Power of brainwashing, Christmas tunes in Dec

Don't you find yourself whistling and repeating the Christmas carols melodies and tunes in Dec? Aren't you irritated by these tunes that run endlessly inside your brain? Well, what is this except the huge power of brainwashing. If something is drilled again and again and again into you, it becomes part of your brain circuits and you can't get away from it.

In Christmas time anywhere you go, from the malls to the stores to the streets, you hear these same carols endlessly. In a short time, you find yourself repeating them endlessly in your brain.

Well, this is the simplest and easiest brainwashing. We human beings are very susceptible to this. Now imagine how a newborn kid living in a cult family environment can escape from incessant indoctrination in the family? It is just impossible. The "tunes" drilled into his impressionable brain are going to be played there forever. But same can be said about grown up human beings in many dictatorships.

First Nations(Indians) poor and begging in their own land

Many times in downtown Toronto you can see poor Indians, inebriated, dirty, homeless, begging for a cent. It is so sad to see these scenes because you know that if this land has an owner, it is the Indians not us new immigrants. They have been here for thousands of years and it is so unfair to see them begging from us newcomers on their own land, which has been conquered by us.

Warning by Warren Buffet about low taxes for the rich

Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world, has warned against repealing estate-tax in US. Tax cutting by Bush and cronies has reached to a point that even the rich are complaining:

Read the article here

Capitalism, immigration and alienation

Capitalism in North America needs immigration and feeds on it. Immigrants, especially uneducated non-skilled immigrants are willing to do the dirtiest jobs, with minimum wages, without any complaints, and actually are thankful to be in North America. They are the epitome of the slave labour which is a necessary requirement for capitalism. The native labour force can never be treated as badly as immigrant labours and stay quiet, they know more about their rights, feel more secure in their "own" country and unionize and object to the abuse.

The alienation of the immigrant labour force brings about another outcome. Immigrants never feel attachment to their new homeland, as much as a native. They don't demand better services. Hundreds of years of experience with capitalism proves beyond doubt that a capitalist system never delivers services without pressure by masses. In countries like Switzerland and Japan, which have a lower level of immigration, and most people are natives with generations of entitlement to the country behind them, the level of services are much higher, because people are not alienated, they feel they belong and they demand better services. In countries like US or Canada, as a large number of people are immigrants, the demand for better services is lame and weak and as a consequence, the services are only provided for the upper classes and not for the masses of the populations.

A polish man and a Taser

There are two very separate issues in the event of the murder of the innocent Polish man in the Vancouver aiport:

1. Irrespective of what he had done, the reaction of the police guys was too aggressive and over the top. Taser is usually left as a last resort, but the video taken there shows that they use it as a first resort, without even asking him a question.

2. Now that his background in Poland is being known, we notice that he has a record of robbery and other criminal acts. It is strange how such a person with such a criminal record is allowed to enter the country as a legal immigrant while thousands of clean educated applicants have to wait for years to be granted immigration.

Canada has to have a complete overhaul of its immigration policy.

Human Beings Sane? Why do we think we are any better than other animals?

Human beings think that they are advanced and more reasonable than other animals. I always think 6 reasons are enough to prove how stupid and unreasonable we "hairless apes" are:

1. smoking: Despite 50 years of heavy campaign against smoking, and despite extensive research that proves beyond doubt that smoking is a serious health hazard, there are still millions and millions of human beings that smoke. Each time I see somebody opening a pack of cigarettes with those nasty pictures of wasted lungs and teeth on them and the warning that smoking is hazardous to your health, each time I see near death patients on wheelchairs outside the main door of hospitals smoking in the cold windy day, I ask myself: “do you need any other proof that we are just another primitive primate with a primitive brain”?

2. Religion: Despite all the scientific advances we have made, right in the middle of the so-called most advanced society in the world, in US, large groups of people still believe that humans are created by god 6000 years ago, refuse to accept evolution, accept that all sorts of miracles are true, and lots of other false outdated beliefs. They go through boring 2000 year old books believing them word by word and fight tooth and nail to stop scientific advances like stem cell research.

3. War: Are we different from any small tribes of chimpanzees when they fight the other tribe and kill their young and adults just because they are “different”? How can we boast we are different, more advanced, and reasonable when we still fight as ferociously and every day “invent” better ways to kill and annihilate each other?????

4. The British Royal Family: Can you find any group of people as useless as this family? What is the rason de etre of this family? Just because you have dropped out of the vagina of a certain woman you are entitled to all these privileges? You own vast tracts of lands, palaces, wealth and power just because you are one of them? What is the difference between prince Charles and any other man on the street? The only difference is that the passage that guy passed through to come to this world was not located between the legs of a certain person! Why on earth is any of them entitled to all those privileges and wealth? As long as there is such a thing as a royal family in this world that thinks it has the gods approval to be different and is blue blooded, and worse than that, is “loved” and “approved” by its own people, I will always doubt the sanity of human beings.

5. The existence of countries and borders: We are all one species, we are not Americans or Bangladeshis or Japanese. Why borders? Why countries? Why draw a line on the sand and say I, at this side of this line, have the right to be prosperous and powerful and happy, and you just on the other side of the line have to be poor and oppressed and illiterate? Can any sane and reasonable person bring up just one reason why we need to have borders and countries?

6. LOTTERIES AND CASINOS: We all know chances of winning big in a lottery is statistically less than being hit in the street by a meteorite, yet still hordes of people buy lottery tickets every day. And if casinos were going to pay more than they made, there wouldn't be any casino around and yet still millions of people go to casinos everyday to "win". Shall I go any further??

These are just 6 reasons why we are not sane, why we are no different than gorillas and chimpanzees, why we are animals like any other animals, and why we don’t have any rights to boast about our special place in this world and this universe. I can go on and list a thousand other reasons, but do you think it is necessary???

Harper the tax cutter bribes me and you with another GST tax cut

Harper the tax cutter did it again and cut more taxes. By just cutting 1% of GST, the government will lose around 6 billion dollars a year, and who will benefit, only the rich who are conspicuous consumers, not the poor that only buy food and some very low price items.

Instead of cutting the GST, why doesn't he invest the money into health care, education, housing and other social programs? Are all Canadians so well off that they don't need any of these social programs? How about the crumbling infrastructure of this country, and cities like Toronto that are on the brink of bankruptcy and can't even run their libraries and community centres and public transport? Who is paying for this tax cut? Certainly not the rich, but the poor who have to pay more for the transport tickets, day care, health care, their children's university education, etc. How about freezing the madly rising university tuition fees Mr. Harper??? Or a National Medicare or dental care program???

On the other hands the corporations are rewarded generously with huge tax cuts, really this is a government of corporate welfare, not people's welfare.

And of course, the idiots that can be bribed with a 1% GST tax cut are going to vote for him again, happily pocketing a few dollars more, and losing hundreds and thousands of dollars in healthcare and education for themselves and their families.

The greatest political act

As Jesuits used to say: give your newborn child to us and we will guarantee that we will make a true Christan out of s/he for life. They knew well. What we are, our habits and personality is formed by the time we are 6 years old. Insert good habits in these first six years, and the person will always follow and be a good one. Ruin him/her during these 6 years, and there is nearly no possibility of reform.

The greatest act of political reform and change by any government will be to introduce good education for these first 6 years, but alas, the governments let these first critical years totally in the hand of the parents. Parents who could be drug addicts, alcoholics, uneducated, crazy, etc. And then when the kid has already acquired the mechanism that is going to shape his/her personality, they try to change it! Isn't it stupid?

Canada deserves long term thinking

A very interesting article in Toronto Star which is not good only for current vote seeking situation in Canada today, but for all times in a democracy.

Canada deserves better

Conservatives wasting the surplus on tax cuts again

Stephen Harper is at it again. "Bribing" simple minds among the masses with tax cuts to vote for him again. I can't find a better word to explain his tactic. Wasting the hard earned surplus that belongs to all of people, on a wealthy few. This surplus must be used to build new infrastructure for the country, renovating the faltering existing infrastructure, helping the near bankrupt cities, etc. Why not help Toronto out of the hole they put it in in the first place. Toronto is a virtually bankrupt city that can't even keep it's libraries and community centres open, and then Harper wastes the surplus in that "bribe". This surplus should be used for health care, for a free medication plan for all, free dental care, free higher education, all of them, if well looked at, are "human rights". But no, Mr. Harper wants to rule another four years, and so what does he do, he wastes "Our" money by giving tax cuts to the wealthy or upper middle class.

what does being a Canadian mean?

Multiculturalism was good when Canada opened its doors to the world at the beginning of the 70s. It was good in that it stopped racism. But now, Canada is being inundated under the waves of immigration and there is no Canadian identity left. I think now Canada has to have a revision in the ideal of multicultrualism and instead look more into the "melting pot" idea. The newcomers to Canada have to adhere to a minimum of "Canadianness" and not be totally separate from the larger community and living in their own tiny communities.

