Discombobulation of life

Just read an extract from his new book, which I find quite... I don't know, but it definately put me into reflective mode.

I hope that I am allowed to do this:

Custodians of chaos
In this exclusive extract from his forthcoming memoirs, Kurt Vonnegut is horrified by the hypocrisy in contemporary US politics

Saturday January 21, 2006

Guardian

"Do unto others what you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, five hundred years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.
The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

We've sure come a long way since then. Sometimes I wish we hadn't. I hate H-bombs and the Jerry Springer Show

But back to people like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, each of whom have said in their own way how we could behave more humanely and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favourite humans is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana.

Get a load of this. Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was not yet four, ran five times as the Socialist party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, almost 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

"As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.

"As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it.

"As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools, or health insurance for all?

When you get out of bed each morning, with the roosters crowing, wouldn't you like to say. "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."

How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly George W Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

It so happens that idealism enough for anyone is not made of perfumed pink clouds. It is the law! It is the US Constitution.

But I myself feel that our country, for whose Constitution I fought in a just war, might as well have been invaded by Martians and body snatchers. Sometimes I wish it had been. What has happened instead is that it was taken over by means of the sleaziest, low-comedy, Keystone Cops-style coup d'état imaginable.

I was once asked if I had any ideas for a really scary reality TV show. I have one reality show that would really make your hair stand on end: "C-Students from Yale".

George W Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography, plus not-so-closeted white supremacists, aka Christians, and plus, most frighteningly, psychopathic personalities, or PPs, the medical term for smart, personable people who have no consciences.

To say somebody is a PP is to make a perfectly respectable diagnosis, like saying he or she has appendicitis or athlete's foot. The classic medical text on PPs is The Mask of Sanity by Dr Hervey Cleckley, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia, published in 1941. Read it!

Some people are born deaf, some are born blind or whatever, and this book is about congenitally defective human beings of a sort that is making this whole country and many other parts of the planet go completely haywire nowadays. These were people born without consciences, and suddenly they are taking charge of everything.

PPs are presentable, they know full well the suffering their actions may cause others, but they do not care. They cannot care because they are nuts. They have a screw loose!

And what syndrome better describes so many executives at Enron and WorldCom and on and on, who have enriched themselves while ruining their employees and investors and country and who still feel as pure as the driven snow, no matter what anybody may say to or about them? And they are waging a war that is making billionaires out of millionaires, and trillionaires out of billionaires, and they own television, and they bankroll George Bush, and not because he's against gay marriage.

So many of these heartless PPs now hold big jobs in our federal government, as though they were leaders instead of sick. They have taken charge. They have taken charge of communications and the schools, so we might as well be Poland under occupation.

They might have felt that taking our country into an endless war was simply something decisive to do. What has allowed so many PPs to rise so high in corporations, and now in government, is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin' day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don't give a fuck what happens next. Simply can't. Do this! Do that! Mobilise the reserves! Privatise the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody's telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! Build a trillion-dollar missile shield! Fuck habeas corpus and the Sierra Club and In These Times, and kiss my ass!

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: only nut cases want to be president. This was true even in high school. Only clearly disturbed people ran for class president.

The title of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 is a parody of the title of Ray Bradbury's great science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451. Four hundred and fifty-one degrees Fahrenheit is the combustion point, incidentally, of paper, of which books are composed. The hero of Bradbury's novel is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.

While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroyed records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.

And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what's really going on.

I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published in early 2004, that humiliating, shameful, blood-soaked year.

In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African-Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appallingly powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.

In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as Nazis once were.

And with good reason.

In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanised millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.

Piece of cake.

In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanised our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.

Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.

Piece of cake.

The O'Reilly Factor.

So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called In These Times.

Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic New York Times guaranteed there were weapons of mass destruction there.

Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the first world war. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the first world war so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.

Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?

Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people, too. I am a veteran of the second world war and I have to say this is not the first time I have surrendered to a pitiless war machine.

My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."

Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas

Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler. What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations, and made it all their own?

© 2005 Kurt Vonnegut Extracted from A Man Without a Country: A Memoir of Life in George W Bush's America, to be published by Bloomsbury on February 6, price £14.99

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

But first a word from our sponsor!

Have been looking forward to this film for a long time and am hoping that it will not disappoint:

V for Vendetta

Check out first impressions here:

http://www.chud.com/index.php?type=news&id=6034

Now back to the issue at hand. Either today or tomorrow, i shall be getting my laptop back and resorting to my life as an up and coming computer geek. I love my laptop, I think that it is a fabulous machine, my only gripe is that it is made by Sony. As much as I hate to admit it, I am a creature of habit. This is especially the case when it comes to shopping. For the longest time the only trainers that I ever wore were by Nike, but then they went overboard with all the plastic and futuristic stuff and I had to ween myself off them. Now I am going through an Adidas phase, after a brief sting at Puma, who I keep going back to, but never have my size (if anyone knows where I can get size 11 (British size) or 29.5 Japanese size Puma sprints, please let me know.) So with Electronics it is Song. It has been for the longest time. I have always had a penchant for their designs, yeah I am all about the looks baby. I bought a Sony MD player, but the MD thing never really got that big in england. I have a Sony camera, somewhere... (San Fran, would like it back soon) but the flash is broken and needs to be fixed but that is going to cost me at least 10,000yen. And so it begins.

With Sony, you pay for the brand name, and that I do not mind as with the name comes a bit of a guarantee that the equipment is going to be of some quality. But when things go awry, as often happens with these things then Sony like to screw you up the arse slowly with a hot poker. Slight exaggeration but you get my point. My computer is coming back fixed tomorrow. There will have been no loss of data and no need to replace my hard drive. However, when i sent my laptop off to Gifu of all places, they said that my hard drive was fucked and needed to be replaced. And that was after I told them I needed the data on my D drive, the C they could do whatever they wanted but the D had my entire life on it. But no, they said they could not rescue my data, so i told them to go to hell.

I am sure that Sony have some of the best people in this country working for them. Whether they have been told that they have to make as much money as possible from each repair or whether they genuinely believe that the hard drive needed to be replaced, I do not know. But from a company like Sony, the lack of cooperation was pretty astounding. Not just in terms of the drive but due to the fact that they point blank refused to put an english operating system had I said that they could continue with the repairs.

Sony are a pain in the arse. And yet I was still looking at their new MP3 player yesterday, actually I bought one a few weeks ago but had to take it back because it would not work on my english operating system.

Dear Sony,
I know that you make Japan only models, and I appreciate that. But please try to help the people living in Japan to use your products. Not everyone living here from abroad can read Kanji, not everyone Gaijin living here has a Japanese computer and furthermore, not every Gaijin here has access to your limited number of overseas models shops.
love Chris

Oh and what is up with your Connect Software? it sucks, it is truly totally a let down. Please stop trying to make money by forcing everyone to use your own propietary hardware and software. Can we, and this goes out to the whole industry, please try to have an industry norm so that we do not have to convert files from MP3 to AAC to WMA to OGG depending on what media players we are using.

I am still trying to figure out which MP3 player I am going to get. I am trying to move from Sony to something else. My Rio player died the other week and now I am sans-musique and that is for me like walking around naked. The thing with Sony players is that they have a really long battery life. I want nothing to do with IPODs since everyone has them and they other players I have seen do not really float my boat, so any recommendations for MP3 players would be greatly appreciated.

Short of asking people to boycott Sony until they can get their heads out of their arses, I am requesting that people thing very carefully before buying any Sony product. They look great, but if they break... good luck to you.

I mentioned to a Lily and LMW that I had written an article that was going to be published in the magazine that is produced here on a sort of monthly basis. They suggested that I paste it on here as it would be nice to see what my writing would be like in a more professional tone. So here it is.

"At last, a result!

Jet conferences have, in general, been remarkable for their lack of quality and pertinent information, so I can understand the reluctance of many a Kagawa Jet to pay their own way for the conference in Yokohama. Unfortunately for them, it was entirely worth it. Like me, many people in their final year are mulling over their futures, and like me you probably have no idea what you are going to be doing, and like me you need some help. This helped. It helped a lot. I saw this as an opportunity to kick start my search into employment for my eventual and imminent return to reality. This article will not answer all your questions, but it should hopefully, help you to get moving in the right direction.

