"Freedom" - Classic American BS

Where do I start? Ever since 9/11 we cannot escape hearing the word “terrorism” accompanied by “freedom” in every damn speech. It’s the excessive use of “freedom” that particularly pisses me off. All the sudden, Bush and his gang seem to think of themselves as freedom police, spreading the seeds of democracy in countries with either a high oil reserve, or of some strategic significance. Meanwhile ignoring other, more dangerous countries *cough* South Korea *cough* to go ahead with whatever they wish to do.

What bothers me even more, is the parrot-like American public, who repeats those words, as if they came from the bible. Eman posted a great abstract of an article on the usage of words by the Amercians/Israelis in order to influence the public, subconsciously, in a certain way. The use of “freedom falls into this same category.

As a simple case study, let’s take Iraq, and the subsequent freedom gained by Iraqi’s post the American invasion. So now, instead of people feeling “free” to go about their normal lives, they have to be careful not to go into militant territory avoid leaving their house during certain times of the day, not to mention the numerous road blocks the American army sets up everywhere, restricting Iraqis’ movement . I have seen this image over and over again on many news stations. The image depicts an Iraqi civilian putting his hands over his head, creeping slowly towards an American guard, who goes on to search him. Is this the American idea of freedom?

Some may say, but the Iraqi’s can now elect a new president, so they have political freedom, and to that I say Bullshit. Electing a puppet doesn’t count as freedom, electing a president with no power isn’t freedom, electing under occupation is certainly not freedom.

So just about where do I hear freedom? I will start with “freedom fries” which was America’s retaliation against the opposition of France against the war. I will not dive too deeply into why “freedom fries” sounds pathetic, since it should be obvious enough.

Recently while I was approaching one of the company vehicles I noticed that the Jeep Liberty (Liberty here being another overused American term) was the “Freedom Edition.” Yes my friends, even Jeeps are now patriotic. Ironically enough, while driving the Jeep I was cutoff by a gulf war veteran (a bumper sticker told me so) who happened to have another bumper sticker which cleverly read “freedom doesn’t come for free: support our troops.” Arrogance at its best…

Most recently, this morning while reading the news on CNN I saw that they unveiled the new design for the new World Trade Centre. So what was it called? Sadly, “The Freedom Tower.”

Are we ever going to hear the end of it? Where might it appear next? Only time could tell!

Technorati Tags: freedom, American freedom, media manipulation

Good old Grand Bend - Beach Visit #1

Saturday marked my first beach visit of the summer. I say first because it surely won't be the last. The beach of choice this time was Grand Bend, located on Lake Huron, about 1.5 hours away from where I live. Good news, it was great fun, bad news I got a major sunburn, and now my name is tomato face :|

On the way to the beach

A view of the beach from the docks

boats, sun and a warning sign

check out this beauty cottage

Another cottage

Lingo Lesson 2

Due to popular demand, here’s another lingo lesson.

Sick:
I will start with one of the most (counterintuitive) words used on the street. Fefe had suggested it, and here it is.

“Sick” really means “great”
Yes that’s true, “sick” is good, according to street lingo. Someone could comment on your car by saying “yo, that’s a sick ride” the person doesn’t mean your car needs repairs, rather he means it’s awesome.

Others might comment on your blog saying “this post is sick,” please take that as a compliment.

When in doubt, ask it out. Someone said to me once “Omar, you look sick today” so I inquired what kind of sick they meant. It turned out I was “cough, cough” sick and not “cool” sick.

Other variations of “sick” can include:

“dude, spread the sickness” really means “man, that’s cool, way to go, keep it up”

“that’s ill, guy” ok I believe a rapper came up with this one, as you can see he used a thesaurus and found “ill” to mean “sick.” “Ill” is still in its infancy, I believe it will take off within a year or so.

I would like to follow the footsteps of the rapper and declare “infected” as the new “cool.” Please spread the word, for instance say:

“this course is infected guy” when you’re trying to compliment a professor.