How to create New Humans

Communists in Russia tried to create new man. Their endeavour ended up in Russian mafia. By studying communities like Mormons or Mennonites we can learn what is the effective method of creating the new man according to any blueprint for humanity. You don't enforce and impose your model to a whole society, it is impossible. People are different and for any ideology there are always just a minority of the whole society who believe in it. The method is to separate these people from the larger society and build up your own little community, comprised only of people that believe in the ideology. In this small community, 100% of people believe in the ideology of their own free will. But that is not the end. This community needs constant weeding. The creators of such societies must be on constant watch for disbelievers and the ones who lose the faith. These sort of communities need constant "weeding". Every new generation will be weeded and non-believers dropped out and rejected by the society. That is the only way to preserve the purity of the community, the ideology and the faith. If they are strict in this, they can last for generations.

The modern election bribe

In the simpler times of yore, they used to bribe people directly to vote for a candidate. They took them to lunch, paid a small amount, etc, and got the vote they wanted. Nowadays, it has become a little more sophisticated, now they promise you a "TAX CUT". If you look at it closely, it is no different then the other bribes they used before.

Hijab

With all the fabric she had wrapped around herself, you could cloth 5 people and still have some to cloth her. What a waste of fabric and human energy.

Death and Evolution- Why should we die for the species to exist

If death was not programmed into our cells, we living things could not adapt to change so fast and would be a gonner by now. Without death evolution can't work its magic and the species that does not let it's individual members die will not last long. Death is a unique "defect" in genes that has actually resulted in the survival of the species and life on this planet.

What an irony that DEATH, which is so "traumatic" to any individual member of the species, is so good for the survival of the species.

How hard we try to live together

I am at the training centre for elections Ontario for the 10th of October elections. I listen to all manners of fraud that could happen in elections, even in this civilized country of ours, and I think:
How hard we try to live together, despite the selfish animal within each of us that wants to have everything for itself and does not care for others. It is like putting wolves or tigers in a tight cage and expect them to be fair and kind to each other. But try we do, and we are at it for the past 100,000 years. But; we are still so far away from real social animals like bees and ants, or even the society of cells in our own bodies, where there is really a social motto that is followed by everybody without question: One for All, and All for One.

Pearl of Wisdom by Jin Tao

Some women are not good for your health. You wonder what I mean? I mean, women are like food. Some are good for your health, like vegetables, but you rather not touch them. Your mama says it is good for you, and your doctor says it is good for you, and your brain says it is good for you, but your heart is not into it.

On the other hand, some are very bad for your mental health and peace of mind, but like chocolate and fatty foods, you crave them all the time. These women should carry this warning on them: "Handle with care, might be hazardous to your well being despite very sweet on the outside".

Shame on Toronto Councillors who voted down the tax increases and now tax the poor

TTC had to increase it's fares yesterday amid fierce campaign by right wing cabal in Toronto Council to stall the tax increases.

WHAT IS A FARE INCREASE? Is it anything else than a TAX on the poor who don't have a car and no other choice than taking the TTC? Also a tax on people with an environmental conscience who don't use cars and don't want to pollute this planet more!

Who was the sole beneficiary of the tax increase blockage? Rich people without a conscience about our planet who drive their SUVs on our highways and choke the planet.

Shame on you capitalist cronies. Shame on you Minan-Wong. Where is the "budget efficiencies" you were promising so as the fares are not increased and the services are not cut? Isn't it an oxymoron? How could you have a functioning world class city without paying for it?? Can you deceive people forever by promising tax cuts and at the same time offering better services?? Is it possible? Who will vote for you except morons who still believe in fairy tales?

Intelligence and death

If there was a god, it was not fair to give us intelligence, and then give us death!

Why.... among all the animals on this planet, we became the only ones to understand that we are doomed to end and to death and decay?

Lobbyists

In the middle ages we had Faust who sold his eternal soul to Satan for fame and money. In our own age we have the lobbyists. The most despicable group, who sell their soul to big corporations to push their agenda at congresses and parliaments. These totally anti-democratic personalities are willing to slaughter the whole planet for a few pennies more for their miserable lives. For them global warming, public health care, social assistance for the poor, environment, etc. is nothing.

I deeply believe if these people were living in another era, under Stalin or Hitler, they would be the henchmen at Gulag or Aushwitz. Poor things, now they have to be happy just to be lobbyists.

Where is the "New Man"

If you are an avid reader of history, and if you are true to yourself, you know that all revolutions start with the promise of a new dawn. A totally new world, the birth of new man, and ...... a few decades later, they all end up with the same old humans. The genes are more powerful than the promises and hopes. The ape wins over the high expectations again and again.

All revolutions start with the fall of the old order, with starry eyed revolutionaries that promise themselves and others that this time, it is all different. That this time, we will really change the world, that time time, we will "build the new man"(as the communists in Russia used to promise). But at the end, greed and selfishness wins over, the chimpanzee in all of us wins over the promise of humanity. Christianity ends in the Byzantine empire and the Vatican, French Revolution ends in Napoleon, Russian revolution ends in Stalin and Brezhnev and the Russian mafia, English revolution ends in the restablishment of monarchy with crowds in the street cheering the return of the monarchy, Islam ends in the Omayed caliphs. Where is that mystical "New Man"? Does he exist only in our dreams? Can't we ever have him? Should we change our genes to achieve that dream? Can we ever subdue our inherent nature that tends towards greed and selfishness? Is it always going to be the "Animal Farm"? Are the pigs always going to win over at the end?

Pearl of Wisdom by Jin Tao

During history of mankind, 95% of human beings have just been spectators and beneficiaries of science and arts. They have not contributed at all to what we are now, they have lived like animals, just living, eating, breathing, copulating, and dying. They could live as easily in 10,000 BC as they are living now in this age. The true mankind has been those 5%, the scientists, philosophers, artists, writers, the people we owe all we are now.

Capitalist system in a few words

In my view the two pillars of capitalism are : GREED at one side, and FEAR at the other. GREED is what runs the capitalist and his creation, the corportations, and FEAR is what runs the mass of people in this system, fear of poverty, of unemployment, of "having less than their neighbor". In a society based on greed and fear I don't see much room for empathy, for humanity, for co-operation. It is a system based on dog eat dog

There is no end to human greed, health care in Canada

There is no end, no boundary, to human greed. For instance, take Doctors in Canada. They have very good incomes through the public health care system and yet, recently you see many of the family doctors leaving the system and starting private businesses in laser and beauty therapy or adding these businesses to their health care clinics.

Conservatives in Canada show their true colors

(Doris... Ooops) Day, the minister of public safety, said today that he is against banning handguns in Canada. This is said while there has been a surge in murders committed using handguns in different cities in Canada recently. NRA should be proud of it's Canadian compatriot. It yet proves again that Harper conservatives are no different than Bush people in USA.

Read the article HERE.

Hot Pot Sign in Spadina Avenue, Toronto

I shot this picture in July 07 in Spadina Avenue, the main China Town of Toronto.

Human Brain and the Evolution

First, there were single cells. For billions of years earth was inhibited only by single cell organisms. Then, there came multi-cell animals. Entities with a higher consciousness, aware of the world around them but acting more or less like machines. The brain in animals works more or less just to keep the community of cells they are made of; alive!

The third stage in evolution happened just recently, the human brain, with a consciousness totally separate and free from the community of cells it is made of. A brain that can think thoughts alien to the cells it is made of, thoughts that don't have anything to do with the day to day survival of the cells it is made of.

The fourth stage of evolution started 200 years ago, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. We are still at the beginning and nobody can say what a new consciousness will arise out of the totality of the human brains that comprise the industrial societies.

That consciousness might be close to what we think of as GOD.

Contradictions in US

People always wonder why there is such a huge contradiction in US. On one hand they are so advanced in science and technology, on the other hand the general public, apart from a small educated minority are on average ignorant, backward, still in 19th century when it comes to religion and their other beliefs. It seems you have cut an advanced part of a European country and pasted it on a background of 16th century Europe, with all the fundamentalists, etc. The explanation is simple.

US is a land of immigrants. The huge mass of the immigrants during the 19th and 20th century were composed of the poorest most ignorant groups of the socieites they immigrated from. Wealthy and educated citizens of European countries don't need to escape to another country for a better life. It is the most downtrodden and desperate and poor groups that escape to another world for a better life. So this huge mass emigrated to US and they brought the whole backward beliefs and social structure with them to the new country.

On the other hand, because of the riches of the country and its democracy, top scientists like Einstein and writers like Salman Rushdie are attracted to the the land. So here we have the root of this contradiction, a general public who are still pretty backward and ignorant, still behind the average industrial European or Asian countries, and a minority elite, who are the top brains of the world in science and literature and arts.

