mohammadalisalih.com Blog

So, I am not the only man – granted an old one – who is attracted to blonde women; to their golden hairs, rosy cheeks and bright white breasts and thighs.

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I used to only think of Marilyn Monroe’s 1953 movie, “Gentlemen Prefer Blonds,” and James Bond’s 1962 movie, “Dr. No”

But, recently, I read that, during the Roman Empire, rich women in Rome used to import golden hair wigs of blonde women in Scandinavia to add to their power to attract their men.

Also, recently, some 1,000 blondes marched in Riga , capital of the Baltic state of Latvia in the country’s first “Blonde Parade” under the motto: “Make the World a Brighter Place .”

“People need positive emotions, especially in hard times,” said Marika Gederte, the head of the Latvian Blondes Association. Latvia has been the hardest hit of all European Union members by the world-wide economic crisis.

But, during the same week, Cleveland State University communications Professor Kimberly Neuendorf said, after studying the 195 female characters in the first 20 James Bond films, she found that he preferred dark-haired women for his romantic liaisons

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In the Internet, these news items caused a rush of comments about blondes and brunettes. I pick four from Australia , from two women and two men:

Sisters Holly and Kirsty Turnbull, said men reacted differently to blondes and brunettes. Kristy said: “I was blonde all my life and just changed in the last two months, and since then I haven’t had so many sleazes staring at me … The girl underneath the hair should be what is important. I think if a girl is worth knowing, her hair won’t make a difference.”

Her sister conceded that there might be a bit of typecasting going on with men. She said: “I think men tend to know in their mind what they want – so when they’re looking for their ideal, they will or won’t look at a girl based on her hair.”

Robert Bava, a hairdresser, said actor Halle Berry ‘s dark crop in James Bond’s movie, “Die Another Day,” generated much interest among his clients.

Jacques Metzer, professor of psychology, said dark-haired women often represented mystery and intrigue. “They are also commonly associated with Latin-ness . . . and also perhaps a higher rate of romance.” He seemed to imply that blondes were more direct and less romantic and mysterious.

So, where does this leave me? I believe attraction to blonde (and other) women is different from loving them.

Young Muslims in the Washington area were reported to be different from their parents in career choices, assimilation and views of their religion.

Altaf Husain, an activist, said they were concerned that Islam was viewed as dangerous, and that “There will be a silent majority among Muslim youth who say: ‘I’m just not up for that. I won’t be my religion’s spokesperson. I’ll just be spiritual in my private life,’ ”

Nadia Sheikh, a graduate of Georgetown University , said: “We’re realizing we don’t have the voice we need in American politics.” She remembered how, in 2003, FBI agents came to her home to question her family after her sister was observed with their Pakistan-born father photographing local landmarks for a school project.

The Pew Research Center found that young Muslims were more religiously observant than their parents, and Gallup polling showed they were more likely than their parents to think of themselves as Muslim first and American second.

What about dating?

Nadia El-Hillal, a University of Maryland graduate, said: “There is no room for exploration, no way to know if it will go somewhere.” Alejandro Beutel, a Muslim convert at the same university, suggested that mosques and school groups to come up with models for young people to meet one another.

What do I think?

First, In this land of the free and the home of the brave, Muslims can do – and should do – whatever they want, including dating. I know that many Muslims like me, immigrant parents, are concerned about pre-marriage sex. But, I believe there is a difference between dating and sex. Which is better: tell young Muslims not to date so they will not have pre-marriage sex, or tell them to date and make their own judgments about pre-marriage sex?

Second, the subject shouldn’t – and is not – only confined to Muslims. How about Christian “Purity Rings,” a tradition that was originated here, in the US , in the1990s, among Christian affiliated sexual abstinence groups? The rings are sold to adolescents or to parents so that the rings may be given to their adolescent children as gifts.

Third, how about no “Purity Ring”?

Where I came from, and in most parts of the World, a marriage is the cornerstone of a family. I don’t know how a family can be called a family, survive, be moral and produce proud children without the contract of marriage.

I believe it is not the rings, the kisses and the celebrations as much it is the basic idea of sacrifice. A man and a woman sacrifice parts of their time, money and freedom to sign an agreement to establish a family, have children and take care of them.

I believe life is not a picnic, but is an endeavor.

