An opinion on the current state of War in Iraq August 18, 2007

Picture: Map of Iraq with major cities and bordering countries.

 

Well, this was in response to a latest Washington Post story ‘‘Nonpartisan Group Calls for Three-State Split in Iraq” . It proposes that Iraq be split into three autonomous regions that will share natural resources. For the layperson Iraqi population is divided into many ethnic groups but the largest of them are:

 

Ethnic Divisions–Arabs (about 70% of the population, all of them Muslims)
Kurds (About 20-22% of the population, most of them Muslims, who mostly live in the Northern parts of Iraq and also have big Kurdish population in neighboring countries; Syria, Iran, Turkey, See the map.)

 

Religious Divisions–To make the jumble of diversity more confusing Iraqis are religiously divided as well. Almost 97% of them are Muslims. But Islam is divided in two warring groups; Shiite Muslims (about 60-65%) and Sunni Muslims (about 32-37%). Most Shiite Muslims live in the Southern parts of Iran though. Whenever I notice this crazy mixture the Balkan states ( especially former Yugoslavia) in Europe come to my mind. But that’s a different story anyway. Personally, I have always supported the idea of creating. at least 3 autonomous regions in Iraq. And in this regard following are my comments to Washington Post story:

 

Indeed this solution must have been considered in the beginning and even before the beginning of this wishful war to ”free Iraq”. What Iraq has always needed in the first place is freedom from itself.

 

 

Different ethnicities that inhabit Iraq remain bitterly opposed to each other on countless levels. They must exist independently of each other. This will not only give them better protection from ghoulish violence, security and freedom but also make them ultimately responsible for their own destiny that they ought to build themselves.
I think it is time we get past calling Iraq war a mistake because it is a well established fact anyhow. Now time is to move on and look for unanimous enduring solutions for Iraqis.

 

It is such sad state of affairs that people are still confined to their own narrow interests; political or ideological. As a result no sincere action is being taken. There are two shallow opinion blocs on Iraq war. One wants to continue drubbing Republicans/Conservatives for political gains while not having any sincerity towards fixing Iraq’s chaos. The other bloc- finding itself badly mired in Iraq- wants to RUN AWAY as soon as possible,especially as war in Iraq offers no political mileage at home (USA) anymore and body bags are coming back wrapped in American flags.

 

In reality, Iraq has become another Vietnam, only it can’t be left alone by convenient military evacuation. So it’s time that all people/politicians of good intentions in America and international community stop the blame games and strive for lasting solutions.

 

Creating autonomous three regions sounds like a good idea to begin with. After that the issue of fair sharing of Oil revenues can be tackled.

What about the world population? Is it growing beyond control or dying beyond recovery??? August 13, 2007

Picture: Brooding on the broods.

What follows is merely my long comment on Fuzzy’s blog. She raised the issue of ”population control” as she downed few glasses of wine. But in the process she fired my own brain to rattle off and this comment came to life. Right now, as of July 2007, the world population stands at 6,602,224,175 (est.) and I think this is an awfully large number considering the resources and size of our planet that is barely 29% land and much of that land is uinhabitable anyway, covered in hot deserts, arid lands, perma-frost, ice caps, rugged landscape and mountains. I personally, would support maintaining the current population that is having enough babies to match the death rate. But it has to be an educated, sovereign individual choice. Following is my comment (not edited for typos etc. yet):

This subject (birth rates,Population and controlling its increase) has zillions of dimensions and it all depends which one you’re talking about. Your point in this post is, it is wrong for governments to control population growth: ”Nothing good in history comes from population control, from trying to “fix” nature or God or the cosmos or whatever it is that you believe in.” You push all the buttons of the argument and top it off with this comment. I think the gist of your post was, ”I don’t give a rat’s ass anyway and wonder why some people do” LOL? Here are some views anyway:

1.) Overpopulation IS A PROBLEM, in most parts of the world. Poor parts, impoverished parts. yeah. It is very ironical that the birth rates are overwhelmingly higher in countries that don’t have enough food, potable water and other resources to sustain even their existing population. Quality of life as a result is further deteriorating and no one cares.

It is largely because people there are such miserable wretches they neither know nor can afford contraception. Other than that those new babies are useful to them ragged folks. These kids can do manual labor, beg in the streets and very often can be sold as sex objects to horny Western paedophiles flying into these godforsaken lands from all sorts of rich Western countries.

2.) Religious folks have a strange idea about population control though: They oppose it, through and through. All Catholics, other Christians and of course Muslims too. I believe reasons for it are more political than religious in nature. Of course if one religious sect’s birth rate is high their total number is also likely to be high. For these reasons I find population growth encouraged by religious leaders as very depressing. Because it means religious leaders want their followers to breed like chickens for their own statistical advantage.