I am disappointed with Toronto

Again Toronto showed it does not have the courage and the will it takes to be a great city. Again at the last moment the city council wavered and voted no to the new taxes to save the city from bankruptcy. When we can't help ourselves, how do we expect federal and provincial levels of government to care for us? Just by ONE vote, city hall voted to defer the final decision about the taxes. Shame on the councillors that sided with capitalist fat cats in voting no to tax raises while they knew that the city is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Saving Toronto is not difficult. Just raise taxes for the fat cats, not the average joe and the middle class. Squeeze the fat cats, dont' be so timid. They make money in this city and out of the people of this city, why shouldn't they return some of that money to the city that has been so generous to them?? Why should they live in huge mansions with 40 rooms. Tax huge houses, they won't die living in 30 rooms instead of 40. Tax big cars, tax big consumption. But......... who dares to do that. Not half of our councillors. They won't bite the hand that feeds them, do they?

Please click here and here and here and here to read the articles about tax cuts(from Toronto Star)

Is this is a country to live in?

Imagine an industrialised country where even middle class families have difficulty sending their children to college and university because they can't afford it. They have to borrow, they have to save from when the child is born, and yet still some can't afford it.

Then imagine an industrialised country where 40% of the population don't have absolutely any medical insurance. It means when the disease and sickness comes, which it hits everybody at last once in their life, the main worry of these people is not their illness, but how to pay for it and lots of them avoid going to doctor and hospitals until they die.

IS THIS COUNTRY A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE IN?

Now a questions: What is this country?

Yes, you were right: The Great United States of America

Please Support the New Taxes in Toronto

The city hall is going to decide about adding a very little extra to home and car buying taxes and already the huge and powerful capitalist coalition and lobby is raising rabble about it. Please write letters and emails to your councillor supporting the new taxes. These taxes will save the city from bankruptcy when the federal and provincial governments have downloaded all the expenses to the city. You can find your city councillor's email address here:

http://app.toronto.ca/im/council/councillors.jsp

New Pearl of Wisdom by great philosopher Jin Tao

This one was discovered recently:

If these men of cloth, these great clergy, really believe in god and life after death, then why do they do their best to prolong their life and delay death. From Pope to Khomeini, they cling to their dear lives up to the last day. They don't show any willingness to rush to meet their god. They use the latest medical techniques and inventions and drugs to live one day more. Khomeini loved life after death so much that he had made a rather large hospital in his residence. The sole purpose of that hospital was to take care of his ailing body and prolong his life. The hospital was so advanced and large that after his death it was turned into a general hospital for the public. The former pope also the same, despite all his ailments, he was not willing to leave this world of sin and squalor and join his god in the heavens.

These men, just by their acts, prove that we human beings know instinctively in our bones that there is no life after death. Despite all the teachings, and in their case despite a lifetime of teaching, still they know deep down that it is all a child's story and death if final and full and complete destruction of life.

Break Dance in Harborfront

Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibtion and Women Artists

My friend was visiting the marvellous Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition this weekend. Visiting all those stalls with some very good art work, he noticed one thing: Most women artists were more beautiful than their art work. It was more pleasing watching them than their work, although some of the works were amazingly good.

Is it true what he noticed there? Women artists are more beautiful than the average woman?

This is just a thought that occurred to him. Take it just as a light hearted musing if you want.

َA Warning to Al Gore

Al Gore is veering too much to the left especially with his latest book. He knows it and the corporations know it and the whole American capitalist system knows it. He has turned so much to the left that now his election might be a danger for the inherent capitalist interests in US. On the other hand the pressure is mounting heavily on Gore to be a candidate in the elections.

His son's arrest is the first warning to him, beware, don't even think of standing as a candidate for the 2008 presidential elections. We have much more for you where the arrest came from.

The message sent to him by that arrest is simple and easy: "DON'T FORGET BOB KENNEDY AND MARTIN LUTHER KING."

And he knows it. I am sure he knows it. That is the reason he has steadfastly denied any and all demands for his candidacy. He knows that American capitalism is a no holds barred system. They kill if it is necessary to protect their billions.

Public Accpetance of Evolution in Different Countries

Source: Scince Magazine and the New Scientist. Read the article HERE

Look at the position of US at the bottom of the chart. It is shocking, isn't it? I am often stunned by the public ignorance in the US.

Taxes are necessary for living in a civilized society- Toronto and Torontonias

I am appalled by the indifference of our citizens to tax debates. Anytime there is a tax debate in the city hall, it is taken over by the right wing organizations that send their cronies and supporters en masse to the meeting. There are no supporters of tax for the benefit of public in these meetings. What you hear is moaning by a bunch of millionaires and their supporters that there are already too much taxes and it should be cut especially for high earners(How about a flat rate tax? They love it, don’t they?). But come to think of it, you can’t blame them, after all they are defending their millions and billions. But… where…. Oh where are the average middle and lower class citizens to bring their point of view to the meeting?

Bush, Stem Cells and Iraq

Bush did it again. He vetoed the stem cell research bill for the second time. He is a really great man. He is so much worried for the life of cells, single cells. Who cares if millions and billions of people are going to benefit hugely from this research that needs these cells. Who cares if this research is going to save people from miseries and pains of cancer, Alzheimers and many other diseases.

On the other hand, why on earth should he worry about the death and destruction in Iraq??? The life of a single cell is much more important than the life of millions of Iraqis. On one hand he is protecting these cells, and on the other hand he does not give a damn about more than 100 people being killed each day in Iraq.

That is what I call a consistent humanitarian conscientious policy.

Luminato gala opening in Toronto June 2007

Click on this link to see a clip of the ball runners in the gala opening of the Luminato

What has happened to the modern art and culture

I am reading a book called "OUR CULTURE, WHAT'S LEFT OF IT" by Theodore Dalrymple. I don't agree with all his opinions. Some of them are shot from the right wing of the British classes, but I can't agree more with some of his opinions. I loved the article " A Lost Art" and advise everybody to read it and write their opinion here. In it he writes about the demise of modern art.

Personally I think he is right here. Art is art as long as the artists create it for the people not for each other. When it is created just to impress your peer and the media, and to sell, unfortunately it is distanced from the really great art. It becomes ugly. It becomes "SHOCKING" instead of beautiful. We have forgotten that there is a difference between Shocking and beautiful.

And it seems that the aim of many a modern artist is to be more "SHOCKING" than his fellow artists. If you are not shocking you can't be recognized and known, and you can't sell. And the race continues. So each new artist should be more shocking than the previous one. And then we reach the point when you cut a cow in half and put it in Tate Modern as art, because it is shocking, and the critics praise it because it is shocking, and the public pretend they like it because they don't dare to say what they really feel, which is, "Oh my god, how ugly it is". You create ugly music that is a torture to listen to, but the overly refined art connoisseurs sit through it because the critics have praised it and it is fashion and you have to pretend you like it. You create ugly sculptures. you put a likeness of a guy shitting while stooping with his turd 4 meters long in the middle of the Museum of Modern Arts in New York and everybody gathers around and praises it as art. You put up a completely bland canvass on the wall as painting and critics dare to praise it. Art turns into words. Critics words. Without the words written to give it meaning, it is meaningless because it is ugly in itself. It is not like works of Bach or Michael Angelo that talk for themselves and don't need a word on paper to praise them for people to understand them.

I am an architect and see it quite clearly among architects. Architecture nowadays have turned into a race among architects to impress each other, not the public. They don't design for the public any more, but for each other. So each work should be more shocking than the previous one, otherwise you risk being forgotten and never mentioned in the architectural journals and that means death to an architect. As an architect, I find some of these works impressive(I don't use the word beautiful here), but then I ask common people what they think of it, and I don't get positive remarks. I go inside these buildings and again I am "impressed" but when I think of the poor “end user” who has to live and work in this building, I pity them because I know very well that "function" has been sacrificed for the sake of the "SHOCK" effect. The building shocks, the critics write rave reviews, the architect becomes famous and sells, but nobody thinks twice about getting back to the building one year after it is finished and ask the occupants how they feel about the building.

I believe you should cut the name of the artists from the art piece and then look at it and see if you like it or not, trust your feelings, not what critics tell you. Whenever I go to a museum or gallery, I try to avoid looking at the name of the creator, I just trust my senses, what do they tell me. I don't trust words by others to tell me what is good and what is bad. It reminds me of an experiment done sometime ago by a reality show. They put some paintings by 5 year olds in a big famous museum. The works were signed as Picasso and other famous painter's works. Not even one person there dared to say they are childish. The interviewer was asking the viewers and all of them were praising the works. He even asked a few critics and they were praising the works and then when he revealed that these were done by 5 year olds, many people would not believe it. The funniest part was that even one of the critics was insisting that these are the works by Picasso and other famous painters after he was told about the ploy.

What has happened to art that childish paintings by 5 year olds can’t be recognized as what it is and differentiated with great art? Something has gone horribly wrong in 20th century.

Hillary won't win

It is just a gut feeling, but why do I feel that Hillary won't win the elections in the US? I just write it down here for the posterity and will check it after the 2008 elections.

A City Without the Ads, It can be Done

Sao Paolo Brazil has passed a law to clean up the city from any and all ads anywhere. On the buses, billboards, benches, etc.

