An unquantifiable, entirely subjective way with which to claim superiority over our neighbours. We might not be as rich, powerful, big or beautiful, but who cares? We are polite. We are gracious. Or so we believe.

This 'theory' can be disproved in seconds. Just get in your car, or someone else's car, and go for a short drive. Within seconds you will be transported into a place filled with hate, rage and utter stupidity. No matter where you are. No matter how good or bad the traffic is. It always ends the same. Honking, jousting for position, the occasional game of chicken and a complete lack of respect.

When did overtaking someone become a personal insult? Even if the person in the fancy, rather capable automobile in front of you is driving slowly, chatting on their phone or eating a shawarma or plucking their eyebrows, as soon as you try to overtake them they speed up. Not enough for you to get on your way, but just enough to prevent you getting in front of them. Because, god forbid, should you manage to get your vehicle between them and their destination, their whole day will go straight to hell.

Go to a mall, or somewhere else where people gather. Try to walk in a straight line. It's impossible. Even if you were there first. Even if you are on your way to somewhere with purpose. The right of way automatically belongs to the other person. This is the new Bahraini mentality. A superiority complex that is overwhelmingly undeserved plagues the people of this Kingdom.

Try being a pedestrian. Actually, don't, unless you harbor a particular desire for pain and/or death. If you are on foot, you are automatically classed as scum. Cross a road at your own peril. Be afraid. Be very, very afraid. The only way the person in the shiny SUV will even consider not squishing you is if you look like you might scratch their bumper. Self interest prevails. Selfishness is now fashionable.

Politeness. It was our defining characteristic, and now, its all but gone. I applaud when I see a basic act of decency in public, so rare have they become. Without our manners we are nothing but island-dwellers. Pirates. Uncultured, self-absorbed snobs. Bastards. All of us.

We see it happen and we shrug it off. It has become a way of life. Decency doesn't just come and go... it takes generations to cultivate. And if we continue on our current trajectory, soon Bahrain will be known as that hostile, stuck-up little island overpopulated with assholes. With F1. And, ummm... F1. Y'know, those cars that go fast. My car goes fast. I'm better than you. Why are you here? Fuck off.

It's amusing. The one way we can claim superiority has led to a superiority complex. And our superiority complex has in turn eroded our superiority. Now, we're just arrogant. Can it be fixed? I don't know. Perhaps we should just throw in the towel. We could try to become the most bastardly nation on the planet - a place where self interest prevails, where assholes are cool, where general decency is extinct. Everyone would hate us, but who cares? The only opinion that matters is our own.

And, when people say

"Bahrainis are the rudest people we've ever heard of",

we, like Keith Richards, would reply...

"At least you've heard of us"