The Brotherhood of Durazi

Kokyou AWARD08

2008-10-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

During my stay in Tokyo. i got the fortunate chance of visiting the Imperial residence know as Kokyo. here I'm sharing some of it's beauty

OsakaJO

2008-10-03T01:44:00.000-07:00

I've had the pleasure of going to Japan on a program supported by the JAPAN FOUNDATION. The name of the program is Japanese Language Program for Overseas students, it's a 2 week program where participants get to experience culturally significant aspects of japan, Advanced Research centers, as well as learn some of the accents used in various regions in japan.

One of the most beautiful places we visited was OsakaJO-Osaka Castle-. This castle is nearly 5 centuries old, it lies in Kansai region, Osaka. The area covered by OsakaJO is About 60,000 square meters.

let me show you the path a walked through to reach OsakaJO

The weather was sunny, a fine day, just seeing all that green i felt great. I showed the pictures i took to my Japanese teacher and he said your pictures are different no Japanese person would have taken pictures of trees like i did:P

Here we see friendly Japanese school children-wave back to them-.

Here the dried up moat that used to surrounded OsakaJO. it's so green, i could hardly believe my eyes.

And ladies and gentlemen introducing OsakaJO-he's 500 years old cut him some slack-.

Of course he's been bombed and rebuilt several times.

The view on the last floor is very beautiful, the wind is so strong their-you'll notice warning singes-

these are very big gold statues-taller than me- inside OsakaJO-

Hope you enjoined OsakaJO, I'm a bit lazy to write more, I'll try to post more often tho :D. till we meet again, matte ne:D

Corporations feeding of us

2008-05-24T04:19:00.000-07:00

*I’m not going to state the name of the company I’m referring to I’ll name it DRestaurant *

Now day’s corporatocracy has greatly affected our way of life-Bahrain as a case study-I believe that instead of it serving us, we are serving it. It has molded our life to produce for it; it is consuming us and feeding of us. Let me give you an example, it’s just something that hit me all of a sudden, once in a Japanese class my teacher said in Japan, people who work at DRestaurant’s are all Japanese so we don’t get a chance to practice English like in Bahrain. Let us think in Bahrain DRestaurant came as foreign company and got foreign labor-cheap labor-and is making prophet from Bahrain’s economy, has DRestaurant been beneficial to Bahrain as it has to Japan? I think not! in Japan it provided decent jobs for the people of Japan ,here in Bahrain they bring people from the far east and pay them very low wages, all that adds up to people who own the company getting richer and our people’s life degraded, this is a corporation that is actively consuming of our generation, we are consumers only. We don’t share DRestaurant’s fate, when the state of Bahrain degrades, DRestaurant will leave Bahrain. I met a lady who works their, she was from Philippines, I asked about how her job was, she said she didn’t like it and wanted to leave as soon as her contract finishes, I said you should try studying and getting a degree so that you could get a better job-ya3ni- she replied saying that she had a degree in Computer Science, I was like何!!!!!!!-WHAT-. This is the world we live in now day

Economic Hit Man

2007-11-03T01:02:00.000-07:00

I'm going to talk about a book I'm reading.
the books name is Confessions of an economic hit man by john Perkins.
the author of the books claims the following; he says that he used work as an economic hit man. and told of his stories. he hopes for redemption for all the suffering that he brought to other people
he explained a mechanism that the united states government uses to control natural resources of a country.
the first mechanism is economic control, this is where our friend John Perkins comes in, he was an economic hit man"EHM"; an EHM basically tries to go to a country and tries giving it as big a loan from the American controlled world bank as possible to be used for building projects to aid in the countries development for example, electric power plants and oil refineries. The catch is that the companies that build these projects have to be American and the nations that take those loans can't pay them back. the author gives Ecuador as an example, for every 100$ of oil profits that come from Ecuador's natural reserves 75$ go in to the American company that manges it the rest goes to the Ecuadorian government, most of which is spent by the military

the second mechanism is initiated when EHMs fail, the second mechanism is called jackles, jackles are people that are native to the country to which the American government is interested in controlling. These jackles are trained bye the American government to rebel on their government and over through it-very clean-. The Author claims that Saddam Hussain was a jackle he referred to him as our boy. The guy who Saddam help overthrow was a patriot that had a rule saying Iraq's oil is for Iraqis. Another scenario is whit iran's shah -the king of kings- .
their was a time before the shah was in power, the man that shah replaced was Mohammad Mossadegh,

in 1951, when Iran rebelled against a British oil company that was exploiting Iranian natural resources and its people . In response, the highly popular, democratically elected Iranian prime minister (and TIME magazine's Man of the Year in 1951), Mohammad Mossadegh, nationalized all Iranian petroleum assets. An outraged England sought the United States . However, both countries feared that military retaliation would provoke the Soviet Union into taking action on behalf of Iran .
Instead of sending in the Marines, therefore, Washington dispatched CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (Theodore's grandson) . He performed brilliantly, winning people over through payoffs and threats .
He then enlisted them to organize a series of street riots and violent demonstrations, which created the impression that Mossadegh was both unpopular and inept. In the end, Mossadegh went down, and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest . The pro-American
Mohammad Reza Shah became the unchallenged dictator.

The last and simplest of these mechanisms is war :), isn't their an easier answer

The Power to Choose(continued)

2007-10-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

Welcome everyone-めなさんこんにちわー

Let’s continue what we started before. Let me make clear what I’m writing about here, I’m going to introduce Dr.Stephen covey’s habit 1-and i may introduce habit number 2-.this habit defines a framework to work with in life. The stuff I’m going to write here is so natural, that anyone who reads will be very comfortable with it. Shall we start?

“I know of no more encouraging a fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor”

Henry David Thoreau

Self-awareness

One of the most precious of human’s abilities. What does it mean to be self aware?

Let us explore self awareness.

Can you think about your self? Can you forma picture of your self, look at your self as thou you were a different person?

Moreover you can think about your mental state. Can you think about your mood? What are you feeling? You can describe yourself.

You can remember any scenario that happened to you and think about every aspect, how you felt, how your mood changed, and how it affected you.

Self awareness is the ability of thinking about every thought that goes in your head. It’s unique to humans. It’s the reason that humans advance by time and how civilization increases, it’s why humans improve in any skill they spend time in.

We aren’t just feelings or mood, there is more than that. A feeling is a separate process that runs inside of us-we’ve just thought about our mood-, the way we think isn’t us, we’ve just thought about all that, these are all separate things.

With self awareness, we have overview and vision on how we think, we can look on every process that runs in our heads, this is a great paradigm. You can view yourself and view each way you think about anything. You can see that if you’re a function of moods or feelings of others, or what you seek-be that money, fame, position, ethics or principles-.

The experiences that affect us

It’s widely accepted that there are three major categories that model us:

Family; the way you were raised, you are the way you are because that’s the way your parents raised you to be. When you were small and highly dependent on your parents, the experiences at that age changed you and made you the way you are

DNA; you are the way you are because your grandparents were like that, you inherited it. It’s your genes. You’re of a particular group. It’s our way. we have the following character

Environment; you lived in your environment that made you the way you are. Your school colleagues, the state of your country, the people at work, or your sons, or your spouse, something in the environment you work in

Each of these relays on idea conditioning; your conditioned in some way to respond to a particular stimulus in a particular way.

NOW. Let us think are these ideas right?

Let me quote the good Dr’s words

Challenging these ideas

In answer to those questions, let me share with you the catalytic story of Viktor Frankl.

Frankl was a determinist raised in the tradition of Freudian psychology, which postulates that whatever happens to you as a child shapes your character and personality and basically governs your

whole life. The limits and parameters of your life are set, and, basically, you can't do much about it.

Frankl was also a psychiatrist and a Jew. He was imprisoned in the death camps of Nazi Germany,

where he experienced things that were so repugnant to our sense of decency that we shudder to even

repeat them.

His parents, his brother, and his wife died in the camps or were sent to the gas ovens. Except for

his sister, his entire family perished. Frankl himself suffered torture and innumerable indignities,

never knowing from one moment to the next if his path would lead to the ovens or if he would be

among the "saved" who would remove the bodies or shovel out the ashes of those so fated.

One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called "the

last of the human freedoms" -- the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control

his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Viktor Frankl himself was a

self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact.

He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to

him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response.

In the midst of his experiences, Frankl would project himself into different circumstances, such as

lecturing to his students after his release from the death camps. He would describe himself in the

classroom, in his mind's eye, and give his students the lessons he was learning during his very torture.

Through a series of such disciplines -- mental, emotional, and moral, principally using memory and

imagination -- he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger, until he had

more freedom than his Nazi captors. They had more liberty, more options to choose from in their

environment; but he had more freedom, more internal power to exercise his options. He became an

inspiration to those around him, even to some of the guards. He helped others find meaning in their

suffering and dignity in their prison existence.

In the midst of the most degrading circumstances imaginable, Frankl used the human endowment of

self-awareness to discover a fundamental principle about the nature of man: Between stimulus and

response, man has the freedom to choose.

Within the freedom to choose are those endowments that make us uniquely human. In addition to

self-awareness, we have imagination -- the ability to create in our minds beyond our present reality.

We have conscience -- a deep inner awareness of right and wrong, of the principles that govern our

behavior, and a sense of the degree to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them. And

we have independent will -- the ability to act based on our self-awareness, free of all other influences.

Even the most intelligent animals have none of these endowments. To use a computer metaphor,

they are programmed by instinct and/or training. They can be trained to be responsible, but they can't

take responsibility for that training; in other words, they can't direct it. They can't change the

programming. They're not even aware of it.

But because of our unique human endowments, we can write new programs for ourselves totally

apart from our instincts and training. This is why an animal's capacity is relatively limited and man's

is unlimited. But if we live like animals, out of our own instincts and conditioning and conditions, out

of our collective memory, we too will be limited.

The deterministic paradigm comes primarily from the study of animals -- rats, monkeys, pigeons,

dogs -- and neurotic and psychotic people. While this may meet certain criteria of some researchers

because it seems measurable and predictable, the history of mankind and our own self-awareness tell us

that this map doesn't describe the territory at all!

Our unique human endowments lift us above the animal world. The extent to which we exercise

and develop these endowments empowers us to fulfill our uniquely human potential. Between

stimulus and response is our greatest power -- the freedom to choose.”

Wish you all the best:D

The power to choose

2007-10-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

What makes us what we are today? What contributed to us and made us like we are?

My old view:

I had an idea that humans are a summation of experiences. Past experiences all affect us in a matter. I had the idea that differences that occur in people are caused from a different experience set.

It would be common for some group of people that have the same background and environment to have identical –to some degree- character/behavior.

Let’s say if character is a result from the experiences the individual has undertaken. Does the individual have control over his character? Why do people that have the same experiences have different behavior?

Dr.Stephen Covey’s model:

His model is written in a chapter titled “be proactive”.

To be continued ......

Happy Birthday to me:D

2007-10-15T03:22:00.000-07:00

Dear Neglected blog

I’m writing here to congratulate my self for my own birthday :P . I doubt anyone would notice this post.. but am I complaining :D naaaaaaaah:P .

Anyways happy birthday to me!

woman's words

2007-03-10T01:46:00.001-08:00

I quote:

We've discovered this quote on the web looking for
some information about woman's day :

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our
deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that frightens most.
We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous,talented, and famous? ' Actually, who are you
not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small
does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened
about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure
around you. We were born to make manifest the glory
of God that is within us. It 's not just in some of
us; it's in all of us.
And when we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the
same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others "
Maryanne Williamson

We liked to see The Light in Maryanne's message!

In the attachment a new pavement painting inspired by
a crop circle but not one supposedly made by Doug and
Dave...

Have a delightful day

Change

2007-02-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

Of the aspects of life., change is one of the most that puzzle/dazzle me. i asked a friend to write about the subject for me. It enlightened me to read my friend's words
take a look, i quote it here:

A change, you asked me to write something about change, I am trying to figure out in what direction I should write I will just let my thoughts flow.

We experience a change each day, everything changes, the day light changes into darkness at night…fall changes to winter, winter changes to spring and spring to summer… a human changes from a baby to an adult to an old man…

The stars change their positions…the earth changes its position…nothing stays the same, although we might feel each day is like the one before it and we fall into kind of routine; it’s a fact that there is not such day like the one before or after it…change is something we can’t stop and can’t control its something we live with and surrender to…

So maybe it’s not strange that people change so much… we all change…we change from an innocent, optimistic loving life, dreamy child, into a realistic materialistic adult running after something he thinks will make him happy… our dreams change becoming smaller and smaller until finally they disappear leaving us walking through life without goals, lost, sometimes deeply thinking, and other times shallow and silly.

Our feelings, our relations change, we find friends and loose them, we keep searching for love and when we find it we give up easily… even if we get into a relation we keep wondering if this is it…until someday we find out that we lost it before realizing that this was it…

People who understood us most change to be people against us…and people who hated us change to love us most…we decide to change, become stronger by building a wall of coldness and carelessness, to find out one day that we missed up that we want to change again into more warm loving, forgiving and happy people…

The fact is that just like everything else in this world we do change, we try to find the best way, the way that will make us happy, depending on this way we change…sometimes we find out the way was wrong and that we made a mistake but we just can’t turn back and then we wish we thought more before deciding to change something

i loved reading it, what do you think?

Harry potter 7

2007-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

Harry potter 7 will be released on July 21^st. The final part will be called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Rowling has stated that the final volume relates so closely to the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that;"I feel almost as though they are two halves of the same novel." She has also stated that she has no intention of writing any further stories about the Harry Potter characters.

As of 2007, she has been working on the Harry Potter stories for over 17 years.

One of my friend’s

Let’s take a look at the meaning of the word Hallow, for example Encarta:

1.	make holy: to make somebody or something holy
2.	respect greatly: to have great respect or reverence for somebody or something

*the following are spoilers*

The last we know of Harry potter and Lord Voldemort, Lord Voldemort has divided his soul in to 7 peaces-or so it’s believed-. The Hallows are the objects used to store them.

How I started reading Harry potter:

I didn’t intend to read them at first. I visited my local book shop to get lord of the rings. I has some extra cash, so I thought, hmmm what am I to do with it. I don’t want to get Harry potter, it’s for kids: P. but I got the first one. It was cheap!

After reaching home I was intending to put it somewhere, to read it later.

I wanted to take a look at Harry’s book before butting it away. I ended up reading half of it, and I finished it the following day. The 2^nd abd 3ed book toke 3 days, 4^th,5^thand 6^thtoke 3 to 4 weeks to finish .

Harry potter is a lovely read. It’s fun, full with adventure and puzzling all at the same time.

I regret being arrogant about it.

paradigms

2007-01-28T12:41:00.000-08:00

I don't know what made me about paradigms for my first real post. I wanted to write about something that would help people, something that would add to my friends who choose to read.
I hope you benefit from reading it.

I’ve always wondered what paradigm meant? I always here it when the tone of speech rises. If you look it up in a dictionary, let’s try Encarta for example, I like this dictionary!

1.	typical example: a typical example of something
2.	model that forms basis of something: an example that serves as a pattern or model for something, especially one that forms the basis of a methodology or theory
3.	grammar set of all forms of word: a set of word forms giving all of the possible inflections of a word
4.	science philosophy relationship of ideas to one another: in the philosophy of science, a generally accepted model of how ideas relate to one another, forming a conceptual framework within which scientific research is carried out

That doesn’t clear things too much!

It wasn’t clear to me, what paradigms mean to us. In our context, not just in general. That is until I read Dr.Covy’s The 7 habits. It was enlightening to understand!

A paradigm as I learned is a map, you use for understanding things or modeling things in your mind or it’s what you use to judge things, as I see it, it’s reasoning with ones mind to understand ourselves and our environment.

If my reasoning is correct I’d say that any math model is a paradigm-I choose this example because I’m very affected by such aspects-.

Let’s take our friendly equation shown below:

A = B + 2

This equation is a simple one, as we can see. No matter how B tries, it’s always less than A .poor B it’s always less than A. Such relationships appear in our lives. Like;

Jake is taller than bill.

Anna is the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.

Dumbledore is the words greatest wizard–well Harry says so! Don’t ask me why-.

The first sentence gave, Jake some assurances, he’s at least taller than bill. Bill, on the other hand is not as tall as Jake.-Wonder if the two people didn’t see each other in their lives, and it wasn’t true-

Anna in my eyes is so pretty that I always associate beauty with her. Every time I see a flower I’d think of her. Sounds like I’m in love with a character from one of my primary school books.

If you want to know about Dumbledore, you’ll have to read, Harry potter’s books

Paradigms play a huge role in our lives. It’s how we vision things.

Think about having an incorrect paradigm. It could lead you to a wrong conclusion. In fact it could make you very miserable :(.

How is that! If your map is incorrect it’ll lead you to what you don’t want all the time. No matter how you try. If you’d try doing things more efficiently, you’ll get your self what you don’t want more quickly!

Ok even if I have the thing I don’t like, I’ll try to be happy and live with it, like we say in Arabic “kon qano3” –in the wrong context of course-. You would be for example happy with you being addicted to something. Or happy with people bossing you around

One of the things I truly wish you to learn, Is that if you don’t like where you are. Rather than trying harder or trying to feel better, is try to change the way you look at things! That’s the best thing you could do.

One day I remember I witnessed a change in paradigm. It was a few days ago. After finishing my exam, I wasn’t in hurry to go back home since, I don’t have anything urgent to do, and everyone like me. My dear friend on the other hand tried to rush me.

I was thinking why the rush, my friend is so unpleasant! It appeared to me after one day of fooling around that we had two final exams the following day!!!!! How irrational was I when I judged my friend.

Take for example in any tobacco commercial; A young Man, strong, good looking, with a huge car. You’d think everything about him is so cool. He has a perfect life. Wow! He’s smoking that stuff. You might associate the image you have of that guy with smoking!

The two aspects aren’t related! The truth is he has bad breath! his longs are in pain, and he might have trouble breathing! And he will not be in the business of making commercials for long. Since he'll have health problems

Hope you enjoyed reading! Thanks for taking the time. I’d love to hear your views

My first post

2006-12-07T12:30:00.000-08:00

My friend adviced that the my first post should be a welcome one>
so Welcome. nice to know someone has visited my blog.