Others dare to do this, and do it, why can't we in Toronto be like them? Look at Dundas Square in the heart of Toronto, supposedly the heart of Toronto. Nothing is more garrish and ugly than this square with huge ads and billboards all around it.


READ THE ARTICLE HERE

As I had Expected- Hamas and Fatah

As I had expected Hamas easily won the battle in Gaza. Hamas was elected by the people of Palestine in a free and fare elections that has the approval stamp of all the organizations that observed it. The corrupt Fatah did not like the defeat and unfortunately the dumb US policy supported Fatah. If Americans had not supported Fatah, had not stopped the international aid and tried to get rid of a legal government by all illegal means, Palestine would not have been in this mess now. But, the US government is doing the same dumb thing it always does. Supporting an unpopular group who now has seized power in a coup with total disregard for the people’s aspirations and decision. What will be the result? A long protracted civil war until the group favoured by people seizes power.

And shame on Canada, today they announced they support the coup government. I just don't understand these supposedly western democracies. They say they respect the will of people and rule of law and the election results. But when people vote for groups that these western powers dislike, then they become the sore losers and whine and complain and don't accept the result of the free elections they themselves were insisting on. Then... What do they expect? To be treated respectfully by those people? To be trusted?

They did the same thing with Algeria and condemned it to years of brutal bloody civil war. They support unpopular and corrupt dictatorships in Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia. And yet, they dare to lecture the world about democracy????

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This is from a post by a Palestinian from the occupied Jerusalem. It proves very well what the ordinary man in the street in Palestine thinks about the Fatah government now:

The Palestinian masses know very well what the US symbolize for them, their children and their enduring cause. It symbolizes oppression in its ugliest forms. It symbolizes mass murder, land theft, dispossession, deprivation and ultimate mendacity and hypocrisy. America is the enabler, sustainer and justifier of 40 years of Israeli Nazism whose ultimate goal is the obliteration of Palestinians as a nation, by arrogating their homeland for them and making their future as precarious as possible.

In short, America to the Palestinians is very much like what Nazi Germany was to the Jews. Hence, any government agreeing to throw itself into the American lap will lose its legitimacy if not its very existence. This is probably the reason why Palestinians in the Gaza Strip didn't fight for Muhammed Dahlan and his men.

Hamas and Fatah

Fatah and hamas are fighting it out for the control of Gaza strip. Years ago, when Hamas was just a very small and marginal group, Israel helped it to grow in the vain hope that it will destroy Fatah. Now it is happening. Apparently the Israelis brought a dragon into the wolf’s den(wolf from their viewpoint, not mine) to get rid of it, without thinking twice what will they do when the dragon has won and killed the wolf.

Now what they wished for is happening. But will it help the Israeli occupation? I doubt it. This dragon is 10 times more dangerous than the wolf it has replaced. Living side by side with a dragon is ten times more difficult than living near a wolf’s den. Hamas will win this battle if Fatah is not helped out by the reactionary Arab governments and the Saudi money. Americans and Israelis for the time being will watch the battle from the sides, not taking part, hoping on hope that both organizations will demise. It is a vain hope. Hamas will most probably win in the long term, and that will bring Palestinians one more step closer to freedom from the yoke of the Israeli oppression.

We Are All Parasites, But Wonderful Parasites

Apart from Plants, all other animals on this planet are just parasites; parasites on the body of plants. Plants are the only living things that produce their food directly from inanimate chemical ingredients. All the other animals depend on plants to survive and live. But what wonderful parasites are we! We are much more advanced and complex than the living things we rely upon to survive. Nearly most animals are so much more complex than plants. It seems that because plants, early on on the life of this planet, found out how to turn the sun's energy into food, just were satisfied and happy with this process and did not have the urge to evolve much. But look at any animal, the eyes, the ears, the muscles, the nerves, the brain, how complex did we become, just to survive among other parasites and beat them on our main pursuit, which is to compete to have food from the plants.

Wolves, prey and the human society

I was watching a beautiful National Geographic documentary about wolves. While watching how the wolves hunt their prey, it passed my mind how similar are we, the human society, to a pack of wolves and also their prey. All through the human history, a small pack of cruel Alpha males in the form of armed groups have done unimaginable cruelties to the huge masses of the people, and yet, like the prey, the masses never react. They just escape, are happy to be let to graze in peace from time to time, and when one of them is hunted down, they just watch from distance, breathing a sigh of relief that it was not them and promise themselves to be more submissive to escape the pack. While when you look at the herd, you see and know that this huge herd can easily get rid of the wolves if they unite and fight back instead of running away each for itself. But the sad fact is, the herd always escape instead of fighting back and getting rid of the wolves. Only in rare moments in history, during revolutions and mass uprisings, do the herd fight back, and each time, when they unite and fight, they win. It is just impossible not to win as long as you are united, as the herd is much larger and more powerful united than a small pack of "wolves".

Click Here to see the New ROM's Crystal's photos

ROM's Crystal opened on Sunday 3rd of June. It was open just for one day from 1am Sunday until 6pm. I was among the lucky few who managed to visit this gem of architecture and took photos of inside without the permanent exhibitions. The photos show the raw Crystal, only the spaces inside. It is amazing, I really loved the building. Minus some central spaces which seemed to be wasted, like corridors that end up right into the walls. To see the photos click on the title. Enjoy!

See how Heather Reisman the owner of Chapters/Indigo escapes the meeting with Nader

Parenting needs licensing

Parenting needs training, education and licensing, like anything else in our society, like driving, etc: Even the simplest most basic jobs in our society nowadays needs a license and at least months of coaching and training. Even to drive a car you need a license. And yet, the most difficult, the most delicate of jobs, which is educating and bringing up the young is totally neglected in this respect.

Any addicted alcoholic person with a penis or womb is allowed to have children and bring them up without any knowledge about education. We let millions of children to grow up in households that don't know a word about how to teach and train a young human brain. What a waste! There must be license for parenting, and frequent check-ups. The same way we don't let a drunk or addict to drive in our roads because he will اhurt himself and others, the same way we should not let him/her to upbring a child because it will damage the fabric of our society.

This grey matter inside our skulls is the main capital of any society. If it is wasted, the society will be doomed. And yet, we let anybody, without any training, to bring up the children. Especially the first six years of life, where the whole personality of a human being is formed for the rest of their lives, should not be left in the hands of everybody just because they are the "genetic" parents of the child.

Toronto Star Article about the necessity of Early Years Education

Is domestic capitalist ownership better?

What is the difference between foreign ownership of means of production or domestic ownership. We hear from time to time moans and groans about how the whole Canadian ownership of corporations is being disappeared. Most of the large Canadian companies have already been gobbled up by foreign owned companies from American to even Chinese. But I don’t see why the hype. Capitalists are capitalists. They are there to make as much profit as possible and to exploit the wage earners. Why should we think that a domestic exploiter is better than a foreign one and will exploit us less? They are all alike. The problem is not in who owns our corporations, but the whole system of capitalism.

CAPITALISM

Nothing is changed much since they made this poster early 20th century. Except that now instead of the mostly manual labourers you have to put white collar wage earners and service sector employees at the bottom of the food chain.

The main goal of education in any society

What is more important in education, teaching history and math, or teaching how to be a good citizen, respect other people’s rights, avoid crime and etc? Our educational system sacrifices the main aim of education which is the rearing of a good and responsible citizen for the goal of teaching mainly useless stuff which will never be used in later stages in life.

Shouldn't we worship the human brain instead of god??

My cell phone rings. I answer the call, it is from Iran. I start talking and we talk for a long time. It never stops to amaze me. I am sitting here, half a globe away and I can talk to my mother in Iran as if she is in the same room, or sitting next to me in the bus.

What is a miracle? The story of Lazarous in the bible, or this amazing gadget in my hand? This small miracle of human ingenuity that lets me talk to somebody at the other side of the globe with the click of a button?

If there is a god, it is our brain. Our magnificent and unbelievably complex brain that has made cell phones and cars out of the rocks and oil of the ground. As if with a magic wand, we have turned simple rocks in the ground into these objects. Aren't we, human beings, the real god? Why do we tend to worship other imaginary and childish objects. If it was for me, I would put an effigy of a human brain on a pedestal in any temple and tell people," if you want to pray and worship a god, at least worship the real god", yourselves.

200 killed and scores injured in Baghdad today, the surge is really working

Thanks to Mr. Bush's surge policy, just today 190 people got killed in Baghdad in separate incidents. When is the time to say enough is enough? Who can tell this knucklehead that he is defeated in Iraq. Please, somebody save us from him. UN people, can't you take over and run Iraq for the sake of sanity and its poor people?

