Hasta La Gadget!

WASHINGTON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to review Oklahoma’s method of execution by taking up a case brought by three death row inmates.

The high court, which just last week allowed an execution to go ahead in the state over the objection of its four liberal members, will decide whether the three-drug process used by prison officials violates the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

I’m really bad at packing.

Or rather: I’m really good at it… at least in my head.

The moment I have my itinerary, I start running through every minute of the trip, anticipating the essential items I’ll need, the emergency supplies I should have for every likely scenario, and the right mix of comfortable clothes that – let’s be honest here – will look cute in the thousands of photos I’m sure to take.

The week before a trip, the luggage comes out and I start throwing things in. And no matter how many hours I’ve already invested, there’s always the last-minute run to Target for a sudden must-have and there’s always the precise placing – and replacing – of everything in the bag through the wee hours of the night before an early morning flight.

So when the baggage carousel came to a halting stop and my luggage wasn’t anywhere in sight, I pretty much freaked out.

Packing In Challenges

I had already been nervous about this trip. It was my first time traveling completely alone and here I was in Ecuador with only 10 Spanish words in my vocabulary and not a single English-speaking friend on the continent.

But ever since I saw a photo in a middle-school class, I had the Galapagos Islands on my must-experience list. I just couldn’t believe the place was real, so I wanted to see the crazy animals, study the unique landscape, and experience the equator sun on my own.

I spent countless nights scouring the Internet for the itinerary of my dreams. The best way to see the islands was by boat. Sure, I get seasick, but I could deal. Half of the endemic wildlife was under the sea. Sure, I’m not an animal person (ironically!) and especially have a fear of fish (seriously!), but it would be worth it. And the trips all started in Quito, the highest capital city on the globe. Sure, I get altitude sickness, but I was ready to beat it. I was ready to conquer all of the above — even if I didn’t speak a lick of the native tongue.

But since I did have all these hoops, my last-minute “splurge?” Allowing myself to switch to a bigger suitcase.

Some comforts from home helped ease the anxieties. I threw in a pair of favorite flip-flops that had seen better days but wouldn’t give me blisters, a new Tommy Bahamas rash guard that arrived in the mail just hours before, and even an extra stash of my choice feminine products because there’s nothing like trying to figure out a foreign brand when it’s that time of the month.

After a final zip, I was ready for anything.

Carousel of Anxiety

With all that overthinking, over-preparing, and over-packing, everything was supposed to go smoothly. Until my bag didn’t follow me to this foreign land.

The Ecuadorian airline, TAME, had split our 9 a.m. flight into two smaller planes day of (is that even allowed?!) because their normal plane was under maintenance. A gate agent had slipped me onto the 9:30 a.m. flight last minute instead of the 11:00 a.m. one, which I was assigned. Of course when I arrived in Quito, I was told my luggage was on the second. So I waited.

The carousel stopped again. It wasn’t there. And neither were the bags for the majority of my fellow passengers.

Suddenly I heard screaming, yelling, and even riot-like chanting erupt. But it was all in Spanish.

After hours of piecing together conversations in broken English, way too many minutes on roaming phone calls to a local guide for my tour group who helped me translate, and befriending fellow American tourists, I learned that none of our luggage was arriving today. The earliest was the following afternoon — 8 hours after my morning flight to the Galapagos.

I started going through every item in my luggage in my head: Could I really go on this precisely planned trip without every handpicked essential? Of course, I had my medicine, electronics, and a change of clothes in my carry-on backpack. But no swimsuit for the snorkeling trips, no clothes for the hikes, and not enough underwear for my sanity, so I quickly decided no. I tried to rebook on a different tour that started two days later. It was too late to change. Maybe I should just cancel the Galapagos portion all together and stay in Quito until my luggage showed up.

By this time, my head had been spinning for 15 hours straight since I found out the flights were split, and I needed to get to hotel and clock in some sleep. Just before I got in a cab, I spotted a high-end camping store in an airport mall. With 10 minutes left before closing, I grabbed anything that would fit. And a $170 credit card swipe later, I owned a shirt, shorts, sandals, hat, and little bag. Not pretty, but something to cover up.

When I finally settled into the hotel — the chic Le Parc — it was 10:30 p.m. (I was supposed to arrive at 4:30 p.m.). And that’s when everything changed.

