Stop ALL Wars....Stop the Madness

Peace and Harmony...

I have been fascinated by monasteries and monastic life…There quiet and serene atmosphere always appealed to me and I yearned to be in the peaceful place…

I loved Mother Nature … and always surrounded myself with plants and greenery…I guess I have the imagination of a peasant…and I longed for the rainbow after a stormy night…

Rainbows appealed to me…Because of their magic and colourful arcs…After all they heralded peace and they were the harbinger of better days to come…God promised that to Noah…to the world…

I wanted to be in a peaceful matrix…where all things are planned and everything is arranged in accordance of a harmonic mosaic…

I longed for the fulfillment of God’s promise…

So when my mother and society pressured me to study things that I had no interest in, I was apprehensive…I did not want to be an engineer…I did not want to study sciences…I did not have much interest in math…But, I did study all those…

I connected math to philosophy and to logic… I linked sciences to nature and the chaos around me… I related engineering to liberating nature from the physical chaos around me…

I hoped that society will be tolerant with my fancy and let me imagine a harmony out of the chaos of WW II… After all, I was born few years after the war…

So I grew up hating the wars…I grew up yearning for harmony around me…I grew up longing for peace to take roots and embrace the globe…humanity…

And when I see destruction around me…I become depressed… And when “holy” temples and churches and mosques and synagogues are destroyed it hits me like an iron ball… For few days now I am unable to shake the images of the destruction of Jonah’s Tomb in Iraq… My longing for a peaceful corner in a monastery is blasted off…I am in turmoil for few days now…

Islamic Jihadists blow up Jonah’s tomb that dates to biblical times

Jonah’s tomb BEFORE the blast....

Jonah’s tomb after the blast...

Jonah’s tomb after the blast...

The blasts in Israel-Palestine are haunting me…So many cries of children and so much misery…in the “holy land”…  

           

Children are precious...       

Children are precious...       

                                                                                                                                              

  Israelis and Palestinians have so many things in common… They eat same kind of food … They prepare their food in the same way…one calls it kosher and the other hallal…The folk songs have similar tunes and the same longing for love and family…The orthodox Jews and religious Muslims wear the same type of clothing and wrap themselves in similar shawls only with different designs…     

orthodox jewish women praying with secular Jews...at the grave site of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in the northern Israeli village of Meron …

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish women crossing the street in Israel...

...And Palestinian women walking home...

They have words that I almost identical like shalom and salam…But why they cannot share the gifts of the “Holy Land” is beyond me…it bothers me…it makes me sad…it makes me angry…it makes me inadequate… because I cannot do much, if anything…The leaders will make people kill each other…the leaders will negotiate and barter the life and future of the children…

Bring Shalom-Salam to the Holy Lands

Indeed the last few days I am having a blast after another horrible blast…The bombs are exploding like New Year fireworks…The rockets are exploding like a celebration after a victory in the World Cup…

But I am furious…and I am not sure if humanity cares…

A student that I had almost a decade ago had surgery … “something” was taken off from her brain…She writes that things are okay…She hopes for a good life after the surgery…She is a teacher full of hope and much potential…I hope she will have a better world once she starts functioning properly again…

She deserves a better world...to teach and to educate...I wish her all the best...

I am sure she has much to contribute for PEACE and HARMONY...

She deserves a better world… The Israelis and Palestinians deserve holy “Holy Lands” where peace and harmony reigns… The Iraqis need the religious shrines…Those belong to world heritage and the Islamist Jihadists should not blow them away…The Christians belong in the Middle East…and I want PEACE in monastery in the lap of nature…

Christians expelled from Iraq and Syria by Jihadists...

I will dream…I will hope…That is what propelled me forward in all these years… I will always dream of a Global Village living in PEACE and HARMONY…

The leaders have no imagination to achieve that…Big Brothers do not have the temerity to deflate their egos and come together to make the world a peaceful and better place…The leaders are failures…It is up to you and me… 

It is up to us, the people, to initiate a NEW WAY OF LIFE…

War CANNOT Be Sanitized... By Friendly Reporters...

Thou Shall Not Kill...
This has no adjectives or qualifiers attached to it and it does not say...Thou Shall not Kill, but...
There are no ifs and buts attached to the Commandment...

The reporters a special jargon to hide their biases and look ethical… They sensationalize events to make themselves more popular and marketable…They twist the event by emphasizing petty and inconsequential facts which appeal to them and ignore the major points…They tilt the logic to please their governments and “Big Brother”…to please those in power and to climb higher in their organization.

The jargon of war has always irritated me... 

They say “laws of war”…Isn’t this in itself an oxymoron …? How can war have laws…? But the truth is that the powerful, which do not obey any “laws of war”, have created “international organizations” and “international law and tribunals” through which to subjugate people whom they were unable to subjugate by war…and the laws of the powerful, the laws of the big brother are to be obeyed only by people who are not part of the big brother…

War wastes talents...War wastes money...War kills people

I will suggest that the Big Brothers and the leaders should go and fight...

Let the people be...Let them go and fight their wars...

The powerful, the big brothers, employ techniques in order to camouflage their intentions and to mislead the readers… They employ “purple prose” with elaborate, extravagant, ornate or flowery prose…instead of being honest and reporting the facts only…They hide behind the adjectives and disguise the facts with loaded words…They employ “yellow journalism” which is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell their paper…after all, media is big business and big business attempts to maximize profit…actually that is the sole purpose of business…

Here is a brief glossary of war terminology which is misleading and attempts to sanitize the big brother’s side and to demonize the opposition…

1. Sensationalism – this technique will over-hype the news so as they will increase readership and sales…

2. Words like “newspeak”, “doublespeak” and “doublethink”… which reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984… These methods will intentionally lead the reader not to think independently…The advertising agencies will use this to maximize sales…

3. Loaded terms like allied powers for big brother…It sounds very friendly…and “axis” for the enemy…like,  the axis in WW II or “Axis of Evil” employed by George Bush… Can you imagine saying/writing “Evil Alliance”?  As far as language is concerned “evil alliance” is NOT WRONG…But we are conditioned to think that it is inappropriate…

4. There are words like “red” and “pink” or “black” and “white” which are loaded adjectives an condition the sympathies of the reader for or against a topic…under discussion… Of course there is “brainwashing” and that is done solely by the “enemy”!

5. During the Vietnam War the reporters and the governments introduced the terms “body bag,” “friendly fire,” “Domino Theory” or “Domino effect,” and “body count” and “carpet bombing.”

A Copse, Evening -A line of soldiers (at right) trek through a muddy, shelled, and barren landscape, while searchlights in the distance scan the evening sky. 
The title of this A.Y. Jackson painting suggests that the area had once been heavily wooded, a powerful comment on the war's devastation of the natural landscape...

THIS IS WHAT THEY REFER AS CARPET BOMBING

    
                        

I have no clue what’s so friendly about fire… After all, it means being killed by your own side! And does not “carpet bombing” sound like something you will do at your home? But of course it actually means to bomb indiscriminately the hell out of the enemy…!

Picasso painted the war horrors...

Guernica is a painting by Pablo Picasso...It was created in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque Country village in northern Spain, by German and Italian warplanes...

5. And now we have “smart bombs,” very much like your smart phone… and then “surgical strike” which is very much like the doctor helping you in the hospital…and “collateral damage”… I have not encountered a “smart bomb” yet… All the bombs that I know intend to kill and destroy…and killing and destruction CANNOT be smart…actually they are outright dumb… The doctors help us, but I have not come across to a surgical, that is helpful, strike…All “strikes” intend to kill and annihilate…and that’s not what medical doctors do…Finally, damage is injury, harm, hurt, impairment, mutilation, destruction, or loss… and no matter what adjective we use with it damage cannot be sanitized…

And read the extension of the war glossary…

• Action: killing people
•     
•  Active theaters: the war field where poppies will eventually grow...      
•                   
   
• Poppies will eventually grow... 
• 
  
• Aggressive interrogation methods: This means simply torture… 
• 
  
•  Asymmetric warfare waged against us…: Big brother is at a                            disadvantage and has the right to employ ALL means … in order to win the                                     war… 
•  
• Bad guys: That’s the enemy…so we can torture, murder, detain                            indefinitely...where actually laws do not apply…  
• 
  
•  Biased: This word is ONLY for the enemy and it “means” critical of the “allies”…                             the “West”.
• 
  
• Direct action: killing people…
• 
  
• Endanger the troops: Means Snowden published the truth…
• 
  
• Enhanced coercive interrogation technique: Torturing people 
• 
  
• Enhanced pat-down: Pre-flight fondling and groping of                                                              passengers in civilian airports…  
•   
•  Extrajudicial : Illegal
• 
  
• Extrajudicial assassination: Simply murder…
• 
  
• Extraordinary rendition: Abduction, followed by torture …
• 
  
•  Extreme psychological stress: Another phrase for torture…
• 
  
• Highly trained security agent: another term for high school drop outs… 
•  
• Military analyst: Retired generals making propaganda …and be                                                               paid for it…
• 
  
• Allied mission: Waging war…
• 
  
• Neutralize: Meaning murdered…
• 
  
• Western way of life: Greed, profit and exploitation of the rest of the                                              world…
• 
  
• Preventive detainment: Kidnapping and holding someone without                                              trial and torture…          

ONE GOOD Thing at a TIME...add to MAKE A MIRACLE

MIRACLES Start with ONE GOOD thing At a TIME

One GOOD thing at a time...One GOOD idea at a time...One KIND act at a time...
I am sure the 5 loaves and 2 fish multiply to feed thousands...

We have seen homeless...I have seen homeless in my walks in the large metropolises if the world...Toronto and Montreal and Paris and London and New York and L.A. ...
I wrote in one of my previous blogs that in London they began to install sharp metal spikes so as they will discourage homeless and drive them away...
Each one has a different approach...different perspective...
I do not agree with the spikes...It is a grand stupid idea and stinks of inhumane logic...just like the story of the ostrich...
Everyone has there own solution to the same situation...
Some want to feed the hungry....others starve them to death...
Some spike the sidewalks to drive the homeless away...others help them to achieve dignity and humanity...

Here is a GREAT IDEA and Wonderful experiment which began in San Francisco...
Google is financing the experiment...
After all, the Silicon Valley guys are not ALL chasing prostitutes...They are GOOD people and want to democratize information and also humanize the streets...

Indeed this is not an ORDINARY bus....

Here's a whole different kind of Google bus — one that could help change the lives of San Francisco's most needy.

San Francisco nonprofit Lava Mae just unveiled a trial version of a bus that provides showers for the 6,400 homeless people who live in the city by the Bay. It was funded in large part by a grant from Google, which gave the project $100,000 as part of its Google Impact Challenge.

Beautiful Idea...

                            Lava Mae    ..............................  and the buses for showers and human dignity...

....and Lava Mae Says....

OUR BELIEFS Everyone has the right to be clean. With hygiene comes dignity and with dignity, opportunity *** OUR SCHEDULE Pilot Program Launch June 2014 Full Service Launch* Spring 2015 *By 2015 we'll have 4 buses on the road providing 2,000+ showers/week

I am sure when people think...they will come up with good ideas...

I am sure when they persist...they will find philanthropists who will support their idea ...

I am sure if people work together we will be able to multiply the loaves and fish to feed the hungry....

Just stop and think...

One GOOD idea at a time...One good did at a time...

Armenian Example:

In 2011 chess became a compulsory feature in public schools in Armenia, a nation obsessed with the game. Armenia invested $1.5 million to create textbooks and curricula, train instructors and buy equipment.

"We hope that the Armenian teaching model might become among the best in the world," Armen Ashotyan told The Associated Press at the time.

          Thinking starts at schools...                                   ...Use on line facilities and resources...

"By incorporating chess as part of the curriculum you are including a game, and that's how kids see it," said Wendi Fischer, executive director of the US Foundation for Chess in the same AP report. "They think they're focused on fun. So I think it is a great way to cross over between a true hardcore curriculum that's mandatory and the young children being able to play and explore and have fun."

Now Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham, Alabama, is looking to make chess a fixture in its schools, in hopes that it will allow kids to stretch their minds and improve their analytical abilities.

But math is a big part of the picture. School officials cite a 1998 study that showed improved math skills after exposure to chess, AL.com reported. "The researchers randomly gave black high school students from the rural South 120 hours of chess instruction. They then administered math proficiency tests and found that students                                                             who received the chess instruction scored better than those who                                                             did not."

"Chess allows students to think critically, to strategize, to plan moves several steps ahead, and to think about consequences of moves," said Dr. Chad Witherspoon, superintendent of the Birmingham City
Schools in a new promotional video. "It gives students an opportunity to think at a different level."

United Kingdom (England) too...

Across the Atlantic a similar chess push is underway, as an ideologically diverse group of political leaders in the United Kingdom is now pushing for chess integration into public schools.

"The skills involved in playing chess are actually skills that a lot of young people can benefit from learning, especially children who have problems with attention and hyperactivity," Qureshi, a member of parliament, said.

We CAN CHANGE THE WORLD...

Item 1...Global Hunger....and some stats...from UN...

1.  842 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. This number has fallen by 17 percent since 1990.

2.  If women farmers had the same access to resources as men, the number of hungry in the world could be reduced by up to 150 million. 

3. 66 million primary school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, with 23 million in Africa alone.
 

4. WFP calculates that US$3.2 billion is needed per year to reach all 66 million hungry school-age children.

***

Item 2...Wars and their cost...

Case in Example...Afghanistan...

                                                                                 

US Congress..."... we're spending $8 billion a month in Afghanistan”

This is from The New York Times...and costs according to congressmen...

Last week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, along with groups like the Liberty Coalition and Sojourners, participated in an event hosted by Rethink Afghanistan on Capitol Hill highlighting the cost of war.

"We can't pay our bills here, yet we're spending $8 billion a month in Afghanistan” Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), one of the event's panelists, recently told The New York Times. "I don't know what our country is trying to accomplish. History says Afghanistan will never be a nation. It will be a country of tribes. We're wearing out the troops and spending money we don't have."

My Take from this two items...

Something does not add up...

1. There is world hunger and the UN needs 3.2 billion U.S. dollars annually in order to feed ALL the children ...

2. The U.S. is spending 8 billion U.S. dollars per month, that makes 8x12 billion U.S. dollars annually...

3. Can you do the math and balance the equation...? 

There is world hunger...and NO MONEY to eliminate it...

There is the Afghanistan war (...and the wars in Ukraine and Syria and Israel/Palestine and Iraq and Nigeria and Somalia...and the rest) ...but NO WILL to stop them...

Without wars people will be happier...

Without wars there will be more money to feed the hungry...to make university education cheaper...to house the homeless...

Why the leaders insist on wars and not feed the hungry...?

A puzzling question...and for all my years, I could not answer it properly...

So...

BAN ALL WARS....

                  and FEED THE CHILDREN…and HOUSE THE HOMELESS...

Here are some IDEAS

...and Believe it or not...It takes JUST ONE PERSON to USHER in CHANGE...

Follow Rosa PARKS...Who refused to change her sit...and ushered in change...

And instead of WAR think about love and peace and harmony...

***

Read Herman Hess novels...They are lyrical and beautiful...learn how in WW II all of Dresden was turned into a HELL ON EARTH...and how fire storms devastated the city... 

...and add all religions...and all faiths...and all humanity...to CREATE a GLOBAL VILLAGE OF PEACE AND HARMONY...

...and listen to Jimi Hendrix...

And listen to the writers and politician listed below...

Peace is the only battle worth waging.
– Albert Camus (1913-1960)

If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

– Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

There was never a good war or a bad peace.

– Ben Franklin (1706-1790)

It is possible to live in peace.
– Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace.
– Andre Gide (1869-1951)

...And do not act like the 3 teenagers below...Find a cause instead of drifting and killing for fun...advocating war for profit and greed...

CNN) -- Three teens admitted to police they attacked two homeless men who were found dead in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Saturday, police said.

The boys -- 15, 16 and 18 -- used bricks and a metal pole to kill the men, according to a criminal complaint accusing each of them of two counts of murder.

A homeless in the U.S.

Indeed it takes just YOU to make changes...

Change of heart...

Change of mind...

Form groups and discuss how you may bring about change for the better...How to BAN wars and how to feed the children and house the homeless...

We can do miracles...ONLY we should be willing to stand up and be counted...

A young friend writes... 

Hi Mr. Kevork,
 I keep up with your blog, and the majority of posts are sad but true. By that I mean that it is the truth that no one now a days wants to hear because they cannot handle the truth. As you said, truth is no longer important for most, but rather entertainment is what is significant to these people. 

The post about the girl complaining and trying to excuse her dressing up for the philosophy class I remember quite clearly. They dressed up like that to impress guys just like you said, and there is no doubt about that. I had philosophy as well and had to dress up, except I went to change at the beginning of philosophy class and changed back into uniform at the end of philosophy class. So excuses can't be made except for the fact that they are willing to expose their bodies that God gave them in order for minimal entertainment. 

The sad part about this stuff is that the young generation is so naïve and cannot see the consequences. To me it seems as if all these young people like the idea of spending a few days/weeks/months/years together, having a child or two and then divorcing.

 Anyhow, I like reading the blog because I can relate to the stuff and it shows me that there are still wise and "old fashioned" people around. I wish that [...] you continue this blog as it is stuff people should be reading as there is no bullshit attached to it, it's all the truth. With regards to the Malaysia Airlines plane that was shot down, that is just ridiculous and no punishment would merit the actions of whomever did that. 

[...] All the best and keep up the blog.

I definitely will keep up the blog...

But you people can help too...

1. Participate in the discussion and write for the blog...

2. Also, help me spread the blog and advertise it so as more people will read and follow it...

As to the "sad" reality...

Indeed it is sad that people find the money to wage wars and refuse the money to feed the hungry and to house the homeless...

But if YOU ACT...collectively in groups or individually as RAK ambassadors...things will change...After all, it took just Rosa Parks to refuse to yield her sit to unjust laws...

You people are YOUNG and SMART and ELECTRONICALLY sophisticated...and YOU CAN DO IT...