+++| Bring out the Xuphilliac in you |+++

Somali TV show

2007-03-18T15:00:00.000Z

I am interested in producing an ongoing low-budget Somali serial, and I'm looking for talented Somali writers to help me create this. We have the equipment, a tv studio and access to an experienced crew.

What I am looking for is a group of talented writers in London to create an entertaining TV show about modern life in the diaspora, reflecting all aspects of Somali culture, the good and bad (even though I have no intention to be disparaging about Somali culture in any way). I'm thinking equal parts funny and dramatic, tackling various Somali-relevant issues in a fairly light-hearted way.

I am looking for people who:

- have a fluent grasp of both Somali and English, written and spoken.
- can understand and identify with Somali people of all ages and with all aspects of Somali culture in Britain
- are open-minded and inclusive
- are not afraid to tackle sensitive issues
- and most importantly, have a sense of humour about everything.

Previous experience is not necessary, and I'm looking for writers of various ages and different backgrounds.

Understand that this is a low-budget endeavour, as such any payment will be deferred. However, I have fairly advanced camera and lighting equipment at my disposal, and an extremely talented and well-trained crew. I'm just looking to rope in people who want to create something fun and lighthearted in their spare time to entertain the Somali people.

Ideally I am looking for a group of 3 to 5 writers to spend one day a week creating a long-running show, in the style of American TV writing.

We are ready to shoot a pilot as early as April, and if you live in London or you know someone who does and wants to get involved please e-mail me at xuminatrix@hotmail.com. If you have any writing samples, short stories, scripts etc., you want me to look at, you can send them to that e-mail address too.

Feel free to ask any questions, and please spread the word if you can, thank you.

Speaking poetry when words have failed me

2006-12-13T02:31:00.000Z

Just a quick post about a poem written by my friend Idil. It came to me at a time when I was feeling frustrated, pessimistic about anything to do with Somalia. This poem taught me I had no right to despair when those have back home haven't done so.

Bravery is the man with no armour
who goes forth like his skin
is made of iron.

She has the sort of depth and sincerity that seems to come effortlessly to the gifted. She is one of the most talented young (Somali) artists I have met.

Read some of her work on her Myspace.

Music video account

2006-05-31T13:48:00.000Z

So I want to shoot a documentary soon, but I'm not entirely sure what to do it about. I'm not interested in doing something that covers a big subject and sticks mainly to the history and facts. I'm more interested in human lives, individual acomplishments and suchlike. Example: WWII in general = I don't care. Stories of survivors = I care. Anyone got any suggestions, people you wanna recommend, stories or activities you think might be interesting to cover.

I'm sort of trying to feel around for a subject that I can care about. I have a few things in mind, but they have all been extensively covered I think. I would like to do something with Africa or the Somali experience, but not exclusively, I'm open to all suggestions. Anything related to or based in the UK is a plus.

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I meant to talk about the Jay Harvey shoot at some point and the video in general. It was my first music video shoot, and I wasn't so much as nervous, but more like, I didn't know what to expect. I had been talking with Jay and his manager for months, originally we were supposed to start filming in November, but something usually would come up from both sides that would push the schedule back even further. I thought of filming on Mini-DV, but eventually they wanted something with a better resolution and a glossier look, so we went for High Definition.

My DP had cancelled at the last minute, but luckily Jay's management arranged someone else. But on the day of shoot I found out that he was booked for another production. That meant that he could work with us but he had to be out of there by 2pm, since filming for the La La La video wouldn't begin until 4pm, he could only work on some shots of the second video. This had me worried, but it turns out that it was for the best. Because without a DP, my crew and I had to improvise the lighting and I can tell you that that little experience has taught more than three years of studying filmmaking ever could. I was just thrust into it and I knew the shoot would be in trouble if we didn't come up with something. Sure it took us longer to set up, but we ended up having fun with it. It was meant to be a club scene, so we could be a little funky with the lights if we wanted to, which made things easier.

Managing the extras was more difficult, the trouble was I never knew how many people were going to be in it, so a lot of the time it was just a matter of waiting for enough people to arrive. Then some people got a bit drunk and wouldn't listen, and you know since I'm not paying them, I couldn't really fire them or you know, hit them with a whip. So I put them into teams and that seemed to work a little, some got a bit competitive, calling out to the other teams. It was fun, and it kept them in front of the camera, which is always a good thing.

