Stars,Songs,Faces

Gather the stars,if you want,
Gather the songs and keep them,
Gather the faces of women,
Gather long years for yourslf,


Then...


Open your hand,let go,say goodbye;
Let the stars and songs go,
Let the years and faces go,
Open your hand and say goodbye.


Carl Sandburg

Broken Wings

Fight the fight alone

When the world is full of victims

Dims a fading light in our souls
Leave the peace alone
How we all are slowly changing
Dims a fading light in our souls

In my opinion seeing is to know
The things we hold are always first to go
And who's to say we won't end up alone?


On broken wings I'm falling 
And it won't be long
The skin on me is burning 
By the fires of the sun
On skinned knees I'm bleeding
And it won't be long
I've got to find that meaning 
And I'll search for so long

Cry ourselves to sleep
We will sleep alone forever
Will you lay me down?
In the same place with all I love
Mend the broken homes
Care for them, they are our brothers
Save the fading light in our souls

In my opinion seeing is to know
What you give will always carry you
And who's to say we won't survive it too?



Set a...free all 
Relying on their will 
To make me all that I am 
And all I'll be

Set a...free all
Will fall between the cracks
With memories of all that I am
And all I'll be




Alter Bridge

My New Books

I bought these 4 :
1-L'ombre chinoise(Maigret Mystified)---->Georges Simenon
2-The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum---->Heinrich Boll
3-Pulp---->Charles Bukowski
4-Nine Stories---->J.D.Salinger

Carfax Abbey

Is it simply a kiss of carnal dreams?
What once a father to tender sleeplessness


The deviance of youthful whispering
A majesty to darkness,a visage my kingdom?


My centuries laden with dead emotion
Timeless anguish beckons me
Into my sleep,the torments of dreamless kin
Give unto me a time for redemption


And even now beneath the multitude of stars


Am i to believe that i stand before god?
What pitiful illusion am i expected to see?
Shall i exist in my death,to believe in them?
As i destroy all you love ,before your eyes


I bequeath unto thee my forever


For time hath imprisoned me
Endowed with the wisdom of centuries
Yet the sorrow hath befallen me still
The chosen few are but remain with me


United together within the stillness
Of an age yet to come
My children of sadness,i welcome thee
Into my arms forever

Man In White Suit

It's become more frequent 
meeting him
In my desperate hours
he's black 
and I'm white


Wearing a white suit
He always carries an smile
Holds my hand
calls me : "Son"
i love his tender voice


I can feel he's under a great deal of pressure
But hides the pain


I imagined him
Feeling depressed 
Hearing about me
the mistakes
Failures
and sins


I can hear him
as he whispers :
"Son ! Never Ever Jack in
...Never Back Down 
Son...
My tiny son..."


He's watching over me
As we live through
Our Parallel existence


Pedram
Feb 8th 2010

My Album Of the Month

Otkroveniya Dozhdya(2009)  
Russian Melodic Doom/Death Metal band ;presents a pure sound of the genre
Slow melancholic Throbbing sound with death growls beautifully done.
The band is from Podolsk Moscow.
My favorite tracks are track 2: I Left Myself Here and Track 4:Winter Grief

My New Films

1-L'enfant Cheval 2009  : Samira Makhmalbaf
2-Looking For Eric 2009  : Ken Loach
3- Van Diemen's Land  2009 : Jonathan auf der Heide
4-Nine Miles Down 2009  : Anthony Waller
5- 20 Fingers 2004  : Mania Akbari

6-Un Prophete' 2009  : Jacques Audiard
7-A Serious Man  2009  :Joen & Ethan Coen
8-The Stoning Of Soraya M  2008  : Cyrus Nowrasteh
9-Vaghti Hame Khabim(When We Are All Asleep) 2009  : Bahram Beizai
10-Mother and Son  1997  : Aleksandr Sokurov
11-Battle For Haditha  2007  : Nick Broomfield
12-The Queen 2006  : Stephen Frears

Afflicted Reznic:The Machinist

Directed by Brad Anderson;
I can't remember who recommended the movie;it was an enjoyable film ;better say a masterpiece.
It showef the fatal consequence of  rejecting the call of conscience;how it projects to your everyday life,and affects your function;man  becomes the slave of his own acts.
The point is that acts like this ;faults and failures happen many times;some can ignore and consign to oblivion but some people can't rest their conscience;so they suffer;the allegory stands here;Pure spirits suffer more as they're more senestive
Credit to Christian Bale:dropping about 63 pounds ! shows how an artist dedicate himself . 
An astonishing appearance by Bale.
i watched the machinst about 20 months ago...since then it became one of my favorites;
i can compare the movie with Mulholland Drive or Memento.

The Hurt Locker

It was really a high quality and honest  picture;probably best movie i've seen about Iraq war.As i followed the global acceptance of the movie;i'm glad it opened its way to commercial success as well.
I really hope Kathryn Bigelow win the Academy Award.
The opening scenes about 10 minutes of spinechilling operation;disposing of an improvised explosive device.
the first time I watched the movie was about 8 months ago;then like many other movies i watched it  for the second time ;more in depth ;i have tosay the movie really deserves watching carefully.
I guess the movie carries a horrific message of post-war crisis;a modern  emotional distress Soldiers Facing death every 365 days of a year,Under to much pressure life lost its meaning as they edge closer to death experience...
Sergeant James ;shows a total indifference to death.His behavior leads a team of elite soldier to the edge.
What brings a man to this level?
I was wondering wether we must call him "A brave soldier" or "dumb anhedonic pschopath "!
i mean knowing the dynamics of war thereisn't any positive aspect,no winner,it really doesn't level to prosperity ;considering all the PTSD caused by wars;human nation is  the big loser .

You've Got To Love Throwback Wayne

On the face of it, in this media age, obsessed as it is with the beautiful, the glamorous and the good-looking, Wayne Rooney is an unlikely hero. Thick-set, built like a bull, balding and bearded; it's not the preferred look of the catwalk. 

In that respect he is a kind of anti-hero; an everyman for the masses who appeals because he looks like a bricklayer on your local building site.

Rooney is a throwback to an era when players looked like men, not teen idols. Both men and women like this. It is somehow comforting to see a proper bloke and not some streamlined athlete with an expensive, fashionable haircut. And when he scores he doesn't do some stupid dance and try to look cool. He looks as delighted as we feel we would in such circumstances. He appears to be connected to the real world despite living an exalted life.

None of this would matter if he wasn't so bloody good at football. Unlike so many players, the hyperbole around Rooney, especially this season, is justified. 

His swashbuckling style of play is the perfect blend of physicality, work ethic and relentless energy combined with supreme skill and vision. A bloke I know, Alf, a 64-year-old gadgee, sums this up perfectly. 

"He's plays like a foreigner and like an Englishman all at the same time."

Many have the work ethic but not the skill; many have the skill but can't put a decent shift in. The fact that Rooney does both to such a high standard makes him an irresistible character even to the neutral football fan. 

Many of us instinctively shy away from praising someone who is such a focus of tabloid and media attention because the number of column inches is all too often in inverse proportion to the achievements of the individual. In a sense, I don't want to like him because somehow it plugs into all that facile Hello/Heat culture. The modern media messes with your head like this and you end up taking a position on people based entirely on their exposure. 

But the rise and rise of Rooney is a fascinating, compulsive story. Amazing to think he's still only 24. The barn-storming kid at Everton who would bulldoze through defences with reckless abandon has inevitably been tamed, but this season we've seen some of that old unstoppability return in a more mature form. There are times when you feel he just will not be denied. His burst of pace for his goal at Arsenal and the timing of his stride to hit the ball accurately first time were pure artistry; skill and physicality in one perfect blend.

The red-faced manic persona of yore also seems to have cooled somewhat and with that, a greater composure on the ball has emerged. His long-range passing at times this season has been like watching Glenn Hoddle in his pomp. One cross-field ball in the midweek game against City was the equal of Beckham at the peak of his powers. On top of this he's got 20 league goals in 23 games. He's like two great players all in one; an attacking midfielder breaking open defences and a prolific goalscorer. 

Being the focus of attention at Manchester United is a pressure many cannot bear. It has crushed great players time and again in the past. Rooney is different. The more expectation on him, the more he has risen to meet the challenge. The liberation in his play is palpable now that Ronaldo has moved on. 

As he goes into contract negotiations he has already said he's happy to stay at Old Trafford - not a typical bargaining position - and while the money he earns is stellar, you don't get the impression that he's the sort to hussle for an extra 10k on 120k. 

It's been said to the point of cliché that he's like a schoolyard kid who just wants to kick a ball around but his unfettered commitment to playing, in an era of half-assed, lazy, ego-monsters, inevitably provokes such comments. However, that doesn't do justice to how he's worked on his game. It suggests it's all natural skill. But you can see how he's gone about improving. His first touch has become more reliable, but it is his vision to spot a pass and to take a goalscoring position that has seen the biggest growth.

This is all the more remarkable in a season when at times he has seemed to drag United single-handed through games; like a footballing dray horse. Unlike Ronaldo before him, he does so not for personal glorification or ego-stroking, he does it for the side. 

The notion of burn-out has reached hysterical heights in modern football. Managers have got it into their heads that a fit young man can't be expected to play two or three games in a week. Rooney contradicts these fanciful notions. He seems to get better the more he plays. He appears stronger, not weaker after a long run of games. Rather than all this work making him more liable to injury, it seems to make him less vulnerable.

A friend of a friend actually works for Wayne in some capacity and reports him to be a very humble, quiet, shy lad with no side to him at all, which, all things considered is quite remarkable, though not quite as remarkable as some of his performances this season. 

With so much adoring praise and lavish attention from a media keen to over-rate, over-praise and over-criticise, it'd be easy to be cynical about Rooney. But this kid is a force of nature. A regular man with an extraordinary talent, we will all look back in our dotage and say, 'aye, now that lad was a proper player'.


@football365.com

The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class

Thom Hartmann rushed into the spotlight right now in my mind .I really find him an interesting type.Here's the Publisher's comment and some reviews about his 2006 book :'

Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do about It"

It's the issue vastly occupied my mind these years;and i feel i'm really ill-equipped about theories;i just want to keep my mind open to wide range of ideas;study them deeper and then construct attitude;as wise as i can build it up.

Right now it's just like a pendulum ...Reading books,books and books !

Publisher Comments:

The American middle class is on its deathbed. Ordinary folks who put in a solid day's work can no longer afford to buy a house, send their kids to college, or even get sick. If you're not a CEO, you're probably screwed.
America wasn't meant to be like this. Air America Radio host Thom Hartmann shows that our Founding Fathers worked hard to ensure that a small group of wealthy people would never dominate this country — they'd had enough of aristocracy. They put policies in place to ensure a thriving middle class. When the middle class took a hit, beginning in the post-Civil War Gilded Age and culminating in the Great Depression, democracy-loving leaders like Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower revitalized it through initiatives like antitrust regulations, fair labor laws, the minimum wage, Social Security, and Medicare.
So what happened? In the last twenty-five years, we've witnessed an undeclared war against the middle class. The so-called conservatives waging this war are only interested in conserving — and steadily increasing — their own wealth and power. Hartmann shows how, under the guise of "freeing" the market, they've systematically dismantled the programs set up by Republicans and Democrats to protect the middle class and have installed policies that favor the superrich and corporations.
But it's not too late to return to the America our Founders envisioned. Hartmann outlines a series of commonsense proposals that will ensure that our public institutions are not turned into private fiefdoms and that people's basic needs — education, health care, a living wage — are met in a way that allows the middle class to expand, not shrink.
America will be stronger with a growing, prospering middle class — rule by the rich will only make it weaker. Democracy requires a fair playing field, and it will survive only if We the People stand up, speak out, and reclaim our democratic birthright.

Review:

"Beginning with the Reagan administration, the U.S. government has steadily instituted policies and legislation that favor corporations over citizens, argues Air America host Hartmann (The Ultimate Sacrifice). Analyzing the rhetoric and policies of the current administration's 'compassionate conservatism,' Hartmann goes on to detail the ways in which safety nets for working people (from progressive taxation to antitrust legislation to Social Security) have been steadily weakened, and argues that an empowered, educated middle class is crucial to a functioning democracy. Chapters detail the ways in which what gets called 'the free market' is not really free (for good reason, he notes), how 'We the People create the middle class,' how the policies of the Founding Fathers and figures like FDR still have a lot to teach us, and ways for 'Leveling the Playing Field.' Though far from comprehensive, and despite its sensationalist title, Hartmann's latest is an intelligent critique of the contemporary plight of the middle class." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Book News Annotation:

Welcome to the middle class. In four years you have lost over $1600 in buying power a year, about one million private sector jobs and, chances are good, your health insurance. Talk show host Hartmann describes how the middle class is an anomaly in a free market economy, buttressed by entitlements, including minimum wage and fair labor laws, but how it is most certainly not an anomaly in a democracy. He argues the middle class has been the victim of systematic dismantling of the entitlements set in place in the Franklin Roosevelt years and shortly thereafter, and how the practice of medicine could be for health, the rules of pay could be fair, and the playing field of entitlement could be level. Mainly he urges the middle class to avoid getting crewed by getting involved. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Review:

"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the 'cons' have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American." Eric Utne, Founder, Utne magazine

Review:

"Thom Hartmann's book explains in simple language and with concrete research the details of the Neo-con's war against the American middle class. It proves what many have intuited and serves to remind us that without a healthy, employed, and vital middle class, America is no more than the richest Third World country on the planet."Peter Coyote, Actor and author of Sleeping Where I Fall

Review:

"The powers that be are running roughshod over the powers that OUGHT to be. Hartmann tells us what went wrong ” and what you and I can do to help set American right again." Jim Hightower, National Radio Commentator, Writer, Public Speaker, and author of the bestselling Thieves in High Places

Review:

"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America's middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world." David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World

Review:

"I think many of us recognize that for all but the wealthiest, life in America is getting increasingly hard. Screwed explores why, showing how this is no accidental process, but rather the product of conscious political choices, choices we can change with enough courage and commitment. Like all of Thom's great work, it helps show us the way forward." Paul Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen and The Impossible Will Take a Little While

Review:

"Once again, Thom Hartmann hits the bull's eye with a much needed exposé of the so-called 'free market.' Anyone concerned about the future of our nation needs to read Screwed now." Michael Toms, Founding President, New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network and author of A Time For Choices: Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy