Academics, AIDS and Ace of Spades

None of them have anything to do with the other. Absolutely nothing.

A bunch of students who were sent abroad on scholarships to go to college have been called back to the Sandbox to join the unemployment line. 512 students have been "ejected" from "the King's Scholarship Program due to poor performances and frequent absences." To prevent the same from happening to others, orientation courses are being organized that students will have to attend before going to universities abroad. Probably not a bad idea. Students leaving the Sandbox to go to school in other countries have got to be stymied by the vast differences from what they were accustomed to. For starters, classes will be mixed. There will be male and female genders in the same classrooms, together - unless, of course, you're planning on going to an all-men or an all-women college. Another difference is that there probably isn't going to a Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice lurking in the shadows to keep you in line and to prevent you from succumbing to the wicked ways of the West - whatever they may be. It is too bad, really, that the 512 that have been ejected from the program couldn't find it in themselves to take advantage of such a fabulous and fantastic opportunity. How many countries actually PAY for one's education AND include a stipend so that one needn't to be bothered with a trivial little thing like having a job to support oneself? Yeah. Go ahead and complain about the stipend not being "enough." I'm guessing that you probably aren't going to get a lot of sympathy from your college classmates on that...

Interesting that this morning, at five o'clock when I was on-line perusing articles in the Arab News, one of the headlines was something like "45 AIDS cases found in pre-marital tests." So, this afternoon, when I finally have time to be at the computer, I come back and click on Arab News to get the article to post a link - and it is gone. No longer on the on-line version of the paper - I went back through my "history," to try to get to it, and when I click on it, this is what comes up - nothing. The article has gone "poof" and off to the internet circular file, somewhere. [Someone must know how to retrieve a "cached" page - is that what it's called - that shows that something actually once existed on the internet, even after it has been removed? I have no clue how to try to find something like that...] No matter. Today's Saudi Gazette has the article as well, although not quite as "in depth" as Arab New's was. The testing is done to "protect future generations from serious hereditary diseases and fatal viruses." So, what I want to know is, if the premarital test comes back positive with something - AIDS, hepatitis, or some other fatal or infectious disease - are the couples still allowed to get married? Just curious...

And finally, just because I found a comment that was so amusing... One of the blogs I regularly read is Ace of Spades HQ, however, I don't often read many of the comments. I got sucked into one of Ace's posts this morning, though, and once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Ace is onto some big story and before he actually gives it to us to read, he is looking for an "election lawyer." I started reading the comments and there were quite a few people who have stepped up to the plate to volunteer their services, legal and otherwise. The comment that cracked me up was No. 58: "Just wait until Ace needs a mildly retarded slacker who drinks and smokes too much... See who shines then bitches!" Okay. Don't ask me why. But I just found that hysterical after reading the 57 comments before that one. Must just be my warped sense of humor... I commented, too, saying that I was going to spend time thinking about how to use the comment that I thought was sooo damn funny. And now I can go about the rest of the day. My work, here, is done...