The Nomad and the Olive Branch

  Also dubbed the "Cyberspace" or "Matrix" trilogy, William Gibson's triad of far future dystopian techno-nightmare novels gave birth to the cyberpunk genre. The first title, Neuromancer, takes most of the credit, while the other two titles, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive flesh out the world and characters introduced in the first book and brings the trilogy to a close. In following with my previous reviews, my critiques will focus on style, content, and an overall "feel" of the story. Similar to my other novel series reviews, I will go over each novel one by one. However, for this review, I will begin with a sort of treatise on the man behind the books, American-Canadian (how about I just stick with North American?) author William Gibson, as well as an overall review with a summary. To start off, William Gibson, the author, is one of the few writers to whom the word "prophetic" is a fitting description. Like Ray Bradbury, George ...

The state of human affairs over the past decade have overall not been taking a turn for the better. War, violence, scandal, shallow gossip, tragedy, and other profit-generating stories congest newspaper headlines and the nightly broadcasts. With the recent economic crises, things aren't looking up, either. As the human population on Earth grows ever so nearer to the carrying capacity, humanity as a whole seems to be taking a downhill swerve... ...or is it? There is at least 1 or 2 in 10 people out there who have heard about the recent story regarding the Chilean miners. Being trapped for at least 15 days underground about 2 months ago, almost no one was sure that they were going to survive. The lack of oxygen, food, and water would surely deprive them of life if the toxic gases, ash, soot, and dust didn't choke them to death first. Around the world, many people watched and, when news of them still being alive 17 agonizing days after the entrapment surfaced ( "All 33 of...

DISCLAIMER: This topic is not against the nature or necessity of a military force. This topic addresses a disturbing social and political phenomenon that absolves armies from the same accountability that applies to every armed group. But then again, this world isn't a just and fair place. Moreover, take note that I do not support nor condone any military, militant group, or insurgent organization, nor any actions which - BS semantics aside - are clearly unjustifiable. Lastly, before you read on, I acknowledge my biases for "underdogs". This bias, however, does not detract from the gist of the topic itself. After surfing over several political forums, mainly "politicalcrossfire.com" (where, as many of you might already know, I post occasionally), I've come across a rather disturbing trend. There is a prevalent notion that the military of a nation is somehow above the law and for some reason does not have the ability to commit acts of terrorism or war crimes....

I know this story is long overdue, and that I haven't been writing in a while. There are more things to life than sitting in front of a computer and rambling about whatever comes your way in the news or your daily experiences. But anyways, to the issue at hand. Last year on December the 14th, Muntazer al-Zaidi, an Iraqi reporter from the Iraqi-owned and Egyptian-based Al-Baghdadia TV (البغدادية), threw 2 "size 10" shoes (according to Dubya) at the then pResident of the U.S., George W. Bush ( 1 ). All Dubya could do was smile at Zaidi, who was then assailed by Iraqi security forces and taken into custody. Of course, that was all said and done at the time, and usually at other events involving political figures being assailed one way or another by angry protestors, the news of such things tends to die off or remain in memory as an event alone. Of course, that's for most events of this theme. Sadly, Western - and unfortunately this time around, Arab - media outlets have...

The intellectual (or the intellectually lacking) debates surrounding Muslim issues post-9/11 has shaken as a whole the foundation of the Muslim body in light of the context of the "modern world", and lead to the formation of many polarized encampments from which people base their arguments and critiques on. Amongst the most exploited camps are those of the apologetic Muslims who keep parrotting "Islam is peace", promoting flowery and "hip" images of Islam through media, and speaking out against the injustices with arguments that draw out excerpts from Islamic doctrine... all at the constant urge of those who criticise Islam. "Where are the protests?" "Islam is a religion of violence." "It needs reform". "Sharia is barbaric". Time and time again, I see new literature springing out again and again repeating the same old lame old mantra. The debate is heading into a standstill b/c both sides are repeating the same stu...

A user named "dodg531" uploaded this 10-part documentary on America's war on democracy. If you're reading this, dodg531, kudos to you from myself. Notice the onus of this film and how it's illustrated in this first part: comparing the sheltered bubble that we all live in to the grim situation which many in third-world countries endure daily, and view each passing second as a struggle for survival. The desperation is largely blamed at "American domination" through right-wing dictators like Pinochet who stratified the pyramid of economic inequality and widened its base for the interests of the upper quintile. Despite this, Simon Bolivar, the known "El Libertador" of South America, is brought forth as a reminder that revolution can crush a foreign influence given the people unite. Chavez is brought up as a potential change and antagonist towards American foreign policy, which, through "aggressive media coverage", brought forth opposition...

Just when I got my laptop, I decided to try on the wireless feature at my neighborhood. I was surprised that many people, who had wireless routers and networks, were detected by my laptop. I was even more surprised at the fact that a good number of them were unprotected. Connecting to one gave me a faster connection than the one I had at home. I was tempted to stay connected, but I felt I was doing something that I shouldn't be (call it guilt). I mean, it's not my fault that I was able to tap into my neighbor's internet, even though a door wide open that leads to something wrong doesn't necessarily mean you have to or can go into it. So, I disconnected. I mean, sure: it's not like I killed someone, but it's still as bad as stealing someone's wallet. What if the guy paid for bandwidth? What if his bills are already outrageously high? What if he was doing some serious work that required a consistently hi-speed connection? That would certainly make me a bad nei...

The focus of media these days is absolutely disgusting. And to be honest, I'm not just talking about news in Western media, which has a worldwide reputation for being one of the most biased network of outlets, and an even nastier reputation of following news about Paris Hilton over the war in Afghanistan and Iraq that is decimating the local populace, thanks to the American government. I'm talking about media outlets all across the seven seas (four oceans, two gulfs and a sea) and the six continents that have human life on them (don't tell me about the lost tribesmen of Antarctica, because they don't exist anymore; 1 ). While I have addressed this issue on my blog several times, I haven't been able to get around elucidating, from my perspective, the reasons behind media bias, which are quite numerous indeed. Some of the factors that I will list and explain might surprise you, and some might not, considering that much of these reasons are derived from my ideals and o...

The World is full of interesting people, of many shapes, sizes, cultures, religions, races, and personalities. The many possibilities within each and more categories that define us as human beings multiplied together only allude to the many combinations that spring out of this, thus giving us an impression of how different people tend to be, and how we as people try to be ourselves in society. However, this is not the case today. While variation tends to be more pronounced within societies than among societies when it comes to genetics and appearance, among many other genotypic traits ( 1 ), there also seems to be a control beyond the grasp of genetic factors that limits the variation of such personas. In English, this means that your genes really don't have any control over who you are more than other things. The majority of such factors tend to be social, or, for lack of a more sensical term, sociological, meaning that they are controlled not by one's genetic disposition or i...

Why, you ask? Well, considering that their government has been helping the states defeat the UIC in neighboring Somalia by invading the nation and making way for U.S. Navy Seals to enter and make an even bigger mess... of course, that's after they helped the corrupt transitional government, again backed by the U.S. A "diplomat" by the name of Nurudin Farah was in Somalia during the time of this unrest, and he watched the chaos unfold right before his very eyes. However, he paints a different picture that many people are used to seeing in neocon PR. According to the New York Times (thanks, Mr. Abu Khalil), Over Christmas, Ethiopia, perhaps intending to provide a gift for the festive season to its American ally, invaded Mogadishu and expelled the Islamists. With thousands of Ethiopian troops in the country — and only a few African Union troops from elsewhere — savage battles took place in Mogadishu between the transitional government army (backed by Ethiopia) and the Islam...

It's a "Java Malfunction"...but I'm not talking about the computer program that is constantly being used by thousands of websites that are trying to deliver their material in as organized and attractive a way as possible, and not even about coffee gone horrible. After watching this disturbing video on YouTube, I opened my eyes more to the supposedly troubled archipelago that we know as Indonesia, the most populous self-proclaimed Muslim nation. Apparently, from the surface, we see nothing but news of fanatics, bombings, murders, hurricanes... things that make your heart cringe or, in the case of the massacres that have been taking place over the past few decades, ache... But what is plaguing Java and Indonesia in general? Is it religious conflict in the form of Muslim fanatics vs. Christian fanatics? Is it just a case of hate crimes between religious communities? Could it be ethnic strife? Could the corrupt Indonesian government have a hand in this? Or did it simply ...

The Zionist P.R. is abuzz with news of a Mickey Mouse moniker on Al Aqsa television, Hamas's equivalent of Hizbullah's Al-Manar, telling children to "annihilate the Jews" and that one day Muslims will rule the Earth. I actually fell for the P.R. that spewed it out, until my sister found the video on YouTube and was considerate enough to show me. After watching it, I concluded that the video was heavily butchered and the translation was waaay off.Why do I say that? First, the translator was MEMRI, the same organization that made a pitiful translation and coverage of the Wafa Sultan debate . MEMRI is known for snippetting MidEastern media output and horribly translating what is being said on Arab television. Second, even if MEMRI did turn out to be a "reliable" source, there were many translation mistakes evident, as well as quotes that were taken out of context. At 00:18 , "Farfur" (فرفور, a play on the Arabic word that means "mouse") gi...