WiFi at Mecca during Muslim Hajj pilgrimage season
Link to Wi-Fiplanet.com item.Thanks to Aptilo Networks and Tropos Networks, after the estimated three million pilgrims walk seven times counter-clockwise around the Kaaba and kiss (or simply point at) the sacred Black Stone, they can then MapQuest directions to Muzdalifah and perhaps IM a friend or give them a call using VoWi-Fi, so they can meet up and gather the pebbles they will need to perform the ritual of Stoning the Devil at Mina. Pilgrims can also access the streaming video at the official Ministry of Hajj web site, which sagely warns (in English), "Be peaceful, orderly, and kind. No crushing.
Incidentally, on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's website for the Ministry of Hajj, there's one page titled "How modern technology has been employed to facilitate the Hajj." Snip:
A sophisticated broadcasting network has been installed to cope with the requirements of the Hajj. The safety and comfort of the Hajjis has become a major concern for the authorities, necessitated by their sheer volume in recent years. The newly laid floor tiles were made of specially developed heat-resistant marble, and to further ensure the comfort of worshippers the whole structure is cooled by one of the world's largest air-conditioning units.
the latest
latest episodes
I'm not a prayer
I just crush a lot
"I'm crushing your head!"
#6 D3: Extra bonus points for cultural heritage sensitivity for you. Moving on, I wonder if they have the porn blockers on?
A televangelist using technology to *preach* his religion onto others is not the same as a Hajji using technology for *personal* use while on a religious pilgrimage.
Nobody is asking you to be sympathetic towards something you deem "superstition." At the same time, nobody wants to hear you preach your beliefs.
Thank you.
You guys are just mad that while you're wearily sashaying though the same tired polemical foxtrot, my (previous) comment (although an admittedly ridiculous non-sequitor) not only eschews racism, religious intolerance, and luddite-ism, but manages to make its puns (incredibly) on BOTH terminii of the stanza; finally, for those of you not in on the hip(hop) tip(top) the lyrics were from a hit song by (drum roll).......
big pun.
I have a feeling that this comment represents the pinnacle of my brief commenting career, so I've decided to officially retire. Any mistakes have been my own; my triumphs I owe to you, the public.
Note: A number of puerile comments have been removed from this thread. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I know I promised to retire from commenting, but I've thought about it over the holiday week, and I guess I feel like I still have something to offer. So I'll probably keep commenting. I can'tpromise they'll all be great, but I'll do my best.
Seriously.
Hello?
Hey, a quarter!
Geez, I guess I must have fallen asleep. It's kind of cool in here after everyone leaves. The ceilings are low, but there's a little bit of an echo, so I stayed up singing Tom Petty songs for a while. They're fun to sing, especially "You're So Bad". Great song.
I thought I heard something at about 4 AM, like a giant electric razor, but I couldn't figure out if it was inside or outside the room, so I went back to sleep. I might do it again. I have to go to Vermont for a couple of days, but I'll be back. Maybe I'll bring a flashlight and a sleeping bag next time. And marshmallows.
Okay.
I didn't bring a sleeping bag, but I borrowed my brother's Jeep, and brought a foldout couch and a coleman lantern. I picked up a couple of paperbacks from the thrift store, too; I got Future Shock, by Alvin Toffler, and something by Maeve Binchy. It looks like it's for ladies. Also, I found a coffeemaker, which is sweet.
So, you know, mi casa, etc. Just clean up after yourself. If you bring milk for your coffee, either finish it or take it with you. And I wouldn't mind if you left a beer or something, for my trouble.
Those wishing to destabilize the Saudi ruling class can use this to incite lethal flash-mob violence. Not every bin-Laden supporter squats in caves picking lice.
There's a takeout cup of coffee on the floor in front of the couch that hasn't yet turned that weird color that old coffee turns, so I have to assume that someone's been here recently.
I like this place. I've been coming here in the afternoons and just sitting and thinking on the couch. I drew a thing on the wall this morning that looks like a cartoon version of the Rape of the Sabine Women, but I can't draw heads very well, so all the soldiers looked like Tintin.
That got me wondering if the Northern half of Belgium hates Tintin for being a French-speaking Belgian like their Southern compatriots, and whether if, as seems likely, the country were to split, the North would sue for partial custody of the intrepid boy reporter.
I thought about that for a while, maybe two hours or so, and then I stretched my legs, and accidentally kicked the takeout cup of coffee, which flew clear across the room toward the back, where it's dark.
