S: Is for a look at sentencing

In Awwamiya, Saudi Arabia a teenager went to the police to report she was gang-raped by seven men, she never imagined the judge would punish her and that she would be sentenced to more lashes than one of her alleged rapists would receive. This story of the Girl of Qatif has triggered a rare debate about Saudi Arabia’s legal system, in which judges have wide discretion in punishing a criminal. Where rules of evidence are shaky and sometimes no defense lawyers are present. Sentences are left to the whim of judges. This includes one in which a group of men got heavier sentences for harassing women than the men in the Girl of Qatif rape case or the three men who were convicted of raping a boy. In another, a woman was ordered to divorce her husband against her will based on demands by her relatives. The Girl of Qatif, was sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married, a crime in this strictly segregated country. It was at the time that she was attacked and raped by a group of other men. The 19 year old is struggling to forget the spring night that changed her life. Her sleep is interrupted by a constant replay of the events. That night, she has stated she left home to retrieve her picture from a male high school student she used to know. She had just been married but had not moved in with her husband and did not want her picture to remain with the student. While the woman was in the car with the student, two men intercepted them, got into the vehicle and drove to a secluded area where the two were separated. She said she was raped by seven men, three of whom also raped her friend. In a trial that ended in November. Four of the men received between one and five years in prison plus 80 to 1,000 lashes. Three others are awaiting sentencing. Neither the defendants nor the plaintiffs retained lawyers, which is common here.“The big shock came when the judge sentenced myself and the man to 90 lashes each.” The sentence was handed down as part of the rape trial. Lashes are usually spread over several days, dealt around 50 at a time. The sentences have yet to be carried out, but the punishments ordered have caused an uproar. (This picture is what 50 lashes looks like)

Justice in Saudi Arabia is administered by a system of religious courts with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. A rapist, for instance, could receive anywhere from a light or no sentence to death, depending on the judge. In one recent case, three men convicted of raping a 12 year old boy received sentences of between one and two years in prison and 300 lashes each. In contrast, another judge sentenced at least four men to between 6-12 years imprisonment for fondling women in a tunnel in Riyadh. A columnist for Al-Watan, asked Justice Minister Abdullah Al-Sheik to explain why the boy’s rapists got a lighter sentence than the men in last year’s sexual harassment case. His answer ‘Do you think it satisfies God?’ For Fatima, another Saudi woman who suddenly found herself divorced from her husband, after her half-brothers went to a judge and told him their sister had married beneath her. Fatima had been married for over three years and was pregnant with her second child when the judge declared the marriage void in July 2005. Today, Fatima sits in jail with her 11 month old son. Her 4 year old daughter was recently freed.

I write this column because we in America are increasingly losing our rights. Maybe by seeing this you will fight for yours as well as the rights for others. The F.A.C.T.S are easily found but maybe not the reasons.

T: Is for Tidbits of interest!

This was sent to me and I pass it on.
Pass The Butter!
Did you know margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. They came out with some clever new flavorings. DO YOU KNOW...the difference between margarine and butter? Both have the same amount of calories. Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams compared to 5 grams. Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study. Eating Butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other
foods. Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few only because they are added! Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods. Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And now, for Margarine...
Very high in trans fatty acids. Triple risk of coronary heart disease. Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol) Increases the risk of cancers up to five fold. Lowers quality of breast milk. Decreases immune response. Decreases insulin response. And here's the most disturbing fact....

Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... This fact alone is enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added,changing the molecular structure of the substance)

You can try this yourself: Purchase a tub of margarine and leave it in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will note a couple of things: No flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something). It does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value. Nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weenie microorganisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?

Share This With Your Friends..... (If you want to 'butter them up')! These are F.A.C.T.S that could save your life. Think about it.

C: Is for Crises in Cuisine!