Calls of Compassion

The concierge already knew about my situation — Intrepid Travel’s local guide had filled everyone in and all they wanted was for me to relax. The hotel restaurant was technically about to close, but the staff still served me. As I sat alone, regaining energy over a dinner of shrimp ceviche and sea bass, the receptionist brought me over a cordless phone. Who was calling me here?

It was one of the local guides. He was hellbent on finding my suitcase and exploring options of how to get it out to me via helicopter in the remote islands. Another call came and a different guide wanted to know if I needed anything and what size shirts I wore. And the third was the head of the local office who just wanted to make sure I was okay. Nonstop calls!

Just as I hung up, someone showed up at my dinner table with an Intrepid Travel duffel bag and four company t-shirts. It was one of the guides — off duty and just helping me out!

I jumped up and gave this total stranger a hug, as tears welled up in my eyes.

Here I was, so far from home, and I was being so taken care of. Not only did it show me the hospitality of people around the globe, but also that the language of empathy is universal. As humans, we help each other survive. I threw away my hesitations and began to trust.

I was safe. I was sound. And in fact, I was somewhat having fun already. I booked this solo trip to go on an adventure, and this was part of it. This was helping me carve my story.

Lightening the Load

The next morning, I arrived in the lobby and met my tourmates. The first thing they did? Offer me everything from toothpaste and sunscreen to their extra swimsuits! And as we traveled to catch our flight to the Islands, I picked up things along the way — toiletries at the airport drugstore and socks at the souvenir stand by the gate… and they all kept tabs.

“What else do you have on your shopping list?” one male traveler asked me.

“Well, we just met, but a bra and underwear,” I admitted.

“Good thing I can’t help you there,” he responded quick-wittedly, as we all burst into laughter.

It felt so good to laugh again. And this is what it was about. The people, the moments, not what I was wearing or what adorable little bag I was carrying everything in. All that is just stuff. What matters are the stories and the human connection.

Four days later, back in Quito, I reunited with my luggage. And as I ran to hug it when the guide took it out of his car trunk (Intrepid’s local guide had been going to check on it daily while I was away and received it the day I got back — four days after promised!), it felt so cold — literally.

Sure it had probably been sitting in some freezing cold cart for days. But also, what used to contain these little pieces of my heart were now just things. I hiked up almost 400 steps looking like an absolute tourist in a Galapagos t-shirt and puffy-paint Galapagos shorts that I found at a roadside gift shop. I swam just inches from penguins and sea lions with nothing but T-shirt and shorts under a wet suit. Heck, if we’re going to get personal here, I even learned to use the foreign tampons that I had never seen in quite that form before.

But now when I look at back at the photos of those moments where I should have been wearing my flattering travel outfits, that’s not what I see.

I see the thrill in my eyes of having just snorkeled feet from a school of tropical fish when days ago, I was terrified of a single goldfish. I see the astonishment I was feeling by the surreal landscape when I was hiking over lava formations as the sun set. I see the confidence in my heart of bonding with new friends, many of who also set on this adventure solo, but here we were, sharing this moment in time, united in the love of discovery.

Back at home, as I took each item out of my suitcase, I chuckled. There was a time when each of these items felt like survival gear. I was so tied to them. But being free of the material goods, I redefined my idea of travel. I redefined my idea of my needs. And, I redefined my idea of, well, me.

Tourist Uniform: I hiked to the peak of Isla Bartolome in this lovely Galapagos shirt-and-shorts ensemble, which I basically bought because they fit.

Immersive Adventures: Jumped into a formation created by relatively new lava during a twilight hike.

Not Holding My Breath: Just don’t ask me what I’m wearing under the wetsuit provided by the Intrepid Tour/Peregrine Adventure’s Queen Beatriz catamaran.

Animal Instincts: Spotting land iguanas in a lovely Intrepid Tour t-shirt.

I have always been the opposite of prolific, taking days if not weeks to fully form what I am thinking, not knowing the point I am trying to make until I’ve sat down and birthed it out.

That’s me on a good day. And since the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo offices, an even deeper impotence has settled in, giving me a taste of true paralysis, desperately wanting to say something but unable to form the words.

