You feel something is fundamentally wrong in your lifestyle, your business, the company you are working with…and you can feel that uneasiness is shared by colleagues, your extended family…and nobody is willing to investigate the problem.  A few have sensed a major problem is pervasive and destroying the spirit, the communication among peers, employees…and nobody dare explode the problem to the open air:  They have settled on an understanding that there are no alternative solutions before trying to identifying the problem or set of problems.

Generally, serious problems are not of technical nature:  Technical difficulties have a large pool of professionals to fine tuning and resolving in the short-terms, just to keeping business rolling.  The cancer is in the work culture, the social and community structure that are preventing brave spirits to taking the lead and sacrificing their comfort zone and jobs in order to focusing on identifying the problem.

The main difficulty is how  to:

“Put yourself and your people on a path to finding problems without regard for whether or not they are capable of solving them”.

The process of “Queue the problems up, prioritize them and then go find the help your organization needs to solve them…” is not as difficult as the first phase: Queuing and prioritizing are within the technical nature of problems…

In 2003, the Israeli Knesset enacted a series of laws prohibiting couples and families with Israeli citizenship who married to non-Jewish people originating from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan…from living together in Israel.  Even Jewish citizens who married to non-Jews from the set of “enemy countries” have difficulties living together, and are under constant threat of being separated, at the whim of the military administrative officer order in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza…

These couples and families have been denied permission to meet and celebrate under the “Law of citizenship and entrance to Israel”

Since then, Israel “Supreme Court” has refused all petitions to amending and revisiting this law.  Since 2006, the Knesset decided to expand this law to including many other States deemed “unfriendly” with Israel.

Ten of thousands of families are living separate and are prohibited to rejoin.  Couples who decided to live within Israel proper are not given any guarantees for any kinds of steady and stable conditions for staying united and raising a family together.

This discriminating law is not found in any other States recognized by the UN. This law is one of the last straws indicating the racist and apartheid nature of Zionism. This law is smack within the “soul of Israel” which states: “More lands for far less Palestinians” and “Conducting preemptive policies to preserving the dominance of Jewish demography in the occupied lands”

These colonial policies within Israel is not new, but they have been rooted deeper and deeper in the last two decades, and made explicit by laws. 

Recently, Israel has been expanding its settlements in the Negev (Naqab) desert, dismantling and erasing nomad towns and displacing the bedouins… 

Thirty years ago, Israel “imported” Ethiopian “Jews” by cargo planes.  Since then, the Ethiopian Israeli citizen Jews have been subjugated to all kinds of discriminations, relegated to a third class citizens in all aspects of social and political facilities and positions. 

The Ethiopian Israeli Jew, Amir Ghethoun, wrote in the Hebrew daily Yedehot Ahronot: “I know that in the settlement of Keryat Malakhy, a group of people in the quarter of Bar Yehuda has explicitly displayed their resentments saying: “We don’t sell to Ethiopians. You recognize that a block is inhabited by Ethiopian from the stench. They are robbers.  They plant their tents in the middle of the street. They slaughter a cow and start cooking as they did in Ethiopia…”  Ethiopian Jews have been blatantly discriminated against and treated as third class citizens in all social and administrative facilities… There are no laws in Israel controlling and administering to discrimination cases. Whenever such a law exist, it is never applied…”

Discrimination in Israel is pervasive.  Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Ashkenazi class of citizens  considered all the other Jewish citizens as second class citizens. The Ashkenazi Jews are not Semite, but mostly slavic people who adopted the Jewish religious laws governing daily customs and traditions and instituted a Kingdom in the Caucasus region that was dismantled in the year 900 and the people dispersed in Eastern Europe, living in shtetl, and inventing a new language based on the German language.

Two decades ago, the Semite Jews have been infiltrating the political scenes and the army and imposing the ancient religious daily customs.  In fact, four Jewish sects in Israel do not recognize Israel as a State: They reject the Israeli citizenship and demand to be mentioned as Jews, on the premise that only their Jewishness is representative of their status…

For examples, the extremist ultra-orthodox Jewish sects of Habad (the Lubavitch branch), Hasidim of Gour, Toldot Aharon (based in the colony of Mea Shearim), and Neturi Karta (and the radical sicairs) are mostly “anti-zionist” movements that demand the dismantlement of the State of Israel.  These sects are labelled the “crasies for God” and they refuse to work for survival, but insist on the government to support their task of focusing on reading the religious books…

Note: Post inspired from an article by Antoine Shalhat (an Israeli Palestinian correspondent) to the Lebanese daily Al Nahar, and the French weekly “Le nouvel Observateur”