On Sunday Liz and I went flee marketing. We got started late and Liz hadn't eaten and thus her blood sugar started to drop. Since I had to diet the next day I suggested Harry's Burrito's so I could quench my cravings for Mexican food. I had passed but had yet to have tried Harry's and Huevos Ranchero's was calling my name. Located at 241 Columbus Ave off 73rd I have since learned this is also the owners of Benny's Burrito's. As I said Liz needed food so I figured Mexican would give us chips and salsa. Wrong! After waiting about 20 min to order Liz ordered a Bay Chicken Burrito no rice and beans substitute soy for the cheese and sour cream and add guacamole. The waitress asked if she wanted rice and she again stated no! I ordered the craved Huevos Ranchero's asking to make sure the eggs were over easy. I even went to the length to tell her that I do not eat eggs unless they are easy and told her it's the same way with my meat. Walk, talk and mow or "asta la vista, baby"! A half an hour later the food arrive and you guessed it rice and beans were in the burrito and the eggs medium. So we sent it back. Still no chips, and we have been there almost an hour. The waitress completely apologizes and promises our food will be returned the way we ordered it promptly. Another half an hour and the food comes back. This time my eggs are as hard as a rock and everything else is cold. Liz who by this time is on the verge of fainting and eats it anyway. It turns out hers is missing cheese. The manager comes next and promises me a meal that is edible. Liz gets the waitress to bring her cheese who by this point is nasty. My food comes this time in 15 and the eggs though still not as easy as I would of liked, were at least tolerable and we had other places to go and friends to meet. We asked for the check and paid it. They had charged us for everything. I thought $26.50 was alot for an Ice Coffee, Pepsi and our two meals but we paid it. Because the waitress was so horrid we did not tip her. It turns out that was good because I already knew I would be writing about this so I grabbed the take out menu. The waitress had over charged us our bill should of been just under $20. Instead of charging $8.25 she charged $15.95 for the burrito which makes it $7.70 over for the wrong item that was brought back and was cold when it returned. I thought we had, had an isolated incident since the manager when I asked why this had all happened attitude was hey shit happens, I was wrong. I researched this restaurant and this is what others had to say.

OMG how can you fuck up Mexican food?!? Well, I will tell you that Harry's Burritos has figured out that secret. I would have preferred Taco Bell. This place made me not just want to run to the border to but run to the bathroom and spit out the garbage they served. Everything they serve had no flavor, was soggy, and pretty much uneatable. Also, no chips and salsa while you wait, you have to pay for that. Talk about totally wrong. They call themselves "Cal Mex," which I assume stands for California and Mexican, well I am a Mexican from California, and I can tell you that even the food scraps on the floor of one the Mexican restaurants out there would have more flavor than anything they would put on a plate at Harry's!

San Francisco, CA
1 star rating

Are you F***ng kidding me?? Is this dump still here?? I ate here a few years ago while visiting and I was overwhemingly disappointed. I remember ordering the chicken quesadilla and it was the worst thing ever. Flavorless, boiled chicken meat in a soggy tortilla. YUCK!!! And the fact that this place claims to have "Mexican food from San Francisco's Mission District" (this better not still be stated on their front window)... well let me tell ya something...I live in San Francisco and have been eating the best damn burritos and Mexican food north of the border all my adult life (and yes, the Mission is where the bulk of the good, cheap stuff is). For this place to state that it's "authentic" and from "the Mission" is completely false and gives the REAL SF Mission mexican food a bad name -- 'cuz it ain't! New Yorkers, come on over to SF and you will have the best meal.
And who the hell names their Mexican restaurant "Harry's"???

Emily L.
New York, NY
1 star rating

Yuck yuck yuck. It's not just bad mexican food, but bad food in general. The beef in my burrito was stringy and the rice and beans were flavorless. I added a generous amount of Tapatio, but to no avail! Also, corn fritters served with maple syrup at a Mexican restaurant? Whuh? Big portions, but who wants a big pile o' nasty?