I have noticed even purely political calls for making more babies. The one I remember was by Palestinians leaders. They asked all Palestianian and Arabs women living within Israel to make as many babies as they can so that in due time it would be possible to outnumber Jews in Israel. The exact words were, ”use your wombs as weapons.”. Phew. That’s one twisted conspiracy. LOL.

3.) Finally, I come to what you’re familiar with. No problems about overpopulation in the Western world. It is true. Indeed your neighbor to the North, Canada is DESPERATE to have a certain number of people to immigrate to Canada- every year- in order to maintain minimum population growth rate which is VITAL for the growth of economy in all sectors from farming, housing, banking, industry to anything you can imagine. Just like Canada, Australia, New Zealand have TARGETS of ELIGIBLE Immigrants that must reach their shores every year in order to maintain the population growth rate that could at least replace the number of people that die or leave their country permanently every year.

U.S. of A is the only industrial and Western country that is not facing low birth rate problems YET. Indeed Americans are happily breeding at a very healthy rate all you Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Asians etc. But some countries especially in Europe are getting all Jittery. Population is increasingly getting OLD and not enough new babies are being born. More and more old pensioners needing public health services than young energetic employees. An economic nightmare. In Sweden it was considered a national crisis and there used to be ads on TV in which their international Tennis superstar used to urge his countrymen to ”F*** for future.”

I think Swedes (and other Europeans/ Japanese) would be much more successful if they all become Catholics. I should shut up, I’m sounding all political.

The Romance of adolescent years. August 12, 2007

Picture: Pretty Megan Follows (in 1985) as the orphan girl Anne Shirley; aka, Anne of Green Gables, Anne with the ”e” and ”Carrots”

Beginning of this weekend was a wonderful disovery of Anne of Green Gables when I decided to watch Anne of Green Gables DVD of the wonderful 1985 movie/TV adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s book. This movie was made, aptly, in Canada by CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in conjunction with other national broadcasters, PBS of America and ZDF of Germany.

 

 

 

I had heard a lot about Anne of Green Gables and even seen bits of some of the TV adaptations of the series of Anne books but never really got into it. I never read the book or completely knew the plot or story. I was aware that it was set in idyllic Prince Edward Island and lots of people with romantic disposition swooned over it. But after watching the series I realized how charming it really is. Moreover, as I trained my eyes on the book, I find it is full of beautiful writing, sweeping emotions, and wonderful humor. What else? ROMANCE. Yeah. So, I will try to read at least the first 3 of the Anne books in the near future. Great stuff.

 

 

 

This leads me to conclude I am overwhelmingly attracted to the well written stories of childhood years with all the ADVENTURES, QUIRKS, DISCOVERIES and ROMANCE. Anne of Green Gables resonates with the same strain of charming writing about young folks as portrayed in my favourite books: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird and to some extent Gone with the Wind. So, I encourage you to dip into some of this stuff and delight in it.

 

 

 

For now, I am posting a collage (Anne/ Gilbert romance) of some of the scenes from Anne of Green Gables’ 1985 TV adaptation which captures the magic of the book.

 

 

Gilbert teases Anne of Green Gables on her first day in school.

Anne ignores and Gilbert persists….

Gilbert calls her ”Carrots” because of her red hair (that she is really ashamed of/she wants ”Raven Black” hair) …Moreover, Gilbert gives her the tug.

Short tempered Anne gets mad.

She breaks a slate over Gilbert’s head.

 

This is at the very end of the movie, LOTS of things have occured and LOTS of water has gone under the bridge. Gilbert comes to Anne across a vast expanse of green grass, riding on a black horse and gives her a good news. He again calls her ”Carrots” and Miss. Anne Shirley is angry no more.

 

 Anne’s god- mother, guardian and best friend Marrila wonders how come she warmed up to Gilbert and Anne replies. Here is a sweet original dialogue from the book:

 

 

 

“I didn’t think you and Gilbert Blythe were such good

 

friends that you’d stand for half an hour at the gate

 

talking to him,” said Marilla with a dry smile.

 

“We haven’t been–we’ve been good enemies. But we

 

have decided that it will be much more sensible to be

 

good friends in the future. Were we really there half an

 

hour? It seemed just a few minutes. But, you see, we have

 

five years’ lost conversations to catch up with, Marilla.”

Is genius/ creativity a form of madness? August 4, 2007

Picture: A shiny sliver of mad moon shines over a dark, gloomy landscape.

