Last Post!

That's right, I'm closing this shit down. No more Not Rushin.

Not really, I'm just closing it down on the Blogger. Why? Because let's face it, it sucks. Anything google buys eventually sucks. Because they don't care for the users, they acquire users and then let the product die. They stop taking care of it the way founders did and so eventually those who were loyal and loving customers go somewhere where they will not be forgotten. For me, that's Wordpress. A good community, a good platform and an eco system that changes with the web and thus not stuck in 2004.

It's been swell Blogger but this is my lost blog on blogger and it is going the way of Angelfire.

So if you read this and you are creating the next Blogger, remember why you created it and remember not to sell out. Because you could be Google's bitch and rich for a little while, but lack soul. Or you could be Wordpress. Be Wordpress my friend, be Wordpress, and you will have friends.

So where is the new Blog?

RIGHT HERE.

America-You're Funny: What's In A Gun?

When a person see's a child die in another mass shooting, what goes through their head? A liberal says society failed by allowing this to happen. A conservative says society failed by allowing this to happen. However  for different reasons. The liberal sees a system breakdown in the government while the conservative inside the individual. The liberal sees the problem in the government requiring a fix, the conservative sees no fix because the problem is inside all people, they trust man a little less and that includes all, the individuals who did it and collective which means the government. That death to them, induces a larger threat and that threat does not stop with the individual, but all individuals in the society, which includes the conglomeration of all people in a country: the government.

In a democracy, the government is the people. The meritocracy of a government means anyone can go and work in the government and so it includes all sorts of people who are our friends and neighbors, including teachers, road workers, soldiers, lawyers, engineers, clerks, judges, scientists and politicians who are elected by the people. This means when someone doesn't want to pay taxes which goes back to the people for services for the people it means they do not want to contribute to their own society. When individuals choose to pay money into a philanthropy to avoid taxes because they fear giving money to their own government, their own people it means they choose some other sick and poor, in some other country over the people of their own country. When individuals buy guns out of fear of government or fellow man, it means they do not trust and fear their fellow countrymen.

This to me, is the disease of a society. The widely accepted and often acted behavior in our society to resolve conflict with elimination of people, random people, any people with a firearm is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. We do not see one another as part of the whole, as part of each other. We don't see fellow Americans, tax-payers, citizens. We do not trust the police, or legal system or our own votes when we do not trust the politicians. It means that we do not trust ourselves. Is it a wonder then, that the people that guns harm most are those who own the gun? Because what the gun is, is a distrust in the system that we are a part of, it is fear of fellow man and when we fear fellow man, what we fear is not what is actually there but the project of ourselves onto others. It is our own selves we fear and that is who we buy the gun to protect ourselves. And that is why we turn that gun on ourselves. Because in that moment, before pulling the trigger that one last time, the killer of the self, realizes the problem is not the world, is not the fellow man, it is the self.

Maybe instead of condemning the gun, which they hold dear as the only protection from others and self, and thus see any attack on a gun as an attack on self, maybe instead we ought to reach out to that person. Maybe we ought to show them that they are not to fear themselves or any of us, their fellow man. Maybe we ought to show them that although there are bad people out there, it is worth trusting in us and the system which has been around for 200 years. Maybe this is why they scoff and being a hippy and desire to save the world. They do not believe in love or ability to save this world because for them the world is already gone. They have been the benefactors of a system used for oppression and often been the oppressors, they know what the system can do as they have used it for those means. So maybe this is why it is so important to show the people who fear society that society they have often oppressed is not to be feared, the way Jesus, Buddha, Moses and Martin Luther King Jr. did at one time for the people of their time.

Our society is sick, the gun violence is a symptom of the greater sickness of distrust and fear. Thus the only way out is to heal the sick by restoring their faith in the government, in fellow man, in themselves.

America, You're Funny-Housing Prices

America is funny, it complains about affordable housing and income inequality without understanding how the two are linked. You see, there are people in this country who buy houses every five years as part of the "first time home-buyer" program where they can put down as little as 5% down and buy a house. The government gives them that money. So every year they do it because it is free money in essence and after they live in the house for 2 years they can rent it out. So imagine that some people build this up to the point that they can start buying houses for cash. So now you have some people who own 5, 10, 50 houses!  It makes no sense for them to sell those homes or to have new homes built, because they collect rent checks on those homes.

So all the young and poor cannot find a decently priced house because they don't plan to rent. So they cannot grow their wealth, they cannot save and they ask for more housing. The politicians are some of the people with the five or ten houses. The politicians have friends with 5 or 10 houses, they are told by their friends and voters to not build houses for fear of house depreciation.

And thus we have the growing income inequality, because people have to live further and further from work, so they spend more and more money on gas to work, their paychecks don't rise and they cannot build wealth, while the few with the five or ten and twenty houses, keep getting richer.

We don't have a housing shortage, we have a landlord surplus.

America, you're funny.