Yokohama, the City of Legs (according to my friend Paul) was beautiful for the entire three days we were there. I had been longing to get out of Takamatsu since I arrived back from my holiday in the states. The weather was mild, the food was fantastic and we were even treated to quite an erotic display of affection on the Tuesday night on the 10th floor of our hotel (we watched from the streets). The presentations, on the whole, were useful and I leanrt more than I have learned in all the previous Jet conferences that I had attended; one of the reasons being that I chose to come here.

Focus and Perseverance were two keys words that came to mind when reflecting on the lectures. One of the main things was that people became successful once they started to focus on their career path. It is essential for returning Jets to start to ask themselves about what you really want to do in life.

Are you motivated by money?
Do you want to travel?
Are you ready for a fulltime job?
What are you good at?

An important, somewhat cheesy, yet worthwhile recommendation was to write down exactly what it is that you would want to do on a daily basis in your career. In so doing, it will become clearer to you in your mind what you want from your future employment and that in turn will make it easier to explain yourself to career advisors and employment agencies.

One of the advantages of the modern world is that we can pretty much do anything we want (within reason) if we are willing to work for it. What most of us will have been told at one point or other is that “the world is our oyster”, that we are capable of anything that we put out minds to. What is usually meant as a great sign of confidence can also impact in a negative way. There are far too many options out there. Sometimes the choices and possibilities available are staggering, and I have found myself applying for lots of different jobs hoping that a job would choose me instead of me choosing the job, that is not the way it should be, which demonstrates the importance of focus. We have enough time for more than one career. The job market, when good, offers so many different possibilities that it would almost be a sin to stay in one career for your entire life. But you have to start somewhere sometime. And why not now?

The main points in the seminars and lectures were rather similar: one you decide what you want to do, go for it. That means sending out CVs, calling people to ask for help, research, at some point trickery was even suggested. This all comes down to one thing: Perseverance. You will be rejected. You may have to applying to several dozen jobs before you get the one you want but keep going. If you pester people enough, they will at least, eventually talk to you. Nevertheless, the one thing that remains most pertinent about the three days was the value of networking. Avoid feeling guilt if your friend or family offers you a job, that is what friends are for. There is no shame in that. People do it all the time, enjoy it. Generally, if they know you well they will never give you a job they do not think that you can do; it would make them look bad. When you return home, go to JETAA reunions, meetings, parties, discos, no matter how cheesy the may seem. You will be linked through your experiences as a Jet and that counts for a lot, more than you could possibly imagine. I could go into detail about all the seminars I went through, but I won’t, so I will just leave you with some points to help you (I hope) get on the right track.

1. Figure out now what you want to do, try not to wait till you return home. Many of us have a lot of free time at our schools so use this time to research.
2. Research the industry you want to work in, competitors, trends, locations, market leaders etc.
3. Tailor your CV to each position. Look on internet sites for industry norms.
4. Send in speculative CVs. Find a company you want to work for and let them know you exist. If you find the right job now, let them know you want it. Maybe they will wait for you, or maybe when a new position is available then the company will let you know.
5. Make an effort with the CV but it is not the be all and end all. The CV gets you an interview and the interview gets you the job.
6. When enquiring about a job the HR manager is NOT the best person to speak to, the decision maker is. Call him. Most of the time you will not get his number directly, email me for tips.
7. Do not disguise the fact that you are a Jet, there are 40,000 odd ex jets around the world, they want to help you. Probably.
8. Arrive at interviews early, dry off sweating palms, remember to make eye contact and be aware of body language. No sloppy handshakes. And after the interview, write an email to say thank you.
9. If you want to open a business in Asia: 90-98% of businesses fail, especially if you are a woman.
10. Never stop learning, educate yourself, and that isn’t even just for employment.

I do not know how many people came here straight out of University, but I have been through the job search quagmire before, it is not a good thing to be in for a long period of time. Get as much done as you can before you have to go home. When you get home, get a part time job, just to keep you ticking over and so that you can avoid slouching on your parents sofa week after week, getting up only to go and pick up dole checks.

Good luck with it all."

Something I came across:

We always hear "the rules" from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side. These are our rules! Please note... these are all numbered "1" ON PURPOSE!

1. Men ARE not mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat. You're a big girl. If it's up, put it down. We need it up, you need it down. You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports. It's like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be.

1. Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one:

Subtle hints do not work!

Strong hints do not work!

Obvious hints do not work!

Just say it!

1. Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That's what we do. Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem. See a doctor.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument. In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 Days.

1. If you won't dress like the Victoria's Secret girls, don't expect us

to act like soap opera guys.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done. Not both. If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, Please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Political correctness works both ways. Cursing at us, slapping us and any other minor physical abuse aside, if you`re going to fight us like a man, be prepared to be treated like a man.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not! A color. Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it will be scratched. We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," We will act like

nothing's wrong. We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer

you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...Really.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball, the shotgun formation, or golf.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape. Round IS a shape!

For two weeks now, possibly three, I have been without a computer at home. On one hand, it has been bliss, I have been playing my guitar a lot, I have been reading a lot, and it feels like life has generally been really productive. Then again, I have spent a few days in Yokohama during this time, I was then in Okayama, and have had no classes at school, which has meant a lot of sleeping.

My trip to Yokohama was fantastic, by far and away the best and most useful conference I have ever been to in my (almost) 3 years here. I had the chance to stay at the Pacifico Yokohama, http://www.interconti.co.jp/yokohama/ which was a lovely hotel might i add. And as it was valentines day, I was not suprised to look up at one of the windows and see the silhouettes of a couple being extremely intimate withe each other. It was good to see so many people I had not seen in a long time, and to be in a place where people were focussed and looking forward to the next part of their lives.

We, myself, Paul, Mike and John, people I know from a while back, had dinner at an all you can eat buffet in Chinatown, at the end of which the waitress was insisting that we left as we had eaten them out of house and home. After, we stood around out the restaurant, feeling totally bloated, and I felt that I could puke at any second such was the tight feeling in my stomach. We did manage to get a drink in at a bar called the Windjammer, which was lovely, and had a bit of a rustic Pirates of the Carribean thing going on. For the first time in my life, I had Belvedere Vodka, and oh my god it was goooood!!!!!

On wednesday, I had to return to the crappy town i live in and returning always feels like shit. The bus was really not an option since I did not feel like hanging around, Tokyo was only 45 min away but for some strange reason I passed on that and took the Shinkansen home. That train is bloody fast. Got to Okayama in no time, and then hopped onto the Marine Liner, which was like switching from the QE2 onto the local fishing trawler.

Thurday, no classes, Friday, only one, lots of reading, and I finally finished Snow by Orhan Pamuk. Good read, a lot better than My Name is Red. Now reading The Double by Jose Saramago. So far pretty interesting, he has a very unique writing style, almost as if he is talking to you, lots of digressions, tangents and witty asides. Good stuff.

Saturday, was not feeling my best but decided to head over to Okayama... again, for the Hadaka Matsuri festival details of which can be found here: http://www.city.okayama.okayama.jp/saidaiji/guide/eyo/English/eyo.htm
I have no idea why anyone would want to run around half naked during the coldest month of the year but people were doing exactly that. I of course turned down the chance to run, since I did not want the general public to see the size of my arse, or my stomach. Neither was the chance to rub cheeks with a thousand other guys that much of a draw for me. I just stood around with my friend Nina, and some other people we had met that night and watched the proceedings, and laughed, and drank beer, which was the first time that I had consumed enough alcohol to get drunk in almost a month. Yeah, I know, and I am very proud of myself.

The actual getting the stick took only two seconds of so, which kind of reminds me of having sex, lots of build up and then over in a jiffy, which is also a little ironic since the whole spiel is about virility. Lovely, but i have now seen enough male buttcheeks to last a lifetime. I wonder if there is a female version....

