"We ate everything we could find, including sea shrubs but 61 of us died of hunger while others committed suicide by plunging into the sea." That's just horrible I remember last year reading an article from the NY Times interviewing Somalis in Italy and their struggles of getting there --- but many of them sleep in abandon buildings, they get sent back – one was asked why he risked his life to come all this way, he said in a simple sentence that captured it all he said a random bullet can kill him in Somalia.

Conspiracy I will upload them on a ftp for you I m trying to find the archive CD at the moment – a friend of mine recently returned from Ethiopia, Djbouti, and Somaliland – he took some intense pictures – I ‘ll try to upload some of those with his permission, but then again everything Somalis do or produce is considered to be in the public domain for reformation.

The argument continues and both sides are at a deadlock, soon one side will suggest lets agree to disagree resolution, as for since this argument is coming to a dead end, and no souls have been cut so far Castro--- what say you on the act of Abortion? Pro-choice or anti? [Not scientifically, if the woman is going to die case] the jargon of I don’t’ want to ruin my life plans/options rational argument.

SOL the extension of the isolated nomads, at least that’s what the technology determinists would argue – the recreation and reorganizing of the self to new technologies which bring about new social experiences, personas and attributed personalities. Truly this is the Global Village Mr. MaLuhan was telling us about, I mean you got girls hunting you down from Ottawa to LA. Rudy I say if the demands are authentic embrace them, but I thought you was married?

The development of the iPod saved the apple brand and gave it global leverage and recognition apart from media people and geeks. I was trying to find who apple uses for their brand development, and it turns out its in house – ****** me. That would be the best job to work for Apple in their brand strategy division. But I will pass the nano, instead I’ll get the original ipod, the sixty gig one, still saving for it --- I don’t want to delete ever. But style conscious people will go for the slimmer new nano. Lets have a contest ----- lets pool money together and do a draw for an iPod to be rewarded to a nomad on the site, what say you?

After experiencing genocide of that magnitude, the people need a new visioning of life meaning and reasoning. After people got murdered in Churches people turned to Islam, because their Muslim counterparts were protecting them. Just shows how compassionate Muslims truly are --- if only the Christian Right can spare us their compassionate conservatism propaganda.

Welcome to SOL – make sure you have a towel, a Somali translator, Somali political and tribal specialist/analyst at hand if you want to indulge in the politics section. Don’t forget your towel and your Hitchhikers Guide to SOL handbook – remember everything here works by some process, many of us forget to read the rules, but give it a glance. :cool:

I remember seeing this documentary on the mentally ill in Africa and how they get treated, they tie them up in public and people harass them, or some cultures believe the mentally ill are possessed , so they chained them up in the jungle only bring food to them occasionally. Truly, this is an ignorant act – at least in Somalia the mentally ill aren’t being harassed or locked up, and yes there are many of them. A friend of mine who recently came back from there was telling he had this crazy guy chasing him throughout the town asking him for money, and the guy even threatened him to sh!t on their car --- was that guy crazy, maybe a hustling scheme, nonetheless, treating the mentally ill in inhumane manner is unacceptable.

A lot of men do know Zephy *** is it okay to call you that, I’m still adjusting to the name change *** But something goes wrong somewhere, somehow, many of the youth are being raised by single mothers, and god only knows how good of a job they’re doing, just listen to K’Naan’s song for his mom. I think the young generation will understand how hard their mothers have worked to raise them and protect them while their fathers stuffed their cheeks with khat like cows.

I’m most worried about post-Ramadan activities, especially as Somalis we end the holy month with a Ruwayid and you can guess what that event entails. This years Ramadan I’m focusing on the total transformation of self. Ramadan is a time when we promise our borrowed souls of how will change our ways, but I pray for all of us that we will achieve our goals, and make the transition towards the path offered to many and embraced by the few.

