I haven’t held a newspaper in my hands and read one in quite a long time now. Today in the morning I saw it on the table and decided to flip through it, see if there’s anything new or different. It felt like the news are a repeat of sad and unfortunate events lately that I would get in a bad mood whenever I read one, hence me ignoring reading any for a while now.

Anyway, while flipping the newspaper 2 pieces caught my attention.

The first..

It says that 21 garbage men/collectors in the city of Salt haven’t received their paychecks in 5 months now. We’re talking about a municipality that is not paying the people who need their salaries the most. It’s as if these men take thousands of Dinars that the municipality can’t afford!!

What is even more surprising is that the men refused to give out their names to the newspaper for fear of being punished one way or another. I guess being afraid to ask for such an obvious right of getting paid for your work for 5 months is an alarm for a huge problem. Of course all attempts at contacting the municipality have failed according to them. Reform much?

The second was this

The Applied Science University has been winning in national and international championships and cups for as long as I can remember. I paused for a minute after reading the headline and thought about the players. I was wondering who’s still in that team after a few years of not following basketball news at all.

To my surprise, all the names were familiar. Anver Soobzokov, Zaid Abbas, Osama Douglas, Abdullah Abo Qura. Seriously? Are you kidding me? These guys were playing for the applied science university while I was in 10th grade, if not even before that. We’re talking about 6 years. Can you explain to me how you have students stay in university for 6 years? Let’s assume that one keeps failing and taking courses, but is it really a coincidence that ALL these big names have been playing for that university for years and years?

I wonder how much they’re paid to keep those one or two courses hanging and pay their fees every semester just to be able to play in the team and win! I am trying to find another explanation but I can’t. If this is the case then our reform is needed on basketball courts as well as in governmental offices, and that is a shame!