I didn't hear it hit, though. How big is this place?
I slept here the last two nights. It gets cold in the morning, but I'm afraid if I light a fire someone will see the smoke. At about 5 Am this morning I woke up. At first I wasn't sure why, but then I realized I could hear breathing from close by. I could see nothing in the blackness, and so I lay still, trying to breathe as slowly and shallowly as possible.
In spite of my fear, I must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I knew, it was getting light, and I could make out the shape of a large dog curled up on the floor beside the couch. I moved to sit up, and he awoke and stretched, looking at me sideways, then came over to me and sniffed me up and down. He was even bigger than he had seemed, and all black, with a long, wolflike head. After memorizing my scent he stood with his face up to mine, hot breath reeking past massive white teeth, and stared for a long, long time. In a sudden motion, he took my wrist in his jaws and tugged, so strongly I was pulled off the couch in an instant. He backed off and stood at a short distance, regarding me.
I got to my feet and warily took a step toward him, whereupon he gave a rough bark and dashed off, loping hugely out the door. I could hear the fading sound of his toenails clattering along the hallway.
I waited an hour for him to come back. Then I went home. There's a show on tonight I want to see, about people trying to become models. I don't understand it, but they're very pretty.
I think will name the dog Walter Cronkite. He seems dependable.
Sleeping bag.
Onions.
Powdered eggs.
Powdered milk.
Oranges.
Hunting knife.
Antibiotics.
Bandages.
Generator.
Okay. I'm ready.
Long underwear.
Okay. Now I'm really ready.
Porn.
Okay. Okay.
Okay.
I'm going in.
The dark part of the room extends back quite a ways. I can tell you that. I'm moving slowly, trying not to bump into anything whil my hands are full of supplies. I don't to have a repeat of New Years. I was running down a hallway with some friends. we were in the boiler room of the art school. Someone had set up a steam calliope in the quad that operated on the steam from the machinery in the boiler room. The night was dark and cold; the calliope was like a fungus growing from the ground; one pipe here, one pipe there; steam blooming from the apertures as each hinkoing tone sounded. It was cool.
After the crowd thinned out, we headed down to the basement to get a look at the machinery, which was very old, very well preserved, and very beautiful. We were not alone in our admiration; the hundreds of people who had been pressed up against the hooting pipe organ were now mingling among the flywheels and crescent wrenches, their coats and hair damp from condensation.
We took a good look and marvelled, then headed toward the darker areas. Down a hallway went my friends, as I lagged behind, trying to resend my New Years' greeings to freinds and family, which inexplicably had been returned unsent.
I pressed "send" and ran to cath up.
The sound of my head hitting the pipe was loud in the hallway; I was immobilized, dropping to the ground and clapping a hand to my head in a panic to see if my skull had broken apart. I laughed in disbelief at my stupidity, and at my luck, good and bad, reckless yet still alive, with both my eyes intact.
No, I thought, adjusting the bag of onions on my shoulder, I would not want to repeat that night. Nor the misery that followed just a few days later, when a straighforward injury was gradually transformed into a remarkable and nauseating biological event.
It's amazing the poetry you can find in random places.
If you bite into an onion in the dark, it glows. I think. It might be a kind of kinaesthesia, where the flavor and crunch are stimulating other senses. It might also be that tiny droplets of onion juice are strikiing my eyes, and my nerves are mistranslating the impact.
Anyway, a raw onion in the dark tastes very bold and bright. So sharp though. I wonder if they have aniseptic properties? They burn like liquor, almost. I should have had some the other nighht, when the cut on my head was starting to fester, and the rich, orange pus was beginning to form. Six days of misery, washing my pillows in the morning so they'd be dry in time to stained and befouled once again.
It's interesting what happens to your sense of vanity when you have open sores on your forehead. You stop worrying about your hair, or yyour weight. all you want is for the woulnd to look like a normal, scabby wound, and not something out of a medieval textbook on punishments for the wicked.
Man. I've been walking for about three hours. Is that possible? There's nothing to see down here. It's just a hallway. But every once in a while I pass by a section of wall that sounds like there's something behind it. It could be machinery, could be a road; could be water or a subway. I have no idea. I'm just thinking out loud.
Not really out loud, though. You know what I mean.
I've stopped here, to rest and to eat an orange. I don't quite know what to do with the peel. Maybe I should eat them. That's marmalade, right? I wish I liked marmalade. I've always wanted to. But I hate it. It's one of the great sorrows of my life.