Didn't know we had this much diversity on SOL. We even got liberals I’m not surprised that your shocked and even appalled at the fact that liberals still exist in today’s political climate specially in the US, liberals are becoming an endangered species, at the moment we have one at our mercy [no offense Castro]--- buying into the republican propaganda is one thing, but fully giving into the money hungry defenders of the so called morally right is another. That is why the democrats are headed for an eventual end, at the moment they are handicapped, who would have thought one network [FOX News] and a fleet of radio shows can destroy a political party and rain in the post-Bostonian academia era, because this is the nature of US politics. The concept of liberal has become such a taboo that people are willing to compromise their own personal rights to please neo-cons, even immigrants and the minorities are now chanting the familiar rhetoric of tyrannical politics – even the religiously voting southern blacks are experiencing the aftermath actions of their morally elected leader. Are we politically ignorant, reactionary or just want morally acceptable policies. In that light I would encourage nomads to reevaluate their understanding of the terms liberal and conservative, not the way the Christian Right connote the term – language is important in communication politics --- remember how Bush won because a big shot communication expert was hired to study how NASCAR dads would react to the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’ – he found they were less threatened by the concept of ‘climate change’ and Bush has continued to use that ever since. Or in general the way we label our own political stances, left [liberal] or right [conservative], right is right, left is wrong. Or the way they portray God on television as an old white man with a beard, and let us think about how global race hierarchy works, after all some Arabs believe that Somalis aren’t necessarily good Muslims, and even Somalis hate other Africans and they hate within themselves – so lets forgo ideological labeling because many of us land on different ends on different issues in regards to the political spectrum of life. As for Castro our rights mongering agent, I personally don’t think any harsh or direct deprecating remarks should be aimed at you, liberal or not, most of these other nomads have similar libertarian believes when it comes to other issues such as race politics, employment equity, and other facets of human rights, but some might disagree with you when it comes to gender politics and that is perfectly fine and acceptable after all we are all entitled to our opinions. Feminists have faced similar reactions although not as harsh as you, but those discursive methods employed by patriarchal nomads were only to courtship them . However, you must be a bit lenient in your conceptualization of tolerance and support of homosexuality. I m refering to the way you convey your ideas – in particular your cynical and sarcastic undertones. I think your delivery is rather dulled in attempt to enrage others. You must be rational in understanding both sides of the debate, but again other nomads have resorted to defense/offense mechanisms. Please be more argumentative in your opinions aside from passive aggressive on liners, while you accuse others being vulgar in their responses. I think at best you anticipate such responses. In analyzing your historical posts, we know you want to entice and enrage the traditionalists, pseudo-religious individuals, halfway modernists and ideologically conflicted postmodernists by taking the road less traveled by in opinion. Ideologically I wouldn’t consider myself to be a conservative nor a liberal, more like an anarchist who lives in accordance to the governing moral agencies of the deen – that being said, in a anarchistic environment if Castro can physically defend his ideas -- I say let him roam, this is not a threat by all means – just imagining you preaching and flossing your ideological stances in a khat chewing room in Somalia filled with militiamen – but i doubt you’d survive amid the aftermath. Waraa Castro Deeg karka naga jooji!

Positive event, good speakers, and the FOOD was out of this world. Keep up the good the fight. WE have to start supporting Somali based organizations, instead of warlords, the sick, and the young need help the most, and when an organization suuch as SRADO steps up, we have to support, i recommend everyone become a member of the organization and see if you can help.

I been away from SOL for couple of days, and I got word that Haddad was gone, the original one line wonder kid – do we have a replacement? Young gal SOL and paragraphs and analytical opinions are like butter to bread, jam and peanut butter …. I'm not picking on you ... we'd just like diggin into people's heads for their deep thoughts on things --- no harm intended.

I don’t know whenever I see someone from the UK they spit sophistication, the accent entails intelligence somehow, they pay attention to details.. or maybe I’ve only seen the well socialized Somalis from the UK, but these people are often… less sloppy when compared with North Americans. And the Somalis I’ve met, are also well educated, and they’re all doing something.. great, pursuing education whereas in NA we’ve gotta lotta drop outs…. If you ask me the UK Somalis are doing well…. Apart from alcohol and khat abuse… .

Saynab Are you part of the organizing committee, if you are please make sure you provide with how things go with visual aids --- we would love to communicate and see what other nomads around the world are doing thanks ahead.

Natural disasters happen and I don’t think anyone predicted New Orleans would be this hard --- nonetheless, help is on the way now… many people, and nations are donating. I still don’t see why they want to evacuate the city, and some of these ppl are willing to die before they leave. Why stay?

Zaylici I haven’t seen any of your writings lately, welcome back, hope everything is well. Indeed a great article --- you should contribute some of your writings to Somali publications.

Le Femme I’m glad you like it, I saw this clip couple of months ago, even a year I’m not really sure, but the Angry Squirrel collection is pretty funny and I think you can get other clips here http://www.illwillpress.com/ --- enjoy.

Foreplay is not a game: It’s a responsibility. I thought it was just a formality, good to know -- :cool:

I collect a lot of pictures that depict Somalia in every light, and I happen to have those two pictures in my collection ---- good stuff --- did you trace them over – there this program by adobe which makes images vector instantly, its called Streamline. I think you should really pursue taking illustration courses, because we do need more graphic artists in our community. BTW, what are you studying?

Good stuff - words will guide us home -- if not we might resort to the gun – murder is morally acceptable when it is massively committed wouldn’t you think? Kidding of course.

Le Femme The world is a great big disappointment, unless you need to indulge in outer experiences, stay within your realm, books are good, experience life through television. I ‘m kidding, I recommend you check out concerts, restaurants, get a bike and hit up the trails, travel outside of your city – a few suggestions nonetheless.

THE FUNNIEST CLIP ABOUT STARBUCKS Maybe a homosexual owns Starbucks :confused: and maybe part of their policy is to advocate queer propaganda. I doubt Starbucks supports Israel, maybe through their shareholders or their major shareholders support them, but I don’t think ideologically they align themselves with the agenda of Zionists. For my taste, Starbucks is too expensive to begin with, and i’ve tried their coffee and Tim Horton’s coffee and I find both of them to be the same, even Tim Horton’s to be better. I remember couple of years ago students protesting at my school against having Starbucks in our school, because they don’t use fair trade coffee. As to why major metropolises in NA are peppered with Starbucks and as to why they are gaining so much popularity, I don’t know. When it comes to judgments against gays and lesbians, it is clearly wrong to indulge in such actions according to the Quran, and I doubt there are arguments drawn from the deen to support such actions to be allowable. It is horrifying to actually rationalize behavioural deviances using scientific and secularist political thoughts, while dismissing religious elements and variations in support of environmental and scientific development. But again, we cannot judge people, only Allah [sw] has the right to judge and punish humanity. Castro Its truly fascinating the way you showcase your ideological stances, poses and beliefs, even the way you incorporate them in your own life, you must be a leftover hippie from the sixties era. You posed the question, Tell me, which one of us has actually used reason and thought about the issue? There are many of us who would like to be tolerating who think are rational and think that we are part of the age of progress and yet some of our urgencies include the rejection of sexual deviants in a heartbeat, homosexuality, bestiality, pedophilia and so forth. As Somalis we are the non-practicing gatekeepers of the religion, we can’t have anything deviant become normality in our thinking or in our lives. Certainly we can’t have the acceptance of homosexuals, and you can’t have people accept the concept over night, even the so-called enlightened have problems accepting the institutionalization of same sex marriages as demonstrated by current political culture of your country. As for Starbucks, I think they’re using these controversial tactics to redefine their new audience commodity, I mean after all no publicity is bad publicity – we are talking about it here, arent’ we?. If we were to conduct an ethnographic study of the place, we might find that coffee houses seek to industrialize unpopular ideas whether they are good or bad. But then again SOL is the place for such reasoning, debating, discussion, like our own virtual slaughterhouse of opinions, perceptions often achieved through inadequate and irrational discussions of sociopolitical issues, I’d say its more entertaining here -- who needs Starbucks $9 coffee, when SOL is free, and let’s not forget the elimination of time and space in this virtual epoch.

If you ask me Yeey’s days are numbered, eventually his resources will not run out, its best for him to figure something concrete and legible for himself while he still got time. I think most people in the South are tired of warlords, especially those organized mugging and murderous roadblocks. What about the North, I wonder what kind of take over tactics will be implemented, that should be interesting --- but I’d say to C/Yusuf stay the hell out of Somaliland – many Khat chewing nights, and plotting – so it thickens. Yusuf might have a chance... I attended this dinner even in Toronto a week or so ago, and there was this Canadian MP Boris Wrzesnewskyj who returned from Somalia and he was talking about how he spoke with C/Yusuf, met his family and so forth. He plans to advocate political assistance from the Canadian gov't and so forth. Overall it was a good event.

Modesty_Chick I think your poem was great, it’s actually a good thing to have SOL veterans respond to your poem, often we just read’m and leave without leaving a comment. If they’re taking your poem apart is actually a good thing --- smile now :cool: