Technology is taking all the romance out of dating and marriage in Somalia, where traditionalists miss the good old days when camels were exchanged for a bride. But now, the mobile phone has made “marriage” and divorce easy to manage. The quickie marriages are more like meet-ups for sex (followed by rapid divorces), but Islam insists that certain formalities be observed.

It helps that Islamic divorce is famously easy for Muslim males to obtain: under talaq a fellow has only to say, “I divorce you” three times, and Allah is happy with the split. (Women have no such freedom under sharia, of course.)

[Somalia cheap mobile calls help youngsters elope, Al Arabiya News Channel, November 6, 2009]

Somali courtship was different in Hassan Aden’s day. When he was a teenager, you gave the girl’s parents 11 camels and an AK-47 assault rifle as bride price and then waited respectfully.

Now, the 55-year-old said, a mobile phone service that seems to be the only thing working in the failed Horn of Africa state is helping drive a rise in elopements, pregnancies out of marriage and a steady erosion of Somalia’s conservative values. [...]

The cheap calls and extended mobile network in the Horn of Africa nation make it easier for Somalis to get in touch with willing partners and arrange quick assignations.

Traditional Somali marriages used to be long-planned, intricately arranged affairs normally determined by clan and sub-clan elders. But some now prefer a less formal kind of marriage, which is essentially elopement, because they do not have the economic means to face a prospective father-in-law. [...]

“I don’t think I’d be sane if it were not for the ‘Qudbasiro’, free-of-charge secret marriages,” the unemployed secondary school graduate told Reuters, sitting cross-legged on a ragged mattress and sending a text message with his phone.

“I’ve divorced nine women already. Voluntary brides and cheap phone services, it is the only life we have.”

In other news from sharia-run Somalia, an adulterer was stoned to death but the local Islamists have spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth.

Further to my post Did Affirmative Action Stop Army Stopping Fort Hood Shooter?:

Fellow doctors have recounted how they were repeatedly harangued by Hasan about religion and that he openly claimed to be a “Muslim first and American second.”

One Army doctor who knew him said a fear of appearing discriminatory against a Muslim soldier had stopped fellow officers from filing formal complaints.

Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut, by Nick Allen, London Daily Telegraph, 8 November 09. (Thnx, EA)

White America’s Duncan Hengest, a former military officer, comments on reports that alleged Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s supervisors had previously had problems with him:

I sympathize with the difficulty these supervisors faced: it is very hard for a white supervisor to weed out a troublesome non-white subordinate because of the army’s Equal Opportunity Office. The military has a fierce, well funded and staffed EEO bureaucracy. Although the office is officially racially neutral, everyone knows how the deck is stacked. Personally, I was never able to dismiss unsatisfactory non-white subordinates, and other officers of my acquaintance experienced the same problem. One officer made a valiant attempt to block the promotion of an incompetent Korean lieutenant by refusing to sign his promotion paperwork only to have a different officer sign it with the commander’s blessing. In such cases, it is easier to just promote the troublemaker and transfer him to a different post. This is probably what happened in the case of Major Hasan.

Affirmative Action is expensive, of course, but this means it’s also a security risk.

Hengest adds:

…the military has a great many non-white medical officers. Elite whites, who make up the majority of doctors, tend to avoid military service so the Army must recruit the dregs of the medical schools. When I was down with a case of bronchitis during my days in the service, I was advised by several NCO’s to avoid the closest on-post clinic because the black doctor there was incompetent. Later I saw a Sikh, with beard and turban, a violation of army regulations, working at a dental clinic with the rank of colonel. As I’ve written elsewhere, Sikhs have their own unique terrorist potential, and I was shocked at the folly of recruiting this man and giving him such a high rank.

Hengest is referring to his excellent earlier article, The Sikhs of Vancouver.

In other news, President Obama has chosen this moment to turn Veterans’ Day into a celebration of, guess what, diversity:

Veterans Day is our chance to honor those Americans who’ve served on battlefields from Lexington to Antietam, Normandy to Manila, Inchon to Khe Sanh, Ramadi to Kandahar.

They are Americans of every race, faith, and station. They are Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers. They are descendents of immigrants and immigrants themselves. They reflect the diversity that makes this America.

We haven’t had a good Sammy Sosa story in a while, so here’s a new one with pictures of how the ex-Cubs slugger is only half as dark as he used to be. Some of the difference is probably just the lighting in the latest picture — my passport photo, for example, is so overexposed that I look like Tilda Swinton’s dad’s ghost. Still, the article makes clear by the lengths to which Sosa’s PR agent goes on, that something is going on.

Steve’s Idea of the Day for Bored Reporters: show these pictures to White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. Record his comments. (For readers unfamiliar with his personality, here’s the video Ozzie Guillen Visits a Sick Child from the Chicago public access cable show We’re Geniuses in France.)

And from the always reliable Daily Mail of London, the umpteenth confirmation of Sailer’s Rule of Female Journalism:

Why are so many black and Asian women desperate to be white?
By Yamin Alibhai-Brown

You might think that with all the media interest in this question, journalists might occasionally look up on Google something about anthropologist Peter Frost’s book Fair Women, Dark Men: The Forgotten Roots of Color Prejudice, which answers the question. But, nah, finding out the answer is hardly the point of asking, so Frost’s book is almost unknown. Frost, by the way, explain why Sammy’s new highly-contrasting-cheeks-and-lips look is not a good look for guys.

Stanford’s running back, whom I wrote about a few weeks ago, rushed for 223 yards on 38 carries in Stanford’s 51-42 upset of #8 Oregon (who crushed USC last week). Toby Gerhart now has 1217 yards in 9 games and 16 touchdowns for 6-3 Stanford.

Phil Knight puts his Nike money into Oregon, so Oregon’s offense is almost unstoppable — over 600 yards last week against USC, and this week 570 yards in only 22 minutes of possession. Stanford’s strategy was to get the lead and have Gerhart use up the clock.

He has the opportunity to petition for another season of college eligibility because he missed all but one game of his sophomore year. I’ve got to imagine that some Silicon Valley bigshots who are Stanford alums would make it worth his while to do so, especially now that Stanford’s freshman quarterback, Andrew Luck, looks like he’ll be pretty good next year. Why go to the NFL and sit on the bench or get your body permanently wrecked as a pro running back when you can be the toast of Silicon Valley?