John Z.
Long Island City, NY
1 star rating

Cutting to the chase, this place BLOWS. There are so many places in the city where you can get good cheap eats, and this is not one of them. Was wandering around the area looking for cheesy goodness and thought this place might fit the bill. I wasn't expecting anything great, just average americanized mexican food. What we got was worse than that. The nachos were COMPLETELY soggy (as in soaked through with tomato water). No flavor. The chicken enchilada was bland and lifeless. It was like they took a boiled shredded chicken threw it in some wrapper with some uncooked beans from a can and served it out there with a heaping of sour cream. My fiance's artichoke quesadilla didn't fare much better. TOTALLY flavorless. It was actually as if they set out with the goal of removing all flavor from their ingredients. We also distinctly noticed how incredibly sub par the ingredients were and this is coming from people who generally don't care about stuff like that. Atmosphere? Worse than Mcdonalds. RUN AWAY!!

Daniel C.
Boston, MA
2 star rating

So let me get this straight... you don't get free chips and salsa while waiting for your meal? What planet is this? When asking the waitress about this she replied, "You have to 'ask' for it." I really didn't feel like clarifying whether you have to "ask" for the free chips and salsa or if it was something on the menu you had to "order." This is all besides the point. I've enjoyed the Jamaican Jerk Chicken burrito I've had at Blockheads exponentially more than the Blackened Smokey-whatever Chicken burrito I got here. I mean, it was good but when you can have something just as good if not better for a little cheaper elsewhere, why would you come here again? (plus Blockheads has round the clock margarita specials, whereas you will get a good margarita here but it will be triple the price unless you show up at the right time for the specials) I have to give it a 2er just because I don't see the point of coming back here when Blockheads is in existence.

K N.
Los Angeles, CA
2 star rating
CUSTOMERS do NOT come first...

The food is San Francisco Mission Style Mexican food, which is as "gringo"-fied as you can get. Seriously, go to Chipotle, or if you can hunt down a Baja Fresh, you'd get a way better meal. The service SERIOUSLY SUCKS here. I'll eat here if I'm craving some mediocre guacamole, or something that reminds me I should return to California for some REAL mexican food. Better yet, I'll go south to Rosarito for some deep fried lobsters...

MARIANA L.
New York, NY
1 star
And I thought I was the only one that kept getting the guacamole excuse... In fact, I don't think I have every actually received guacamole any time that I have ever ordered it.
The service is mediocre at best. My mother dined there and got a cockroach in her burrito. This is a woman who is deathly afraid of roaches, and never wants to go back to that area of town again...
My friends who ate there last weekend ALL got food poisoning the next day, (of course, they didn't consult me before going there). Obviously, my experience was not unique.

Steve C.
New Hyde Park, NY
2 star rating
The food is really great but the service is absolutely horrible! Every time I have ordered from Harry's they have forgotten the guacomole- EVERY TIME! And every time I called to tell them they gave me some crazy story. "He must have dropped it on the way" and a slew of others. They charged me for the guacamole every time. And the worst part is that they offered 2 free lunches for my trouble and when I called to redeem them, they told me they had no idea what I was talking about! Harry's get your act together!

I have learned my lesson and will now research before I choose a new place in NY and that is a F.A.C.T.

A: Is for Art that allows you to be!

