Evanescence And Metallica

Just finished listenning to evenescence's new album... well... i'll say that with a heavy heart, and i really thought more than twice before sayin that, but i just can't help it.

Seems that evenescence decided to change their style a bit... what i felt is that they're trying to be more modern, heavier, and more mainstream... which's suprising for me. they are already mainstream with their soft tunes and gothic style. maybe if i was a few years younger i would've liked their last album the most... like any teenager: hell yea that's really heavy and rocks hard! but for me i'm just lookin for the tunes and the lyrics, preferring the soft ones and their past perfect lyrics.

So what's the relationship between that and Metallica? i think it's very similar... metallica changing their style to attract more fans and become more "modern" and they release their "st. anger" thingie, yet they couldn't keep their old fans... a disappointment for them, including me. and now i see the same thing happening with evanescence... no single slow song like "exodus" or imaginary or "my immortal". where's that cool stuff? just wondering. and at the end it's just a personal opinion.

Egypt: The Past And The Present

There's no doubt that Egypt is one of the oldest countries in the world, Beside the chinese and the iraqis. Egypt witnessed booms and slumps through it's 7,000 year age, and has also affected the entire world with its civilization in the past, yet what's happening now is that it's standing forceless against what's being changed inside it, and many negatives are growing inside it like a cancer. Myself, being proud of the countrie's past doesn't mean i'm proud of its present, it's dramatically falling right here which makes any person feel pessimistic instead of hopeful.

During the pharaonic age, egypt was the cultural center for the world, and it was like america nowadays, with huge potentials that pushed everybody to exert the best effort for it. Maybe some of the current measures and tools were used since the pharaohs

In the field of asrology; measuring the days and movements of stars and determining many facts about the sun and the moon, like in abu simbel temple when the sun gets into a small hole to lit the king's hall twice a year in two specific days: his birth and his crowning anniversary.

Moreover, in the field of knowledge and information, they invented writing, and used papyrus to record their daily life or activites and accordingly, their entire history, we still write to denote our daily transactions and thoughts. Their writings also reflected different aspects of life we still discuss till this very monent.

One of these aspects is belief, they believed in many gods, each god responsible of some aspect, like the god of wealth, the god of the good, the god of evil... etc, yet they believed there's one god who's in charge of all of this, but they couldn't name him yet. They just referred to him as the Sole God, and in my own opinion, all the Abrahamic religions are just the evolution of such a belief. Considering the difference we realize that the three religions are talking about a single god like what the pharaohs believed in, and that god's in charge of the entire globe! Also, reading the pharaonic notes, i noticed that they're not that different from the old testament, especially the psalms. Some ancianet egyptian king wrote almost typically psalm for his son as a lifetime guide... it's just my memory that betrays me remembering where exactly it was.

By the end of the pharaonic era, egypt started drowning into lakes of civil wars and external pressures, the war between the romans and the egyptians, then the war between the christians and those who still embraced the pharanic beliefs, later between the eastern and the western christians, the external war of muslims against the christians since they invaded egypt, and after the majority of egypt became muslims we also read about wars between the different islamic forms and of course egypt was a strategic war zone for each form, therefore we found egypt swinging from mamalik to ottomans to the french and ending with the british invasion.

All of thses factors created a segmented country divided into two categories, the christians and the moslims, yet apart from the un-announced civil war between both sides, there're also unrevealed struggles inside each category. We find the christians divided into many groups, yet each group is claiming superiority over the other, and also we find the extreemist who looks at the others as "sinners" or "nonbelievers", the moderate who try to be interactive in the society and work positively to improve the image (and that's not the majority) and finally those who don't even care, which's the majority nowadays. On the other side, the same rule applies to the muslims except for the fact that the majory can be listed under the category of the fanatics, with a small amout of moderates and non-caring together.

As a christian, it became very common to me to be asked about my religion, hearing anti-christian preeches on the way to university or coming back, or going anywhere generally, and sometimes it's even on TV! But i also noticed that it's not a unidirectional traffic! At church you have to show your ID so that they let you in only of you're christian, and inside the churches the fanatic accent is increasing just like in mosques. I hear people from both sides exchanging slandering and insults, accusing each other that they're not civilized, and committing the same mistakes they blame each other for... which's definitely hypocritic.

Moving to the Economic field, it's even more depressing when compared to its performance 50 years ago... before the revolution, which i believe was a religious one rather than a civil one, egypt was the second country in the world to have railways, the first in the middle east to have an opera house, which was the largest in the world by then, the sixth to have an airport and was one of the best ten economies worldwide, nowadays it's so shameful to even think about numbers, enough saying our economy is the 154th worldwide!! That falling economy has lead to worse results, resulting in fraud, bribery, theft, poverty, lack of education, and many other negativities that push us back from civilization or development. The lack of education led to less awareness of rights and duties, greed, and ethnical prejudice without being aware of it. The absence of civilized discussions at school has led people to believe in the sentence "survival for the fAttest" not regarding other people's right to enjoy the same life, and being easily led by religious figures without even thinking of it. Bribery and unwillness for work due to weak salaries led to a different kind of work! the dirty business is more profitable and even more common than other kinds of work because people are hit with that fact: steal or die starving.

i think respecting the other is one of the milestones for development, if we consider each other equal, and have the will to work together for a bigger goal; our country, we'd make a big step for development, another step that i consider crucial is emplanting the spirit of civilized discussions and equality so that people could exert their best for the development, not only loving themselves, but loving where they live and who they live with. Egypt is one of the richest countries, if managed the right way, without a leader who gets the money abroad or a minister who steals more than he builds.

Pope Benedict... Geez!

well... this is not another anti-pope blog! it's an anti-fanaticism one to start with. Through the waves of faulty and forged information i'm being hit with daily about such an incident, i'll just try to figure out with you what has really happened, trying not to be biased towards any side of the so-called "attack on islam" as the muslims here like to claim, nor a self defence as some christians might was to figure it as well.

So... what happened? What has made the muslims that rageous about it? Are they on the right side or the wrong one? Did they deal with it with an equivalent amount of protest, or they went on exaggerating? Was the pope right or wrong? And was the christian reaction reasonable as well or just refusing to admit what's behind it? Let's just try to answer those questions.

A few days ago i heard through the media that Pope Benedict 16th said some negative comments against islam, and of course couldn't watch the TV here without waiting for around 10 minutes at least at every channel till that anti-pope program ends and give my ears a break from such words, that i consider not less fanatic that what the pope said, and then watch some enetertaining stuff, or the boring talk shows aired daily. Back to our issue! maybe because i'm used to watch that emotional side of the issue on TV, and sometimes emotions go blind beyond imagination, i decided to browse the internet and see what really happened apart from fabricated information. Hola! again it's still fabricated online, with another kind of hypocrites saying that that speech was just a historic quote, and it reflects the past not the present, or at least claiming that it's under the category of self defence! So that's why i decided to analyze things on my own, and try to create a moderate opinion between both.

First, the pope said that old quote in his lecture at germany "and what new has mohammed come with except evil and spreading his religion by the sword?". Of course it's a very provocative quote to be mentioned at the first place. I think it can be included as an offensive action against a belief, and it being said by the pope, makes the issue more than just an insult. It also gives people from the other side to exaggerate and sail with their imagination to the strangest thought possible, and who could blame them while the biggest-ranking christian attcked them directly?

Later the whole issue lost its meaning, and turned into a rather fanatic contest! christians in the west, and maybe in the east as well are following blindly what the pope said, and became just small puppets to his will, forgetting that he's also a human who might make a mistake every now and then, yet i admit that his action was far beyond a supposidely responsible man being the pope, and people on the other side hunting mistakes for who're different, and also forgetting that their societies aren't respecting the other religions enough! And it was so apparent after burning churches in palestine and pakistan earlier, attacks on chruches in egypt, and attacks on other villages with a christian majority eiter in el kusheh or in kafr slama in el sharkeya province, or those anti-west campaigns on TV daily with soap operas and fanatic presentors.

I think that it's a part of human nature claiming supriority over each other. maybe also it's a human instinct, since we're kids we always want to be better than the rest, in which ever way, either by being quieter, or the most noisy person in the class, and when we grow up we keep the same nature, yet we use different means. It's a message to both sides: the christians: before you go on talking about how fierce and barbaric the current islam is, just remember the crucades, killing people who opposed you in the medievals, the famous betrayals then also, and currently how the belief is diversed into thousands of beliefs that each group of five can form their own church! Also the war against "terrorism" that in fact is a war against the different, covered in a religious coat. For the muslims: don't also forget the terrorist groups everywhere in the globe nowadays, and how they slay people in a rather barbaric manner, also the tapes filling your countries slandering other beliefs, and the hamayonic rule in egypt that prohibits building new prayer temples or churches for who embrace another beliefs, or those shows that attack others' beliefs daily creating a narrow minded society, and proving that islam currently is uncivilized as the west claims. chill out people and think in a mature way rather than that my-toy-is-better-than-yours attitude!