Sugar Cubes

Kids learn from what they see. The Exhibit will provide them with a first-hand opportunity to see how relationships are impacted by differences. This exposure will allow them to understand the importance of human relationships no matter your cultural background, to wittness professional photographic visual art, and finally, to engage students in the discussion about the Middle East dynamics.

-Dr, Gregory Mass
Superintendent of Schools
Fond du Lac School District

Click on image to view powerful images that tell touching stories of people on both sides, the Palestinian and the Israeli. Well, it’s funny that the occupier has some “touching” stories to tell too, who thought the truth can be double faced?
Yup, please feel free to skip the irritating pictures of Israelis who, unfortunately, didn’t think they’ll have to pay.

One of them is Kate Burton, a human right worker and the other two are said to be her parents.

Demonstrators in Gaza City hold banners demanding freedom for the
kidnapped British human rights worker Kate Burton.
Photograph: Abid Katib/Getty

Unlike previous kidnappings of westerners in Gaza, usually resolved within hours, the kidnappers made no contact with the authorities to make demands or arrange for the release of Kate Burton, 25, and her parents Hugh and Helen. They were snatched by seven armed men in Rafah, a deprived town in a very poor area.

Read More:

I truely feel sorry for her, for her family and for Palestinians who are under enough pressures already. The last thing they need is human rights workers discouraged and departing after this unfortunate incident took place. Lets not forget the ISM workers who were kidnapped while in Iraq too.

Etisalat yesterday unblocked the web site of the UK’s most popular newspaper, The Sun.

The company had blocked the web site following “requests from members of the public”. Web sites can be blocked if they are deemed offensive

The Sun told 7DAYS its website had been blocked due to pictures of “Colleen McCloughlin [fiancee of footballer Wayne Rooney] that were too hot for some unnamed politicians and a couple of residents even though she was pictured in some frilly dress.”

[Source]

They blocked the newspaper Website because of a picture of some “too hot” woman??

-There’s something I wanna tell you but not now

-Tell me now

-6ab are you in a good mood first?

-Just tell me (I wasn’t in a good mood)

-Father bought me a SIM card

-[I said something rude then went on and on about how wrong was what they all did]

-[She of course started giving lame excuses of why she needs a mobile phone]

-Look, your know you’re wrong ok? I don’t wanna hear anything, lets just hurry up they’re waiting for us.

My little sister is only 14 year-old, my father has already got her a SIM card and will buy her a mobile phone soon.

*Sigh*

How the hell am I suppose to shop when 5 men have absolutely nothing to do except getting as much close as possible, and annoy the hell out of me while I check out a cool jacket or an elegant skirt? I’ll tell you the answer, I can not, I’ll just flee that is if I didn’t decide not to enter the shop upon seeing the sales persons who are looking at me in anticipation even before they see me heading towards their shop.

Anyways…

So I watched Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire with my brother (who initially wanted to watch Saw 2) right after I came from work, I’m actually exhausted and too sleepy (I might fall asleep on the keyboard any minute) but I thought I’d blog something for the sake of all my loyal readers outhere since I haven’t been as active in the last week (fine, so I’m afraid to lose the very few readers who have stumbled upon my blog by mistake, and hope to read something interesting once in a while :-p ). The movie was more than great, I just loved it so much that the 4/5 Naseem gave for it sounded much less than it deserves. And to my surprise, I laughed a lot.

I have a confession to make though, I have never read any of Harry Potter’s books and only watched the first part of the movie.

To me, it is hurtful to have to deal with people whom you would like to teach when — pretending to themselves that they seek knowledge — they only want a social community, friendship, ‘togetherness’, attention and the like.

All these things are delightful: and all the more delightful when consciously indulged in, rather than found by means of deception. Deception in this case is pretending to oneself that one is studying when one is seeking stimuli.

Such people may have the capacity to learn. But they overlay it with shallow aims. They may have been trained to seek smaller satisfactions and to give them grand names. They may, on the other hand, simply be carrying on the demands of babyhood. Rumi said: ‘When will you cease coveting nuts and raisins?’

The condition can be so well established that people are to all intents and purposes unconscious of its presence.

Sufis jolt people from this ’sleep’. Such shocks are often experienced as hurtful - until they take effect, when we are always grateful that we have been allowed to encounter them. What is in fact hurtful to humanity does not necessarily feel hurtful at the time. Self-deception is the chief of these.

JERUSALEM, (Reuters) - Israel announced plans on Monday to expand two Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank despite a ban on such construction in a U.S.-led plan for peace with the Palestinians.

The Housing Ministry published tenders inviting contractor bids to develop 150 plots for single family homes in Beitar Illit settlement. A further 78 plots were offered in Givat Zayit, part of the settlement of Efrat.

The U.S.-led peace “road map” requires a freeze on expansion of settlements in occupied land where Palestinians seek statehood. The Palestinians have also failed to meet their own obligation under the plan to crack down on militant groups

Beitar Illit and Efrat are part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, which Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has vowed to keep under any final accord with the Palestinians.

U.S. President George W. Bush has said Israel could expect to keep some settlements under any such deal.

Palestinians say this would deny them a viable state in the West Bank, where some 245,000 settlers live among 2.4 million Palestinians, and imperil efforts to restart peace talks. [Continue]

1. Act out your version of a company takeover.

Tried the kitchen, all cupboards were closed!

2. Find a way to change everyone’s password to “chrysanthemum”.

Only if somebody spelled that for me over the phone.

3. Around 3:20am, play connect-the-dots with lights still on in other office buildings. Keep going until you see a small woodland creature.

