Fieldnotes on Humanity

---------- On Friday Two US soldiers were wounded in Kandahar The US soldiers injured when a roadside bomb exploded on a military convoy near the Kandahar City. The explosion was followed by firing from suspected Taliban hidden in the area, announced in a press release issued from US Bagram airbase. In the ensuing fight, the US forces captured three attackers. The statement further said the injured were shifted to a US military facility at Kandahar airport where their condition is stated to be out of danger. On Friday, coalition forces claimed they had gunned down 10 Taliban in the Deh Rahod district of the southern Uruzgan province. Meanwhile, four rockets landed in the Deh Sabz district of the central capital of Kabul last night while another two rockets hit a house in Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar on Saturday morning. Officials here confirmed the attack but said it was not directed at the ballot counting centre at Pul-i-Charkhi. The rockets landed in Deh Sabz which is ...

U.S.A Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann at his visit in the ministry of women affairs today on 18th of September Parliamentary election day which held for the first time after three decades in Afghanistan. He called the parliamentary elections as success in Afghanistan future. About the attack on UNAMA's office in Kabul today morning, the ambassador mentioned “firing two rockets was nothing significant as the insurgents had a lot of weapons, it also pointed to the fact that they had failed in disrupting the polls” He also said: his country had granted $40 million for the elections besides sending a large number of observers to monitor the landmark event in Afghanistan. A large number of women in Zabul, Nangarhar, Khost and other provinces failed to vote in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than three decades. In remote villages of the southeastern Khost province, eligible female voters were avoided to go in polling station to vote for their destiny. Thus no women v...

---------- 1 Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai cast his vote at a polling station at the sprawling presidential palace today early morning after polling opened in landmark parliamentary and local elections. While he threw his vote on the ballot box, he pointed out: "I am very happy that the people of Afghanistan are able, after 30 years of pain and suffering, to elect their representatives," said the president, who viewed Afghans' participation in the first legislative vote in 30 years as a matter of pride. In a brief chat with journalists, he voiced satisfaction at the quality of ink applied to his finger. "This time around, the ink is indelible," said the president while looking at his finger. Karzai assured the elections would be free, fair and transparent. The US-backed leader hailed voting day as a day of self-determination for the Afghans, saying they were creating history after 30 years of wars, interventions, occupations and misery. He went on to ...

-------- Afghanistan Parliamentary Elections in Picture: Please go to my photo blog in Flicker here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sohrab_kabuli/ View as SlideShow here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sohrab_kabuli/sets/956926/show/ Or View here one by one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sohrab_kabuli/43717364/in/set-956926/ or here http://www.flickr.com/photos/sohrab_kabuli/

----------- Only a few days are left before the historic parliamentary and Provincial Councils in Afghanistan. This is a great national event in which the Afghans are paying a great hope and expect that this should lay the foundation for a democratic society in their land. It is true because for the first time in its volatile history the Afghanistan nation is going to the polls to elect their representatives to the Parliament and the Provincial Councils in a democratic, free and fair manner. With holding of the parliamentary and the provincial councils elections we in fact are completing the mandate of the historic BONN agreement that demanded formation of a people’s elected the prevailing challenges lying before the nation. With these lofty aims in mind, the representatives of the nation and the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in particular are facing the gravest challenge of the time that is to overcome and shoulder the heavy load of the people’s problems and the gr...

------- Some unidentified men Wednesday distributed fake ballot papers comprising muddled names, pictures and registration numbers of four candidates in the western Herat province. The names of Abdul Raziq Zamanzi, Syed Shafiq, Haji Mohammad Alam and Qazi Nazir Ahmad were printed on the bogus ballot papers. However, the actual papers are lying safe in the provincial office of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB). Syed Shafiq, one of the contestants, has told to Media his registration number 111 was replaced with 76, which belongs to Abdul Raziq Zamanzi. "After I warned of going on hunger strike, JEMB officials showed me real my name and picture on a form they had." The distribution of sham ballot papers might damage the election campaign, he maintained. Interestingly, each of the four men claimed his rivals had masterminded the distribution of the sham ballot papers. By the same token, the name, picture and registration number of Haji Mohammad Alam were replaced with Qa...

----------- from Media Commission The Media Commission announces that 2,889 candidates for the Wolesi Jirga and the Provincial Councils have been authorized to broadcast on radio or TV at no cost to the candidates, as of Tuesday September 13. We believe this has given an unprecedented opportunity to the people of Afghanistan to hear a wide range of opinions both geographically and substantively on radio and television. This is intended to help them become a more informed electorate in taking the necessary decisions about who to vote for on Sunday. On Wednesday September 14 we release the Media Commission Interim Report covering the period from July 19 to September 8. It gives a great deal of data about how the media covered the campaign (http://www.jemb.org/media_commission/index.html). The Interim Report consists of a monitoring report covering the pre-election period; a onitoring report covering the official Campaign Period from August 17 to 30; a set of daily reports of the rise of ...

------- The various political movements and regimes in Afghanistan have propagated their respective ideology and socio-political strategy through particular publications. Due to this fact, the World Press Day has often been marked with enthusiasm in the country with the publishing of a series of publicity materials. The first and the foremost publication was release in the reign of Habibullah Khan called “Shamsul Nahar” that basically aimed to enlighten the common people in Afghanistan. Later on, in the time of Amir Amanullah Khan, another newspaper entitled “Serajul Akhbar” was operating under editorship of Mohamood Tarzi, and outstanding writer and literary personality who was also nominated as father of journalism. Parallel with the lapse of time and change of the political atmosphere in the country, new dailies and publication were released. Currently there exists some 750 various independent as well as government publications in the whole country. In addition, the Radio and TV net...

This following text is circulated on the internet under George Carlin's name but the original author is  Dr. Bob Moorehead . The paradox of our time in history is that We have taller buildings, But, shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrow viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more but enjoy it less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense. More knowledge, but less judgment, more experts but more problems, more medicine, but less wellness. We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry too quickly. Stay too late, get up too tired, read too seldom, watch TV too much and pray to seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often. We’ve learned how to make a living, but not a life. We’ve added years to life, not life to years. We’ve been all the way to the moon an...