Frank
Following the occupation in Iraq a patriotism, obstinate in display, has blossomed in the U.S. I cringe at the playground diplomacy, the rhetoric spawned from the accretion of aggression, and opinions lack luster in reasoning and dense with irrational cogitation. I have crossed my fingers that these acts don't reflect upon me by default but now I have to speak, partly consequent of a Barre denizen who wrote in to express his opinion(s) of "dealing" with Iran. It was a puerile piece thick with anger and lacking facts.
Let us not forget that shortly after the events that took place on 9/11 Iranians congregated by the masses to hold a candlelight vigil for those who perished in the attacks. This gesture was quickly befogged weeks later after George W. Bush included the nation of Iran in his "Axis of Evil", an epithet for terrorist nations. It was then that Ahmadinejad began to mirror our very own president's ethics in foreign policy, albeit directed elsewhere, i.e., Israel, Syria, Lebanon, etc., and has evolved since. There are many topics up for debate pertaining to Iran, but straying from diplomacy and resorting to unilateral action is, in toto, an ill-advised decision that violates Geneva laws. Mandates aside, I believe it defies the canons of good behavior to air opinions aggressively and blindly.
We must recall that our shaping of the Middle-East for the past 60 years has resulted in a regional unrest directly contributing to an upshot in social/cultural disparity here and abroad, violent and non.
It was our interest in Iran that brought us to Iraq. In fact, Saddam was a beneficiary of U.S. funding and arms during the Iraq/Iran war, given permission and guidance to invade Iran. It wasn't until Saddam meddled with our own interests in the region that we turned our back on him and his regime. And have we forgotten that we were a sponsor of Saddam's war upon the Shiite population within his own country? Possibly in fear of Iran, being primarily Shiite, influencing Iraq's population and counter-insurgency - protecting its regional interests from hegemony? As for Israel, do people not know of Israeli-run torture chambers in Lebanon, that roughly 800 Palestinians are arrested and tortured by Israeli soldiers every year (according to Amnesty International), that their military power is the world's 3rd largest - a result of prime weapons deals from the U.S.? Or that there has been and is tremendous disparity in economic and military aid from the U.S. between Israel and the rest of the world when there surely has been other pressing humanitarian crises, i.e., Rwanda, Darfur, Congo, Timor, Bosnia, the list goes on and yet I'm sure I could find direct correlation between most humanitarian crises throughout the world and U.S. foreign policy. To sum it all up, occupying Iran is control over the Caspian Sea - control of the oil fields in the Middle East. Wilsonian ideology helped to point this out. There is no war on Islamic fundamentalism just fear and propaganda. If it were so, why aren't we flexing the same muscle towards Saudi Arabia, they're the most extreme Islamic state in the world? I'm sure it has to do with foreign oil investments. We are strategically protecting our assets and attempting to broaden them at the same time. Iran has a nuclear program. So do we, so does Russia, so does Israel, so do a lot of countries. Israel is as much of an aggressive threat as Iran is to the global economy and the Middle East, and let me point out that there are roughly 25,000 Jewish citizens in Iran that have claimed to be happy where they live (according to israelnn.com Iran has begun erecting a $3.2 million cultural center for the Jewish community in Tehran). Digression aside, nuclear proliferation needs to be subdued globally and not exclusively.
The foreign policy paradigm that our leaders have sworn by for decades does not work. It creates a cultural rift that could be a cultural bond. In Tom Wessels recent book "The Myth of Progress" he addresses in the beginning chapter that we need to re-evaluate our methods and paradigms, that the current ones are not sustainable to abide by. Like Wessels, I concur that paradigms work hand in hand, that is, foreign policy affects the economy which affects the environment and so forth. As a student seeking knowledge to help curb and redirect the current path of economic growth and promote the proliferation of the humanities I believe we need to transcend aggression and anger and ameliorate diplomacy. As we can see, anger accretes into atrocity. We lost thousands on 9/11 and by reacting through aggression that number of civilian casualties is reported monthly now in Iraq; do we really want to increase death by pursuing more conflict, subversive or not? In my opinion aggression is attributed to high levels of testosterone. According to a finding reported in the September 2007 edition of Harper's Magazine, "Men with high testosterone levels tend to be irrational negotiators."
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Addressed to Central Vermont's "The World" Publication
Frank
I am writing in regard to the film-review column 'Max's View'. I want to politely state that I am not at all impressed with these puerile critiques of the visual medium; to declare bluntly, I have had enough of this finesse-lacking rubbish that is so easily pawned off to the World newspaper as worthy cinema reviews. I apologize for my harshness and repudiation but it is only consequent of the misinformation given and implied through 'Max's View'. Allow me to expatiate upon this opinion and perhaps kindle a dollop of inspiration and influence onto 'Max's' writing along the way. In the very least, perhaps he can learn a few new vocabulary words. And to the reader, I assure you I use only strong, hard-lined, evidence-based facts when writing an op-ed piece, unless however, I openly certify it a fallacy.
In Vol. 56 No. 15, 'Max's View' assesses the film "Sunshine", directed by briton Danny Boyle. The piece is filled with recycled comparisons, adages, and interpretations from the many film critics alike, appended is a rating of three stars (personally I would have awarded it two at the very most), and for the most part I agree with the critic in that the last fifteen minutes features that of a B-movie tingeing upon the public's thirst for violent pornagraphia shot with a shaky D.V. camera creating what I deem a photo montage translated through video! Motion picture aside, I am writing about the one original excerpt from this review and that is the tangent the writer chooses to open with - that the threat of global warming is only according to some environmentalists - and he goes on to contest this "wild theory" of "global warming" by stating: "Like most Americans, I have no desire to cut back on my driving or energy use in order to stave off some vague crisis that may occur generations down the road." Foremost, allow me to say that global warming is an imminent and real threat, it exists, and scientists - not just environmentalists - from around the globe will concur (except for the panel of scientists hired out through ExxonMobile to undermine supporting evidence and factual proof, i.e., data, charts, statistics, etc a while back when they launched a campaign of disinformation about climate change). But I don't need to chime what we already have and/or should have heard and learned, instead I would also like to address my lamentations over the review of Michael Moore's shockumentary, "Sicko" where the writer implored for Michael Moore to back off! and stop degrading America and start recognizing our nation for her worldly influence, that if it wasn't for our advancing intellect and innovative nature the rest of the world would be impoverished, left behind to deal with disease and medicine on a sub-prime level not equivalent to the ground breaking ingenuity we Americans have set as precedent in medicine, health care, and the whole agglomerate of sciences alike. Or at least I believe that was the implication meant to be conveyed to the reader. So I will keep this short and simple. It is benighted for any one individual to think and believe along/in the former and latter. Our nation ranks #36 from #1 in health care throughout the world, or so Michael Moore aptly pointed out, placing France and Italy within the top two slots. This could partly be on account of: All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage for their denizens; there is a large disparity in quality given to folks in different class brackets here in the U.S.; we have a large infant mortality rate; we rank low in nutrition, healthy-life expectancy, and according to an editorial in the N.Y. Times Aug. 12, 2007, we rank 15th among 19 countries in death from illnesses that would not have proven fatal if tended to effectively and in a timely manner; most of our health care infrastructure relies on paper records versus computers. This is all to name but a few.
Here are some brief updates of people and think-tanks NOT from the U.S. who are ameliorating the sciences and our lives: Prof. Amos Ori from Technion Israel Institute of Technology has made ground breaking advancements in theoretical sciences. He has devised a new model that poses a vacuum space consisting of positive density that will perhaps allow scientists to fabricate time-like curvatures in space so time travel can be a reality. In Geneva, Switzerland top scientists are constructing a particle accelerator where they will be forming miniature black holes to investigate string theory and study other theories surrounding dark matter and dark energy. The Max Planck Institute for Bio-Physical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany leads the way in optical 3D far-field microscopy with nanoscale resolution - *this could be of important use in pathology and medicine perhaps. By the way, feel free to explore more where I retrieved this information at www.physorg.com
It is also astonishing to discover, when educating oneself in alternative waste disposal, the practice of anaerobic digestion in areas of Japan and Europe. Anaerobic digestion is a process that decomposes waste through anaerobic decomposition, in layman's terms - bacterial compost - in which bacteria feeds on the waste and in return emits methane - an alternative source of energy. This could perhaps settle the land fill debate in Williston, VT if practiced here.
