Saturday, 10 January 2015

Stand up...and be counted... Defend our FREEDOMS...


The World Remembers... The World is in a shock...at the barbarism of "few" against the printed word... against the printed picture...
No one, absolutely NO ONE, has the right to impose their views on others by force... or attempt to prevent the written word to reach the people...
No one needs barbarians as self proclaimed guardians of religion and truth...
If religion is what people want so be it... But if someone notices that organized religion is abusing its powers... that someone has all the right to say so... and to say so IN THE WAY THEY THINK IT IS RIGHT...
Freedom has no limits and all those who attempt to impeded our freedoms are just funny dictators...
And those who fight the word by their sword... will be defeated firstly by the PEN... and then by the sword too...
I had argument after argument with Big Brothers to protect my free thought and free speech...
Here is an anecdote...
We had a vice-principal in our school who loved wearing low-cut dresses exposing cleavage... also she was fashionable enough to dress and expose her shoulders... and minis were part of her wardrobe...                                                                   What she was wearing was quite inappropriate in a academic setting... 
One day I noticed a female student weeping in my class... and I was concerned... I inquired... and she did not answer... her friend volunteered and conveyed that the vice-principal had reprimanded her for the uniform that she was wearing... I checked the weeping girl... did not notice and inappropriate dress code... May the pants were a bit tight...May the top was a bit tighter... But nothing scandalous... They were just what all females students were wearing... and I blurted out aloud...
"Why doesn't she look into the mirror and check what she is wearing...?"
And of course as the world goes round... a student ratted on me... and the Vice-p was angry... and I got an email from the principal... He mentioned that I should bring the "union rep" with me... 
I was curious why...? But I am daring enough to protect myself... So I went to see him by myself... and he referred to my comments about the Vice-p's dress and added; "... you may be charged for sexual harassment...!"
"Go ahead and charge me...", I answered... and added, "...There are all kinds of photos floating around with the vp in them..."
He shut-up and dismissed me... After all, he was doing his routine and playing his role to defend himself... 
The Vice-p was indeed stupid and full of herself... and very proud of her looks and body parts...
***
Free speech is important... Freedom of thought is crucial... and they must be defended... The Islamist-Jihadists should not intimidate you out of your rights... to think and to express...
The pens are in the middle... and we repeat...We'll defend our freedoms and will not be enslaved by any fascist ideology... be it for Church, or for Mosque, or for Synagogue or for any Temple...
We have the weapons of mass creation and we will defend our rights...
Bullets will not intimidate us...
But, we have to dare to defend... 
We have to say NO... every time we see infringements on our rights...
Big Brothers do not have any rights on our freedoms... Where ever they are... in Moscow, Beijing, Kiev, Berlin, London... or Wall Street...
Our freedoms are sacrosanct and we will defend them...
The Big Brothers of the religion and state have no right to impose their way of thinking on us...

And Read...about our complacent attitude...

The truth is that world-wide humanity is complacent and unmoved by the most extreme horrors humanity can imagine. 

We remained silent in the face of the Jewish Holocaust, the Armenian Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, and we remained silent about the need to educate girls until Malala was short in the head. I consider that extreme. Is it not extreme pain to suffer from starvation, from dislocation and being one of the 52 million refugees looking for a safe place to live? Is it not extreme cold for the homeless right here in many North American cities?


***
They argue that the Islamist-Jihadists are a minority... but read below about the Saudi kingdom...

This is what the Saudi's say...


"The Kingdom's political system is rooted in Islam's traditions, which call for peace, justice, equality, consultation, and respect for the rights of the individual."
...And this is what they do...
A Saudi Arabian blogger has been publicly flogged after being convicted of cybercrime and insulting Islam, reports say.
Raif Badawi, who was sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in jail, was flogged 50 times. The flogging will be carried out weekly, campaigners say.
Mr Badawi, the co-founder of a now banned website called the Liberal Saudi Network, was arrested in 2012.
The flogging took place outside a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah after Friday prayers, witnesses said.
AFP news agency, quoting people at the scene, said Mr Badawi arrived at the mosque in a police car and had the charges read out to him in front of a crowd.

