Monday, April 15
Apr. 16th, 2024 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
How nice it is to be able to go outside in lighter clothes, and not have to wait for the car to warm up.
I went to town today for pottery.
I got there early enough that some other people were around. It's a bit annoying that they are all surprised to see me, but whatever. I mean, they KNOW I come do pottery, all it takes is me being one hour earlier and they're still working.
There was a meeting for the pottery "representatives", so some of them work on other days but I know them, so they stuck their heads in to say "hi", which I thought was nice of them.
Then they all left and I worked by myself.
I trimmed what I made last week, threw another piece, and glazed several items that were bisqued and ready.
Glazing kind of makes or breaks a piece, so you can put tons on time into one, and then have the glaze look awful. This is why we talk about "kiln gods".
My Sweetie was climbing at the climbing gym while I was at pottery, and it sounds like he had a good night.
He also found a replacement for the defunct electrical outlet on top of the stove and installed it. Yay!
We had enough food that I didn't HAVE to get groceries, so I opted not to do so. My husband said he could always pick up a few things if we really need them.
"Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. The capital and largest city is Riyadh; the kingdom also hosts Islam's two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina."
Religious tourism is a very real thing. The Hajj is an annual event, where the faithful Muslims come to Mecca and Medina. It is sort of...strongly advised that every Muslim must, if they possibly are able, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca/Medina at least once in their lifetime. Even Muslims from nations that are not on good terms with Saudi Arabia may be granted permission to visit. This swells the country to over three times it's normal population, and this literally generates something in the ball park of ten billion dollars of revenue.
It also costs Saudi Arabia billions and billions of dollars to cope with the waste management and sanitation and the transportation of these millions of faithful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj
There has been human habitation in this region for a very long time, one of the first settled areas outside of Africa. Believed to be one of the earliest regions to domesticate animals. In this time, Saudi Arabia was not a desert, but green and fertile.
Pre-Islam was tribal/kingdoms.
Islam was FROM this region, "The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 CE. In the early 7th century, Muhammad united the various tribes of the peninsula and created a single Islamic religious polity.[19] Following his death in 632, his followers expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering territory in the Iberian Peninsula in the west to parts of Central and South Asia in the east[citation needed] in a matter of decades.[20][21][22] Arabia became a more politically peripheral region of the Muslim world as the focus shifted to the newly conquered."
Then it was part of the Ottoman Empire for several centuries, having "suzerainty", which I THINK is sovereignty, so they were a bit like a colony, and still kind of ruled themselves while also being part of the Ottoman Empire.
Then the Saudi era:"The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as the Al Saud, began at the town of Diriyah in Nejd in central Arabia with the accession as emir of Muhammad bin Saud on 22 February 1727." (Still under Ottoman suzerainty).
This takes us all the way into the 1900's, and the Arab Revolt (British interests in the Arabian Peninsula vs. the Ottoman Empire). This is all the stuff with T.E. Lawrence, who was all sneaky and everything talking all the Arab nobility into revolting and siding with the British.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
By the end of WWI, the Ottoman Empire was overthrown and in part of what is now Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Hejaz formed, and the other half of what is now Saudi Arabia was Nejd. Those two kingdoms united in 1932 to become modern Saudi Arabia.
Oil was found in 1938, which allowed the otherwise neutral country of Saudi Arabia to support the Allies in WW II by selling them oil/gas.
So, now they are very wealthy, and in a lot of conflicts, which I won't go into.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, follows Sharia law, and does not have any political parties or elections. It is "not free". There is a Prime Minister, but that is either the King, or the Crown Prince. The numerous Royal Family dominates pretty much all levels of government.
It is considered the worst of the worst for human rights.
It is mostly desert, with all the typical desert creatures like oryx, cheetahs, desert wolves, jerboas, and so on. It is famous for it's amazing Arabian horse breed.
There are great attempts at increasing its domestic food production, and part of that challenge is fresh water, so it's not working that well.
What is kind of scary, is that Saudi Arabia is actually buying up a LOT of agricultural land in other places, like the United States, Argentina, and Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia
https://youtu.be/tP68QwVvAZk?si=spVGh2HAxeN41cos
How nice it is to be able to go outside in lighter clothes, and not have to wait for the car to warm up.
I went to town today for pottery.
I got there early enough that some other people were around. It's a bit annoying that they are all surprised to see me, but whatever. I mean, they KNOW I come do pottery, all it takes is me being one hour earlier and they're still working.
There was a meeting for the pottery "representatives", so some of them work on other days but I know them, so they stuck their heads in to say "hi", which I thought was nice of them.
Then they all left and I worked by myself.
I trimmed what I made last week, threw another piece, and glazed several items that were bisqued and ready.
Glazing kind of makes or breaks a piece, so you can put tons on time into one, and then have the glaze look awful. This is why we talk about "kiln gods".
My Sweetie was climbing at the climbing gym while I was at pottery, and it sounds like he had a good night.
He also found a replacement for the defunct electrical outlet on top of the stove and installed it. Yay!
We had enough food that I didn't HAVE to get groceries, so I opted not to do so. My husband said he could always pick up a few things if we really need them.
"Saudi Arabia is the only country with a coastline along both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, and most of its terrain consists of arid desert, lowland, steppe, and mountains. The capital and largest city is Riyadh; the kingdom also hosts Islam's two holiest cities of Mecca and Medina."
Religious tourism is a very real thing. The Hajj is an annual event, where the faithful Muslims come to Mecca and Medina. It is sort of...strongly advised that every Muslim must, if they possibly are able, to make a pilgrimage to Mecca/Medina at least once in their lifetime. Even Muslims from nations that are not on good terms with Saudi Arabia may be granted permission to visit. This swells the country to over three times it's normal population, and this literally generates something in the ball park of ten billion dollars of revenue.
It also costs Saudi Arabia billions and billions of dollars to cope with the waste management and sanitation and the transportation of these millions of faithful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajj
There has been human habitation in this region for a very long time, one of the first settled areas outside of Africa. Believed to be one of the earliest regions to domesticate animals. In this time, Saudi Arabia was not a desert, but green and fertile.
Pre-Islam was tribal/kingdoms.
Islam was FROM this region, "The Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca in about 570 CE. In the early 7th century, Muhammad united the various tribes of the peninsula and created a single Islamic religious polity.[19] Following his death in 632, his followers expanded the territory under Muslim rule beyond Arabia, conquering territory in the Iberian Peninsula in the west to parts of Central and South Asia in the east[citation needed] in a matter of decades.[20][21][22] Arabia became a more politically peripheral region of the Muslim world as the focus shifted to the newly conquered."
Then it was part of the Ottoman Empire for several centuries, having "suzerainty", which I THINK is sovereignty, so they were a bit like a colony, and still kind of ruled themselves while also being part of the Ottoman Empire.
Then the Saudi era:"The emergence of what was to become the Saudi royal family, known as the Al Saud, began at the town of Diriyah in Nejd in central Arabia with the accession as emir of Muhammad bin Saud on 22 February 1727." (Still under Ottoman suzerainty).
This takes us all the way into the 1900's, and the Arab Revolt (British interests in the Arabian Peninsula vs. the Ottoman Empire). This is all the stuff with T.E. Lawrence, who was all sneaky and everything talking all the Arab nobility into revolting and siding with the British.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._E._Lawrence
By the end of WWI, the Ottoman Empire was overthrown and in part of what is now Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Hejaz formed, and the other half of what is now Saudi Arabia was Nejd. Those two kingdoms united in 1932 to become modern Saudi Arabia.
Oil was found in 1938, which allowed the otherwise neutral country of Saudi Arabia to support the Allies in WW II by selling them oil/gas.
So, now they are very wealthy, and in a lot of conflicts, which I won't go into.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy, follows Sharia law, and does not have any political parties or elections. It is "not free". There is a Prime Minister, but that is either the King, or the Crown Prince. The numerous Royal Family dominates pretty much all levels of government.
It is considered the worst of the worst for human rights.
It is mostly desert, with all the typical desert creatures like oryx, cheetahs, desert wolves, jerboas, and so on. It is famous for it's amazing Arabian horse breed.
There are great attempts at increasing its domestic food production, and part of that challenge is fresh water, so it's not working that well.
What is kind of scary, is that Saudi Arabia is actually buying up a LOT of agricultural land in other places, like the United States, Argentina, and Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia
https://youtu.be/tP68QwVvAZk?si=spVGh2HAxeN41cos
