Niqāb - The face veil thats taking it too far.

Firstly, this being the firs blog of the new year, I would like to wish everyone a happy new year. I hope it brings you good health, prosperity, and luck.


I don't know if I mentioned this in one of the earlier entries, but I am a Muslim. I am of Tataric descent. Ahmad ibn Fadlan brought Islam to my people around 922 A.D. Until 18th century, Tatars practiced a now inactive form of Islam called Jidism. It was a more tolerant/liberal form of Islam, many social beleifs from that era are still intact today. Tatars have never beleived in the idea of covering the womans face, thus, I feel that Muslim women are really taking it too far.
Tatars - late 18th - early 19th century

Tatar woman, early 18th century



Today, the face veil is a hot issue, especially in Europe. The one case which sticks out in my mind is the teacher in England who made a big legal fuss because the shool she taught at wouldn't let her wear her Niqab. Not to mention that she tought kids who were like 7 or 8 years old. I remember being that age, and if I had a teacher who completely hid her face behind a black mask, I would be scared, or in the best case very uncomfortable. It is not normal. - Generally speaking, I consider it to be a retarded religious practice. Something that should have been discontinued in the 16th century, at the very least.


Not only do I think it is a silly religious practice, but there is also the political issue of immigrants. I immigrated to Canada 10 years ago. Ever since the day I got here, I've been doing my best to integrate into the host society. That's the problem, all these people are allowed to migrate into the developed countries, but then they are encouraged to keep their "identity" and all that bull shit, even a blind person can see that this causes secular issues.


Turkish women wearing a Niqab

Personally I think once someone migrates into a country where they want to spend the rest of their natural lives, the least those people can do is leave their cultural/religious habits and leave them at home. Assimilate into the damn society.


However, it seems that democracy provide these immigrants with rights to keep their cultural etiquette/habits, whatever. That should be illegal - the Netherlands are working on bassing a "burqa ban"...I honestly think they are on the right path, North America should watch and learn.


Thanks for reading, hope I didn't bore you with my ranting.

Quit it, you Asshole!

Well...I have finally decided to give up cigarettes, once again. I've finally gotten my high school diploma today, after 6 years...
I have also registered for my college course, which is Police Foundations...I actually applied for it last December..so it has been a year long wait now.
I am actually very excited, my first semester I am taking the following classes:

-Canadian Criminal Justice System 101
-Issues in Diversity/First Nations 122
-Principals of Human Behaviour 129
-Professional Police Standards 106
-Reading & Writing Prose 170 <---YUCK!!!

Now I just have to drop the damn cancer sticks and get into the most tip-top shape of my life. My physical abilities are at a higher standard, believe me...but my lungs, oh god, my lungs. After smoking for 6.5 years, you start to feel your lungs. Funny, my grandfather passed away becase of lung cancer, he fought through the entire WWII and never smoked a cigarette...In fact, he used to trade tobacco for sugar on the front. So really..how retarded am I for smoking while I know such a fact? Stupid. I wish I had never picked up a cigarette to begin with..



I've attempted to quit smoking last year, but only lasted a week. I have learned a few lessons from that experience, and will apply them wisely this time around. I just gotta get past the 72 hours, it's pies and cherries from there...as long as I don't get stupid. I feel more confident this time around, and I'm just really tired of killing myself.

The Fading Dictators

Time flies, and it does so fast.
Over a decade ago, the world was concerned with Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Colonel Mummar Al-Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein. Arafat has passed on, Saddam captured and standing trial, Castro is old and sick, Gaddafi doesn't have much left either, he is getting old as well.

It has always amazed me how quickly the world politics scene evolves throughout time. Many take dictator personas for granted, as most people today have no idea what it is like to live under a dictator's rule. Neither do I....but I sure as hell wish I did. Todays materialistic consumer culture makes me sick. Spending power, spending power, spending power! I hope to see something horrible happen to the economies of the powerful Western "democracies". If the markets collapse within our lifetimes, it will be a show and a half! If, say, North America was hit by an economic disaster of the same scale as the Great Depression of the '30s, the exact same things would happen again. The majority of the population will loose hope in traditional politics and the middle class will look for a new lead - an extreme. When people go through economic difficulties of unimaginable proportions (I'm talking living on a loaf of bread every week for a year or so), tempers begin to flare, and the human mind becomes easy to brainwash. All that will be needed at that point is a promise of better days. All hell will break loose if people invest their power into the wrong (or right) person/organization.

I will never forget the stories my parents told me about life in the Soviet Union...the needs of a nation are greater then the needs of an individual...that was the life motto. People worked for each other, for a stronger society. Too bad they got greedy and USSR is in the maps of the past eh?

That's what I find sad, lack of national unity. This is a problem in all modern democratic countries, but it is especially a touchy issue here in Canoodia. People are too friggin liberal here, every one is afraid of opening their mouths because they are afraid of saying something "politically incorrect"...but yea, I can go on for ever and ever about national unity and all that jazz...but you get the point.

I dedicate this blog as a tribute to Fidel Castro, his long lost comrade Che Guevera, and Fidels younger brother Raul. I doubt Fidel will make it through the upcoming year, but I do wish him the best as his image has been hammered into my head since I was a little boy...I will never forget him. Viva Fidel! Viva Che! Viva Raul!

Lack of Guidance in the Tough-Ass Modern Age

Growing up was hard - especially after the divorce of my parents. Most of my life, I have spent telling myself and others that the divorce did not directly effect me..."I don't care...whatever", I used to say. Deep inside though, I know that it did have an effect me, but I refused to let it affect my daily life. I pushed that thought back into the cracks and crevisis(?) of my sub-conscious awareness.
I believe that I was around the age of 11 when my parents decided to go their separate ways. My mom got custody and we moved into what I guess you can classify as a "ghetto" (my idea of ghetto is kids looking for food at garbage dumps in Mozambique)...I can say that I was a good boy until my 13th birthday. Prior to that, I spent most of my time at the computer (as I do today). When I started growing older into my adolescent days, I began to run into more and more trouble as well.
That same year, I joined the Army Cadets (a military-style extracurricular organization for kids who want to do something productive with their time)...however, the experience turned out to be a bit more "productive" then I expected. Cadets is the very same institution where I met not so good kids. I got friendly with my new friends and soon enough I got into drinking 40s and smoking joints. It did not get any better for a while.
Throughout the next 3 or 4 years, I got deeper into the drug scene; at that point, not only was I doing "street drugs" such as pot, mushrooms, and extacy (not gonna let you know all the drugs I did, it is nothing to be proud of), I also began to engage in doing pharmaceutical drugs such as Aderall and Rittalin. The situation got to its lowest point in my second year of high school, 10th grad. In grade 9, I was regularly skipping and gettin' high at lunch with my close friend (I was never a socially skilled person and stuck with a few "worthy" individuals). My academic progress pretty well stalled by the second semester of grade 9. I could not stand to wake up at 7 am, be at school by 8.20 and sit on my ass the entire day until 2.40pm rolled in. I hated the social scene in high school. Kids are evil, high school is a very hostile place. People would rather be unfriendly, then be nice and try to make friends. However, this is all an opinion based on my experience. My hatred did not only stem onto students, I had a lot of dislike for the teachers as well. To this day, I can positively say that all teachers, excluding a few good ones, did not give a crap about the students (but who can blame them..they get paid beans)...however, the problem is that teachers need to care, at least about the younger students, ones who are visibly angry, people like me, but with less brains...the ones who CAN NOT guide themselves, the hopeless cases...believe me, there are many of them out there.
By beginning of grade 10, I suffered a major, year-long episode of depression. I dropped out of school, got into some more drugs, but this time around, I was selling them as well. A dirty business. Many young people who are in the same situation decide to sell drugs as a way of making a profit. However, I have seen countless young people waste themselves away trying to "turn a nickle into a dime." It is next to impossible to make a significant amount of money out of pushing drugs on the consumer level. Mostly, it is impossible due to the fact that the seller engages in doing his own product. I have seen people get beaten, do time, and throw their lives away because they considered themselves "hard enough" to get into the game of pushing. It is a no go, and it is far from being a game. I am thankful to God and the head on my shoulders for being able to find my way out of those circumstances.
About a year after dropping out, I met my current girlfriend Lindsey. She was also not at school at the time, and was trying to get back in. She ended up leaving the regular school system and began attending an alternative school (more freedom and responsibility). I enrolled as well, stopped selling and abusing drugs. We ended up moving out together and have been together for 4 years since. She is now on her first year of doing a Journalism program, and I am starting a Police Foundations program at college this January.
I hope that someone who is in a similar position reads my story (I doubt it lol) and finds a needle worth of hope. I know that I needed it, unfortunately I couldn't get any, if I had found hope earlier, I would not have traveled down the dark path. It was not worth it.

Migration to the Western World and my Religious Identity Crisis

Piece by piece, my family migrated from the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to Canada throughout the mid and late 90s. My father went first in '96, followed by older brother in '97 and finally my mom and I in '98.
Throughout our first several months in the country we settled in the troubled Toronto community of Parkdale to live with my older brother and his wife (who he met here). Those days are now vague, as I spent them mostly playing soccer in the concrete parking lot of the building. Few months down the road, we moved to North York and stayed there until my parents divorced in late early 2000, then it was back to another apartment building in Parkdale where I spent most of my adolescent years.
By blood, my mother is Ukrainian and my pops is a Tatar. I have always leaned toward my Tataric heritage, as my looks do not resemble a typical Ukrainian person. Tatars were mostly nomadic people of North-East Russia until the 12th century rolled in. At that point on the time line, Islam was brought to my people from Baghdad. To this day, Tatars remain the most Northern followers of Islam.
I believed in God until I was about 11. I was always proud to be a Muslim since I was always told that all other Muslims are my brothers and Islam accepts everyone with peace. My views began to change at rapid speeds when I was exposed to the North American Muslims.
I could not believe myself!...When I used to tell brown/coloured Muslims that I was one of them, they would laugh at me. On few occasions, I was even asked to say a prayer in Arabic to confirm my claim of being a Muslim...I can pray in Arabic, and many people were amazed. A lot of the times though, I was accused of being a faker, and other times, peoples reactions were just plain old hostile. I went to a mosque with my father only once, back in those early days. To this day, still, I remember people sort of staring at us, as we were pretty much the only whites on the premises.
The funny thing is, I have never, ever met (or even heard of) a Muslim with coloured skin until I came to Canada. And if I had met one back home, there is no way in hell I would have ever been that hostile.
So yes, being a young individual at the time, this experience has shook my religious foundation and perception of people and their nature. I considered myself to be an Atheist until last year. I was able to regain my religious confidence and put aside those peoples opinions about me. However, I vow not to ever go into a mosque located on North American soil, as Muslims who migrated here from all over the world are in many cases hostile and extreme.

Exogamy -- The Plasticine Theory

Exogamy (biology) is the act of engaging in out-breeding, rather then in-breeding. Out-breeding is a simple concept to define; reproduction with an exotic partner who's genes are of a distant origin.
Now apparantly, reproducing with a partner who holds exotic genetics, reaps many benefits for the offspring, since there are significantly less chances for the byproduct of those two individuals to have faulty genetics, or suffer from a genetic caused illness, deformity, or a mutation.
In-breeding on the other hand, is the act of reproduction with someone of a relatively close genetic pool (ie. a couple who's family roots are in the same region). This reproduction strategy has flaws. The product of in-bound breeding subjects has risks of being born with genetic problems. A good example of this would be the fact that children of many European couples end up suffering from cystic fibrosis, whereas some children of African parents end up with sickle-cell anemia. Basically put; products of indirect incest.
However, all that aside, as an individual, I see a an ethical problem with out-breeding.

I remember one day, when I was about 8 years of age. It was a sunny morning in my former Soviet-bloc country. I lived with my mom because my dad migrated to Canada by that point in time (story for another blog). My mother was out at work, and I was playing with plasticine in our one-bedroom living room. I was a curious child, and curious ideas came to mind all the time. This time around, I got an idea to get together all my plasticine pieces, put them in a pot, and boil them down. I almost ended up setting fire to the apartment because the plasticine went up in flame and I poured some water into the pot (not a smart move, TALL FLAME). When I eventually put out the fire, I discovered that all my plasticine pieces of different colors melted into a single dull gray.

I am not a religious person, but I do believe in God. Thinking back the plasticine incident, I have always wondered; If God put all these people on the Earth (Black, White, Chinese, Hispanic, Jew, Arab), did he mean for all of them to get mixed up? I can almost picture it - gray people. We will eventually all be the same, there will be nothing to distinguish racial and cultural groups from another. "YAY..!!!...World Peace!", a hippie may say. Perhaps. But the world will be so dull. I hope we don't all get melted into one single, nasty color.

By the looks of it, that is exactly what is going on. I remember reading an article a few months back saying that blonde hair/blue eyes genes are on their way out and will be wiped out within the next two decades or so. That just depresses me, it makes me feel like the world is spinning out of control.

So, I just want you to keep the plasticine effect in mind.

The Basic Purposes of Life: A Philosophical Outlook

For years I have been wondering; what is the meaning of life?

Recently I came to this conclusion;

There are few basic reasons that apply to existence of a human being.

1. To secure a good future for oneself. – We all stride to make sure that we live as happily as possible until the very last day. For most people, the idea of their last day is being senile, lying in your death bed, awaiting Grimm Ripper.

Surely, this does not apply to everyone. There are those people who "live fast and die young"

2. To pass on half of your genetic material. – The majority of humans wants to, and will reproduce. From my perspective, this is the most crucial reason for our existence. The laws of nature dictate us to reproduce with a partner who is in the possession of proper genetic values. This is the reason lust exists and why males can't help themselves but to constantly look at other women. It is programmed into us – although I do not observe the same qualities in women.

In today's society, the "genetic makeup" of a suitable partner became a secondary quality. Nowadays, many choose a partner by their wealth (which semi-reflects on genetic qualities), status, and last, but not least, personality.

Although all those things are tied to genetics in the end, genetics themselves, in many cases, are not a quality that is considered consciously by one who is the choosing a partner. Again, I believe that this decision is made subconsciously, based on a model programmed into our DNA.

3. To sustain and raise an offspring(s). – As the reason number 2 suggests, a lot of people are instinctually driven to reproduce. Once that is completed, the human begins to live out its final purpose, to nurture and raise its offspring. Once a human being raises its child to an age where they feel that the offspring can provide food/security/basic necessities for themselves, the purpose of human life has been lived out. From then on, it's all spare time until your meeting with the Grimm Ripper.

These goals of life do no govern over all people. There are some who choose to spend their lives doing drugs, others who commit themselves to God, and those who are afraid to live out such a planned out path of life. Although these "purposes" may seem very simple and make life look kind of look dull, we must accomplish them. Most of us will do it, regardless of whether we like to or not.
As you have probably noticed, my thought process has been heavily influenced by works of my beloved Charles Darwin.