VOICES FROM THE INTERNET Saudi honor Honor is an important part of Saudi tradition and culture. If a promise is made on a Saudi's honor, one should expect that promise to be fulfilled. Fulfilling honor to a Saudi combines saving face, family reputation and a commitment to promises, all in one full sweep. But what happens if one Saudi makes promises on his honor, but then circumstances dictate that a son must fulfill the commitment instead? Is honor honored? Under Saudi tradition and old time culture, it should be. In fact, the son should be honored to fulfill the honor of the father. Honor is a cultural value that has been in existence for the past 2000 years and continues throughout the Middle East in present times. A culture of honor and shame prevails in Saudi Arabia. If a Saudi were to say he or she would fulfill a promise on his or her honor, it should not be confused in any way with the use of Insha'Allah. Insha'Allah is “God willing” and many times is said as a “soft no” rather than disappoint with a “hard no.” Any Saudi who says that an action will be fulfilled on his or her honor is making commitment. – americanbedu.com Visiting the sick Visiting the sick is a very important obligation that the Saudi culture follows and it is dictated by Islam. Not only is it good for the sick person in that it lifts his spirits, but it is also a virtuous act which will be rewarded for the Muslim person who visits someone who is sick. There are even guidelines in Islam about not staying too long, about visiting an unrelated person of the opposite sex, and specific prayers (du'a) that are said for the sick individual. I hadn't really had much exposure to this aspect of Islam until my husband spent 10 days in the hospital recently and had open heart surgery. He had a steady stream of visitors during most of his time in the hospital. Usually family and friends started coming in the early afternoon, and sometimes the last visitor of the day came late, leaving when visiting hours ended at 11 P.M. I thought it was interesting that during Ramadan, the hospital visiting hours are changed to ending at 3 A.M. I learned that my function was to act as hostess for the visitors, offering them small cups of the traditional Arabic coffee called Gahwa, which my sisters-in-law thoughtfully and thankfully brought to me every day in thermal pots, as well as dates or chocolates, which guests brought with them in abundance. The Gahwa is mainly cardamom with very little coffee in it. – susiesbigadventure.blogspot.com China's quake Chinese media are reporting widespread devastation in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, following a 7.1 earthquake (reported as 6.9 in the West). Many people are still buried under the debris of collapsed houses in the Gyegu Town near the epicenter in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Yushu in southern Qinghai, according to Huang Limin, deputy secretary-general of the prefecture government. The strong quake and a string of aftershocks, with the biggest one being 6.3 magnitude, have toppled houses, temples, gas stations and electric poles, triggered landslides, damaged roads, cut power supplies and disrupted telecommunications. A reservoir was also cracked, where workers are trying to prevent the outflow of water. The death toll of over 600 is expected to rise as over 5,000 personnel respond to remove bodies from crumbled structures. – tibetanaltar.blogspot.com Moon program The first man to walk on the moon blasted President Barack Obama's decision to cancel NASA's back-to-the-moon program on Tuesday, saying that the move is “devastating” to America's space effort. Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong's open letter was also signed by Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon; and Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who is marking the 40th anniversary of his famous lunar non-landing this week. Canceling Constellation could lead to thousands of layoffs at some of America's biggest aerospace contractors, including Lockheed Martin, the Boeing Co. and ATK. Such job losses are among the factors behind congressional opposition to the cancellation. Armstrong and his fellow astronauts emphasize the bigger implications, however, and say in their letter that the decision would put the nation on a “long downhill slide to mediocrity.” In their letter, the astronauts say that the availability of such craft “cannot be predicted with any certainty, but is likely to take substantially longer and be more expensive than we would hope.” – wizbangblog.com Faster than computer A cat can recognize a face faster and more efficiently than a supercomputer. That's one reason a feline brain is the model for a biologically-inspired computer project involving the University of Michigan. U-M computer engineer Wei Lu has taken a step toward developing this revolutionary type of machine that could be capable of learning and recognizing, as well as making more complex decisions and performing more tasks simultaneously than conventional computers can. Lu previously built a “memristor,” a device that replaces a traditional transistor and acts like a biological synapse, remembering past voltages it was subjected to. Now, he has demonstrated that this memristor can connect conventional circuits and support a process that is the basis for memory and learning in biological systems.