Last November, Zionism, for the first time, held a conference outside Israel and in Buenos Aires (Argentina) under the title “Modern antisemitism: Arabs and Moslems antisemitism behaviors…”.  The governors of the Jewish lobbies “for Israel” around the world attended this conference.  Among the Zionists “dignitaries” were Abraham DofDigani, Gosty Grabirman, Dan Meridor, Nathan Charensky…

It appears that the Zionists are very worried of the social platform medias and the facility of the Internet to spreading variations and opposite opinions to what Zionist wanted to have the main say in.  This new accessibility to audio-visual medium and the facilities to becoming not only receivers of information, but each consumer to be a producer of news is driving Zionists to the walls. 

Monopoly of major news medias is shifting to individual producers, customers willing to reflect, outsource and diversify their knowledge and viewpoints…

What? I thought that Near Eastern people and Arabs were classified as Semite by the Western civilization.  Or Zionism is taking the task of reclassifying people according to current political exigencies? 

Who but the successive Arabic Empires respected the Jews and permitted them to accede to the highest political and administrative positions in the Orient and in Andalusia?

What is Islam if not an extension to and an adaptation of the Jewish and Christian religions?

I received a developed comment from a reader to my blog that says:

“The more I research 9/11 and focus on getting to the bottom of the actual facts, the more I see that, invariably, when anyone points out anything about unethical or criminal activities of Israel or Israelis or Jews, regardless of whether these statements are cold, hard facts, or logical conclusions, that person is viciously attacked, fired, harassed, intimidated, threatened, and called “anti-semite,” even though the Israeli or Jewish  individuals named as perpetrators are almost always not of semite descent or indigenous semites, and the language may be devoid of any ethnic or derogatory slurs.

The paranoia and censorship and irrational venom directed toward anyone who simply states or investigates facts, revealing any Israeli or Jewish corruption as individuals or as an organization, is adding more veracity to the argument that the critics of said activities are reasonable in their assessment.

My native ancestors (US Indians) suffered a holocaust of over a hundred million, the largest in history, so I am familiar with genocide and have empathy for the Jews and anyone who has been unjustly subjected to racism and inhumanity and it is unthinkable to me that anyone could support the acts committed against them.

This is exactly why I do not support Israel or any Jewish person or Mossad in any criminal or deceptive act that inflicts those same atrocities upon others, and why it is necessary that there is a rational, unbiased presentation of any evidence that any country or group of people are involved in manipulating power, and money to control the wealth and sovereignty and freedom and well-being of MY people.

As natives, we are well aware of how the government and people who place foreign interests and exploitation above those of indigenous people lies and conspires to turn us against one another to divide us and conquer us.

The Boston Tea Party was the first false flag operation, where white invaders in our land disguised themselves as my ancestors to shift the blame onto us to achieve their agenda.

We are aware how the Europeans operate through subterfuge and lies. We were given smallpox-infested blankets by the government to kill us. The conspiracies to exterminate us started the day Columbus walked onshore.

We don’t call them “theories,” – we call it not making the same mistake again and trusting the white man. We don’t call that racist, we call it smart. We also claimed the right to defend our lands against any neighboring tribe or group who it became clear was working to destroy us, and we still do.

The Pueblos drove out the catholics and Spaniards who oppressed their people. The Apaches fought the Mexicans. The Lakota fought the Crow. This is not racism. It is anti-whoever makes themselves into your enemy.

It is the right of all people to identify any person or country or conspiracy of people who make war against them. Someone has deceived us into invading countries and killing people who never attacked us, and someone is responsible for the murder of every person killed as a result of 9/11 and the destruction of our economy and freedom.

If the Jew fits, wear it. If Muslim, Christian, white, black, Pakistan, German, American, male, female, native,  whoever it is, I am not afraid of information. We have corrupt tribal officials here, too, and just because we have been victims of racism doesn’t mean we have the right to defend them when they are exposed for crimes by calling everyone a racist who tells the truth.

Yes, there are some people who hate Jews for no reason. But the more I try to analyze the facts, the more evidence I see that some of the claims that Israelis (and Americans and others) are involved in suspicious and criminal activity related to 9/11 is apparently reasonable. They are welcome to leave.”  End of quote

Note: It is ironic that early Zionists suggested part of Argentina to be their “Homeland”, instead of Ouganda that England had suggested… The people in Argentina are very lucky not to suffer what the Palestinians have been suffering in genocide, humiliation, and indignities in the past 65 years of Zionism racism, apartheid, a crimes against humanity…

 Count on Lebanese to review past event, like the TEDxBeirut that was held in late September.  This time around, it is worthwhile a serious recollection of this non-profit project that came through with flying color. It was a great event that required 6 months preparation and the exhausting last month, which prevented two dozens in the board from getting a couple of sleep daily. 