But it was hectic, and shooting two different videos in the same day is never a good idea, and sure there are lots of things I'd do differently now, but you know, I could have done a lot worse and considering all the things that threatened to disrupt the shoot and the strict time limits of the venue we were filming in, I'm pretty happy with the video that came out of it.

Best part of being a director? Yelling "It's a wrap".

Wowowowow

2006-05-15T15:27:00.000Z

Went to see Mr. K'naan perform at the Cargo yesterday. I totally got rocked the hell out, yup, will write about the single most inspiring gig of my life tomorrow (if I can be bothered). Also, I got pictures!

Oh pick me, Mr. Spielberg!

2006-05-04T13:32:00.000Z

I hope this comes to the UK. Spielberg, the Lord and Supreme Ruler of Hollywood is gonna hold a reality-tv contest to find the next hot filmmaker. Oh dear God let there be a British version of this show.

Finally there's some use for reality TV.

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I am trying to negotiate with the Fox Netword for the biological access I need to Kiefer Sutherland, in order to have his baby. I have made it my life's mission to have Jack Bauer's offspring, I shall be single-minded in my purpose and ruthless in my methods.

It's the natural instinct of every woman to procreate with the man who is most likely to put a knife in a man's eye, because, dammit......there's no time.

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Will watch MI:3 later, mostly because I'm such a J.J Abrams fan. Even though Tom's a little scary, he's good at what he does, and what he does best is ride on a motorcycle while stuff blows up around him.

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Scrubs is currently the funniest thing on TV. Long since meant to be my baby father, Zach Braff has been overrun by the baddest mofo in town. For a brief period I was torn between my natural love for geeky socially incompetent doctors and brutal terrorist-stoppers who can stop a nuclear bomb while saving stupid random people's lives. But how can I resist a man who will kill me to save the lives of millions.

Update - Jay Harvey video and other stuff

2006-05-03T21:49:00.000Z

Yup, the video I directed for Jay Harvey's song La La La is at last up on Myspace (actually it's been up for a while, but I sorta forgot to announce it). Unfortunately the image/sound quality of that version is not too great, so I'm currently working on a better version, so you can see the amazing detail on the curtain on the upper right-hand corner, should you wish to.

Go check it out at Jay's site: http://www.myspace.com/jayharveyinfo

His second video for the song On your own should be up there shortly, check back in a week or two.

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I'm preparing a few other video projects for the summer. I'll post more details later (i.e when I'm allowed).

Still working on a Somali/British feature film as well as a few other short film projects.

This blog will soon be redesigned to be much prettier than the template and xuphilia.com will be merged with the site for my production company Shinra Productions

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I'm still looking to work with new artists on video projects, as we are currently trying to expand our showreel, we're willing to do a video for nothing, zip, nada. If your song/project is original enough we're happy to supply all the crew and camera and stuff, direct and edit it for you and deliver the video on a nice silver platter*

*platter may or may not be silver, depending on our mood, election results and the going rate for the Yen.

K'naan gig - How to rock in tiny places

2006-05-03T08:22:00.000Z

I meant to write about the day I went to see the fabulous K'naan opening for the Australian artist Xavier Rudd on April 8th at the Shepherd's Bush Empire. However I can't write about that due to Idiot-virus I had caught that day, where I forgot to check if K'naan was actually performing there.

Turns out, he wasn't.

At first I thought it was a no-show like at his previous gig. But it turns out that he opened the night before. So here we are, my friend and I, queueing to get all the way to the front, boxed in at all sides by a bunch of Australian hippies.

We were worried at first when we couldn't find a single other Somali person there, normally news like this gets out fast and the whole portion of the Somali community which doesn't condemn Western style music drives out like a herd to accost one of the few famous people we have. (Sure we have Iman, who's not bad, but tends to make some Somali people uncomfortable and Ayaan Hirsi Ali who makes a whole lotta people uncomfortable and who is just plain embarrassing).

Xavier Rudd wasn't bad, actually he was surprisingly good and any guy who can play several instruments at once deserves my admiration. The point however was that we were there to see K'naan and possibly touch him.

But genius struck my friend and she decided to check out his website when we got home, and lo and behold, as if to compensate us for my stupidity, there he was holding a free gig at the Market Place the very next day. We knew we were in the right place when the bar was full of Somali people following other Somali people, as Somalis can be trusted to do.

