Hi everyone, I haven’t blogged in a long time as I am taking time off from internet and blogging. But I will start again sometime in January I think. But this is just a short post to wish you all a (belated) very Merry Christmas and a great New Year.
God Bless,
Ember.
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My blogging and writing brain cells have been quite uninspired lately though I had many things on my mind. I just did not have the will or inspiration to really put something in writing for others to read. But right now, I remembered something that I always wanted to blog about and it has fired my mind! It is the fakey fake Western/White/European compassion as carried out by some bored Western men and women who are just looking for some sort of escape to the poor parts of the world. I believe it has more to do with their own personal egotism and search for adventure, museums etc. than to really help the poorest of the poor. It all also reeks of fake sentimentality. I truly believe in the saying, “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime.” This is even more true regarding international compassion, aid industries and organizations because even any ”fish” they do send to Third World is often stolen and eaten by the privileged, powerful and corrupt people in those countries.
But there is something even worse, these fake compassionate people often end up (intentionally or unintentionally) making heroes of themselves by going on TV and all. I can name any number of these people; Christopher Hitchens (In his book, ”The Missionary Position”) among many others have written much about Mother Teresa who loved to encourage and proliferate poverty than to reduce it, maybe because she needed the poor more than the poor needed her. Then there are these World Vision people (According to Wikipedia they have$2.6 Billion budget!!) who are often showing poor, hungry third world children, shedding tears on the camera. They have their ads on TV (and in newspapers) all the time, here in New Zealand and I am sure in other rich countries too. These ads are dripping with dramatic and affected Television sentimentality to ask people to write checks for them.
Today what reminded me to write a post on this issue was an Interview (Click to Hear) with Dominique Lapierre from Don Swain’s website. Dominique Lapierre is the French writer who, in the 1980s, made it some sort of crusade to depict poverty of India and get money for some poor children’s home that houses about.. hmmm… 250 children. My point is that it’s all a wasteful drama that only ends up bringing money and celebrity status to people who run it. For example, with all its power to put up glossy ads and do effective advocacy World Vision should be putting pressure on the governments of third world countries to stop horrendous corruption, human rights abuses that are the only reasons to blame for the horrible poverty in these countries. Sending money to feed, clothe, educate some kid every month is a wasteful solution when that kid will grow up into a corrupt, violent, diseased society and will eventually perish anyway. What’s the use of ”education” in a country like Rwanda or Sierra Leonne or say in Darfur region of Sudan? World Vision could also lobby the foreign affairs departments of Western countries to force the corrupt leaders in the Third World to fix their problems. But no, World Vision is busy showing sentimental stuff on TV and get checks. Because it is the easiest thing to do in this world, not to mention gainful.
Another thing that these individuals can do is to use some brain. If, let’s assume, they’re really interested in reducing poverty in these regions and give those people some resources to feed and clothe themselves, the compassion industry should be advocating Foreign Direct Investment into these countries that will give people some useful employment. If you listen to Dominique Lapierre’s interview he mentions once he noticed a very sweet little Indian girl in the slums of Calcutta who always walked off to some place very early every morning. And he wondered what she was up to. One morning he followed her to find out. She walked to the railway station and waited for the first train that came into the station. After that train stopped for a while and left the platform, it would leave chunks of half burnt coal (as most trains in Indian in the 1980s were powered by coal/steam engines) on the tracks. This little girl would pick them up, at the cost of burning her fingers. She would take them home; half of these would be used to cook the only meal they could afford in one day and the other half would be sold to buy some rice for another day. I found it utterly depressing.
But Dominique Lapierre is ecstatic and calls that girl the hero of her family. Maybe he would say the same thing if that girl sold sexual favors to other people. Anyway, Dominique clearly fails to notice the sheer desperation of these people to survive. What they need is useful employment. I am sure if Dominique Lapierre had invested some money to open some small scale businesses or cottage industry in those slum areas, the results would be dramatic, taking into account the availability of endless cheap labor and overwhelming desire of these people to make a living. The profits could be used to start more industries and employment projects. These people could earn their own living and bring more dignity to their life. But no, Dominique Lapierre (like others) was more interested in selling stories of their poverty to the rest of the world. Fucking Sad, Stupid and Hypocritical.
Ok, race debate is fun. I have already written posts before on race, race relations, interracial dating, racial politics and all. But this post is based on the ”Scientific” findings. Read this New York Times Op-Ed on recent race debate regarding scientific data and research on race and intelligence: ”All brains are the same color” . As you can see, the debate is everlasting and set off in recent history by some books like, ”Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class structure in American Life”. Please don’t get me wrong. I do believe that intelligence (like other physical, neurological traits) has lots to do with genes of your recent forbears, especially parents and grandparents. But to lump this genetics thing on the whole race is lazy science, psychology, biology or whatever. Human beings are not animals. Human species is one species.
Race debate takes different turns in different times and countries. In Indian society dominant race claims the other races have dirty soul, in many European countries Jews were considered inferior in many ways and were hated, in most countries darker skinned people are hated or are considered inferior, in USA the emphasis has always been on Black Americans and White Americans. At the international stage, it is Individualist and free minded Western people and community loving, conformist Eastern people and their cultures.
Indeed there is some truth to cultures and why people form them. But no country’s culture has always been the same. It changes with circumstances, demographics, religions, economics and also because of the zeitgeist, i.e. trends, spirit, fads, fashions of one certain time or age. I was reading someone’s review at Amazon.com of Richard E. Nesbitt’s book ”The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently and Why” The reviewer rightly pointed out that Nesbitt’s logic that Westerns civilization (from ancient Greece times) focuses on individual freedom as opposed to Eastern one (ancient China) is a dubious one. For example, conspicuous, institutionalized, legitimized slavery existed in ancient Greece (and Roman civilization for that matter) but not in ancient China. Same could be said of American slavery of Black populace, which was not an Eastern concept in any case. So, the very existence of slavery in the Western world sent individualism to gutter or the incinerator both in the glorious ancient and the inglorious modern times.
In the New York Times article there is interesting mention of African brains being smaller in size than White brains. But this does not mean marked differences in intelligence as in animal kingdom. For example in human beings the differences between brain sizes of females (smaller) and males (larger) are much more pronounced than between Black males and White males. But women do not show any inferior intelligence than men, indeed women come out as smarter than men in many tasks and intelligence measures (power to chat and gossip included *kidding*) But if you’re feeling real scientific you may read this mammoth article on the shoddy science of brain size and intelligence in human beings, ”Sex, Race, Brains and Calipers”.
But still White supremacists may not agree. They will continue to stress that White brain is bigger than Black Brain. In that case, they may as well admit that Black penis is larger than White penis. So, Blacks still get to win in this race based blessings, right? But wait– would say the White supremacists– This is a Myth!… right? Hmmmmm…. and the debate goes on……
What’s up with this world? Now another public massacre by a gun totting teenager. This time in Omaha, Nebraska. This voluntary killing is mostly the Western or American trend because Iraqis etc. are obliged to do it (kill people) for reasons of religion, politics, economics etc. These new killings are unique and I don’t see any precedents in history when they happened so often. Visit This Wikipedia page on School Shootins. It documents all popular school shootings that made big news in America and elsewhere. The first one began in Austin Texas, in 1966. So you can see it is a modern phenomenon that is concurrent with the glorious and glamorous rise of pop-pulp culture and its byproducts. Now, even the Korean kids (Click to Read about the deadliest Virginia Tech massacre, killed 33) are doing it, so it’s hardly a race related deformity of mind. Outside the US, even placid Finland has gone into the history books with public killings by a teenager. (Read Jokela School Shootings)
Right now, I am reading an interesting if not a great book, ”Closing of the American mind” by Allan Bloom, published in 1987. To many young people, modernists and new agers it may sound like a classically educated grandpa trying to hand ”The collected works of Shakespeare” to modern students. I have read 100 pages so far and I might continue. But here is what really grabbed by attention on Mr. Bloom’s chapter on music and today’s youth’s love for pop and rock music.Bloom very reasonably makes a point that rock and pop is famous because it appeals to ”children’s” emerging sexuality and inflames it, causing them to rebel at an age when they don’t even know what rebellion means or what they’re rebelling against. The explicit or incendiary rock, rap, pop music, in words of Allan Bloom, ”..has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal to sexual desire- not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored…acknowledges the first emanations of children’s emerging sensuality…not as little sprouts that must be carefully tended in order to grow into gorgeous flowers…” I think, sex is just one major aspect of it but such pulp culture also inflames all negative, depressive, psychopathic instincts of the human mind at a young age when human mind is most easily led or misled.
The proliferation, rave, hunger for modern pulp music with explicit lyrics is extreme, among any class, religious persuasion or group of teenagers. It is like a beloved viral infection. Of course, many teenagers will grow out of it but many will get sucked deeper and deeper. In due time, the beasts of human mind will feed on these seductions and will want to act on them. It is a well known fact that suicide rates remain very high among teenagers and young adults. It maybe baffling to many older people who always look upon youth as the much desired time of life. But the attacks of meaninglessness, nihilism, depression, loneliness, disillusionment, madness, megalomania are at their peak during younger years. The murderous teenagers and young adults of Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and Omaha mall had one thing in common: they wanted to become famous, and be cool. It is a strange paradox that they want to impress the very society they loathe so much. Again I believe it is result of pulp music (now even many books) and nihilist culture that considers it heroic if your ”life burns faster”, and in ‘’style”.
It’s not your gun but how and why you use it– Whenever these shootings take place, anti- gun lobby always starts to shout and some people make blockbuster documentaries like Bowling for Columbine. I just read another article from some expert in the field who says that it is not that this mad anger is new but that the guns have become more lethal. I disagree to a large extent. I see that the bigger reason behind all this is the will to kill (both oneself and others) and the strong motivation to do so, also the increase in anti-social behavior and mental disorders, nihilism among young people which are abused and flamed by pulp culture and the modern life.
Solutions?– Are there any solutions? I will make it very short. Go back to or restore traditional values, love for our children, respect for our elders, respect for fellow human beings and their dignity. Increased and renewed interest in good music, good literature that nurtures, heals, inspires and ennobles the mind and gives strength to deal with life’s calamities. Yes (don’t shoot me for saying it), some religion in life is not a bad thing. I personally believe in Christian ethics but I have no problem if you may want to use Muslim, Buddhist, Christian Science or whatever ethics to guide you towards strength, peace and harmony in life. But even if someone does not believe in God or organized religion, one can always have an open mind to these universal values that foster love, tolerance, friendship and good inspiration. That’s all I can mention in one single breath at the expense of being ridiculed as Pastor Ember. 
I know many readers may disagree with me. But I am shooting this into the Cyber world as my observation and opinion on the subject. No one can stop me, not even my jerky internet connection.
Sexually speaking, women have always bowed, bent and gone down on their knees for men. The whole prostitution, massage parlors, brothels, sex tourism, porn industries, Playboys, Hustlers, The Sun’s page 3 girls, foreign women dating services; Russian, Ukrainian, Baltic, East European and Asian Brides.COM are all designed for the male lust. Indeed catering to the male lust is an industry worth billions, internationally.
I’ve always believed that this one way gratification of lust has all to do with economics. Men have money and power. What bigger instance I can give you than probably the best known and loved romantic novel in modern times, ”Pride and Prejudice.” If you know the plot or story, you would know what I’m trying to say. But this is changing as women have their own purses and the power to fill them, though sometimes through gainful marriages. And divorces. *Kidding* But truly, there can be no women’s liberation without women’s own money and careers. Today, at least in the Western World women have achieved all this or have very good possibility of achieving all this.
So, the Romantic Landscape and Sexual scenery is changing. First I had read this story about a week ago (Click to read, ”Older White women join Kenya’s sex tourism”) about this burgeoning sex tourism in Kenya where rich (at least by Kenyan standards) Western women (well past their middle age) are holidaying in Kenya with their big, beautiful, black and young (18 to 24) boyfriends. They party, drink, have romantic dinners, go sight-seeing and of course sleep together. The boy gets new clothes, shoes, free beer, food and maybe also the ice cream, both to be eaten and used during the sex plays in the tropical heat of Kenya.
Here is yet another modern romance story from The Times of London (Click to read, ”I pay a man for regular sex”). I say romance because, interestingly, women make really compassionate and romantic sex buyers unlike most men who treat prostitutes just like they treat their girlfriends and wives. The lady in the article writes, ”Once, sometimes twice, a month I meet up with Justin, a 36-year-old divorcé. We go out for a meal and maybe to a club before spending the night in a hotel. I am a divorced mum and work part time to spend as much time as I can with my four children. Justin also has four children. But what differentiates our dates from the norm is that I pay for Justin’s company, including having sex with him… He costs £200 for an hour, £270 for three hours and £600 for overnight – and every penny is well spent.”
She also adds that, ”This way I’m very satisfied sexually, which makes me a much calmer and happier person, and I do like the secrecy element of this arrangement.”
So, what are your views on the first and the second modern romance story? To the (one in second story) woman’s credit, she is not buying sex (and romance) while she is cheating on someone, the kind of thing men often do when they buy sex, on the side. And besides, there is a very strong moral argument in favor of these women that they have the right to do their own thing as long as they are not hurting or corrupting the rest of the world. Also, they have the right to be happy–”…a much calmer and happier person.” Besides, financially speaking, this also sounds like a fair trade between two parties. It is also interesting that old romance or new romance, money always seems to be at the center of love, sex and romance etc.
Of course the latest newspaper stories are ablaze with the report from National Intelligence Estimate stating that Iran stopped working on nuclear weapons program in 2003. But Mr. Bush has debunked the obvious implications and asserted (Read BBC Story, ”Bush says Iran remains a threat”) that the report mentions Iran’s capability of producing nuclear weapons, so it needs to be checked. Also read, TIME’S ”If North Korea, Why not Iran?”that contrasts Iranian situation with North Korea (I discuss it in the middle of my post)
This is a totally messy subject and Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric doesn’t help. Sometimes I wonder if Ahmadinejad is getting huge pay checks from Pentagon and Israeli military to keep the air charged with threats and vivid images of looming mushroom clouds? Because if he is not getting paid there is nothing that can explain how can he be so stupid? Here is an excellent New Yorker article that thoroughly analyzes this growing confrontation between Iran and the Western world (America, Britain, and now France as well): Click to read: ”Shifting Targets: Administration’s plan for Iran”
Suggestions for peace– My personal feeling is that US foreign policy should do its best to engage Iran in a long term strategic friendship. Iran will never be a direct terrorist threat to Americans. There were no Iranian terrorists on September 11 hijacked planes. Iranians don’t have direct interests to bomb American civilian targets. This kind of terrorism is mainly the work of Arab-Sunni Muslim fundamentalists. Iran stands alone in the Muslim world as the only Shiite Muslim majority country (Iraq is only other Muslim country in the world with large Shiia population). But the reality is that Iran will never be an ally with Arab Muslim fundamentalists or Sunni-Arab led Al Qaeda or Afghan Sunni Taleban. Iranian interests are regional.
And meaningful dialogue with Iran can not only foster long-term peace but also trade with Iran in many areas including developing its huge reserves of oil and natural gas. Such meaningful engagement with Iran would also be in the best interests of Israel. If Arab Egypt can be persuaded to adopt the policy of non-belligerence towards the state of Israel, I can’t see why Iran cannot be included in the same group of Muslim nations that recognize the legitimate existence of Israel. The United States could explore the similar responsible, monitored civil nuclear deals with Iran that it has tried to pursue with North Korea and India.
Dick Cheney Rising….. Dick Cheney is behaving bad again. He continues to bay for Iranian blood as his first priority. Maureen Dowd has been chasing up on this madness. In ”Method as Madness” She writes, ”Dick Cheney’s craziness used to influence foreign policy. Now it is foreign policy.” In another column, ”W.M.D. in Iran? QED” she further explores Dick Cheney’s obsession with Iran that blinds him to all other aspects of American trade, national defense and foreign policy issues.
I don’t know what’s wrong with Cheney. He is not even Halliburton’s CEO anymore. He resigned in 2000 as the CEO, at least officially. He has stated once his current term in the US administration is over, ”I’m out of here.” He has an ailing heart, medically speaking, for which he has undergone various surgeries. He also survived a bizarre hunting incident when he nearly shot (”accidentally”) his fellow septuagenarian quail hunter buddy dead. But despite all this the exiting Dick Cheney is rising with madness in his mind. Why?
This comment was made on someone’s blog post (CLICK TO READ) and I thought it is relevant to this post:
I knew you will blog about it with your beautiful myopic eyes. But here is some info to balance the misconceptions.
The report says Iran had stopped nuclear weapons program in 2003. It does go on to mention that Iran continues to enrich uranium and according to best estimates it can make nuclear bomb within 3 to 8 years if it wants to (and I am sure it wants to, it’s dying to)
As for military strikes. They can happen right now as you are reading this. Nuclear bomb is not the only issue. The fundamentalist, military wings of Iran have been destabilizing Iraq since Saddam was toppled. They’re supplying money, arms, ammunition and providing training to Shiite Iraqi militants and thugs like Sadr’s Mahdi army.
The next time you read a news story where a bomb blast or a suicide bomber killed men, women and children, you can take comfort in the fact that the bomb was made in and supplied by your favorite country, Iran.
Iran must stop Hizbollah and other criminal outfits that spread violence, terrorism, war crimes or else next time you won’t be able to blog about Iran, because there will be no country called Iran on this planet anymore. I am only expressing my genuine fears.
