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Dear Mr. Obama or any future president or presidentess to follow him;
Feel free to use this speech, which I have laboured to write for hours, free of charge provided that it is delivered in the white house addressing the American people.

Dear fellow American citizens;

Today is an important day in our history, for it is a day that will be marked in the future as the day of the genuine change. I am addressing you hoping that each one of you will help me starting a new page, for I can’t do it on my own; I need each one of you to think creatively on how to achieve our objectives as a nation.

I am honoured to be talking to you from the beautiful city of Washington, our proud capital and to be living in the white house as your elected president/presidentess. The white house, for 200 years has stood as a symbol of the American presidency and the aspirations of American people. I am grateful for the rare opportunity to enjoy the hospitality of the house provided by the nation. As your representative I have travelled all over the world, I am proud to carry with me the good will of diverse nations who are saying: Hola, Ahoy, Ni hao, Marhaba, Salut, Ciào, Yia sou, Shalom, Namaste, Ohayoou gozaimasu, Aawubona and many others which I have forgotten.

We meet at a time of tension between the U.S. and the other nations of the world. — tensions rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between the west and the east includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many nations, and a Cold War in which the citizens of many countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many people to view the West as hostile to their old traditions.

We are a truly a great nation. We have excelled in science, placing the first man on the moon; our universities are centers of research and learning. From physics to history; our scientists and researchers have placed us on the forefront of excellence. More importantly, within our borders we have established a system that reflects the will of its people. In this wide and beautiful land lives millions of people, each and every one of them is able to speak his or her mind, worship god as they please and enjoy the freedom to live as they choose. Our system of government is based the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people. This is a truly amazing accomplishment, one which many nations strive for; yet for us it is reality on the ground that we take for granted. To our shores arrive every year, thousands of immigrants from the four corners of the earth. Seeking opportunities not available in their native lands. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words — within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one." The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, and its promise exists for all who come to our shores — that includes nearly the millions emigrants in our country today who enjoy incomes and education that sometimes are higher than average. Emigrants to our country have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. Our history is not without blemishes. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. The civil rights movement in the U.S, championed by Martin Luther King is a proud example to the whole world of how an oppressed minority can win its equal rights without using violence. We American citizens have plenty to be proud of.


However with regards to how we treated the rest of the world, our conduct has been less than stellar. In our quest to win the Cold War in the past we frequently supported oppressive regimes against the will of the people who live in those countries. Our leaders (democrats and republicans) have travelled the world preaching democracy and human rights, but their conduct has endorsed the complete opposite to serve our interest. Our government, in our name and towards our benefit, has placed brutal dictators in power, crushed democratic movements in third world countries and substantially undermined human rights. Afghanistan, is a case in point, of how we interfered in a country much to the detriment of its citizens. In our eagerness to defeat communism we endorsed and trained a most radical faction of Islam. While citizens of Afghanistan suffered the consequences of our actions, we celebrated winning our war against the Soviet Union. While the menacing threat of the monster we created was affecting only the lives of people in other countries we did not care. We rightfully felt outraged at the death of thousands in the 9/11 events, but we did not acknowledge that we had inflicted many equivalent catastrophes on other nations beforehand. We told ourselves “They hate us because of our democracy”, when in reality “They hated us because we denied them democracy while enjoying its fruit ourselves”. We condemned violence against us, but felt entitled to unleash it freely on anybody that stood in our self interest. We placed organizations and countries on the terrorist list for engaging in murdering children and the elderly, yet we engaged in acts of equal horror without any retribution. In Palestine we spent billions of dollars every year to arm the fourth’s strongest military power in the world to oppress a mostly hungry and unarmed population seeking the most minimum of human rights. We used the issue of woman rights to justify our interference in other countries that hurt both the men and woman in those places, yet in our own country women continue to earn 70% on a man’s salary and our culture continues to promote the idea of women as a cheap sex object. It's a story with a simple truth: violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on their way to the market. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered. It is time for a change. It is time for us to act in accordance to what we preach.


Today, we are the only super power. This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared. That does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: we must face these tensions squarely. Our days of finger pointing at others is over, we will lead by example.Today we change our foreign policy and put an end to all our unwanted and uninvited interferences with the rest of the world. We will display our commitment to democracy and human rights not with words but with concrete actions.

On that day, all the nations of the world from Chile to Korea will stand up and applaud.

Special Note: Writing non-fiction has become too painful. I will write mostly fiction from now on. The following is fictional; all characters were made up in my imagination. Any similarity to people is accidental.


Doug had been checking his email every 5 minutes all day. The anticipation was hitting him like sea waves hitting the shore on a windy day. This was a seminal moment in his relationship with Nelly. “It is a good sign that she is taking her time responding” thought Doug to himself. “It means that she is putting thought into it, bound to be good”, he assured himself. When the email from Nelly finally arrived, with the subject line “Thank you for the lesson”. Doug sighed a big sigh of relief. “Aha! I got her exactly where I want” he said to no one in particular. He began to read in a hurry.

Dear Doug;

In Arabic we have a saying “Akbar menak beyoum, afham menak besanah”, translated to “the one that is older than you by one day understands a year worth more that you do”. Implying that older people have more knowledge. Well, I think that saying is nonsense. I have met many older people who didn’t know what they were talking about. In fact, I have discovered that, it is the younger people that we should try to learn lessons from. And you are a case in point. You see, I am a few years older than you and I have learned so much from just meeting you a few times.

For example, remember how you said that you didn’t know “he whom we do not speak off”, and now it turns out that he is a close friend of yours and you even refer to him with his real name. In my old traditional and backwards days I would have called that lying. But now, thanks to you I have realized that that is such a harsh and judgmental mentality that I live with. Thanks to you I have learned that this is called liberal and creative bending of factual verities. It was hugely difficult for me to share the story of my personal life. I am a fanatically private person. I have never told anybody about my dreams. My face was turning red with embarrassment each time I clicked the send button. I assured myself that I was communicating with a mature and reasonable person and that by doing my side of sharing, I was facilitating a discussion that allowed for depth. By not sharing I was holding myself in a power position and not allowing you to form your own informed opinion about the matter. When I learned that you shared my emails with your friends. I immediately jumped to conclusion and thought what a silly teenager who behaves like he has never talked to a real woman before. But now that I think about it I realize that I was very very old fashioned in my ways. This is not called immature behavior; this is called open minded egalitarian sharing of pertinent information.

When you forwarded our entire email conversation to “he whom we do not speak off”, without asking my permission in the matter, the first word that popped in my mind was betrayal. Ah! once again, I learn a new lesson on how my brain is wired the wrong way. Sharing private emails with a person known for his abrasive commentary instead of having the decorum of allowing me to decide whether I want to discuss my own view on the matter is not betrayal at all and decorum is old fogies word any way. It is called enlightened oness with the natural forces of nature.

To you respect is the odd sunny day in Seattle; But I grew up in the desert where it was sunny every day. But then every once in a while; a sand storm would arise and hide the sun behind a yellow haze. During those days, I tasted sand in my mouth and my eyes stung in pain as the sand granules hit my cornea. Doctors prescribed relocation to asthma patients, for only the tough can survive when it is sunny every day. Look how green and beautiful Seattle is. Clearly, your model of the odd sunny day yields better results. After all, what do I know? I am a failure on so many fronts. I am one of those losers that think that in life there are far worse things that can happen to you than failing in your pursuit. You can succeed, but lose yourself in the process. Frequently people get what they want by sleeping with the boss, or becoming experts at kissing ass. In those departments, I am a proud failure. But people who are focused on success don’t carry around such a backwards mentality.

I am a non exceptional person in almost everything. Looks, intelligence, talent, charm, luck .... you name it, I got some, but not that much. I am not smarter than the average person, nor better looking than the average woman, nor any more talented that average Joe next door. I got some smarts, adequate enough to help me get through the stuff that I need to, but not more than that. I got enough good looks to one day hopefully attract one good husband into my life, but nothing more. I have one area of excellence and one only. I am stubborn. If I decide that Mt. Rainier needs to move from its location, then you can bet that one day you will look on the Seattle horizon and be missing a mountain. Not because I know anything about digging mountains, not because of any physical strength that I possess, not because of any brilliant idea that I come up with that other people can't think off, but because of the strength of my determination. If I put it into my head that Mt. Rainier needs to move, god himself won't be able to stop me except by ending my life while I try to finish that which I have set my mind to. But next to your varied talents I can’t help but stand in awe of your awesomeness.

In fact, you are so splendidly great, that mortal words can’t comprehend your utter prominence. I can only wish that I would gain a fraction of your sense importance. Here I am talking to you in your language, using your cultural references, dressed in western clothing and it is me who doesn’t understand your culture. Yet you have been able to thoroughly understand my culture and declare yourself an expert in it without any effort all. You don’t know a single word from my language, you never heard the name of any poet from my homeland and you can’t stand listening to one minute of the music, nevertheless you can expertly analyze my behavior in reference to the disturbed images you have seen in TV. Dude! You are incredible. One day I will be able to do that and forgo the burden of study.

So thank you for the valuable lessons. I can’t wait for my next one.

I wish you happy hand induced sperm liberation while you write email sermons on freedom of speech and democracy as you view released from clothing images. You seem to be good …. at doing all three together I mean.

Tell all your friends that Nelly sends them her best wishes for a tender and sweet infiltration up their rears.

Oh! And do you remember how I said you would always be welcome to write on my blog. I retract that statement. I don’t feel worthy of your youthful, open minded presence.

