Pains Of Growing Up

How halcyon were those days in God’s good old earth
When the gentle fairies; knights with shiny armors of bygone days
On majestic white horses, all watched over me.
Only to protect me, that was their task, a solemn duty.
And people were all good, all around me, mostly that is.
The evil ones, being rare, didn’t count, they didn’t
Have a chance in God’s good old earth.

Growing up, the prophets awed me, all of them
The King who left his kingdom, the Sheppard man, the Carpenter
The Warrior of the desert, their teachings, the Almighty in heaven
And their discourses, like volume of seas and mountains majestic
The beautiful flowery words, and their magical specter.
Oh, how serene were those days, the evil didn’t
Have a chance in God’s good old earth.

Now it’s my own autumn, sages are all gone
Fairies in heaven, Alice in Wonderland—smoke mirror, nothing more,
Sycophants all around, and how I see through them!
How it broke my heart, the hurt and the anguish.
But I’ve my own shield, the universe within me
And my Father, not in heaven, not on a throne
Lives within me, and without, and I’ve my peace.

The Democrats Sell The Progressives Once More

I am writing the obituary of Obama Presidency even before it begins its 2nd term. For all practical purposes Obama’s fate is now sealed after spineless Harry Reid’s dismal failure to push through a filibuster reform . Five Democratic Senators led by Carl Levin, and strongly supported by Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, sold their souls to the devil to betray the American working class.

The Senate filibuster rule that allows a lone senator to hold up a bill unless 60 senators vote to end the debate was instituted by the founder fathers to entice the small states to join the union. In the past the rule was used judiciously, about once in a year, until the last senate in which minority leader Mitch McConnell made a mockery of the rule by using it nearly 400 time in four years. This stopped every major legislation the Democrats proposed.

It was up to Harry Reid to institute a major filibuster reform, which could be done only at the beginning of a new session, but he failed miserably. And with that failure we can be sure that no meaningful achievement will be made in this presidency. No greater heights will be scaled in social reforms, and no signature accomplishment will be accomplished. This presidency will not even succeed in arresting the horrible downward trend the nation is going through. Obama will occupy a position as an insignificant president in the history of this nation, who came at a seminal time, had unbound potential, but at the end was a colossal failure.

Talk show host Ed Schultz called it “a massive failure for the leader of the Democrats.” He said, “Harry Reid is letting the minority party run the country. He’s giving Republicans all the ammunition they need to block President Obama’s second-term agenda. And you know what? He’s going to regret it.”

Just the other day—all the progressives talk show hosts were so impressed over the 2nd inaugural address that they were calling it the most progressive agenda after President Kennedy. The liberal columnists were breaking their pens writing praise for his speech. Only in a week time—the reality struck hard, and proved one more time, speech-doesn’t-melt the ice. The idiom—empty vessels sound much, after all has passed the test of time.Obama was forewarned by the junior senator of Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin. In Harkin’s own words: I said to President Obama back in August ... and I said to him the night before the election, Look, if you get reelected, if we don’t do something significant about filibuster reform, you might as well take a four-year vacation.

Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said, “This is a bad decision based on fear—a decision that will ultimately hurt millions of people who would have been helped by progressive bills that Republicans are sure to filibuster.”

Harkin further stated, “He (president) can go out and give wonderful speeches and things like that, but with the House in the hands it's in and the fact that in the Senate now you have to have 60 votes to pass anything, well, I dare say that Obama’s package—his very aggressive proposals—will not get very far.”

The political director of CREDO, Becky Bond, said, “It was George Bush who said, ‘Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again,' but sadly it's the American people who are going to pay the price.”

But I want the Democrats to pay a price too. Vote the enemies of the American people out next election. I believe, even a GOP control in all three branches will be better than what we have now—a totally dysfunctional government.

A rule of the gutless brain-dead politicians beholden to corporate interests is the worst possible thing that can happen in a nation’s life, yet desperate time calls for desperate actions!

Whither God?

People visit churches seeking God, what they get in lieu is religion. Only the fools strive to encompass The Master of the Creation within the confine of four walls. How preposterous are they!