Why I Refuse To Put Up a Russian Flag on Facebook.

Russians around the world ask for sympathy for those killed in Egypt. They didn't seem to care for sympathy a week ago before everyone reached out to France but that is not the point.

My question is, do they deserve it? Sounds callous but seriously, was there a Russian tribute to Malaysia flight they shot down? How about the 5000 Ukrainians they killed and the millions they displaced? How about the thousands of Georgians or Armenians. How about the hundred thousand or so of their own country men in Chechniya? How about the fact that they are actively supporting the guy who gassed children with Biological weapons? Never mind the fact that Russian FSB actually actively help provide a large part of the fighters to ISIS. If Russians want sympathy then they better stop being terrorists.

 I feel sad for the people, I mourn for the families. BUT I will not put up a flag of a government which has been responsible for more deaths this year than any other country or conflict. 

The French on the other hand, they can be a bit annoying, Americans, Israel and French have had many tiffs. But never did they actively support or contribute to the killing of Americans or Israelis. So yes, their flag I will put anywhere they want me to and their government I will support. Because I know that their government will not use that support against me at some later time of their convenience. 

Hopeless Generation of the 21st Century and The Human Desire To Destroy.

In the last two days I heard two great minds speak on a variety of issues and problems in this world but the solution to both became much clearer to me than ever before. The problem of terrorism, anti-semitism, voter apathy, Tea Party, income inequality, Islam, Islamophobia, Globalization all these things which are some of the biggest issues of our day and age seem to have the same issue at their core: failure of the state at realizing the dreams of a generation.

We are all born with a clean slate and most of us are born with expectations from our parents and in turn we have expectations. We all think we will do as well or better than our parents. We all see the riches on TV, the ultra rich making insane amount of money and at the same time we see abject poverty.

We all want to impact the poverty and we want to be rich but we can do neither. We ourselves cannot become rich and the rich seem to be apathetic about the poor. What can we do?  Well, when we cannot fix or create we can still destroy. That's what many turn to. The Islam radicals don't care for Islam, they care for lack of jobs and lack of realization of dreams and so they take the next one that is offered to them. The Tea Party voter has no interest in electing someone who will effectively destroy the American government, he wants to have a job, savings and ability to live out his life as his parents did. But he doesn't see that happening with the current system so he elects someone who says that without the system he will be better off. The anti-BDS kid in college doesn't care about Israel or Palestine, but he does see Jews and Israel as part of the establishment that seem to do well while the little guy Palestine like him goes no where. He doesn't actually think he can help himself given the student debt, the global warming and a government that doesn't seem to listen to him, but maybe with this organization, he can destroy a proxy called Israel and if he can do that, maybe he can get some control of his life by having control over someone else.


This is the defining issue of our generation. We feel out of control in the fast past news cycle, the intense and fast changes of technology and the demands put on us by the hyper changing environment and world around us. Even those who ran on the treadmill in High School know that a divorce or a loss of job or a sickness can make all that hard work irrelevant. And those without a college education or parents who were able to pay for it feel even less in control of their life.

And so we smoke weed, and party, and do coke and get drunk and fuck because those small things we have control over and they make us forget the intense pressures of the world, of family, of friends, of ourselves on us.

And that's the lucky ones. Because the Latino and Black kids who had no choice of a good school, of parents who could pay their way through college and laws which did not treat them in a courtroom for smoking weed like kids making mistakes, but sent them into dark depths of prison from which they would never recover and the girls into the endless poverty of early mothers because the religious and white majority took away their education and ability to plan their own lives and childbirth the way white women can.

This pressure, this fatalism, this inability to do what we feel we were born to do seems to be at the core of Tea Party, Occupy, BDS, Terrorism, Daish, the drug war, the destruction of family, falling away of patriotism, lack of trust in food or vaccines, the lack of belief in the government and all things which could make our lives better. Instead we all embrace hate of religion or non-religion, the punitive power of war, the destructive power of drugs. Because when you cannot find a way to fix and do not have the power to create, you turn to the one thing you have control over; the ability to destroy.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In an age when education is a must, providing that education without creating indentured servants through unreasonable debt or tuition that makes it impossible for a whole subset of people to participate in our society. Making housing affordable by limiting the number of houses that old people have and collect checks which reduces the housing supply and makes rents and costs of housing so high that young cannot afford a house or create wealth. By doing away with schools which are funded by property taxes creating rich schools with high taxes and poor schools with low taxes limiting the opportunities of those who need the help and funding most, by offering trade education to those who are not academic by nature and offering good enough starting wage so everyone can feel like they have enough, by giving people ability to choose when they can start to have a family because they can afford it and not having arbitrary laws that punish specific races because the society is sick and requires drugs. These small changes could change everything. Because these are the ills we must fix, not Islam, not Israel and not "government."

These are the things in our collective power, these are the things we can create, we can fix and thus not have to depend on the one power we do not need as it would only make things worse, the power to destroy. It is our choice and it is our only hope.

