What would happen if an F-16 or a new Jumbo Jet landed in the time of the Romans, or the Pharoe’s or even before or surprised Jenkis Khan during his domination?What would the look on their faces be when they thought their invention of gun powder was the new might and you nuked them? OK that’s mean, how about I take on a whole army with one machine gun and some grenades?

What if I showed them a trick or two with my little toy planes and laser pointers, or stunned them with a Hummer truck, ran them over with a 1940 Panza Tank during one of the stupid wars to take more ground? How about introducing a TV with a DVD player with real people playing a sport which will only be known after another 1000 or so years?

What if I take a photo of them and show them what they look like, how about I introduce the mirror and then shortly after that introduce creams and cosmetics, the Hair brush and comb, the scissors, the electric shaver, the perfume… now you would have to start think marketing here, would it actually be too early for manhood? maybe they liked their stink, they loved their hairy bodies, the ugly nose was fashionable, and so forth.

Now lets dive deeper, if your an average human, you know the house fly, that little pest that comes in and sits on your favorite food or warms itself with your coffee in a cold room, well imagine the technical one made by humans. Now take that and take it only 100 years back to 1910 what do you think will happen to the guys behind the innovations you enjoy today?

What about the small and big creatures we keep finding on our planet? the ones that cant see but have headlights to lure smaller creatures for survival? we still don’t know, but insist on knowing more and more, it never ends, and if it does then you just started to get the big  picture. They say innovate, don’t imitate, irrelevant yet so powerful in its deep meanings.

How about the satellite this and the satellite that? remember back in the 80’s the large formats of videos and arcade games? well how would you like to walk around back then as a teenager with a mobile phone that has it all and so. so much more stuff? What would the fancy cameras and KODAK do when you slap them with a digital photo? And how about that famous TV producer and Hollywood gang do when you dig out of your purse a video camcorder the size of a pack of cigarettes? what would MP3 do to the music industry in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s forget mozart and the other bunch of amazing musicians.

Now when we hold our breath and dive a bit more, i want you to capitalize on this day & ages technological breakthrough’s in medicine and saving people. What would the grandaddy of modern day science Leonardo Da Vinci do with all his breakthroughs, I guess he would be a happy man knowing that he led us so far with so little, great man.

Now lets take a thing we only say WOW! when we see a new model and move on with our day. Back in the early 1900’s or even in the wild wild west days, or take it back a bit to the days of the glorious warriors who rode horses as a mean of fast travel, and you guessed right, drive by them in a Range Rover sport or even a speed bike, forget that maybe just cruise by in a laid back Harley. Would they drop dead in fear?

From telling the time to travel, from our modern day science labs to this computer I type on, from the communication tools we complain about to the small italian espresso machine in my living room, from the iphone to the invention of sushi, take a leap of faith into the future and whatever you have today will be tomorrows joke.

We should be thankful for the wishful thinking of our ancestors and everyone in between, we should thank the thinkers, the believers, the funders, the users, the complainers who made things better, we should thank the pessimists and the optimists, the eager beavers and the thrill seekers, the people who swam against the rising tide, the brave boys that took the lead into the unknown should be recognized not only in text books but in daily newspapers to remind the new generation of what it takes to move on in this mysterious world, we should embed the spirit of evolution in every thing we do, we should ask on a continuos basis: what next?” were do we go from here? were are we headed? and keep moving.

Never underestimate the power of questioning, there is no such thing as stupid questions and ideas, they all mean something, in the end.

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out. Max Plank

If you did not hear, its time to hear now. The country(Jeddah,Saudi Arabia) drowns every year, every single year for the last 20 years or more, yes! 20 years, not 4 or 7, 20! and guess what? its not the governments fault either. The governement as with many projects has priorities and when it locks into a serious one, adheres to the laws of nature and makes way for natural disasters.

When you look up Natural disaster, you will never find rain there. You will find Volcanoes, Earthquakes, mud slides..etc. but never normal rain! I am not refering to the heavy rains of Portland that last 9 month’s a year, or the London rain either, I am talking about a couple of harmless rainy days good for the crops, good for cleaning the streets, or drowning the people in Saudi Arabia’s streets.

My city, Jeddah and its rural areas all seem to be a sitting duck each and every year when the rainy season arrives and hits our land. We pray for it to come, and when it comes we curse the living daylights out of it! We have been a victim of corruption at the municipality levels for many years now, then there is the ministry for water and sewage or whatever that is, each and every single year they get away with it. People drown, houses sink, cars submerge and go deep street diving, people barely make it alive, large trucks and SUV vehicles sales soar, old beaten down ones dissapear. Families lose everything, helicopters try and save what they can, and I hear now they are looking for proffesional divers to save people in BRIDGES AND TUNNELS! I thought diving was a sea activity?

We manage to supply 40% of the world oil like no other, the government appoints capable people who said they could deliver, only to find them uncapable of delivering basic human needs in any city like Sewage systems! I mean if a country that has a much lower income than Saudi Arabia by the Billions, shouldnt that country drown faster than us?

The sewage and drainage systems seem to be a hot topic only when the rain hits the fan, otherwise forget it! You leave your home head to work, come back and its drowning. You leave your products in a storage and you come back its gone. You leave livestock and its gone. You leave your 100,000 dollar cars in a garage and its gone. You can even leave your pets and children and wonder if you ever come home and find them alive!

Is it not time we move Natural rain to serious disastor status and handle it with extreme importance and priority before we lose everything of importance to pure ignorance? Is it not time we started hearing what the other people have to say and not the ones that handle municipalities and sewage/ drainage systems that never saw the light, I do believe the very people that mangae these areas live in well preserved areas and not the same areas that the poor ones that drown do.

I, like many Saudi’s living in areas( A very famous area in jeddah city, actually close to the municipality building!) that suffer from this yearly pouring problem, do dream of a day when I actually enjoy the rain instead of cry and wait for it to stop and go away like a bloody toothache! For toothcaches we have dentists, for pouring rain we need to pray and hope our prayers are heard and the rain pours only on the people that caused this problem, and see them trying to get out alive and watch their cars and homes drown, the very same municipality/sewage/drainage people that we dread, the very same drainage minister, the very own construction people that said it was done, and went to sleep in their fancy cottages in switzerland. Even when the tunnels were made and we were happy as it saved time, but sadly took lives! I hear the King God bless him, gave a special honorary award to a young man who saved a couple drowning by going deep diving in the tunnel to pull them out!!

If the governement paid for it, it is no longer their problem, they trusted people to perform and deliver what they were paid to do, now it is time to check your scores, and your scores are a soar sight for eyes, you see problems like this don’t just evaporate, they grow to larger magnitudes, and kill people.

Here comes the Rain again, pouring on my head like a new emotion…. Eurythmics.

p.s. I am actually writing this while enjoying the Rain in London, knowing I can still move,people will go to work, like every other day and the city will not drown to some clown who forgot to unplug the bath tub water stopper!

 By far its time to learn how to dance in the rain, and not make like an ostrich and hide your head in the sand everytime it rains.

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

They used to gather every weekend, we used to accompany them by force, they used to have fun as sisters and brothers with their whole family, they were my aunts and uncles. We were young children then, only observers as they say, we only digested and filtered what we wanted to remember and threw the rest to the cats.

• They used to have fights every week, and meet the very next. We have the same fights, we meet after months.
• The wife has daily battles with her husband, makes up the next day as if nothing ever happened, and does it again & again, we choose the easy way out and divorce one another.
• People took peoples words to the Bank, today we take them to court.
• Simple was king back then, complicated is the way to be today.
• Schools forced us to learn back then, garbage in garbage out, schools are starting to listen in on humans real needs for progress.
• Controlled directed information was then, today its up for grabs, its what you do with it that counts.
• Cars were Bigger, gas thirsty, now they are mean and lean, tiny and cute, trying to free themselves from gas and ready for a Sun tan instead.
• Managers were Bosses then, today they are part of the team.
• Pepsi and Seven up were icons back then, now its back to basics and natural, how ironic?
• Sell, Sell, Sell was the way of yesteryear, service, service, service is what it is now.
• Expensive travel and phone calls are replaced with train fare air travel and hours of free air time to chat on the phone.
• Post cards are replaced with email messages and sms mumbo jumbo.
• Music was really made by real people then, today its electronic most of the time, love was the theme back then, its hard core house and brain draining techno today.
• Business was done by long traveling days and exploration, today its B2B without leaving your office.
• Movies were about wars and horror, now they are about funny and run away from reality more than ever.
• Marriage is taken lightly and faster today, it was a life sentence back then, one you wanted to serve the years.
• World domination and cold wars were replaced with strategic political takeovers today.
• Reading was written in finely binded books, you can have the same today in PDF ebooks.
• Food was wholesome, today its the latest version of fresh fast food.
• Mom and pop stores filed the world, today they are replaced with things they call Mega Malls, and Hyper Markets with cheaper items.
• What was handsome and pretty back then is not so these days, the measures have changed so fast no one knows what to expect.
• Women were the backbone and never reached the highest ranks in the past, today men are aware of them eventually taking over their male dominant world for the last 20 centuries,
• Children were fragile in the early years, now they are forming into a stronger kind of children driven by the new fast lifestyles they live today.
• Money was cash and coins, today its electronic.
• Travel agencies were a big deal and actually the only deal, today they are replaced with expedia.com & hotels.com.
• Learning was on campus, today in your pajamas at your mac.
• American muscle cars ruled the planet for more than 70 years, today the far east and Europe are bringing the American car companies to a melt down, They are now starting to listen to their customers like the Japanese did in the 70’s on American soil.
• People had no choice on what to watch except for their countries broadcasting arms, today you can watch a program airing in the US within 24 hours in the Middle East.
• Music was made on LP’s and Cartridge tapes, today its Mp3 electronic music. Movies were on big rolls of film today on DVD and computer files.
• Computers had 128 mb memory, today phones have 4 GB’s of internal memory expandable to 8GB and more.
• Photos were taken and developed in 24 hours, now you can take the same one 100 times and edit it, upload it to the net in less than 2 minutes.
• In the old days the ugly people or so they say, were labeled that for as long as they lived. Today you walk into a clinic and change your look as many times as you wish and have that pointed nose you always wanted or those hairs you longed for after you lost yours.