Sincerely;
Nelly



.... To be continued

PALACE OF THE END: is Western Canadian premiere of Judith Thompson’s trio of monologues based around the war in Iraq. Contains three monologues: A portrayal of the soldier who took the fall for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal; the dying reflections of the weapons inspector who blew the whistle on government justifications for the invasion of Iraq; a tea party with an Iraqi mother and political leader who suffered unfathomable loss at the hands of Saddam Hussein. May 21-June 6, Tuesday to Saturday at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and Sundays at 4pm. PAL Theatre (581 Cardero). Tix: $16-26, Tickets Tonight: 604.684.2787 or www.ticketstonight.ca. Info: www.touchstonetheatre.com.

Candy
A poem by my son
Yusuf Hassan
Age 8



Candy
Candy is yumy oh so sweet
When you have some you want
more. It makes you go crazy
and have a blast. Sugar come
rushing out
oh so fast. The end

“I take the best of both cultures”, you will hear the child of an immigrant say when talking about integrating two cultures. Implying that they can pick and choose the most desirable elements of each culture, the way you select apples in a supermarket, discarding the undesirable refuse in a cultural garbage bin somewhere. But, I have found that culture is like air, you breath it in involuntarily only to read about pollution and toxins later in the news. Distinguishing the good from the bad happens in retrospect and far too late. At rare moments of clarity I find myself saying and doing things whose national origin I can clearly identify, but I find myself wondering how it crawled under my skin to find habitation in the mosaic of my personality.


“I take the worst of all cultures”, I found myself wondering a few days ago. “Take” being the wrong verb preceded by the wrong pronoun. The demons of the east wage war with demons of the west vying for territory inside a tired spirit. I don’t take anything, it devours me, spits me out only to sculpt a yet another effigy with the remains. How crafty is he, the god of multiculturalism, how creative. His concoctions never seize to amaze me.

“The worst of all cultures misappropriates me”, would be a more appropriate statement.


But, let’s assume that I am able to pick and choose from my varied backgrounds the influences that I desire. Let’s also assume that just to be different from all the “I take the best of both cultures” people that I instead decide to choose the worst of all cultures, just because I am evil. What would I be like?

If I could do that, I would be able to have so much fun.

I love living in Canada, but a few things I can’t get used to regardless of how long I live here. One these irksome cultural thingies is the lack of the concept of hospitality from the Canadian lexicon. Take the idea of potlatch dinners. ``Hey! I am having a party at my house, please bring your own food otherwise you will starve`` … What? Where I come from if you bring your own food to a party it means that you are insulting the hostess and accusing her of being a bad cook. How hard is it to put together a simple meal? To Canadians it must a major ordeal. Because a Canadian would rather endure having four different varieties of potato salad with a side of potato chips at his party than make the effort to figure out how to use the stove in his own kitchen. Nowadays I always carry a steel water bottle in my bag, because in Canada you will be sitting with your tongue hanging out before anybody offers you a glass of water. My favourite story of Canadian hospitality was a BBQ party held at somebody’s backyard, where the instructions asked people to bring their own lawn chair to sit on. When it started raining people began huddling together under umbrellas. The hostess didn’t want guests in her house, but went inside herself to keep herself dry, while her guests stayed outside under the rain. Canadian hospitality at its best.

From my Czech background, I would choose the relish with which people like to describe how miserable they are. I remember the nausea I felt one day when I asked an older woman in the Czech republic how she was. She spent half an hour describing a list of physical ailments body organ, by body organ and ended by describing the different secretions that come out of her vagina at different times and proceeded to describe how these different secretions smell …. I kid you not. After listening to her for half an hour I thought I was going to faint. A party in the Czech republic will always end with people discussing how difficult their life has been with each person trying to prove that his life is more difficult than the rest. Then everybody gets drunk and starts singing. Happiness in looked at with suspicion. Don’t ever show that you are happy or having a great time in the Czech republic, people will very quickly set you straight by reminding you about all the things that could go wrong.


From my Arabic background I would choose pretending that you adore people that you hate. In the Middle East, you will go to a wedding party and invariably bump into somebody you haven’t seen in ages for a very good reason. The two of you can’t stand each other, but for some reason that person feels the necessity to feign affection. They will tell you how much they miss you and proceed to pour words of saccharine fondness over your head that you will feel sticky in the aftermath. “O you look so beautiful, you haven’t changed one bit in the last 15 years” … yeah right! “Are these your children? They must be as smart as their mom” … leave my children out of this. “How is your mom and dad, I miss them so much, please say hello to them on my behalf” … you can call them yourself if you want to talk to them. “I was thinking about you the other day, and thinking what a wonderful person you are” … that is strange since you don’t answer my emails. “Your eyes have the beautiful color of hazelnuts and your hair is smooth as silk” … O God when will this end.

To celebrate the worst of all cultures I will organize a multicultural party. Where no food is served and nobody is allowed to bring any food at all. That way we don’t gain weight. We will sit in my backyard in the Vancouver rain and compete in telling stories about how sad and pathetic our lives are. Words like bile, body secretions, depression and dark clouds are encouraged. If you have a happy life then please have the courtesy towards other people by making up distressing events about yourself so that the gloomy mood of the party is not disturbed. The person with the most pitiable life story will receive a card with syrupy compliments that are completely untrue and utterly unrelated to the receiver.