Only fools travel faraway lands to find what is within themselves, they don’t get what they want, they merely lose themselves.

Divide and mislead is the way of the false prophets, be warned; they only deceive and waste away the precious souls, the loving gifts of the Master.

If you want to see God, close your eyes, and delve deep down. When you drive away the little ego-the lone Satan within you, the universe within reveals all its myriad grandeur, and only then you receive grace that blows away the darkness of ignorance; the daylight dawns. You see God, and God only, everything else disappears, on this very earth.

Return of a Stolen Ring, Fifteen Years Later

If you were in Mr. or Mrs. Riphagen's shoes how would you react? Of course you would be happy finding the long-lost rings for which you would have given up all hopes, but how would you react to the person who had stolen it?

Just think of it, you could not find four of your gold rings on the morning following a party that you hosted the previous night. There were only invited guests, so the idea that someone might have stolen it would probably not even enter your mind. You would naturally think that you must have misplaced them, and since you probably had some sweet memories attached to the rings, you would have looked for them all over. And not finding them you would be pretty upset on yourself for being careless in placing them in some strange location.

Then you would rethink in your mind tracing the steps from the moment you last had possession of them. You would come up with some probable alternatives, your hopes of finding them would rise, you would rush to look for them, only to be disheartened again. Then you would repeat this umpteenth time, getting more and more discouraged with each failure, until you would sadly resign to the fact that you would never find them. The process would leave a vacuum in you.

Then one day, fifteen years later you find those rings with the letter of apology from the person who had stolen it—what would transpire in your mind? After the initial joy slowly fades over the next few days, what would you think? Would you start thinking, who could it be? Would you try to remember who were the people that had gathered at your home fifteen years ago, on that fateful night? Would you try to scrutinize each face, and think who could be the thief? Would you be shocked that the thief was one of your invited guests, a trusted friend? A relative?

Would that thought disturb you? Would you start suspecting someone? Would that force you to speculate? And, would you at one moment think that perhaps it would have been better not to get those rings back at all? For fifteen years you had a vacuum, but that vacuum had almost shrunk to a nearly nonexistent dimension. You had learnt to live without them. Now would their return perturb you so much, since you were afraid of accusing someone innocent in your mind, it would have been better, if the person would not have returned them to you? And most importantly, would you truly be able to forgive the person?

But for the thief, why this change of mind after 15 years? Why did it take the person such a long time for change-of-heart? Was it the sense of embarrassment that kept the person from returning the objects all these years? What did finally catapult the person to gather the courage to return the items? What was it that gave the person remorse, strong enough to act?

Previously published on Technorati.

To live a life in one moment

You ask me how to live a life my child
Life that is envy of the gods
And I tell you of the life that is eternal.
This is the truth and the only Truth
That I ask you to remember, all else
Of no significance in particular.

Give your last bread to the hungry
Give your last seep of drink to the thirsty
Give your only shelter to the homeless
On the night of cold and blizzard
And walk away with a smile on your face.
You’ll live your life in that moment.

Bring smile on the face of a child in grief
Plant a sapling that will shade
Weary travelers long after you’re gone
Save a creature from ruin
Be it the least among creation.
You’ll live your life in that moment.

Story Of Life

As she was beginning to perfect her walking, she’d walk around the house all day long, without purpose. Later, I’d learn that was nothing novel for her, she was just following her own script, her individual expression of life.

Practice makes one perfect—no one had to tell her that adage, and of course she was too young to understand that anyway. She was nevertheless born with that knowledge. The first day she’d learn a new word, she’d keep on using that word in almost every sentence, whether it made sense or not. Then I won’t hear her speaking it for some time and I’ll forget about it.

One day suddenly, when I’d forgotten all about that word, I’d hear her using it, and she’d do that in a perfect context. It was no surprise therefore that she learned to speak well rather early, and had a great appetite for listening to stories.

I wasn’t one of those fathers who’d read bed time stories from the classic children’s books, I was too lazy for that. Naturally, it wasn’t long before I exhausted all my stock stories, which were gifts from both my parents and grandparents.

