The current situation in Afghanistan is unsolvable

Definitions:
^ : this is a “friendship” relationship. One can express the relationship “A loves B” by A ^ B
!^ : this is the “animosity” relationship. One can express the relationship “A does not love B” by A !^ B
India: I
United States: U
Afghanistan: A
Pakistan: P
Taliban: T

Transitivity Rules:
a) Transitivity rule of “friends of my friends are my friends too”: if X ^ Y and Y ^ Z then X ^ Z
b) Transitivity rule of “friends of my enemies are my enemies too”: if X !^ Y and Y ^ Z then X !^ Z
c) Transitivity rule of “enemies of my friends are my enemies too”: if X ^ Y and Y !^ Z then X !^ Z

Axioms:
1. I ^ U (India has always been a great ally of US, just look at all the historical facts)
2. U ^ A (otherwise they wouldn’t be there forever trying to help them to rebuild)
3. U !^ T (otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to kill them all)
4. P !^ I (from the many incidents in the past few years)
5. P ^ T (otherwise they wouldn’t be housing them)
6. T ^ A (otherwise they wouldn’t stay there)
7. T !^ U (from the 9/11 attacks)

Theorem A: Everybody else loves Afghanistan.
Proof:
- From (2): U ^ A
- From (6): T ^ A
- From (1) and (2): I ^ U ^ A, using transitivity rule (a): I ^ A
- From (5) and (6): P ^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (a): P ^ A

Theorem B: Everybody else does not love Afghanistan.
Proof:
- From (3) and (6): U !^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): U !^ A
- From (7) and (2): T !^ U ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): T !^ A
- From (1) and (3): I ^ U !^ T, using transitivity rule (c): I !^ T. With this result, and from (6): I !^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): I !^ A
- From (5) and the result that T !^ A: P ^ T !^ A, using transitivity rule (C): P !^ A

Theorem C: The situation in Afghanistan is impossible to resolve as long as the Taliban, Pakistan, United States and India are involved.
Proof:
For the situation in Afghanistan to be resolved, we cannot have all parties involved loving and hating Afghanistan at the same time. But we have just proved that all parties involved love and hate Afghanistan at the same time (Theorems A and B). Therefore, we conclude that the situation is unsolvable as long as all the parties are involved.

What did Teresa want?

Teresa wanted to feel pretty. She wanted some perfumes, nice cloths. She wanted to feel pretty.
Teresa wanted a good pizza, full of cheese.
Teresa wanted new pair of boots. The old ones hurt her sore feet too much.
Teresa wanted some makeup, as any girl she liked to spend time in front of the mirror taking care of herself.
Teresa wanted to find her ex-boyfriend, someone who vanished and disappeared forever, for no specific reason.
Teresa wanted to laugh, Teresa always liked a good joke.
Teresa wanted to talk. Teresa wanted to talk about her life, about her problems.
Teresa wanted attention. Well, and who doesn’t want it?
Teresa wanted to be healthy. She may not have sounded this way, but deep inside she wanted to be healthy.
Teresa wanted Regina back.
Teresa wanted to save money for an emergency. The emergency never came.
Teresa wanted a friendly hand.
Teresa wanted a family. She had one. Not from blood, not always happy. But she had one.
All Teresa ever wanted was love.
And that, she found today.
Be in peace.

Rwanda

Reading the news today, I stumbled upon the judgment and further condemnation of one of the responsible for the Rwanda genocide in 1994, where Hutus slaughtered 1,000,000 Tutsis in a period of no more than 100 days. Now, put the ethnics aside: what happened in Rwanda after some thought was worse than what happened during the Second World War. Here is the reasoning: during the Second World War, 50,000,000 people died, with about 20% to 25% of them being militaries, in a conflict spanning several countries. Now, think about Rwanda: 1,000,000 murders in 100 days is the equivalent to 10,000 murders/day. The Second World War lasted 6 years, thus the rate was 23,000 murders/day. Fine, mathematically Rwanda accounts for ~50% of what happened during the Second World War. Now comes the data that makes things in Rwanda frightening: the killed and the killers were all neighbors. They were all parents whose children played together. They were all people attending the same church. They all at some point talked to each other, had fun with each other, helped each other. And one day everything turned up-side-down and the killings begun. Unlike the Second World War, where most of the killings happened thru bombs dropped from thousands of yards up high, the killings in Rwanda took place with knives, machetes, with bare hands, with the victims looking inside the eyes of those who were killing them. Brothers killing brothers. All in the same country, same town, same neighborhood.

Ethnicity as a concept/label should be completely and permanently obliterated from the face of the earth. A human being is a human being – why label it based on color, language, religion, shape? We’re light-years away from achieving this dream, I bet you must be filling out a questionnaire which is asking you to label yourself as one of these: African-American, Latino, White, Asian, etc. What does it matter, really? Ethnicity divides people, generates segregation, and segregation leads to hate, and hate leads to genocides, like the Rwanda massacre. Ironically and sadly, Rwanda was a German colony prior to its independence, and the Germans were the ones who institutionalized and imposed the official use of the Hutu/Tutsi labels across the population.

As I said, long live Barack Hussein Obama: a guy whose father was African, mother was White, a guy who is almost native-Hawaiian, who lived in Asia for a long time (thus half-Asian), with an Arabic name. Well, I couldn’t find a Latino connection in him. Hell: “Admired by a Latino dude”. There you go! :)

My girls:

Shoes

Sorry guys, I know I closed the blog but I just couldn't resist writing about this incident. 5 years of a shameful war, tens of thousands of people killed for nothing. No goals, no target, nothing. Just like Dire Straits wrote, this would be the "Lives for Nothing" song. 5 freaking years in this mess, transforming a country and thousands and thousands of families in pure misery. 5 years of horror, and you still go there to say "bye, bye"?! This is what u get, a pair of shoes in the head!
Long live Barack Hussein Obama! Long live freedom of speech!

