In Crackdown, Myanmar Junta Unplugs Internet

It's very ironic. The opening of information is a double-edge sword. While I was reading the news, I can't help but think about that technologies have enabled our government to collect information to a very massive extend (yes, I am thinking about the domestic spying). On the other hand, technologies also enable average citizens to record and distribute information to the masses very easily (thus countering propaganda). All these technologies opens up the real complexity of reality. Which side will win the battle of information?

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Voices of Despair

Your education will be jihad. Going to school is jihad. If you become a doctor, that’s jihad.

Mirvat’s father tried to convince her not to volunteer to become a suicide bomber. But ... she slipped away. She volunteered again, successfully this time, for Islamic Jihad. She died, slightly wounding two Israelis. Parents cared for their children's well being just as deeply in every culture.

On March 12, 2007, New York Times published Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinians, an article about how violence slowly create a generation of youth without hope in Gaza. I couldn't describe how sorry I was. Regardless of who's right and who's wrong, children deserved a future. Everyone deserved a future. I was enraged by the fact that after so many years of human development, we are still resolving problems thought violence. For the very reason of creating a future for the future generation, we are destroying it.

Politicians make up reasons for going to war, but we have no right to kill anyone. Killing others does not and will not resolve any problem. It only undermines our integrity as human beings. Stop the violence. Stop the war. Now.

Alice Walker on The Color Purple

So, I feel that when you read The Color Purple, no matter what is happening in your life or how difficult the whole huge miasma of sorrow that seems to be growing, there's a way that you can see through the life of Celie, that if you can continue and if you can stay connected to nature and also to your highest sense of behavior toward yourself and toward other people, if you can really keep that struggle going -- you may not always win it. ... And so, what you learn is that life can be really hard. People can abuse you, people can, you know, take advantage of you in terrible ways, but there is something in the human spirit that’s actually equal to that and can actually overcome that, and that is the teaching of The Color Purple.

- Alice Walker
The above quote is copied from Democracy Now, you can read the whole interview with Alice Walker at "I am a Renegade, an Outlaw, a Pagan" - Author, Poet and Activist Alice Walker in Her Own Words.

I have been depressed about the various professional and personal situtations that I am in. However, when I heard these words, I felt that there is hope. I felt that there is something within me that can overcome the sorrow. That something will help me to live the highest standard of my sense of being, to see things in different light, to live through my sorrow with a smile.

I hope that one day, I will overcome my situtations. I also hope you can find that in you in times of sorrow.