Maybe tomorrow I will

4. Sneaking in the boss’s desk could land you an unexpected promotion.

I scare him already, no need to give him a good reason for that.

5. Draw stick people in all the landscape pictures on the walls, and in the morning, be the first to point out “what a terrible thing that someone did this to such beautiful works of art”.

ummm we don’t have paintings, can I glue personal mails on each employee’s table? it would be fun to watch them trying to open letters without carrying them, with one hand, hopefully tearing what’s inside the envelope…especially letters sent to their spouses.

6. Go into the other gender’s bathroom without fear of being caught.

I thought of that today, but the thought scared the hell out of me.

7. Run up and down the hallways screaming, hoping security will come so you can have someone to talk to.

Security are boring.

8. Leave prank messages on the CEO’s voice mail.

My telephone number will appear, bad idea.

9. Finally, a chance to live out a dream and pretend to be your boss.

No thanks, that would be a nightmare with employees like me.

10. Elevator surfing!

We don’t have one, luckily may I add. I dislike elevators.

The Awakening is a highly powerful and original work by Kim Hoa Tram. It deals with the Buddhist concept of spiritual awakening to the impermanence of life, and death itself.

A living bird and a dead bird are repeated in a sequence as the narrative unfolds in four panels that are read from right to left. It progresses upward in crescendo from a baby bird crying helplessly beside a dead bird; a young bird shouting or screaming in shock; an older bird staring at the dead bird, as if coming to some kind of realization. Finally in the last panel, the wise old bird is perched on a branch near the top of the painting, with an enigmatic expression of acceptance.

The silence that is conveyed by the void in the fourth panel is as emotionally intense as the scream in the second panel. The bird has been used as a vehicle to express human emotions in the confrontation of ‘death’. The images express what is beyond words.

[Source]

Bethlehem walled off by Israel this Christmas

BETHLEHEM, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Pilgrims travelling the ancient route from Jerusalem to Bethlehem this Christmas will find themselves hitting a dead end — a towering concrete wall and metal gate under the lock and key of the Israeli army.

The dusty road to the town of Jesus’s birth has been the gateway to Bethlehem since biblical times and would have been the likely path taken by Mary and Joseph. But today it leads to what the mayor of Bethlehem calls “the world’s largest prison”.

At the entrance is a brand new military crossing where for the first time this Christmas pilgrims and local Christians will pass through X-ray machines (more on X-ray machines) before emerging into Bethlehem from behind eight-metre (26-feet) high concrete walls.

“If Mary and Joseph were here today, they would go through the checkpoint just like everybody else,” said Sister Erica, a nun, at the crossing.

Bethlehem is marking its first Christmas since being walled off from adjacent Jerusalem by an internationally condemned barrier Israel erected with the avowed aim of preventing Palestinian suicide bombers from infiltrating its cities. [More…]

Today’s Joseph and Mary would face 15 checkpoints

THE road from Nazareth to Bethlehem begins by dropping down from a ridge south of Galilee into the Jezreel Valley, looking out across Jordan and Samaria.

….But first you slam into a checkpoint. The first, that is, of 15 Israeli military roadblocks and mobile checkpoints that now control passage along the roads south from Nazareth.

It is a huge yellow gate at Jalame, close to the old, invisible, green line that separated Israel and the West Bank before Ariel Sharon’s “separation” strategy gave birth to the million-pound-a-mile razor wire and concrete barrier that Israel has built around — and deep into — the West Bank. The gate at Jalame — the northern edge of this “security fence” (Israeli ) or “apartheid wall” (Palestinian) is flanked by a watchtower and razor wire. But it swings open unusually quickly upon the production of foreign passports and press cards and the car slips through.

Inside Bethlehem, goodwill is hard to find. Since the outbreak of the intifada in September 2000 Christmas celebrations have been dismal, Dr Victor Batarseh, the town’s mayor, says, pointing to a dwindling Christian population and the rising wall. “Now Bethlehem has become a big prison for its citizens. We are remembered one day a year. On Christmas Eve all the world speaks of Bethlehem but they give nothing to us. Nothing.” [Read full article]

Bethlehem mayor lacks Christmas celebration funds

Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh on Thursday accused the Palestinian Authority of failing to provide financial assistance to his city as it prepares to celebrate Christmas.

In an urgent letter to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, Batraseh called for solving Bethlehem’s financial crisis as soon as possible. He pointed out that the new municipality has not received any funds from the PA since the last elections in May.

He also complained about Israeli security measures around the city, which, he added, are threatening to spoil the atmosphere in Bethlehem on the eve of Christmas. [More…]

Christmas behind Israel’s wall

Every year on the morning of Dec. 25, the Latin Patriarch and a host of Church dignitaries head southward from Jerusalem via an ancient road to Bethlehem. But this year, the procession will pass through a metal gate topped with rolls of barbed wire, normally closed but opened briefly so as not to impede the tradition. [More…]

I Have Come to Bring You Peace

I have come to bring you peace.
Not the peace of the season, for it is too fleeting,
Not the peace of the carol, for it is nostalgic,
Not the peace of the greeting card, for it is too slick,
Not the peace of the crib, for it is too wistful.

Rather, I have come to bring you peace,
Peace of the ordinary, the daily, the homely,
Peace for the worker, the driver, the student,
Peace in the office, the kitchen, the farm.

Without peace, my coming is unfulfilled.
Without peace, my birth is forgettable.
Without peace, Christmas is a contradiction.
I have come to bring you peace.*

*From the Advent Prayer

Happy holidays for all, wish you peace, health and contentment and may you live to see a better Christmas in the city of Jesus.