Breakfast & Bingo!

There’s a B&B this Saturday! Join our regular Bingonians for an evening of Breakfast, Bingo, fun, snarkiness, and prizes!

The UMBC Police in conjunction with the Office of Information Technology are pleased to announce an enhancement to the emergency notification system on campus.  “Alertus Desktop” is a program that can be installed on any desktop or laptop connected to UMBC servers.  When an emergency occurs and an emergency text alert is sent, Alertus Desktop will pop up a full-screen alert on all or select PCs and Macs taking over the whole screen with a warning that's impossible to miss. This will prove invaluable to community members who don’t carry a cell phone or have poor cell phone reception and adds another layer of redundancy to UMBC’s emergency notification system.  If you are still not registered for the emergency text alert system please register at http://my.umbc.edu/go/alerts where you can also download the Alertus Desktop for your Mac or PC. 

During the week of February 20th, the Division of Information Technology will deploy the Alertus Desktop client to Windows machines managed their central servers. Machines that are not connected to or managed by DoIT can install the Windows or Mac Alertus Desktop client by visiting http://my.umbc.edu/go/alerts

Dalma rides the Paint horse Flash Top Hat

Much has been in the west about the deplorable situation for women in many Arab countries, most notably Saudi Arabia.

So it was encouraging to see in 2010 when Dalma Rushdi Malhas won a bronze medal in equestrian show jumping at the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. She gave Saudi Arabia its second-ever Olympic medal, and its first medal from a woman.

You’d expect that Dalma would be riding again this year in the London, right?

Wrong. Saudi Arabia didn’t include Dalma in their qualifying team of six (male) riders, and of those six only four will actually go on to the Olympics.

Saudi Arabia’s laws severely limit what women can and can’t do. By law women are barred from playing in sports clubs, belonging to gyms, or working with expert trainers.

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch is calling for the International Olympic Committee to only allow Saudi Arabia to compete in the games if they send a woman to compete. Saudi officials have not ruled this out.

Should Saudi Arabia be banned from the Olympics if they deliberately deny a woman a spot on their team? Do you think it’s a fair to the country if not allowing women to play sports is a part of their belief system?