The miracle of liturature

So I attempted to order a book from Amazon only to find out that I am much less wealthy than I thought. So until my next paycheck im gonna have to wait to get what my original choice in literature was, The Iraqi war blog.
BUT! Even when things seem bad, and you discover that you are so poor you can't afford a used book, their is always a blessing in disguise. I went to visit the family of one of my close friends, and they asked me about what I was studying in school. This happens frequently and I always end up attempting to explain why my classes ARE in fact interesting and not just a pain in the ass (physics and math are interesting, you just gotta learn to love it and not fight it). This time however I had a classes that actually seemed to interest this family. I mentioned this class, and it instantly sparked up a controversial and heated conversation (I sat out of it seeing as how I didn't want to offend the people who were supposed to feed and house me for the weekend). The mom of the family went to take her daughter to buy some books the next day and I tagged along. I started looking at some books that interested me (putting them back every time because the only thing I can afford is pretty much a slice of pizza and a gumball) she came over and we started talking about one of them.
Long story short, I came home sunday night and found this book in my suitcase with a note asking me to let her know if I liked it so she could read it.

So I have a book and can start reading now.
Quick Summary:
The book is the memoir of a young Iraqi who is drafted into Saddams army. He doesn't want to be so he escapes. His epic escape is the plot of this book.

The Joy of Google

http://www.parvez-video.com/rumours.asp

So I spent more time working on my paper (thats due in a week) than my project that is due in like 5 weeks.

But Im hoping that I can get credit for this site.  It has to do with the Quran and what it dictates on rumors and the spreading of them.  Im using it in my paper, and if I can be clever enough maybe I can work the info into my outside reading.

My subject is on contemporary war in the middle east.  Im trying not to get too focused on the U.S occupation of Iraq (because turn on your TV or radio or read a newspaper and you're likely to have heard something about it...if not then ill assume you walk around with your eyes closed), but I did find a video on sale for 2 bucks about it and I thought "2 bucks! Netflix will cost me more"! So I bought it.

Its called "No end in Sight: Iraq's descent into chaos"  So whenever I get a free moment when im not doing something....yeah.  Ill watch it and let you know if it was worth the two dollar investment.  If not...anyone want to buy a great movie for $2.00?

On top of those thoughts, I found that when I type "contemporary war in the middle east" into google, it lets me know that the most important sites visited are those which discuss the U.S policy and approach to all wars ever created (whether they had anything to do with us or not).  Another popular trend seems to be the say how terrible our government is and how heartless we have all grown to be.  

These are all more things I would like to avoid because once again, get to any form of media and listen to a second and id bet that they are covering the same point.   Id like to present and be understood by a group or democrats, republicans, liberals, conservatives, christians, satanists, those of you who are apathetic and all of those in between.  And what does that entail?  

Paying close attention to the awareness and relativity of all that is going on, and all that is being covered.

More to come....

Safiyya

Whoa....

Anyone here ever read John Steinbeck's "East of Eden?"  I did.  But I didn't really just read it.  I obsessed over it.  Namely my obsession was focused around Kathy.  For those of you who didn't experience the pleasure that is John Steinbecks best work (thats my opinion, though really I think it should be fact), the story follows the life of a father, and his two sons as they move west and start a new life.  The boys mommy, Kathy is pretty much the devil.  Her character represents evil, and I could go on for hours about her but ill try to make this tangent a bit shorter than the last one.  

Reading through the last two chapters of "Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery," I couldn't help but notice that Safiyyas entire family, as well as the rest of the town, allows her to act the way she does.  Everyone is somewhat nuisanced by her actions, and in a lot of cases outright angered, yet everyone seems to think that there is nothing that they can do about it.  They=men.  Men in this village control just about everything else.  Safiyya=woman (and an uneducated one at that), but all of the men seem to be unable to control Safiyya.  The father in the story acknowledges that Safiyya would murder him in a second, if he stood between her and her personal vendetta.  Anyone else find this almost comical?  Women in this village function as housewives and mothers...not really as assassins.  So where is this fear coming from?  

In chimes the tangent!  In the story the priest at the monastery asks Harbi if he believes that evil sought out woman? or if it was the other way around and woman sought out evil. 

I couldn't help thinking that this story almost points out that they have a character which is evil, but the culture in this story creates this evil, and then the rest of the characters don't agree with it, don't like it...but don't do anything about it. 

Aunt Safiyya...and somewhat related tangents

About half way through the first chapter of "Aunt Safiyya and the Monastary," I found myself somewhat irritated that yet another book had been assigned that was as dull as the writings of J.R Tolkien.  It consisted of  1/4 plot, and 3/4 scenery.  No offense to Mr. Tolkien (I actually learned to enjoy most of his novels after figuring out I should have started with the Hobbit, which was much better, instead of Lord of the Rings and the appreciation may not have taken so long), but I am much less enthralled with the descriptions of trees than I am to those of characters and their relationships.  Whether in middle earth, egypt, or Mars, the character development in the story far out weights its setting (whichever it might be), and the first chapter of Aunt Safiyya almost put me to sleep with its descriptions of hills and houses.  Luckily for me, Bahaa' Taher (like Tolkien) apparently knows just how to throw a reader off.  

The second chapters depiction of the lives of the characters and their interactions had me guessing as to what was going to happen next.  I don't want to write a summery of the book because you should read it (no, really...it's required), but something that fascinated me about it, was the priorities of the characters and how often they shifted.  The three that I picked out (that repeated again and again and again) were family, religion, and pride.  Almost all interactions between the characters and events relate to one of these themes, and when all three come in conflict, each character seems to prioritize a different one.  

I do not have a lot to say about the culture I picked up during reading this, or any cultural differences I noticed, because as I said before, setting wasn't all to important to me.  This stories setting could have been plucked out of Egypt and put onto Mars, Texas, Moscow or lets say an average high school in...well anywhere really.  Humans interacted with other humans, natural human psychology occurred and human reactions ensued.  Yeah I'd like to think that pretty much sums it up.  If you would like further clarification feel free to ask.

Random other thoughts from discussions

1.  Acknowledging differences between things (inanimate or not), does not equate to condemning them (one or the other).

2.  I have two cousins, and that is as far as I know of my extended family.  Were I to have a distant cousin who became an orphan I wouldn't know, nor do I think they would know of me.  I say this because this part of the story is really beautiful to me...and then it kinda goes down hill from there.

Cheers!

Personal Thoughts on Aladdin

After watching the 50 min film "Reel Bad Arab," I found myself going through my own personal recollections of films which I had seen with Arab characters (many of which were mentioned in the film), and trying to remember what my initial reaction had been to them at first view.  One which stands out in my mind was Aladdin.  I was two years old when the film was released, but I believe I saw it for the first time when I was four years old.  I don't remember thinking anything about the lyrics (the only songs I liked were the ones sang by the genie), but I do remember being scared of Jafar.  His face had extremely sharp features and his eyes were dark and set far back into his head, and at my fragile age of four, he seemed to be the epitome of evil.  The film "Reel Bad Arab" made a strong argument against the exaggerated characteristic features that hollywood puts on arab people, stating that in making these exaggerated features, they were only furthering a stereotype.  This may be true.  Jafar represented an arab character and his features scared me as a child.  But was I scared of all arab people I saw because of Jafar? I was not.  You know why?  Because characters in animated films look nothing like real people.    I grew up in a town where we have a large arab population.  The first time I saw an Arab man at my elementary school I was not afraid of him.  Why?  Because he looked NOTHING like Jafar.  This man had a nose, eyes, ears, and mouth.  So what did I think he looked like?  Well, a human being.  The only thing that confused me about him was his head wrap.  I remember asking why he wore a hat when it wasn't winter.  He chuckled at my question, and then kindly explained how it was part of his culture, and we both went on our ways (with me being a bit more educated on a different culture).   The point of that tangent was that it is easy for people to point fingers at the media when our own cultural morals start to go awry (anyone remember video games and music being blamed for other such problem?), but when it comes down to it, fiction is still fiction.  Given that images being repeated over and over in our heads may have an effect on us, the thing which has a stronger effect... real life experience.  Watching this video did not make me feel that hollywood is the reason americans mistreat people from different cultures (though it was a helpful tool in at least getting myself to question what my first reactions were).  I think that examining our flaws as a nation with our past mistreatment of people from different ethnicities and cultures, serves as a much stronger tool than wishing that Hollywood would make movies without bad guys, or if they must, only depict them as americans (that way we wont offend anyone except ourselves). If americans are so feeble minded that they allow hollywood to make up their minds for them, then we as a nation have a much larger problem on our hands.    

Random side though... I was also afraid of The witch in Snow White, The Huns leader in Mulan,  and more recently the Hunter from the movie "Open Season".  And what do they all have in common? They all played the evil character, and so their features were usually depicted and exaggerated to show that.

I also have yet to see a blonde chick that looks as perfect as Cinderella did.  Do I ever expect to? No.  Because she is a fictitious character.