I’d been hoping to address the tragedy in Paris from a different perspective, for some reason determined to try and link this act of terror to the Bill Maher/Sam Harris/Ben Affleck/Islam Is Full of Bad Ideas debate. According to Maher and Harris there is, apparently, considerable evidence showing that a majority of the Muslim population holds views that could be considered “extreme.” Although most Muslims would never actually stone a women to death for adultery or kill a person for leaving Islam, there seems to be an acceptance in the general population of such practices. In essence, Maher’s point was that if liberals truly cared about liberal values (human rights, equality for women, gays, minorities etc.) then they should take a hard look at the Muslim world and be brave enough to criticize Islam for promoting bad or anti-liberal ideas.

Maher’s delivery may be too straightforward for some, but I felt the question was important in that it ignored the potential to offend and put as its purpose the presentation of an inquiry, that, in light of recent events, was a conversation worth having.

In my opinion, making the argument specifically about the bad ideas found in Islam is not super productive. It makes it too easy for people to get offended or start cherry-picking verses from the Bible, and before you know it you’ve gotten sidetracked into a mess of emotion and semantics, a who-is-the-worst competition between religions each with their own history of bad ideas and barbarism.

“Now, when we are all in a state of shock after the killing spree in the Charlie Hebdo offices, it is the right moment to gather the courage to think.” ­- Slavoj Žižek

“…I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” – Salman Rushdie

And so Maher’s argument is important because it forces us to do something that the staff at Charlie Hebdo, past and present, would wholeheartedly support. And that is to ask difficult questions. Uncomfortable inquiries often lead to important answers, and so we don’t have the right to be offended, not when there is work to do, not when people are still dying for trying to make a difference.

Therefore onward with the task at hand, I say, hopeful that slow and steady may one day win the race.

Yes, it is predominantly Muslims who currently commit the most extreme of acts of religious or political violence (although ignoring the daily terror rained down by Western governments is a convenient exclusion), and so those in the non-Muslim developed world (I mean you white Christians) have a nice and tidy perch from which to sit and judge.

But don’t pat yourself on the back for coming second place in a race to the bottom. The fact that Christians don’t currently behead people in the name of Christ is a virtue born of circumstance. You are no better or worse than the other guy reading from that other piece of parchment; it’s just that the country and culture you were brought up in happens to be more advanced at the moment.

Switch the education and wealth levels between South Carolina and Saudi Arabia and you would find a great number of American Christians acting violently extreme based on some passages found in the Bible. It would very easily go from anti-gay legislation in Congress to something much uglier. You don’t get a gold star because your fundamentalism is accidentally white-collar.

And this, I hope, is the elusive connection I’ve been tonguing like a missing tooth, that path between the words I’ve heard since the shooting and the more nuanced place I felt was not being reached.

We have to be given more options than Islam is Bad or You’re an Islamophobe. The answers will not come by focusing on the specific ills of an ancient religion, nor will we progress by dropping clichés about Islam being a religion of peace and not all of its followers are bad people.

There is clearly a problem. To deny this reality because of your personal positions is a hindrance to the cause you think you support.

But it’s a problem of circumstance, of culture. And that means it can be solved by evolution, by progress.

Martin Luther King Day was recently celebrated in the US, a holiday now known as a day off work but that should be used as a reminder that just a few decades ago Americans were hanging innocent people dead from trees because their skin was a bit darker.

And now there is a black president.

In my lifetime I have witnessed cultural transformations that would have previously seemed impossible. Mixed race couples becoming a norm. Gays and lesbians on our TVs being represented as normal people with normal problems rather than fruity frivolous comic relief. My holocaust-survivor grandmother once so obstinately protective and fearful of others that we had to hide our non-Jewish lovers from her, now embracing them as family members, now forgetting that it was ever an issue.

Yes, it will take a bit longer for progress to take hold in much of the Muslim world. There are deep-rooted societal norms of patriarchy and misogyny and lack of education that, aided by economic hardship and religious governments, will make cultural evolution difficult.

But it will happen.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Martin Luther King is famed for using this quote during the civil rights movement. I love it. But more than justice which can sometimes never be had, I think it bends towards progress. Things eventually do change.

So ask difficult questions. Have uncomfortable conversations.

When the president of Turkey, supposedly a moderate Muslim nation, says “Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women: motherhood,” along with other alarming religious rhetoric, it’s up to those young Muslims sitting around the table with their parents to resist it, to argue, to try and open eyes. When Saudi Arabia sentences a young man to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for starting an activist website, every moderate in the region must condemn it as loudly as they can. And when America adds to the problem of extremism by playing god and chess with Muslim countries and lives, it’s the duty of every person of conscience to look their country in the mirror and admit their part in the problem.

