nomes says:
damn, i never knew supporting israel was in the bible
nomes says:
he has me sold
nomes says:
now i’m going to do all i can to support it

(refer to yaser’s post here)

today marks the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of malcolm x

forty years ago, malcolm was shot several times as he began delivering a speech

if malcolm were alive today he would be 79, about to turn 80 soon (in may)

there’s a lot i want to say but i don’t think i’ll be able to make a coherent statement anytime soon

malcolm x, el-hajj malik el-shabazz (may 19, 1925 – feb. 21, 1965)

rest in peace

here’s this great speech that spider-man made in amazing spider-man #135, published in august 1974 (written by gerry conway, illustrated by ross andru) — while and after he was fighting the tarantula, essentially a political assassin/terrorist/mercenary

one of my favourite quotations (it’s the last line) of all time comes up in this comic

Tarantula: Mockery? You dare mock me? Don’t you realize who — what — I am?

Spider-Man: Sure I do, buster — you’re a first class creep — a traitor to your own friends, men who were trying to free their people from a dictatorship — heroes whose boots you aren’t fit to shine!

You know something, “amigo” — it’s bums like you who give revolution a bad name.

Sick little criminals — who don’t give a hang about the cause they’re fighting for — who only care about themselves — and their own twisted egos.

Sure, I know who you are … and punk … so do you.

Punisher: That was quite a speech, my friend.

Spider-Man: Punisher…? When did you sneak up?

Punisher: Right after “heroes whose boots he isn’t fit to shine“. Do you believe all that, Wall-crawler? Are you truly that idealistic?

Spider-Man: Yeah, I’m idealistic — and I’ll stay idealistic until something better comes along.

(while he was making the “speech” he was wiping the floor with tarantula’s face)

daily dose of sanjeyan, as quoted by saqib:

ksnite says:
you know something … if you really pay attention, you can kind of notice that noaman is into spider-man — just kind of though…

this story i read really moved me, i’m amazed (thanks fahad)

Humanitarian to a Nation

Starting in 1951 with a tiny dispensary in Karachi�s poor Mithadar neighborhood, Edhi has steadily built up a nationwide organization of ambulances, clinics, maternity homes, mental asylums, homes for the physically handicapped, blood banks, orphanages, adoption centers, mortuaries, shelters for runaway children and battered women, schools, nursing courses, soup kitchens and a 25-bed cancer hospital.

it struck my as almost surreal that such a person could exist, that with the limited resources he has and the atmosphere in pakistan, he could do so much

it makes me wonder if we, here in the west with so much more, are doing nearly enough (and no, we’re not — the fundamental problem is not that of wealth or resources but that of distribution, and in as far as that problem exists nothing even remotely near enough is being done)

“My religion is humanitarianism�.. Which is basis of every religion in this world”. (sic)

– Abdul Sattar Edhi

and in other news:

nomes says:
girls come and go…
nomes says:
well, they go more often than they come
ksnite says:
actually, we come and they go

Students rally for post-secondary education

“Education is a fundamental right, it’s not to be bargained with or traded,” Noaman Ali, 19, of the University of Toronto said. “Its shouldn’t be made into a commodity.”

today, saqib hooked up with sanjeyan and i at the rally for reducing tuition fees (or at least, against increasing them)

it was, for each of us, the first time at a demonstration, and it was a lot of fun

we were carrying ASSU‘s banner that read, “education is a right”

we started out in front of con hall, marched around king’s college circle, then went down st. george street to college, and along college to queen’s park

we took our banner and aligned it so that it was parallel to the marching, at the left side of the march — this way, the cars going on the other side of the road could see what was on it
we also made sure that when we passed by streetcars we raised the banner so that all those inside could read it (and get annoyed that we were blocking their view of what it was that was blocking them) — it was quite “in your face”

once we reached queen’s park, outside the legislature, we found a snow bank and stood atop of it holding out our banner — we sank into the snow at a rate of one inch every eight minutes — we were on the left flank of the protestors

one of the speakers was mary anne chambers (minister in charge of postsecondary education), she came up and made a speech, after which students from carleton offered her a mock-up giant “promise ring” to remind her to keep her promises
the minister refused the ring, at which point i started a chant “wear the ring! wear the ring!” — yes, i felt proud of that — but she didn’t take the ring

at one point a reporter for centennial college’s toronto observer asked me for a comment (i suppose my comments, if published, will be there in the next edition)

one of the speakers, a representative from cupe, started off with a most excellent introduction, “brothers, sisters, COMRADES!” — he was apparently an arab, very enthusiastic, with an incredible accent and booming voice that made everyone listen

we almost felt like starting a revolution right there and then

and after the protest a reporter from roger’s cable local tv (markham/richmond hill) went around looking for a student from markham or richmond hill, and it seems i’m the only one she found, so she took me away and i gave her an interview
that will be on tv tomorrow, and no one will watch it anyway

after the protest, sanjeyan and i dragged the assu banner in front of the sidney smith wraparounds (front and back) with their floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and got people inside to watch as we walked around

later, saqib, sanjeyan and i used a couple of free lunch coupons we had to get the most expensive food we could from sscaf� — a couple of subs from mr. sub — and had a feast, or a reasonable approximation thereof

after that we went around postering for ut-tern’s movie night (we’re showing big fish — two dollars — all proceeds go to tsunami relief:
monday, feb 7, six pm, ss2118
come out and support, and watch a great movie too)

and after that i went to class, and sanjey and saqib went home

it was a great day, because sanjey typically strikes me as someone who stays away from the political — and it was great to see him chanting along, and i don’t get to see saqib much (i’ve only seen him once on campus by chance before), so it was most excellent, as far as days go

i was thinking about the devastation caused by the tsunami — 120,000 people dead in a matter of a few days — and i was thinking about what i could do to help using my position as a member of student government

i then realized that — and this is by no means meant to discount the severity of the current disaster — tens of thousands of people, at an average rate of 24,000 (according to the hunger site) people die per day from hunger

that is to say, every five days, 120,000 people die from hunger

tsunamis, earthquakes, fire, floods — these are things that we can never prevent, we can only deal with them after the fact

but things like hunger, malnutrition, lack of clean water, disease– these are all things that can and should be prevented before hand

yes, two people died in somalia because of the tsunami, but odds are they would’ve died from hunger, warfare, disease or polluted water anyway

why does it take some major act of nature for us to focus more on the plight of the poor and misplaced? why must our charity be reactionary in nature? and most importantly, what can we really do?

if we want to live our lives, we can’t constantly fret and be concerned about the people “over there”

it’s all fine and dandy when something like this occurs, then we can turn our attention to it for a few days — it stays on the radar, it stays on the news, because it’s hollywood … a tsunami, an earthquake, a tornado, a flood — these are all things that could very perceivably happen to us, or at least, we can see ourselves as the protagonists in a movie about such things

but can you truly envision yourself dying from hunger? from a second-rate instant-cure disease like malaria?

i know i don’t take the time to think about it, i’m probably more guilty of such behaviour than most people

but it really is something to think about

every five days, 120,000 people die from hunger — it doesn’t take american bombs or south-east asian tsunamis to do it

i once had a dream where i was in a hilly region (i could tell by the way the buildings were arranged)

my viewpoint was from the top of a hill looking into a town

and there were nazi flags hanging from some of the buildings and nazi insignias sprayed around

i recognized the region as northern india, some place like kashmir (i’ve never been there so i have no idea why)

and in case you may think that i was confusing the nazi swastika with the hindu swastik — that’s when the german tanks rolled into town

i think i was involved in some kind of resistance against the germans

now i know that the second world war hadn’t spread as far as india, and so i woke up and thought that was an odd dream

but that was long before i read about this

so adam recently asked me why i don’t update my blog more often

it’s a good question

i think it’s a combination of the fact that few people read it, there’s too much spam on it, and that i don’t know what to say

of course, most people who know me know that i have plenty to say

i suppose when i started the blog it was because it was a cool thing to do and because i needed a place to rant

the latter role has been taken up more and more by friends, with whom i engage in discussion and to whom i make long-winded rants (mostly on msn)

that is, just a couple of people, mostly sanjeyan (when he’s on this plane of existence) and yaser

having said that, i will copy here a post i made on a message board about the loss of suprnova.org:

i am shocked and dismayed at the news of suprnova going down

there is really little any of us can say that could sum up this loss

it was suprnova that gave us the bittorrent outlet — it took us in after kazaa and p2p became slow and onerous

it was suprnova that gave us our first comics and introduced us to z-cult

it was suprnova that embodied many of our hopes and dreams of a free planet ruled by the people and not the corporations

alas, another blow, but “we must go forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom” (simpsons)

amen

(z-cult is a comics bittorrent community)

the mpaa and riaa have been going after bittorrent sites now that they’ve taken care of kazaa and other p2p networks

they simply don’t understand that they can’t stop the revolution

something funny that the mpaa’s director of “antipiracy” operations, john malcolm, said:

These people are parasites, leeching off the creative activity of others…

for a second there i thought he was talking about the bloated corporations that garner insane profits from motion pictures and record sales, the ones that stunt creativity and undermine independent creators

i guess he didn’t see the irony of his statement

the federal government announced a surplus of 9.1 billion dollars that will go toward debt reduction (the debt sits at about 500 billion dollars)

meanwhile, ontario hospitals face a shortfall of 600 million dollars this year

600,000,000/9,100,000,000 = 6.60%

i can imagine how many social programs around the country could use just a little bit of those 9.1 billion dollars

i want my tax dollars to bail out my hospitals and my tuition fees rather than marginally affect the amount of years it takes to pay off the debt so that rich people can get richer