One of the coolest videos I have ever seen.

Where the hell is Matt?

Via ijafri

The Lahore Bloggers Meetup was held on the 23rd of Nov, 08. Organized by Google Pakistan and CIO Pakistan, the event was able to pull upto 100 people from Lahore, and as mentioned by ‘the Google guy’, all through one Facebook page and three days worth of effort.

A well attended event no doubt. I enjoyed every bit of it, although I was an hour late :/

My Blogstarta initiative can perhaps take some ‘advisors’ on board. Anyways, here are the pictures:

I really do not know if the title is written in correct English. I also don’t care.

And therein lies the problem; I, like you, do not care. Not about my grammatical prowess, but about pretty much anything. Yes, we complain and bitch about things that annoy and frustrate us and this may pass off as an ‘I-care’ attitude. But it’s not.

Giving-a-damn means more than giving just a damn. Take, for example, the state of our piece of land. The country of Pakistan suffers daily and there is nothing you can do about it. Sure, you sometimes feel that something ’should’ be done about it and in comes the complaining and the bitching.

“Zardari has ruined us further”

“I can’t work with 12 hours a day load-shedding”

And my favorite:

“We were better off with Musharraf”

Wishful thinkers, all of us. Complainers and bitchers, all of us.

Here’s what I reckon: one loses the right to complain, even opinionate about something if he or she does it him or herself. For example, you bitch endlessly about the bribes our police force takes and the moment you are caught at a random check post with no papers on you, out comes Jinaah saab to the rescue. You are pathetic. You have no right to complain. The only right you have, as the last resort, is that of ‘advice’. You smoke, stop blabbing about second-hand smoke, but do advice your friend or cousin to not start. Advice, yes; Opinions and rants, shut the hell up.

People complain about Pakistan, they say emotionally knotted things, they blame the ‘typical Pakistani’ for corruption, cheating and you name it. Those same losers, given the chance given half a chance would jump with arms friggin’ wide open to corrupt and cheat.

Ha, you are all the same.

How can there be a difference? Do you really believe that all the shit that has been constantly hitting the fan in these past 8 years or so is George Bush’s doings? Seriously, you believe that?

Musharraf was ‘planted’ by Bush, and now is replaced by Zardari, or orders of Bush. Hence ended the simplified guide to the universe.

Think about it for a moment now, Bush? Who finds it hard to form a coherent sentence with full concentration and both hands, that guy caused all of this? Yes, it was under Mr. Bush that we saw Americans carry out attacks that were merciless (merciless not because a lot of people died, merciless because till this day, there is no justification for it at all), we saw America lose more than just face in the international community, we saw the American economy nose dive like a dead bird, we saw a sharp rise in terrorism, especially in Pakistan, yes we saw it all when America was under Bush. But was he, this single man, the cause of all of this?

No.

The forces at play are much stronger, (…more →)

We have been in this for a while now. Since birth to be exact. The country of Pakistan was built on the notion of an Islamic state; this very notion is now debated at some far-fetched fronts with the air of arrogance assocaited with self-satisfying false prophets.

Islam has always been considered as the religion of peace; that notion is now been debated with great aplomb, citing numerous texts from the exegis of texts that translate yet another explanation of a certain phrase from the holy book of Muslims.

There were times when Eid was celebrated by spotting the most noticable feature of any night sky, a feature that when absent would entice poets to write sweet songs of separation. Now that very moon has become so hard to spot. So hard. But we don’t understand the complexities that are inherent in using our faculties of vision. Poor friggin’ us.

There was a time, somewhat long ago, when Muslims were free thinkers. Dare I say, they were creative. There was thought, there was action, there were mistakes, there were adjustments, carried out by mortal humans with biases and preconcieved notions. Still there was massive progress in all spheres of human endeavor. This was a time when the nation had a brain. And as a consequence of that, had a heart as well.

The premium importance was on finding God, not accepting Him; on discovering one’s own and not following someone else’s potential. It was this type of nation that produced people like Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Shafi.

Now people follow the people of those times. There was a time when power lay in the hands of every soul alive. Now power is cuddled amongst the few haves. Power does corrupt. Absolute power does corrupt absolutely.

Where is that power now? Who will take it back? From whom? These questions, no one will answer for me. Because no one can’t. Only I. I am the one. Are you?

Slacker Uprising. I think it is a brilliant name for a movie from one brilliant guy.
Michael Moore’s new movie, slated to be released on Sept 23, is about young people of America, coming out to vote. And from the looks of it, Moore will get them out alright. The slackers will rise! Hence the appropriate name, ’slacker uprising’.

And the video will be free to download when it gets released. How cool is that! You go Moore (pun intended) (Reread the friggin’ fine print: it is free to download for US and Canadians only. Akkh!)

The trailer of the video is a must see in itself. Available at Slacker Uprising’s website

If anyone, it has always been Michael Moore who has inspired me to shoot. With a camera. I might as well will, God willing.

Hamid Mir went to refugee camps in Nowshera and Mardan. These refugee camps are home to roughly ten thousand families that were displaced during the ongoing operations in our very ow Bajaur and what have you.

I did not know the conditions there are so depolorable that children are dying; three have died already, and why? Because of easily curable diseases such as Diarreha. And why was not there medicine for this disease? Because there are too many refugees and not enough supply.

It is quite easy to see where we ought to fit in.

I have started collecting money to buy medicine to supply to refugee camps north of Peshawar. Your support (by raising awareness of this issue, raising money to donate etc) is not only welcome, but is actually needed.

God bless and good luck to us all.

Hamid Mir’s show on the refugees of Bajaur (Hattip to Pkpolitics)