The record-breaking marches that took place across France after the tragedy were a great sign. French citizens of all backgrounds, Muslims included, getting together to say this is not acceptable, not in our name. Leaders of Islamic nations and even members of extremist groups came out denouncing the terror. Hopefully we are reaching a point where the absurdity of this sort of violence will no longer be tolerated.

Things can and will change, but not on their own. Every step forward was made of a million tiny struggles. The arc bends towards progress, but it’s us that must bend it.

The trial of Sheikh Ali Salman, leader of Bahrain’s main opposition group Al Wefaq, opens on Wednesday, January 28 and marks a massive step away from hopes of an inclusive political settlement in the turbulent country. Bahrain, a U.S. military ally, has failed to implement long-promised reforms. The last few years have seen a steady polarization of the country as a dangerous sectarianism has taken root, threatening the remaining social cohesion of the tiny kingdom.

Bahrain is governed by a ruling family–the king’s uncle has been the unelected prime minister for over 40 years. Leading opposition figures were jailed with long sentences following the widespread 2011 popular uprising, but the main group–Al Wefaq–was allowed to exist and its leadership largely spared prison. It was harassed in the courts and vilified in the state press, yes, but its senior leadership had not been subjected to long-term detention. Until now.

Sheikh Ali Salman was arrested in December and charged with a series of speech-related offenses that could result in a very long jail term. Putting peaceful critics in jail is pretty standard for the Bahrain regime, but Salman’s jailing is a new departure–sending the message that the previously tolerated opposition voices are now to be silenced.

This means no hope for the inclusive political settlement Bahrain needs, no prospect of power sharing, and the likelihood of many more bleak years of unrest and discontent, particularly from Al Wefaq’s Shia base.

This is bad for democracy, bad for the United States, and bad for Bahrain. Last month, influential international credit rating agencies Standard & Poor and Fitch revised Bahrain’s rating from stable to negative, citing a failure to end political unrest.

“Talks between the government and opposition aimed at reaching a political compromise ahead of the November elections came to nothing and the opposition boycotted the elections… There are no plans for further talks and the political stalemate continues,” said Fitch, noting that it “does not expect a comprehensive political solution to be achieved in the near term.”

In October 2014 the World Bank noted that Bahrain’s “financial sector has lagged as international finance corporations shift their activities away from Bahrain, in favor of Dubai, Doha, and Riyadh.” In addition, “the ongoing political stasis continues to hurt Bahrain. Without a political solution, which would facilitate steps to cut expenditure and broaden the private sector, government debt as a percentage of GDP is forecast to increase to 60 percent in 2018, which would be extremely high by GCC standards.”

Targeting Ali Salman makes the sort of political solution Fitch refers to unlikely to the point of inconceivable. The Bahraini government has now sliced away so much of what it formerly recognized as tolerable opposition that there’s virtually nothing left–making street politics and violent dissent all the more likely.

If the authorities decide your criticism of them on social media amounts to an insult, you’ll get a prison sentence–as was the case with human rights defender Nabeel Rajab on January 20. Tear up a picture of the king? Get sentenced to jail, as Zainab al Khawaja was in December. Peacefully call for change as Ali Salman did? Find yourself on trial for incitement to non-compliance with the law and other trumped-up charges.

The U.S. government has rightly warned that targeting a senior leader of the opposition like Salman “will only inflame tensions,” but doesn’t seem to be doing much to spell out what consequences there will be for its military ally should he be sent to jail. Washington hasn’t even called for the dismissal of the case against him.

The Bahraini government could be forgiven for thinking that such a tepid response from the U.S. government means they are free to move against al Wefaq without censure. This looks like the beginning of the end of Bahrain’s tolerated opposition movement.

 On the second ever TechCrunch AppleCast, Darrell Etherington and Kyle Russell discuss the Apple Watch and its battery life, as potentially revealed by leaks this week. We also touch on analyst reports claiming that a 12.9-inch iPad will also include an Apple-made stylus accessory option, and dive into a closer look at Copyfeed, a handy iOS utility. Finally, we preview the week to come,… Read More