Virginia Tech and Americans

NRA will definitely start with: " if all students had each one gun with themselves, the guy could not kill anybody, they would have killed him first" ! Oh, yeah, sweet wild west movie. I am stunned that these people are even allowed to pretend to be reasonable human beings with such crooked reasoning. Constitution giving us the right to carry guns? The fathers of the nation could never imagine a crazy guy in VT in their wildest dreams. Or guys buying automatic guns from every corner store. If they were living now, they would definitely have the guts to cross this items out of the constitution, not like current spineless politicians. These guys, just to keep the campaign donations flowing, don't dare to ban the guns, something that every sane American expects them to do. The gun lobby is much too powerful.

And the people are completely and scientifically brainwashed to the point that they can't see the harm of this policy. The same way they have been brainwashed for a long time to loath the government and the taxes. And, it works unfortunately. Capitalism is strong.

If this guy had just a knife, what could he have done? At most stab one or two and then stopped by the same people that he managed to kill by his "guns". When a crazy guy went into a school in England several years ago and killed innocent children with a handgun the government introduced very strict gun control laws instantly. Why can't American government do the same, after all these tragedies? What is wrong with American democracy? Why is it so paralysed? Why can't it even change their measurement units into metrics, something all the world except US is now abiding by. US is the only country in the world still measuring things by feet and yards and gallons and pounds and miles. Why are politicians in the US so afraid of introducing big radical changes when it is necessary?

But one has to admit there is also something wrong with the culture, with the whole social structure of this society. Even in societies that people carry guns freely, like Somalia, Afghanistan, etc, this sort of killings never happens. This never happenes in Europe, or China, or India, or Japan. What is wrong with American culture?? Why people kill so easily there when they go stark mad, and not in other societies? Americans need to sit down and think about it long and hard.

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This can't happen in this world, but the power of money and greed in US let people act and talk like this, read on:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1611939,00.html

Toronto Star article about gun availability in the US

http://www.thestar.com/article/205619

Why Invade Iraq?

As one wise old man said, the invasion of Iraq is just for these three reasons:

OIL

O: stands for oil. US needs the middle east oil and Iraq has the second largest oil resources in the world



I : stands for Israel. The very powerful Israeli lobby used the American military to get rid of one of its staunchest enemies in the region.



L : US needs "land bases" in the middle east to guard the flow of oil and it will now have it in Iraq.



But the real victor in all this tragedy has been Israel. The long term goal of the Israeli government is to split up the large countries in the middle east into small feuding states. It is better to have three small weak feuding Kurd, Shiite and Sunni state in Iraq instead of one powerful central government that can be a force against Israel.

Israel has the same plan for Iran, and the other larger states in the middle east. Let us hope it can't be as successful in carrying out the plan as it was in case of Iraq.

Innocent Palestinian civilians used as human shields by the fascist Israeli army

I don't know if we can call this army by any other name. Nazi forces used these tactics and now we have Israeli army doing the same:

Boy used as human shield by Israeli Army

Meaning of life

We are born into this world without any purpose, it has just been a roll of dice for us, no goal, no aim, just being born, like any other chemical event, like a fly or dinosaur or bacteria or virus, or any other animal. We try hard to understand the meaning of life, but if we are honest, we have to admit that there has been no aim or higher goal in our birth or existence. But we can give meaning to this meaningless existence by our actions and thoughts. And then after death, nothing remains, exactly like other animals, or bacteria, or viruses. we are just a moment between two eternal darknesses. This is bleak, but this is the reality of our existence in this world.

Atomic Bomb, Islamic Republic? not in your life!

The media were at it again today. Ahmadinejhad has announced today that Iran is beginning to produce enriched uranium, and as if waiting for a signal, the whole western media started the raucous about the Iranian atomic bomb. But Iranians themselves know better. First, we know that the government in Iran is inherently a lier. Because there is no democracy, it is easy for them to lie, and if they can lie, they never tell the truth. That is just the nature of this government, and the social class it is coming from. And second, we know how inefficient this government is. We see it in everyday life, in every aspect of People's lives. So how could they be any different when it comes to enriched uranium? We saw how they botched the war. A country with 60 million population, huge resources, the largest army in the middle east with the most advanced weapons at the beginning of the revolution could not beat a much smaller primitive country after 8 years of war. All because of the enormous inefficiency of the Islamic Republic. With the huge brain drain that is continuing to this day, it is just impossible for this government to have enough brain power to pull it through. Even if they had all the brain power in the world, still they could not do it because of the abhorring management style.

So inside Iran people know that it is just a show put on for the foreign press, but outside Iran, it is taken seriously.

Israel, democracy, Palestinians

1. How could a country call itself democratic when it oppresses millions of people inside its borders. Was South Africa a democracy during the Apartheid era? Was American south a true deomcracy before the civil war and during the slavery period? I don’t think anybody would dare call any of those systems a democracy. I am struck each time I hear Israel being called a beacon of democracy in the middle east. Until such time that Israel leaves the occupied territories according to the UN conventions, and stops building apartheid-style 7 meter tall Berlin Walls complete with checkpoints it can’t be considered a true democracy. No country can be a democracy while oppressing another nation residing in the lands it has occupied by force. A system where only a percentage of the population are entitled to democracy and another group has to live in walled “Bantustan” style communities in abject poverty and are considered less than human and have no civil and human rights can’t be considered a democracy by any measures.

When you drive a cat with its back to the wall, it will attack you with all its force if it thinks you really want to harm it. For him it is a struggle of life or death, it will try to defend its life by all means although it knows it is much weaker than you. You can't blame the cat in such a situation, you have to blame yourself by causing the circumstances that made it so ferocious. You have not left any other option for it. Israel can't blame the Palestinians for what is going on the occupied lands, it has to analyse what it has done wrong to Palestinians to bring them to acts of desperate terror. These Palestinians are not their fathers and grand-fathers, who were illiterate and submissive and could not stand up to a bunch of European and American colonialists invading their lands. They are now educated and can't be subdued like their forefathers. Israel has not yet grasped the immensity of this landslide change in a new Palestinian generation. The mentality of the Israeli rulers is still one of the European colonialists of half a centry ago, they have not accepted the sea change in Palestine population.

2. Jewish people used to be one of the most radical and mostly left-wing groups in western countries during 19th and early 20th century. Because they were oppressed they used to be open and accepting to radical left political ideas and at the vanguard of most revolutionary movements. A rather unproportional number of members of socialist and communist parties in the west always belonged to Jews. Just check the leaders of the German socialism or Russian socialist movement, or any left and unionist movement in North America. Israel brought an end to this proud heritage. Suddenly most jewish people anywhere turned into the most right wing and reactionary groups in their societies. It is sad to see these proud people supporting extra right groups like George Bush in US or Harper in Canada, just because they think it is their duty to support Israel. I ask why? Why you should sacrifice your idealistic and progressive opinions just because you feel obliged to support a government? Just because Israel is a government of the Jews does not oblige you to close your eyes to the tyranny going on there. Following that line of reason any citizen of any democracy should shut up and not utter a word against their own government because it is their national government?

3. Do Bahais demand a country because they are a distinct religion? Do Mormons demand a country of their own? Or Isamilis? Or Buddhists? What is the difference between those religions, or any other religion for that matter, and Judaism which entitles the Jews to claim a country of their own? And can a country established and based on one religion only be democratic at all? There will always be fundamental contradictions and discrepancies between adhering to the tenets of one religion and letting all different opinions and religions have their free say in such a system.

Death by a Thousand Cuts, Canada's Healthcare

The Canadian public healthcare is under serious threat. The powerful private health companies, especially the American insurance and health companies south of the border, are salivating for a piece of this lucrative market. There are powerful lobbies in the federal and provincial governments that are trying hard behind the scenes to privatize the healthcare system.

The way they do it is "death by a thousand cuts". This is the name of an old traditional Chinese torture and does not need explanation as the name itself is quite clear. Nobody comes forward to announce that they have privatized the system once and for all ,nobody actually dares to do that. They know that the Canadian people will never let a party or person dismantle their excellent public healthcare system. Oh, no, they do it piece by piece. Each year, they privatize a little part here and a little part there until after 10 years or 15 years, nothing remains but a skeleton of the once mighty and great public healthcare and nobody in the general public will ever notice it. Like the Ontario government did last year, they privatized all physiotherapy and chiropractice services and also made people pay for the formerly free eye exams. Next year they will privatize another piece and this goes on until nothing remains.

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Quebec vote

So ADQ wins second in the elections. Mark it, the vote for ADQ is not a vote for ADQ, it is a vote against the two other major parties. It is the only way people can tell the two other that we don't approve of your policies at least for the time being. It is not at all clear if ADQ will keep the same number of votes in the next elections. And it is somehow sad, Quebec has always been left leaning, and for the first time after many years it is tilting to the right.

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Alcohol and tobacco worse than pot, and yet they spend billions prohibiting the pot while these two are freely available!

Saturday March 24, 2007

Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, according to a new classification of drugs published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday.

The table, drawn up by a group of leading British scientists, ranked heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone as the most harmful drugs, closely followed by alcohol in fifth place.

Tobacco was assessed to be the 9th most dangerous drug behind ketamine in 6th, benzodiazepines, which are prescription tranquillizers, and amphetamines.