Love
Poem by my daughter Yarra Hassan
Age 10





Love is like a spring when
someone give it to you it springs
out and show all over your face.
When love is found light
shines all over you and you feel
good inside and when someone
see it they want it too!

My uncle in Baghdad thinks that I have become too western.
I live three blocks away from my parents, instead of living together in one big house.
My friends in Vancouver think that it is weird that I enjoy hanging out with my parents as much as I do. Strong family ties don’t reconcile with the individualism fetish.
Such are the dilemma’s of a wandering spirit. Not really belonging to either culture.
Living life in the awkward spaces in between.
Necessary compromises.

Ducking under a table at the sound of a bang. Anxiety sweats running down my thighs.
“Breathe deeply” I tell myself.
“Breathe deeply, you are now in Canada”, I remind myself.
The traumatizing effects of living in war zone.
One, maybe two years.
Sooner or later the body memory will be gone.
No longer anticipating a bullet.

Then comes the realization.
We were once a nation of culture.
We were once a nation of beauty.
I don’t see a trace of that when reading the daily news paper.
“Are you sunni or shea’a?” asks a friend.
We were once a proud nation.
And the sting of that never wears off.

Song for Gaza
by Michael Heart

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“I have the best religion, in the world” I declared to a group of friends. We were sitting around a table at the Templeton , a diner nestled among the cinemas, sex shops, and XXX video stores along the seedy side of Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. “Would you like to know what it is?” I continued. Everybody’s head popped up and I knew I had their attention. My friends had been discussing religion and somehow we got into discussing Pentecostal church, which led us to discussing the finer points of speaking in tongues and condemnation. I was worried that my boredom with the discussion would lead me to faint face down into my burger and fries. I was desperate to change the subject and willing to say almost anything to avoid the embarrassment of having to wipe ketchup and burger grease off my face.

“It is called Flamenco”. I answered my own question. You can be the most evil person in the world or the most pious person in the world, in flamenco it doesn’t matter, as long as you do what you do passionately.

Take the Joker character from the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight, he is psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic with bad fashion sense. But he goes about it with such flare that you can’t take your eyes off him. After all, how many fictional villains would create an elaborate scheme to steal billions of dollars only to pile the cash into a mountain and set it on fire just to prove that he doesn’t care about money. Lots of people say they don’t care about money, but how many can prove it beyond any doubt. With the Joker there are no shades of grey only absolute purple. While you fundamentally disagree with all his actions, you can’t help but admit that his cleverness makes the batman, despite all his fancy gadgets and good intentions, seem boring.

Six years ago I walked into a flamenco dance class, thinking that I would spice up a dull routine with an amusing hobby. As I plunged down the rabbit hole, I found myself looking through a key hole into a fantastical world, where dancers wear colourful clothes and garish earrings, stomp their feat in rhythmic patterns and modulate fast energetic moves with sudden pauses of eerie stillness. O, how I wished I could drink a magic potion and join them in that garden of splendour.

Before, I could dance, I had to learn to stand. Up right, shoulders down, chest up, suck your tummy in, chin up and squeeze you hind side muscles, don’t forget to breath. So many things to remember and I haven’t even started to move. In flamenco, you are supposed to move with intensity as if you are moving through think liquid, yet you need to exude an air of confidence as if it was all easy. Which was the first of many contradictions that my rational mind couldn’t reconcile. Be powerful but don’t allow it to look laboured. Follow the rhythm, yet be spontaneous. Make loud tapping noise with your feet, while hovering lightly across the stage as if you were a feather.


I can’t remember the number of times I came home after a dance class, sat on the couch and cried tears of frustration at my inability to place enough yin in my yang. “Why don’t you give up and stop dancing”, my husband would say trying to console me. Why haven’t I given up? Stubbornness, tenacity or some masochistic tendency that enjoys the humiliation? I don’t know why I haven’t given up. There were times when I thought that I must be the most clumsy, frumpy and inadequate person to have ever set foot into a dance studio.


Happiness , sadness, joy, suffering, anger, beauty, ugliness, revenge, mocking and desire to kill somebody are all examples of emotions that can be expressed in flamenco. The only emotion that you need suppress while performing, is stage freight. Technique took me years and hard work to acquire only to realize that strong technique doesn’t matter in flamenco, what matters is the strength of your expression. Duende is the Spanish word for it, which is hard to translate or explain. It is irrationality, earthiness, an awareness of death, and a dash of the diabolical all mixed together. The duende resurrects an old demonic gypsy spirit from the Andalusia region of south of the Spain that comes to shows you limitations of your intelligence, reminding you that you will end up buried and eaten by worms; and commands you to create once in a life time spine-chilling in the moment performance. It lives in the sad notes and revives old stories of darkness and suffering. “Forget about style or charm” the gypsy spirit says. “Come over here and battle in a hand-to hand combat”, she challenges you. It seizes not only the performer but also the audience, until the intensity becomes almost unbearable.


While my friends go to meditation retreats and read spiritual books hoping to reach enlightenment. I spend my quiet moments hoping, praying and yearning that I can dig deep and mine the darkness that I know is abundant in my soul, enough so that I can be privy to a visitation from the old gypsy spirit one day.


Recently, I have been kicked out of a flamenco amateur dancing group that I was a member of because the dance teacher found out that I was taking classes with another teacher as well. An unforgivable offence in her eyes. Seemed ridiculous to me. I could imagine her as a magnificent queen who has taught me much yelling “Off with her head! Off with her head! Off with her head!”

When I woke up from my day dream back at the Templeton diner, I found that my friends were discussing the difficulty of securing affordable rental units in Vancouver. It seems that I have managed to divert the conversation only by a tiny bit. I don’t think I converted anybody’s soul on that evening.

Perhaps this preacher needs a more compelling sermon.

About two years ago as I was getting ready to publish my book, I faced the issue of the book cover design. Having no garphical design skills, I had to learn how to use different tools and after 6 weeks of hard work came up with a list of different designs. I invited a group of friends to show them my list of cadidate book covers to select the winning one.

This one is inspired by the hand made mexican tiles installed in the basement washroom of my house.

Cracked tile concept. Inspired by a renovation effort in the washroom that involved cracking tiles.

Using some of my paintings. The idea being that it is a collection of stories hence the cover will have a collection of my drawings as well. I thought I was being very clever.

Cracked green tile concept. This one I decided to put groute in between the tiles for a more realistic tile look.

Flooded background concept

Arabesque tile design, inspired by the ornate designs in the al-hambra palace in the the south of Spain.
Barbed wire concept.

At the end of the slide show. My friend said that she is sick and tired of hearing me talking about book covers and that they all look the same any way and that I should just chose one and stop driving everybody crazy with choosing a book cover design.

So I decided that I hated all the designs and started all over again with a bran new concept which I called the "orange concept". The second time around I didn't consult with anybody about it.

When I read the movie description in the International Film Festival Guide, I expected a fluffy movie about a soldier’s qualms about what he had done while serving in the army and finding ways to reconcile with his past. For example: I killed people while serving in the army, but now I sponsor a hungry child in Nigeria … so I am ok.

The movie blew any and all expectations I had.
The movie is mostly animated. However the style of animation is very distinctive and like nothing I had seen before. In an eerie way, I felt that the animation was more real than reality. More real than had it been shot in documentary style. Because it is animated, the director has total control of colors, shades and speeds of movements. Each frame is infused with a certain emotion. Hence you were not only seeing the events but also seeing them through the lens of director’s feelings about them. There were certain sequences that gave me such an eerie feeling, I felt as if I wasn’t only seeing the events, but also feeling the main character’s emotion while viewing the events. As if I was walking in his shoes. Things that particularly drew my attention was the color and movement of the waves of the sea, there was a silky quality to the water, almost surreal. Another thing that I noticed in particular was a scene when he is talking with his friend the psychologist, yet there is a child playing in the background. Small details such as that added visual richness to the movie.
The director tells his own story. 20 years after serving in the Israeli army fighting in Lebanon, he realizes that he has no memories whatsoever about his time in the army. He decides to go meet previous comrades, people that served in his regiment, to try to reconstruct his time in the army. Memories start to bubble forward in his mind. The movie oscillates between the past and present, dreams, fantasies and reality. As the movie progresses, realizations of increasing intensity emerge from the fog, until the ultimate realization at the very end of the movie. You leave the movie understanding fully why his mind had blocked his memories for such a long time.
Besides being impressed with the artistic quality of the movie, I was impressed with the bravery of the director to decide to make a movie about himself with brutal honesty. This is man who is telling us about his participation in most inhuman acts, with no excuses, no pretenses just the truth. How brave it is to be able to look at yourself so objectively. The movie does not strive for a happy ending or any fake feel good effect. No feeding a hungry child in Africa. Only his shame and guilt. Even when he is handed the usual excuses, the director makes sure to reject them as just excuses.
Full incrimination.

I left the movie theater heavy hearted and little dizzy with all sorts of thoughts inside my head.
Waltz with Bashir, is a creative and mind blowing movie in both style and substance.

For years and years I have been working as computer programmer in the health sector. Developing software used by doctors and nurses in a hospital. The software helps reduce the number of medical mistakes made while treating patients. The fancy word for it is Clinical Decision Support, in plain English it means the software checks medications and treatments about to be given, against information in the patient chart to check for mistakes, for example an allergy to the medication, conflict with other medications the patient is already taking, … etc. When a mistake is caught, the software displays an alert to the doctor explaining what the problem is and suggests a more suitable treatment for the patient. A local hospital here in Vancouver, let’s call it Bringo Hospital (not the real name) uses this software.


I have a fantasy, more like a nightmare, it goes like this. ihath has a heart attack, 911 gets called and ihath is promptly transferred to the emergency department of Bringo Hospital. The fine doctors and nurses at Bringo run frantically to rescue the desperate case. The head doctor shouts order to administer 100mg of life saving medication. He types the “100 mg, life saving medication” in the computer counsel situated next to ihath’s bed and promptly gets back an alert stating “100mg life saving medication. Date August 16th 2048. Status pending. Appears to be outside of normal dose parameters. The acceptable single dose fitting this profile is 0mg”. The doctors and nurses look at each other trying to decide if they should ignore the software and administer the medication anyway, or perhaps there is a very good reason why the medication should not be given to this particular patient. A discussion starts, one camp states that the software should be ignored, the second camp argues that there are probably valid reason for not giving the medication. At that moment, ihath raises her right index finger, attempting to get the attention of the doctors and nurses standing around her. She opens her mouth, trying to speak, her mouth is paralyzed. “It is a bug, it is a bug” she wants to say, she can imagine the lines of code that had produced the alert. She can see clearly in her mind the exact line of code that has made the erroneous calculation. She opens her mouth to speak. “Beauoew, beauoew” comes out. All the doctors and nurses look at ihath with puzzled eyes, they have no clue what is she is trying to say. In frustration, ihath gives up on speech and tries to communicate through gesturing. ihath raises he right index finger again and starts point at the veins in her left arm. “Give me the medication”, she is trying to say, “stick the needle with 100mg of life saving medication into my veins”, she wants to shout. Nothing but unintelligible grunts come out of her mouth. Finally, the heart attack takes hold. Unimaginable pain pierces through her chest. With right index finger still pointing at her left hand veins, she drops dead. ihath becomes the first programmer to be killed by her own code.

The obituary section the next day states:
ihath, the brilliant programmer and linguist who created some of the most inspiring software and who spoke 5 languages was last night betrayed by both programs and speech. RIP.


Remember bug 2000? Stories of pending havoc about to take place because of old software that only knew to calculate year in two digits instead of four. There we stories on the news of airplanes that were going to fall out of the sky on the turn of the century, nuclear rockets going off because of the faulty software and general chaos. I am a member of a younger generation of computer programmers that computed years in 4 digit numbers and hence was not a creator of any of the offending software, however the thought of software causing an apocalypse like state on earth intrigued me. Us, computer programmers, suddenly seemed so devastatingly important. On the eve of year 2000, I sat at home watching the news with disappointment. No airplanes fell out the sky, no cities shut down and there was no mass bedlam. Sigh! Who is going to take us seriously after that? The lack of a single year 2000 bug horror story, downgraded all computer programmers worldwide in status. We were no longer potential saviors of humanity, just average geeks who spoke a strange language that outsiders to our tribe didn’t understand. How disappointing.
My potential future tragic death scenario at Bringo Hospital aside, geekdom has been an experience of many pleasures.


I remember the job where I wrote software that enabled text entry in different languages. The hardest part by far was implementing the text entry in Japanese. Japanese is a language that takes years and massive dedication to learn, but I only had a few weeks and so I learned enough about the grammar of the language the different characters to allow me to implement the software that I was required to do. Here I was implementing software that I myself didn’t fully know how to use. Then came clients interested in purchasing the software. People working for the leading provider of Japanese text editors in Japan, where on the conference call and my job was to demonstrate the software to them and answer all the questions. After the conference call meeting, the people at the other end asked me if I could send them a trial version of the software so that they can try it themselves before purchasing it. “I will send it to you with instructions on how to use it within the next two hours” I answered with a confident voice, attempting to the best of my abilities to mask my trepidation. I knew I was able to fool our clients in Australia with this software and our other clients in California. But here I was an Iraqi living in Israel selling Japaneseness to the Japanese themselves. “There was no way I would be able to fool them” I thought to myself as I wrote the email with instruction for download and usage. My hands trembled with fear when I clicked the “Send” button. I visualized the Japanese software engineer rolling on the floor laughing his head off as he used my software. “This isn’t Japanese! This is mumbo jumbo!” I imagined him saying to his superiors when asked about the software that I implemented. Two weeks later the head sales man informed me that the Japanese text editor company signed the purchase order and were planning to integrate the software that I implemented with their product. I nearly fell off the chair from shock. “I guess this software really works if even the Japanese are willing to use it” I thought to myself with surprise. Nobody is more surprised that the developer when software functions as expected. I felt mighty proud at the little creation that came from my own very fingers.


I remember my first job as a professional computer programmer. I couldn’t believe that I could spend the whole day playing on my computer and somebody was willing to pay me money for it. It felt almost sinful to be making money while having so much fun. The pleasure of building software from scratch is similar to playing with Lego. Where you get to use your imagination to build things that didn’t exist before. Only with software you get the satisfaction of seeing people use your creations.
However with years of experience, also came failed projects that felt like a kick in the stomach, office politics that felt like a bad viral infection and people in suits that talk about investors and profit margins. Cynical and jaded I became.
Few months ago I found myself in a duty free store in Amsterdam airport aimlessly browsing at the shops to waste time. When I saw a shop selling a SWAROVSKI Crystal pendant that is also a USB memory stick. I started to jump up and down with excitement. “Oh my God! Oh my God! This is so cool.” I said to the sales woman in the shop. “They are making gadgets for women geeks” I continued with unconstrained enthusiasm. After viewing the pendant I make an impulsive purchase decision. As the sales woman was wrapping my pendant, she asked with puzzlement “Can you please explain to me why this is cool? What does it actually do? Every once in a while a woman walks in here and starts saying: Oh this is so cool”. So I began to explain to her that this thingy can be attached to a computer or a laptop and you can transfer you files to it and then you have your files with you all the time but it is also a heart shaped pendant which makes a statement about the love you have for these files. The elderly woman still looked puzzled and asked me “So why is that cool?”. “Well it is cool because you have your files with you in a heart shaped pendant hanging on your chest, which means you love your files and your digital files are important to you and you have them hanging right next to your heart, which says something” I tried to explain. “Aha” she replied, but she didn’t look very convinced.


It was at that point that I realized that I need to go back to building software that I loved and that made my body shake with fear when I was showing it for the very first time.

Once upon a time, not so long ago and not so far away, lived a beautiful princess. The princess lived in a strange country surrounded by mountains and filled with rivers and valleys. Everybody lived a peaceful and happy life. There were no recent memories of crimes or deprivation in these lands. To the contrary, love and polite manners were the mark of the citizens of this country. Then suddenly, one winter’s night, out of nowhere, a scary monster invaded the dreams of the fair princess. Every night he repulsed the princess with his haggard appearance. He sneered his teeth angrily stomped his feet loudly and growled in heinous sounds that made even the tiniest of pomegranate pits shake in fear. He stole whatever he desired, and killed whomever he wished with nobody to defy him. The monster had declared himself the definitive master of the land.

Days and weeks passed and the poor princess woke up every morning ravaged by her sleep. She hoped that someone would rescue her from a most disastrous affliction. But all the brave heroes were in the land of sands battling a purple dragon with green teeth. After three weeks and two nights the princess became mortified of sleep and decided to pursue a life with no rest, not even a wink. But, weariness took its toll on the princess and within a month of the dreadful event she became unable to work, move or think. Even when she sat still on a chair, she felt as if thousands of needles where poking her in every pore of her skin.
And so the princess languished in despair and sat in front of her laptop. She started to search on Google hoping that she might find answers to her unique affliction. The princess searched the four corners of the internet, but hour and hours of frantic searching yielded fifty five questions and not a single solution. At the precise moment of her deepest despair was when her iPod began to play a random shuffle song from the distant land of the dunes. The Phrygian tune with its cycle of whole notes followed by semitones opened a flood of yearning that couldn’t be stopped. That is when the princess realized that the lord almighty had no intention of sending a knight in shining armor, but would rather inspire that which was not planned. The princess felt a sudden tremor in her body and stopped the random clicking on her keyboard and began to write a story.

Here is a clip from a Flamenco performance at La Zuppa Cafe (1544 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver). If you go to La Zuppa make sure to try the paella - absolutly fantastic. I am the one dancing in the black dress.

When we were still living in Kuwait, my grandmother would come visit us from Czechoslovakia. My grandmother was a large woman with breasts as large as water melons. Her breasts were so large that she was able to hide beer bottles and other liquor bottles underneath them to smuggle the illegal substance into the Islamic country.

Her greatest joy and pleasure upon visiting Kuwait was going to the beach, since there is no access to the sea in Czechoslovakia, only lakes. Swimming in the salty water and walking on those big grains of sand was a novelty for an old European lady.
One early morning my mother decided to take her mother to the beach. Thinking that an early morning swim would enable them to have the beach all to themselves, plus avoid the unbearable noon time heat. ihath decided to stay home, but ihath’s brother, who was only about 12 or 13 at the time chose to join the beach going party.

