How much?!?

Eight dollars - EIGHT DOLLARS! - for a pillow and a blanket on a plane on American Airlines. Jet Blue and US Airways have been charging seven dollars. Who knew? Probably everyone that flies domestically. Thankfully pillows and blankets come standard on international flights and certainly in business class. Eight dollars. Cheesy. Just seems cheesy. Food was eliminated a while ago - unless you want to dole out $5.00 for peanuts pretzels or a $8.00 for a turkey sandwich. I am okay with that. Personally I never understood why a "meal" was served on relatively short flights to begin with. What, you can't go two or three hours without a meal? And beverages other than soda, coffee or water have always cost money unless you fly first class, domestically. Eight dollars. For a blanket and pillow. Unbelievable. Oh, here's something interesting I heard on the news recently - there is a service that will ship your luggage for you. I guess some people have been shipping their luggage for a while, now. [I cannot imagine how expensive that would be for us - from here to the States.] As if flying isn't already miserable enough - with TSA employees removing "stuff" from bags and not being held accountable, and with tighter security measures, now airlines are charging for pillows. I remember seeing something about an airline eliminating seats and making you fly standing up. Ryanair wanted to do it for flights lasting less than an hour and a half. Probably won't be too long before all flights will be "stand-up," and we'll be nekked, wrapped in Saran wrap and duct-taped in place. Geez. Something to look forward to.

I so want my snark to shine through on this, but just don't have it in me this morning. Just not in the mood, I guess. It goes back to the posts from last week about the 20-year-old woman who broke a glass over the head of a school headmistress which was first reported with having something to do with a mobile phone. Sabria Jawhar wrote about the way female students are treated - how they are treated like children - and she was right. Having a near riot at a girls' school over mobile phones which just happen to be against the rules is just a tad overboard. So what that the principal was attacked by a group of students who had their phone confiscated? Ho hum. Boring.

That poor little 12-year-old girl who was sold by her father to his 80-year-old pedophile cousin for 85,000 riyals is on her own. No one wants to help her. The story is being back-peddled some with an "anonymous" source saying the girl isn't really 12. She's 15. The who ordeal is just one big exaggeration and "the media [has] blown the entire case out of proportion, and that divorced couples [the 12/15 year-old's parents] tend to divert from the facts and claim things agains each other, which is well known in the legal system." Well, okay, then. Good to know.

This is the best this guy could come up with? "An Asian man who is accused of raping an Indian boy has claimed that he carried out the crime because his wife cheated on him back home." [Emphasis, mine.] Say, what?!! Oh, and it is very important to know the nationality of those involved, apparently. [Of course, when no nationality is mentioned with know the person is a democrat Saudi. We are all wise to that game, at this point.] The article itself is very brief - but that first sentence - identifying what nationalities were involved lets us know what is really important.

Ohmygosh. Two men and three women who were together at a restaurant [no nationality identified - care to guess?] were detained "on charges of 'khulwa' - being alone without the company of a legal guardian - on Sunday." They were "removed" from the premises and "led away by Hai'a staff after failing to produce evidence of a legal relationship between them."

Go here* and look at the cartoon. I've blogged about this on several occasions. Someone who just walks right up and cuts you off at the check-out counter at the grocery store! Happens all the time. Truly I had never experienced this before coming to the Sandbox. If it wasn't the "norm," then there wouldn't be an editorial cartoon about it, would there?


*Which just happens to be the page of the "local" news, here, where you can avail yourself to all sorts of other newsy tidbits.