Things I Learned From Crowdfunding A Book

1) Meal was covered at the Deli after telling about meeting my goal for the book and telling her how to get the book. Successful people like to reward success not neediness or failure.

2)Failure occurs when people waste valuable time which could be spent on getting to success, on thinking about failing. Every second spent on anything other than success is spent on failing.

3)There are people out there that bring you down, that hang up on you and make you feel like crap. Those people help you appreciate those who encourage you, who help you. And when you succeed, those who doubt you, make success all the more sweet. Success requires not just those who say yes, but also those, who say no.

4)A little bit from one who has little, means so much more than a lot from one who has much. When a person who you know does not have much, sacrifices for you, you know they are giving to your dream, they are giving to you because they want you to succeed as much as they want to succeed. You know they care for your cause and you. You know that they gave you what they needed and a big part of their income and you can feel the generosity.

5)Giving is the only path to getting. If you want people to give you something you must give first. You must show trust and vulnerability, showing that you are risking loosing a little for them to win something and you are ok with that.

6)Confidence matters. One has to be confident in what one provides for others to have confidence in it too. Many times I called stores and spoke softly and unsure about the book and about the price. Speaking confidently and with authority projected to the other person that I was going to deliver and the type of person to have a deal with.

7) People will surprise you. People you thought would support you, will not and people who you had no idea would be interested in helping your project will. Marketing is imperfect. Test your market and test your friends. Don't prejudice yourself in anyway.
One thing is for sure, tell your friends to join early, in fact force them to because most of them assume that it is fine to wait until the end for some reason and you need the momentum so don't feel embarrassment about pressuring them to commit early, especially if they mention at some point that they plan to. Get out the laptop and have them do there and then.


To pre-order a copy of the actual book go to Our Story Web Page

A Step Closer To World War

My best friend is Russian and he loves to play chess with me in a strange way. He loves to take queen for queen. It doesn't matter to him that if he takes my queen that I will take his because it allows him to win a lot more often. He creates a psychological fallacy in my mind as every time I think that I'm better off without his queen forgetting that I'm without mine.

Today, I see our childhood chess is starting to play out in world politics as Putin dangles his queen while knowing that he will take ours if we take his.

Putin stepping into Syria may seem like just another player in a crowded market but it isn't. Putin seems to be doing a tactical move and a very dangerous one. Putin is essentially making sure that only Assad stays in power. By destroying all non-Islamist rebels leaves Assad and Islamic State as future owners of Syria. He knows that we will not allow IS and so he is trying to force our hands by killing as many rebels as possible. To take down Assad at that point means to leave the country in the hands of Islamists.

United States and the world have two choices: stand idly by while Putin bombs all future of Syria away by destroying any possible future democratic components, or begin to attack Putin's planes and troops to stop Putin from destroying the last remnants of democratic Syria.

To do so would be to start a third world war and that is what I think will now be called "The Putin Bluff".

Thus, at this moment, we have time to save Syria but it may mean starting a world war or we let Putin keep it in the hands of Assad. This has been the tactic of Putin in Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova. He dangles the queen, we take it and then he wins a slow and painful game. The question is, how often will he do this? What is our alternative?

Sadly it may be too late, Putin may be too strong. We may have had a chance to reign them in in the nineties, but we ignored the slowly growing cancer thinking it would go away. But it hasn't and instead, has become a full grown tumor.

Refugees Need To Be Taken In, The Right Way And That Means Re-Education of The Mind

Europe thought it could sit out the war in Syria and watch Russia uphold one of the largest dictatorships in the Middle East as it destroyed itself from the inside. And now, along with thousands of migrants, these often well educated refugees are streaming into Europe by the millions after languishing in Turkey and Lebanon in squalid conditions for nearly two years.

It is clear that  Europe needs to help them and it looks like slowly but surely it is starting to move into that direction, even if it is doing it out of pure self-interest rather than one of humanitarian compassion. However, it is already becoming evident, that living under a despot for decades does not create people who have a grasp of the reality. They hate Israel, deny Holocaust having heard years of horrible propaganda about it and many love IS because they are often radicalized. The only reason many do not live in IS occupied lands due to the constant war that IS is not involved with US.

This mentality of new arrivals can mean a huge problem down the line if not dealt with immediately upon their arrival. If European countries simply give refugees food, language classes and housing, these people will continue to have a sick view of government in their lives, lack of understanding of how separation of church and state, democracy and of countries like Israel and United States.

This means that in ten to fifteen years, as millions of people with a backwards way of the world begin to work and make a life in Europe, begin to vote and exert influence on Europe, a downward slide into Islamisation, sharia law, lack of separation of church and state, lack of freedom of press and a host of other problems that are going on in Europe already will make the current problems with North African minorities seem small by comparison.