After all these years in America and with all due respect to personal freedom, I just don’t understand establishing a family without a marriage.

I am saying this after I read about these people:

Katrina Stanfield, 25 is raising her 3-year-old daughter without a husband because she and her boyfriend decided that marriage would not work for them.

Heidy Gonzalez, 21, is living with her two children and their father but tying the knot is not a priority for them now.

Emily Smatchetti, 38, is a single mother of a toddler because she had not found the right man and worried that time was running out. So she found a sperm donor.

Nearly four out of every 10 births are now to unmarried women.

About 1.7 million babies were born to unmarried women in 2007, more than double the number in 1980.

Unmarried women accounted for 40 percent of all U.S. births in 2007 — double the percentage in 1980.

I find statistics from 1980 easy to understand because that was the year I came to Washington , DC , for my present job as a foreign correspondent. So, that is how the US has changed, and, like I said, it is not a change that any society should be proud of.

Actually, the percentage of babies born to unmarried women in the US starting to look more like that in many European countries: 66 percent in Iceland , 55 percent in Sweden, 50 percent in France and 44 percent in Britain.

Recently, “The Washington Post” published a story about Jyotsna, a 15-year-old girl who worked in the salt pans of western India, where her parents earn a living coaxing salt from the ground. But, her two younger brothers went to school. “It’s easier to be a boy,” said the girl who was forced to drop out of school at 10 to help her parents.

Her mother said she could not afford to let all her three children study, so she picked her daughter to work. “I regret she has this hard life,” said her mother. “But this is the destiny of girls. It was my destiny, too.”

I was born and grew up in a village which was not unlike this one. Wadi Haj, near Argo, On the Nile River, in northern Sudan, south of the borders with Egypt.

We were six brothers and five daughters. The boys made it all the way to high schools and the universities (I made it all way to Indiana University Graduate School in Journalism). The girls, unlike Jyostsna, were not pulled out of school to help my mother, but, like her, were destined to eventually, stay at home or not, wait for husbands. Four of them finished the nearby elementary school, and, few years later, were married to cousins. And one made it all the way to a teachers institute, became a teacher and married a fellow teacher.

I don’t agree with the clear implication of the “Washington Post” piece that a girl who stays home, waiting to be married, to have children and establish her own family is somehow “inferior” to the one who goes to school.

Obviously, education is important and should add to anyone’s knowledge, abilities and opinions. But establishing a family is important too. And it doesn’t need a paper or a pen.

Which one is more important: family or education? Both, but, in the absence of education, let us not minimized – or, like in this piece, almost insult – the institution of family. Establishing a family is, itself, education, natural education.

And, to add a moral point, I believe that natural knowledge and laws are more perfect – more divine – than the acquired ones.

Like I always say, It is so “beautifully natural” to meet, mate, have children, take care of them, so, later on, they will take care of their parents and grandparents.

Playing cards, there was three men on one side and three women on the other side. From the beginning, the atmosphere was a little confrontational:

Woman One announced to everyone: “We will win!”

Woman Two to Man Two: “You cheat!”

Woman Three to Man One: “I don’t trust you!”

Man One: “I thought it would be a racial war between Whites and Blacks, but it looks like it is going to be a gender war between men and women.”

Man Two (demurring): “I don’t want to get into this; my wife won’t feed me tonight.”

Man Three (not demurring): “We will defeat them. Let us have some drinks. How about Black Russian (vodka and Kahlua)?”

Woman Two: “I will go for White Russian (vodka, Kahlua and cream)”

Man One (jokingly and trying to break the ice): “You women are so tender. You don’t like strong drinks and still think you can defeat us?”

Woman Two (partly serious partly not): “That is sexist.”

Man One: “I will go for Scotch Whisky on the rocks.”

Woman Two: “What do you mean?”

Man One: “Tough men, tough drinks.”

All women, almost together: “Sexism! Arrogance!”

Man One: “I just have a question: why women tend to be over-sensitive? Is it some sort of inferiority complex?”

(Complete silence. No ice-breaker. Change subject).

Earlier during this election year, Senator Hillary Clinton was speaking in an auditorium when a strange noise interrupted the event: two young men shouting “Iron my shirt!”

At first, Clinton seemed as taken aback as the rest of the audience. Then she saw the yellow “Iron My Shirt!” sign one of the young men held, figured out what was being shouted and brushed the interruption aside.

“Ah, the remnants of sexism, alive and well,” she said, and then continued with her remarks.

That is one of the reasons that Clinton loyalists are sympathetic toward Palin and about the hardships she will face in largely uncharted territory as a woman running for national office.

They lived through the excruciating moments of unfairness that Clinton endured during the campaign.

Then came Obama’s decision to tap Sen. Biden as his running mate. That may very well not have been a sexist choice, but from a certain angle, it could be seen to have carried a tinge of old-boy networking—the kind that Palin said in her acceptance speech she had busted up in Alaska. Which is why many Clinton loyalists believe that Palin could help McCain draw some voters from the Clinton base.

This is an opinion from “The Washington Post” and I tend to agree with it:

Before Obama’s star rose high, I was a Hillary supporter. When he surpassed her, I thought he would pick her as Vice-President. When he didn’t, I felt disappointed. When McCain picked Sara Palin, I thought he was trying to win Hillary loyalists. When I saw Palin talking and read about the support she made among Republicans and women, I, now, feel McCain-Palin ticket could win.

Evangelical pastor John Hagee’s views on women are extreme, to say the least. Worse, he says he learned them from the Bible. Now, comes Sara Palin.

Palin, who, like Hagee, is an evangelical Christian, had Republicans during their convention laughing when

she said, “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”

Hagee, in his book “What Every Man Wants in a Woman,” wrote, “Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick.”

Hagee also called the Catholic Church “the great whore” and suggested in a sermon that the Holocaust was God’s will. Also, he called Hitler a “hunter.” He angered not only the Jews, but also Senator McCain, who is dying to get more of the Jewish vote. So he rejected Hagee’s endorsement of him.

It is not the extremism of the Evangelicals that I oppose (I also oppose the extremism of some Muslims). It is their hypocrisy (also that of some Muslims). How are they going to reconcile voting for a religious woman running for a national office while they have basic problems with women rights?

Could it be that Sara Palin will teach them a lesson? I hope so.

But, from what I read about her conservative religious views, she may join the rest of the hypocrites. Being a politician, she already is on my despised and/ or untrusted list (she may be both).

While the seasonal influx to Washington of international lifeguards from Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republicis familiar, this year’s crop includes students from even more distant European reaches. The fall of the dollar against the euro has pushed pool management companies to recruit ever eastward, including in such non-E.U. countries as Russia , Kazakhstan, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan.

The culture shocks they faced reminded me of my own, more than thirty years ago.

One said, “I was surprised to get credit card so quickly. I don’t know anyone in Moldova who has one.” Another: “I got sick of McDonald’s, so tried your Chinese food, but this too was very heavy. I think about my mom’s borscht and plov.”

But they found the Americans friendly: “I went to the post office to get a driver’s license and a kind customer drove me to the nearest vehicle agency.” And: “I helped a woman change her tire and she gave me a ride to Washington .” I remember, in 1972, on my second day in Washington , and in America , a woman’s car stalled at the traffic light and smoke came out. I hurried and offered help.

A new book, “The Lolita Effect,” tend to answer my continuous questions about why my two teenage daughters, and all girls and women for that matter, tend to stand in front of the mirror for long times? Why they always want to look “hot”?

I accept the author’s premise that no one is immune from the media’s influence, and her book offers dozens of helpful, specific ideas for rendering it less potent. But she has this stupid approach. She called for media-literacy education in the K-12 curriculum.

Girls might be asked, why do you think the girl in a magazine is wearing hardly any clothing? If Cosmopolitan were named Sleazy or Trashy, would we read its cover image differently? It thin girls are caught between “naturally” want to look attractive and the commercialization of the natural.

We can help children see that the fashion, beauty and fitness industries — along with the mass media that need their ads — depend on purveying titillating, unrealistic pictures of what it means to be “hot.”

The reviewer, correctly, said: “As my daughter hurtles toward adolescence, it is good to know I can do something more useful than shout ‘You’ll wear that out of the house over my dead body!’

I have come to believe that it is all natural. The mating game: girl attracts boy, boy got bagged, let us get married and have children, children are in school, and are dating, looking for mates.