Getting out: A Guide to leaving America

Ok, now I know i've been posting up quit a few post that arnt to american-friendly, but I had to post this one as it is too funny and ironic. I guess the American Dream truly is no more.

Getting out: A Guide to Leaving America:
http://processmediainc.com/press/mini_sites/getting_out/

Maybe we can start a new dream. How does this sound: The South Asian Dream: Come to the land of a 1000 cultures (Asian Sub-continent)! Sure there's already too many people here, but we'll find space for you anyway!

Or maybe this one: The Arctic Dream: Global Warming too hot to handle? Come to the last place on earth where fresh water is still drinkable. Canada has more than enough space to accomodate a few... million more people :)

Virtu

virtu \vuhr-TOO; vir-\, noun:
1. love of or taste for fine objects of art.
2. Productions of art (especially fine antiques).
3. Artistic quality.

Virtu comes from Italian virtù "virtue, excellence," from Latin virtus, "excellence, worth, goodness, virtue."

Source

Social Development DAMU!

So I re-launched this blog a little bit ago, and there are some neat thigns popping up on it!
The concept is simple. Raising awareness about the social development movement!
So it goes from reviewing websites, to people, to projects. It goes through peoples experiences in social development and looks at theory and practice of social development in action!

Be sure to drop by, if you are passionate about the issue and feel you can contribute to its content, let me know, im accepting new applicants now.

here is the link: damu.nomadlife.org

Eid Mubarak!

I recently wrote this home ot my family, and decided to share it here aswell! I was comparing Eid to Christmas:


They do celebrate christmas here, although its not official. Oddly enough the founder of the nation Quaid-e -Azzam Ali Jinnah's birthday falls on the 25th of december, so its a holiday.
There is a fairly strong christian/catholic community here, and many people partake in the festivities.

Eid just passed, which to me was like Christmas.
Muslims here go by the lunar calendar. So at the break of the October moon being spotted, everyone begins to fast during daylight hours. It was a lil tough at times because everything was closed during the day... :p But thats not what made it really special. Every night at Iftar, around 6:15pm (everynight it changed by about :30 seconds) the community would get together and everyone would eat together. Families would all be together, people giving food to the poor. Its those moments that are special when you see everyone together, reminded me of family dinners, sept they would do it every night to break their fast. The nights were filled with lights, and shops are open really late (since they are closed during the day, they need to make their money somehow). The the night of Chaand Raat (Moon light) comes, it signals the end of Ramadan and the begining of a 3 day celebration, where ppl no longer fast and instead they eat and eat and eat like 4 or 5 times a day!

I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend to his house for Eid, where we met his family, and family friends, laughed and joked and.. ATE! We even collected what is called Eidi (Eid Bonus) a small token of money that the elders give to the youth. The youth here run around afterwards gloating about who got the most Eidi.

All in all it was a great experience, but made me miss home!

I got published!

A good friend of mine I worked with in University got in touch with me about writing for this magazine he was putting out. I thought heck why not? I have a lot of things to say about my experieces here, and if I can't share them with others, then how will perceptions ever truly change? So check out my two articles here as well as the others that are coming togteher to build a voice for the muslim youth in dialogue in Canada. Cheers!

http://www.newcrescent.org/

The moods are shifting...

My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan160.html


People like Callahan are reduced to boldly going where very few have the courage to go. I just hope we can turn this around before we end up regretting our apathy later.

I wish people could see what I see everyday, to see how people here live. To see how people interact. To see the Beauty of this place that so many believe is wrought with terrorists and violent dogs...

The state of the world today does not look promising, for anyone. Including the poor Aussies and their vegemite row.

I liked the US better when they were Democratic

Habeas Corpus is the final straw. If the world does not wake up, if the American people do not wake up, then tomorrow you nor I may ever again, wake up.

The Monopoly Micro-cosm

The state of the world, played out like junior monopoly figures...

So last night we got out the cheap knock off black-market version of Monopoly and set out to begin playing. 4 players. 4 perspectives.

The game began slow as usual, property being bought up left, right and centre, small arrangements were being made between water-works and utilities (both players made a deal to not charge each other rent if they land on each others spaces.
As the game moved on, luck as it would have it, started out a slight imbalance between the players, those who landed on the right spots, got to buy them up, others continuously landed on community chest, or take a chance... or worse even.. TAX!

Then it happened, the whole stablility of the game got thrown off and out of control by one player who landed on the jackpot known as 'Free Parking'. In a quick scramble to try and restabilize power, a quick 3 person coalition was formed with the mission to re-balance power, and help develop the weakest players land rights through interest free loans on land purchases.
It worked well, the game played on, and every so often a coalition member would land on a Hotel owned land, and had to pay up the big bucks. Together we pooled our resources and saved each other from this impending doom. Finally the coalition came through and the power situation shifted, the hotels down graded to 2 house. However, before one could rejoice, a second power emerged! - Immediatly breaking the coalition this player charged an unprepared member rent on a property that used to be freezone... a few moves later and a new hegemony had emerged twice as powerful as the one before.

The friend becomes the foe, and the foe becomes the friend as a new coalition emerges...
This coalition strengthened beyond all means by pooling all resources into one entity, controled by the weakest player from before. Forced into some unique property trading and flipping of houses, we managed to keep afloat for a good hour, until luck turned against us and we landed on new foes hotels....

its now 3:30 am and we are ending this game because the 2 for 1 zinger deal is on...

A vision for the future...

"My fondest dream is th some day our next generations, our children and grandchildren, will go to the museums to see what poverty was like because there will no longer be any on this planet. And they will accuse us, their forefathers, for letting it continue until the 21st century -because there is no good reason why it should have continued. I believe that day will come. I believe we can create a poverty -free world. I am sure many of you do, and many of you who do not believe now will soon believe in it. And together, we'll create a poverty-free world. "

- Muhammad Yunus, Nobeal Peace Prize Winner 2006.

See his whole moving speech here:

http://www.grameen-info.org/mcredit/timeline.html

more inconvenient truths

So sparking the global warming debate all over again, Al Gore has successful put the issue on the tongues of those interested. Another thing that sparked is the opposition movement. Its a funny thing, even truth has an opposition.

Regardless of my views i'll leave you to your own conculsions.

The following is a website launched by sourcewatch which aims to dig up the truth behind media and ads. This particular review looks at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a neo-liberal think tank that drives free-market policy. Sourcewatch accuses CEI of lying to the public in order to drive big business profits. One of its biggest campaigns is to confuse consumers about the global warming debate by trying to convince us that CO2 is a good thing, and that in fact the ice caps are getting thicker. ???.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute

What kind of democracy do we live in that the elite continues to exploit and twist information like a dictator to push their own greedy interests? You cannot have a successful democracy or true free market without truth!