A few members in the organizing board had quit secure and well-paying jobs, a few risked being fired by spending work-hours doing something else other than their paying work, a few stacked up phone bills of around a $1,000, and a few shifted the entire focus of their consultancy towards a non profitable project.

I have posted four articles on TEDxBeirut, and on Jan. 23, YOUSSEF Chaker published his version of the event under “Be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Youssef wrote (with slight editing): “I told my co-founders and our interim board members to fuck off (a big deal for an entrepreneur who poured everything into his startup for the past year). The stories of individuals, sacrificing so much for this non-profit project, span the entire group of VOLUNTEERS that come from varied backgrounds (including different countries) who worked around the clock, for days on end, to bring to Lebanon an event of a different caliber.

TEDxBeirut wasn’t about the speakers and the big names featured on the program. The theme for TEDxBeirut 2011 was “From Limitation to Inspiration.” What people outside of the TEDxBeirut organizing team didn’t realize is that it was a theme for the journey the team went through.

TEDx events (x = independently organized TED event) are special no matter where they are held in the world, but in a country like Lebanon, organizing such an event comes with its own set of difficulties. Unless you are a well-known group or company backed by some good contacts, getting past the paperwork alone is an overreaching goal.

When Patsy thought out loud about organizing a TEDx event in Beirut, she was merely expressing a wish (maybe some event company would make it happen). Little did she know that she was going to be the one spearheading the effort to see her dream go from idea to reality. And this is why I say it was an event of a different caliber.

It wasn’t the major players and usual suspects who were behind the event,  but it was, according to many attendee testimonials, one of the best organized and professional events that people in Beirut have ever experienced.

TEDxBeirut Team Members Hard at Work, Patsy, William, Marc…

 

Now why am I talking about an event that’s more than 3 months old? I promise you it will all come together at the end of this post. Bare with me as I take you through parts of the journey that will explain to you why if we ever talk about Lebanon, I might say something along the lines of “I live in a different Lebanon than you do!”

What I experienced during the days leading up to TEDxBeirut was only a fraction of what some people went through before I had joined. But I got the opportunity on many occasions to sit back and take a distant view of the behavior of the team members. It’s important to mention the HUGE differences on all levels among the people involved.

This organizing group was a typical Lebanese blend (makhlouta) like mixed nuts  in interests, skills, personalities, backgrounds, education, all of it was different. But the situation was atypical: There was a common goal. The entire team was working on a single goal, with no personal interest at all. We were all volunteers.

None of us was gaining anything from participating in this effort on a personal level. I saw people work their ass off, to put together a one day event in Lebanon, knowing that with the Lebanese mentality all they were going to get in return were complaints and criticism because the Lebanese are never pleased.

It didn’t matter, we were doing something that we cared about, that we wanted to see happen, and if others wanted to be part of it that would be great. Keep in mind, when Patsy started organizing the event, she meant it to be for about a hundred or so people. The expectation was bumped up to 300, and again to 800, to eventually get an 800 seated audience and about 200 other people sitting on the stairs in the theater or watching the stream in a different room (not to mention those who tuned in for the live stream on the web)!

Exposure, recognition, TV spots or seats in the parliament were never the objective, this time around.

I urge you to take a moment and let that last paragraph sink in. It might not impress you at first, you might think it’s weak, your reaction might be meh, so what, what a big deal… But take a moment to put it in perspective. We are talking about a “do it yourself” mentality coupled with a “do it FOR yourself, fuck everyone else” attitude…

I am an entrepreneur, I don’t mean to keep mentioning it just for the sake of rubbing it in, there’s a mindset at the root of it. It is important to understand that so much goes into planning an event of this caliber. It takes certain personality traits, but also education and culture to foster such a mentality, which is not the case for most people in the world (especially Lebanese people).

And not only is it not part of our upbringing, it’s also discouraged in favor of ‘secure’ jobs:  We are reminded most of the time that individuals not seeking stable secure jobs are different, geniuses, basically not us. With TEDxBeirut, the group of individuals who participated broke that mold. They showed that ideas belong to everyone, and the execution is as possible for the common person as it is for the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

TEDxBeirut created a platform and an opportunity for other members of the community to follow suit. Donner Sang Compter (Give Blood/Without Counting, a play on words) is an initiative, by student founder Yorgui Teyrouz, to promote blood donations in Lebanon in an organized and continuous manner and raise awareness about the importance of contributing. 

Yorgui Teyrouz talk at TEDxBeirut 

This same network of people were very important to Joanna Choukeir who wanted to get an ambitious project rolling called “Imagination Studio”.  Joanna said:

“The impact that TEDxBeirut had on this idea was inspirational! Straight after the talk, a queue of “imaginers” wanted to help bring the idea to life. At home my inbox was already loaded with sign-ups, and the twitter and Facebook accounts with mentions and messages.”

The Lebanese community is a very capable group of people who unfortunately have been dormant and passive for many years. But all it takes is one person to get the ball rolling and action starts happening: “Together, we moved from one idea – Imagination Studio – to 22 brilliant ideas that can be put in action right now, right here, with the support of voluntary teams!”

Imagination Studio happened, and an open call for volunteers took place for people to contribute in their own way and using their own expertise to solving a problem.  Joanna compiled a list of people interested in contributing along with the actionable ideas that need to be implemented. The effort is still in its beginnings.

I am sure many of the skeptics out there who are used to bringing down others who are pushing for change will say that nothing will come out of Imagination Studio. There might be plenty of obstacles and many discouraging days, but what TEDxBeirut has demonstrated is that the only obstacle between us and change is ourselves and our own doubt. Everything else can and will be overcome.

Imagination Studio Fun

The TEDx movement is hard to explain, and hard to explain in terms of impact, or for the business people out there in terms of ROI. But it does have the IT factor that you do experience once you take part. No wonder there’s a book being written about it by an author who’s traveled to a dozen or so countries in 2011 and attended about 30 TEDx events and will attend double that number in 2012.

At the moment, the efforts might be on a small-scale. But we have a blueprint for social change that can be the example and inspiration for others. One pretty well-kept secret, which I’m sharing with you right now, is TEDxSKE.

TEDxSKE is a weekly gathering where a bunch of us (not just TEDxBeirut team members) get together to watch TED and TED like talks (TEDxSKE is run by Patsy who is licensed by TED which is a requirement to run TEDx events, but any group can get together and do the same without using the TED name although the license is not hard to get).

TEDxSKE was the precursor to TEDxBeirut and has grown since then. The activity changes from one week to the other, usually around a certain theme. It is not limited to TED talks alone, it could be any idea worth sharing. Of course, the evening doesn’t stop at the video/talk level.

The highlight of these gatherings is usually the discussions or activities (games) that we participate in between talks. And the result varies from one person to the other. I can not claim to know the effect that TEDxSKE has on each and every one of us, not even on myself. As this is an ongoing thing, a process of growth for all of us.

I can tell you that I see the change in the others and they see it in themselves as well. Some of us are trying to find out who we are, why we are on this planet and what we are supposed to be doing. Others are looking to affect change. And a few are, for the first time ever, getting exposed to alternate points of view.

TEDxSKEers are discovering aspects of their own personalities that they did not know about themselves, broadening their horizon and challenging their beliefs. And trust me, this is not poetry or empty talk. This is paraphrased directly from the participants themselves. TEDxSKE is a collective of passionate and motivated people who are a support system for each other. Many of whom are or will be important pillars in the social entrepreneurship change in Lebanon in the coming years.

TEDxSKEers Participating in an Activity at Patsy apartment in Awkar

It might be a tad bit early to talk about results and accomplishments, but it is not too late, nor too early to talk about inspiration or even a different kind of movement in a country that has not adopted the Tunisian or Egyptian model of the Arab Spring. So when you drive or walk around Beirut, and you think about the potholes, the traffic and the corruption that Lebanon represents to you, remember that there is another Lebanon. A Lebanon you are more than welcomed to be part of, where DSC and Imagination Studio are not just ideas and where Thursdays (replaced by Tuesdays) are for the spoken poetry and arts club… Such a thing exists, stay tuned for more details.

It’s another kind of Lebanon which promotes action over wishful thinking, local change over change of country of residency. Just remember, be the change you want to see in the world.

Examples of “What Inspires You in TEDxBeirut”?

It has been terribly cold these past two weeks, Lebanon standard.

We do enjoy central heating systems…

I cannot afford the fuel.

It is 2 am, and I am not sleepy, but cold is creeping in my bones.

I got in my “warmer” bed, and could not sleep.

Memories flooding in, dispersing haphazardly, converging, diverging,

Refocusing on a beautiful face, a beautiful face I met 37 years ago.

It was winter of 1976. A Friday, and about 8:30 pm.  Alone, I am to watch a foreign movie,

Shown by the University Film Club at the Microbiology department.

