Author: Master Rhetorician

Professional Writer; BA English and Secondary Education, Marquette University; MA Japanese Language and Literature, University of Kansas; Classic Literature in ESL Certificate, Derek Bok Department of Education, Harvard University

When Tunisians Take Tough Life Out On Turtles, The IFAW Takes Action

The bulk of these turtle-smuggling operations takes place during the late summer, when Tunisians who’ve completed their homeland holidays collect these reptiles for their journeys back to their workplaces in Europe. Managing an under-the-table payment to a corrupt authority or simply getting lucky gives them the seedy opportunity to earn extra cash selling their hard-shelled hoardings to Europeans who generally regard these rare and exotic species as mere novelties. This is the case because the lifespan of a turtle in captivity may be only a few days or years, when in the wild, they can live for several decades.

Mandarin Patisserie

Two years ago, Vivek arrived in Dubai carrying the strongest faith and clearest evidence, buttressed by his having seen encouraging media images of thousands of construction cranes stacking steel girders upon sand, that in Dubai he would quickly earn a fantastic living in any of its alluring realms of finance, technology, media, property or even the arts.
So again tonight, he lathered himself with broken bits of Imperial Leather dreams. He dragged his forearm across his eyes. Even if he could square all of his debts and would be forgiven by everyone whose lives he’d messed up because of what he owed, Vivek knew he would never feel redeemed.
Still, he’d reached the point where he couldn’t hold all their dreadful problems in his head. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to take a step forward; standing still was deadly.
In analyzing his new reptilian coldness, he wouldn’t say that a hard selfishness had come to rule his emotions. It was just that, at this point, he couldn’t let himself collapse into a bundle of vibrating nerves in some corner.
But one painful facet of remorse stayed with him. He would never be able to bear the shame brought on by what he surmised must be that emotion’s origin, the unheeded dictate of an Indian mother. When he told his that he’d be moving to Dubai, she simply said ‘Don’t go.’