Thus it is very important for global peace and for an enlightened Western way of life that the new refugees are re-educated and de-brainwashed of the way of life they had in despotic Syria. They must be explained how and why democracy works, what is freedom of speech, that it involves making fun of politicians AND religious leaders and holding them accountable as well as explain to them realities of Holocaust, Israel and the fallacies that they were fed while living in Syria.

They cannot assume that these people will grasp all these things while they integrate into the European culture. Current events show that they do not and will not. If re-education not happen, then the sickness of the Middle East will spread to Europe and the dark thought patterns of the oppressed will cloud Western World for a long time to come.

Drugs are not about a high, they are about control.

Life is chaotic. It is impossible to control. For some, for those who want to control it and who feel out of control, they find control in drugs. They are the one thing in life that have a direct relation in life. You take a drug and feel good, bad, lazy or whatever effect you want. People who feel no control over life or emotions or themselves still have a need for control and when they cannot find it, they go to drugs to get it.

This is why those who don't have a community, with ridiculous expectations, with a lot of stress or depression do it. Because they are those who need control but don't have it and they often find it in drugs. 

Germany, You're Funny - Greek Crisis

Is it hard to understand what's up with Greece? Well let me explain it in analogy made by my friend Anton.

Imagine that China, decides to ask for the debt US owes it, all at once and now. To help America pay that debt, it decides how America will pay it. That's right, not our Congress decides, China decides. 

China decides who we lay off, who we tax and how and when we pay even if their plan will crumble our economy and ensure 0% chance of every paying off the actual debt. We have no choice but to take that or face complete insolvency. Now imagine that it is not just China that we owe money to but a whole bunch of countries. And even though, many countries are owed the money,  it is China alone that fore some reason gets to dictate the entire deal. 

Even though other countries want to ease the burden and feel it is unfair and actively reproach China, China for some reason continues to insist on this terrible, crumbling, pointless deal, for no clear reason.

Seems pretty undemocratic right? Seems absurd. We'd never go for it and we wouldn't even like the idea of it. 

Well.. are you still surprised why Greeks riot and hate the Germans?

For fellow travelers: a mobile spill-proof cup-holder Kickstarter

This is a plug for a fellow co-worker but really this is an awesome tool for any business traveler.

A mobile spill-proof cup-holder to latch on to your suitcase or plane seat.  

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gyrocaddy/gyro-caddy-the-cup-holder-for-your-carry-on-luggag

White People Go To The Hood.

When I moved into Rolando, a multi-ethnic neighborhood of San Diego, many people said that I moved to the ghetto. I moved into a place where there were many people who were not white but the crime rate was no worse than North Park. The stores were the same, there was no more trash, there was nothing wrong. Some of my neighbors were waiters and some lawyers and some teachers, just like in other areas of San Diego. Schools were of course not great but not terrible and in general things were great, just one thing was there: segregation. My friends were buying into the racist idea that area with non-blacks is bad for no other reason than, there was no white people.

I thought of that as I listened to a This American Life story about segregation. It’s interesting because it is told from such a white perspective. They talk about Americans living in America as if they are aliens or from some other country and they are integrated with white people like some great thing when it should be normal. Encouraging on one side and depressing at the same time.

Encouraging because I’ve had friends ask me how to “call black people” because they’ve never met black people before and sad because this is still a fact of life. But better to face it and work on it than not work on it and ignore it.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/563/the-problem-we-all-live-with-part-two#play

Ten Year Count-Down To Nuclear War?

 

I wrote this story yesterday. Today I am editing it and appending a question mark to the title and a pre-amble. As I listened to the President deliver a speech and answer questions today, I was reminded just how important it is to verify information before making a judgement or conclusions. While the critics are correct in raising concerns, the facts of the deal as explained by the president dictate otherwise.

Rouhani was elected to bring economic reforms and therefore it is true, money coming into the country will not all go to the nuclear program or Hazbullah. Maybe later they will but not now. After his explanation of just how detailed the inspections are and having worked in the Nuclear field, it is true, hiding a program will be difficult, even if they have more money. Finally, as made to believe, that the program would stay intact, it seems that that assertion is not factually correct. Stockpile is supposed to be reduced, centrifuges dismantled, underground facility converted and all of these things are to be verified.

If these facts are indeed true, then the rant bellow, was premature and shows how much fear media can instill in a short amount of time when it does not provide correct facts. If they are not true, the rant bellow shows just how close we might be to a dangerous nuclear war in ten to twenty years.

Today, our government decided to give Iran a chance to raise 1.5 trillion dollars over ten years after which they can restart the nuclear program with that money. That’s after a record year for troops killed by their weapons. It seems preposterous to arm the country which has killed the most amount of US troops since Vietnam War.

Make no mistake about it, we are at war with Iran. Iran is at war with us, openly. We just refuse to acknowledge it. And now, we are offering Europe to arm them. However, it’s not too late. In the next 60 days, we will see if American apathy will result in tragedy, or will we refuse to let this pin on President’s legacy be a path to more US troops dying, more terrorist actions funded by Iran, more ISIS carnage, more Syria’s barrel bombs and chemical weapons on civilian populations and refugee camps.