He was then made to stand with his back to onlookers and whipped, though he remained silent, the witnesses said.


***
Beheadings, amputations...flogging are part of the state religion of Saudi Arabia and Islamists Sharia laws...
They have NO RIGHT to impose their Mediaval thinking and laws on us...
They will fail...Because dictators always fail...
Public floggings, limb amputations, and beheadings remind most Westerners of ISIS or the Taliban. But in Saudi Arabia -- the one country in the world that enjoys more unconditional U.S. support than any other -- they are the law, sanctioned not only by the government, but by the state religion. In the same month that the world was reeling with shock at the brutal beheading of James Foley at the hands of ISIS, Saudi Arabia publicly beheaded 19 people,for crimes ranging from smuggling cannabis to sorcery.
The sun sets over Namirah mosque on the plains of Arafat during the annual haj pilgrimage, outside the holy city of Mecca October 3, 2014. Raif Badawi, a Saudi blogger who was sentenced under the country’s harsh anti-blasphemy laws to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes along with a fine of over $260,000, was publicly flogged 50 times on Friday.

Religious zealotry has attempted to infringe on our rights... They crucified Jesus for his ideas of love and harmony... he said “turn the other cheek...” and refused “an eye for an eye...” Later the ORGANIZED Church usurped the message and imposed their will... Ignorant priests and abusive cardinals became the norm... eventually people liberated themselves and proclaimed “equality, fraternity and liberty...”

Now the Islamists-Jihadists are attempting the same... The Christian Organized Church failed... and the Islamist-Kihadists will fail too...
***
Defend the Word... defend free speech...

The beauty of SPACE where the WORD is kept... for ALL...Check the beautiful libraries in France...

The beauty of space promotes the beauty of the WORD... and the WORD gives us knowledge and knowledge makes us come closer and closer to the TRUTH... which eventually sets us FREE...

Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris
Bibliothèque de l’Hôtel de Ville, Paris
Bibliothèque du Sénat, Paris
Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire de la Sorbonne, Paris
Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris
Also in Rome and in Boston...
Biblioteca Angelica, Rome
Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome
Boston Public Library, Boston
Beautiful libraries will promote beautiful thoughts...
The libraries are sanctuaries for FREEDOM... use and defend our public spaces for freedom of thought...
The Church will not do it...
The Mosque will not do it...
The Synagogues will not do it...
The Temples will not do it...
But the PEOPLE can defend their rights against all types of abuse...
So be inspired... and get involved... and make a difference...  
***
And Few Final notes...

The lights are out on the Tower of Light...
The Tower of Light is in Mourning... but soon it will celebrate again... and the Phoenix will rise from the ashes... and all of us will be FREE... and live in harmony... and equality... and fraternity and sisterhood... and LIBERTY...
Paris, the city of enlightenment... is DEFIANT  
Paris will be a beacon that no one can destroy...
Check the origin of the phrase....

The English words "The pen is mightier than the sword" were first written by novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, in his historical play Cardinal Richelieu.
According to the Cambridge Dictionaries website the saying emphasises that "thinking and writing have more influence on people and events than the use of force or violence".
***
Anonymous is wrong...                                 We cannot defend free speech and freedom of thought and our liberties... by attacking their rights...to write and think and express themselves freely... Let them write freely... and let us write freely... let them be... so as we will be...
You cannot by tyrannical with others and defend freedoms at the same time...
What Anonymous is advocating is the easy way out... the times for "an eye for an eye" have long gone into history... Now is the time for PEACE and HARMONY... 

The video is described as a message for "al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorists," and promises to avenge the killing of 12 people in Wednesday's attack.
"We, Anonymous around the world, have decided to declare war on you the terrorists. We intend to take revenge in their name, we are going to survey your activities on the net, we are going to shut down your accounts on all social networks,"
The Only "Revenge" is to read and read ... and read more... Start today...
Check below... the Australian auther...

Geoffrey Robertson puts the case against Turkey for 1915 Armenian genocide  

Reviewed by: Louis Nowra

ON April 24, 1915, the day before the Anzacs landed at Gallipoli, the Turkish government in Constantinople rounded up hundreds of Armenian artists, intellectuals, academics, priests and community leaders and killed most of them.

At the time there were 15 million Turkish Muslims and about two million Christian Armenians in Turkey (or Anatolia as it was then). The Armenians were better educated and wealthier than most Turks and because of that were envied and hated, so much so that the government instituted a program of ethnic cleansing. The Turks had had practice runs before. Between 1894 and 1896, 200,000 Armenians were massacred by soldiers and armed mobs.
From May to September 1915, up to two million Armenians were killed or expelled from the Ottoman Empire. The adult men were massacred or sent to death camps, while their families were sent on death marches through the desert. They were murdered, raped, drowned, burned alive and left to die of hunger and thirst. Churches, monasteries and schools were destroyed. All material goods were confiscated. Girls were made sex slaves and forced to convert. Up to 1.5 million died.
Since then Turkish apologists have protested that only 600,000 died and that the deportations and massacres were merely unfortunate incidents in a civil war. In An Inconvenient Genocide, Australian
lawyer Geoffrey Robertson sifts the evidence and details the reasons he considers the Turkish elimination of the Armenians a crime against humanity, a genocide.
He doesn't spend much time on the history but presents witness accounts by diplomats, missionaries, journalists, doctors and soldiers. Some of the compelling accounts are by Australian prisoners of war. Even Turkey's German allies, especially diplomats, were horrified by what was happening and sent voluminous reports back to Berlin.
Turkish law sanctions citizens who ''insult Turkishness'' by referring to the treatment of Armenians as genocide. Nobel prize-winning writer Orhan Pamuk was charged but his international fame kept him out of jail. This nationalistic hypersensitivity cannot be over-estimated.
In 2010, the BBC recorded a play I wrote based on the memoirs of a US vice-consul, Leslie Davis, who witnessed deportations, death marches and atrocities. Because Turkish actors were afraid news of their participation would travel back home, they dropped out or acted under assumed names.
Robertson makes it clear that genocide is a matter for judges, not historians. He takes as his guide the International Court of Justice decree that genocide means acts committed with an intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. In practice this means disrupting social cohesion (murdering leaders and intellectuals), destroying cultural institutions and prohibiting cultural activities, shifting wealth from the persecuted group to privileged nationals, depopulating areas inhabited by a group, interfering with the activities of churches catering to the persecuted group and reducing its numbers by starvation or murder.
This book is a prosecutor's brief: brilliant, forensic and irrefutable, and on all counts Robertson finds the 1915 Turkish government guilty of genocide. The subtitle, Who Remembers theArmenians?, is a paraphrase of Hitler's remarks to his generals in 1939, ordering them to show no mercy to the Poles: "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?''
Robertson is part of a growing global movement to have the Armenian genocide classed as a crime against humanity. Governments in Canada, France, Russia, Sweden and Poland have recognised the genocide, as have 43 of the 50 US states. The British and US governments have refused to do so; Turkey's pro-Western stance makes it an important ally.
Led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a cynical populist, Turkey is doing all within its power not to confront its own past and also to stop the truth from being heard. This is of course not unusual (witness Japan's refusal to acknowledge its horrific crimes in World War II and Australia's deliberate amnesia about its treatment of Aborigines) but the evidence of the genocide is so overwhelming that the Turkish denial of what happened is breathtaking in its immaturity and lack of pity.
In Australia's case, the NSW parliament recognised the genocide in 2013, but the federal government has not done so. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has gone so far as to deny it happened. Why is this? Well, the answer is quite simple: blackmail. She is afraid the Turkish government will stop Australians from visiting Gallipoli. She has good reasons for this, given the Turks have banned any member of the NSW parliament from attending this year's centenary memorial service at Anzac Cove.
An Inconvenient Genocide should be compulsory reading for anyone who knows nothing about the Armenian genocide. It's also a vivid reminder that we must never forget such crimes against humanity. Very few books are necessary, but this is one.

An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Remembers the Armenians? By Geoffrey Robertson
 Vintage, 304pp, $34.99
 Louis Nowra is a novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

***
The best revenge for the Paris attacks is to visit the libraries and to read and to express yourselves freely...
Big Brothers should not intimidate you...
Be inspired...
Get involved...
Defend our freedoms...
and
Make a difference...


Thursday, 8 January 2015

EQUALITY...FRATERNITY...AND LIBERTY... THE PEN WILL ALWAYS TRIUMPH AT THE END...


I Have learned through experience that... 
The PEN is definitely mightier than the bullet... But the Islamist-Jihadists have not comprehended this...Since they are still living in the Dark Ages...
Check the solidarity and the caricatures below... a very powerful collection...
The pen is proving to scare the Islamist-Jihadists... but no matter what... they cannot subdue the human quest for freedom... They may kill...they may behead... they may terrorize the streets of Paris and London and other capitals... but they will never succeed in subduing the human spirit...
They will break the pen... and it will multiply and multiply more...

They may behead... spray offices with bullets... but the finger and the tongue will always be stuck out and they will not be able to silence freedom loving people and they will not be able to turn the clock back to the Dark Ages...
The PEN will endure and triumph... The Islamic masses will eventually reject these naive people... who rely ONLY on arms and have no conviction...
Brutality will never be able to silence the human quest for equality and fraternity and liberty...
In balance... People will always aspire for liberty and the Islamist-Jihadists will be defeated...
They will kill a few... They will behead few more... But at the end the PEN will pierce their belly and the spirit of freedom will defeat them...

They can never silence the people...The Big Brothers have attempted that through out the ages and eventually they have been defeated...
The Church tried to silence the masses... and they failed...
McCarthy-ites tried to silence the American spirit... and they failed...
Stalinists tried to smash the human spirit... and they failed...
Pinochet was defeated in Chile...
The Generals were defeated in Argentina and Brazil...
The Sultan failed in Turkey... Attaturk could not reform the Turkish republic... and the Islamist Erdogan will eventually be sent to the dust-bin of history too...
The Islamist-Jihadists will not prevail...

Today a friend said, but why they have to have the right to cry "fire"...
Religion has attempted to crush human spirit far to long... and they have failed...
ORGANIZED RELIGION IS NOT HUMANITY NEEDS...
ORGANIZED RELIGION IS JUST LIKE ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION... IT IS A POWER GRAB...
ORGANIZED RELIGION... CHRISTIAN, ISLAM, JUDAISM, BUDDHISM, TAOISM, HINDUISM... AND ALL THE REST...IS NOT SPIRITUALITY...
JESUS ARGUED... IF ANY TWO OR THREE ARE GATHERED IN MY NAME ANYWHERE...
THERE I AM...
A bullet will never stop the pen... 
If they are afraid of the WORD, then they must be STUPID... 
Another sign at the rally in Place de la Republique declared: "I stand up and I express myself with words because they are still the most beautiful weapon!"
CHECK THE POWER OF THE PEN... THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE...
BIG BROTHER WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO SILENCE THE HUMAN SPIRIT...

THEY EVEN DO NOT KNOW HOW TO HOLD A PEN...
THE TRIGGER IS WITHIN YOU...
CHECK YOUR HEART AND MIND AND SOAR HIGH INTO THE SKY...
INDEED HE DREW FIRST AND SHE WILL DRAW AGAIN AND AGAIN...
SHE WILL BE THE ONE WHO DRAWS THE LAST TOO...

From the Guardian in London, England...
THE FUCKERS ARE LAUGHING AT YOU... BECAUSE YOU ARE A BOZO...
From The telegraph...in London, England...
INDEED BE CAREFUL... THEY WILL ALWAYS HAVE PEN... AND THEY WILL ALWAYS LAUGH AT YOUR IGNORANCE...

Agence France Presse...office...in solidarity with FREE PRESS...

"Shame on you, pens versus gun? There's no competition, is there. Shame on you, shame on you," said one man attending the London SOLIDARITY event. "It's the most cowardly thing you can do."
Faycal Haddad, a Muslim, carried a homemade sign stating "not in my name, not in the name of my religion."
"I don't want anyone to say that my kids, someone from my family, is involved -- this is not Islam," Haddad said. "If I thought that this was what Islam was about, I would not be part of it. No religion in the world can authorize anyone to kill.


   Salman Rushdie
 

Salman Rushdie, whose book “The Satanic Verses” prompted Iran’s Ayatollah to issue a fatwa on him in 1989, responded to Wednesday's shooting attack at the Paris offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. His statement:
“Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”  –Salman Rushdie



Organized Religion has always attempted to subdue the human quest for knowledge and trample scientific thought... but they have not succeeded so far... and they will not succeed hence froward... and the Pen will always prevail...

NEVER let the Big Brother to trample your individual rights... So,
Get inspired... Be involved... and make a difference...

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

PEACE ON EARTH ... FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION ARE GOD GIVEN RIGHTS...


Gunmen Attack... on FREE SPEECH...
No one, absolutely no one has the right to restrict free speech...
No one, absolutely no one, has the right to restrict free expression... be that oral or written...
All of us have the absolute right to THINK and express our thoughts FREELY...
Clerics and Big Brothers have attempted to restrict people's rights ever since recorded history... 


  • The Churches have failed in their attempts... A good example will be when they tried to ban the publication of the Bible, and it failed...
  • The State has failed... the failure of McCarthyism in the U.S. of A. and the collapse of Stalinist Soviet Union are couple of good examples...
  • And the Islamist-Jihadists will fail too... 
I have been there and I know... 
They have attempted to restrict free speech and thought in Turkey...even when they committed genocide against Armenians...and they failed... they attempted to muzzle the freedoms in the Soviet Union but Armenia is free now and I am sure Ukraine will be too... Only a caveat: We should not trade one censor for another... ALL BIG BROTHERS ARE THE SAME and all of them suck...
They attacked my thoughts everywhere  I have been ... but they failed... they will fail...
The Christian right... like the Tea Party... will fail.
The "left wing" dictatorships that equate socialist-communist ideas to the dictatorship of the few will fail.
The Islamist-Jihadists will fail too...
No one can confine the human spirit...
ALL BIG BROTHERS eventually will fail...



  1. Gunmen have attacked the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris
  2. Twelve people have been killed, four are seriously injured
  3. Four cartoonists, including the magazine's editor-in-chief, are among those killed
  4. The hunt is on for three suspects and Paris has been placed on the highest level of alert
  5. President Hollande said it was act of "extreme barbarity"
  6. There has been international condemnation, with President Obama calling it a "horrific shooting"
  7. In 2011, the publication came under attack after naming the Prophet Muhammad as its "editor-in-chief"
Following the announcement that Islamic prophet Mohammad would be 'guest-editing' an issue of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, all hell broke loose...

They satirized Christians and the Church and no one was upset... the Christians took the satire as valid or upsetting or provoking critique...
Other religions, Islam and Judaism included... Should learn to tolerate critics too...
No one has the right to impose their will on another individual and to restrict free thinking...
They have satirized Christianity too...
AND THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO SO...
THEY HAVE THE RIGHT TO WRITE AN THINK FREELY...
  • IF THE JIHADIST-ISLAMISTS DO NOT LIKE IT... 
  • Then they should leave Europe... That's the solution...

Salman Rushdie condemns attack on Charlie Hebdo

English PEN condemns today’s shootings at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo as a shocking assault on press freedom and free speech. Writer and PEN Pinter Prize winner Salman Rushdie has issued the following statement about the horrifying events in Paris
Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

***

Why the Big Brother is afraid of PEOPLE POWER...?

Why will they arrest a 14-year-old kid for drawing umbrellas...? 
 Why they are afraid of free thought and free expression...?

Questions that will haunt the dictators and Big Brothers everywhere...

Teen arrested for drawing with chalk on wall at Hong Kong protest site...

A 14-year-old girl in Hong Kong could be removed from her father's care after she was arrested for drawing chalk flowers on a wall at one of the city's pro-democracy protest sites.
The Goddess of Democracy (left image), erected by student protesters in 1989 in Tiananmen Square... and the The umbrella symbolizing Honk Kong protests...for democratic rights... 25 years later...
Umbrella fabric patched together... Symbol of resistance to Big Brother...
Symbol of democratic aspirations...
The ribbons and the umbrella...
Freedom of expression... and umbrellas as symbols of resistance... 
Freedom of speech... It is people's right and should not be limited...
Chinese Big Brothers and Islamist-Jihadists will ultimately defeated...
Do not be afraid to express your opinion... It is your God given right...
Fly a kite... Hold an umbrella... and resist the Big Brother diktats...
That's what thinking people do...
Be inspired...
Get involved...
and
Make a difference...
That's the message of Christmas...
Merry Christmas to my Ukrainian and Russian and all orthodox friends...
PEACE ON EARTH 

***
After all,
Freedom to though and expression are God given rights to ALL...

Tuesday, 6 January 2015

PEACE and HARMONY... It's Armenian Christmas... and Christmas Eve for my Ukrainian and Russian friends...


It was a fun few weeks...
I celebrated Christmas on the 25th and New Year on the first... and I am still going...
Today is Armenian Christmas... I will celebrate with friends... and have dinner with friends and relatives...
Today is also Christmas Eve for Ukrainians and Russians and the other Orthodox Christians... I will celebrate with my Ukrainian and Russian friends... when we are together celebrating... things are wonderful... Why Ukrainian and Russian Big Brothers are at each others throat is GREED and PROFITS... and it is sad...

Revellers across the globe gather to welcome in the New Year, with New Zealand and Australia leading the celebrations.
New Year rolled from coast to coast to coast and to the skies...
Everyone was happy...and merry... and helpful... 

and
As the saying goes...the more, the merrier...
Christmas comes but once a year - unless you live in Bethlehem, where three different Christian denominations celebrate on three different days.
On each Christmas Eve, Bethlehem gives a warm welcome to church patriarchs and priests when they enter Manger Square.
The Catholics lead processions along the traditional pilgrimage route from Jerusalem to the Nativity Church ahead of their Christmas on 25 December.
But now attention switches to the Greek Orthodox, who make up the majority of Palestinian Christians. Their Christmas Day falls on 7 January.
The 13 day difference is explained by calendars. While the Latin church switched to the Gregorian calendar, devised by Pope Gregory in the 16th Century, the Eastern Orthodox churches still use the older, Julian calendar - created during the reign of Julius Caesar in 45 BC.
What makes the situation in the Holy Land really unusual is that Armenians here wait even longer for Christmas. Their parade isn't until 18 January.
Armenian Christmas parade to the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem
I love the celebrations... I hope there were 365 Christian denominations and we had 365 celebrations for World Peace...
Armenians celebrating on the 18th... and an Armenian church in Jerusalem...
All Christian churches originally celebrated Christmas Eve on Jan. 6. In the 4th century, the Roman Catholic Church designated Dec. 25 as the holiday in order to replace the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice, while Orthodox churches stuck with Jan. 6.

All Christian churches originally celebrated Christmas Eve on Jan. 6. In the 4th century, the Roman Catholic Church designated Dec. 25 as the holiday in order to replace the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice, while Orthodox churches stuck with Jan. 6.
In every other part of the world, Christmas can be penciled in on two dates: Dec. 25, celebrated by Catholics and Pentecostals; and Jan. 7 as celebrated by the Eastern Orthodox church.




***
Twelve nights and one sunny morning 
                                                                                (from Hurriyet) by Aylin Ã-ney Tan
Thankfully, the effect of Saturn is leaving us; it will be a relief, at least for my fellow Scorpios and I. Tonight might be our last stressful night after an agonizing three years; according to
astrology, it will be a night of transition and transformation; our chance to burn the past and start a new era. Tonight is a full moon, which also coincides with the Twelfth Night, the last night of the Christmas period, just before the Epiphany.
Twelve seems to be a mythical and magical number. The year is 12 months long; accordingly there are 12 signs. Likewise, there are 12 signs in the Chinese zodiac, which turn up every 12 years. In all religions, the number 12 has parallel significances. Shiites and Alevis believe in 12 imams, and there were 12 apostles of Jesus at the last supper. To start with deities, there were 12 gods in Greek mythology; the divine hero Heracles was obliged to perform 12 labors; the Norse god Odin had 12 sons; so did the biblical Jacob, with his sons being the progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. There are 12 feasts to celebrate in Orthodox Christianity. Actually, Christianity seems to embrace the number 12 the most. In Catholic
culture, St. Mary is depicted with a halo of 12 stars; no wonder the European Union chose 12 stars to adorn its flag. The foundation of Roman law was based on `Duodecim Tabulae,' the Twelve Tables. Twelve is also about transformation. Childhood ends at the age of 12, which is the start of the tumultuous teenage years towards adolescence.
The day after the Twelfth Night is Epiphany, the day of revelation. In Istanbul, Epiphany day is special for the Greek and Armenian communities. The Armenian Orthodox Church celebrates the day as both the nativity and baptism of Christ; it is actually the Armenian Christmas referred to as `Surp Diznunt,' meaning `Holy Birth.' The Greek Orthodox Church puts emphasis on the baptism and enlightenment; hence the day is called `Ta Fota,' simply meaning `The Lights.' For young Greek men, it is the time to dive into the cold waters to race to grab a wooden cross, thrown to the sea by the Patriarch. The icy shock of plunging into the water is definitely a realistic way of enacting a baptism, and it will surely lighten heads suffering
hangover from the Twelfth Night. Let it be your night tonight, because tomorrow will be sunny in your souls!

So, I am still in celebration... and since this is my first year that I retired from the classroom... I will celebrate more and blog as often as I can... 
Two former students wrote and convinced me to continue the blog...
I do not miss the classroom... but I miss the youthful energy of the students... and I miss that a lot... the energy in their body and mind was amazing...their expectations and hopes were 
fascinating to follow...
Older people at times annoy me...at times bore me... at times overwhelm me...
There was a time when being old was equal to being wise... Now being old is equated to out of date style... 
Youth is celebrated and men and women are chasing youthful styles... nose jobs, hair transplants and face lifts and all the rest... and the youth live in deceptive reverie...that they are in charge of things... and the Big Brother laughs at their naivete...
***
At the end of the day we were saying goodnight and he commented..."Another day passed by..." he was referring to the end... I was annoyed... I do not want to associate with people who are depressed... have nothing to do in life... and essentially count the days to the end...
I answered... I am very happy... I had good experiences...and accumulated memories...!
He wakes up... gets his coffee... and sits in front of the TV... for entertainment... plays card games... eats and at the end of the day... says, "another day passed by..." 
***
I had a friend...from long long time ago... from childhood... I phoned him and asked how he was... I was trying to be polite... and he began complaining about the pains in his legs... in his back... and all the rest... he was not a happy person... his best way of attracting attention was his complaints about his pains...  A very depressing way of living...                                   
I never called him again... his outlook was very depressing... and I was not in the mood to entertain his complaints...
***
Now I will get ready for my dinner party... and celebration with Armenian friends and family and relatives... I am sure we will eat a lot... drink a lot... and chat and sing and be happy... I wish ALL THE WORLD could be with me...
I wish the whole world celebrates for individual rights and PEACE...
***
I will raise my glass today for world PEACE and HARMONY among all people...
CHEERS....!
Get involved... Work for PEACE... and Make a difference...