Positive thinking

Looking at the current state of the country it is hard to find something positive to talk or think about. It is always a lot easier to count the negatives in our lives instead of the positives. So let us try to think in a positive way. Instead of thinking that we have a disaster for a president, we can just remember that it is only few months and he is not there in the white house working hard to make it harder for us. Low blows and rumor based attacks on Obama, are really proof that his message of hope and change is reaching people and making his rivals really scared. It is proof they do not have substantial things to say. The slow housing market may have made your home value lower and harder to sell, but you need to be thankful to have your home to start with. You may also think of the opportunities this market is opening for you to buy real estate at bargain prices if you want to venture into this traditional wealth making approach. The soaring gas prices could be thought of as a powerful force pushing us towards developing greener energy and weaning us off our dependence on oil. A falling dollar, a rising inflation, and a slowing economy could be thought of as just very loud wake up calls that may just have arrived at the right time. It is always better to wake up now than later.

If all this still looks depressing, look at those in your life, those that love you for who you are, not what you have, and be thankful for them for this love cannot be bought anywhere.

Beacons of Love

Writing that story about my aunt has actually stirred so many emotions in me, my family and many who read the story and shared their feelings with me, but preferred not to have their comments published. This made me believe more that sharing what sometimes we feel are personal stories can in fact touch others in ways that we never expect. Many will have their own versions of the same story. My aunt, your uncle, her mom and his cousin share so much even though they have never met, they have never read the same books or watched the same TV shows. They do not speak the same language, yet they speak of the same ideas. They stand in our lives as beacons of love. Often, we take them for granted and sometimes by the time we realize their importance, it is too late to thank them for all they have given. Make it a priority today or tonight to honor one of those pillars over which your life stands. They will not ask or wait for our thanks, yet it so important for us to do. For as we do, we understand better how and what they did to make us. We learn how to become beacons of love ourselves. We learn how to be to others what they were to us.

Beyond Life

Losing someone within our circle of family, friends or acquaintances is a lot more effective than anything else in making us put things into perspective. All fades when death shows its ugly face. It is an unavoidable truth, but one that we try to ignore as much as we can. It sure manages to remind us of its existence hitting sometimes far and sometimes too close and too unexpectedly.

My aunt died of cancer a couple of years ago. If someone could be exempted from death she would definitely have qualified on merit. She was only 45 when she died. She was one of those people that you always thought of calling whenever you had a problem. She did not usually have solutions, just attentive ears , an infinite patience, and a sincere heart. She was also the same person you would call to share a joyful moment. We are a big family and she had close to 20 nephews and nieces. Somehow she was just as close to each one of them as she was to me. As if this was not enough, she magically became just as close to each of our new families as they formed. Aunt Soma had her way with the young and old alike.

She left us so young, but left us with enough memories for her to be the envy of many who lived much longer lives. She never lived a fancy life or travelled the world, yet she was so content. She had her share of problems, but never complained. She was not rich, but still had so much to give to everyone that she ever met. She never asked anything in return. She was so tiny, yet her big heart had plenty of room for each of us in her life and plenty we were. God bless you aunt Soma for all the smiles you drew on our faces and the tears you wiped from our eyes. You will always be in our hearts and prayers. I wish we all can take you as an example for how we lead this life.

The Joy of Writing

I think it is official now. Writing has become my favorite hobby inching ahead of reading. Writing is our life experiences processed through the unique filter of our being and displayed proudly for others to see, critique, and enjoy. Writing is a record for those around us and those that will follow showing who we were and what and how we experienced our lives. Some of those records might seem ridiculous and even embarrassing, when viewed by others, but still they have captured parts of us that would have otherwise vanished if not recorded. Our lives are so short and these thoughts and ideas might be all that is left from us for our friends, families and even complete strangers to experience. They may carry the wisdom or idiocy that is needed by someone to make the decision of their life. I especially like the fact that my kids who may have difficulty buying into any of what I say now may have another shot at reading and understanding what I wanted to say when they are ready.

To me personally, writing is a statement to the world that I dare to share; my thoughts, my emotions , my mistakes and my triumphs. It is an innocent self indulging feeling of being, of owning the moment. No interruptions, no arguments, no time limits, I can just say all I want to this ever patient piece of paper listening attentively to all my whims. When done, I look at my creation, with a mix of relief and hesitation. It may not be perfect, but it is part of me. It is not ideal , but neither am I. I think it is ready to be.