Will we watch silently as the counter of ten years begins towards the ultimate war? Or will American people say: “No, there will be no reward for killing American people, sewing unrest and war in the middle east and threatening the peace and security with nuclear weapons.”

http://www.nationaljournal.com/record-number-of-u-s-troops-killed-by-iranian-weapons-20110728

Also posted on Medium

America, You're Funny: Genocidal Streets, Flags and Money.

Imagine if Nazi flag was flown next to the government building in Germany and not on it. Or if there were Hitler's face on the Euro? How about Herman Goering street?

What would we think of Germany? What would we say to them and how would we judge them? We'd think they hadn't changed and we would think that clearly they hold the same terrible views if they continue to glorify those who conducted genocide. We would understand that these signs would tear into the hearts of the millions of survivors and into the memory into the millions of those whom they killed.

We condemn the Japanese for not teaching truth about the war and we condemn the Prime Minister for visiting the monument with names of their greatest killers. We know how we feel about insensitivity of others but how do we act?

So then why do we, in America, have Confederate flag waving in Carolina, the symbol of tyranny and slavery for 10% of this country.

Why are there streets like Kearny Mesa, named for a man who butchered most of the Native Americans in San Diego and why do we have Andrew Jackson on the most popular bill, the man who killed 16,000 women and children on a death march that would have made POW's in Japan cringe.

Why are we so concerned with the feelings of the racists, the killers and the ignorances.

Why, are we surprised when a man slaughtered nine people, most of them old and feeble, inside a black church, when we condone the naming and glorifying of killers in flags, streets and currency every single day?

To Write

To write a letter,
To pen a word
And leave it for posterity,
Is to dip the foot
Into the blue pond of immortality
It is to take the waterfall of knowledge
And distill it to the firehose
Of truth and wisdom
It is to take ideas' smoky haze
And give them life
As a fiery orange blaze.
To write
Is speak to millions
Across all generations
It is to take the past
And give it to the future.
To write
Is to be the present;
The hand off.
To write is to be the moment
Between a couple
As from their loin
Springs eternal life.
It is to give the future
A fighting chance
Against the pillages of nature
and of time.
To write,
Is godly;
To give the child
Chance to take control
To taste the fruit of knowledge
Of good and evil.
To write,
Is to give the possibility of heaven
To those inside the pit of hell.

To Read

to read a book
is to know a life.
it is to take the knowledge
of a human,
and to distill it into words.
it is to take the mind
          of one
who took-in the minds of thousands:
their thoughts, their worries,
their wisdom and their faults.
it is to take the imagination
and the past
of a generation.
it is to go from life of orphanhood
to one with countless parents.
to read,
is to know the world
and all who ever lived in it
to read, is human.
the printed letter is the line
between an animal
and man

Война Близнецов

Сумерки красные
над Киевом летят
И тёмные тучи
над майданом сошлись
кровь по асфальту
как дождь бъёт по коже
красные реки
по брущатке текли


ребёнок с ружьём
пуля в груди
Украинец
Русский
за родину шёл
приказ ради денег
позором пошёл

и вот Донетск
кровью облит
выселел всех кому жизнь дорога
мать с ребёнком
пешком в дороге три дня
а в доме все фотки
град со стенками снёс
Нечего есть
Ни в дом положить
Ни голод умолить

Ребёнок с ружьём
пуля в груди
Украинец
Русский
за родину шёл
ради денег
С шумом войны
С ума он сошол.

По телику в Столице
Все Фашисты они
Веритьт такому
 Мозги Водкой поить
Мысли рубить
А там в бою
Где подсолнухи раньше росли
Дети против детей
Повязки на рукавах
разлечят близнеца
от близнеца
Пуля пронзит
Бронь как масло
И материнское сердце
на сквозь прострелит.

И почему
ребёнок с ружьём
пуля в груди
Украинец
Русский
за родину шёл
малыш ради денег ушол

верим и верим им?
Столько детей
За деньги продали
им Верить хотим
Мать ведь одна
Отец пьёт и бьёт
Но другого ведь нет

Штоль делать
Ведь надо им есть
Ребёнка убью
Мать задушу
В зверя сам добровольно прийду
Хочется кожу
Срывать ведь с себя
Сoвесть терзает
И Слёзы идут
Пить водку как воду
Человека в себе, Алкоголем забью
Героин в вену, память спущу

ребёнок с ружьём
Не пущу
пулю из груди,
вытащу
Украинец-
Русский
за родину не шёл
ради денег в рай
не ушол

America, You're Funny: Antibiotics and Surveillance

A recent Frontline documentary discovered a small little story about resistant antibiotics. 

20,000 people die of Antibiotic resistant bacteria, because antibiotics allow for less feed to grow larger animals which become antibiotic resistant which then pass it on to humans. This was known 40 years ago and Europe and Canada stopped feeding antibiotics to their animals.. but the food industry forced the issue shut....

So 20,000 people are killed every day by the drug and food industry. More than all americans killed by terrorism in the past twenty years.. all so that these companies can make more money. Killing for money. Shouldn't that be illegal? Shouldn't they go to jail?

What's really ridiculous is that congress refuses to allow to even collection of data on antibiotics due to industry opposition. So we allow collection of our phone calls to prevent terrorism which affects few but refuse to collect data on that which causes 2,000,000 people being sick every year and 20,000 dying from these diseases.

America, you're funny.

The Birth and Death of Tree of Life

Death is relative

I’m sure Einstein would agree

After all

His death we do not miss

But Einstein’s life

Impacted nearly all.

Some are thankful, I am sure

His kids or wife

May think sad thoughts

And I’m sure he knows that

His ex-wife cursed him

Although maybe not his deeds

Which she herself

May have helped the world to see.

It all depends he’d say.

It all depends fo

Death can be good and

Death can be bad

Depending on perspective

Of those who are

The living, the dying and the unborn.

Sometimes we long for death

When at death’s bed.

For the approach

Is suffering

Like when strung with tubes

Ventilators

And the like

When body has long given up

And would have been dead

If it were not

For modern day extenders

Of a wretched life

The blood suckers

Who are paid for every hour

You are wrongfully alive.

Then,

There are those,

Who cannot bear the thought

That a loved one might depart

They cannot bear the moment

When death shall come

And they won’t be able

To look the beloved

In the eye

Then there are those

Who are not yet born

Who would have loved to have a memory

Of father from experience of their own.

Then there are wives and husbands

Who by their lover had been scorned

Or evil tyrants who kidnapped and had killed

Millions of innocents and yet

They may have those they had tried to kill

But marked for death survived and lived

And tyrants scorn death and life

Of those who cause them

Sleepless nights.

Death, death strikes us to the core

When we listen to an unfinished music score

When we see a painting by an artist

Who by untimely death left an unfinished life

There are kids who never had a chance at kids

And grown ups

Who never should have had their own.

There are children whose life had been

Cut short

By parents who were not ready for a life

And so, regrettably, brought death

Upon their own.

Death, was the savior of their life

Life, would have meant the death

Of all their hopes and dreams.

For some

A child’s life,

Means a mother’s death

And thus a child’s death

Shall be result to keep a mother’s life.

For some a life

Resembles purgatory death,

Neither awake nor sleeping,

Robotic actions of a being with a beating heart

But missing soul.

What is life we ask?

Is it something that can die,

Then surely all machines are living

For all machines shall one day cease to work.

Is it then thought?

There have been many humans who

Had not experienced a single moment

Of what we’d consider mental work

And what we consider thought

Multiplication, calculus, and physics

Reserved for the greatest of the human minds

Computers do with dancer’s grace.

Is it adaptability? Desire to propagate and live?

What is a man depressed

Who takes a step from a tall bridge

With no desire

To make a life or continue his?

What is this tree of life

That one day surely has to die?

What is this tree that with life brings us

Eternal death?

What was it before it sprang first leaf?

Life,

Is sorrow for a friend

Pain of child gone

And parents

Departing with no goodbye.

Death is happiness

Of tyrant gone

Of life well lived

And death well done.

Life, death, birth and living

All encompassed in one ball of yarn

Like subatomic particles

Emerging in a flash

And gone without a trace.

A single trace across the space and time

A child, a bridge, a book,

And sometimes

No mark at all…..

5/20/15

to Alison Matela

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There Is No Such Thing As ISIS, Just Old Disbanded Iraqi Army

In Afghanistan winter of 2002, United States felt victorious and invincible as it routed the Taliban using the Northern Alliance. It seemed like a new warfare was here where we could take on anyone with limited troops and take hold and then enjoy the "peace". This technique was known by many Russian and European generals as the technique of Nazi Germany. This was also the technique America used in Vietnam to gain early victory. However, what most knew besides the reckless American commandos is that this technique brought about quick victory in terms of land acquired but it also brought about a long and protracted resistance and guerrilla war fare.

Across Europe From France to Lithuania, Nazis bled continuously as resistance fighters blew up bridges, rail lines and ambushed Nazi soldiers. In spite of savage retaliations against civilians of towns near the "terrorist" actions, the resistance was a continuous thorn in the side of Nazi soldiers until the end of the war in 1945. As most of us know the famous quote by George Santayana except for the cocksure White House, "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." This quote is the reason for Jewish post-Holocaust mantra of "never forget," for Jews cannot afford to relive another Holocaust as they may not survive it. These words became especially true when what should have been a peaceful Afghanistan blew up into insurgency making the resistance of Europe in World War II look like child's play. United States sustained never ending losses and the losses of anyone who worked with them were ten times those of US, cutting off nearly all cooperation as United States showed itself to be a poor protector. Land mines and constant stream of fighters from across the border made Kabul seem like a constant war zone. United States had little choice but to hide inside the green zone as children and civilians watched their families be ripped by IEDs in markets and mosques. But that was just the beginning.

American blitzkrieg in Iraq only a little more than one year later was called Shock and Awe and it's results were fairly similar to those of the Germans. As Americans walked into the lawless Iraq, the bands of gangs looted like the East Europeans looters robbing their Jewish neighbors. Similarly to the East Europeans killing their Jewish neighbors before the Germans even arrived, Sunni, Shia and Kurd striations soon had blood flowing so thick that one might have confused the endless bombings for one of Moses's plagues on the Pharaoh. Large reason for this violence were the actions of Paul Bremer who thought it wise to disband the Army, leave them without jobs but not secure the tons and tons of munitions and weapons which they would now be free to use and directed by the generals who were allowed to walk away and begin a civil war like we had not seen in a long long time.

The Iraqi ex-generals working with Al Qaida in Iraq in a death match with Shia militias, began a campaign of endless bombings which promulgated our news to the point that hearing about 50, 100 and 150 people blown to bits was no longer news, just part of the daily chatter. Beheadings, mass murder, kidnappings and market bombings which had a tiny bit of shock during the insurgency in Afghanistan broke all bounds. People, tens of thousands dead, thousands of American soldiers all a statistic dismissed by our leaders, statistic that disappeared in the noise of everyday numbers which we could not remember or think of as our brave leaders threw more of our money into the problem, more 18-year-old bodies, more drones and more heavy equipment while at the same time ramping up a surveillance program on US citizens unlike ever before, as if we were the enemy they were afraid of and fought, as if we were the ones that put them in Iraq, Afghanistan and as if we were the ones who were destroying our military through endless deployments. Vietnam was repeating all over again, and the only lessons learned was how to control the public, not fight a war. But that wasn't the end. In fact, that was only the beginning.

Around this point we thought we figured it all out, we thought we would pay the militias and Sunni fighters off and they would become quiet. Many of them did. Even though the wounds of sectarian war felt fresh, they decided to take the money and forget it. They figured they'd try to give this democracy a chance. They thought they would trust United States, but just as the thousands of Native Americans who made pacts with United States only to see those pacts be worth as much as the shells they were written on, so did Iraqi learned that American peace was not what they thought was sold to them.

The problem with democracy is that when a new leader comes to power in four years, all previous bets are off making it very hard for anyone to make long range plans or trust previous agreements. So was the case in this war as new leadership came to power in our country and changed course, the Iraqis were left to survive in a small raft in the wake of a large ship. Our new leadership preferred to look the other way from our commitments, the leadership chose the European approach of appeasers; an approach that cost Europe greatly. The new leader seemed to say all the right things but as history would show, his blunders in someway would lead to destruction and death unimagined even in the quagmire of his predecessor.

As Obama took the last of American troops out of Iraq, the president of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki, went after his opponents with a vengeance that made Saddam Hussein look civilized. The Democracy Obama touted would be responsible for sending Sunni areas into poverty, their leaders arrested, tortured and often murdered at rates not seen since Hussein. As Obama continued to sway in indecision in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Ukraine, Gaza and Saudi Arabia with either a unique ability to consistently make the wrong choice or deliberately pick the path of least resistance and greatest evil, Syria disintegrated completely. All norms of warfare fell apart and as Israel was condemned and vilified as it was pounded by rockets and replied with knock rockets and phone calls and leaflets  resulting in 1000 casualties after intense bombardment in an area where one bomb could have killed ten times more, where Obama was ready to cut all ties with a country responding to actual terrorism, he at the same time refused to do anything in neighboring Syria where barrel bombs landed in hospitals, soldiers shelled indiscriminately refugee camps and gas and biological weapons spread on the ground as fast as the dead spread on TV screens. This, this was too much for anyone in Middle East. This was their rallying cry.

At this point the flood of fighters into Syria woke the ex-Iraqi army that were dormant for a time as they were paid of by United States taxpayer money. They were waken like a sleeping bear by the combination of the end of the cash and lack of jobs from the Maliki government in Baghdad on the east and the free flow of arms in Syria. The war machine turned on and there was nothing there to stop it. They ran into Syria, took hold of weapons, erased borders and then spread to Baghdad where the Shia Iraqi army seemed entirely uninterested in protecting any non-Shia areas including the Yazidi and the Kurds.

America and Europe seemed un-interested to help any of the groups who were now decimated, seen as American sympathizers by the drugged up warriors from across the Middle East fighting along side the what used to be Iraqi army during Hussein's reign. This army renamed itself as ISIL and ISIS and Da-Ash, and while America and Europe sat with eyes agape without any ability to comprehend that the events were caused by the policy's of the powers that had ability to stop this. At this point, the young muslims of Europe and United States, tired of the lies and incapable of believing a word of their leaders, happily believed the propaganda of ISIS, traveled to Syria and Iraq and began killing with a thirst that could only be matched by their previous compatriots in uniforms.

Enter today, where we have not ISIS but two civil wars fought by Assad and Maliki against what used to be the army of Iraq, a terrorist force with nothing to loose thanks to the actions of United States and Great Britain and the rest of the Coalition of the Willing. These men, often drugged up are raping their way across the two countries, streaming into Lebanon, destabilizing Pakistan and Yemen, funded by Iran, destroying all shreds of civilization of today, tomorrow and yesterday. This is the effect of lies, this is the effect of arrogance and this is the effect of media sleeping at the wheel.

We planted the seeds which  brought about this weed. And because of that, next time you hear the word ISIS, which makes it sound like something new and unconnected to us, think again and realize that ISIS is not ISIS, ISIS are the same soldiers we thought we defeated in 2003 when Bush landed on that carrier, with the infamous banner: Mission Accomplished.

Meanwhile our Defense Secretary still think that they key to defeating ISIS is to keep them defeated. We'll see how that plan works out.

  

White Priveledge

White privilege is:

Everyone at my school doing and selling drugs, and none of them going to jail for it.

A kid at my high school killing his parents and getting off lightly.

Thousands of white kids at Coachella doing drugs in broad daylight even as cops walk around.

Amnesty boxes at Coachella for the thousands of rich white kids.

SuperMan and The Super Planet

SuperMan thought he was amazing until he landed on the super planet. The problem with the super planet was that it seemed extremely ordinary. People on this planet from the first look were mild mannered, ordinary, weak and feeble. Unlike SuperMan they couldn't run hundreds of miles per hour. They couldn't fly or shoot lasers from their eyes. They couldn't even have x-ray vision or blow super cool air to freeze things around them. Individually, they seemed weak, they were weak.

As a mass they seemed utterly idiotic. They had this ability to follow each other off cliffs without a second thought. They went to wars against each other and built civilizations only to collapse them under the weight of chaos and inability to communicate. SuperMan was clearly superior to these people and thought from the beginning that he would become a de-facto president of the planet.

  He quickly went about showing his skills. He flew around the earth saving people, he picked up trains and stopped dams from collapsing. He ended wars and saved cats stuck in trees. He even chased the earth back into time to try and anticipate buildings collapsing in earthquakes. But to his surprise, the people didn't care much. They would say thank you and move on. What they had was their own super powers that were most of the time far more superior to his.

The people used their super powers after a collapsed dam to rebuild it and make a better one that wouldn't collapse. After every disaster they found a way to come together in groups of superhumans. I call them superhumans because they had this ability to have powers even when looking like they were not super at all. They would somehow know who has what power even though no one wore super costumes. Some had uniforms but they weren't anything like SuperMan's. Their costumes seemed surprisingly utilitarian which bothered superman. The superhumans thought SuperMan's tights and cape were funny, especially his underpants over his tights. He realized that sometimes a most ordinary looking human could re-route all of a plumbing in a house. While another could bring light to every room. SuperMan couldn't do that. He could move a house or take the people out but he had no way of actually saving their house from a flood and if he did, there was no way he could actually fix it.

Another human could direct hundreds of humans to create a levy to withstand huge rivers. All Superman could do was swoop in to save one or two people. But these humans could call on hundreds in helicopters and they would save many more than SuperMan could. They had humans who could direct hundreds of superhumans with many superpowers. One mild mannered superhuman could figure out how to move money so that other humans could eat and live and work and create things as necessary as helicopters or as trivial as toys and beds and televisions. These superhumans didn't have to change into different clothes to call on these powers although many often did. For instance he noticed men and women on golf courses in funny looking shorts trying to put tiny balls into into tiny holes with tiny little clubs. They could hit that ball with no supervision or super strength just by taking advantage of physics that they mastered. They could feel the wind and compensate for it. The same men and women would then put on fancy suits and in those clothes they would direct thousands of other superhumans into amazingly diverse actions from building planes and ships to bringing about relief efforts in far away countries from disease  and natural calamities without having to turn back time or fly or run themselves.

Some of them had ability to take their emotions and transform them into paintings, music, books and movies. The other humans could be moved to tears or laughter by these visions of their own emotions. They could communicate to each-other past, future and world that have never been and might never be.

Superman could not compete with these super powers. Despondent he decided to give up his super talents, they seemed inferior on this planet. He decide to learn one of their trades, ability to collect information and disseminate it to other humans. This ability to go and seek information seemed amazing to him as these humans could take this information and direct their talents with anticipation of future events based on his reporting. He may not have had his cape and he may not have run faster than other humans or fly like the others, but he felt for once super. Because the humans, could drive as fast as him by calling on super power of other humans to build cars which could go faster than him, they could fly farther and faster than him by calling on superhumans who could design and build planes and rockets, but by becoming one of them, by learning a superhuman power, he felt accepted, respected. With his new power he wasn't just a SuperMan, he became a SuperHuman.