When an ignoramus addresses an issue far beyond their less than mediocre understanding it always brings fear into their hearts.What is sad is that when extremists write, they trigger the reaction of opposing extremists.
I do hope that Mr. Winn can bear the thought that his book, Prophet of Doom, will have on his hands the blood of innocents that have been and [God Forbid] do die due to provoking literature such as this. I will not dignify this book by reading it nor allowing it to take any more of my time.
As with Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, when you want to become famous, instigate the wrath of others. Apparently he still lives in fear. What a life, simply to want to market ones self & product.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Surprise!!!
I love surprises and actually enjoy the anticipation and its excitement...
Though as one gains more experience form life one tends to become less prone to surprises and more sceptic of the simple pleasures in life. That is why we become keener to be in the company of children, perhaps because it reminds us of what we had been and how it feels to experience the little pleasures in life and how to be delighted by small things!
Though as one gains more experience form life one tends to become less prone to surprises and more sceptic of the simple pleasures in life. That is why we become keener to be in the company of children, perhaps because it reminds us of what we had been and how it feels to experience the little pleasures in life and how to be delighted by small things!
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Freedom
There are only two kinds of freedom that we as humans have; the freedom to think & therefore of choice and the freedom to dream & therefore of hope.
We sat at the Grand Hyatt a couple of friends and a reporter from Al Jazeera news channel. After the first half hour of bickering and venting my extreme displeasure at the media industry and its war that is carried out to the people, we decided to not tear each other apart and have a different sort of discussion.
The first would require a subject matter of its own being the eternal one regarding the patriarchal society and female belittlement.
The second subject was Freedom. Though he was, as most Arabs anti-western, yet as with most Arabs he spoke of the western freedom. I had to be the one, yet again to burst his bubble.
It is generally one of the greatest misconceptions that there exists something called absolute freedom, freedom I believe is the word that is coveted for the hope it portrays for the ideology of what may be. I asked him and my friends to imagine that they had they had absolute freedom and to follow the thought. One of the girls right away said “and then what”. Exactly. My point.
Were we to have the so called freedom that any individual would perceive, after satisfying all the urges and needs that we can we would then stand still and think, then what. Human nature dictates that one would grasp on to the hope of yet another unattainable thought or concept.
I told them there is no such thing as freedom, it is only an idea that the masses hold onto to give them hope to dream to imagine anything better than what they are at, at that moment.
In solitary confinement, a prisoner has the freedom to dream, to imagine, to release him/her self of the physical confines and travel with their minds, were it not for this, we would not hear of amazing stories of hope from the darkest of places.
We have been blessed in life to make a choice that is yet another freedom, the freedom to pick between taking that turn on the road of life or continuing straight ahead. Whether it may be right or wrong maybe questionable depending on your belief, at the end it is a choice we make.
I feel that those two are related, take a wrong turn and you might end up facing your worst nightmare. Be confined and dream of liberty, imagine ways to escape and find strength within that keeps you going.
Shhhh! don’t tell anyone that there doesn’t exist something called freedom and that it is only the hope in our minds. Don’t tell anyone lest you break their clear crystal dream hanging above, see here you have a choice to keep someone believing and give them hope, or burst their bubble not knowing whether they can stand the truth of life. I chose to tell you.
We sat at the Grand Hyatt a couple of friends and a reporter from Al Jazeera news channel. After the first half hour of bickering and venting my extreme displeasure at the media industry and its war that is carried out to the people, we decided to not tear each other apart and have a different sort of discussion.
The first would require a subject matter of its own being the eternal one regarding the patriarchal society and female belittlement.
The second subject was Freedom. Though he was, as most Arabs anti-western, yet as with most Arabs he spoke of the western freedom. I had to be the one, yet again to burst his bubble.
It is generally one of the greatest misconceptions that there exists something called absolute freedom, freedom I believe is the word that is coveted for the hope it portrays for the ideology of what may be. I asked him and my friends to imagine that they had they had absolute freedom and to follow the thought. One of the girls right away said “and then what”. Exactly. My point.
Were we to have the so called freedom that any individual would perceive, after satisfying all the urges and needs that we can we would then stand still and think, then what. Human nature dictates that one would grasp on to the hope of yet another unattainable thought or concept.
I told them there is no such thing as freedom, it is only an idea that the masses hold onto to give them hope to dream to imagine anything better than what they are at, at that moment.
In solitary confinement, a prisoner has the freedom to dream, to imagine, to release him/her self of the physical confines and travel with their minds, were it not for this, we would not hear of amazing stories of hope from the darkest of places.
