Paulo Coelho’s Feminine Divine

September 30, 2005

As much as I enjoy reading his books and indulging in his modern philosophisies about life and how to live it, at some points he bores me and makes me wonder if somebody who believes in such and such (things I totally disagree with!) is worth reading for. But in the end, I decide that even if he ruined it for me a couple of times while reading still he inspired me in one way or another, I just take what I like and agree with.

If he can only stop talking about The lady and the feminine God, his books will be much more enjoyable as well as agreeable. It’s becoming boooooring and repetitive in a way that I started to believe he’s actually trying to manipulate readers’ minds and impose his personal beliefs on the reader in every way possible. I don’t blame anyone for banning his books, except that by banning them his books are more demanded!

In his last book Al Zahir, he once says that “The girl”, he insists it was a girl according to the man who saw her, said she’s neither a girl nor a boy. But he keeps talking about her and I wonder if she said she’s not a female nor a male why does he choose to consider she’s a girl? When he described his journey to Almaty, all he was talking about was women, it was very obvious how he tried to portray women as a higher human-being class, it made me sick honestly. When I started to read By the river piedra I sat and wept I thought it was only that particular book, but then it turned out that he’s so obsessed about this divine feminine ideology. He takes everything, manipulate it, add to it and in the end he reaches to the same morale of the story, Mary is a God, nature is a woman, women rule, marriage is pure friendship that does not bound you to anything (I call that animality).

The Zahir was all good and interesting until the last chapter which I strongly believe was the worst and was so unnecessary, on the contrast, it was both boring and shallow, it nearly killed it.

Tags: Paulo Coelho

Timbaland

He’s really really talented and when I’m in the mood I enjoy his remarkable-easily recognized sound tracks for the various hip-hop and rap songs. Regardless of the content of the majority of the songs he produced, I admire his unique style and his talent. I’ve just knew that he also produced for Aaliyah “Try again”, “We need a resolution” and others. He also worked with Limp Bizkit and produced “Jigga what” by Jay Z, I think he will make an exceptional success if he shifted to soft rock instead of sticking to hip-hop only. Besides, I really prefer soft rock to hip-hop, especially that all rap and hip-hop are almost identical.

Read more about Timbaland

Tags: Timbaland

Even light smokers risk disease and death

A recent study squashes the common belief that light smokers escape the serious health consequences faced by heavier smokers. According to the study, smoking just one to four cigarettes per day nearly triples the risk of dying from heart disease or lung cancer.

There is widespread belief among the lay public that a few cigarettes per day cannot harm them but this is not true. Researchers from the National Health Screening Service, USA, tracked the health and death rates of close to 43,000 men and women from the mid 1970s until 2002. All of them were in their 30s and 40s at the start of the study when they were screened for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The researchers found that both men and women who smoked between one and four cigarettes a day were almost three times as likely to die of heart disease as were individuals who never smoked.

The impact appeared greatest in women. Women who smoked one to four cigarettes a day were nearly five times as likely to die of lung cancer, and men smoking this amount were almost three times as likely to die of the disease as their non-smoking peers. Light smokers also had significantly higher death rates from all causes compared to never smokers.

For decades, it has been known that light smoking endangers health. In these studies, however, light smoking has been defined as smoking one to nine cigarettes per day.

The results from this and other studies should encourage smoking control policymakers and health educators to more strongly emphasise that light smokers are also putting their health in jeopardy.

