VOICES FROM THE INTERNET Time to plan A friend worried out loud to me the other day, “I spent the last seven months doing this (job) and I have nothing to show for it. If I had known I would have spent seven months and gotten nothing, you can bet I would have done something a lot more fun.” Ten years ago I wrote this post about the decade that ends today. The oughts (the “uh-ohs”?) were a tough decade on a macro level. Front page news events will give the textbooks plenty to write about in the years to come. But on a micro level, on a personal level, this was a decade filled with opportunity. The internet transformed our lives forever. Opportunities were created (and many were taken advantage of). And, like every decade, just about everyone missed it. Just about everyone hunkered down and did their job or did what they were told or did what they thought they were supposed to, and just about everyone got very little as a result. Maybe 10 years is too long a period of time to plan for. So how about seven? Seven years from now, what will you have to show for what you're doing right now? If your answer is, “not much,” perhaps you should consider a new plan, one that might generate a different answer, or, at the very least, be a more fun way to waste seven years. – sethgodin.typepad.com Unedited view The images are grainy, often jerky and hard to follow (like most footage shot using hand-held cameras and cellphones), but the message is unmistakable: in the months since the disputed Iranian presidential election in June, the people of Iran have become fluent in the new language of citizen video reporting. What might have seemed an isolated moment immediately following the election, when we watched videos of Iranians marching, battling and even dying on the streets of Tehran, appears to have become an essential part of their struggle. At YouTube, we have been watching week after week as new videos have appeared on the site within hours of every single protest or similar event reported from Iran in the past six months. Thousands of uploads have brought the fear and tension of these protests to YouTube, inviting millions of views around the world. It is as if the revolts that are taking place could not do so outside the eye of the camera. Unlike traditional news footage from foreign correspondents (currently prohibited in Iran), these videos are the voice of the people – unfiltered, unedited and with a single, sometimes disturbing point of view. No professional film could capture the one-to-one feeling of watching an ordinary citizen's images of unrest in his or her own country. We are constantly amazed by the videos our community uploads, whether from their own backyards or the streets of a faraway land. Armed with only a camera and a means to reach the Internet, anyone can ask another to bear witness to their lives. – googleblog.blogspot.com KSA prawns When one thinks of Jeddah or Dammam and the Red Sea it is natural for thoughts to segue to the rich seafood that abounds there. I thought that when I was in India and visiting the city of Goa on India's Arabian Sea coast that I encountered the largest prawns. I was wrong. The prawns that I have had from Saudi Arabia's Red Sea are even larger and more succulent. While for some reason in the States we refer to prawns as shrimp, in the rest of my travels prawns have always been called prawns. A follower of American Bedu shared with me that recently the Saudi Arabian Natural History Society in Jeddah had a meeting where lecturer Laurence Cook provided an informative and interesting accounting of Saudi Arabia and its prawn history. According to Cook, the bulk of production is exported. The per capita consumption of prawns in the Kingdom is half a kilo per year. Speaking at least for myself, I now have a new respect for prawns and how they make their way to the table! And of course while my mother-in-law Mama Moudy is always number one in cooking and so much more, I also wish to say how much I appreciate my sister-in-law Reghalia in Damman who makes the most incredible fresh seafood dishes I have ever tasted with special catches from the Red Sea!
