Assyrians Are Being Killed Out Of Their Own Homeland

The following is a list of Assyrians killed in the last ten days:

-February 20: Gunmen entered the house of Aishwa Maroki, 59, and killed him and his two sons Mokhlas, 31, and Bassim, 25.
-February 20: Adnan al-Dahan, 57, was found with bullet wounds to his head in the northern Mosul district of al-Belladiyat. He had been kidnapped from his grocery shop the week before in the neighborhood of Al-Habda, also in northern Mosul.
-February 17: The bullet-riddled body of Wissam George, a 20-year-old Assyrian Christian, was recovered on a street in the south Mosul residential neighbourhood of Wadi al-Ain.
-February 16: Zia Toma, a 21-year-old engineering student, was killed and Ramsin Shmael, a 22-year-old pharmacy student, wounded.
-February 15: Rayan Salem Elias, a Chaldean Christian who ran a business dealing in a traditional meat dish, was killed outside his home in East Mosul.
-February 14: Fatukhi Munir, an Assyrian Catholic, was gunned down inside his shop in a drive-by shooting.

- aina.org

The matter in which these grave crimes have been handled by the Kurdish and Iraqi governments displays irresponsibility and inability in governing and maintaining even the most minimal semblance of order, as well as a general and disgusting lack of concern for this indigenous people. Also, the overall situation of the Assyrians/Chaldeans in Iraq has not been handled at all by the United States and British governments. Promises by both the Bush and Obama administrations to protect the Assyrians/Chaldeans of Iraq and to ensure they would have proper representation and rights in the new Iraqi government have not been kept.

These crimes were also strategically committed around the same time the Iraqi elections will be taking place (March 5th - 7th), perhaps to distract and deter us from exercising our rights as Iraqi citizens in order to further prevent us from having protection and rights.

The Assyrians/Chaldeans have taken to the streets in a peaceful protest in Mosul, the very place where many of the crimes were committed. These individuals are the very definition of brave. It is time to do our part. Let us all contact the leaders of our numerous organizations, parties, and Churches, both Assyrian and non-Assyrian alike. Let us shout for the sake of those who have been silenced, let us run for the sake of those who have been trampled.

It has been made apparent that because we are Assyrian/Chaldean or Christian or both, we are not welcome anywhere in the Middle East. They have been killing us for these reasons but we are now letting the world know that we will always be and we will never die.

I urge all Assyrians and anyone else who cares about injustice to please copy and paste this as a note on Facebook and tag all of your friends.

Rita Lazar

Distract Me

Distract me from my weary everyday
devise a plan to rescue me away
Come pluck my strings see that I'm out of tune
and I get much worse during a full moon.

please don't tell no one
fix me I'm undone
I'd sure love you to bring me back to life
I'll be great company if you just drive


Distract me from my boring Strive and Thrive;
distract me from this plain miserable life.
Please would you take me out on Valentine's,
promise me that you'll show me a great time.

Touch me lightly, kiss me sweetly
whisper softly
be passion-crazy, wake me make me scream.
Do what you want with me,
just don't wake me
from this numbingly sweet distracting dream.

tell me your sweet bright white lies
im your desperate alibi

understand you're that perfect kind of man
for my selfish distract me plan

Chaos I Can Count On

You're the one who gets me twirling and whirling.
You are the one who shows me how the world keeps turning.
You have that old crazy know-how
of how to keep a woman kneeling all the way down.

But you see, I keep on coming back...to you.
Cause when I leave I feel like I really lack...without you.

And I need my world to be crazy
and how I turn right back around to you is amazing.

Cause you're the chaos I can count on.
You are that familiar burden that feels like a ton.
Yes you, are that chaos I can count on.

You turn it upside down
and you bring it back up
you take off my crown
and you throw it in the mud.

You create that wildness
that makes me long for calm
You take my mildness
and hold it in your palm

You make it all very exciting
and I though it would never be that enticing
but I still come back to you cause it's still so inviting.

You are that chaos I can count on
You are that familiar burden that feels like a ton.
Yes you are that chaos I can count on.

Would You Still

I've Been Listening to Sade Because of You

I've been listening to Sade because of you.
Dancing and shouting and singing out of tune.
I've been trying to hear if there's any advice she gives on what to do;
her voice is so beautiful but she's left me with no clue.

Yeah, I've gone all Sade over you.
I'm so crazy for you;
I've been listening to Sade because of you.

I can't keep on thinking about you 'cause it hurts.
But I wanna keep hurtin', too.
Pictures of you in my head have got me cursed.
And I'm listening to Sade because of you.

He's a Smooth Operator,
and in the swamp of love
he's the meanest alligator.
Sweet manipulator.

"Sometimes I think that you're just too good for me";
sometimes I think you're not.
I've been listening to her songs consecutively;
lost in you and by that glare of your eyes I am sold and bought.

This is No Ordinary Love,
but no more ordinary than necessary.
By the world I've been pushed and shoved;
can I make your arms my sanctuary?

"In Heaven's name why do you play these games?",
cause you know they're making me want you more.
Although I know you're the one with more to gain,
I'm still standing there bleeding at your door.

Both are faith

Spirituality is faith in the unknown.

Religiosity is faith in the person who told you about the unknown.

the 3:00 am cup

The woman cries out cause she's lonely.
Her bag, next to her, is empty
and it's got all that she needs in it.

Chasing
spacing
the taken
and the given

She falls just for the hell of it.
She thinks her heart's just like a lamp
and wonders how she's ever gonna get it lit.

In that dusk
in her room
she thrusts and thrusts
to get out of that womb.

Falling hard
to get up harder
crying soft
to laugh at it louder.
She goes down down down
she likes to think she's only just circling, twirling, spinning around round round.

Wood and moss
rotting carcass of an albatross.
The Ups and the Downs both laugh at that there coin toss
Lift, carry, and lower your cross.

Ten times never
She swears she's done.
Fly, fly, very high firefly,
don't lower yourself to run.

Now that heartbeat in her chest is just an alarm clock.
Children lost can only see her
suffering and toiling to beseech her.
She's a giant, wide, exploding rock.