I could swear I heard barking just now.
It's Walter Cronkite! What a good dog.
I saw the real Walter Cronkite once, during my lunch break, back when I worked for a major weekly news magazine whose name rhymes with "Thyme". He was standing on the corner of 57th street and 6th ave, wearing a yachting cap and eating a hot dog. I really wanted to say hello, but he looked like he was enjoying his meal anonymously, so I restrained myself.
Walter Cronkite is bleeding. The dog, not the former newsman. His fur is matted around his neck. He's very patient, though, letting me examine him with only the mildest of whimpering. I imagine that the real Walter Cronkite would be just as stoic, were I to discover him in a similar state. It looks like someone had him on a too-tight chain. There are abrasions, but not too bad. I give him a piece of jerky from my pocket, and we push on into the darkness. I don't really know where we're going, but I'm glad to have the company.
And that's the way it is.
What was a polished concrete floor has given way to flagstones, then crushed gravel, and finally packed dirt. I estimate I've been walking for three or four days, although since my cellphone's battery died, I don't know exactly what time it is, and I'm sure my sleep cycle is all fraggle-rocked. I haven't seen anyone else, although i did find a pair of oakley sunglasses, which I decided not to take.
Walter Cronkite has acted, from time to time, like there was something disturbing him, and yesterday, or the day before, he began growling stradily, and didn't stop for quite a while, pressing himself close to my legs as we walked. I really don't want to run into anything that would scare a dog of his size, but at this point, I feel like I might as well keep going forward.
Okay, this is weird. There's a stream crossing the path. I mean, I'm thinking of it as a path, even though it's just this insanely long narow room or corridor; but the stream comes right under the wall and disappears right under the opposite wall. I don't feel any leaves or twigs or flotsam, so I gues it's being filtered. I wonder if I should drink it. walter Cronkite is, and I'm guessing that it's safe for me, too.
Food poisoning is not an attractive option in the middle of wherever the hell I am, but I have this inexorable urge to take these chances here, almost as though this is part of the quest I'm on. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when my food runs out; so far, I'm not going through supplies as fast as I thought I would, and I think it's because I don't have much of an appetite. In fact now that I come to think of it, I don't recall eating today, or yesterday, for that matter. But I don't feel particulary hungry. And I have plenty of energy. How can that be?
Goddammit, if this is a dream, I'm going to be pissed.
The water tastes good. I had some a while ago and feel fine. walter Cronkite is taking a nap, and I'm thinking of doing the same. It's strange how i'm not hungry. Usually I'm always thinking about food; but I live in the city, surrounded by restaurants and advertising, so it might be that i'm just very impressionable.
There's something in the water. It looks like a prescription bottle. That's exactly what it is. How the hell did it make it under the wall?
It doesn't say what kind of medicine is in it, and it doesn't say the doctor's name, but the patient name is "Jody". That's a girl's name, isn;t it? Although growing up in Vermont there was a kid I knew named Jody who later changed his name to Jon, probably because he got tired of being teased. It didn't help that he had long hair and was a wee slip of a lad.
There was also that kid in The Yearling. And come to think of it there were two other Jodys in Vermont. The really strange thing is that as I picture them, they all had those cowlick things that make their hair do a scoopy curve off the side of their forehead, and so, come to think of it, did the kid in The Yearling. Every single one of them. Does the name cause the cowlick or does the cowlick cause the name? Is that even possible?
The bottle is empty. But the label is loose. I peel it off, and on the other side is printed "Don't drink the water. Just kidding!"
Someone is being funny. It is actually kind of funny, so I try laughing, but it sounds forced, and I stop abruptly, which makes me laugh a bit, for real.
Walter Cronkite wakes up and looks at me, then heads down the hall. I guess break time's over.
When I woke up this morning there was a bakery box of donuts sitting beside me, and all of the contents of my backpack were lined up neatly alongside me. Whoever did it stacked the onions into a little pyramid, like they do in grocery stores. I've always been impressed by that.
It makes me wonder if this is what Hitler and Stalin and Mao saw when they looked out over crowds; vast numbers of manipulable vegetables. I wonder if they looked like limes or apples or something more exotic, like durians or starfruit? Anyway, I tried a donut, and it was still warm, which freaked me out a little. It was one of those eggy twisty ones, with incredible dark chocolate glazing.
I may have taken the Lord's name in vain as I bit into it. It's hard to remember. It was so good. I hope that the Good Lord will understand. After all, we are all his creations, and I've always felt that those times when he contemplates the donut must make him especially proud.
Not that I'm a churchgoing man, but the way I see it, I've never met Wimlliam F. Buckley, Jr, either, but I'm willing to accept that there's a possibility he actually exists, however bizarre it may seem.
I've been climbing gradually for the last two days. the air seems lighter, and i feel like there's a glow in the distance. It might be the altitude, or my lack of sleep. Those donuts certainly made me jittery for a while.
They also made me mis my old neighborhood, Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There was a donut shop there called Peter Pan Donuts that made the best damn donuts I've ever had. Their waitresses wore very short green skirts, which is what drew me in initially, but once I had my first taste of what they were selling, it was clear that they were merely using a perfect belnd of advertising and product.
My legs are getting tired. I fell as thought the incline might be steeper than it seems. The glow I see in front of me was at first a square, filling the passageway, but now is shrinking vertically, as though someone were pulling a shade from the bottom up.
It's also getting brighter. And I swear I hear something that sounds like a giant pig snuffling or grunting, or whatever that sound is. I love pigs, but I know better than to mess with an unfriendly one. Those fuckers are dangerous.
Christ. I better think this quietly. I don't know if you can see my thoughts, but if you can, you can see that I'm looking over what appears to be a large river valley, and in that valley, teeming from horizon to horizon, are people wearing pig costumes and carrying surfboards.
It's an unusual sight, if I may be frank.
I like pigs, but not in large numbers. I've never been certain exactly where I stand on the issue of surfing, and those who perform the act in question.
I'm a freshwater man, myself. Give me a visibly enclosed body of water, and I will give you a dollar, as the saying goes.
After an hour of observation, there doesn't seem to be any great change in the scene before me. I can't go back. I might as well see what this is all about. If all goes well, I should be able to cross the valley and be on my way. To wherever it is I'm going.
I'm dressed as a partially eaten corncob and moving through the crowd of fake surf-pigs as surreptitiously as one can when one is dressed as a 6 foot corncob. I'm hoping that the lack of edible kernels will make me less of a target, and so far it seems to be working. I'm something of a perfectionist when it comes to costumes, so in the interest of versimilitude, I took care to smear the cob with a little butter and salt, and since I love Mexican food, I scattered a bit of chili powder and some Oaxacan cheese and lime on as well.
To be honest with you, I'm a little insulted I'm not getting more attention. I look amazing, and I smell incredible. I can hardly keep from eating myself, but that would be foolhardy, and, if I remember correctly, it's also a mortal sin.
There's not much conversation amongst the crowd; there's a lot of snuffling, and self-conscious giggling. I think I smell cannabis. It smells nice, and makes me hungry. I hope it doesn't have that effect on the pigs.
Hang on. One of them is looking at me.
Hang on.
He's coming over.
Hang on.
Wait.
This is what I get for dressing like a vegetable. There were chicken leg costumes at the shop as well. They were pretty nice. why didn't I grab one? I was getting fancy. Pigs don't eat chicken. I think.
But of course they eat corn. I'm a fool.
My therapist used to tell me that every week. Sometimes she'd call me in the wee hours, while I was lying in my bed, unable to sleep. The phone would ring and I'd slowly reach for it and put the receiver to my ear.
I didn't have to ask who it was.
"...you're a fool."
"Thank you, Doctor Sharvin."
"Don't thank me. When are you gonna wise up?"
"I really don't know. I'm sorry."
"Meathead." Click.
That went on for a year, and then I found out she wasn't the actual therapist but one of his patients, who had stolen a key, and had been letting herself in on the doctor's day off and seeing patients. I felt bad when they caught her. She was cruel, but I felt like she had a pretty good handle on my problems.
So now I'm sitting in a cell, and there's a pig outside the door, looking in every few minutes to grin at me and laugh. He made himself a bib out of a paper towel, and lkeeps licking his lips and wiping his mouth with his little hoof, even though I'm no longer dressed as a corncob. They took that away right quick.
I suppose I'm lucky I'm in here instead of some stoned surf pig's belly, but I don't realy know where here is, or what's going to happen.
Is this still the same big room? I feel like I keep dropping in and out of focus, and it feels like it doesn't matter. I miss that dog. Walter. Mr. Cronkite.
He was avuncular.