Thanks to my 360 pal Sgt. Ruthledge’s blog, ”Creative genius- destructive demons” for initiating the idea of madness/depression and its link to creative genius. This theme has always captivated my own thoughts. In fact reading short biographies of mad writers, artists is one of my favourite activities. lol. So, needless to say his blog induced a hefty comment from me that I am copy pasting here in this post. The idea is to introduce little introduction of some of ”mad” geniuses and see that every genius or original thinker had his or her dark or at least odd demons. The stories of these lives are not only unnerving but also at times, heart- breaking. Sgt. himself mentions a great deal about the tragic life of Sylvia Plath, who like many mad or tormented artists committed suicide.

Sgt. had asked three questions in his post:

1) Do you think the creative artist and destructive demon necessarily go together?

2) Being public figures, it is a given that celebrities and other famous persons will receive more than their share of attention. Do you think their opinions are worth more than others outside their own field of expertise or fame?

3)What famous genuises, artists, intellectuals, or celebrities can you name that were dogged or destroyed by personal demons?

Piqued by these questions my brain which was in trance of oodles of coffee produced this comment:

Your questions.

1.) Having written the above paragraph though, I admit, it is necessary for creative people to be mad or odd or different. And a TINY number of people with real mental aberrations (as mentioned above) do go on to produce works of dazzling originality and creativity. William Styron (author of Sophie’s Choice and Confessions of Nat Turner) said, “The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone’s neurosis.” And as if to confirm the same he wrote a little book that became very popular, ”Darkness Visible” in which he recounted his own encounters with dark clinical depression and consequent hospitalization, recovery.

Important point to state here is that FIRST someone has to tame their ”madness” or odd way of thinking in order to create and SECOND be lucky enough to be noticed and published by others. In other words there may be a thousand cases of very destructive and painful manic depressive illness but only 5 or 10 would become real artists of lasting value. The same is true with any other tormented soul with known or unknown madness. The great French writer Gustave Falubert advised, ”Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

2.) Opinion of artists and celebrities matters to an extent. But so does anyone else’s: audience, readers, critics. Indeed a genius or a great artist or a celebrity is so called because OTHERS recognize it and appreciate their talents. Realistically, without the patrons and fans artists would not exist. Anyone can CLAIM he or she can write like or better than Shakespeare or John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Byron, Pushkin etc. It sounds kind of an affront to real artistic genius but RECOGNITION is vital. But on the other hand, THE ONES, will be recognized sooner or later. Unfortunately, some masters of their art are recognized or ”re-discovered” posthumously.

3.) Well that’s a fun question to answer. I believe almost ALL creative geniuses were odd or mad in some way or another. Of course very popular ones have already been mentioned. I would repeat their names and add some others that come to my mind:

Van Gough, Mozart, contemporary Russian music composer and the other great writer: Tchaikovsky and Fyodor Dostoevsky, the latter had a kind of Epilepsy that brought him both dangerous seizures and ecstatic epiphanies. Wikipedia mentions that they both met only once. Someone noted a similarity between their work and remarked: “With a hidden passion they both stop at moments of horror, total spiritual collapse, and finding acute sweetness in the cold trepidation of the heart before the abyss, they both force the reader to experience those felings, too.”

And yet some more!: Byron (”mad, bad and dangerous”), Hans Christian Anderson, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, James Joyce (in whose mind the line between genius and madness got so blurred that it was difficult and annoying to tell which was which!?), Sylvia Plath (her only Novel Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical and is a realistic portrait of her own ever looming depression), Carson McCullers.

I should stop. Need more coffee. My madness is running out. LOL ***END OF COMMENT**
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At the end of this blog I must mention probably the greatest of all scientists who laid the foundation of modern Science, especially Physics, Sir Isaac Newton. I forgot to mention him in my cursory list. Now, I will use an excerpt from my favourite book, ‘A Short History of nearly Everything’ in the words of Bill Bryson and let you enjoy:

”Newton was decidedly odd figure. Brilliant beyond measure but solitary, joyless, prickly to the point of paranoia, famously distracted…upon swinging his feet in the bed in the morning he would reportedly sometimes sit for hours immobilized by the rush of sudden thoughts to his head… and capable of most riveting strangeness; once he inserted a Bodkin, a long needle of the sort used for sewing leather into his eye socket and rubbed it around, ‘betwixt my eye and the bone as near to the backside of my eye as I could’ just to see what would happen. What happened miraculously was nothing…”

”Set atop these odd beliefs and quirky traits however was the mind of a supreme genius. Even working in the most conventional channels he often showed tendency to peculiarity. As a student frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the Calculus; but then told nobody else about it for 27 years.”

Aren’t you astounded!? I AM.