Being a lazy reader, I then resorted to make up my own stories. I was not endowed with many talents in life, and certainly wasn’t gifted with storytelling abilities, and therefore, my stories lacked coherence and substance. I became aware of my shortcomings, as I didn’t find any other child beside my daughter who’d pay attention to my stories.

There were times though, when I thought, not reading to my daughter Alice in the Wonderland, or, Hansel and Gretel, perhaps I was depriving her of an early education rich in imagination and mind broadening inculcation.

Soon however, I discovered, she was telling me stories. True that her stories were even more incoherent than mine, and they made even less sense, but she was using words flawlessly from a rich stock. In her stories, the blue elephants would have pink tails, and the tigers would make friends with small birds rather than their own kinds, nonetheless she’d the ability to make up endless sequences without being stuck in a groove.

In those days her world would revolve around me, and she depended on me to take her outside our house to introduce her to the world so that she could explore the unknown.

She would watch the flowers, butterflies, waves on the oceans endlessly, and ask questions nonstop. Her barrage of questions would sometimes create the impression that she was asking only for the sake of asking, and that thought brought irritation in me, but I forced to restrain my emotion.

The first shock I’d had was when she’d say, “But Daddy, you said it didn’t rain in the deserts in the summer, so how could it rain in Dubai in July?”

That stunned me, because several weeks ago I‘d told her it didn't rain in the desert in summertime, and I didn't think she was paying attention then. From then on I’d be careful while responding to her. No more casual comments.

I can quite relate to it now, that it was not my daughter who alone was growing up, I too was growing with her, and learning, and gaining wisdom.

Teaching her how to ride a bike, my own handling of it was getting better. Teaching her how to swim, I was overcoming my own clumsiness in water. Helping her with additions, multiplications and divisions, I was rediscovering the magic of numbers again. We indeed were growing up together.

Then, without even realizing I stopped growing own day. I first discovered this when she effortlessly installed an App. so that I could convert a YouTube song to mp3. She was still growing, but I wasn’t.

She was growing, if not outside, surely inside, since she was still asking me questions. But the nature of her questions was changing, and it was no longer easy for me to answer them.

One day she asked me, “Dad, you told me lies never win, but I can see all around me people who lie are the ones who move up all the time. What am I supposed to do?”

The question had shaken my own core conception and belief system, and I spent a long time dwelling on it, but still have not found the right answer.        

Then another day she asked, “If I’m supposed to forgive someone seventy time seven then why does our country sends drones to far-away countries and kill children and women who even don’t know us?”

I’m still searching for an answer to this question.

I was beginning to dread her questions. I was secretly hoping she would stop asking me questions.

And she surely did stop asking me questions, although I didn’t realize it first when she did that.

One day, watching TV together, as she came over to share the Thanksgiving week-end, she smiled at a politicians comment, “The proposed cut in the program is only to strengthen it…” She didn’t ask me any question, just smiled at me; that day I realized my daughter had truly grown up.

That day I also realized I was seeing her less and less for the last few years.

Once I was the center point of her life and she lived in my world, now I lie in the periphery of the world she has created for herself. Once she strove for my continual attention, now other things have taken over her priority, and I seldom appear in her focus. Our worlds are still connected, but only remotely.

When the transition occurred I even didn’t notice it, since it happened gradually, and we don’t perceive gradual changes.

I’d also failed to notice that when I was with her it was always she who was driving the car. I’d also failed to notice, it was I who was asking her questions when faced with any decision making.

Oh, how has it come full circle!

But that’s the story of life, isn’t that? It’s time to accept, and move on. That’s how it’s supposed to be.

What a fool I’ve been!

Had thought it all to be of my own,

Won with intellect and labor hard

And pride stole my innocence.

Only when the veil was lifted

I learned that all my possession

Was mere gift to me from nature

Loaned to me in Grace and Mercy.

But in turn I’d lost my humility,

The greatest gift to have

What a fool I’ve been!

Who Is A Terrorist?

If you were not born in privilege, perhaps you would be one. If your house was destroyed, your parents killed, sisters raped, brothers tortured, perhaps you would be one. If you had no opportunity to come out of the gutter that you had to live in, perhaps you would be one. If you were indoctrinated by people who controlled your life, and you knew no better, perhaps you would be one.

