Political Cartoons

In light of the ongoing chaos in the entire world, specially in America because of the elections, here's a cheers to Times' collection of some heart-lightening cartoons just in time to save your overloaded head from blowing up!
Here's the link.
And here are just a few...

Fall Vacation

This year, Columbia has been quite pretty during the Autumn season. The trees are holding their color for a longer time. (of course, that's because it isn't as cold as it should be and we all know why)

Asheville, in North Carolina was pretty much the same too.

A beautiful place with artistic stores, one should definitely visit it if they are search of something very different. It could be anything-furniture, jewellery, clothes, handicrafts, shoes, and even food!

Even though it's a city, I would call it a pretty little mountain town, and a place for a sweet vacation visit.The downtown area is a must see, especially at night, as all the christmas lightings are up and vibrantly showing off.

Unfortunately, I missed the tribal dancers and the djembe players :(
But here are a few pictures from the trip.

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Fall Break and Movies

I watched two quite amazing movies recently. Even though both of those have been out for quite a time now, I never really got about to see them until this time.

I watched An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film by Al Gore that talks about Global Warming. It was striking because I think that it is able of convincing every single foolish soul who does not believe in the planet's warming do something substancial about it.

The second one is called Children of Men and is adapted from a novel. Accoring to my friend who has read it, it is quite different from the book itself but is very impactful. It portrays a futuristic society where all the women are infertile, there are no young babies or even children, and the world's in a chaos and in a state of exile.

They are both worth watching, so go and check them out if you already havn't.

Things To Do...Besides From Getting the Schoolwork Finished

When I came to Columbia, SC, I spent so much time hating it that I rarely ever appreciated the beauty in it. And that attitude also extended pretty much for the entire country.
For the past few months I have been dreaming about how I want to run away from here, be in other places/ countries, and visit all the beautiful places without even realizing that some of the most beautiful places/things are right here in this country. So I made a list of things to experience/discover here as time allows..

• Hike the Glacier National Park
• Go to Yellowstone
• Go to Alaska
• Hike the Appalachian Trail :)
• Aspen Music Festival
• Other music festivals
• Go to a Broadway show
• A Karaoke night club
• Walk around the Mississippi and hopefully find the cave that Tom and Huck hid in :)
• Go to CALIFORNIA! and live like a hippie for a day or two
• Rodeo!
• Bungee jump from the Grand Canyon :)
• Hawaii!
• take the longest and the craziest roadtrip
• New Orleans during Mardi Gras
• Live in one of the Indian reservations
• Death Valley
• Smithsonian Institute
• Underground dance clubs in NYC ;)
• Other places in NYC undiscovered
• Blackhills National Forest
• Massachusetts in general
• Maine (for some reason)
• Visit the Ahmish people

I think that's about it and a lot for now.
;-)

Boast of Quietness

A wonderful poem by Jorge Luis Borges.

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of humanity.My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.
They speak of homeland.My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive

What Can We Do?

This post is a continuation of my previous post on the incredibly high number of rape victims in Congo. The article was dated October 7th, 2007 and was written by Jeffrey Gettleman.
After racking my brains about ways to reach out to the rape victims, I decided to email him via the website. I was delighted when he responded with ways of contacting and helping the Congolese women. Basically, the best way to go about is to donate money to the hospitals to help them keep up with the demands of the swarming number of patients. Here's how you can contact them:

If you would like to donate, here is the bank account information:
N° compte 170-0362031-93 USD
Intitulée : 8ème CEPAC V/C HOPITAL GENERAL DE REFERENCE DE PANZI
BANQUE COMMERCIALE DU CONGO
AGENCE DE BUKAVU/RD CONGO
CODE SWIFT / BCDCCDKI

Granted, these bank instructions are in French and a little confusing. So, if you have any questions, you can contact Erika Beckman, a Swedish aid worker in charge of the rape victim program.
Email is the best form of communication because the phones are unreliable.

Her details are:

Erika Beckman
Project Manager
Victims of Sexual Violence Project
Bukavu, DRC
vsvbukavu@kivu-online.com
+243 813 186 246

If you have any problems getting in touch with her, you can also reach out to:
Aurélie Lachant
Information Officer
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
DRC, Bukavu
Mob: +243 81 988 91 73
Email: lachant@un.org
http://www.rdc-humanitaire.net

Spain and Spanish

Among a lot of other things, I have developed a new and unfound love for the Spanish language and culture. Maybe it comes with the love for new and unknown places, knowing a bunch of cool foreigners, or perhaps, it just comes with knowing Amy and Sydney? :)
Either way, it's quite exciting to learn a new language.
I just came across this website- my latest development in learning this language as efficiently as I can. You can buy packages from it but I use it for downloading podcasts.

Shocking Sexual Violence in Congo

"According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country of Congo."

Every day, 10 more women and girls are brought to the hospital as victims of this horrible crime. Yet, we were all ignorant of this fact until Gettleman decided to report this incident in The New York Times. Reading about these vicious attacks made me cry out in the public library the other day... Many of these atrocious acts are committed by psychologically disturbed hutu tribe, more than 800,000 of whom were killed off in the Rwanda genocide. The government soldiers share as much of the blame. With more than 17, 000 UN peace corps already out there, it still doesn't seem to stop.

I am trying to find out if there's something we can do about it/for those women...?

More Money for Wars

So, the US Senate passed the $1.2 billion budget for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even though it's very idealistic to think like that, but I still hope that they won't make things worse and think about spending it for reconstruction and improving the condition of war torn families.
This actually also got me thinking towards a lot of things that people should realize to raise their voices against it and do something about it-
1. Bush initially promised to capture Saddam and all the WMDs. The former's been done, the latter are obviously not there. There wasn't a game plan in the beginning on how to handle the little internal uprisings afterwards, was there? Here we go into a land whose culture we know so little of and are always ready to misinterpret...was that ever a smart decision?
2. I havn't seen a single soul in the United States, not even the President, "suffering through these terrible times". The war's affecting the economy, but that part doesn't stop anyone from enjoying, does it?
So who's actually miserable? The soldiers who go through endlessly harsh training thinking that they'll be defending the citizens of their own land and protectecting their country, and not be like those GI Joe dolls being walked around for a political motive.
3. There are fears of the draft being put into effect just in case enough soldiers havn't died and Bush can get yet more time to show "improvements" in the social/political situation in Iraq.
4. Lately, I have been reading The New York Times daily; the most excellent news coverage out there. One article on the front page is always devoted to the miserable condition and the sufferings of the Iraqis (take for instance the Blackwater incident that was repeated again and killed two innocent women this time)

With all this going on, how can one expect other countries/ people to like America/(ns) if we keep on making horrible mistakes like these?

Probably, like a lot of people, I am hoping that the upcoming elections bring a terribly smart head to the matter.

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense

Finally, someone took on the initiative of clearing out all the nonsense one comes across in the evolution v. creation debate. Read it if you are on either side. It is not an attempt to simply refute or debase the creationists, it just throws out all the misconceptions people have about science and on which they base their arguments about.
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense