The hazards of being single (and dim)

I clicked on CNN.com and was browsing through the headlines when this one caught my eye:

Woman slaughtered for being single

Well, you can imagine my alarm. Before clicking on the link, I was wondering if I needed to run out and propose to my 85-year-old neighbor poste haste.

Turns out it was a crime spree in Basra, Iraq. Some 'industrious' fundamentalist Shiites decided to go around and enforce Allah's will themselves.

Women bore the brunt of the militias' extremist ideologies. The militants spray-painted threats on walls across Basra, warning women to wear headscarves and not to wear makeup. Women were sometimes executed for the vague charge of doing something "un-Islamic."

Apparently, being a single woman and living alone is "un-Islamic." Actually, I know it's considered such by many Muslims.

An anecdote:
When I worked at that Kuwaiti place I wrote about here, we had a receptionist who was - well, dim. She had a second job, working at the music pavilion in downtown Boston, and she wore shorts and a polo shorts at this job.

One day she did not have time to dry this apparel after washing it and laid said items on the radiator in the window of someone's office. Again, she was dim.

The Kuwaiti man (an intern from the home office) who came later into his office freaked out. He came flying out of his office, almost in tears, at finding women's clothing draped around his office.
"Gillian, what is this?" he asked me (my desk being the first one he came to).

Being this woman's supervisor at the time, I had the task of explaining to her how inappropriate her actions were, even if the office hadn't been occupied by a Muslim.

The man went home to Kuwait well before his internship was over, explaining to me that he could not accept the "decadence" he had encountered in the U.S. He was a nice, gentle man.

And that's not even mentioning the office driver, a guy from Southie, who would run into an office filled with people celebrating Ramadan by fasting until sunset and wave platters of bagels or donuts around.

Of course, they were sitting around socializing in an office while drawing huge salaries and while everyone else working ... they also almost to a man breezed in at about 10 a.m., took 2-hr. lunches and left at around 4 p.m. (in addition to socializing).

These guys did nothing in response - well, except leave as quickly as they could. It was better for all concerned.

P.S. It is not my intention to defend the killer of the single woman; or any other killer, terrorist or anyone of that ilk. I detest violence and intolerance at all levels.