She showed up with her girlfriend. She is blonde, blue/green eyed, not tall, not skinny.

For my candid eyes, just the perfect beauty.

I cowered. I should have made haste, join her, and say: “Fair lady, have a good look at my face.

I need you to remember my face. I need you to recollect that this face once told you

“You are the most beautiful girl around…”

The microbiology department, a stupid two flat floors, a couple of microscopes, and an auditorium.

The second” complex” by the Main Library, looking south,

The South long lawn, ideal for mass student demonstrations,

Demonstrated around it twice a week,  with a couple hundred of Iranian students,

Scanding: “Down with the Shah of Iran”, “Down with US imperialism”, Down with the Savak”…

Three years later, the Shah fled to exile.

Only Sadat of Egypt dared give him shelter.

No, I didn’t chicken out: I terribly lack conversational skills, and still do.

No, I didn’t chicken out: I had never carried out a conversation with a beautiful girl,

I didn’t understand girls, or human interconnection…

And time never came to the rescue in any important skills: It aches,

And the aches are exacerbated with time.

A couple of months later, I met her in my apartment.

I was returning at midnight from the library.

It was a cold night, and I must have biked or walked, no other alternatives.  And I had to piss badly and profusely.

I stepped out and this beauty had vanished like a mirage.

“Where is she?” I asked my room-mate Fouad.  ”You know, the one I once told you was the most beautiful girl around that I met?”

Fouad looked me up in total surprise. “You mean Jennifer?”… That’s another story: She was taking a pharmacy class with him…

Twelve years later, I met her at Zanzibar, a night club in the town of Norman.

She was sitting alone, at the bar, didn’t change a bit.

Twelve years later, and another round of “higher education” stint,

A stint that grew me old:

My Ph.D advisor told me: “At your age, I had married my three kids…”

And he didn’t look that old.  Some people mature fast and very soon.

Maturity? I am waiting for this phase to take a peek at me.

I am  the skipper-type:

From everlasting naive kid to rotten wise.

I sat by her and whispered her name: I could still recall her name.

I introduced myself and simply reminded her of the name of Fouad, my former room-mate.

She “recognized” me instantly. Fouad must have told her about the devastating impression she made on me…

Count on a girl to retrieve a guy’s face, formed in a split-second,

Many years later, a face attached to “You are the most beautiful girl around…”

We had no conversation: She didn’t contribute.

She was selling pharmaceutical products…

I could have said: “Has one of the two bartenders invited you tonight? Are you intending to invite a particular bartender…?”

Any small talk, the most outrageous talk would have been swell…

This cavernous silence.  But she didn’t change a bit

I bet, if I meet her again, another 37 years later, this girl will still be the same girl,

Unchanged, not a bit:

The eyes register the first impression,

And it was good.

My eyes: setting on the most beautiful girl around.

My eyes, refusing to sleep a wink tonight.

The US citizens have been exercising successive pressures to limiting the influence of money of the elite 1% class on selecting the candidates in campaign contributions. It is obvious that money contribution selects the candidates for the final show down, on the assumption that it is the “people” who has the final say in selecting between the final two contenders of the two main parties.

For a century, there has been slow but steady improvements to reforming election contribution.  For example, Theodore Roosevelt prohibited in 1907 the large companies to directly contributing to candidates.  During the last Obama campaign, the little people amassed enormous cash flow with small amounts.

Lately, the Supreme Court butted in and upheld that “monetary contribution is a form of free expression…” such as free speech and writing… Sure, contributing money is a serious form of expressing opinions, but the Supreme Court took the extra step for codifying how the collected contribution should be spent. And what are the constraints?

The Supreme Court opened the door wide for establishing “Super PACS” with the specific purpose of collecting “unlimited” amount of contribution.  And what are the constraints?

First, the “Super PACS” must be “independent” of the campaign staff of the candidate.  Like, the head of the ”Super PACS” that contributed $5 million to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina was his former spokesman…Most of that contribution was from a single rich person…

Second, all “Super PACS” contribution money should be spent on negative ads.  Foe example, the “Super PACS” can generate contributions from the rich in outside States, as long as the money is spent on negative images of the candidates in the other States…

Do you think the Supreme Court is being captured by the financial multinational liberal capitalists?  Something is going awry in this formation of the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court is another branch of the power-to-be, and if all the branches at a particular period converge on a consensus, dictatorship is well rooted.  Should the citizens start another campaign of Occupy the Supreme Court? In any case, the people have this right, guaranteed by the Constitution and confirmed by Supreme Court.