Back then for me to write to you all everyday would be a killer task, today I write to you in my towel ready for my midnight shower before I sleep and just press publish and its yours!

If back then is now in a few days or years, have a great then & now

mamdooh.alradadi

me@mamdoohalradadi.com

Anything you missed during school is sure to land on your lap at the local coffee shop. Small whispers of politics and other social blabbering is a part of the daily ritual. People tend to meet up at neutral grounds to release the days load, or get ready for a new day with the famous paper and mug sight.

Coffee shops will always be around, they are a gathering of the minds, just like the playground was our former sweet spot when we were younger. We gather to share and boast our daily or weekly gains. We gather to share our wisdom. We gather to spill our milk on someone’s lap. We make way for a new day by loading up on caffeine or nicotine and OJ. We digest as fast as possible our daily sports gossip, political moves, cultural debates, and a big chunk of knowledge on what is going on.

When I get to a coffee shop, I tend to grab one of the favorite newspapers, go to the back check out the daily cartoon, scan fast, check out the front, go to the daily horoscope, move to the business side real fast, check the markets, check the social arena and space out. Its a matter of perspective on what you want to read in the morning. we all know what is going on in the world:

• There will always be a war in one part of the world, for peace they say.
• There will be a winner in football.
• There will be a victim or two killed by acts of violence in your area.
• There will be arguments on local ministries or municipalities.
• There will be funny stories.
• There will be millions made and lost.
• There will be cool adverts.
• There will be weather disasters.
• There will be success stories.
• There will be country changes.
• There will be a fight going on between one performer and another.
• There will be witty columns to get us started.
• There will be politicians blabbering there mouths off instead of doing something faster.
• There will be scandals and community outrage on local happenings.

What do you choose from the above to start your day. If you are a business person, you need most of the above, and sometimes you can have someone highlight the main events. But in reality we don’t need 90% of the naked truth on newspapers and TV news stations. Imagine the following;

You start the day with a newspaper that has the following news articles only:

• The stock market rises 200 points for 5th day, the average investor has made at least 90% gains.
• The war in Palestine has come to an end with both parties agreeing to move on peacefully.
• The war in IRAQ is really over all troops are back in their countries, the country is making great progress.
• The ARMS factories are filing for bankruptcy as sales for new arms fall to their lowest levels in 10 years, no one seems to need them!
• The average rate of unemployment has dropped a staggering 80% and continues to drop, meaning almost everyone is finding a job.
• There have been no traffic accidents this week, this section will be discontinued due to lack of accidents in the last few years.
• The Africa poverty levels are diminishing rapidly after 3 major companies have decided to send in each 50% of their income for this social awareness campaign.
• AIDS treatment now available for free with astonishing 1 week treatment success levels.

I can imagine the levels of enthusiasm you will have that day.

Remember that everything you read or see or feel will have an impact directly or indirectly on your well being.

Why not choose what to digest?

Mamdooh Al-Radadi

Me@mamdoohalradadi.com