A bit late, but finally he came on. There was no stage, the sound was crap but K'naan totally rocked it. Too bad the only thing letting him down was ironically, the Somali crowd who came there to support him. Behind me were two guys who kept muttering about how skinny he was, loud enough I think for K'naan to hear who was standing right in front of me.

Anyway, he seemed a bit put off by the whole atmosphere and the venue (which was ridiculously tiny). Despite all that, as soon as he started with the fact-paced In the beginning K'naan was on form, faultless and stirred with what seemed to me boundless passion. What I saw him do in that miniscule cube of a bar, no artist can fake. Here you have a lone man, and three guys on instruments and with faulty mikes. But when the music stops, and K'naan voice just rants off a long piece to silent room, I swear I was shaking.

Afterwards I didn't touch him, mostly because I didn't want to get banned from future performances.

Brilliant man, can't wait to see him perform properly at his next gig, which is sometime in May if I'm correct.

First Stage Completed

2006-01-12T16:18:00.000Z

Finished shooting two videos back to back for urban/R&B artist Jay Harvey. Shot on HDV over three crazy days.

Will be spending the next few weeks cutting, grading and suchlike. It will be available on my site as soon as it's done. Shooting for my next video project will start mid-February.

The hearstopping cruelty of the human brain

2005-11-15T16:41:00.000Z

Been watching endless documentaries to find footage and inspiration for a music video. We're going for a chaos and war theme, and watching hours of human madness is making me a little depressed. Saw documentaries about rape, about nuclear disasters, about war, about conspiracies, assassinations, genocide, ..... and oh my God, were Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett ever right when they wrote:

...nothing [the demon] could think up was half as bad as the stuff they [humans] thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it...They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

I don't like humanity at the moment. Why doesn't everyone just sit the fuck down and think for a change. No more summits, no negotiations, nothing... let's all sit in a circle and just think for a fucking moment.

Eventually they'd all realise that nothing they do makes any sense, right? ..... right???

All you need is science

2005-10-29T18:26:00.000Z

I really ought to read more, I used to be such a bookworm. I've practically grown up in a library, but lately I can barely make it through one novel every two months (this from someone who used to go through a novel a week).

Currently reading Bill Bryson's excellent A brief history of nearly everything. It tracks the progress of science in really really simple terms for simpletons like me. I used to be of the firm belief that science contributed nothing but exam stress and nerds to society. However, this wonderful book taught me that science created everything! That science - as misunderstood as it is by the people who practice it - is the key to everything! Science is the path to enlightenment, science is what makes the world go round..... wait...I think that was love. But I'm sure love is science and science is a pretty little flower in a field of irrational weeds.

Science is nice and happy and fluffy, and apparently (as it is claimed by the people who think their lives are justified by it) nothing like the monstrous ideology I used to think it was.

But still, all this talk of atoms and expanding universes sounds like witchcraft to me. You only have to read about Stephen Hawking's 11 dimensions crap to think that the world had gone and made itself all dark-ages again.

Ehh, I could barely get my head around the world when it was still three-dimensional.

Everything's so complicated now. I miss the good old days when everything was flat and atoms didn't exist.

Sticky seats, spare tickets and sexy writers

2005-10-28T14:33:00.000Z

Currently listening to: The Killers - Andy you're a star

I'm totally obsessed by Firefly. It is seriously the best thing to ever grace my tv screen (well technically my computer monitor, but still). I love love love love love it. I think right now, I'd rather have another season of Firefly than a relationship with the outside world.

People go see the movie version of the series, Serenity, so it makes lots and lots of money and those greedy executive bastards decide to bring the series back.

Also, it'll be the best thing you'll see all year.
...

Now to in some way contradict my earlier point, I should stop going to the cinema so much. Tickets don't come cheap but I can't seem to stop going to the The Filmworks Greenwich (my dealer of choice). Sure dvd rental's a lot lot cheaper, but there's something about those sticky seats and overpriced fizzy drinks that really gets me going. I like my screens big and the rooms sold out.

...

I've got tickets to a signing with Neil Gaiman on the 8th of November. The sinfully sexy writer I've been meaning to abduct for many years. Everytime I get close, one of my contacts messes up, (Butcher Bill, I'm serious, that axe is for intimidation purposes only). However one day, one day I'll kidnap him and spend the next 10 years brainwashing him into thinking he loves me.

He's so gorgeous and his writing aint bad either (actually, it's brilliant, but the sentence seems to flow better that way). When I met him last year, he asked me what my name was and I replied Xu. He then said that he hadn't met anyone whose name started with an X that day, which I'm sure meant that he's passionately in lust with me.

I wonder if I'll be the only X again. I wonder if he'll finally admit his feelings for me this time. I'll keep you updated.

Also got tickets for a screening of the film MirrorMask, a film directed by Dave McKean (master illustrator, of among other things Sandman covers) and written by Mr. Gaiman. It's showing at the London Film Festival and my dearest dearest friend Michael was kind enough to get me tickets. :)

Can't seem to persuade him to come with me to another signing though. He only came last time because Jonathan Ross was hosting the event. I guess Lenny Henry doesn't excite him as much. :(

...

I've got a spare ticket for Athlete, but I can't find anyone who's even heard of them to come with me.

A belated and probably unnecessary plug

2005-10-27T11:07:00.000Z

I tend to discover bands a million years after they've left the charts. Last year, I was delirious with my 'discovery' of Depeche Mode.... yeah.. I know. Then a while ago, it was Iron Maiden.

Recently it was Green Day and Franz Ferdinand. I saw Green Day's American Idiot, thought it was a cool punk political rebellion sort of thing, but I forgot about them. My sister bought the album when it first came out, and I didn't listen to it until a month ago. Again, I thought I discovered the Holy Grail, but it turned out that everyone else had done so already and were currently busy flogging it for half the price on Ebay.

This usually means that I never get to see these bands live, because their tour's long over and they've probably settled into retirement by the time I hear about them.

I really should start submitting to the brain-crushing curse that is TV.

Anyway, here's my unnecessary plug for the Kaiser Chiefs.

Their album Employment is the most brilliant thing I've heard all year (apart from K'naan, see the post below). I wish I could eat their album, I'm suddenly overcome with the urge to make their funk a part of my DNA.

From the song Time Honoured Tradition

Well it's not an old wive's tale
Too much red meat and ale
Will make you pay
Get five a day
Or that is the end of you
And it's a common misconception
But true without exception
These nights of booze catch up with yous
And that is an actual fact

What's keeping me busy?

2005-10-27T10:51:00.000Z

At the moment, I am drafting treatments for several music videos to be shot in November/December. All of the acts I'll be working with are really really good, and I'll post more about them once we've started shooting.

I'm also set to direct a short film, with the working title Double Date. I read a script by Mark Okakwu a while ago, and I really liked it. It's a relationship comedy sort of thing, it has very witty dialogue. I'm at a point where I'm able to work on this project again, so at the moment the film scheduled for shooting in early/mid January. Mark's currently rewriting the script, while I am busy in pre-production arranging the logistics of it all with my co-producer Charles Khumalo.

And when I'm not being harrassed by teachers for my coursework, I'm also working on a few short but ridiculously weird screenplays and trying to set up my independent production company....Shinra Productions.

If anyone wants to be a part of this project, let me know. Can't pay you, but you'll get a DVD copy of the project and pretty little credit.

Future Changes

2005-10-26T15:45:00.000Z

Made a new site Xuphilia

Go check it out and report back what you've seen. I'm available for communication over the secure line, codeword = Leaking Fingers.

Gonna redesign the blog sometime soon.

Consider my core shaken

2005-07-31T17:44:00.000Z

Let me tell you something first, when it comes to the arts, there is nothing in this blessed universe of ours that I love more than being shaken to core; in short I love being moved. I obsessively court excitement, searching for it even in places where I don't expect to find it. I am a blank slate waiting to be overwhelmed with the passions and emotions of others; I lie there expecting to thrown across the room. But as usual, such expectations are rarely satisfied. I am always surrounded by mediocrity. But lately I've felt that even the best of artists are inconsequential at best, and dishearteningly shallow at worst. I asked myself: where is the responsibility in art? When did music turn away from politics, or rather why did music stop caring about the collective and instead only aimed to express the individual?

So when I listen to music these days, I receive snapshots of individuals floating in a void. I receive fragments of emotions completely disconnected from anything else, as if the artist exists in a vacuum.

Then I came across K'naan, a Somali rapper from Toronto. I received his album The Dustyfoot Philosophers yesterday, from an auntie who had returned from America. I didn't listen to it immediately, my experience of Somali rap music has not been very heartening. Usually Somali artists don't think about personal input in a project they so desperately want to model on current best-selling rappers. They are usually too busy emulating African-American rappers who approach issues from a perspective rooted in their culture and their history. I don't think they realise that Somalis have a very poignant and unique perspective too, and instead they build on the golden gangster image they are taught to worship. Never mind that the vast majority of American rappers are completely inconsequential and painfully shallow. Most rappers, whether it be Ja Rule, Dr. Dre or even Jay-Z, make songs with the depressingly cynical intention of making more money. You can tell more devotion is expended on the beats and the mix, rather than on the person behind the words.

The sad thing is, Somali artists - who are all enriched by a cultured seeped in poetry - feel they have nothing better to say than "gangsta fo' life".

That's why I didn't want to listen to K'naan. In my own way, I had judged him long before he had a chance to overwhelm me; long before I had even heard of him. But I will be the first to admit it: when it comes to art, there's nothing I love more than being proven wrong.

K'naan is not simply a very good Somali artist. He is simply a great artist universally. A man who speaks globally, a man who speaks truthfully about the things that really concern him and not the things he thinks he should be concerned about; it is such a man whose relevance cannot be bound to just one market or to one label. Everyone interested in universal and individual truths, will be interested in him.

I don't want anyone dismissing me as a thug, or some shit like that

He is so far removed from the materialism and machoism from today's rap scene. Where self-glorification could never allow the kind of subtle self-deprecation that K'naan brings forth in some of his lyrics.

Over the course of the album, K'naan consistently releases the kind of dynamic poetry that can cross bridges and alert the world to the experience of a man which reflects that of an entire people.

I'll tell you straightforward...I'm poor / I come from the most dangerous city in the universe / you're most likely to get shot at birth

A harrowing line, delivered with a casual tone. This is K'naan and he doesn't glorify poverty or violence. This is a line from the powerful anthem If rap gets jealous. This song confirm K'naan as the kind of artistic reporter who illustrates the individual eye-witness account of war, at times with distanced objectivity and at times with a shaken voice struggling to hold back the tears, as happens on the track Voices in my head.

K'naan sees himself as part of a culture and that's the context he sells himself with. And when you're part of a culture, suddenly the range of topics and methods to express oneself widens; diversity and vibrancy is the result. Consider this as an evidence of an artist driven by more than money or self-gratification:

K'Naan was invited to Geneva to perform a spoken word piece at the 2001 50th anniversary of the UN Commission for Refugee's. In front of some of the biggest suits in the world, K'Naan brought the house down with his politically charged poem, K'Naan explains, "I basically called out the UN for its failed relief mission in Somalia." The audience was so moved by the piece that they gave K'Naan a standing ovation and African superstar Youssou N'Dour who was also in attendance loved the performance so much that he invited K'Naan to Senegal to record with him.

With K'naan I am seriously excited on two levels. First I had the exhilirating experience of being emotionally assaulted by such raw feverish music. The mix, the beats, the vocals, the entire production was a relentless torrent of undiluted emotion. On a second level, I am seeing clearly - perhaps for the first time - the perspective that I was talking about earlier; the perspective that is so unique to the Somali people; the perspective that I have lost over the years, along with my identity given to me by my ancestors.

I was about 7 years old when the war happened in my country. And while I was growing up, the war was just the affair of adults. The teachers at school treated me with excessive sympathy when the subject of war came up, but the truth was that the war didn't really affect me. Even when I became an adult, in my mind the situation in Somalia always seemed to be the concern of the previous generation. It still didn't affect me. Every day I would hear 'so and so was killed' and 'your cousin on your father's side, thrice removed was murdered'. I was a little sad, but not honestly devestated, the lives that had been consumed in the war were ones that were unfamiliar to me.

But lately, I have noticed other subtle ways the war might have touched me. I felt an air of depression in our Somali community, strong with the unexpressed frustration that every solution has become ineffective to a problem that seems to be without end, without limits and without hope. And I have noticed, that in sharing in this subtle frustration, in my own way I have been affected all along.

When listening to K'naan music, he brings these problems home and with it, he expresses the frustration felt by all of us. I don't think he's trying to change the situation in Somalia, I think he's trying to get us to want change, to crave it with our souls, I think he wants to remind us of our anger and of our sorrows for those who didn't make it out of the warzones. I think he wants us to shake with anger and frustration until we explode. Until that which bound us to silent frustration, releases us to shouts of anger. I think in a way, his songs are a battle-cry. The battleground is Mogadishu, the prize is freedom.

So thank you K'naan, for giving me perspective.

The art of being lost

2005-07-16T10:14:00.000Z

Ever since the horrible attacks of last week, I have felt a little more unsure of my place in the world.

Terrible though the methods may be, I think the terrorists have succeeded in highlighting what is wrong with the world, or more specifically, what is wrong in the middle-east. I am trying to resist according blame simply because someone's reputation needs to pay for what happened. But I can't help it. I see Blair and Bush, and I hate myself for succumbing to their devious diversions from what they did in Iraq and the rest of the middle-east. There is the matter of Israel and its long-standing and often illegal campaign to undermine the Palestinian people, which still forms a sore point in the hearts of muslims. I can't help but feel overwhelmed by hate. I hate myself for being a little less angry as time passes since the start of the war, when in truth I should have been a thousandfold angrier. I hate myself for losing my passion and my hate of injustice.

But I'm starting to remember and I'm sure many other do too. The only people who will not admit a link between Iraq and Thursday's attacks, are those who are afraid of Britain losing its victim status.

"We haven't buried our dead, and you're already pointing fingers," they say angrily.

It is not a matter of pointing fingers, as much as finally noticing the big flashing neon finger hovering over the heads of Bush and Blair. I am not saying that they should have been afraid of acting justly for fear of terrorist attacks. When the need for intervention is there, no confirmed democratic superpower can justify passivity. But the problem is that Bush and co went on a campaign with unjust intentions and on the back of shady politics. Saddam is gone and 'democracy' has been granted for the people of Iraq. Great, well done for the Coalition, but remember, that's not why the went to war. They didn't set out to liberate an oppressed people or to remove a tyrant from his stolen seat of power.

In Islam, one is judged by the intentions of one's actions. And the intention of this war was to pursue Saddam for his weapons of mass destruction and apparently his willingness to use them on the West. That was the intention, let's not forget that. Freedom and democracy happened to be a happy accident. And while we're at it, multi-billion contracts for US and UK firms could also be counted as such.

But Blair and his little friend won. When we saw Saddam cowering in his hole, who could argue against the war? Well many people could, but they were suddenly outvoiced by many who couldn't.

However, in the middle-east many could argue and still do. They are not restricted by patriotic attachments to the Coalition and as such are free to see the human cost of the war without feeling guilty. As I suppose, many of those who try to justify the war are feeling. The middle-east didn't forget, and those westerners with ties to the middle-east didn't forget either. Namely the muslims. A couple of years later, there were those whose hate of the illegal war - unlike mine - grew stronger and more fierce. And suddenly, a couple of young men who kept quiet about their hate until it consumed their hearts, felt they had no choice but to die and have many others die with them.

And once again I am overwhelmed by hate.

And I hate them for killing innocent people. I hate them for perverting the tenets of my faith for their purpose. I hate them for making life a little harder for muslims. But I also hate them for invalidating any argument against the war on the middle-east. I hate them for holding the same opinions as me, but differing so wildly from what one would have thought would bind us spiritually. I hate them for making our valid arguments so hollow and empty.

There is no excuse for what they have done. I cannot put much faith in the commonly held belief that these were angry young men who were radicalised or brainwashed by mad 'Imams'.

I don't believe people can be brainwashed so easily. These bombers had true faith in what they were doing, I am sure of it. No one wastes their life for the beliefs of others. I would say the potential for committing a crime of such a scale was always there, as indeed it is in all of us. Passion can drive a person to great many crimes, if fuelled properly. It would silly to deny it. I believe people are born essentially good, but also with the capacity to commit evil. But the potential for such evil acts - as has been proven two Thursdays ago - is greater in some than others. And whatever these radical imams did, it was little more than encouragement to tear away at good inside the person, in order that they may utilise the evil within them.

And it makes me sad. Sad to think that these young men - with their boundless passion - could have been formidable leaders against injustice in the middle-east. If only that passion had been channelled in a democratic and constructive way. Who knows if those names which we now hold in contempt, would have been ones we would now utter in respect.

So I am a little lost, I am gaining back my hate of Bush's imperialistic adventures and I have gained a deeper hate of those who commit mass murder and especially those who do so in the name of my faith. So I have plently of hate, the only problem is, what do I do with it?

All I know now is that - after all that has happened in the world - I can no longer do nothing.

New Post - Still testing

2005-06-30T16:50:00.000Z

La la la la

Transformations

2005-06-23T13:12:00.000Z

This blog has gone through countless transformations yet no one was around to witness it. Nobody knows this blog exists yet, so for now, it belongs to me alone.