Note: Post inspired from an article by Hisham Melhem in the Lebanese daily Al Nahar

Itzcoatl Ocampo is 23-year-old, a slender former Marine, and was considered a troubled man after he returned from Iraq in 2008.   Itzcoatl’s father, Refugio Ocampo, said that his son came back from his deployment a changed man:  his son expressed disillusionment and became ever darker as he struggled to find his way. After Itzcoatl was discharged in 2010 and returned home, his parents separated.  So what’s new here?

A neighbor, a Vietnam veteran, and Ocampo’s father both tried to encourage Itzcoatl to get treatment at a veterans’ hospital, but he refused.  The same month, one of Itzcoatl’s friends, a corporal, was killed during combat in Afghanistan, and Ocampo visited his friend’s grave twice a week.  Again, what’s new in this story?

A newspaper in SANTA ANA (California) reported “An Iraq war veteran charged with stabbing to death four homeless men in Southern California was a thrill seeker who took pleasure in killing his victims, prosecutors said Wednesday”.

Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told reporters outside a jailhouse courtroom that 23-year-old suspect Itzcoatl Ocampo appeared lucid, calm and intelligent and showed no signs of mental illness.  Rackauckas said: “He gets a thrill out of it. This is a serious, vicious killer who went out there intentionally going about killing people and terrorizing a whole area.”

Ocampo was charged Tuesday with four counts of murder and special allegations of multiple murders and lying in wait and use of a deadly weapon. Three victims were stabbed more than 40 times each, with a single-edged blade at least 7-inches (17-centimeters) long, authorities said.

After the brief hearing, defense attorney Randall Longwith declined to comment on the allegations and said his main concern was gaining access to Ocampo, who was being held in a medical ward, wearing only underwear and wrapped in a blanket designed to prevent him from hurting himself, and denied visitors.

Longwith told reporters: ”We’re just concerned that he hasn’t really had access to an attorney or to anyone at this point.  He seems very scared.”

Ocampo was arrested Friday night when bystanders chased him down after a man was stabbed to death outside a fast-food restaurant in Anaheim, about 26 miles (42 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. He was caught with blood on his hands and face. Authorities have not decided whether to seek the death penalty.

Ocampo will be given a psychological evaluation and is being held in isolation and monitored around the clock to prevent him from hurting himself or being harmed by other inmates, said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the county sheriff’s department.

The killing spree began in December and prompted police to fan out across the county known as the home to Disneyland and multimillion-dollar beachfront homes to urge the homeless to sleep in groups or in one of two wintertime shelters.

Police allege that Ocampo would stalk each of his victims, then stab them repeatedly with a knife that could cut through bone. He selected his last victim, 64-year-old John Berry, after he was featured in a Los Angeles Times story about the killing spree, prosecutors said.

Berry filed a police report the day before he died, saying he feared he was being stalked, but officers didn’t have a chance to follow up amid a flood of nearly 600 leads and tips.

“It is unfortunate that we didn’t get to him before the suspect did,” Anaheim Police Chief John Welter said.  Like the homeless men Ocampo is accused of preying on, Itzcoatl’s father is also homeless. His father lost his job and ended up living under a bridge before finding shelter in the cab of a broken-down big-rig he is helping to repair.

Days before his arrest, Ocampo visited his father, warning him of the danger of being homeless. He showed him a picture of one of the slain men, his father said. “He was very worried about me,” his father said. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry. I’m a survivor. Nothing will happen to me.’”

Note 1: http://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/i-am-returning-home-crippled-from-iraq-after-the-battlefield-suffering/

Note 2:  Associated Press writer Kevin Freking in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

Do you think math abilities is genetic? Not quite, apparently.  Do you think that math is just a matter of manipulating numbers? Not quite, apparently.  There are at least four main factors that promote math thinking and abilities:

First factor: There are indications that math aptitude is generated from customs of persistent habit in resolving problems. It appears that doing well in Math is related to engaged attitudes for working hard:  The more persistent and resolved to solve a problem, the longer your attitude to be engaged in what you do, the better you are in math.

For example, people in culture working in rice fields that require constant and hard effort all year round do better in math than other people who just saw, forget the field for a season, and just reap in the proper season.  A rice paddy, the size of a room, is built from the ground up, irrigated frequently at the proper level, and constantly maintained and worked 360 days a years, rain or shine…A rice paddy is literally “blood” and sweat and waking up everyday at 5 am to tend to the paddies: The rice peasant and his family have to tend to the adequate amount of water, varieties of proper rice shoots, cleaning each plant from parasites…If you need good quality and two harvest, you have got to sacrifice blood, sweat, persistence, endurance…The survival in rice planting culture is very delicate, and working hard with resolve is a way of life.

Second factor: Cultures with vocal numbers that are reduced to single syllables do better than culture complicating the utterance of simple numbers with long string of syllables.  Why? Kids of 5 year-old, instead of focusing on manipulating numbers, spend many precious years just memorizing how to say and comprehend verbal numbers. Our short-term memory of a couple of seconds can handle ten syllables, and if the numbers are of single syllable, kids are better at memorizing and recalling strings of 10 numbers in any order they are presented: Digits are fun and no longer a complicated manipulation of transformations from the verbal to the numeric dimensions…

Third factors:  Cultures with logical correspondence between the vocalized numbers and the digits do better than other cultures in math. For example, what eleven (11) has to do with one and ten? Or the French number 93 (quatre vingt threize) has to do with nine tens and three?  Instead of first transforming a complicated vocalized number before figuring out its corresponding digital number, the Cantonese Chinese culture has arranged to say the numbers the way they are written logically.

For example, how would you keep in your short-term memory two numbers such as two hundred and forty-five (245) and seven hundred and twenty-one (721)?  Suppose these two numbers are vocalized as (two hundred four ten and five),  and ( seven hundred two ten and one), which would constitute 10 syllables since each number is of a single syllable, the kids in which culture would have a qualitative edge in manipulating numbers and math?

Adding and subtracting the two numbers are straightforward in Cantonese: The digits are plainly arranged for computation, and you don’t need several mental transformations before you get to the task of adding…

Kids of 3 year-old in a particular culture have more facility with math than kids of over 5 year-old in other cultures, simply because they don’t need to undergo several mental manipulations and having to retrieve from the various working memory data and information stored in verbal forms and complicated shapes…

Culture relying mainly on trading variety of goods end up devising a coded language for transactions, mainly by truncating the verbal numbers and shortening the sentences in transactions:  I guess, lengthy verbal numbers originally adopted in the language are truncated when transacting goods…

Four, kids who are trained to solve all the math problems and exercises after each math chapters, from the easiest to the hardest, in neat and legible handwriting, do better than kids who have no patience of solving but what they consider to be harder than the other problems, and don’t care to sit down and put down on paper how they solved the problem…

This practice of solving all the math problems and exercises has this huge benefit of spending 10,000 hours in math practice-sessions, a requirement to getting top among math professionals…

Curiously, kids and students who excel in math have acquired the habit of focusing entirely on the lesson in class.

Maybe the second and third factors don’t translate well into the abstract domain of mathematics in the long-term, simply because the kids get used to relying very much on their short-term memory and fail to train adequately their working memory for other kinds of intelligence and abilities.  But the first and fourth factors are essential for doing great in math.

Note: This post was inspired from a chapter in “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell

What is this Maslow’s Pyramid?  Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who identified in the 1940′s a simple and easily understandable set of human needs that motivate mankind.  The pyramid is a structured hierarchy of needs starts from basic needs for satisfying physiological needs such as eating, drinking, sleeping… and stepping up to satisfying feeling of security and order, then growing emotional needs to belonging socially (to love and be loved), achieving the yearning to be respected and recognized, and finally working toward self-fulfilment…

And many “professionals” in all kinds of social and psychological fields bought it and programmed us according to this “rational” concept, which lacks the necessary experimentation

There is a book by Paul W. King “Climbing Maslow’s Pyramid: Choosing your own path through life” who is regurgitating this pyramid concept of mankind priority needs and wants.   King starts his pyramid with confidence and self-esteem, the next step in the hierarchy is  sex, love, relationships, and followed by spirituality and meditation, upgrading to appreciation of beauty, form and balance, before reaching the urge for self-fulfilment, of whatever that mean…

If you were offered a hot loaf of bread, would you smile at the gesture?  I am confident if this bread (hot, cold, dry, or moulted…) is extended to a famished kid in Somalia, and the billion kids and adults living on less than one dollar a day, they will display a broad smile, and laugh their heart out for this opportunity to surviving the day…

If you are not in such a dire need for your daily intake of bread, corn flakes, rice… would you smile for a hot loaf, bowl of soup…?

How many kids recall eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, feeling that cold…? They don’t recall these basic needs.  Why?  They felt “secure” that the family, extended family, and restricted community will cover these basic needs.  The kids in a secured environment can recall how secured they felt that their basic wants and needs will be satisfied.

Even if you are in a boarding school and rarely see you parents, you still don’t recall eating, drinking… The institution was meant to satisfying the basic needs, but you may recall the instances you felt insecure and scared.

An orphan not cared for, kids displaced from their known communities, forcefully detached from their families…do recall these rare occasions when they were offered a hot loaf of bread, a candy, a bar of chocolate…and do recall the face of the benevolent “intruder” into their harsh life…

If you were offered a hot loaf of bread, would you smile at the gesture?  Maybe not.  If you were lost, you certainly will smile to a friendly face you come to cross.  If you were freezing outside, you will smile to someone who offers you a warm and clean bed.  If you had no bath for weeks, you will smile to the opportunity of dipping in a jacuzzi, having your cloth washed and dried…

First come security for survival: mainly, finding the group, the community ready to shelter your “insecurities” and all the other needs follows…

How can you acquire any self-confidence if the basic need for security is lacking?  Anyone who claims: “I made it all by myself, all by my self-effort and determination…” is a veteran liar.  Without your community, there is no chance you could have survived your first days, year first month, your first year…

What is this “self-fulfilment”? If you managed to accumulated enough money for your retirement period and can afford not to cater for your daily chores, because billion people are still slaving to maintain your comfort zone, what kinds of activities do you think may fulfil your various satisfaction?  Would you be able to survive a day without thinking of the multitude aching and laboring for your”self-fulfilment”?

Don’t you feel that tackling your daily chores like sweeping your home, doing your dishes, washing your cloths..,.when you can afford to pay someone else, are opportunities to enjoying what you were forced to do before ”self-fulfilment”? Doing what the free starts doing when slaves should be doing… 

Do you believe that you are unable to appreciate beauty, forms…until all the other lower necessities are satisfied? Do you think mankind survive sequentially or because he can process many needs and wants in many parallel ways, and negotiate his survival at every single moment…?

I have two basic beefs with this kind of structure:

First, “rational” systems that are not fully substantiated are far more dangerous in consequences than systems based on hunches…

Second, this pyramid is not standing right and is wrong…

For example, Freedom is an abstract concept, until your phrase it into “How many choices are you willing to handle, and reflect upon the every aspect of daily living chores and future aspiration and passions…”  For example, if your passion is for a particular school teaching system, and the State government intentionally impose severe hurdles into instituting your teaching method, would you feel your freedom has been abridged? If the State facilitate the practice of your passion in your particular school system, would you demonstrate with others who have other passions that the same political system prohibit?

Note 1:  Paul W. King was born in India to British parents and is studying at the University of Alberta (Canada).  Paul is a professional photographer and a speaker and coaches in giving talks and presentations.

The selection process in many States for particular sport games and other disciplines are age-skewered.  For example, in Canada, the “eligibility” cut-off date for hockey is January 1st. Consequently, if you were born in January or February, you were lucky to have a full year advantage over the ones who were born in December or November:  You are one year bigger, stronger, more experienced, more mature, more trained than the remaining contenders.

The other advantage in “what month you were born” is that hockey fields are not available in every town and require special investment and maintenance, so that only the selected players will enjoy the opportunities of frequent training, scheduled games, constant monitoring… If you were born in December and were selected then, most probably you had something that the more fortunate players of a year older lacked in talent, skills, or negotiating intelligence…

In the US, baseball selection date is first of August.  The selected players for junior leagues who were born on August are double those born in July…In England, selection date for National Junior soccer teams is first of September.  Selected players born in September are double the number of those born in August.  In Czechoslovakia, selection date for soccer teams was January 1st, and you know by now how many talented generations were wasted who happened to be born in December.

The best and more talented players are not picked according to astrology: They were very lucky to be born at particular advantageous dates for specific sport games: A full year advantage, when every month count when you are 10 year-old! As you are selected, the player gets all the other advantages such as best coaches, better fields, scheduled training sessions, actual real games against opposing teams, grants…

More importantly, as you are selected, you have the greatest of opportunity of marking the 10,000 hours in practice sessions that are necessary to propel you as top in your field, such as sport, music, computer programming, singing, dancing, fashion designer, designer in any field….

This “Matthew Effect” is translated into a “self-fulfilling prophesy” where “You start with a false definition in the beginning that evokes new behaviors which make the original false concept true” (Robert Merton)

I have this hypothesis: The selected individuals who made it against the odds of date of birth will out-best the favored ones later on, simply because they had this “extra edge” in other characteristics. What could be the other factors? This question should be answered by further research, such as other types of intelligence, negotiating talents, fitting in, grabbing opportunities, more endurance, more persistence…

Note: Post inspired from a chapter in the “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell