Photos from Germany III

One of the most important virtues in a community  is RESPECT, this good quality  strengthens the links betweens fellow citizens and helps making life in that society better. One should have respect for humans, animals and plants.

This time, I’ve picked four milestone photos from my urn up, and as you’ll see,  we have  two situations that show respect.
The photo below shows a “Rauchen ist verboten” ( It means “No smoking” ) sign pasted on the building’s chimney. Until now, nothing is uncommon. But, Behold! It’s an open space – The roof of one of Frankfurt’s skyscrapers-, notwithstanding, they banned smoking. It’s a high level of respect, respect for both of nature and humanity. Europeans are pioneers in this field- USA & Canada too-, and the laws prohibiting smoking in Public areas are a good example, but it shouldn’t be the end, they ought to carry on banning this poison everywhere. Personally, those who call for letting some smoking zones are calling for something too absurd that one’s intellect cannot approve. I couldn’t find a better metaphor for this context than this quote.
Someone – Hachakoum -said:

A smoking section in a restaurant is like a peeing section in a pool.

 

Now, let’s imagine this in Algeria :p I bet that you’ll find someone smoking and sitting right under the sign. It’s like he interpreted it as the order: “Smoke here!”. someone who went to Paris told me that he smoked in Eiffel Tower, while bragging about it!


A friend of mine is allergic to smoke,he gets a red eyes when exposed to it. He told me that one day he' was sitting and another guy came and sat right besides him  holding a cigarette. He asked him to keep it away. The guys answered: “If you don’t like, go and don’t sit here!”. The guys is acting like my friend is the offender. He remembered me of what Wendy Liebman’s quote:

“People always come up to me and say that my
smoking is bothering them... Well, it's killing me!”

hehehe,  hilarious, but true. Many smokers think this way.
That was the first manifestation of respect.

Let’s turn the first page of the article and pass to the next one. In the Photo below, we see a bulldozer in the middle of the road. Obviously, there’s work out there. But, the question is : where is the debris ? The loads of sand and stuff? I can see nothing, and it makes me believe that it’s a road’ sweeper!
We see also the smoothness of the traffic. The car is rolling as a fish in its aquarium. In the other hand (or foot :p ), in Algeria you’ll see a mess in the middle of a byway, and sometimes, for months, just because they are repairing the water leakage. Let us not talk about the Metro and Tramway…it’s  a long story!



We see how they do respect the people , the city and the ground itself. 
As illustrated below, the lever in the middle of the street while life goes on without a trouble. It’s totally clean and well organized. I’m picturing how will it look like when they clean the site after the task is done! I can’t see it cleaner.
 



In the end, I really want to see such circumstance in out country. Pay and give more attention to the human being as the ultimate source of strength and development, and not make materialistic sources so sacred as they are.
Ayya weew ;-) -- hathi fi khater Zakirovsky sec --

Arrêter le «LOLage», ça nuit à votre santé virtuelle !

 

Comme je m’adresse à mes compatriotes et voisins maghrébins, alors j’opte pour le français pour rédiger. La version Anglaise arrivera plus tard.

L’internet a révolutionné notre monde, un monde où les frontières physiques perdirent leur sens. Elle a aussi rendu la communication rapide et surtout à la disposition de n’importe qui, n’importe où.

Notre sujet concerne la communication écrite, et le Chat -la messagerie instantanée en fait partie-. Avec une rapidité foudroyante, les gens se trouvent à peine en mesure de synchroniser leurs doigts avec la nécessité de taper assez rapidement pour transmettre leurs idées et paroles, i .e. pouvoir tenir le rythme du flux d’idées.

Généralement on communique verbalement*, c’est plus facile, efficace et surtout rapide. Et quand on compte communiquer textuellement, ce n’est pas évident qu’on puisse transporter la même quantité d’informations ni d’émotions. Alors, le dilemme ici est : il n’y t’il pas un moyen pour projeter nos émotions et réactions sur la dimension des lettres et caractères? Comme réponse et par conséquence, une panoplie d’abréviations et émoticons a connu l’existence. Des mots pour décrire une humeur, une émotion ou un état d’âme. Des fois c’est verbatim comme ‘Hahaha’ ou ‘hehehe’ pour dire que je ris et des fois ‘mdr’ qui est une abréviation de mort de rire.

 

En me baladant dans les corridors du net, on remarque une utilisation obscène du Fameux « lol », qui est utilisé hors son contexte par la plupart des internautes. « Lol » qui n’est rien d’autre que l’alternative anglais pour mdr et l’abréviation de «  Laughing out loud », en français « éclaté de rire à voix haute ». On la voit partout, dans les forums, la messagerie instantanée, les réseaux sociaux comme facebook.

Si, vous êtes en train d‘envoyer un MSN ou en train de ‘tweet‘er , c’est plus ou moins logique, car le nombre de caractères est limités, mais quelqu’un qui a plus de 100 boutons devant lui et qui ne va pas dépenser un centime pour l’envoi du mail ou du commentaire, ça c’est absurde. Ce maudit langage SMS est devenu viral, et on trouve à peine des gens qui écrivent comme des humains :p

Les exemples de la mauvaise utilisation ou l’utilisation abusive de cette abréviation (ironiquement, le mot abréviation est plus long que son sens !) sont indénombrables, on va citer juste quelques uns :

Un exemple sur MSN

A : «  salut, c’est Flane..lol »

B : « ca fé un bail Flane, mdr »

A : «  oui c’est vrai, javai du travail loool , et chui 1 peu fatigé»

B : «  tu sais, 3lane est en hopital sé jrs, il a eu 1 malése  ! lol»

A : «  lol cé po vrai ! mdr»

Une situation typique où les gens utilisent «lol». Des salutations, des exclamations, et la plus grave c’est quand on a rien à dire.

Un internaute écrit dans son blog : « ‘Lol’ est la réponse stupide pour dire j’ai rien dire ».

Si ce phénomène continue à cette ampleur, on risquera d’ici cinq ans à inclure dans le CV : Maitrise de l’orthographe. Et en 2017 le point d’exclamation va être substitué par ‘lol’. D’où je déclare officiellement la guerre sainte sur ce maudit phénomène, et j’invite tous les guerriers de la lumière  à utiliser les ‘haha’ et les ‘hehe’ au lieu de « LOL » et le suivre par un (anti-Lol). Hehe

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* : La communication verbale inclut le langage corporel, mimiques et intonations.

Photos from Germany II

Al Salam Alaykom,
Well, today I picked a couple of photos up from my virtual urn –The file which contains the milestones photos- and I’ll comment some aspects.
Primo, I’m going to show you something in Germany that you may come across in Algeria, especially in the "Dog Days"*, but in a very different decor.
Below, you can see, clearly, a man and his wife undressing their children to take a swim in a fountain. Thanks god! We are not the only folks on earth who swim in the fountains :p



The contrast between our way and theirs are:

• -Our fountains are Magical, in Arabic (an atypical translation of the Idiom: بالعربية, which means: In clear words), you jump into the water a human being and get out of it a human being an amphibian with a prickly heat*. You can never imagine how many frog, dragonfly or any other insect did spawn in the blurry water, as you cannot count the number of the naughty brats who p*ssed there. While theirs, I guess you can drink from or get lucky and grab a couple of money coins :p (Exaggerating ? Maybe!)

For reasons of morality I had to cover up the quasi-naked kid, I don’t want his friends to blackmail him later or post his photos naked on facebook after 10 years:p hehe

• The same as my previous post, we see no one staring at them- except the little girl on the left who’s saying “Darn, why did I forget my swimsuit?!!”-. They are too chilled out and natural.
• Another thing to point in this photo is, the parents themselves are watching over the children. And for their safety, they brought even “water wings”* !In the other hand, ‘chez nous’ the kids who go to such places are brave enough to go without their parents’ consent. Seriously, we ought to look after the kids nowadays more than any time ago. Things are getting worse: More cars on the roads –considering also the driving licenses brought illegally-, more harassments and psychopaths who may do anything to them. What we read in the newspapers is horrible: kidnappings, rapes, torture and go on.

Secundo, and in the same context, we see above two women waiting for something-or someone :p- to come, while a kid is on the sewer’ metallic cover, which is supposed to be the dirtiest spot in the street (the foul water or liquids, bad odors and maybe toxic gases -NH3 especially! Hehehe, hope you know why-, plus all the cars and the pedestrians who step on all the day). But, I ignore completely what do the Germans diffuse in their drain pipes to let their children recline on it! I need an answer here…



En tercer lugar, I liked this photo which reflects the concern of the Germans about environment and their tendency to play it green. While seeing it I laughed out loud (I don’t ‘LOL’, I laugh out loud , I’ hehehe’ or I ‘hahaha’. This ‘lol’ and ‘mdr’ screwed the beauty of the languages and …and…em…I guess It inspires me for another post. Hehehe *Evil laugh*), don’t they, Germans, have something called “Der Schwarzwald”*?! Didn’t they have plenty of green spaces and fields all around the country?! Back to Algeria, where the Sahara is crawling to the north in a dreadful silent pace, we hear, scarcely, of plating initiatives or sensitization campaigns. I don’t even dare to mention planting the roofs as in this scenery. I see a huge cultural gap between the two countries. Why don’t we give a heck about nature and environment? I think, it’s a matter of education, It’s something we grow with, learn in the schools and in the dwellings. Imagine our schools organizing outdoor excursions, where each kid plants and labels the tree by his name. After years, the same kid will come across his plant and beholds it. He’ll see his positive impact and footprint on life’s track. Our prophet Mohammad (BPUH) told us that if someone is living the end of the world and have a plant in his hand, he should plant it.

عن أنسٍ رضيَ الله عنه عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال:[ إِنْ قَامَتْ السَّاعَةُ وَفي ِيَدِ أَحَدِكُمْ فَسِيلَةٌ ،فَإِنْ اسْتَطَاعَ أَنْ لَا يَقُومَ حَتَّى يَغْرِسَهَا؛ فَلْيَغْرِسْها ].

Even if you know that life ended already, don’t give up doing this! Now, you can picture how important and vital this act is.  I Hope these words reach a hearing ears.

Finally, I don’t type these scrambled lines, to glorify them and belittle ourselves. I do write to know how much work we need to make this country -jinxed by its own strength and fortune- rise from anew. We are the hope and the tomorrow, and we can do nothing without unity, that’s why I call for a massive engagement in making the development wheel spin in the right direction and faster.
I have faith, hope and conviction that we still have time to make a change, and this change starts by oneself. Gandhi said: ”Be the change you wish to see in the world”, and the imam ibn taymiyah said:”My paradise is in my chest; my imprisoning is my seclusion; my exile is my tourism….”.


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* "Dog Days": n. heat wave, period of hot days between July and September ("Dog Days" of July and August).(Ar): قيظ ، حر الصيف ; (Fr): La canicule
* “prickly heat”: skin disease which causes itching and inflammation; (Ar): طفح جلدي ;(Fr): éruption cutanée.
*“water wings” : Buoy ; (Fr) : Bouée
* “Der Schwarzwald”: the German name of the Black Forest, region in the south-western Germany which is mountainous and forested. It’s called black because of the darkness inside, due to the condensed trees

Photos from Germany (I)

These photos were taken by a friend of mine while wandering through Germany, summer 2007. I browsed his photos album, and stopped by many milestones –I call the meaningful things people call ‘futile’ milestones -. In this context, I call these photos that reflect a side of a society ‘milestones’ because they do deserve stopping by and extract some benefits.



In this photo we see three or two mothers with their seven children on the bare floor, next to a shop’s glass-paneled display case, enjoying their Ice creams. Too normal in Germany, but let’s imagine the scene in our very country Algeria! Hehe (Anti-LOL), here are some scenarios that may, very likely, occur:

1. Everyone who passes next will stare at them surprised, laughing or disapproving (My friend who took the photo is one of the surprised ones) or maybe a crowd will surround them –if it’s in Djelfa, I guarantee this :p-.
2. The shopkeeper or one of his employees will kick the whole family away from the façade, because the naughty kids will, surely, tarnish his ‘Vitrine’ by their Ice-creams.
3. ……….… I will let you, dear reader, fill the blank out. I promise to consider the innovative ideas;-)
4. ………….

Another thing that really impressed me is the cleanness of the floor!
Which sane –in the sense of caring- mother in Algeria would let her kids, and herself, sit on a pavement that only Allah knows what was on the shoes of the pedestrians that walked it down, all the day along? I guess, no one would!



 P.S. off the record, didn’t you notice that the kids are all blonds-except one- while the mothers have all dark hair?