Snow fall and Gore's Oscar victory

Last night Gore’s documentary was among the Oscar winners. This made me very happy. I have not watched his documentary yet because it will have an impression on me so that I will not get away from thinking about the environment all the time. I guess that one would analyze my angst as getting away from the realities and not facing them. I am perhaps a person who is not up to some challenges such as environmental disaster, economic collapses, etc.

Following the Oscars, the snow blanketed the state of Connecticut, where I live. This was a beautiful message after Gore’s victory. Somehow social and natural events have nicely coincided at the same time. The snow fall made happy too after hearing the news about climate change this year. Everyone has been talking about the problem that we might face it drastically in the future. However, seeing the snow on the tree branches this morning made my day and I thought that I am fortunate to see it again before the end of winter season.

A winter without snow is a house without roof, a face without smile, or a cup of soup without salt. When it comes to snow, I am person who does not complain about. When it snows, my friends at work complain and moan about the presence of the snow so that I play devil’s advocate and take the side of the snow to the point that I become adamant about and then realize that I should stop not to annoy people. This is because I do want the nature to take its course and it pleases itself. I might be cruel because the course of nature can be brutal at time when it comes to earth quake or if snow fall becomes deadly.
As a matter of fact sometimes, snow fall can be devastating when it brings about avalanches and death and destruction with it. Yet this is very seldom and happens occasionally as in other destructive forces that are caused by men. For example, accidents involving death or fires that cause havoc etc.

No matter what I look at it positively and enjoy the snow when I see kids on their snow tubes, skies and other means sliding down the hills. Incidentally, I think about water in the summer due to the snow fall and say “Alas…we will have not worry about water this year” and do not think about any thing that disturb my routine.

I have as many numbers of the accounts as the capitalists do!

I remember having read in a newspaper some years ago that Imelda Marcos—the former first of lady of the Philippines in 70s and 80s--had had 5,000 pairs of shoes in her glorious days. That was certainly a sensational piece of news for a leftist such as I. It was a good argument to support my ideas against inequality and oppression, etc. Even if one is not a leftist, having thousand pairs of shoes is a grotesque way to indulge oneself. There are a great many such examples one of which is that Mari Antoinette’s answer to the demonstrating Parisians. She had asked her servants or people around her why the Parisians were demonstrating against. When her people told that they were demonstrating against hunger, she had replied “If they cannot find bread, they should eat torte.” Therefore, it is not surprising that sometimes elite behave awkwardly and annoying. However, such annoyance might also bring down the ruling elite who are selfish and can only think about themselves.

The reader might think that I was supposed to write about the Kurds; I had promised to continue with the history or situation of the Kurds next day. I know that I veered off from that topic because I intended to write for my blog yesterday; I could not enter my blog site. The reason for that was no matter what I did, I was not able to access my site. Therefore I could not update my blog. Since I have all my passwords on my machine at work, I needed to drive to work this morning—Saturday 24, 07. My work is 16 miles away from my home. I drove to work after having breakfast with my kids. I would have stayed at workplace to study for my classes but I had to return home and go to my children’s swim meet, for I had signed to work from 1 to 5:30 until the end of the meet. The following day my other son is going to compete in the swim meet. So the weekends are full and there is almost no time study for classes.

When I retrieved my username and password for the blog, I looked at the list of my usernames and passwords, it downed on me that the era of the Internet or cyberspace has eventually brought equality among the classes. Now I can say I am equal in having as many account numbers to various sites as do capitalists in my society. I can compete with all the capitalists in creating account numbers. Finally, everyone can now accounts for Yahoo, Google, and other sites—you name it. This is a great revolution. The revolution in cyberspace has made us—rich and poor—equal. This is the only place we can compete with each other. What Marx, Engels and other revolutionary philosophers have not achieved with their ideas, cyberspace revolutionaries have achieved with the creation of revolutionary information technology.

When I started counting my accounts, I realized that I did have many accounts. I do not know whether I will use all of them, but I did possess many from many known brands not from Bloomingdale, Boss, or C. Klein but from Yahoo, Google, MSN, airline, library, Amazon, Borders, etc. etc.

Who am I?

Last week I promised to introduce myself to my classmates and other people who would stumble upon my blog. Now I have some spare time to do it.

We know people by their names, deeds and fame. Moses is known as the messenger of the Ten Commandments. Some of these commandments had been written or practices in Mesopotamia. For example, Hammurabi is known to have put down laws and these laws considered as the first written laws. Jesus has been known for centuries and now as the Holly Spirit, God, and the Son of God. Mohammed is known as the messenger of God. Everyone has an attribute to be known for.

Since I am not of this caliber, then what am I known for? Who am I? I must admit though that I am only known by my name and last name like other billions of people. I am Yuksel Serindag. My ethnic background is Kurdish. Some of you might ask themselves about the word “Kurdish.” Yes, the word “Kurdish” describes an ethnic group in the Middle East. Kurdish is the adjective of the word “Kurds,” who live in Kurdistan. Kurdistan is the land where the Kurds live. Of course there are other ethnic groups that live in Kurdistan as well, e.g., Assyrians. To know more about Assyrians please go to Wikipedia.

Kurdish land or Kurdistan right now is divided by four countries—Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria--in the Middle East. The Kurds are neither Turks, nor Arabs, nor Persians. Linguistically they are related to the Persians. The Kurdish language is a branch of the Indo-European family language tree to which English, German, Russian, French and Greek belong. There are many Kurdish words that are similar to words in the languages above. For example, the word “Brother” in English is “Bra” in Kurdish.

My ethnicity is Kurdish but my name Yuksel Serindag is Turkish not Kurdish. The reason for that is when I was born (in the 60s) Kurdish was forbidden and still is. Therefore my parents gave me a Turkish name. The process happened in the U.S. and Australia with the natives. This process is called assimilation. That is, a militarily powerful culture tries to eradicate another one.

To be continued…

Telling about yourself!

In the first class, we introduced our classmates based on what we told each other. The easiest part of telling about yourself was obviously telling your name, occupation, marital status, etc. However, there was another question as to by what you want to be known. I found this question quite interesting. I could not tell my classmate anything about by what I wanted to be known. This is a tough matter! What could be so interesting about me? Usually people are known by their deeds, fame, and accomplishment. I did not have any of those. Also, I thought telling that part might be a kind of bragging about yourself. Maybe I do not know about my qualities and had never thought about them. After pondering about that question while driving home to Middletown, Connecticut, I came to the conclusion that such a question is very American.

Why would I say that? Think about a meeting, party congresses, elections, and any kind of ceremonies, the speaker or the person at the center of the event starts the speech or the event by introducing himself/herself. This, of course, is very normal. After the smooth introduction, the person then continues with his or her accomplishments by listing them all, so that people know about his or her merits. I have been living in this country for more than a decade—almost two decades next year. I ought to have gotten used to this side of being American as well, but I guess this aspect will take some more time. I will hopefully introduce myself next time.

Yuksel

How to start?

It is the beginning of everything that one has to think about: What to write? How to start? Will it be good write-up? Or even will it make a good impression on the classmates and the professor? I left these questions aside and took writers' advise "just start writing" as the main provocateur to make me join the blog club. Consequently, I jumped on the bandwagon and created a blog, too. Also, the e-mails of my classmates encouraged me to join the group and enjoy the fruits of nature--sorry! the fruits of electronic world.

What will my blog be about? I will reflect my thoughts on the life and its dynamics such as politics, religion, history, and daily problems. In doing so I will probably write about things that are also controversial, e.g. war, international politics, and religious issues.

I would like to warn before hand that I will not spend much time editing my write-ups, so there will be some grammatical problems as far as syntax are concerned. I apologize for this! I hope that everyone has understanding for my grammar mistakes. However, what I think is important is whatever is inside.

I hope that you all have had a nice Valentine's Day!

Sincerely,

Yuksel