Loving farewell to 2018

HAPPY NEW YEAR dear friends! 

For many New Year's Eve is celebrated at evening social gatherings, where many people dance, eat, drink, and watch or light fireworks to mark the new year. For others it is a time for resolutions. For me New Year Eve is a moment to connect with my love, to forget about the passing year, to stand still and enjoy the moment, be grateful for all my blessings, and plunge into the best of my memories.

I thought of ending the year 2018 with a note of joy. 
True on the wider sphere, 2018 brought so many disappointment, I have to acknowledge that on the personal level, it was a good year.


I am grateful & thankful for the blessings of 2018!

New Year countdown

In 2018 we discovered that there's mineable ice on Mars, we found a way to grow vegetables without earth or daylight, we discovered a warm blooded fish called Opah, we created a DNA Nano robot that can kill cancer cells, and we did tremendous advancement at the level of using stem cells to cure many diseases and open windows of hope for MS, Leukaemia, Alzheimer, and blindness.

So many interesting, intriguing, and positive developments! I ought to be hopeful and happy about 2018.  So why am I down and depressed?

I am afraid of the rise of intolerance all over the world, populism in the US, the Putin syndrome, Brexit, and the rise of the national socialism or if you want the extreme right in Sweden, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia, and many more.

I feel hopeless when I see the world turning a blind eye to the rehabilitation of a dictator that barrel bombed and gazed his people to stay in power in Syria. 

I am saddened by the lack of empathy to the haunted looks of so many children living in refugee tents. These children are Rohingya, Syrian, Yemeni, …. many in Europe say "not in my backyard!"

I am angry at the erosion of women rights in the Middle East. 

I am angry that the Russian Parliament adopted controversial legislative amendments that decriminalized first battery offenses among family members – a serious setback that in 2018 reduced penalties for abusers and put survivors at even greater risk.

I am angry that in Europe women rights are eroding. 

In Poland women’s rights activists live in climate of fear as they work in the shadow of a government that denies that domestic violence occurs in marriage and disdains efforts to advance gender equality. Less than 20% of Romanian MPs are women. Levels of violence against women remain shockingly high in Europe and depending on the country women are more or less protected by the justice systems, which still struggle to remain impartial in rape cases, for example, even those involving violence. Women in the UK risk losing hard-won equality and human rights protections, including employment rights and funding for women’s services, when the UK leaves the EU.

and so much more….

I just hope, because I need to hope, that in 2019 we will witness less violence, tolerance, empathy… in short, sanity!

How far we are from the dawning of the Age of Aquarius as I dreamt of it in the 1970s!

Lyrics

When the moon is in the Seventh House

And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Then peace will guide the planets

And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

The age of Aquarius!

Aquarius!

Harmony and understanding

Sympathy and trust abounding

No more falsehoods or derisions

Golden living dreams of visions

Mystic crystal revelation

And the mind's true liberation

Aquarius!

When the moon is in the Seventh House

And Jupiter aligns with Mars

Then peace will guide the planets

And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius

The age of Aquarius

Aquarius!

Japan resumes whaling, why?

Why? why butcher intelligent complex animals?  Many experts define them as having a 'culture'. They grief for their dead offsprings, learn, and even relay their knowledge to others.

I could go on and on.

So why now, after almost half a century, hunt them again to extinction?


I know that many will say, why do we eat meat. I do not want to enter this discussion.
Enough to say we raise animals for food. There is no danger of driving cows or pigs or lambs to extinction. The main issue here is to insure their wellbeing from birth to death.

There is not reason for hunting whales for food. Japan is a wealthy country. There are no food shortages in Japan and there are no health benefits in butchering whales according to main stream science.
So why?

It is a fact that commercial whaling is no longer a valid economic activity.
Nanami Kurasawa of the Iruka and Kujira (dolphin and whale) Action Network (IKAN) told CNN "Actually many (regular) people don't have any interest in whales or whaling now in Japan,"
While the Japanese political class has sought the resumption of commercial whaling activities, campaigners say eating whale is becoming "less and less popular."

So why ?

The strange argument is the statement "Engagement in whaling has been supporting local communities, and thereby developed the life and culture of using whales."
So we ought to preserve all habits communities have since the beginning of times.
Super! Let's allow girls genital mutilation, GVB, exorcism, cannibalism, human sacrifice, and so many other 'cultural' rites and 'rights'!
Get real!

Japan is not the only culprit, Iceland and Norway, countries that pretend to be upholder of human rights, object to the moratorium and continue to hunt whales commercially without relying on science as an excuse. Shame!

I am so sad to hear the news of resumption of commercial whaling by Japan as 2018 is coming to its conclusion. 2018 is a year that witnessed many horrible events and seem to end on a horrible note.

Is Corbyn hearing his base?

Party activists pile pressure on Corbyn to back second vote

Among Labour supporters 65% favour the idea of a second referendum against 21% who oppose it.

So why is Corbyn set against another referendum?

Maybe because as a long life Eurosceptic he himself would vote for Brexit. He is not a remainder and his convictions were crucial to Labour lukewarm efforts against Brexit.

While approval for the prime minister over her handling of Brexit is low, it is virtually unchanged since a month ago, while Corbyn’s approval rating on Brexit has dropped and is below that of May’s. The survey found 53% of UK adults disapprove of May’s handling of Brexit against 28% who approve. But only 16% of UK adults approve of Corbyn’s handling of Brexit, against 55% who disapprove. Last month 19% approved and 50% disapproved.

The argument of that a shift would lose Labour votes is clearly not valid given that Corbyn's rate of approval is dropping

What is happening at Labour today may be a good example of why people are taking to the street all over Europe. People are disanfrised by parties who seem to be lead by politicians who don't hear them or take their opinion to value.
It is a failure of the 20th century democratic model. People do not feel anymore that their representatives represent them.

Populism and elitism have united Left and Right in discontentment. The result people feel forced to take the streets to be heard, and extremists from both side are benefitting.

I wonder if after World War II Europe did not witness a similar trend, today amplified by the revolution in communication technologies.Brexit

Brexit: a playground squabble?

Cabinet splits over second referendum on Brexit deal

Split over what?

From where I stands it looks to me like a squabble of children over who wins rather than a discussion over people lives and the future of a nation.

The Brexiteers want to restore the old empire status by replacing the EU 'queue jumpers' with immigrants from old colonies. Because it seems that culturally these people are closer to the British culture than Europeans. Don't we all know that island England has nothing to do with savages on the continent!
Because let us be realistics there are not English people to fill all the jobs in construction, services, care, and so many other sectors. Not scientific but if one visits England you meet EU citizens in all hotels and restaurants and shop rather than 'true Brits'.

The Brexiteers want sovereignty over laws and mainly to get rid of social justice regulation for workers and health regulations over food and so many issues related to quality of life. Good luck to blue collars who, by voting Brexit, voted for less job security, no pay guarantees, no social benefits, and  for mothers who voted for permissive health standards for the food they give their kids. Won't everybody be happier in a tax haven and non regulated trade zone!

The Brexiteers want to trade with the world, but not with kraut and snail eaters who today are one of the biggest prosperous trade zones in the world. No trade barriers with EU cannot equate with no trade barriers with India or China. They are sure the trade balance with these countries will be in favour of the Empire. (sic)

The Labour party wants... do you have any idea what they want?
Except getting Corbyn to become Prime Minister, even if it means ruling an economically broken country. Or more probably being in opposition in a country of rampant unabated capitalism.

Cheers to all!
The English political class is very responsible and has the interests of the people as priority. Really?
And the English people are driven by primal nationalist sentiment with no access to real information or knowledge.
They are not alone, democracy is working well also for the Russians, Americans, Austrians, Italians and so may others.....
Salute to a disappointing century.

Human rights when it comes to Syria is a matter of opinion

Human rights when it comes to Syria is a matter of opinion. International media is not interested to keep Assad accountable, after all it is no in their background. The interests of  Russia and the US are the rallying point. The Syrian people are just rooks in an international game of chess. They do not bleed and have no rights.

A Syrian young man in his thirties worked as a concierge in a building in Beirut. Last time I saw him, he looked thin and pale. I got to know that he was diagnosed with rampant stomach cancer. 
After surgery, he was informed that he is in metastasis stage. They gave him a prognosis of few months.

He decided to go to visit his old mother in Syria.
He took his medical file and headed to the borders. He was detained.
The accusation, he did not serve his military service.
He was hurled to prison, not allowed to see his mother, 18 days later he passed away totally dehydrated.

He was not a political person. He was not an opposition man. He escaped to Lebanon because his house was bombed and he was afraid for his family.
I will never forget the haunted look reflecting in the eyes of his small girl, a month after his demise.

And today I read an article that says
1,230 refugees returned to Syria from Lebanon today. Lebanese General Security reported that UNHCR was present for the operation. Can UNHCR do anything to protect these refugees after they’ve crossed back? The answer is no. But could UNHCR’s presence at the border give the illusion to these families that they can rely on UNHCR for protection in case anything goes wrong? The answer is yes. And this is incredibly dangerous. There are no guarantees of safety for any refugee that returns to Syria today. People continue to be detained and forcibly disappeared by the Syrian regime.

Do you understand now why I started my blog with the statement
 Human rights when it comes to Syria is a matter of opinion. 

Why are Lebanese reading less?

'The internet is responsible for the demise of reading and culture'.
Is a sentence I often hear uttered by so called opinion leaders and media people in Lebanon.
In many Arab countries too.

I do not understand the basis for these doom and gloom description of a medium that pen the world to the masses at an acceptable cost.
Your connection to the web gives you speedy access to information, remote learning, e-books, movies, and so much more.

True that social media has revamped the rules and methodologies of journalism, increased the culture of quick messaging and promoted speed over research and fact checks, but this is another discussion.

I will just talk about my own experience rather than studies and statistics.

I have always been a reader, my adoption of a Kindle and e-reading increased my access to books and more than tripled the number of books I read. I do not need to go physically to a bookshop to buy books so I can buy my books any time I have a free moments. E-books are cheaper than print editions. I can adjust the font to suit my vision which is such a positive factor for older people.

When I write report or papers or articles or prepare for a speech or research a subject I have available at the tip of my click a tremendous amount of information. It has made me more efficient and cut research time tremendously.

I can stay connected with my loved ones at almost no communication costs. It improved my social connectivity.

And the mentioned gains from connectivity are just the tip of the iceberg!

Clearly I do not understand people that blame the web for the demise of culture....
The web or the internet or ICT technologies, or whatever you want to call it, is just a tool that opened new doors and possibilities for us, how we use it and for what purpose is our choice.

So better that the so called Lebanese intelligentsia takes a deep look at the social roots of what they are complaining about. Maybe the education system? maybe the education culture? maybe the dissolution of the fabric of society.

Better introspect than to blame Godot.

Crazy Beirut

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde come to my mind when I think of Beirut these days.
Sometimes you enjoy and love Beirut, and sometimes you just want to grind your teeth!
Within a period of 10 days I experienced it all.

I had dinner with family in a very nice restaurant. The restaurant is situated in the interior garden of an old Lebanese house, the weather was perfect, the food quite good, and the service excellent.
Two days later had dinner in a new restaurant based on the idea of mixing fish and meat. Minimalist design and innovative cuisine. Enjoyed the company and the seafood salad of fruits and vegetables with goat cheese. Quite interesting combination.

A day later woke up to an unscheduled electricity cut. Why do I say unscheduled? Because Beirut is a city where due to power shortage there is a scheduled cut of three hours a day in electric supply. It is done according to a timetable and is now considered by all part of regular life.
This cut stayed for more than three hours. I decided to call the phone for customer service at the electricity company. The young man who answered was nice and courteous when he informed me that the reason was a damage to one of the cable and that repairs will be done Monday as maintenance does not work on weekends! Accordingly, almost 72 hours of cut!
Will not comment on what this entails as to no hot water, food spoiling, no refrigeration, no hair dryer, no internet connection, and, and...
Then on Monday around 2:15 pm the current is restored, Yeah! At 3 pm another cut. Again, on the phone, and the nice young man informs me that he does not know why the electricity is cut and advise me to be patient as it is maybe a extra 3 hours cut in the schedule!
Oh yeah, you need to be patient not to blow off!

Then the router for EDSL connection start playing out. So back to the phone trying to talk to Ogero, the company responsible for the service. Nobody answers the phone, then a few hours later, I get through to a gentleman who tells me that I need to change the router and that I need to come personally with the old router and 'maybe' they can give me a new one, not for free and he states the amount.
When asked if I could delegate someone, he answers no, you need to come in person!
So for each services you pay for you need to lose a day without being sure that at the end you will get served!

This all happened in 10 days. But it seems this is regular life in Beirut.

I wonder if I should title the blog crazy Beirut or crazy Lebanese for accepting such a quality of life.

The reality of Lebanon 2018 elections

I started seeing posts saying Hezbollah won the elections.
Looking under the surface the results are not bleak, they are rather good and give hope.

Hezbollah was full blown trying to high-jack the elections. They used the power or intimidation and money to prove they are the strongest player on the popular level.
They first used all electoral strategies such as encouraging from back-doors people against them to present themselves for the elections, increasing the distribution of votes in strongholds of their opponents. They used intimidation by force in their own regions to prevent multiple electoral lists. On the day of the elections they used money to an unprecedented level to buy votes in their strongholds. On the day of the elections they blocked streets to prevent people in Beirut from voting.

The results show a win of 55 to 57 deputies out of 128 for the 14th of March trend which are ideologically against Hezbollah.
The remaining deputies are distributed between Hezbollah, Amal, and the Free Patriotic Movement.

The Aoun group called the Free Patriotic Movement who is allied to Hezbollah but also to Hariri had to use a discourse distancing itself from Hezbollah during the elections to be able to achieve its gains.
The gains in the Shia community are linked to AMAL strength in the South rather than Hezbollah. Though they are allied, AMAL is not a religious party and attracts lots of the non-sectarian Shia population.
Very indicative that Hezbollah lost in its Bekaa stronghold 2 seats.

The people who gained most from this elections are the Lebanese Forces who adopted a non-sectarian discourse that stressed the adherence to a strong national policy including the monopoly of security forces and army as to ownership of weapons. Practically and anti Hezbollah discourse.
The Hariri group called the Future movement lost some of its deputies because, among other reasons, of their undefined 14th of March policies. They were not able to mobilize their base in Beirut and lost votes in the North to more extreme Sunni parties. In addition they gave a lot to the Aoun group but did not gain a lot of votes from them.

In fact the low voter turnout of less than 50% indicates that people were not happy with the electoral discourse and a majority of these people are by heart 14th of March yet disenfranchised by how the 14th of March parties failed to promote their freedom and independence agenda in addition to their failure at addressing issues of concern to the voter such as infrastructure and corruption.

The voting of people for Bahia Hariri and Michel Mour indicates that voters are faithful to people that work hard on their behalf.
The voting of people for Nadime and Sami Gemayel indicates that the real popular mood is not in the absolute against 'political families' as they are called, but rather in line with political strategies and political discourse.

In fact, despite it all the Lebanese voter has showed awareness and that he is much less polarized along sectarian lines than what the politicians believe.

Why aren't we able to stop the horror in Syria?

The sad truth is that we say 'not in my backyard'
The sad truth is that we do not feel empathy for those who are not like us
The real truth is that human rights is becoming an empty shell
The real truth is that we do not feel compelled to stop the horror!

Hundreds of children over many years took a deep breath, had a seizure, coughed and died of suffocation. 
They were the victims of a chemical gas attack. 
The world looked upon their tender corpses and turned a blind eye. 
They were unlucky because their death did not threaten the interests of powerful nations. 
They will never get justice and they are seldom mourned or remembered. 
Poor poor little angels, my heart bleeds for you.

A sad day for Syria and for humanity: is the world helpless? 

Published 21 Aug 2013

The picture we saw today of tens of small bodies lying side by side in the sleep of death is horrific.
Can anybody look at these angels and say, I am not concerned, they are not my children, they are Syrian children? I doubt.

Did presidents Obama and Putin look at the picture? Did Ban Ki-moon glance at his television screen? Did Iran Ayatollahs and Arab presidents notice the innocence slaughtered?
If they did, what did they feel? Did it move a small part of their soul?

The children that died of suffocation are not different from American, Russian, Iranian, French, British, Saudi, Lebanese, Austrian, Swedish, South African, Chinese or Korean children. They used to play with toys, study, break things around the house, get grounded, cry and laugh.

I can hear them tell those who meet and discuss in the United Nations or Parliaments, we hate the darkness that engulfed us. I can hear them saying don’t we deserve that you at least try to pinpoint our killer?
I can hear them calling, asking us to stand against what happened to them at the hands of a crazy criminal warped person.

Nelson Mandela once said "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children."

Let each one of us look into his soul and evaluate if he could not do more. Maybe write a letter to his representative in government, maybe hold a candle or protest in the street, or just write against what is happening in Syria on his blog or page.

The forgotten children of Syria. 

Published 4 May 2017

CNN 2 hours ago (5 April 2017)
World leaders expressed shock and outrage Tuesday at reports of a suspected chemical attack in northwestern Syria that killed scores of civilians, with one UK official suggesting the incident amounted to a war crime.

They still suspect... trying to balance between their priority of fighting Daesh and making a deal with the devil.
Did they look at the picture? Did they glance at his television screen? Did they notice the innocence slaughtered?
Did they realize that the children that died of suffocation are not different from their children. They used to play with toys, study, break things around the house, get grounded, cry and laugh.

If they did, what did they feel? Did it move a small part of their soul?

I doubt because it is not the first time it happens.
It is not the first time I write about it...
I do not want to lose hope, but I am close.
It is an ugly world.

Abdulhamid Yussef cradles his twins Aya and Ahmad before they are buried in Idlib following a Sarin gas attack TELEGRAPH.CO.UK

Farewell Stephen Hawking

NASA Honors Legacy of Renowned Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

The least the NASA can do is to honor Stephen Hawking.
He affected our lives in ways we do not even understand.
He opened new windows on the universe and made our science fiction wishes closer to reality.

As a human been he was a role model for resilience.
He taught us how, when there is a will, a person 'CAN' whatever the difficulties .

I mourn you Stephen Hawking.
Most of all I celebrate your life and legacy.