“man, that’s so infected it needs penicillin” use this when encountering something that’s just off the charts.


Ways to say I need to go to the bathroom:

If you are walking downtown New York or Toronto, and you need to go to the bathroom, asking people where “you can go pee pee” will not result in any positive reactions. In fact it might result in getting beat up.

Here are cool and interesting ways to say “I need to take a s**t”
Before I continue it’s important to learn that in the world of toilets “number 1” corresponds to urinating, and “number 2” corresponds to ...

“man, I gotta take a dump” I like the imagery used in this one :)

“woah, I need to drop a load” this ones seems to have been made it up by construction workers, the use of words drop and load, gives it away

And my personal favourite

“I gotta drop a deuce” notice the clever use of “deuce”

Related words:

“I’m gonna go sit on the can, for a good hour” the magic word here is “can”
which refers to “toilet.”

“man, who ripped one?” the key word here is ripped, taken from the verb “to rip” which really means “to fart”

Well, the post is getting long, but no worries my students a third lesson will be on the way very soon. Sorry for the imagery, but I need to teach the basics before moving on to more complex vocabs ;-}

Technorati Tags: , street lingo, slang, language lessons

Set, Passport, Go!

It's been four years since I've been back to the beloved Syria, and it looks like a fifth will also pass before I can go there. The combination of non-stop study/work program and very short breaks in between leave little opportunity for me to make a meaningful trip back.

But recently Sinan reminded me that making a trip back isn’t as simple as buying a ticket. Other than renewing my long expired passport, I also have to get some papers that prove that I am a student; otherwise the army will be knocking on my door when I get back. These papers will probably have to go the Syrian embassy in Ottawa, hopefully without me having to go there.

To make matters worse I don’t even my ‘haweye’ (identification card), the papers of which I started but due to the lack of computerization and just plain slow service I didn’t get done last time I was there. So before I go back I will make sure that all those papers are done, and that everything is fine and dandy. The last thing I want to do is to be stuck in Syria, wasting valuable time in government buildings trying to get my papers through.

So why would I go through all this trouble to go there?
Well aside from seeing family, I am eager to meet all of my blogger friends whom I feel so close to already. And who wouldn’t miss smelling Damascene air from Qassioun, shopping in Sla7ieh, seeing the wonderful historic sites, passing through ‘el 7amadieh’ only to end at the Umayyad mosque, hearing people speak Arabic in the streets, eating falafel and shwarma sandwiches, walking in streets that are merely faded images in my memory, and of course taking a taxi with the driver blasting ‘el 7asoudeh’ ;)

It’s been 1825 days since the last time I’ve been there, 300 days to go

Science As A Way of Thinking

I meant to write this post a while ago, but I never got a chance. I guess this post, will form the basis to some of my future posts as well as some previous ones. It might be long, but if you happened to like some of my serious posts then I recommend you read on…

When you ask the average person what science is, he/she would most likely remember science class from school. The fact is, we learn science starting from grade one, and continue all the way into high school, and at the end, we don’t really know anything about science.

When I say science here, I don’t mean scientific facts or formulas; rather, I am talking about a way of thinking.

I owe my true understanding to this way of thinking to my physics high school who always emphasized labs, and more specifically the sources of error in the labs. He always told us to not worry about our data as long as we understood what the experiment was trying to achieve. He had learned the hard way while he was completing his masters. After finishing his research, he found the data that he got to fit his hypothesis. But when his results were reviewed, his supervisor pointed out that the error bars rendered the data meaningless. In other words, he could not come out with a proper conclusion from his research.

My definition of science is by no means perfect or complete, but I like to think that at least I know the basics. Science starts with an observation or a hypothesis, someone comes along and says I think there’s a relationship between so and so. The scientist then conducts experiments that are directly related to the hypothesis in hopes to prove it. When the data is collected, trends are looked for. Sometimes the trends prove the hypothesis, other times they disprove it, other times they show no trend at all. The key part of science comes from this next step. Once the scientific “discovery” is made, it is then put up for scrutiny by experts of the topic of research. Sometimes the same experiments are repeated (by other scientists) to double check the data, and confirm the discovery. Once everything is double checked, the discovery is official.

In my opinion, it’s the scrutiny that makes science so special. There are no exceptions when it comes to science, there’s no faith involved, everything is taken at face value. Best of all, there’s no such thing as superiority. Theories that have existed for centuries, can be easily put aside when another theory comes along and proves to be more accurate, most known example being Newtonian Physics.

If there’s one thing that I would want you to get out of this post, is the fact that science is way of thinking, not so much what we learn at school. What we learn at school are the byproducts of science, not science. Science is about questioning our surroundings, challenging existing beliefs and thoughts, and trying to understand all that surrounds us. Why settle for having faith in something, if you can question it?

Technorati Tags: , science, experimentation

I swear this is the last time!

ok, I know you guys are sick of this whole picture thing, but I couldn't resist. Linda suggested that I put my face on the painting, and Dina encouraged me to do that. So here it is, my photoshop skills once again come to the rescue, to produce yet another masterpiece.

The actual painting

Ok guys here's the actual painting by Michael Angelo. Here's a brief description:

The painting depicting God about to touch the naked Adam with His index finger is powerful and majestic. It represents God, with His divine touch, giving man the electricity of life. It is the center and zenith among the 33 paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

My idea was to make a parody of this great painting, so to those who thought it was serious, it really wasn't intended to be, in fact it was intended to be funny. Anyhow, just thought I would post the actual.

Yay or Nay.. Please vote

Quick vote for all visitors. What do you think of this "banner" to be placed at the top of my blog?? yay or nay.. please comment I will take your votes seriously!!

Einstein's Words

Below are some of my favourite quotes by Einstein. I’m not the kind of person who believes that all that is said by important/influential/ famous people is true. Einstein though, thought deeply about topics such as religion, war, and of course science. Those topics of interest are a direct byproduct of Einstein’s work and life. For instance his involvement in “project Manhattan” (the development of the atomic bomb) led him to discuss war quite frequently in his writings. An interesting fact about Einstein is his rejection of the seat of Israel’s prime minister. Einstein did not like politics at all, as you may notice from the quotes below. I was planning to explain each one of the quotes, but I thought I should leave the interpretation up to you. If you would like to hear my interpretation of any of those quotes, just let me know.


"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."

"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."

“Imagination is more important than knowledge."

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."

"Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."

"Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."

“Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."


"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."

Technorati Tags: , Einstein Quotes, Religion Quotes, Education Quotes, War Quotes

The Iron Ring

The Iron Ring, is a ring worn by all engineers in Canada on the pinky of their working hand.

Why the pinky?

My teacher once told me that wearing it on the pinky causes it to rub against the engineer’s desk every now and then, making a noise that would serve as a reminder to the engineer to check his work again and again to make sure there are no mistakes. As you probably know, a little mistake in a critical calculation could cause failure any machine or structure, an engineer’s nightmare.

Tradition has it that the rings are fabricated from the wreckage of some catastrophic engineering failure. The original ring is believed to have come from the remains of the Quebec Bridge, which collapsed during construction in 1907. That bridge, whose 1,800-foot main span was to be the largest cantilever structure in the world, collapsed under its own weight because of an error in the design engineer's calculations. The bridge was redesigned, but it suffered a second accident in 1916, when its center span fell while being hoisted into place, further embarrassing the engineering community. Finally, in 1917, the bridge was completed and stood across the St. Lawrence River as a symbolic gateway under which European immigrants sailed into Canada. The bridge stands today as still the longest cantilever span in the world and as a reminder to Canadian engineers to take care with their designs and to persevere in the face of adversity.

Near the end of their final year engineering students attend the private and voluntary Ceremony of the Calling of an Engineer. This ritual marks the end of the struggle to become an Engineer.


Sources: picture from one of my texts
http://me.queensu.ca/undergraduate/activities/ironring/article.asp
http://traditions.skule.ca/articles/ironring/ironringinfo/ironringinfo.html

Music Critique numero due

Ok, I can’t hold it in anymore, it’s time for another critique

I will start off with Snoop Dogg’s latest fight. During his most recent concert Snoop called a fan on stage. When the fan got on the stage, Snoop and his posse started wailing on the fan, meanwhile members of the posse stole the fan’s cell and credit card…how classy.

To me that’s the perfect example that money can’t buy you class. I’m not sure if Snoop and his group were trying to show their “gangsta” side, but whatever it was, it was dumb.

A note to rappers: would you please start rapping about things other than sex, cars, and money? By the way money, cars, and sex is also not acceptable.

Which brings me to every rap video EVER. Do these rappers have any skills, or rather imagination. Maybe it’s just me, but does every rap video has the same elements listed below?

1) chicks shaking their ass violently, as if they are being electrocuted
2) Cars that normally look good, if it wasn’t for the 20000 inch chrome rims
3) Ice <- please refer to future lingo posting for explanation
4) Lots of guys attending a house party, usually accompanied by slutty looking girls, who are being showered by bills, or champagne
5) Guys pouring Crystal on the floor to prove how much money they have (crystal is the champagne of champagnes, costing about $5000 / bottle)
6) Cars that are too pimped, best example is the stupid TV screens in the headrests IN THE BACK SEAT. One rapper commented “This is for the people driving behind me..hahaha” Funny guy....funny guy

I will now move on to LL Cool J. Dude, what’s up with the name? It’s gay, seriously. Let me guess what the two L’s stand for … oh I got it
Loser and Lick
You might be wondering now…Lick????
Let me explain, better yet, go see one of his videos. The guy licks his lips every two seconds, does he think it’s sexy or something?? What do the girls think?
In fact my sister and I counted once how many time the guy licks his lips, in that particular video, we saw 26 licks (during a 4 minute video) that is 6.5 licks a minute.. Why don’t they just hose the LL’s lips with water if they are that dry?
By the way one my favourite LL rhymes is the celeverly put together "Paradise is very nice"... No shit LL, thanks for letting me know, and for using the word nice.

Ohh I got so much to say with so little time, I will lastly comment about Usher.
Does he have to show us his abs in every damn video?
Seirously, the guy, in every video, slowly starts lifting shirt, making slow but steady progress in showing us his abs..

Dude, so you got a six pack, so what? I know a ton of people who also have great abs, but they don’t flaunt them..
Keep it on Usher, for the love of God keep it ON!


A picture says a thousand words

When he's not licking them he's touching them - LL Cool J

Ruba Nadda

Recently I have become bored of eating sandwiches at work, so I decided to bring some leftovers from home. So, I brought “kousa ma7shi” to work the other day, and one of the students I work with noticed it, and commented “this food is awesome, my brother’s girlfriend is from Damascus, and her mom invited us over for dinner one time, and that’s what I had”

So I said “Oh yeah, that’s cool, you said she was from Damascus?”
He said “Yeah” and so I told him I’m from there too, we talked some more and when lunch was over, we went back to the office, and minutes later he sent me the following e-mail… It turns out this Damascene girl is a lot more interesting that I thought, here’s the e-mail

From:
Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 12:45 PM
To: Omar Salaymeh
Subject: RE: Let the day begin!!!!!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/
story/RTGAM.20050527.wsabah0527/BNStory/Entertainment/?query=sabah
a movie that my brother’s girlfriend wrote and directed. You should check it out, it’s actually quite a good movie.
The movie is playing in select theatres, if I find a theatre near by I will surely check it out.

Also check out http://www.rubanadda.com/ for more articles