Keep The Promise... Ban All Wars and Protect the Environment...

My parents were Genocide survivors... 

and After my last post a friend contacted me...

Hi!

I read your post this afternoon.  It was really nice to read.                                       I get frustrated a lot of the time because when most people talk about April 24^th it’s a message full of anger and hate.  That bothers me to the point that I would almost prefer never to think about that day at all.  The way you wrote about it though helps me to reflect on why we really use April 24^th to remember what happened to our families.  

I had pushed the meaning of the day out of my mind all day because of all the negative thoughts and feelings it usually brings up, but your e-mail brought the true message back to me.  On my way home from school I thought about my family and what they had to go through.  The fact that all of my great-grandparents were orphans.  Men who grew up without fathers and women who grew up without mothers.  Such a difficult life.  I think about what I would do without a mother or a father even now! I’m almost 30!!! My great-grandfather wasn’t even 10 years old yet and had his sisters to look after as well. 

The point of this though is really just that I wanted to say thank you for reminding me why we remember.

I’m going with my grandma to see The Promise .    

                         

I’m very interested to see how they tell the story.  I’m also very interested to see what my grandma thinks.  She’s from a different generation than me that is more directly touched by it all.  It should be a very interesting night.  I will definitely write to you later in the week to let you know what I think of the movie. 

I also wanted to let you know that I’m starting a very exciting initiative for  the Eco-Team at my school!!!  I’m at night school now though, so I’ll write to you about it at the end of the week :)   I think it might make you want to come back to teaching with me hahaha...

Have a great week!!!

K

... And my response...

Hi to you...

Thank you for your message and your vision...

I just wanted to add:

The world recently discovered "alternative facts" and "fake news..." But, for 102 years Armenians have suffered the "fake news" from Turkey and its ruling classes... Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide are "alternative facts" promoted by its rulers...

The new government in the U.S. and its allies generate "fake news" like Turkey generated the "fake news" about the Armenian Genocide... and like the new government of the U.S. and its allies, Turkey promoted and still promotes "alternative facts"...

The Western media discovered these concepts recently, in the last 100 days... but, the Armenians have lived with the "fake news" and "alternative facts" for 102 years...

Denial of the Armenian Genocide... is not only "fake news" and "alternative fact," but also the perpetuation of the Genocide...

As humanists, as teacher, as human being you are obliged to remember the Armenian Genocide and put it in its global perspective... If the Armenian Genocide is not recognized and punished, then it will generate new genocides...

The Armenian Genocide should not be a pawn in the geopolitical interests of the mighty... It should be entrenched in human decency and morality...

I am sure you got the gist of my reasoning... I have always advocated the global dimensions of the Armenian Genocide... and have chosen the slogan; "through Armenia embracing the WORLD..." 

I would like to see a world where arms are not manufactured and the military budgets are allocated to ease the pain of each and every human being... all over the globe...

***

I have a suggestion for your ECO-TEAM... anchor it in human rights and needs...

The environment and nature is necessary for the survival of human beings... I want a world where coming generations will have clean air to breath... fresh and clean water to drink... uncontaminated produce to eat... ALL THESE ARE ESSENTIAL FOR THE SURVIVAL OF GLOBAL POPULATION... and the devastation caused by wars... is another dimension to keep always in mind...

The environmentalists will be fake and hypocritical if they do not include wars as essential part of global pollution...

In Vietnam they used Agent Orange... in order to defoliate the forests so as they may kill better... In Syria they bombed the hell of of the country... 

As chemicals used as pesticides are harmful to humans... so are the bombs that rain on cities... 

Bombs rain... like acid-rain... Both are harmful and both kill...

Eco advocates should not shy from the devastation caused by ALL WARS... as I noted in before; THERE ARE NO JUST CAUSE... NO SIDE IS JUSTIFIED... NO SIDE HAS THE HIGHER GROUND... BOTH SIDES KILL... and the reason does justify the action...

Human beings should be intelligent enough to resolve disputed by reasoning and discussion and not resort to arms... 

Animals do fight... humans MUST talk and share...

I wish I was with you in your Eco-Team... 

Enjoy the work and let me know if I can help in any way... 

***

... And on another note...

Demonstrating their love for working people...!

A US clothing company has been mocked on social media for selling a pair of $425 (£330; €390) jeans complete with "crackled, caked-on muddy coating".

Among those to join the chorus of Facebook criticism of what Nordstrom calls its Barracuda Straight Leg Jeans is Discovery Channel Dirty Jobs presenter Mike Rowe who described them as "looking like they have been worn by someone with a dirty job" but "made for people who don't."  
                                                                                                          

"They're a costume for wealthy people who see work as ironic - not iconic."

Imagine Ivanka Trump in these...

"You can achieve the same look for a lot less by rolling in your backyard or gardening," a fashion observer wrote...

Indeed...

It reminds me the 80's when the fashion industry promoted the colourful and joyful hippy-clothing... 

The buck hunting greed is omnipresent in society... and greed always has trumped morality...  

April 24... Armenians Commemorate the Armenian Genocide... Committed by Modern Day Turkey

All Wars Kill... 

There is NO just war...

Fights are the last stage of any dispute... and it is the inhuman way of solving problems! 

The animal instinct takes over... and dehumanizes both sides... and ALL... and then we fight... go to war... and kill...

But it is written... "Thou shall not kill." And their are NO qualifiers to it... there are no ifs or buts... added to the commandment...

Today is April 24... The Remember the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE... when 1.5 million Armenians were marched to their death in the Syrian desert...

As civilized humans we should ban wars... The military budgets should feed the hungry and provide shelter to the homeless...

GO and SEE "THE PROMISE"... and remember the 1.5 million Armenians who were massacred... The first GENOCIDE of the 20th century...

• In 1944, Raphael Lemkin created the term genocide in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

• The term genocide was coined in a 1944 book; it has been applied to the Holocaust and many other mass killings including the Armenian genocide, the genocide of indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Greek genocide, the Assyrian genocide, the Serbian genocide, the Holodomor, the 1971 Bangladesh genocide, the Cambodian genocide, the Guatemalan genocide, and, more recently, the Bosnian Genocide, the Kurdish genocide, and the Rwandan genocide.

• Lemkin's lifelong interest in the mass murder of populations in the 20th century was initially in response to the killing of Armenians in 1915 and later to the mass murders in Nazi controlled Europe. He referred to the Albigensian Crusade as "one of the most conclusive cases of genocide in religious history". He dedicated his life to mobilizing the international community, to work together to prevent the occurrence of such events. In a 1949 interview, Lemkin said "I became interested in genocide because it happened so many times. It happened to the Armenians, then after the Armenians, Hitler took action".

Today is April 24... Armenians all over remember and commemorate the Armenian Genocide... 

Join them and see The Promise... 

“The Euphrates was the tomb of thousands of the deportees.  The Armenians who did not die were shot point blank by Kurds on the banks of the River...

***

The Following is From The Times of israel...

Our Obligation to See ‘The Promise’

by Simon Hardy Butler

Piles of dead bodies. Men, women and children stuffed into boxcars. Forced slave labor.

Does any of this sound familiar?

If, on Yom HaShoah, these records of villainy hit close to home, then we, as Jews, [ I will add, we as human beings...] should also remember another genocide that included these horrors yet preceded our own: that of the Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish regime starting in 1915.
The great film The Promise, now in theaters, highlights all of these occurrences from that era.
I just saw it last night in Manhattan, at a big theater more often known for blockbusters and crowd-pleasing entertainment. But The Promise is no such film; it had a large budget, for sure, and is important in that it is the first mainstream Hollywood film to call attention to the Armenian genocide, yet there’s more to it than that. It’s extraordinarily moving. It has scenes that are unforgettable: atrocities beyond scope, humanity beyond reason. It is powerful. It is essential.
All of my fellow brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith should watch it.
We say: “Never again.” And “never again” is what we should adhere to. Still, that mantra didn’t exist in its present form when Armenians were being massacred by Ottoman Turks, when they were being removed from their homes, when their villages were decimated, when their children were murdered.
We say: “Never again.” We must mean it.
To do so, we must understand all genocides, all holocausts, anti-Semitic and otherwise. The Armenian one is particularly crucial, as it took place only a few decades before our own and extinguished 1.5 million Armenian lives. There is no place for such villainy in the world. We cannot just say that, however. We must exemplify it.
So we must educate ourselves further on the subject. We must watch films such as The Promise to make sure we never forget. It is not only a work of art, but it is also a teaching tool. Like Schindler’s List, another cinematic masterpiece. In many ways, The Promise is very similar. It has a terrific score, by Gabriel Yared. It has brilliant performances, especially by Oscar Isaac, who will touch your heart in the picture like few will. It has superb cinematography, editing, production design. It has fearless direction. It even must be subject to the minor quibbles I had with Schindler’s List … that it didn’t show the full, vile extent of the violence and heinous crimes perpetrated by those who orchestrated the genocide. Yet both showed enough. Both made their point well. Both made the terror clear.
That’s why both are critical movies in the history of the silver screen. That’s why both will live forever.
As with Schindler’s List, The Promise is hardly one-dimensional. It is not didactic. Characters are fully developed. Heroes exist on both sides … including Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the Jewish-American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, whose portrayal during a scene with a government official might bring you to tears. On this day of remembrance, the people who fought for justice need to have their names recognized. We, as a people, should know why we do this. We, as a people, should be able to see the import.
I urge every Jewish man and woman who can to see The Promise. I do it with a warning: You may be upset. You may cry. Yet I do it also with the reminder that watching this film ensures a better world for us and all who surround us. It makes us better people. It makes us better rememberers.
Surely, not all memories are the same. The exceptional ones, however, must never be forgotten.
The Promise makes sure of that. We must do so as well.

Abusing the Earth... The Shame of our Civilization...

The Shame of our civilization...                     

Degrading the EPA, deregulating environmental protections... dumping toxins in rivers and lakes... are just like chemical attacks and weapons of Mass Destruction...

Word origins intrigue/fascinate me... They tell a story uniquely of their own and open up their unique historical perspective ...

I encountered "mammoth" today... I did not know that it was derived from the huge animal which is extinct now... and I read about it more...

In February Chinese customs have confiscate mammoth tusks imported from Russia ... Not because they are illegal, but because they were not declared...

Chinese customs officers have seized more than a tonne of tusks from animals that have been extinct for thousands of years - mammoths. State media are reporting that the massive haul came from Russia and was seized in north-east China in February. The largest piece of mammoth ivory seized was more than 1.6m (5ft) long, a customs officer was quoted as saying. There is no international ban on the trade but Chinese officials said the haul was not declared.

Mammoth ...  adjective [ not gradable ]  extremely large:

Like in: Building the dam was a mammoth construction project.

*** The word comes from a huge extinct animal... I did not know that...

See below... 

A mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus, proboscideans commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,500 years ago in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.

The mammoth stockpiles are part of a booming trade between Russia and China in ivory taken from the skeletons of mammoths found in the Siberian tundra. The effects of global warming in the Arctic has made it easier to collect tusks preserved in ice for thousands of years, researchers say.

Mammoths in Siberia...

and... Check this out...

The flip flops come mainly from poorer countries... China and India... and Over three billion people can afford only flip flops... 

Flip flops washing offshore on Kenyan beaches... posing a risk for animal and plant life...

Is this yours...?

Eight million tons of plastics enter the oceans every year... and they are not biodegradable...

By 2050 there will be more plastic than fish by weight in the oceans...

The way our politicians are legislating... Maybe we all will end up like the mammoths...

Green Cities...

Happy Palm Sunday... The cities are singing Hosanna to green space... in urban living...
Politicians destroy but people recreate green space...
Plant a tree today... on the sidewalk, in your backyard... in your front-yard... anywhere in the Global Village...

Milan's Vertical Forest... More than 800 trees on specially reinforced balconies...constructed in 2014...

Lausanne, Switzerland ... the Tower of Cedars will start construction in 2017... This year...

Details of the Tower of Cedars...

London's Kensington Roof Gardens... from 1930... covers 1.5 acres...

London is world leader in green roof gardens... 1.3 sq. feet covered in London...

Numura Building in London... The Japanese Investment Bank's private roof garden... looks to the river...

Guizhou, China... 250 room Mountain Forest hotel...

Details of the hotel...

Planning the future... A new sustainable city of 100,000 in the plans in Shiajazhuand, China...

Details of the "Forest City"... still in planning...

Garden by the Bay... in Singapore 

Vertical garden... in a shopping mall facade in Rozzano near Milan, Italy...

Singapore, world leader,  has developed both buildings and canopy cover... urban green space...