Following a hugely popular run in Japan and before embarking on a world tour the work of Shinjo Ito, is enjoying a stay at Milk Gallery located at 450 West 15th. Ito's 100 sculptures and engravings are here to enjoy and to bring enlightenment until March 20th. Buddhists believe that the experience of being in the presence of an image of the Buddha can be a reminder of one's potential for compassion, inherent in all humans. At Milk you are surrounded by the spirals of Buddha's. Shinjo Ito, a renowned Buddhist artist and the founder of the Shinnyo-en order of Buddhism created the images of Buddha to inspire quiet contemplation, but they have also become the objects of artistic value. In Japan, 300,000 people went to see the exhibition during its 54-day run. Ito is known to his followers, an estimated 900,000 worldwide. The show celebrates the centennial of Ito's birth in 1906 and is the first time this work has been presented to the general public outside of a religious context, in an artistic setting. Ito, whose first name, Shinjo, means "True Vehicle," and his wife, Tomoji, founded the Shinnyo-en ("borderless garden of truth") school, based on the Nirvana Sutra, the final teaching of the Buddha delivered on his deathbed, 2,500 years ago. A passage in the sutra was the inspiration for Ito's first major sculpture, the "Great Parinirvana," depicting the reclining Buddha, who had raised himself on one arm to address his followers in the moment before his death and entry into final nirvana. Completed in 1957 in only three months, the 5-meter-long, or 16-foot, resin Buddha is Ito's largest work and Shinnyo-en's central devotional image. "The Buddha is a man, not a god, who found enlightenment". In addition to the spiritual images, sculptures of family members most notably his two sons, who both died one at 2 and the other when he was 15. My favorite piece was a wood carving of Achalanatha. A part of the Vidyarajas he is a king of mystic or magical knowledge symbolizing the power and the victory of the five Jinas over the passions and desires. His appearance is fierce and angry, face menacing, his brows knit together. His symbol, the vertically held sword aids him to combat the 'three poisons': greed, anger and ignorance. In the left hand he holds a lasso to catch and bind the evil forces and to prevent them from doing harm. Achalanatha, having taken a vow to prolong the life of the faithful by six months and to give them an unshakable resolution to conquer the forces of evil, is sometimes invoked in this respect as the 'prolonger of life'. Behind him is a wall of fire with a phoenix, thus dying to himself he is reborn again. Every religion has something to teach us and art to enjoy and that is an enlightening F.A.C.T.

F: Is for the grade of this years Academy Awards

How do you bore one million people? Answer: this years academy awards. In a season where we learned that there can't be an award show unless someone else pens your words we get host Jon Stewart's inane remarks. I don't watch a lot of television so I hadn't a clue who Jon Stewart was and I pray to God I never have to watch him again. I am a writer and the strike effected me. I neither find it funny nor tasteful when he joked about the end of the writers' strike stating "tonight, welcome to the makeup sex." Though I am not a Hillary Clinton fan I don't find calling "Away From Her" the story of a woman who forgets her own husband, Hillary Clinton's choice for feel-good movie of the year, funny. Remarking Diablo Cody got a pay cut going from stripper to screenwriter was certainly not in good taste and if I were her I'd sue!. Not being a violent person I seriously wanted to scream "Shut UP!" and I was not the only one. Everyone watching this rendition of what once was a program we loved, now had us bored and angered. Oscars eightieth year was old, tired and in need. The brief, historic clips made no sense. Movies with binoculars, bees and other senseless items had me wondering who really wrote this crap! You know it's bad when the best moment was the winning of a documentary called "Taxi to the Dark Side". Though I am a huge fan of Michael Moore's "Sicko" this documentary about an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death while in the custody of the U.S. military had me praising those trying to bring this to the publics attention." The filmmaker who accepted the award offered one of the few politicized statements of the night, alluding to Abu Ghraib and wars in the Middle East deserved getting applause for saying "Let's hope we can turn this country around. Move away from the dark side and back to the light." I also perplexed at the best song category which normally I love. As much as I loved "Enchanted" I could see the song "Raise the Roof" winning but when "Falling Slowly," from the film "Once" won I was in shock. As the song played all the people in the room where I was watching turned to each other and asked if the others liked it and none of us did. We were all musicians and we hated it. Though the speeches of the winners were grateful my ears and my taste were incensed. Maybe you had to see the movie to appreciate it. But there was yet one more things to shock and surprise. Marion Cotillard won for best actress for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose." I'm sorry the film is in French. I can understand her winning the foreign press award along with Julie Christie but she lost to Julie at the SAG awards and aren't the academy's voted on by the same people? However Her dress was the best of the evening and her speech "You've rocked my life, you've truly rocked my life!" "Thank you life! Thank you love! It is true, there some angels in this city!" made her incredibly grateful.

It was a stunningly great year for film yet it turned out to be just like most of the dresses and hairstyles unkempt, unglamorous and not at all up to par and that is a F.A.C.T.