Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

Bouquets of Flowers By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel) July 30, 2006 There was a time when words just poured through the black nib of my pen. Frenzied typing in the middle of a night, essays after essays, poems after poems, as if I was intoxicated. Minutes went by. Hours vanished like a heartbeat. Words still flowed through my thumbs, pinky and middle fingers. Now only the middle finger rises up. Instead of beauty of poetry, I see mud and more mud in our decorated world living room. Uttering “F” word is crass and classless. But there is a time, a moment when the unbearable feeling of helplessness becomes too loud to muffle anymore. They look like bouquets of flowers. Wrapped up in shiny silvery wrap. Dozens of red roses for a beloved. Not one, but many of these “bouquets of flowers” were lying on the cold floor in Qana. The youngest was 10 months old. The oldest 95 years. If these were indeed flowers, they surely could have been the ignored ones that could be easily mangled and...

Mr. Samuelson's following article is informative and to the point. Global Warming is an engineering problem to be solved. However, for engineers finding solution to this increasingly disastrous problem requires social and political backing from the societies, not from any individual nation, but a cohesive and uniform approach taken by the world nations could propel engineers finding the right solution. Otherwise, all the talks are quite fruitless. Regards, Sohel Global Warming's Real Inconvenient Truth By Robert J. Samuelson "Global warming may or may not be the great environmental crisis of the next century, but -- regardless of whether it is or isn't -- we won't do much about it. We will (I am sure) argue ferociously over it and may even, as a nation, make some fairly solemn-sounding commitments to avoid it. But the more dramatic and meaningful these commitments seem, the less likely they are to be observed. Little will be done. . . . Global warming promises to b...

Since U.S. servers, cable and other telecommunication companies still dominate the Internet world by one means or another, the future of Internet hinges on this coming historic vote in U.S. Congress. The "coin-operated think tanks" and "high priced lobbyists" are employed by goliath companies for the intention of shattering net neutrality so that their already inflated coffers can get huge boost from Internet toll ways preserved for the privileged. The stake is high. On one side the net neutrality gives hope to the new innovators, regular folks with no behemoth corporate blessings to have equal access to network regardless of their views, opinions or wallet weight, on the other side the network owners "itching to become content gatekeepers", "extorting protection money from every web sites", from puny bloggers to any aspiring writers, independent film producers, small business owners, hobbyists and freethinkers. The choices are clear. Read th...

He "could have ended up in Guantánamo Bay. Instead" he "ended up at Yale." This is the fascinating real life story of Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the very famous face of Taliban, the "roving ambassador" of Afghanistan in the time of one-eyed Mullah Omar. A Talib at Yale. Like all the other of his classmates, he is learning critical reasoning, arguments, political science, philosophy, etc. Here is a memorable sentence from this article attached below: "He had been raised in a faith, buoyed at every turn by the certainty of a higher order, a purposeful universe, and now here in this shrine of critical thinking he was learning to doubt, not to believe." Doesn't it show that changing circumstances, devoid of visible destructive wars, bombs and violence, can present a man, even with a clear Taliban background new hope in life? A peaceful environment where mind can soar, heart can flutter with every new steps toward broadening one's hori...

When the apparently smooth marching toward a prosperous connected world turns into a giant mess, it is time to rethink our previously held notions of a pristine world molding in our favorable image. David Ignatius comments on the perplexed states of Westerners seeing the contradictory imageries in the Middle East, where the high skyscrapers and suited-booted Arabs with similarly matched colorful knotted ties with their counterparts shines the light on Western nations' generated "democracy". Violent protests on the streets by the "unconnected" on the very same Western policies propped up by the client rulers and monarchs on the indigenous citizens and their livelihoods in the name of "globalizing" the "uncivilized" Arabs illumine the necessary stark contrast between reality and elitist hyperboles. Rage over injustice is not as bad as the willful creation of diversion is. Prophesizing and dictating "others" while not holding on t...

Now that The New York Times editorial has taken up the issue that is quite an old one from last year, perhaps some heads will begin to roll. Powerful lobby groups are involved from lucrative food and other related industries in favor of Aspartame for many years whose one of the pioneer was in-"credible" Donald Rumsfeld, the current U.S. Defense Secretary. For the sake of public safety, and to save millions of people from unnecessary deaths from cancer which is most likely linked with this seemingly hazardous but camouflaged as innocuous sweetener is not a mundane issue. Perhaps, aspartame is as safe as any other supposedly safest products in the market. But, still, we the people have the right to demand an absolute fair scientific investigation on aspartame. Regards, Sohel Note: More information on aspartame can be found from the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspartame The Safety of Aspartame Aspartame, an artificial sweetener used by more than 200 m...

The argument in Fareed Zakaria's following article is powerful. Europe is in decline in almost every aspects of human civilization. Dwindling human resources, aging population, fierce trade competition from India and China, its constant hold of massive farm subsidies, political unwillingness in needed social and economic reform, these all are contributing to the slow progression toward fall from old "colonial grace". Add the growing anti-immigrant bubbles into this linear equation, and the proverbial "final solution" becomes clearer. During the time of Hitler, it was the Jewish folks who were categorically put into linchpin for Germany's misfortune. Move forward close to seven decades into a new century, and the ever wobbling political wheel of exploitation slowly but surely trudging along toward the new "enemy", the darkened colored, "freedom of speech denying", embassy burning, "terrorist" Muslims. Perhaps, cartoons are the...

Behind all these visible agitations in the Muslim nations and Western citizens' growing discomfort on violent reactions by extremist Muslims on the cartoon issue, lay dormant the calculated plans and strategies of neocon masterminds. Islamophobia, like other types of phobias in the past is part of that same historical ploys where the political and intellectual thugs are engaged in brutal chess like game, invoking "modernity", in the present scenario as "Freedom of Speech", in the past, "blood libel" and other crowd inciting provocations to further their grandiose plan. Extremists of all forms are in the forefront, from Iran's Ahmedinizad and ubiquitous lingering shadow of Bin Laden, to Europe's anti-immigrant right wing political blocks along with American despots in the highest government echelon, they are all playing with fire, quite masterfully one may say. Regards, Sohel The Cartoons and the Neocon Daniel Pipes and ...