Crow's Nest...

This will be my concluding post from the land of Hollywood, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and Silicon Valley. I am leaving California and with it United States of America. This tour had its ups and downs and with them their ebb and flows. For the past three days I have been visiting southern California and its most famous attractions namely Disneyland Resort and Universal Studios Theme Parks and Hollywood. It has been a ride full of adventures and fun and will need a complete post dedicated to it once I am done with leaving the country and arriving in Pakistan. Till then Adios!

Why wouldn't blogger let me blog? This is a million dollar question that i was asking myself yesterday at around same time. The ever efficient blogger bots had realized that my blog looked like a spam blog and thus decided to deny me any opportunity to publish any new posts until such time that my blog was reviewed by a team of teaming humans and cleared of any probability of being spam. Outrageous. The bots are pathetic. I don't see why any such thing should have happened. Incompetence can account for much but then again the guys were quick to give me my access back. I wanted to write about so many things yesterday. I wanted to write about the situation in our capital Islamabad. I wanted to comment on the plight of religion in our country. I wanted to post about our upcoming visit to the Disney Land. I wanted to write much more. But nigh! I shall not. And thus you shall not.

I have no idea when American Football became an interesting game for me. I suppose it was when i stared to understand the rules and regulations that govern the game. And now here i am following the game like any average fan. Now if you know anything about the game you must know that today is the Super Bowl Sunday when the biggest game of the year is played. the streets are empty and every American is stuck to his TV screen. the game is going on between Indianapolis Colts and Chicago Bears . This year's Super Bowl has a unique thing about it unlike any before. The head coaches for both teams are African American. For some this is the history in making since it is the first time in the history of the game that an African American coach is playing his team in the super bowl. I have no specific favourite team but i would be siding with Chicago Bears for one particular reason. They have a Muslim player in their roster. The name is Muhsin Muhammad and he is the wide receiver. Here is w...

I have journeyed across a whole continent, overnight, and am now in New york for my interview. I took a red eye flight out of San Jose into JFK. This time around the check in was complicated because the air line tagged me and thus i had to undergo special security checks. It cost me an extra 5 minutes but nothing much. The flight itself was very uncomfortable on Jet Blue . The check in clerk changed my seat from the exit row to the one in front of it. Jet Blue is a paranoid airline and thus their actions. I had to spend my whole journey crammed in a seat that had minimum leg space and did not recline. It was horrible. And since my boarding pass was tagged i could not complain. Otherwise the journey went well. We landed in New york early in the morning and were welcomed by wind chill temperatures of 19 degrees Fahrenheit. I took the Air train out to the Howard Beach Station and then the A train to 168th street. After this it took me 2 block walk to my very pleasant hosts, FC and AJ. I h...

I am going for my interview at the Brookdale University Hospital on the 31st of this month. I have just received the email from the coordinator. Let us see what happens on this interview. The weather in Brooklyn is very very cold and i will be carrying with me some extra clothing to prevent myself from sheer freezing. the forecast for the week though is better and on the interview day it is supposed to be sunny and not runny. The weather here in Santa Clara has been unusually dry and i haven't seen the better part of rain for quite some time. But there is hope in the air and rain on its way. The preparation for the exam is going good i guess. Today was a better day where i was able to accomplish more and do better on the tests. But overall the exam requires some honest time to sit and study. I am trying to do that and will continue to do so inshaAllah. I have my exam scheduled for the 8th and 9th of February 2007. The hope spring is eternal.

Adil Najam at Pakistaniat.com has posted about nominating Abdul Sattar Edhi for the Noble peace award. I think it is a valiant thought and deserves our whole hearted help and acknowledgment. I say this not because i think i should do this as a proud Pakistani but i say this because i should do this as a proud human being. In this world be-thralled with innumerable examples of human evil handedness and human suffering Edhi is a hope as were Mother Teressa or Nelson Mandela. Adil deserves to be helped and he requires us to leave our own testimonials on the website. I would urge all to help towards this noble cause and help him come up with a fitting testimonial that he can submit to the committee that decides about the Noble Peace award.

To reconstitute political life in a state presupposes a good man, whereas to have recourse to violence in order to make oneself prince in a republic supposes a bad man. Hence very rarely will there be found a good man ready to use bad methods in order to make himself prince, though with a good end in view. Nor will any reasonable man blame him for taking any action, however extraordinary, which may be of service in the organizing of a kingdom or constituting of a republic. It is a sound maxim that reprehensible actions may be justified by their effects, and that when the effect is good, it always justifies the action. For it is the man who uses violence to spoil things, not the man who uses it to mend them, that is blameworthy. A prince should therefore disregard the reproach of being thought cruel where it enables him to keep his subjects united and loyal. For he who quells disorder by a very few single examples will in the end be more merciful than he who from too great lenienc...