The Birthplace of Abraham Lincoln

A few weeks ago, Mark and I took a road trip to Michigan to visit my family. After traveling through Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Oklahoma, I vote for Southern Kentucky as the most beautiful part of the nine states we traversed.

As with any road trip, you stop at places you never planned to see. The Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky was one of the places we happened to drive by on our way to Michigan. It was time well spent, thanks to our road trip.



© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
The Memorial Building at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Site in Hodgenville, Kentucky.



© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
The symbolic cabin similar to the cabin where Abraham Lincoln was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky. The symbolic cabin is located inside the Memorial Building.



© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
The Sinking Spring was the source of water for the Lincoln family's farm, where Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809.



© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
Life-size statues of the Lincoln family located inside the visitors center at the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park in Hodgenville, Kentucky.



© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
The Centennial Statue of Abraham Lincoln at the historic Lincoln Square in Hodgenville, Kentucky.


© Fayrouz Hancock / newseagles.com
The Boy Lincoln Sculpture depicts the young Abraham Lincoln and his dog Honey. The statue is located in the historic Lincoln Square in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

R.I.P. Dr. Sabah Abdel Aziz

Facebook has become my favorite tool to connect with old friends and family members, who are scattered around the world. It brings many happy moments to my busy life. From time to time, it brings bad news.

Last week, I learned of the death of Dr. Sabah Abdel Aziz in Basra.

For readers of this post, the name means nothing. For his students, he meant the world.

Dr. Aziz was the head of the Computer Science department at University of Basra, where I completed my university studies, during the 1980s. He earned a doctorate in Satellite Technology from Japan. As you can imagine, he was a genius, and we were the wannabe programmers who had to share computers to finish our homework and assignments.

I caught Dr. Aziz's attention with my problem-solving techniques from the first year. From the beginning, I was expected to perform perfectly in my studies. This wasn't always easy considering Basrawi students lived in a war zone. But I tried my best.

Dr. Aziz was a professor with a vision. His vision was to graduate students who make it successfully in the workplace. His success is evident in my colleagues who became successful techies no matter which country they eventually landed.

I owe my success to Dr. Aziz and all the wonderful professors who taught me at University of Basra. They were available when we needed them. They were tough when toughness was needed. It's what made us better programmers.

Before leaving church yesterday, I prayed to Mother Mary. I asked her to tell Dr. Aziz that we loved him, and he will be missed on Earth.

R.I.P. Dr. Sabah Abdel Aziz.

The Wall Street Greed

Merriam Webster Dictionary defines greed as "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (as money) than is needed."

In his Oscar-winning performance in the 1987 film "Wall Street", Michael Douglas portrays a Wall Street financier who tells stockholders

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, for knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper [a fictitious company], but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”

And that's how the Wall Street story goes. People were fed the idea that making fast money is good.

People were instructed to invest in their 401K plan to have a better retirement. This always cracks me up about the U.S. way of life. I roll my eyes when I see people obsessively buy and sell stocks in the name of investing in their future retirement. I think retirement is way overrated here.

This greed mentality has not only affected the work force, who are working for "a better future retirement," but it also influenced the younger generation when it comes to choosing a college major. Check a few universities randomly, and I'm certain the finance and economy classes are filled with Wall Street financier wannabes. Walk to an engineering school and the majority of students is very international.

Nations like India and China are investing in the younger generation to be the scientific leaders of the future. They benefit most from the outsourcing of America because of corporate American greed.

American Wife, The Book

I first heard of Curtis Sittenfeld and the book "American Wife" in December 2008.

I'm not "into" romance novels. But, the reviews attracted me to the book. Considering how slow I read and how long the book is, I actually found the time to read the book during weekends.

The book is a fictional biography of former First Lady Laura Bush. It's also the reason why I decided to read the book. No matter how much the American people disliked former President Bush, the former First Lady had a high approval rating among the people. I relate her popularity to her Southern charm, sincere smile and down-to-earth personality.

The book starts very strong by explaining the childhood and youth of the fictional Laura Bush. Toward the third quarter of the book, it starts to drag a bit. So, I flipped through pages to get to the next interesting part.

As someone who's fond of reading books and world events, I can distinguish between fiction and non-fiction. I'm certain some may read the book and consider every word written about Laura Bush to be factual. This may not be fair to her. Similarly, it's not fair to make assumptions about public figures, celebrities or people we barely know.

The book is well-written. However, it could have been shorter. Some details weren't needed in a fiction book about a First Lady. But after all, it's a romance fiction.



American Wife

It's a New Day In America

Tannen Maury / Reuters


We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

-- From President Barack Obama's inaugural address on Tuesday January 20, 2009.

As always, I'm proud to be American.

Back to work as the President requested.

Iraqi Women, Then and Now

Iraqi diva Ififa Iskandar performing a concert during the 1950s.


In many parts of the world, women have gained more rights over the years. In Iraq, the situation has been reversed.

During the reign of the Iraqi Royal family, Iraqi women were more liberal than their peers in many neighboring countries. The picture above is a reminder of the good old times in Iraq.

There's a myth, which was circulated over the Internet and by some journalists, that the Baathists liberated the Iraqi women. The Iraqi women were already free. Truthfully, the Baathists were secular folks. When they came to power, they didn't stop women from pursuing education and careers.

When I attended university during the 1980s, probably one or two female students wore hijabs on the entire campus. The same held true on Iraqi streets. This wasn't true by the time I left Iraq in 1994.

For the record, I respect women who choose to wear the hijab freely. But, it infuriates me to see pictures of veiled Iraqi women AND know that fear of religious thugs forced them to wear the hijab.

After the removal of Saddam in 2003 and the installation of a bunch of religious fundamentalists as the face of the Iraqi government, Iraqi women started to lose their rights at the speed of light. Nothing has prepared the liberal Iraqi women for the bleak future enforced by a constitution that doesn't separate the state from religion.

Sudarsan Raghavan of The Washington Post reports the following grim news from today's Iraq:

In the first six months of this year, 206 women were killed in Kurdistan, 150 of them burned to death. The killings were up 30 percent from the previous six months, according to the Kurdish regional government's Human Rights Ministry. Activists say many honor crimes go unreported or are portrayed as accidents. They also say that some women have immolated themselves out of despair.
[...]
Last year, Saud [An Iraqi women rights activist] also visited morgues to tabulate the number of women killed in Basra for a report to Iraq's parliament. She found 150 victims. She said she had known three of them: Maysoon was killed with her brother, both shot five times in the head for being Christians; gunmen killed Lubna for walking a little too close to her fiance; Sabah was murdered in a market for not wearing a head scarf.

Honor killings are a problem in Basra, too, but Saud understands her boundaries. "I'll get killed if I try to protect a woman from her tribe," she said.

This is the liberation Iraqi women were given by the Bush administration. This is the legacy he's leaving behind: This administration turned secular Iraq into another fundamentalist Iran of the 1980s.

The Definition of Iraqi - In Arabic

عراقي +شريف + زنكين = مسافر

عراقي + شريف + فقير = ضحيه

عراقي + غير شريف + زنكين = عميل

عراقي + غير شريف + فقير = ميليشيا

غير عراقي + غيرشريف + زنكين = حكومه

غير عراقي + غير شريف + فقير = ارهابي


Thank you Hani for sharing the dark humor with us :-)