A True Friend

Enough politics! My wife asked me to stop writing about politics for a bit and pick a social topic to address. So, I decided to write about friendship. Why? because it is something that I miss the most. As we age we lose our ability to do many things in life, but the one that we lose first is the ability to make true friends. We continue to make acquaintances, to have good relations with our neighbors, people at work, at the gym, etc. But we do not make true friends any more.

Let me clarify who I consider to be a true friend. To me a true friend is not one that I count on to be supportive at times of crisis, or one that I enjoy talking to or going out with. These are qualities that would be great to have in a friend, but it is not what makes him/her a true friend. To me a true friend is one who I can be myself with with all my imperfections and my vulnerabilities. With a true friend, silence is soothing, talking is a joy, and laughing is a sweet childhood dream. Think for a minute how many people in your life can you be your true-self with? How many evoke such emotions in you?

So, why do we lose our ability to make true friends as we age? As kids our lives are so simple, we do not have much to hide. We can be selfish, cruel, vulnerable, and adorable at the same time. We can be our true selves with others without much effort. Hence, it is quite natural that this is the period where we make our true friends. As we age, however, life adds twists into our being with our failures and successes, our heart aches and breaks, and life inherent unfairness. Slowly we feel the need to compensate, to hide our scars and protect our vulnerabilities. If we cannot share our true-selves, we cannot make true friends any more.

If you happen to still have some of those "true friends" in your life, consider yourself lucky. Making and keeping them is as hard as finding your soul mate. They are irreplaceable. Do not jeopardize your relationship with them by any of our adult dealings especially the financial ones and remember them with a Valentine!

The Patriotic Way, A guide for spending your rebate check

There is no use arguing with the government anymore about the efficacy of the stimulus plan. The plan is a reality and the checks are coming soon. However, we can optimize the use of this money. We need first to adopt the position that this rebate check is a retainer from the US government for our services. The government and the country need our help. All we need to do is find the best ways for us to spend this money to shore up the economy. This is our duty as Americans. To help you, me and others do the right thing, I am trying to create a 'Not to Do List' as a guide for spending the rebate check. I will start with few that come to mind and I hope you can help me with the others. At one point I would like to create a manual we can distribute with the rebate check.

'Do Not Do with Your Rebate Check' List:

1. Do not rush to buy at Walmart and similar stores, and if you cannot help it, make sure to check the label for a 'Made in America' product. It will be hard, but that is why America needs you.
2. Do not put this check as a down payment on a gas guzzler or a foreign made vehicle. You need to support a worker in Michigan not to further inflate your ego.
3. Do not use this money to buy gas. This is not supporting our economy. It would be supporting our addiction to oil and supporting unhealthy driving habits.
4. Do not use this money on buying anything you cannot afford to pay within 90 days. This money is to stimulate the economy not to further bury you in debt.
5. Although shoring up your personal finances should help the economy, do not use this money for short term relief of your financial ailments. Try to create a long term plan with this money as one component of the plan.

I would like you, reading this, to help me complete this list. We will soon turn our attention to creating another list on the optimal use of rebate checks. You can write a comment, or email me at HomeforThoughts@yahoo.com .

The story of my village

A long time ago, few of my relatives got together and decided they were fed up with how things were going around them. They worked so hard to build a great fortune through sweat, tears and blood. It was a tough journey, but they established a little village where our family lived for generations. We worked hard and expanded our businesses and our village became an inspiration to all around us. It became so popular that many of the smart and skillful were eager to move in. We welcomed them as they added new blood to our community and made us culturally and technologically vibrant. Over time, things started slowly changing within our village and outside the village as well. We started taking everything for granted. We neglected spending to grow our business and spent more on a lavish lifestyle. We spent more on guarding the village and less on guarding our progress. Our competitors started catching up, but we thought we were invincible. We stopped innovating and our competitors learned to do what we did and they did it a lot cheaper too. We did not pay attention. We continued to buy more from our neighbors and sell less to them. Our neighbors were happy to give us what we need to support our life style for some of our business assets. As time passed, things became worse within the village with many of us living beyond our means. Predators emerged from among us to feed of our innocence and greed. Our elders were focused more on their own well being than that of the village. Suddenly, the bubble burst, the truth was sinking in, our village is in trouble and something has to be done to improve things. The elders and the wise gathered. They opened their textbooks and came up with a solution. One that is easiest to do. We will borrow a little more from our competitors. They are still happy to buy more of our assets. We will distribute the money to everyone in the village so that the anxiety subsides and everyone feels happy. Happy people will soon resume their normal lavish living. Things will sure go back to normal if we are back to our old selves. It will be someone else's problem when this happens again.

However, something was different this time. People in the village were waking up to say to the elders do not steal our kids' future. We may not understand complex economic terms, but we have common sense. We are tired of wasting money. We will not continue to sell our village to competitors. We learned our lesson. We will shore up our finances. We will invest in our kids’ education. We will support our village's businesses and we hope you can support it too. We are still the founding fathers' village and we will go back to what made us a great one the first time.

Getting involved...

It is a lot easier to stay on the fringes of life refusing to get involved. It is a lot safer too. If you are not involved, it is hard to make mistakes or be criticised for saying or doing the wrong thing and believe me there is nothing that you can do that will be right in the eyes of everyone. Being an immigrant (legel one), it is even harder to get involved. Many immigrants, like me, have come from countries where getting involved does not usually lead to a pleasant follow-up experience. Do or say the wrong thing and you may land in jail. So why get involved in politics, education, religion, or even entertainment? Because if you do not get involved you are leaving it up to others to control your life without even hearing what you have to say. You may think that your voice is too weak to be heard, but many just like you have the same things to say and collectively your voices will be strong enough to be heard. They just need you to lead.

So how to get involved? The first and most important thing is to register to vote if you are eligible and do vote when you have a chance. Do not shy away from supporting a candidate that you like. Financial support is not the only way you can help, but is not only for the rich either. Donating few dollars to a campaign that you like is very empowering. There are many other options to get involved and the ones I personally tried include:

1. writing to the congressman, senator, or even the president. They may not respond for each letter, but I have got them to respond with personal letters few times. It is not hard to find their emails on the web try: https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml, or http://www.webslingerz.com/jhoffman/congress-email.html.
2. writing a letter to the editor of your local news paper is usually a good way of sharing your opinions. I have used it to defend my religious beliefs against the twisting of facts, but also to comment on general community issues that affect all of us living in the US.
3. creating and participating in discussion groups on popular websites such as Yahoo or regional and national newspapers.
4. not shying away from writing a comment on a story that touches you on the web. I have sent emails to network anchors in the past when I felt their coverage is biased and to my surprise they responded positively to my comments.
5. talking to your friends and colleagues at work is a little trickier. If you do that, you have to be respectful to others and be open minded when people disagree with you.
6. creating your own blog and sharing your thoughts. I just did that!

Translating a popular song from my native language: "A word is a hand, A word is a leg, A word is a door. A word is a shining star in the darkness. A word is a solid bridge over the sea of misery. " Words are much stronger than many of us think, let us learn to harness their power.

Are you color blind?

So many times you hear the phrase ‘Melting Pot’ as referring to the United States. This is the premise that we have always had in our hearts and minds living through for 15 years in the US. Increasingly however, I do not feel that politicians realize the difference between a melting pot and a mixing pot.

Growing up in my original home country, I got used to filling a ‘Religion’ field on almost each form that I had to fill whether for a job, school, government or private business. I was so used to doing that I did not feel any problem at the time. After coming to the US, I started doubting the wisdom of the government doing that. I do not think that I needed a reminder from the government that I am a Muslim and my friend is a Christian. We knew it in our hearts, but it does not and should not be in that application. If you agree with that logic, you should be proud as an American that our government does not require us to fill out our religious denomination, instead you are asked to just indicate whether you are Asian, African American, White, Hispanic White, Non Hispanic White, or Native American. The list of course includes also whether you are disabled or not, Male or Female and other terms that keep changing to remain politically correct. In my first days, the color coding and racial division between these groups was quite confusing and I always found myself and those receiving the forms from me hesitant about which of these boxes should I check. I was born in Egypt which is part of both Africa and Asia. I have enough pigments in my skin that I can turn really dark if left in the sun for a reasonable amount of time, but after living in Seattle for few years I can really have a fairly fair skin. So, am I African American or Asian American? A wise man, who has gone through a similar state of color confusion, finally informed me that I am ‘white’ despite all these qualifications listed above because the government says so and it is a waste of time to argue with Uncle Sam. I have always found white to be a good color so I had no problem with that classification. All I have to do is just check that box indicating that I am white and hand the form confidently back to whoever wanted to know what color denomination I am with a smile and a “Yes I am White”. This problem was put to rest for several years as I lived in the US. Unfortunately, a similar problem is now reemerging as I have become a US citizen eligible to vote.

With the heated primaries and the political pundits and candidates dividing the country into whites and blacks to Cuban Americans and other Latinos to Mormons, Evangelicals, Jews, Muslims, and atheists to the rich and the working class, young and old, I found myself confused, where do I belong. It does not matter what these candidates are about, I have to be true to my color, gender, religion, economic status and age as I decide who to vote for.

Maybe, I should vote for Hillary. Although, I do not like her “do and say whatever to get to the presidency” attitude. She shares my government designated color group and is thus worthy of my support. A second look reveals a disturbing fact. Hillary Clinton is a woman; I better support someone from my own gender. Obama is a man, he is of my generation. He has good ideas and excites me to think that he can turn the slide of this country around. But he is black and voting for him would be against my government’s color classification. Romney seems like a good choice. He is a white male just like me. He is a businessman who may have good ideas for this faltering economy. However, he is a rich guy and I do not consider myself to fit that classification. I better vote for McCain. He is white, male, and not very rich. He is a hero. However, he is several generations away from my own and supporting him would be wrong. I guess I should just run for president and vote for me. I am sure I fit into my own group perfectly. The other option is to just stay put on election night and watch the pundits declare the winner.

I was happy with just being an American. I was just happy I can vote for another American who happens to present good ideas that I felt were the right ones for the future despite his color, religion, age, origin, etc. I wish if we all become color blind around the US.

The Giants are Champions of the World

"The Giants are Champions of the World," The Fox channel commentator kept repeating that sentence so many times at the end of a great superbowl game yesterday in which the giants defeated the arrogant New England team. I did celeberate the win of the NY Giants, but I just could not swallow that declaration. It just sounded so egotistic and factually wrong. As far as I know no one around the world was competing in the National Footbal League, not even our northern neighbors. I am also not aware of other countries outside North America that plays our American style of football anyway. So why get the world involved in our national game. The Giants won the US national championship and that is a great honor. Let us just call it the way it is. We do not have to babble world domination terms even in sports that only we care about.

Debunking the Bulldozer Argument

Last Sunday, in one of the columns in the Herald-Citizen (www.herald-citizen.com), Dr. Timmerman announced he would be running for president based on a Bulldozer retirement plan which will create a wealth of shoveling jobs. Even though the column was sarcastic, the argument is worth debunking. He used the Bulldozer retirement argument against those that are worried about the plight of the Manufacturing sector in the US. He argued that a job lost now will free an American mind to innovate and find a better job. He also took example in the farming sector that has now shrunk in favor of the better paying jobs.
One major fact that is being ignored by the Campaign of Timmerman for president is that creativity and better paying jobs are not the produce of idle hands that have lost their jobs as they struggle to secure food on the table. If that argument was true, creative and better jobs would be created by the millions in other parts of the world where unemployment is the norm. If the argument was true, the current economy would not be one where the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Farming jobs did not shift to other sectors because farmers lost their jobs first and then found their way to the better paying ones. The manufacturing sector and other better paying sectors created the better opportunities first and these attracted people away from the farming sector.
We cannot rest thinking that the better jobs are going to be created automatically to replace the lost ones. Creativity is the product of education and preparedness. We have long ignored preparedness by neglecting our schools. We have given way to earmarks and pork barrel projects to score political points and neglected competitive and merit based research and development. The congress passed an act that looked good on paper. It was called AMERICA COMPETES ACT and then congress left it unfunded. The budget of the premier organization for research in the US is a mere 5 Billion dollars that are supposed to support an economy of 13 Trillion dollars. It is not too late but it is not too far from being just that. Innovation and creativity takes time and we do not have much time to waste thinking it will be just all right if we keep spending money borrowed from china and the rest of the world. Let us fix our schools and support our education system. Let us make studying and success of our kids a priority. Let us encourage our daughters and sons to be scientists and engineers who can compete with the rest of the world. I wish I can also run for president but for now I will just look for a candidate other than Dr. Timmerman to support.