Every time I see a terrorist I realize there is a part of me that is to blame—it’s that part of me that prevented me to share a piece of my bread, a part of me that did not let me extend a hand to build a new house for you, a part of me that prevented me pulling you out of your gutter, a part of me that prevented me spreading education that could have illumined your mind.

"For I was hungry, and you didn’t feed me. I was thirsty, and you didn’t give me a drink. I was a stranger, and you didn’t invite me into your home. I was naked, and you didn’t give me clothing. I was sick, and you didn’t care for me. I was in prison, and you didn’t visit me.

Then these righteous ones will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and not feed you? And the Lord will tell them, 'I assure you, when you didn’t do it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you weren’t doing it to me!'"

How Long People?

How long will it be since we come to terms with our humanity and truly be the representative of our Creator Who sent us to rule this earth? If you are not religious, forgive my expression and rewrite it to suit your belief, just don’t shoot the message.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Israel has just suffered a historic defeat. One only had to watch the international news coverage. BBC persisted in its typically awful reportage on the Israel-Palestine conflict during Israel’s latest rampage. But tonight it had to acknowledge that the people of Gaza were out in the streets celebrating.”

Is the above paragraph written by a crazy antiemetic? No it’s written by Norman G. Finkelstein—if you live in the North America you perhaps have guessed that the name is Jewish, and if so, you are right.

“Norman Gary Finkelstein (born December 8, 1953) is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust, an interest motivated by the experiences of his parents who were Jewish Holocaust survivors, “ says Wikipedia . Finkelstein’s parents were Jewish Holocaust survivors—note that people—Finkelstein learned directly from his parents how terrible Holocaust experiences were. Would it not be natural for him to write and sing the praise of Israel?

In this article, Finkelstein wrote, “Israel suffered a double defeat. Its announced goal when it went into Gaza was to restore its “deterrence capacity. But at the end of the day its deterrence capacity had been drastically reduced: The once mighty Israeli army that caused the whole Arab/Muslim world to tremble could not even defeat the impoverished and weaponless tiny enclave of Gaza. Israel demanded an unconditional and unilateral secession of Hamas ‘rocket’ attacks. But Israel had to accept a mutual ceasefire. It also had to make promises regarding the siege of Gaza. It is highly improbable that anything will come of these Israeli promises, but still, Israel could not unilaterally impose its will.”

And that’s not it all folks, Finkelstein went on to write, “Let it, finally, be said: In praise of the ever-martyred but ever-heroic and ever-renascent people of Gaza. May they live to see the full brightness of dawn.”

WOW!

What’s wrong with Finkelstein? Is he a turncoat? An apologizer for Israeli oppressors of the Gazan people, who kills defenseless women and children without slightest remorse?

If you are one of those 57 percenters who blindly support Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless war mongering, you might think so, but the truth is it is Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and visionaries such as them that make the Jewish people great. If human race must be grateful to one religious group for augmenting human civilization—whether in the field of science, art, or name any intellectual pursuit, it is the Jewish people without any second thought.

So, why should it be a surprise that that group of people will have a Finkelstein? Is it a surprise that Albert Einstein was not too happy with the creation of Israel, and he refused the offer to become the first President of the newly created country? To me it’s not, people such as Einstein, or Chomsky are too big to be identified with any small sectarian group—they truly belong to the human race.

Jews as a race has been historically persecuted, driven out of their homes, imprisoned, tortured, burned alive in gas chambers and bore the brunt of savagery of human race—like no other group of people. No one race deserves a homeland of their own, more than the Jewish people. And what a turn around it is from the state of persecution to a state of honor, power and strength that they are in now. But when the oppressed turns the oppressor must the world remain silent and support them blindly? That is where this world has come to. The western, overtly Caucasian people who had persecuted the Jews only a few decades ago has now, only to overcome their guilt, become cheer leaders of the Israeli aggressors. When a war promoter such as Barack Obama mindlessly proclaims, we support Israel’s right of self defense—what of right of self-defense of the Palestinians?

