Saturday, May 17, 2008
A Better idea
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A message by George Carlin
George Carlin being recognised as the second best stand-up comedian in US of all time, he delivers some good shit, listen up to that;
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways , but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.
We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.
We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.
We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.
These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete...
Remember; spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.
Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.
Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.
Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.
Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.
Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Dutch exodus
It's been my third time to watch this event which the Dutch call koninginnedag "Queen's day" or technically "ex-queen's birthday". Obviously the only point for celebrating this day is that it's a spring day and it's nice to take a day off. Actually the first time I've seen this event in Amsterdam, I felt like the Dutch do something like pilgrimage, only that it's not for any god, but for music, cheap bear and sex. It's amazing watching a huge amount of people wearing orange garments, stuff and everything that you can and can't imagine. Probably when they started celebrated this event, they couldn't imagine that after sometime, people will be dancing on that day to Indian music, which I hear now from my appartment in the centre of the town, or that some group of Buddhist priests playing their own music and dancing to it. Hearing a sound of glass breaking every 15 seconds and seeing a beautiful view of Amsterdam's streets covered with 20 cms of garbage and all kinds of trash, the event sounds to me more of a good incident for people to express their vandalism in all different ways. This can be by painting everything exposed to the crowd in orange even police cars, or pissing on parked cars.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
George Galloway
I have never ever seen a western who understands mid-eastern conflict better than this dude. and yes it's true, Hezbollah, though a Shiite organisation, which had been always unfavoured by Muslims, Christians or definitely their cousins, Jews, but the Lebanese war gave them a huge boost in terms of ideological support from all mid-easterns and even more that a big majority of people are sympathising with them.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Dangerous Minds
At least for me, it has been one of the best that Hollywood has produced. While watching this movie, although a bit old (1995), it feels like "life", it feels like a piece of art. Actually, it is a piece of art. It starts with that person Louanne (Michel Pfeiffer) who seems to be a hopeless, fresh-divorcee and desperate for whateva-job, facing a super desperate situation. Once she starts working hard on trying to get onshore, feels like everybody and all circumstances against her. She is the power, she got the guts to stand against norms and say a big NO. As we say in Egyptian, "youda3 serouh fe ad3af 7'al2oh", literally translated into, "God puts his biggest secrets in his smallest creatures", meaning that never get fooled with the smallest tiniest weak-seem-to-be thing, because it may disappoint you and turn out to be the strongest.
If you would get any learning points out of this movie, would be, if you believe in a certain way and you are hundred percent sure that it is the right way, then screw the whole world and you gotta fight your ass off working on it, even if it takes you swimming against the flow. Never give up to the idea that your environment, people, culture, norms or whatever you would think of as an obstacle can stop you.
Another learning point that people sometimes do little things or at least this is how they seem to be, but in fact they do a tremendous harm, and you can not imagine how small could it be. Like in the movie when the principal of the school dismissed the student and did not want to listen to him, because the student did not knock the door before coming in, which led the student to get to the street and get himself killed.
A quote from Louanne, the teacher, is "There are no victims in this classroom" and this was her counter claim against the society and the environment where those dudes are living at, but in fact it just shows that if anybody want to do anything, they will do it as long as they really believe in it. In fact, life made me strongly believe that the smartest of people are often to be found in criminals or busted dudes, not that I want to be one or even to claim being smart, and lately I got to know that sometimes the dumbest of them would be found among those dudes who are perfectly suited and looks slick.
There are many things that you can learn from this movie, but in fact I was looking at the title of the movie just after watching it for the (too many)th time to realise something, that probably what is meant by "dangerous minds" are not the "special" students, but actually everybody else who think of them as a hopeless case, everybody else who would be an obstacle toward changing them.
If you would get any learning points out of this movie, would be, if you believe in a certain way and you are hundred percent sure that it is the right way, then screw the whole world and you gotta fight your ass off working on it, even if it takes you swimming against the flow. Never give up to the idea that your environment, people, culture, norms or whatever you would think of as an obstacle can stop you.
Another learning point that people sometimes do little things or at least this is how they seem to be, but in fact they do a tremendous harm, and you can not imagine how small could it be. Like in the movie when the principal of the school dismissed the student and did not want to listen to him, because the student did not knock the door before coming in, which led the student to get to the street and get himself killed.
A quote from Louanne, the teacher, is "There are no victims in this classroom" and this was her counter claim against the society and the environment where those dudes are living at, but in fact it just shows that if anybody want to do anything, they will do it as long as they really believe in it. In fact, life made me strongly believe that the smartest of people are often to be found in criminals or busted dudes, not that I want to be one or even to claim being smart, and lately I got to know that sometimes the dumbest of them would be found among those dudes who are perfectly suited and looks slick.
There are many things that you can learn from this movie, but in fact I was looking at the title of the movie just after watching it for the (too many)th time to realise something, that probably what is meant by "dangerous minds" are not the "special" students, but actually everybody else who think of them as a hopeless case, everybody else who would be an obstacle toward changing them.
How to recognise a Dutchman?
This has been a norm among expats at any spot in the world, but it should not be taken as any kind of stereotype, as it is just a criticism to "a culture".
so, how to recognise a cloggy?
The Dutch population in general are known to be nice and kind people whenever it come to anything other than money. When a guy tells you that he has been to your country few years ago and he still has some of its currency and he would like to exchange it for today's rate to the cent-value, it means that you are standing in front of a Dutchman.
When your landlord who's overcharging your rent, gets a verdict from the court to lower the rent four times and you, out of nobleness and utopian values, suggest that the verdict is unfair for him, so you would pay only half the rent and he starts to negotiate for 5 euros, then welcome to Holland.
When you invite a friend at your place and he eats your dinner and do not leave you any food, and then leave the after-dinner-crap for you to clean it and do not even say thank you, then you know that it is a cloggy-man.
When you find an old lady at the supermarket cursing and swearing because she can not put her shopping kart back in the raw because it has a different size and that she can not take her 50 cents back, then guess where this lady came from.
When it is your birthday and your colleagues at work are wondering why you did not invite them for a drink, then you are definitely dealing with some cloggies.
so, how to recognise a cloggy?
The Dutch population in general are known to be nice and kind people whenever it come to anything other than money. When a guy tells you that he has been to your country few years ago and he still has some of its currency and he would like to exchange it for today's rate to the cent-value, it means that you are standing in front of a Dutchman.
When your landlord who's overcharging your rent, gets a verdict from the court to lower the rent four times and you, out of nobleness and utopian values, suggest that the verdict is unfair for him, so you would pay only half the rent and he starts to negotiate for 5 euros, then welcome to Holland.
When you invite a friend at your place and he eats your dinner and do not leave you any food, and then leave the after-dinner-crap for you to clean it and do not even say thank you, then you know that it is a cloggy-man.
When you find an old lady at the supermarket cursing and swearing because she can not put her shopping kart back in the raw because it has a different size and that she can not take her 50 cents back, then guess where this lady came from.
When it is your birthday and your colleagues at work are wondering why you did not invite them for a drink, then you are definitely dealing with some cloggies.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
April 30th 2006
It was exactly two weeks to two years since this happened to me. It was one long day spent in Amsterdam on the Queen's day when I was coming back to Arnhem, where I used to live for sometime. I simply overslept in the train and got to a wrong station where the conductors offered me a free ride back home!!
Today, again something similar happened when I overslept in the train coming back from work to wake up and find myself in the very empty parked train in the middle of nowhere!! after trying to find anybody inside it, I decided that a good solution would be opening the door and getting out of it to discover that I am in the trains garage area. Well, finally somebody shown up and he lead me to the exit and even told a colleague to drive me with his cab to the central station.
Good attitude cloggies, keep it up
Today, again something similar happened when I overslept in the train coming back from work to wake up and find myself in the very empty parked train in the middle of nowhere!! after trying to find anybody inside it, I decided that a good solution would be opening the door and getting out of it to discover that I am in the trains garage area. Well, finally somebody shown up and he lead me to the exit and even told a colleague to drive me with his cab to the central station.
Good attitude cloggies, keep it up
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Fitna
This may sound absurd but after my stronghold against watching this film produced by a Dutch PM named Geert Wilders, I have seen some parts of it while watching an episode of a very famous Egyptian talk show; Alqahera Alyoum (in Egyptian), the least that I can describe my feelings was shocked!!
Well, I had some talks with some Dutch friends lately and heard some claims like, Quran is as any other holy book can have some phrases promoting for violence, or that Quran is written in a very old language that nobody can understand. Despite that such claims are very far from truth as there is no single sentence in Quran promoting for violence, the only thing that Quran is promoting for, and may sound like violence is that Muslims and people of the book (monotheists; Christians and Jews) should defend themselves, their families, society, money, religion, and land, and this is legitimate and legal according most of "normal" countries' constitutions except for the Netherlands. The other claim is as wrongful as the first one in that the language of Quran is old Arabic, which I myself can understand about 90% of, except for the very old expressions and there are some well-known books for Quran's explanation or Tafsir, and these books have almost the same meanings except for very small contradictions and all of them about minor subjects.
The only thing that those discussions made me know was that the biggest majority of people who are criticising Quran or Islam for anything are those people who have not paid any effort in trying to read it, and all of their criticism is justified in the book itself, but going back to the major problem that we are facing which was briefed by Wilders statement;"I am not against Muslims, but against Islam". Actually, for me as a religious Muslim, I do not mind when non-Muslims criticise Muslims for many of their behaviours as I myself do, because simply Muslims represent around 20% of the population of the current world, and nobody can by whatever means bring even 1% of the population of the world and consider them as behaving exactly the same, but this can be considered as stereotype. I, as most of religious Muslims, do accept criticism and questioning of the religion, but the only thing that I would not accept is insulting the religion and prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for no reason, promoting for hatred and Islamophobia which is what this dude trying to do.
What makes us, Mulsims, feel sarcastic about such ill-minded propagandas is that Islam is the only religion do not has anything mentioned in its holy book promoting for violence and that it never occurred during anytime during the past 1429 years that any Sheikh, Imam or a general leader of Muslims promoted for violence or a war against other nation, which was not attacking Muslims, in the name of God, while on the other hand, there appeared some Christian leaders (Pope) who has nothing to do with Christianity or its teachings, who promoted for violence and brainwashed a whole continent's (Europe) brains to drive them toward some political and economical wars (Crusades). It is pointless to mention what was the effect of such wars that millions of Mulsims, Jews and Christians were killed in such wars, but it is interesting that nobody in the western world or the Vatican had ever publicly apologised for those wars or even denied that it was religion related events.
At the end, I believe that although the Dutch government has done a very wise action by denying the film, but the campaign promoted by some Egyptian and Muslim activists of boycotting Dutch products was quite wise too. This was done before against Denmark and it has shown some good results as some Dutch industries has threatened Wilders that if they will lose money due to his film, that they will sue him. It is just the least that can be done to teach people who think that they can promote against religions and toward hatred; claimed to be freedom of speech, should not be allowed to have any voice.
One of the negative reactions for such incident was that a Saudi blogger has blogged about Christian extremism which should not have been done by a Muslim, as the teachings of Christianity as written in Quran is very different than what those guys are doing and we; Muslims, were forced by Quran to defend Christians the same as we should toward Muslims.
Well, I had some talks with some Dutch friends lately and heard some claims like, Quran is as any other holy book can have some phrases promoting for violence, or that Quran is written in a very old language that nobody can understand. Despite that such claims are very far from truth as there is no single sentence in Quran promoting for violence, the only thing that Quran is promoting for, and may sound like violence is that Muslims and people of the book (monotheists; Christians and Jews) should defend themselves, their families, society, money, religion, and land, and this is legitimate and legal according most of "normal" countries' constitutions except for the Netherlands. The other claim is as wrongful as the first one in that the language of Quran is old Arabic, which I myself can understand about 90% of, except for the very old expressions and there are some well-known books for Quran's explanation or Tafsir, and these books have almost the same meanings except for very small contradictions and all of them about minor subjects.
The only thing that those discussions made me know was that the biggest majority of people who are criticising Quran or Islam for anything are those people who have not paid any effort in trying to read it, and all of their criticism is justified in the book itself, but going back to the major problem that we are facing which was briefed by Wilders statement;"I am not against Muslims, but against Islam". Actually, for me as a religious Muslim, I do not mind when non-Muslims criticise Muslims for many of their behaviours as I myself do, because simply Muslims represent around 20% of the population of the current world, and nobody can by whatever means bring even 1% of the population of the world and consider them as behaving exactly the same, but this can be considered as stereotype. I, as most of religious Muslims, do accept criticism and questioning of the religion, but the only thing that I would not accept is insulting the religion and prophet Muhammad (pbuh) for no reason, promoting for hatred and Islamophobia which is what this dude trying to do.
What makes us, Mulsims, feel sarcastic about such ill-minded propagandas is that Islam is the only religion do not has anything mentioned in its holy book promoting for violence and that it never occurred during anytime during the past 1429 years that any Sheikh, Imam or a general leader of Muslims promoted for violence or a war against other nation, which was not attacking Muslims, in the name of God, while on the other hand, there appeared some Christian leaders (Pope) who has nothing to do with Christianity or its teachings, who promoted for violence and brainwashed a whole continent's (Europe) brains to drive them toward some political and economical wars (Crusades). It is pointless to mention what was the effect of such wars that millions of Mulsims, Jews and Christians were killed in such wars, but it is interesting that nobody in the western world or the Vatican had ever publicly apologised for those wars or even denied that it was religion related events.
At the end, I believe that although the Dutch government has done a very wise action by denying the film, but the campaign promoted by some Egyptian and Muslim activists of boycotting Dutch products was quite wise too. This was done before against Denmark and it has shown some good results as some Dutch industries has threatened Wilders that if they will lose money due to his film, that they will sue him. It is just the least that can be done to teach people who think that they can promote against religions and toward hatred; claimed to be freedom of speech, should not be allowed to have any voice.
One of the negative reactions for such incident was that a Saudi blogger has blogged about Christian extremism which should not have been done by a Muslim, as the teachings of Christianity as written in Quran is very different than what those guys are doing and we; Muslims, were forced by Quran to defend Christians the same as we should toward Muslims.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Back to Fut...(hmmm) bloging
Jeeeee....I was checking this blog which happens to be mine sometime ago only to notice that my last posting on is a baby of one year's old, and if this would made me to realise anything is that there was something; if not many things, out of my skin happening to me.
Well, despite the fact that I have started already highlighting some problems that I was facing in the past period and working on fixing them, but as an indication, the past year can be simply described as got a new job in April (by the time of my last posting), developed my relationship with the girl that I want to spend the rest of my life with, got new and interesting friendships, added some places to my have-been-to list and finished my Master studies without any losses, so far.
In other words, my last year's performance was unsatisfactorily lower than ever, and some improvements need to be undergone.....progressing.
Well, despite the fact that I have started already highlighting some problems that I was facing in the past period and working on fixing them, but as an indication, the past year can be simply described as got a new job in April (by the time of my last posting), developed my relationship with the girl that I want to spend the rest of my life with, got new and interesting friendships, added some places to my have-been-to list and finished my Master studies without any losses, so far.
In other words, my last year's performance was unsatisfactorily lower than ever, and some improvements need to be undergone.....progressing.
Labels: Personal thoughts, Updates