Well, that pretty much brings me back to where I am now. I am starting to get rid of my stuff for when I leave, I just sold my TV and my playstation for a very good price (for the buyer) to one of my english teachers. I still have not got my camera back from San Fran yet, but I am thinking that I may get a new one before I leave since it is going to cost at least 10,000￥ to get it fixed. Thanks but no thanks, how can it cost 50 quid to effectively change a light bulb?

Tonight, cooking dinner, have a friend coming over and I shall be making Chicken Basque, a Delia Smith recipie. Am not off on a quest to go and find me some Basmati Rice... Wish me luck.

me: I need some Basmati rice
Supervisor: what rice?
me: rice, it does not stick like Japanese rice
S: heh?
me: Indians use it a lot, and Thais
S: heh, rice that does not stick?
me: yeah, sometimes you do not need it to stick
S: heh?

But I have tracked down a department store where they should sell it, I cannot wait to get back to a country where i can actually buy things I consider normal without having to track it down in some obscure little shop and then have to pay 60 times the market value for it.

Laters

I know that I said i was not going to write about the whole Cartoon/Islam thing anymore but I am about to fail in that promise. I am currently reading "Snow" by Orhan Pamuk, the Turkisyh writer who is in a lot of shit with Turkey because he is apparently saying bad things about his country. Oh dear, you naughty naughty man!! In the book I found a quote taken from Ayatollah Khomeini, who is basically the founder of political Islam and more can be read about him here: http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/ayatollah-khomeni/

Well the quote say this: "the most important thing today is not to pray or to fast but to protect the Islamic faith." I think that the only thing not mentioned in that quote is "by all means necessary. This is the same fiend who issued a fatwa against Salman Rushdie for the whole "Satanic Verses" malarkey. Another lovely man.

Nice to know that stuff in Africa remains as predictable as ever with Kenya having a massive corruption scandal. Whatever next?

And now there is bird flu in Nigeria and no doubt lots of millions in aid are going to arrive... and disappear, though Nigeria is supposed to be in the midst of cleaning itself up. People do not mind corruption so much if their countries work. Or as long as it is not blatant.

Thursday today, and yet another busy week and come to an end. I have two more classes this week then nothing. I go up to Yokohama for a conference on Sunday night, which promises to be very enlightening. At least I am hoping it will be. Of all the talks and meetings I have been to since i got here, this should be the most beneficial of the lot. Plus I am really looking forward to getting away from here for a few days and not having to teach until next Friday.

Finally one of my friends is coming to visit and this spring break promises to be one of my best ever. As well as having my lovely girlfriend come over to visit, one of my best friends is coming over too. Must remind him to bring a spare suitcase so I can send some stuff over with him.

It is going to be so good being busy for the whole of March.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4688450.stm

I am starting to bore myself and possibly all my faithful readers, but everyday I wake up and watch the news and all I see lately is related to the whole caricature denouement. However there was a slightly related matter on the BBC today all about that cleric guy, Abu Hamza, who has been jailed for 7 years for "inciting murder and race hate". Nice man. I know for a fact that Islam is a peaceful religion. I know for a fact that Christianity is a peaceful religion, as long as you wipe out the old testament completely, where God seems to get his knickers in a twist and tries to smite everyone. So what we have here is a man interpreting Islam in a certain way. Just like the Crusaders a while back whenever that was.

Anyway, this brings me to where my feelings about religion come from: People. People always have an agenda, sometimes positive and sometimes negative, but there is always an agenda. From these agendas come the interpretations, the idea that we should hurt people in order to fulfill some kind of destiny.

You know what? I am tired of writing about this. I found something much more inspiring on the news today and that was that new species have been found in Papua, somewhere in the Indonesian jungle.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4688000.stm
I find that amazing that as advanced as we claim to be, we have not even discovered everything, yet we are destroying the earth and missing out on possible cures for cancer and HIV/AIDS medicines. Ahhh, what an advanced race we are.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4689054.stm
Playboy seems to be having a bit of a hard time in Indonesia.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4688056.stm
Apparently Japan is excited... I did not even realise.

And by the way, Hamza was sentenced to 7 years in jail, he'll apparently only spend 2 years there. But then he is going to be extradited to the USA and I am sure he will be dealt with very well over there.

Why can't we just get along? Really though, why is it so bloody hard for us simply to get along?

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1703500,00.html

Conversation (imaginery) with a Muslim demomstrator

Journalist(J): so what brings you here then?
Demonstrator(D): I respect free speech but people do not respect my religion.
J: I see, so what do you want the people who printed these cartoons to do?
D: apologise to the Muslim world.
J: would you consider yourself to be a good muslim?
D: of course, it is in my blood, it is in my soul.
J: and how long have you been out demonstrating today?
D: the whole day, I have to, it is my duty to protect my relgion.
J: when was the last time you prayed?
D: this is more important...
J: but i thought that good muslims pray 5 times a day...
D: we do, but we also have to fight for respect
J: are you married, do you have children?
D: yes i do.
J: is this a good example for them?
D: to fight for my religon, then yes..
J: well while you are fighting, how are they eating?
D: well they have food of course
J: and you have a job?
D: yes...
J: if you continue to demostrate, how long do you think you will be able to provide for your family?
D: oh, here comes another bandwagon. Gotta jump, goodbye.

Due to the fact that I am in a rush, I have not been able to fully articulate exactly what is going through my head right now, but people are dying because of this nonsense. And that is what it is. Excuses are being made so that people can go around getting angry and burn buildings. It is just not right. Most people there are probably not even defending their religion. They are there simply to provoke and make the situation even more problematic, if that was possible. I have no issue with people fighting for their religion. That is what freedom means for me. It means that we can fight for the things that mean a lot to us. Fighting in this sense however does not mean, destroy buildings and the livelihood of others. It does not mean over reacting to something that was essentially a cultural faux-pas. At the same time, as i said in my previous blog, free speech does not give you the right to ridicule and belittle someone else's religion. And from what I have read so far, the editor refused to put out cartoons depicting Christianity in a similar manner. Personally, I couldn't care less about whether it is Christianity or Islam being poked fun at, then again, I am not the editor of a national newspaper and do not have that responsability. I would happily laugh at both, since I have deep rooted feelings against religion anyway. But I do tolerate people with different religions as long as they do not try to force it on my and I love learning about what makes people become so devout and focussed on something that causes so much destruction.

My little play is not to belittle the Muslims who are fighting out there for a just cause, for the respect that they deserve. It goes out to those who are out there because they have nothing better to do and have, as a result, just jumped onto the latest bandwagon.

Grow up for crying out loud!!

sometimes it does feel like this world is going backwards.

Life without a computer is hard. I have no idea how i managed to be with out one for so long before. It hurts, I see something on TV and want to check it up, but I can't. I can't check up on films to see whether they are worth watching or not. (I am one of those people that has to watch a film from start to finish no matter how bad it is, so I would rather not start watching a film at all) And now I have no Football Manager either. The guitar is out but I am not really playing very regularly, but I am reading more which is a great bonus to my delicate mental balance.

Arsenal finally won a game away from home which was great, and even better was the fact that the whole back four was filled with players 21 and under. In fact most of the team was that young.

I watched some of the African Nations Cup this weekend, and was not really impressed with the quality of the football. It does not seem to be as sparkling as it usually is. There is no real showboating, or off the cuff typ play which is why one would watch the ANC. I even managed to get down to Kotohira (2hours by train) to go and play football with some people. It was my first bit of exercise in a while and I am indeed feeling the pain. Fortunately though, I have no class today so I am just going to chill at school... well actually it makes no difference whether i have class or not, my day pretty much follow the same pattern anyway.

On Sunday, I was up at 0530. To go watch a marathon. Yeah, that is how desperate my life has become. It was ok. Not the most exciting thing i have ever done but it got me out of the house which is always a bonus. Got a phonecall from Farha, which was great since it is a long time since we spoke and even Des (my cousin) gave me a call which was also fantastic. It is always good to get phonecalls especially when you are not expecting them.

People are burning down buildings now, and it all began because of a cartoon in a newspaper. I love humanity. Both sides are guilty of being complete and utter dumbarses (does that word need a hyphen?).
Yeah, the Europeans should have apologised, it was the sensible thing to do. And this should have presented the general muslim population with the opportunity to show that the western perception was completely unfounded. But no! Everyone just played their sterotypical roles. The Europeans maintained their arrogant air of superiority, and the muslims fell into that trap and reacted violently. And yeah, I saw the news reports and saw the Muslim Priests trying to stop the violence and destruction but they were really in the minority.

It is just a shame that both sides have acted just as you would have expected them to act. There were no surprises and stereotypes have just been reinforced. I saw the Danes protesting in Copenhagen. There was a candlelight vigil as they hoped that peace would be restored as soon as possible. I really believe that if the protests in Lebanon had been carried out in a similar fashion, things would not have escalated in such a manner.

People of the west seem to forget that Christianity and Islam are very different religions. One need only look at the governments of UK and USA to see that Christians generally leave their religion behind at home unless there is a political advantage. For Muslims though, their religion is their life, it is their politics and it needs to be understood.

For once, it would be great if people would do things that were unexpected. (obviously this means positive things) Really though, it would be nice.

Frankly I find the whole Middle East conflict highly confusing and any simple breakdown of it would be handy, but from what I understand, the Palestinians have a very good reason to not want to give up the rights, they are essentially asking to give up their own country are they not? Why should they?

Judaism is the only religon where the members thought of as a people, but you have to remember that it is a religion. It seems to me that the only reason they were given their own country is out of guilt. And yeah, the holocaust was a horrible horrible event, but what right did Britain have to grant the Jews a home? Especially in a place where they had limited and dimishing control.

I really do think that certain governments believe that they are above Muslims, the Muslims do not matter, and if they (the Muslims) were not within armslength of so much oil, relations would be even less tawdry.

From now until the foreseeable future, I shall be without a computer in my home. I shall have to access to email at home or at work (since email sites have been blocked cos the apparently cause viruses) and usually I would be a little dispondent right now, but i am trying to look at the good side of this. I shall be able to get more reading done, I finally got my guitar out since i got back from holiday and it means that when i have nothing to do at home, i will just study instead. Unfortunately, it also means that I have no music, no decent television and no good films to watch. I miss that humming sound when I sleep!!

So, onto more sensitive issues, I would just like to say that the people who did those comics about the muslim and Mohammed situation were really really stupid. Yeah, in the west we have a right to free speech and whatnot, but these are delicate times and western supposed intellectuals need to get their heads out of their arses and stop annoying people intent on killing everyone who does not believe in their religion. And when I say this, i am referring to the fundamentalists and not the average peaceful Muslim. The cartoons were a caricature. Caricatures are done on a regular basis everywhere. I am sure that even the fundametalists have at one moment found them funny. The issue here is that pictures of Mohammed and God are NEVER made in Islam. Inside mosques, unlike Churches, there are no pictures depicting Allah or Mohammed, it just is not done and this is where the situation boils over. Yeah, free speech is great, but here you have offended the fundamental parts of one of the major religions of the world. So, the decent thing to do, is to apologise and say that you did not realise the offence that you would cause. And you do this, whether you mean it or not, at least it would placate the offended to some extent. Instead, the media screams about its right to free speech.

When you consider that so many Westerns think that Muslims are somewhat barbaric, it is somewhat ironic to see the Westerns acting in an equally unsavoury manner. The apology was not forthcoming, which would have saved a whole lot of trouble, instead they sent the images across europe and caused even more offence.

Since this whole West vs East thing began, I have never heard any of the western governments say that they would try to include local muslims into strategy making processes so that they can better understand how to ameliorate the relations between the two sides. It saddens me to think that as time goes by the gap is getting progressively wider. It saddens me that countries are spending money arming themselves with (nuclear) weapons rather than feeding the people and building their infrastructures. It also saddens me that "enlightened" countries of the west cannot give a sign that they too are willing, unilaterally, to give up some of their weapons.

The world in which we live, is full of mistrust.