Tobacco Control,
September 2005

Source

Tags: Tobacco, Smoking

September 29, 2005

Maybe your luck has changed
Settle down
Maybe I’m just deranged
And on the rebound
Maybe love was the thing
Holding me back from all
Maybe I’m just the thing
To break my own fall
Take the rope to my heart and fall
You may just be the last before you
See the black tangled heart fall

Maybe departure’s good
Makes room for more
Start to mass produce
For a chance to ignore
Maybe you’ll kill yourself
Before I get a turn
Maybe I’ll fall in love
And never learn

Take the rope to my heart and fall
You may just be the last before you
See the black tangled heart fall

Take the rope to my heart and fall
You may just be the last before you
See the black tangled heart fall

She seemed so brave, deciding to tie the knot, close the doors once and for all. That was really smart. She was concerned about her dress, her make up and whether she looks pretty. When I called her before the party she said pray I look pretty please! She’s a beauty, what difference can one day make anyway…

She thought I’m not gonna be there and I wonder why she thought so. I guess I never was able to express how much people mean to me, very little people understand how my heart functions. I might be always short on words but she should have known I wouldn’t miss her engagement party for the world. She’s offically a Mrs now.

I wanted to cry while in car but I didn’t. I thought that if I cried and my brother asked me why am I crying I wouldn’t know the answer…I can’t say its because my friend is getting married! thats stupid, she’s getting married and I cry???

I still need to cry but I can’t find the place nor the time to feel that its safe to cry.

Ana Dana Ana Dandan

September 27, 2005

Because I don’t wanna be jailed for distributing porn movies online, I’ll only post a link to the song without the video clip. Also, its healthier this way.

bo9 3alayya

Can our level of morals, taste AND IQ get any lower than that??

If you insist, picture a french maid, only she’s Arab.

Making way for two White House dramas

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A new TV show starring Oscar-winner Geena Davis as America’s first female president, juggling career and family while holding Republican enemies at bay, is drawing Internet fire from conservatives and feminists alike.

But the big question among network executives is whether there is room enough in prime time for two White House dramas. “Commander In Chief” premieres on Tuesday on ABC following the return on Sunday of NBC’s Emmy-winning White House drama “The West Wing.”

Read More

I don’t find West Wing interesting and I doubt I’ll enjoy the new series. Sometimes I wonder on what basis do our channels choose their programs, West Wing is aired on One TV, a Dubai based channel in case you don’t know.

Tags: Geena Davis, Commander in chief, West Wing

Jordan Particpates at the World Oriental Music Festival

You can vote for Jordan’s song A7la Layali by Amer Al Khuffash by sending the number “10″ by SMS (Fastlink 91183 / MobileCom 92383). Cost per message is JD 0.20.

To listen to the song go to the Website WOMF and click on “Participants”, then select Jordan.

Voting ends Sept. 29 at 8:00 PM

I haven’t listened to anything yet but I hope its worthy, spread the word please.

Tags: Jordan,

September 26, 2005

I’m not used to this. Waking up 5:30 AM and returning home by 7 PM, being a night person I’m totally not used. The journey by car takes about 1.5 hr and God have mercy on us you gotta see the jam. I’m recovering though, its just that I’m used to stay up all night and after the first day I slept for 5 hours from 8 to 1 and thats only because the day before I stayed up and slept for a couple of hours during the day, today I slept from 8 to 10 and I have no clue if I’ll ever be able to go back to bed. I forced myself to wake up so that I can see my eldest brother and his wife, they were on a vacation outside the UAE and I strangely missed him.

On Wednesday I’m going to Gitex business exibition as part of my new job as an IT procurement specialist, I like the job title so much :p
I don’t like the fact that I’ve never been to Gitex before, thanks to my brothers who had always other plans which involved them, Gitex and no me.

Seems like in a month I’ll be responsible for purchasing IT components for seven big companies owned by our group (our is only figurative), follow up with invoices, delivery reports and memos, recieve complaints and feedback about what I bought, know whats in our store and what is not. I’m sort of worried but I’m determined to learn everything quickly.

My sleep is very disturbed these days. I’m not really awake neither asleep but I have nightmares and delusions.

Musical mood: Jimmy Eat World-Over

THE Truth

September 24, 2005

About 1 out of every 5 deaths in the US can be attributed to tobacco products.

$72 billion was spent on tobacco related products by consumers in the U.S. in 1999.

Every eight seconds, someone in the world dies due to tobacco.

Every day about 2000 youths become daily smokers.

Every year cigarettes leave about 31,000 kids fatherless.