Cannabis was said to be the 11th most harmful. LSD was ranked 14th and ecstasy 18th among the 20 drugs classified.

And yet our stupid governments, following the lead of the US government, spend billions of dollars fighting pot use, while drugs worse than that, like alcohol and tobacco are freely available. In the prohibition era in the US, they spent billions trying to stop people drinking. Not only did it backfire and alcohold was freely available the prohibition turned into a joke, but it also caused lots of unnecessary pain, and created huge criminal gangs that their sole purpose and sustenance was providing alcohol for the population.

Most people know how to use drugs in moderation not to harm themselves. Banning any drug is like banning knives in kitchens because a few people don't know how to use them and harm themselves or others. There are people in high places who use cocaine on a regular basis without harming their careers or life or families, and yet there are people in the street that are alcoholics and damage their lives and ruin their families. The rational way to deal with drugs is not banning them. Banning drugs just creates crime and corruption resulting from the crime. The solution is educating people how to deal with the drugs and how to use them in moderation.

Why they turn to Islam in droves?

Because communism has lost its validity after downfall of the Soviet Union and socialism tarnished because of its wrongful association with communism. Because Arab nationalism has not created any hope after 60 years of trial and error. Because Palestine is still an open wound and US and Israel are not ready to let the Palestinians have their own country. Nothing has remained except Islam to answer to the revolutionary aspirations of the younger generations across the Arab world.

http://www.thestar.com/News/article/195624

The Stupid Empire and Somalia. Same mistakes again!

Isn’t America the stupidest empire in the world ever? Or do all empires become stupid? Were Romans as stupid as Americans at the height of their power? Is it the hubris? Is it that they think they don’t need to be smart as a fox because they have the power of a lion and can afford to be as stupid as they want?

Look at Somalia now. They are repeating the same mistakes they made in Vietnam and just recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. When they invaded Somalia with the Ethiopian troops, it was very odd that Mogadishu fell in just a few days. It was just impossible to imagine that an organized force like the Muslim militia that had nearly conquered the whole country was going to be defeated and disappear in a few days. It was very clear what was their tactic. They had just melted away like Taliban in Afghanistan to reorganize and regroup and then start a guerilla war and hit the empire back. It was very clear that the corrupt bickering warlords of the different tribes that are united in a loose confederation called the legal government of Somalia can’t bring peace back to Somalia and yet Americans supported them and gave Mogadishu to them, for what purpose. To bring back the old rivalries and infighting, like Afghanistan after the American invasion. And now the same scenario is repeating itself in Somalia. Guerilla war which bites at the feet of the empire and leaves it helpless, an elephant surrounded by millions of local ants, helpless.

What really baffles me is: isn’t there a brain anywhere in US, in all those right wing think tanks that run the American foreign policy? What is wrong with these people? Why can’t they learn? Why do they make the same mistakes and blunders again and again?

Refugees, Illegal Imigrants and then some legal

We talk a lot about the plight of refugees in Canada. But nobody concerns’ themselves with the plight of the legal immigrants. The amount of money they have to pay, the trials and tribulations they have to go through, the long waits, the lack of any help and support when they arrive in Canada and try to find a job. As a person who has gone through this process myself with first hand experience I find it abhorring that fake refugee claimants often find far more support with open arms in this country than the legal ones.

I have heard stories about some refugee claimants, stories that I can corroborate, that leaves me angry and frustrated with the system. About people who come here claiming they are gay and are helped by the gay community and the moment they get their landed immigrant status go back to their country to marry and bring their brides, the country they claimed if they go back to will persecute them. Of the so-called political refugees who claim they have escaped their country and if they get back they will be executed or jailed, but the moment they get their landed immigrant or citizenship status go back and live and work in that country. Of people who come here claiming they have been under religious persecution because they had converted to Christianity and attach themselves to a gullible church here and get letters supporting their claims and the moment their claim is accepted disappear and never show up in the church again. And then I see highly educated and honest people, who apply for immigration through routine legal channels and are rejected.

Indigenous Canadians, who have been born in Canada, because they are not in touch with the immigrant community firsthand don’t know and hear about these stories. The immigrant communities usually don’t discuss and share the stories with the indigenous people because they feel they have a moral duty to support each other even ones among them that have come here illegally. But there is no such restriction among immigrants themselves and they talk about these stories openly. The wall of silence is only there when it comes to the indigenous citizens and media. And boy oh boy, the stories you share among your fellow countrymen about the fake claims!

For example I hear a lot about real political refugees who are rejected while the ones with the more spectacular stories that does not have any base in truth are accepted easily. People like me and my countrymen, because of our personal experience in our country, can easily separate the fake story from the real one, but not Canadians. It pains me that unfortunately so many of the claims come on the side of fake. But of course I know a Canadian born in this country is a poor judge in these cases, it is easy for them to believe these stories as they don’t have firsthand experience. Sometimes I feel all judges for refugee claimants from each country should come from among people born and bred in that country so that they can’t be cheated so easily.

The other injustice is the easy path of millions of illegal immigrants in the US that will be exonerated and soon become citizens while honest educated people who want to immigrate there through legal channels are not allowed and are rejected. As a landed immigrant myself, I am outraged about the event and I don’t think I am alone here. I find it a highly partial and biased process, unjust and hypocritical. What it says to people is: don’t bother about the cumbersome process, just manage to set foot in this country, we are going to give you amnesty soon, while your brethren who have tried the legal ways are left out. Will we do the same to others who have committed illegal acts, to thieves, murderers, criminals? No, and we don’t accept if somebody suggests it, but we let the illegal immigrants through this same process which we deprive other criminals. If the big business needs cheap slave labor, to counter the unions and the indigenous labor, let them bring them through legal channels, with work permits and due legal protection, instead of this most unfair and crooked process.

300

The "300" is now on screens. 300 Spartans defeating the huge Iranian army of hundreds of thousands. Can anybody believe that such a feat is possible? Of course not in real world.

But in a world where there were no media, radio and TV and papers, anybody could write anything they wanted and boast as much as they wanted about their great achievements. There were no checks and balances. There were no records kept, no photos, no videos, no journalists. It was easy to claim you have seen miracles, prophets, mythical warriors. And if all around you are surrounded by your own tribe who wants to believe and pride themselves with their achievements, you can even claim more.

Imagine for a moment that George Bush claims that he conquered Iraq with only 300 brave American soldiers against 300,000 Iraqi special forces, he can never write a history book with this claim. Media will eat him alive if he ever boasts about this. But in the Greece of 500 BC you could get away with it. And then if these books later were absorbed and made into foundations of a civilization(western civilization) the claims would be widely accepted in that civilization.

The problem is, nobody has asked what the enemy wrote about the same event. Unfortunately the Persian history books, were all wiped out and burnt during the Arab and later invasions. There was not even one book saved from the devastating Arab conquest, so we don’t know much about Persia before the Arab invasion. If the books were not burnt, then we would have had the other side of the story at least and how the Persians looked at that incident.

My take is that: Imagine the most powerful empire of our time, US, sends a few of its forces to Somalia for peacekeeping because groups in Somalia has asked it to send the forces and stop the civil war. It is not a force of hundreds of thousands, but a few thousand. Somalia does not have anything to draw the empire in, no oil, no minerals, no technology, it is a backward primitive land of tribes fighting each other forever. Now after a short period the empire understands it has made a mistake sending even that little force there, it is wasting money and resources on a land and people which is not worth it. It calls them back.

Now imagine Somalian historians later write books and claim that a few hundred Somalians had defeated a force of hundreds of thousands of Americans and kicked then out. The empire does not care about those books. The empire does not even notice somebody has written such a book, the empire has its own history and its own important matters. Now imagine in an atomic holocaust the whole US civilization, all the books, the library of congress and everything is burnt. Nothing, not even one book is saved and the empire is no more. After a thousand years, the only books that remain are the history books written in the Somalia and now we have a civilization in Africa that traces its roots to Somalia. Now what everybody will believe in that civilization is that, yes, a few hundred Somalians really defeated the main forces of the US empire thousands of years ago.

For Persians, the same thing happened. Greece was a mountainous faraway land like today’s Afghanistan, full of warring tribes, without any riches to attract the empire to its gates. They had some goats and a little olive oil and some small towns here and there. No empire in its sane mind would care to even contemplate wasting its forces to conquer such a land. Greece was located far away from the centre, on the vicinity of the empire, inhospitable and poor and not at all enticing. From time to time they had to be dealt with to stop them from sending small pirate missions to Asia minor cities, that was it. Persian empire never cared about Greece. But, for Greeks it was completely different. Persia was the great power of its time and all they could think of was the huge riches of that empire. They fought for that empire from time to time as mercenaries and tried to take part in the trade.