In the June 2007 issue of Harpers magazine, Harpers Findings reports that researchers predict net moisture levels in the south western U.S. to drop 15% in the coming years resulting in severe drought due to global warming; scientists in Germany discovered that warmer oceans could cause the Earth to spin faster; that magnolias are near obsolete because of habitat destruction; and overfishing has led to the collapse of the shell fish industry. Max, if that's your real name, why do you insist on not cutting back on energy? This gluttonous act so many are guilty of seems almost to be in spite of the progressive intelligentsia and why? Our nation is trailing behind in health care, education, nutrition, environmental policy, and even diplomacy! to name a few, but we're doing pretty well with private enterprise, class disparity, and infrastructure collapse, all so uniform to ancient Rome's final days. If there's one thing that I've learned from watching film, it's that the world is a small place full of large ideas from all walks of life. You may be surprised to hear that I am but a month older than the age of 25 years and may wonder how, why, and where did I collect the wit, courage, facts, knowledge, etc. to provoke this literary debate? Well Max, I spent the better part of my cognitive years learning what the world has to teach and I would never give up my foreign relations or admiration of what another country has to share with me for a sense of patriotic pride. I leave you with this last tip to help aid your future opinions and critiques:
The opinion is a prolific force of nature, of mind, and of the individual. It is something we hold so dear and cherish, but yet we are so quick to toss it out amongst each other, to our neighbors, our students, our families and friends, our enemies and foes, our press and forums, etc. Each and every one of us yens to share an opinion and to influence. I just ask that before we decide to voice our own opinions, we soak up all the education we can and gather facts - misinformation is not only vexing but dangerous.
I am writing in regard to the film-review column 'Max's View'. I want to politely state that I am not at all impressed with these puerile critiques of the visual medium; to declare bluntly, I have had enough of this finesse-lacking rubbish that is so easily pawned off to the World newspaper as worthy cinema reviews. I apologize for my harshness and repudiation but it is only consequent of the misinformation given and implied through 'Max's View'. Allow me to expatiate upon this opinion and perhaps kindle a dollop of inspiration and influence onto 'Max's' writing along the way. In the very least, perhaps he can learn a few new vocabulary words. And to the reader, I assure you I use only strong, hard-lined, evidence-based facts when writing an op-ed piece, unless however, I openly certify it a fallacy.
In Vol. 56 No. 15, 'Max's View' assesses the film "Sunshine", directed by briton Danny Boyle. The piece is filled with recycled comparisons, adages, and interpretations from the many film critics alike, appended is a rating of three stars (personally I would have awarded it two at the very most), and for the most part I agree with the critic in that the last fifteen minutes features that of a B-movie tingeing upon the public's thirst for violent pornagraphia shot with a shaky D.V. camera creating what I deem a photo montage translated through video! Motion picture aside, I am writing about the one original excerpt from this review and that is the tangent the writer chooses to open with - that the threat of global warming is only according to some environmentalists - and he goes on to contest this "wild theory" of "global warming" by stating: "Like most Americans, I have no desire to cut back on my driving or energy use in order to stave off some vague crisis that may occur generations down the road." Foremost, allow me to say that global warming is an imminent and real threat, it exists, and scientists - not just environmentalists - from around the globe will concur (except for the panel of scientists hired out through ExxonMobile to undermine supporting evidence and factual proof, i.e., data, charts, statistics, etc a while back when they launched a campaign of disinformation about climate change). But I don't need to chime what we already have and/or should have heard and learned, instead I would also like to address my lamentations over the review of Michael Moore's shockumentary, "Sicko" where the writer implored for Michael Moore to back off! and stop degrading America and start recognizing our nation for her worldly influence, that if it wasn't for our advancing intellect and innovative nature the rest of the world would be impoverished, left behind to deal with disease and medicine on a sub-prime level not equivalent to the ground breaking ingenuity we Americans have set as precedent in medicine, health care, and the whole agglomerate of sciences alike. Or at least I believe that was the implication meant to be conveyed to the reader. So I will keep this short and simple. It is benighted for any one individual to think and believe along/in the former and latter. Our nation ranks #36 from #1 in health care throughout the world, or so Michael Moore aptly pointed out, placing France and Italy within the top two slots. This could partly be on account of: All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage for their denizens; there is a large disparity in quality given to folks in different class brackets here in the U.S.; we have a large infant mortality rate; we rank low in nutrition, healthy-life expectancy, and according to an editorial in the N.Y. Times Aug. 12, 2007, we rank 15th among 19 countries in death from illnesses that would not have proven fatal if tended to effectively and in a timely manner; most of our health care infrastructure relies on paper records versus computers. This is all to name but a few.
Here are some brief updates of people and think-tanks NOT from the U.S. who are ameliorating the sciences and our lives: Prof. Amos Ori from Technion Israel Institute of Technology has made ground breaking advancements in theoretical sciences. He has devised a new model that poses a vacuum space consisting of positive density that will perhaps allow scientists to fabricate time-like curvatures in space so time travel can be a reality. In Geneva, Switzerland top scientists are constructing a particle accelerator where they will be forming miniature black holes to investigate string theory and study other theories surrounding dark matter and dark energy. The Max Planck Institute for Bio-Physical Chemistry in Gottingen, Germany leads the way in optical 3D far-field microscopy with nanoscale resolution - *this could be of important use in pathology and medicine perhaps. By the way, feel free to explore more where I retrieved this information at www.physorg.com
It is also astonishing to discover, when educating oneself in alternative waste disposal, the practice of anaerobic digestion in areas of Japan and Europe. Anaerobic digestion is a process that decomposes waste through anaerobic decomposition, in layman's terms - bacterial compost - in which bacteria feeds on the waste and in return emits methane - an alternative source of energy. This could perhaps settle the land fill debate in Williston, VT if practiced here.
In the June 2007 issue of Harpers magazine, Harpers Findings reports that researchers predict net moisture levels in the south western U.S. to drop 15% in the coming years resulting in severe drought due to global warming; scientists in Germany discovered that warmer oceans could cause the Earth to spin faster; that magnolias are near obsolete because of habitat destruction; and overfishing has led to the collapse of the shell fish industry. Max, if that's your real name, why do you insist on not cutting back on energy? This gluttonous act so many are guilty of seems almost to be in spite of the progressive intelligentsia and why? Our nation is trailing behind in health care, education, nutrition, environmental policy, and even diplomacy! to name a few, but we're doing pretty well with private enterprise, class disparity, and infrastructure collapse, all so uniform to ancient Rome's final days. If there's one thing that I've learned from watching film, it's that the world is a small place full of large ideas from all walks of life. You may be surprised to hear that I am but a month older than the age of 25 years and may wonder how, why, and where did I collect the wit, courage, facts, knowledge, etc. to provoke this literary debate? Well Max, I spent the better part of my cognitive years learning what the world has to teach and I would never give up my foreign relations or admiration of what another country has to share with me for a sense of patriotic pride. I leave you with this last tip to help aid your future opinions and critiques:
The opinion is a prolific force of nature, of mind, and of the individual. It is something we hold so dear and cherish, but yet we are so quick to toss it out amongst each other, to our neighbors, our students, our families and friends, our enemies and foes, our press and forums, etc. Each and every one of us yens to share an opinion and to influence. I just ask that before we decide to voice our own opinions, we soak up all the education we can and gather facts - misinformation is not only vexing but dangerous.
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