It's Official: Kebabs Are Bad For You

In the film Casablanca, the corrupt police captain Louis Renault tells Rick Blaine that he's shocked, shocked, to discover there's gambling going on at Rick's Café Américain. A moment later a croupier hands him his winnings.

Yesterday the BBC reported that British health officials are shocked, shocked, to discover kebabs are high in calories, fat, and salt. The favorite food of binge drinkers, harried commuters, and penny-pinching backpackers, this slime on a stick apparently has an average of just under 1000 calories, the entire daily requirement for salt, and well over daily levels of saturated fat. The kebabs were tested without the rich fatty sauce that's usually slathered on as a final step in preparation.

Officials in 76 councils tested the nutritional value of 494 kebabs. The worst offenders had 1,990 calories, more than twice the daily requirement of salt, and more than three times the daily requirement of fat. More than a third included ingredients not on the labels, including several with pork. Two of the kebabs that included pork were sold by shops that claimed to be halal, meaning that they supposedly followed Muslim dietary rules that forbid pork.

But the question remains--will this make the fattest country in Europe change its dietary habits? Probably not, considering that everyone already knows kebabs are bad for you. This is probably why they are mostly eaten by people who have just been on a bender.

On the positive side, discarded kebabs make great foraging for urban England's growing population of wild animals. When I lived in Elephant and Castle, the local fox, dubbed "smokey", lived well off of kebabs and other junk food he found in the dumpster and on the sidewalk.

After Captain Renault pockets his winnings, he blithely orders Rick's Cafe closed. He's under political pressure to do so. I wonder, after the officials at the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services made their report and satisfied their bosses, did they light up a fag and pop down to the nearest pub for a pint?

Muslim Lingerie A Hot Item in Syria

Talk about breaking stereotypes.

The BBC just ran an interesting article on the Syrian tradition of presenting a new bride with lingerie. Apparantly the female relatives all get together and buy frilly g-strings and bras for the lucky woman. It's gotten hi-tech now with heart-shaped underwear that sing songs, and sound-sensitive bras that fall off when you clap. Reminds me of that old American TV commerical for The Clapper ("Clap on! Clap off! The Clapper!!!).

Since this all happens within the context of marriage, there's nothing unIslamic about it. In fact, the article states that in Islamic law, not getting satisfied is valid grounds for a woman to divorce a man. I didn't know that. I wonder how often that actually makes it though the courts? One of the producers of this stuff points out that it actually helps support religion, because if a couple is satisfied with each other they won't go looking elsewhere. A sizzling home life stops you from sinning.

There's an entire street dedicated to lingerie at the Damascus souk. I missed it somehow when I was there in 1994. Perhaps I saw women's clothing and ducked down another alley, assuming I wouldn't be welcome. Or perhaps I was too fascinated by that amazing bookshop behind the Blue Mosque. My loss!

New Pyramid Found in Egypt

It seems strange to say, but archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown pyramid in Egypt. Only the base has survived, standing to a height of five meters and completely covered by the desert sands of Saqqara, on the outskirts of Cairo. This brings the number of known pyramids in Egypt to 118.

It was probably the tomb of the mother of King Teti (ca. 2323-2291 BC) founder of the Sixth Dynasty. Women's pyramids were much smaller than the big pharoahs' pyramids we're used to seeing in pictures and on television. When I was in Egypt back in 1991 I crawled around in a couple. They'd crumbled enough that I could worm my way between the blocks and get into the interior.

After I got out of one an Egyptian said, "You shouldn't do that. There are scorpions in there."

Ooops. I guess Anubis didn't want me yet.

The BBC has a cool slideshow about it here.

The Middle East: Safe For Travelers?

The BBC has reported that a group of Western tourists and their guides in remote southern Egypt have been released after being kidnapped by gunmen ten days ago. They were being held for ransom until Egyptian, German, and Italian special forces attacked the kidnappers, killed several, and freed the hostages unhurt.

This sort of thing always makes people shake their heads and ask, "Why do you like traveling in the Middle East?" Well, I've never had any problems in the Middle East, unless you count the usual huckterism you get when you're a relatively wealthy visitor to a relatively poor country, or the insane driving practices of your average Egyptian cabbie. In fact, the Middle East is one of my favorite places to travel. You get fine hospitality, lots of ancient sites, beautiful architecture, cheap travel, and good food. What more could you ask for?

Of course there are dangers, and there are no-go areas. The border with Sudan and Chad, where these folks were, is one of them. People need to use their heads when they travel and understand that "Adventure" tours are not always the wisest way to go. There's nothing adventurous about going to a war zone just so you can brag to your friends.

I've been to Morocco, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan, and the only place that anyone robbed me was Pakistan. One success and two attempts. No violence. That's not as bad as the time a gang of young thugs wanted to beat me up in a shopping mall in Connecticut (of all places!) until I pointed out we were in front of about a hundred people and they'd go to jail. It's also not as bad as the three times my car was broken into in Tucson. All in all, I feel safer in the Middle East. But you got to keep you wits about you, like anywhere else.

The Day I Didn't See A Yeti

A BBC reporter wrote earlier this week about his hunt for the mande barung, a jungle version of the famous yeti or Bigfoot, supposedly to be found in the jungles of eastern India on the border with Bangladesh. He interviewed eyewitnesses and came across some interesting footprints, but didn't see the creature itself. Go figure.

As an agnostic in all things both spiritual and mundane, I can't utterly discount the possibility of giant human-like creatures in the world's remoter regions, but my own experience in the Himalayas makes me doubtful.

Back in 1995, I hiked to the Annapurna Base Camp, at an altitude of 5,050 meters deep in the Himalayas. I'd already heard talk of the yeti, and even met a Sherpa who claimed to have seen one. He pointed to a rock just off the trail and said he saw one sitting on it. When I asked what it looked like he said, "It looked like a man."

Once I got to the base camp, I stayed in a stone hut nearby and the next morning went exploring. Pretty soon I came across some amazing tracks in the snow. They looked for all the world like the footprints of a barefoot man, except very large and strangely rounded. I followed them for about a hundred meters onto a part of the slope shielded by a high outcropping of rock. This part of the slope hadn't received any sunlight, and so the snow hadn't melted at all. The tracks there were different--much smaller and obviously animal in origin. I'm hardly an expert tracker, but to me they looked like a fox's. I retraced my steps and looked at the "yeti" footprints. They were obviously on the same trail and there were no other tracks in the vicinity, and nowhere for the yeti to run off onto the rocks and a fox to miraculously take up the trail.

So this is what happened: the snow on one part of the trail got warmed by the sun and the tracks partially melted, becoming wider and rounder. The claws became "toes" and the pads of the feet joined into one oval mass. I've read up on this phenomenon and apparently it's quite common.

Oh well. If I hadn't let my curiosity push me into tracking a yeti, I might have become a believer.