The End

This is the end of my blog.
I decided to leave this blog and go to a better place (this sentence didn’t quite come out right). It’s been great to be part of the blogsphere where I could write to the world my most inner thoughts, and by now you should have a pretty good picture of me and my thoughts: yes, they are very random. But it is time to say farewell – but before the farewell I want to give a tribute to my mother by eternizing a sweet song (author: unknown) she used to sing to me during my childhood (sorry, you’ll have to translate):

“Ele gosta dela,
Nao maltrata ela,
Nao desfaz dela,
Os defeitos que tem

Foi aa Capela,
E casou com ela,
Nao reparou nela,
Os defeitos que tem

Tem uma perna torta,
Isso nao eh defeito,
Ja perdeu um peito,
Numa operacao

Ela eh banguela,
Ela eh careca,
Nao repare nela,
Nao repare nao”

I’ll leave you with the words from the great Einstein: “Life is like riding a bicycle – you got to keep moving to keep your balance”

So long!!!

Marcelo Medeiros De Barros

Tennis

27th Annual Pac Asian Tournament
Registration for the tournament: $30 (net: -30)
Parking at the UW campus: $6 (net: -36)
Soda from a vending machine: $1 (net: -37)
Prize for the champion: $37 (net: 0)
Victory: PRICELESS!

Godfather

Yesterday my Godfather, Doctor Alcindo, passed away.
A fighter, life lover, struggled with an untreatable disease and unbearable pain for over 15 years. But never gave up. Found in simple things, like gardening, reading a good book or just chatting with friends, the joy of living. As a doctor, knew exactly what was going on inside his ever weaken body, and although under unimaginable pain, would explain me step by step how the disease worked, how the body counter attacked it, in a way that, for a split of a second, I'd completely forget that that he was an ill person, and rather see him as a teacher. Life decided that he had enough.
Some of his words ought to be immortalized: "Being healthy is a state of mind when you're not conscious that certain parts of your body, like your left hand or right foot, are even there. They are there, but you don't even realize or think about it. That's when your body is working like a charm".
Rest in peace, uncle Alcindo (left in the picture below).

Sins

This is a true story.
The year was 1947. The world was still healing from its wounds left by the World War II. In a remote village in the country side of North Carolina, an 83-year old man lies down on a hospital bed. He is four days away from dying. A kind nurse is looking after the old man. He’s a man of few words, but that day he wanted to talk. “I have something to confess – I need to say this to someone before I die”. The nurse listened. “I am a man with no sins”. “I believe in you”, says the inattentive nurse. “Listen to me!”, his expression changing rapidly to anger and desperate, “I never committed a single sin in my entire life! This was the whole reason of my life!!”. The nurse decides to listen closely to what the man had to say. His story would deeply astonish the young lady.
He went on to describe his life. When he was 10, his parents, who were actively involved with the Catholic Church, had a long conversation with him. They explained that the young man was gifted with purity, and preserving that gift ought to be the most important thing of his life. A life with no sins. Never, in any plausible or conceivable way. A life were obeying the 10 amendments was not only mandatory – it was vital. The boy was trained by his parents and local church members (priests and volunteers) to avoid committing any sin at any cost. Every day he would have a conversation with his father in the morning about how he should go about living that day sin-free. At 5pm, he would talk to a priest or minister who would double check that the little boy was living according the rules. Day in, day out, the routine would be the same: long prays, conversations about how to keep the mind free from “bad” thoughts, and chats with a priest. Every day, for 73 years. He got married when he was 21. He had 3 children, but the routine remained the same. Priests would change over the time, but not his routine. Even after his parents passed away, a group of church members took over the duties of his parents. After all, he was gifted. He never committed a single sin. He only had sex eight times in his whole life. Always with his wife. Always aiming the conception of a child. He never lied. Never. He worked as a salesman of custom bags for 42 years. He was a mediocre salesman, but his parents left him enough money so he could provide a decent life to his family. He would go thru moments of depression, for which psychologists (volunteers from the church) would be there to always help him out. He never had a bad feeling about anyone – he never developed hate. He did not know what was to hate something or somebody.
The young nurse listened careful to that story, and it would mark her life forever. Many years later, her grandson would also be fascinated for that story. He ended up joining the church in 1995 at the age of 22. Inside the catholic realm, the young priest developed an intricate network of friendship, and thru that network he got in touch with somebody who knew that old man. He actually knew much more than that.
Apparently the church had sponsored a research codenamed “Pure Stone”. It consisted of investigating the effects of unquestionable, rigorous obedience to the catholic amendments by normal individuals. It was carried out over a time span of more than 300 years, where about 1,000 families were selected to participate in the program. Needless to say, the entire research was as secret as the most hidden secrets kept by the church. Families who agreed to adhere to this program would have one of their children trained to be “free of sins” for his/her entire life. In retribution, the church would cover any financial expense –anything, from the day the program started ‘till the child’s death. Apparently over 900 million dollars was spent in the project. A final dossier was written with the results of the research. When Pope Paul VI (1963-78) reviewed the results of the project, he was shocked. It is unknown what the results were, but it was ordered the immediate destruction of any material related to project Pure Store. It is believed that only a handful of people still know the contents of that dossier inside the church today. Unfortunately the young priest died suddenly from a fatal heart disease at the early age of 27. He left no written document about how he obtained most of this information. I’ll refrain from passing along how this information reached my ears. I also could not find any information on the web about project Pure Stone.