American people need to learn that criticism of Israeli government is not criticism of Jewish people, and one does not become anti-Semite condemning abominable war mongering leaders of Israel who themselves persecute the honorable Jews. Ask the scientist who outed Israel’s nuclear secret, and countless other progressive Jews who want to promote humanity beyond the myopic view of a few self-serving politicians. Will the world let Yitzhak Rabin’s blood go in vain?

How long are we going to divide the world in race, religion, culture, and endless grouping? How long are we going to remain ignorant, fighting between ourselves while the manipulators skim the wealth of this beautiful earth for their own greed?

How long? Previously published on Technorati.

Worth?

When a flower blooms in a remote corner, and no one ever sees it, is its life in vain? When a lone bird sings in a distant forest, and no one hears the song, is it in vain? When it rains in the desert where there is nothing to grow, is it in vain?

Do the flowers bloom, birds sing, and clouds rain always with purpose? If not do our lives must have purpose?

What worth is that life that has never shed tears for a stranger? What worth is that life that has never found a cause for which it made sense to dedicate the self? What worth is that life that has never found that love for which it’s worth giving up all?

Nobel Peace Prize For Pakistani Girl Malala Yousafzai?

In 1971, during the liberation war for Bangladesh, like other youngsters of my age I considered Pakistan as the arch enemy to my people and the nation. But I write today to tell people that Pakistan is not only about the Talibans, Islamic Jihadists and extreme religious zealots, Pakistan is also about Shahida Choudhary and Malala Yousafzai, who would make any nation proud, even the United States.

Of course, the world knows, Malala Yousafzai is a 15-yr old Pakistani girl who was shot at by a Taliban assailant on October 9, 2012, along with two of her school mates in Swat valley. Her offence? She wants education for herself and her people.

A campaign called, “Nobel Prize for Malala” has been started by Tarek Fatah, a writer and broadcaster, who lives in Canada on Change.org. The campaign took a global wing when Choudhary, a resident of UK called upon the UK Prime Minister David Cameronand other top leaders to nominate the 15-year-old Pakistani teen for the most coveted peace Prize of the world.

The petition is addressed to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander and the three main party leaders: Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy PM Nick Clegg and Opposition Leader Ed Miliband. Over 100,000 people have already signed that petition. These people are from across many religious lines, cast, creed and nationhood. They are people, white, black, yellow and crimson, they are the sons and daughters God will be proud of.

Shahida herself was taken out of school in the UK when she was only sixteen. She was taken to Pakistan and forced into marriage. She escaped the unhappy marriage to return to the UK at the age of 28 to resume education. she set up a network in Birmingham to support women in need. She said, “Malala doesn't just represent one young woman, she speaks out for all those who are denied an education purely on the basis of their gender. There are girls like Malala in the UK and across the world. I was one of them. I started this petition because a Nobel peace prize for Malala will send a clear message that the world is watching and will support those who stand up for the right of girls to get an education.”

So far Malala’s nomination has won support from Canada’s four largest political parties and other countries including France and Spain. Nobel committee rules stipulate that for any nomination to be considered, members of national assemblies and governments must support that nomination.

The deadline is February, so hurry up people; sign the petition to influence your leaders. And when the nomination reaches the Swedish committee, it would be a great opportunity for them to redeem themselves from the sin they committed by awarding Peace Prize to a war criminal such as President Barack Obama.

Sign the petition at Change.org Nobel Prize for Malala.

The article was previously published on Technorati.

Malala Is Daughter Of The Word—Save Malala From the Taliban

Those of us who write, sometimes we do with our tears and those are the pieces that touch hearts of our readers, but there are occasions when our anguish is so intense that we feel blood oozing out from our pores while writing, and then we need to stop.

When the news of a gun attack on Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girl born on July 12, 1997 became a headline news on October 9, 2012, my immediate reaction was seething anger. What monster can harm an innocent girl with the beauty of rose petals? Who would shoot a girl who has not only vowed to pursue knowledge, but have made it a mission to spread the light of education to her own people?

On the fateful day, a Taliban stepped onto a bus carrying schoolgirls and demanded to know who was Malala, and when identified, shot her in the head and neck twice, two other girls were also injured. The attack rendered Malala unconscious, she was fighting for life and her state was critical, that was a time for praying, not expressing anger.

So I joined her name in my prayers, with the name of my only daughter, for whom my prayers fill up my sub-conscious mind, every waking moments; Malala became my other daughter. Malala’s own father had said, “She is not my daughter only, she is the daughter of Pakistan.” I took my hat off to Malala’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai, who comes from the town of Mingora, in the Swat District of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the percentage of educated people are so small that it is better not mentioned. And I rejoined, “Yes Sir Ziauddin, your daughter is not daughter of Pakistan only, she is the daughter of the world.”

At the beginning of 2009, when Malala began to write for BBC Urdu Service, Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah issued an edict banning television, music, girls’ education, and women going out for shopping. Malala and her family had received many death threats earlier, but they knew they were following a prophet who had instructed his followers to go to China (meaning a far off land) for learning. They knew Mohammed valued education so much that there are hadiths (written instructs of the prophet) referring the prophet indicating that spending time in search of knowledge is dearer to God than spending time praying to him. That knowledge gave the Yousafzai’s strength and conviction. At the age of eleven, when most girls spend their time in playing with their friends, Malala took up activism for education. Under a pseudonym, she wrote a blog for the BBC chronicling her life under the Taliban regime, and how they attempted to take control of the valley, and stop education for the women. She became the chairperson of the District Child Assembly Swat, and she was nominated for the International Children's Peace award. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown began a United Nations petition in Yousafzai's name, adopting the slogan, “I am Malala” with the demand that all children worldwide be in school by the end of 2015. Brown said that he would hand the petition to Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari the next month.

To understand Malala better, we need to understand her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is a poet, school owner and an educational activist himself. He runs a chain of schools, Khushal Public School, named after a famous Pashtun poet, Khushal Khan Khattak. Yousafzais’ are literally the daisies in the dunk, where Taliban dominate.

What made Malala famous is her blogs, and how good is she actually? Once her father was reading to the villagers from her blog; the listeners thought that it was written by the poet Ziauddin himself and not her daughter, she is that good.

A group of fourteen women senators led by the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), Senator Dianne Feinstein, wrote to Pakistan's Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, “As the women of the US Senate, we are writing to express our outrage over the barbaric attack on fourteen-year old Malala Yousafzai and two other girls in a senseless act of violence. All of us are horrified at the brazen nature of this attack, which was carried out by Taliban militants who targeted Malala simply because she advocated for and pursued an education for herself and other girls.” They urged the Pakistan government to confront extremism and violence against its own people and bring Malawi’s attackers to justice.

The action from the senate ladies is commendable but it falls short of what is required. Ehsanullah Ehsan, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened that if Malala survives, they would target her again. The SSCI shall ask president Obama to offer asylum and protection to Malala and her family. And by accepting that request the president can redeem humanity that he had forsaken carrying out indiscriminate drone attacks in Pakistan, killing innumerable innocent civilians. In 2001 I had told a graduate class of MBA students, “If we want to defeat the Taliban, our best weapon is education. If we help spread education in Pakistan the Pakistanis themselves would take care of the Taliban.” Pakistan may be a third world country because of its economic situation, but a country that has technology to make nuclear weapon, definitely has the intelligence to choose right from wrong.

But we chose bombs over schools, and after a lost decade, our economy is devastated, we are soon to surrender our position as number one economic power house of the world. We are ready to leave Afghanistan, while the Taliban are in clear ascendancy and about to fill the vacuum—all because of our choosing a wrong policy. If Obama is elected, I hope the good since will prevail in him, and he will join the good Pakistanis in their war against the Taliban, in the right way.

Maulana is a word that connotes learned person in Islamic tradition, Maulana Fazlullah, you are no maulana, for you know not what your own prophet has said, and with your ignorance you have proved that you only give bad name to a great religion called Islam. Previously published on Technorati.

Is that all there is?

Going back to my roots… going back to my roots…going back to my roots… Where are my roots? How do I go back there? Why shall I get back there?

They tell me—as people age, they want to go back to their roots. I too feel this urge, when I listen to raindrops falling on my skylight; I hear the sound that rain once made when it hit our tin roof. When I watch the sun setting over Lake Michigan, I glimpse the splendor of sun going down over the Ganges. When I see a flock of birds flying over ComEd high voltage lines I see the lone shalik bird sheltering under that ashok tree, its wings wet, yet dry. Am I going back to my roots?

They tell me—as people age, they want to go back to their roots. Am I aging? If I am aging, why am I still so silly? Why do I still get angry with my loved ones with the drop of a hat? Why do I still feel all my imperfections in my bones? Was I not to get wise and inherit the divine essence? If I am aging why am I not getting closer to God every day? Do I hear, there is no God? Why did Mansur Al-Hallaj say then, Anal Haq (I'm God)?

The life that flows like a river takes me to new ports every day, every moment, the past dying, fear of future—the fear of the unknown dying in the process. Is that all there is to be?

Is that all there is?

Romney Says 47% Americans Are Dependent On Government

The GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney said : There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.

I want to respectfully submit to His Highness Willard Mitt Romney that I earn a six figure salary from my day job, and I’m an Obama supporter. I “believe the government has a responsibility to care for them (the downtrodden), and they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.” I believe that God has given me plenty, far more than what I am worthy of, and it is my duty to help those who struggle daily for their bare survival.

Sure, this is my personal conviction, since I think when Jesus instructed us to “sell everything you have, give it away to the poor, and only then come to me,” he imbued that belief in me. Of course I know that you are much more religious than me, since you wear your religion on your sleeves, and I keep my faith to myself—only what I don’t understand is which Christ do you really repose your faith on?

And there is news for you Sir, several close relatives of mine with seven figure earnings are ardent Obama supporters, as they too share my views. Yes Sir, they all earn their money from their day jobs with hard labor, not sitting on their asses and investing, and they gladly pay taxes in the top bracket, unlike you who whine and kick to dispense with may be 10-13% in income taxes? And yet, they all support Obama, but perhaps you will not understand this. You have said in a news conference on Monday night that your comments were "off the cuff" and "not elegantly stated," but you stand by your words, you truly believe that 47 percent of Americans are in this group.

Of course, you and your kinds, who maintain their position in society just for being members of lucky sperm clubs—cannot understand this, perhaps it is too complicated for you. For us it is simple though, we believe, the victims are not really lazy bums, rather they are victims of our culture and our laws—that guide our society.

And Jesus lived and died for those “victims.” Alas, the passionate Tea Party supporters will continue to cheer for you, and some misguided rich people will continue to proclaim “we love Romney.”

God bless America! Previously published on Technorati

The USReview of Goodbye

Never Had a Chance to Say Goodbye by A. Mohit, CreateSpace Reviewed by Wendy Strain

"We are all fellow travelers, spanning the width and breadth of the same planet, breathing the same air. Race, creed, and religions are artificial barriers that prevent intimacy only between the ignorant."

Bringing together a number of characters from around the Middle East to show how easy it can be to overcome differences, Mohit weaves together a story about the developing power grid of Abu Dhabi and the personal dedication of each man to the others. The differences between the characters are deep—spanning regions, races, cultures, and religions as each man attempts to be the best person he can be according to his own faith and traditions. Friendships are formed quickly when men are thrown into a working position with each other and all in unfamiliar territory. This is reflected with sensitivity and a great deal of insight as the main characters of the book are slowly brought together, each with his own backstory and area of specialty.

The story will appeal most strongly to those with some technical background. Mohit is knowledgeable about the engineering work required to start up and maintain a gas-generated power plant and desalinization plant and is generous in sharing some of that knowledge with his readers. At times, it almost overwhelms the characters themselves particularly as more characters are brought into play. While this level of technical detail does play a role in the plot, those who are not so oriented might wish the author were a bit less generous. An occasional typographical error is easily overlooked in the beauty of the underlying message of creating a loving and supportive community. The development of this community has a significant impact upon the outcome for both the individual characters and the city at large.

http://www.theusreview.com/reviews/Never-Mohit.html