We have been blessed in life to make a choice that is yet another freedom, the freedom to pick between taking that turn on the road of life or continuing straight ahead. Whether it may be right or wrong maybe questionable depending on your belief, at the end it is a choice we make.
I feel that those two are related, take a wrong turn and you might end up facing your worst nightmare. Be confined and dream of liberty, imagine ways to escape and find strength within that keeps you going.
Shhhh! don’t tell anyone that there doesn’t exist something called freedom and that it is only the hope in our minds. Don’t tell anyone lest you break their clear crystal dream hanging above, see here you have a choice to keep someone believing and give them hope, or burst their bubble not knowing whether they can stand the truth of life. I chose to tell you.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Dry Eyes
Dry eyes and a cold heart seem to be the staple of today
and yesterday
and the day before.
Yet tomorow is another maybe
where hope stems from a moistness in my nostrils...
it's just a runny nose from a forgotten cold
which even that, had been left over from a time when I was alive.
Dry heart and cold eyes, withered skin of a past soul
of yesteryears
and dreams before
There are no more tomorrows to hope
or pains to grieve, nor cuts to heal...
just the wetness of earth surrounding a body cold
that was laid to waste without a story to be told...
and yesterday
and the day before.
Yet tomorow is another maybe
where hope stems from a moistness in my nostrils...
it's just a runny nose from a forgotten cold
which even that, had been left over from a time when I was alive.
Dry heart and cold eyes, withered skin of a past soul
of yesteryears
and dreams before
There are no more tomorrows to hope
or pains to grieve, nor cuts to heal...
just the wetness of earth surrounding a body cold
that was laid to waste without a story to be told...
Euphrates
Listen to their music: 'Stereotypes'
Gone but not forgotten
Euphrates have suffered a loss but they're still moving forward
by SCOTT C
"I still can't believe it," says Euphrates MC Narcicyst, who shakes his head while he sits in my living room. While he's come over to drop off a copy of the new Euphrates LP Stereotypes Incorporated, it's not the completion of this long-awaited album that has him so unsettled. Just before this album was released, one half of the Euphrates SandhiLL production team, Nofy Fannan, was the victim of a traffic accident that left him in a coma and later took his life. In the wake of this tragedy, Narcicyst and Nofy's brother Habillis have decided to make sure that Stereotypes Incorporated is a tribute to Nofy's life and talent.
Born in the United Arab Emirates, all the members of Euphrates are of Iraqi descent, spending half their lives in the Middle East and the other half in Montreal. Borrowing from the idea that hip hop has provided an outlet and voice for oppressed and disenfranchised people throughout the ghettos of America, Euphrates seek the strength of this music as a source of empowerment, and to bring new ears to the political and emotional struggles of not only Arabs, but people everywhere.
Having already been featured in Time and the Georgia Straight, the heartfelt beats and rhymes of Euphrates still have many miles to go, but at least they have some serious music to stand behind, and Nofy Fannan keeping a watchful eye from above on every hurdle and triumph. Expect 2005 to be a big year for this Montreal based hip hop outfit that is not messing around.
Gone but not forgotten
Euphrates have suffered a loss but they're still moving forward
by SCOTT C
"I still can't believe it," says Euphrates MC Narcicyst, who shakes his head while he sits in my living room. While he's come over to drop off a copy of the new Euphrates LP Stereotypes Incorporated, it's not the completion of this long-awaited album that has him so unsettled. Just before this album was released, one half of the Euphrates SandhiLL production team, Nofy Fannan, was the victim of a traffic accident that left him in a coma and later took his life. In the wake of this tragedy, Narcicyst and Nofy's brother Habillis have decided to make sure that Stereotypes Incorporated is a tribute to Nofy's life and talent.
Born in the United Arab Emirates, all the members of Euphrates are of Iraqi descent, spending half their lives in the Middle East and the other half in Montreal. Borrowing from the idea that hip hop has provided an outlet and voice for oppressed and disenfranchised people throughout the ghettos of America, Euphrates seek the strength of this music as a source of empowerment, and to bring new ears to the political and emotional struggles of not only Arabs, but people everywhere.
Having already been featured in Time and the Georgia Straight, the heartfelt beats and rhymes of Euphrates still have many miles to go, but at least they have some serious music to stand behind, and Nofy Fannan keeping a watchful eye from above on every hurdle and triumph. Expect 2005 to be a big year for this Montreal based hip hop outfit that is not messing around.
A man-made tsunami. Why are there no fundraisers for the Iraqi dead?