Every day about 4,400 kids age 12 to 17 try a cigarette for the first time.

Of current smokers in the U.S., 46,000 have lung cancer from smoking.

In 1999, one year after agreeing to stop billboard advertising, tobacco companies increased advertising spending by 33 percentin magazines with more than 15 percent youth readership.

In 1990, 72 million bottles of a popular mineral water were voluntarily recalled because of small traces of benzene. The smoke from one pack of unfiltered cigarettes has as much benzene as 169 bottles of the contaminated water.

How do infants avoid secondhand smoke? “At some point they begin to crawl.” – Tobacco Executive 1996

In as little as 2 weeks nicotine changes the brains chemistry and addiction can begin.

In 2001, tobacco companies spent about $11 billion marketing their products. That’s about $1.5 billion more than the year before.

In 1990, a tobacco company put together a plan to stop Coroners from listing tobacco as a cause of death on a death certificate.

Cigarette smoke contains 69 chemical compounds that are known cause cancer.

There are about 12,711,000 current and former smokers in the U.S. with a tobacco related disease in the.

There are about 5,412,000 current smokers with a tobacco related disease in the U.S.

1 out of 3 smokers are estimated to eventually die from a tobacco-related disease.

Of current smokers in the U.S., 1,273,000 have emphysema from smoking.

Over 50,000 people a year die from secondhand smoke in the US alone.

Cigarette smoke contains the radioactive isotope Polonium-210.

In 1989, millions of cases of imported fruit were banned after a small amount of cyanide was found in just two grapes. There’s thirty-three times morecyanide in a single cigarette than was found in those two grapes.

An internal tobacco company marketing report from 1989 said quote “We believe that most of the strong, positive images for cigarettes and smoking are created by cinema and television.”

In the mid 90’s, a major tobacco company planned on boosting sales of their cigarettes by targeting a new consumer market: gays and homeless people. They called their plan Project Sub-Culture Urban Marketing. Also known as Project SCUM.

Cigarettes will eventually kill a third of the people who use them.

Tobacco signage is often placed at a child’s eye level.

One tobacco company developed a genetically altered tobacco with twice the addictive nicotine of regular tobacco. They code-named it “Y-1.”

In 1984, one tobacco company referred to new customers as “replacement smokers.”

Over 80 percent of all adult smokers started smoking before they turned 18.

Tobacco companies make $1.8 billion from under age sales.

Pee contains urea. Some tobacco companies add urea to cigarettes.

Tobacco companies make a product that kills 440,000 Americans a year.

Tobacco companies make a product that kills 1,200 Americans a day.

2,000 teens start smoking everyday.

Tobacco companies make a product that kills about 50Americans each hour.

In the 1970s, tobacco companies started making light cigarettes by putting tiny holes in the filters to let extra air mix with the smoke. They found they could get low readings of toxic agents from FTC-type cigarette testing machines.

In 1980, a tobacco company considered looking at itself as a “drug company.”

Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S.

Every 8 seconds, someone in the world dies from tobacco.

Since 1964 there have been 12 million tobacco related deaths in the U.S.

Smoking during pregnancy results in the deaths of about 1000 infants each year in the U.S.

70 percent of smokers want to quit. Only about 5 percent actually succeed every year.

The impact of nicotine is jacked up because tobacco companies add ammonia.

In the 1980s, tobacco companies started working on making fire-safe cigarettes. Ones that would be less likely to ignite furniture or clothing and cause fires. As of 2002, only one of the hundreds of U.S. cigarette brands uses fire safe technology, and cigarettes are still the number one cause of fire-related deaths.

Every year, 95 percent of people who try to stop smoking are not successful.

In the US, smoking causes about 445 new cases of lung cancer every day.

Tobacco kills more Americans than AIDS, drugs, homicides, fires, and auto accidents combined.

Cigarette smoke contains benzene, carbon monoxide, arsenic, hydrogen cyanid

Seek the Truth

Tags: The truth, Smoking, Tobacco