At the beach my mother sat on blanket reading a book, while my brother and grandmother went swimming and splashing in the sea. After a while the old lady tired from all the excitement and decided to sit in the very shallow end of the water to enjoy a sandwich. The falling bread crumbs attracted tiny little fishes who were plentiful in those seas named the Persian gulf at the time and always seemed to be swimming together in large swarms. When all was good and happy, an angry wave couldn’t bare to see such innocent fun taking place when only miles away war raged. The angry sea wave gathered up all her strength and decided to splash over the old European lady spoiling her sandwich with salty water. The hostile wave was successful in its mission only too well. But, as always, vigorous actions have unintended consequences. A tiny little fish was swooped up in the determined wave and found itself swimming on the inside of my grandmothers’ swimming suit when only moments ago it was swimming on the outside of my grandmothers’ swimming suit. The fish flapped around in alarm attempting to escape confinement. When my grandmother sensed something moving about inside her swimming suit, she was dumb founded by the strange sensation and began to scream. My brother reacted immediately by pulling open the front side of my grandmothers’ swimming suit and sticking his hand down the same path the fish went only moments ago. He tried to grab the fish and throw it back in the sea, but the fish kept slipping away. The young man, barely a man, more like a boy stood over his sitting grandmother ,who was still screaming, attempting to the best of his abilities to grab the poor fish.

At that very same moment, a police car was driving by on the road across from the beach. My mother, still sitting on the blanket, noticed the police car come to a sudden halt. The police officer jumped out of the car leaving the car door open. He began to run towards my family as fast as he could. My mother noticed that he was placing his hand on his gun as he ran towards them. From a distance, it seemed that a woman was swimming in the sea minding her own business when a man decided to sexually assault her right on the beach. The desperate screams of the woman were a further proof of her distress and her desperate need for a knight in shining armor to come to her rescue. The police office’s perception was quickly surmised by my mother. She knew that swift action was required before a tragic ending could take place to what started as humorous incident on the beach. My mother jumped right in front of the police officer and yelled ‘Stop!’. ‘This is not what you think’ she continued after a suitable dramatic pause. ‘The woman sitting in the sea is my mother and that is my son’ she tried to explain to the police officer. ‘But, if that is his grandmother, then how come he is touching her boobs?’ The police officer asked in a disbelieving tone of voice. My mother told him about the wave and the fish. From up close the police officer could see that the damsel in distress was really an old lady and that what seemed like an crazy predator was really a young man, almost a boy. After a contemplative pause the police man relaxed, wished the beach revelers a good day and walked back to his car.
I myself, did not inherit my grandmother’s secret smuggling compartment, but certainly inherited the family’s legacy of causing mischief even in the most innocuous of situations. I don’t go around looking for mischief. It just seems to always find me.

I woke up hearing flamenco guitar. In between states of sleepiness and awakeness, I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming the music or actually hearing it. “Maybe one of travel companions got all exited and decided to play a flamenco CD”, I thought to myself. But since the music was stopping and starting, I finally realized that a guitarist was playing underneath my window. That is how I woke up on my first day in Seville. It was the perfect start to what continued to emerge as the most perfect trip. Seville, whose streets lined with orange trees, weeping fountains and breezy courtyards, is the throbbing heart of this magical art form called flamenco. And that is where I went recently with two companions to explore and experience to the maximum. During the day I was taking dance classes and in the evening I was attending shows. In short, I was in heaven. Completely submerging myself in something that I love. I was a happy fish swimming in my favorite waters. All was beyond perfect, more than I had wished for. In a world or turmoil and upheaval, innocent fun can be painful to bear for some.

My rhythm and clapping class was extremely useful and I learned plenty about the different flamenco rhythms and how to listen to the music. Our teacher, who shall be renamed, was very knowledgeable and had a beautiful voice. Frequently he sang in the class. However he also had an arrogant attitude which implied “I know this stuff and you guys are too stupid to get it”. On my second day of classes, when I asked him about something which I didn’t understand he replied by saying “you will understand this in your next life” … Ouch! … what a nasty comment. That night my travel companions and I nicknamed him “Estúpido Bastardo “ which means stupid bastard in Spanish. His standard answers to questions frequently included “Flamenco is very difficult”, “You need to live in Andalucía for many years before you can understand this” and “You need to listen to lots of Flamenco”. While his nasty comments where spread across all the students in the class, I seemed to be singled out for the most awful ones. I spend the next 10 days thinking about the perfect way to seek revenge on Estúpido Bastardo for his demeaning comments. My options were - make fun of his physical appearance, ridicule his pathetic English or disrupt the class in some way that would annoy him. None of the three options seemed very satisfying. I kept hoping that an opportunity would come up that would allow me to get back at him for his arrogant attitude. The perfect opportunity came up on the last day of classes when Estúpido Bastardo was saying goodbye to all the students and he would shake hands with each one and give them a kiss on each cheek as is customary in Spain. When he approached me to say goodbye. I stuck my hand out in an obvious manner as to say please don’t come too close to me. Being a Estúpido Bastardo he ignored my body language and kissed me on each cheek anyway. My reaction to that was to make a facial gesture of absolute disgust as if I was just kissed by a slimy slithering lizard. I could see on his face that he was very upset by my reaction. My message got across. Estúpido Bastardo got his just dessert. Ha ha ha ha ha! Perhaps he will learn some humility in this life.

I am in Red.

We are performing in Aberdeen Shopping Center, Richmond.

The following is a story written by my eldest daughter (age 13)

The Heart Hunter