By: Terry Jones on:
Tuesday January 11 2005
The Guardian
I am bewildered by the world reaction to the tsunami tragedy. Why are newspapers, television and politicians making such a fuss? Why has the British public forked out more than £100m to help the survivors, and why is Tony Blair now promising "hundreds of millions of pounds"? Why has Australia pledged £435m and Germany £360m? And why has Mr Bush pledged £187m? Of course it's wonderful to see the human race rallying to the aid of disaster victims, but it's the inconsistency that has me foxed. Nobody is making this sort of fuss about all the people killed in Iraq, and yet it's a human catastrophe of comparable dimensions.
According to the only scientific estimate attempted, Iraqi deaths since the war began number more than 100,000. The tsunami death toll is in the region of 150,000. Yet in the case of Iraq, the media seems reluctant to impress on the public the scale of the carnage. I haven't seen many TV reporters standing in the ruins of Falluja, breathlessly describing how, in 30 years of reporting, they've never seen a human tragedy on this scale. The Pope hasn't appealed for everyone to remember the Iraqi dead in their prayers, and MTV hasn't gone silent in their memory. Nor are Blair and Bush falling over each other to show they recognise the scale of the disaster in Iraq. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal the numbers killed.
When the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated the figure of 100,000 killed in Iraq and published their findings in one of the world's leading scientific journals, the Lancet, Downing Street questioned their methodology, saying "the rese archers used an extrapolation technique, which they considered inappropriate, rather than a detailed body count". Of course "a detailed body count" is the one thing the US military will not allow anyone to do. What is so odd is the way in which so much of the media has fallen into line, downplaying the only authoritative estimate of casualties in Iraq with the same unanimity with which they have impressed upon us the death toll of the tsunami.
One of the authors of the forenamed report, Dr Gilbert Burnham, said: "Our data have been back and forth between many reviewers at the Lancet and here in the school, so we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great certainty." So, are deaths caused by bombs and gunfire less worthy of our pity than deaths caused by a giant wave? Or are Iraqi lives less worth counting than Indonesian, Thai, Indian and Swedish? Why aren't our TV companies and newspapers running fundraisers to help Iraqis whose lives have been wrecked by the invasion? Why aren't they screaming with outrage at the man-made tsunami that we have created in the Middle East? It truly is baffling.
Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. His book Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror is published this month by the Nation
www.terry-jones.net
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Tuesday January 11 2005
The Guardian
I am bewildered by the world reaction to the tsunami tragedy. Why are newspapers, television and politicians making such a fuss? Why has the British public forked out more than £100m to help the survivors, and why is Tony Blair now promising "hundreds of millions of pounds"? Why has Australia pledged £435m and Germany £360m? And why has Mr Bush pledged £187m? Of course it's wonderful to see the human race rallying to the aid of disaster victims, but it's the inconsistency that has me foxed. Nobody is making this sort of fuss about all the people killed in Iraq, and yet it's a human catastrophe of comparable dimensions.
According to the only scientific estimate attempted, Iraqi deaths since the war began number more than 100,000. The tsunami death toll is in the region of 150,000. Yet in the case of Iraq, the media seems reluctant to impress on the public the scale of the carnage. I haven't seen many TV reporters standing in the ruins of Falluja, breathlessly describing how, in 30 years of reporting, they've never seen a human tragedy on this scale. The Pope hasn't appealed for everyone to remember the Iraqi dead in their prayers, and MTV hasn't gone silent in their memory. Nor are Blair and Bush falling over each other to show they recognise the scale of the disaster in Iraq. On the contrary, they have been doing their best to conceal the numbers killed.
When the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimated the figure of 100,000 killed in Iraq and published their findings in one of the world's leading scientific journals, the Lancet, Downing Street questioned their methodology, saying "the rese archers used an extrapolation technique, which they considered inappropriate, rather than a detailed body count". Of course "a detailed body count" is the one thing the US military will not allow anyone to do. What is so odd is the way in which so much of the media has fallen into line, downplaying the only authoritative estimate of casualties in Iraq with the same unanimity with which they have impressed upon us the death toll of the tsunami.
One of the authors of the forenamed report, Dr Gilbert Burnham, said: "Our data have been back and forth between many reviewers at the Lancet and here in the school, so we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great certainty." So, are deaths caused by bombs and gunfire less worthy of our pity than deaths caused by a giant wave? Or are Iraqi lives less worth counting than Indonesian, Thai, Indian and Swedish? Why aren't our TV companies and newspapers running fundraisers to help Iraqis whose lives have been wrecked by the invasion? Why aren't they screaming with outrage at the man-made tsunami that we have created in the Middle East? It truly is baffling.
Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. His book Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror is published this month by the Nation
www.terry-jones.net
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
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