So the story of 300 is just what it is. Only a story, told by uncontested historians that did not have to deal with checks and balances of modern academia and could write virtually any nonsense they wanted. And the counter-history, the history books of Persia, were all burnt down and turned into smoke during the Arab invasion, so we don’t know how the other side saw it. Perhaps no more than a small temporary military operation to calm down some warring tribes at the fringes of the empire. Like how Romans saw their affairs in Jerusalem during the time of Jesus Christ, not even one Roman historian has mentioned his name in their books, he was a non-entity for the empire.

footnote: just to finish it on a funny note, somebody wrote recently: ignore the whiners, they are just a bunch of pussy Athenians!

Pearls of Wisdom by great philosopher Jin Tao

Recently very old and tattered manuscripts were discovered in the north east corner of China in a cave. Scientists and liguists are deciphering and translating these manuscripts now. Apparently they are by a Chinese philosopher, Jin Tao. Read this section regularly, new thoughts are added the moment they are translated from the original:

ON SOCIETY

* There are two sorts of criminals. Small-time criminals are the ones filling up the jails. Big time criminals turn out to be the CEOs of international corporations, politicians, rulers and dictators. They are the Alpha males ruling the world.

* 95% of any society are sheep, grazing happily and not caring who rules them. They are oppressed, cheated, made to work for the rulers with their own consent, provide the wolves with their milk and wool and meat. 2.5% of the society are the wolves, they are the so-called shepherds of this herd of sheep, working them to death and enjoying the booty. The rest are the intellectuals, they are the ones trying endlessly to awaken the sheep to their tragic destiny. Once every 50 years or so they are successful, the sheep start to move, bleat, open their eyes, rise against the wolves, resist, and ..... sadly, get back to their old ways soon. Intellectuals are trying constantly to warn the sheep, to tell them this is not the way to live, there can be a better world, where the sheep can have their own government and there are no wolves anymore, but to no avail. What is left of this never-ending struggle for the poor intellectual is sorrow, frustration, and lots of crucification by the wolves, while the sheep are watching contentedly and actually giving a helping hand in the repression of their saviours and dancing around the cross.

* Parenting needs training, education and licensing, like anything else in our society, like driving, etc: Even the simplest most basic jobs in our society nowadays needs a license and at least months of coaching and training. Even to drive a car you need a license. And yet, the most difficult, the most delicate of jobs, which is educating and bringing up the young is totally neglected in this respect. Any addicted alchoholic person with a penis or womb is allowed to have children and bring them up without any knowledge about education. We let millions of children to grow up in households that don't know a word about how to teach and train a young human brain. What a waste! There must be license for parenting, and frequent checkups. This grey matter inside our skulls is the main capital of any society. If it is wasted, the society will be doomed. And yet, we let anybody, without any training, to bring up the children. Especially the first six years of life, where the whole personality of a human being is formed for the rest of their lives, should not be left in the hands of everybody just because they are the "genetic" parents of the child.

ON HUMAN CONDITION

* The stupider, the happier, the wiser, the gloomier.

ON WOMEN AND MEN

* Open up any woman's head, in the centre of it you will find a baby, a house and a man. Open up any man's head, in the centre of it you will find a harem.

* The deepest love of a woman is reserved for her children and through her children she loves her man. The deepest love of a man can be his woman.

* Women don't need philosophy to explain to them why we are on this earth. It is enough for them to have a look at their children and all the philosophical humdrum is solved for them. They know and feel the reason of their being in this universe through their children and their wombs. Men need philosophy because they don't give birth, they are not fertile, so they have to ask themselves again and again why am I here, what is the purpose of my life. For a woman, the purpose of her life is crystal clear when she looks at her children. Women don't need philosophy.

* A man who loves a woman showers her with his attention and favours and does not expect much in response, which is normally what happenes. Women don't return love as much as they receive it. But the man does not complain, he knows in his genes that the return of his love will be towards the children she will have from him. She compensates double his love in taking care of his children, of his genes.

* A woman can't feel in a thousand years how powerful a role sex drive plays in a man's life. She might try to understand it, but feeling it is different. The only way a woman can feel it is by injecting testosteron for a few months! Women might know that men have sexual thoughts every few mintues, but to have it themselves with that regularity will be an eye opener. They might know that men are aroused easily, but being aroused yourself by the drop of a hat such as seeing just a beautiful woman with skimpy dress in the street is different. If women can experience it, they might have second thoughts in having revealing clothes in unsuitable places, or be too inviting to some men who can't control their drive.

* For men sex is sex. They have a billion sperms available at any moment so they can forget about the real meaning of sex which is breeding the species and just enjoy the pleasure. There is no lifelong giving from your body to a new life, no lifelong investiment. For women sex is children. Any act of sex implies a lifelong investment in a new life. That is why women don't take it lightly and don't give easily.

* Women love strong men. On the other hand, most men are genetically attracted to women that are not strong and threatening to their manhood. It gives the man a sense of power and pleasure of protection. Just imagine a helpless woman by the roadside with a flat tire. A million men stop to help her and bond with her. Now imagine a strong woman dealing with it herself and changing the tire. No man there!! Smart women use it to their benefit, at the same time that they are strong, they flaunt some female weaknesses to attract the man.

* At the end of the day, a woman looks at a man's pockets instead of his brains or looks. That is in the genes and an evolutionary necessity. A woman who went after a man who could not provide her and her children with food and shelter, was doomed to failure and could not transfer her genes to the future generations of women. Only women who got men who could support their offspring managed to transfer their genes. All the women in our world now carry those women's genes, the gene of supremacy of pockets over brains and looks.

* I never understand why women go through all this trouble to follow the fashion. Is it so important to sacrifice your time and health for it? Whenever I see a woman angling and tilting on top of a 10cm high heel and can see the pain she is going through, I wonder.

* It always strikes me as a great gift: the power of women to talk about "nothing" for hours. If only we men could have inherited a little of that!

* On coming back from a trip to India: Thank god for arranged marriage in India otherwise half the Indian women would go to grave without having experienced the touch of a man, so ugly they are!

The New Proletarians

The new proletarians are of course the wage and salary earners, and mostly in the service sector. Marxists have it totally wrong when they still refer to the proletariat as only factory workers. The ranks of factory workers are diminishing by day and soon with automatic and robotized factories there won't be any. But the nature of slave labour is still the same as long as one sells his/her labour to another human being to sustain him/herself. There is no difference between the nature of the economic relationship between a Walmart employee, or a computer programmer's employee for that matter, and a proletarian factory worker. They all sell the fruit of their labour to somebody else to sustain themselves. As long as human beings do slave labour, socialism will be alive to defend the rights of wage earners(slaves) against the employers(slave owners).

Evangelicals in Toronto? What are they up to?

Religion again. Wolves in ship's skin posing as shepherds. Poor people desperately seeking solace in all the wrong places:

Toronto Star article

The day we won the Revolution

In the morning we were under the shah’s rule, in the evening it was a new age, a new totally democratic popular government, sort of the ideal of the anarchist philosophers, real power of the people in the hands of the people and for the people, no government institution left, everything run by soviets of people’s representatives, with no standing army but just local militias.

Early morning I wake up. I have an appointment to pick up Majid my best friend and go to a series of speeches and demonstrations by the Tudeh party in Elmosanat University. These days are so colorful and exciting. I know I will never live life like this in my whole life again. After all, These events, if you are very very lucky, just happens once in a lifetime and most people on this planet never have the opportunity to experience such a thing. They are doomed to normal boring lives, day after day. I am among the few lucky ones in the history that am going through a full fledged popular urban revolution like the English and French revolutions so let me cherish every moment of this ecstasy and every drop of this maddeningly strong red wine. It is like sitting in a movie theater 24/7 and watching the most exciting, the most interesting and absorbing action movie in the world. Every moment is different. River of time has changed pace and is running like a flood. Every day is new, every day something new happens, every day new cracks in the structure of power appears. The crushing strangling dictatorship of the Shah is falling apart, something nobody could even dare to imagine to witness in his lifetime. Shah has already escaped in disgrace with his family and a few moments after the radio announced that he has left the country nothing remained in the whole country that would testify that there was ever a shah ruling this country for the past 37 years. The smallest relics and statues were brought down and broke. Now we are in a new phase, where the core of the army who is still faithful to their ruler are facing the whole population. Every moment an explosion might take over the whole power structure. Everybody is scared of a copy of the 28^th of Mordad American. The American coup that brought back the Shah and a nightmare to my country for the next 25 years. Americans are still plotting behind the scenes to keep any possible remnant of his government, but the last pieces of the structure is falling apart now. Even the mighty empire can’t keep its crony on the throne anymore. The whole country, every class of the society is up against just one person, the Shah. The sense of unity is unique, something you never find in other revolutions. He is so hated in the society that there is no group left to support him. From the rich bazariz to the dirt poor peasants are all united in their opposition to one person, to Shah. Beautiful is this unity, which is so rare, but a glimpse of it is enough to make you drunk for a lifetime. For once, there are really two colors here and the choice is made so easy, you are either for the dark, the shah and the Americans, or you are for the light, the oppressed people of Iran. And after 37 years of bloody rule and torture and mayhem, nobody has any doubts about that choice.

I eat a quick breakfast and drive the car. Gasoline is nearly extinct in this second oil producing country in the world. A long-term debilitating strike by the oil workers and the whole industry has brought the country in to a near standstill in this cold winter. To fill up a tank you have to wait in long lines of cars for hours, and even for a few days. I am lucky I have gas in the tank today and I want to use it. The party has asked everybody to be present at the elmosanat university. And we are going. I drive true eerily empty streets in this early morning. If you have gas, driving in Tehran is an experience to cherish. There are no cars anywhere, and it is like driving on a movie set without any cars in the street. In a jiffy I am in North Tehran, pick up Majid and we are heading to Elmosanat, calm and cool in our ignorance of what is going on in the other part of the city, where last night a mere struggle over watching a TV program of the return of Khomeini, in an airforce base has now turned into an armed insurrection, with pro and anti khomeini forces in the army now facing each other in a battle over the fate of the revolution. This had to happen, sooner or later, since the day a big group of the airforce officers showed up in Khomeini’s residence and vowed allegiance to the revolution.

We reach the university. The gates are closed, nobody is here!? Strange, where are the throngs of people expected, the party supporters and cadre and sympathizers. There is nobody around. We get out, check the gates, there are not even guards anywhere, nobody in the university, the streets are too deserted, even for these days. There are even no signs about the cancellation of the program. We head back, we have come too early in the morning and there are nobody else to ask what has happened. It is strange, the party does not just call off its meetings without notice.

But on our way back we notice the columns of smoke, billowing from different parts of the city, something’s going on, something new. I notice some cars in the streets, agitated, driving fast, with lots of people inside each car, and for the first time, I notice something new in the cars. In a few of them, I see the tip of the guns jotting out of the windows. Some very few people in the cars are carrying guns. Well, this is new. This is the first time I see guns in the hands of the people not the army. OK, something is going on. The revolution up till now was strangely peaceful, with people carrying only their feasts against the guns, baring their chests in front of the guns and dying heroically without fighting back. But now, I see guns in people’s hands. Instantly we notice that we are entering a new phase. The battle has started, the one everybody was waiting for, and this time, people have guns in their hands.

Last night, pro Khomeini forces had opened the doors of the garrisons to people and started to distribute guns and ammunition to anybody who came in, indiscriminately. In parts of the city the battle is raging. The last remnants of the Shah’s special guard who are brainwashed to fight for him to death are battling the people and the other sections of the army that are on open mutiny now. Tanks are in the streets. Majid wants to go to his neighborhood. I drop him off at an intersection near his home and drive back home.

I am living in an anarchist’s dream now. It is pure anarchy. There is absolutely no central power, no government, no army, no police, it is pure anarchy, government of people for people. People say Khomeini has ordered everybody to break the martial law and stays in the streets tonight. There are talks about other units of the army invading Tehran under the command of the American officers. I stay in the streets. We walk down the main street of our neighborhood, past the police station. The hated police station, now a few of them are on the roof and one has a bull horn imploring people not to attack the station. He says the army central command has issued a command for the whole army not to take part in the battle pro or against Khomeini and remain neutral. People have brought huge thigh cables from the government Electrical posts and tied them between light poles as a barrier against the tanks. With these barriers, no cars can drive. We can only walk, ah, the pure air in the polluted Tehran, it is amazing. No cars, no heating, no oil, the air is pure as 200 years ago, when there was no Tehran here spreading on the foot of the mountains.

I join a group of neighbors near our house. Everybody is armed, with something, sticks and knives and I even see a sword. These days and nights have brought people together. Neighbors who had never met each other now know each other by first name. There is a huge bonfire in the middle of the street, it is cold, and people gather around it, I can count more than 100 of our neighbors here. Suddenly all of them break into singing “Ey Iran”, the national popular anthem of my country. After years and years of listening to the Shah’s imposed national anthem, which is nothing but praise of him and his father, it is so emotional. I start to cry and see lots of people crying.

There is no radio, and no TV. But at around 4:30 in the afternoon there is a rumor that the central TV station has been liberated by the revolutionary forces. The staff of the TV station who were on strike for months, are hastily back. I don’t see it, I am in the street, but the ones that see it say that they just gather in an indistinct room, in a rush and start talking to people. Apparently the Shah’s guard had tried to capture the TV station but people and other army forces had stopped them. The cameras show rows of tanks being stopped on their way to the TV station. This is so invigorating, for the first time in my life I am hearing the TV and radio, who were always praising his majesty, the sun of the Arians, now declaring his demise and the demise of the Pahlavi dynasty and the victory of the revolution. There are announcements by all the parties, mostly leftist parties, asking people to stay in the streets tonight and to fight against anti-revoluitionary forces. Am I dreaming? All my life, from the time I can remember, I had one big dream, and that was to see the end of the bloody rule of the Shah, and now it is happening in front of my eyes. Right here, in the streets of Tehran, and the world is watching us. We, people of Iran, are playing the greatest game of the last half century.

We hear shots fired from the direction of the garrison at the east side of the neighborhood. This is one of the greatest garrisons inside Tehran. We move towards the garrison. Near the garrison there are lines of people behind the walls, there are shots fired from inside the garrison, towards the people. I see soldiers escaping the garrison and running towards the people. I see one of them shot dead right there in the middle of the highway that separates us from the barbed wires and walls of the garrison. I see others escaping to this side and taking off their army uniforms, they don’t want to be mistaken as the Shah’s army and killed by people. Some people here have clothes ready for them, they change and melt among the people. Later we learn that the government officials that were arrested towards the end of the Shah’s rule, by his own command, to save his neck, were imprisoned in this garrison and managed to escape when the garrison fell into the hands of the people. Some of them were arrested later and brought to justice and some disappeared and later were appeared mostly in LA.

For the first time I see somebody with a M16. The American gun which is the standard army gun for the foot soldiers. The same gun that had killed so many Vietnamese when it was used in Vietnam. The guy shoots a few bullets into the air. I see one of the most famous Iranian wrestlers right there, with a radio in one hand and a gun in the other. People clap for him. He is so popular, wrestling is one of the most popular sports in Iran and this guy has got several gold medals in Olympics and is popular and now he is here, next to us, shooting at the garrison. The shots from the garrison die off gradually. Nobody is there anymore. People start to move towards the garrison and cross the highway. I follow, the barbed wires are cut off already in one place and the wall pulled down. People spread out inside the garrison through the hole in the wall. For so many years I used to pass around this huge garrison to go to school. I walked around it and always looked inside through the gates, mesmerized by the tanks and other army vehicles parked inside in huge numbers. And now I am inside. I follow the crowd. Now I come across a big building, one storey, people go in and come out with guns and ammunition. Loads of ammunition. Boxes of mortars and every conceivable explosives. I follow in, I want to have my own gun. Nobody tells me, or anybody else, that one spark might start a huge explosion that will blow all of us to pieces. In that confusion it can happen at any moment. This happens later that night in another huge garrison at the south west of Tehran and a for a long time that night we can hear huge explosions and the orange color of fire reflecting from the clouds.

But, this does not even pass through my mind. I want my gun. I go in. Inside is dark, pitch dark. It is night already and there are no lights. People roam inside and you keep bumping into them. You touch the shelves in search of a gun, and at last you come across rows of them and you grab one and you run out. Now, for the first time in my life, I am touching the cold metal of a gun, a heavy gun. Everybody is carrying guns, I get back through the hole in the wall and cross the highway. People are carrying big boxes of ammunition. And then I see a tank in the street, and it is run by ordinary people, it has been taken from the garrison and a few people are trying to drive the beast. There are many tanks and other army vehicles like this that night in Tehran, taken out of the garrisons, a few of them end up in the Tehran University and when tomorrow I go to the university I find them parked in the centre of the university with the leftist party’s insignia and flags on them.

It is getting late, there are bonfires everywhere. Electricity is back, the long strike of the electricity workers is apparently ended at last. As all the other strikes. In the next few weeks, everything will be back to normal, we will again have gas and electricity and public transport and everything. But tonight I am on cloud nine. I have my own gun, I have seen the birth pangs of a new order, of people’s power, pure and true democracy when there is no government, just people’s soviets. I bring the gun to home. My parents are there, and my uncles. All watching the new really national Iranian TV. There are news after news from different cities, following the lead of Tehran, all falling one after the other to the revolutionary forces. The army has just melted down and disappeared, the police also. There is absolutely no police force, and no army. Just armed people in the streets, protecting this dear newborn, this victorious revolution. No festive mood can be compared to this. Everybody is happy, everybody is laughing, people are crying with joy and hugging each other in the streets.

This morning, when I was leaving home, I was still an Iranian living under the oppressive dictatorship of the Shah and the Americans. Tonight, I am a proud citizen of a new democratic government, belonging to a brave people that after 50 years of resistance, and hundreds of thousands of executed and tortured, at last have managed to get rid of the yoke of the foreign powers.

And I have my own gun.