Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Do You Believe in Ghosts

Does anyone believe in ghosts, has anyone ever seen one or heard one? Our house has many unexplained noises, there is the classic bump in the night. We have never had objects moved, but we have heard doors close., steps across the floor at night. One time when my eldest son was sleeping over he saw someone walk past his door and when he checked no one was there. Is it vibrations from the past or do spirits really haunt some places?

If you were ask if you do know the difference between a spirit or ghost or if you might have a ghost in your house, what would you say? Some people think the spirit was trapped between this world and the after life, or they died in the house and live on there. Some people hire ghost hunters to come and see what is going on. I have seen the documentary's on ghost hunters.

Another type of ghost is the poltergeist, an invisible spirit or ghost that manifests itself by moving and influencing objects. Places that poltergeists have been reported is India, United States, England, Japan and Brazil. I have seen programs where families have reported being attacked by poltergeist, scratched or objects being thrown. I thought I would have fun with this and see what you have to say. Believe it or not there are people that swear they have seen ghosts.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Armenian Genocide

The definition of genocide is the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. Research of Arnold J. Toynbee, an intelligence officer of the British Foreign Office, who estimate that 600,000 Armenians died or were massacred during deportation in the years 1915-1916. Since early times man has invaded other countries, killing people and taking prisoners, in order to add more land to their own, or just to dominate.

Armenia is located in the southern Caucasus and is the smallest of the former Soviet republics. A land of rugged mountains and extinct vollcanoes, its highest point is Mount Aragats and one of the worlds oldest civilizations and the first country to embrace Christianity. Over the centuries Armenian has been conquered by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Mongots, Arabs, Ottoman Turks and Russia. That is a lot of conquering for such a small country.

The cause for their extinction was caused because in the 1860,s to early 1870,s they began to ask for better treatment from the Ottoman government. The Armenian's complained about looting, tax collection, murders and criminal behavior by government officials and the governments refusal to accept Christians as witness at trials. The government promised to look into these complaints and would punish those responsible. The Armenian Genocide, also known as the Armenian Holocaust refers to deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War II.

It was characterised by the use of deportation involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of Armenians death generally held to have been between one and a half million, it is widely acknowledged to have been one of the first modern genocides, this was carried out to eliminate the Armenians. The Ottoman military uprooted them from their homes and forced them to march for hundreds of miles, depriving them of food and water, to the desert of what is now Syria. Massacres were indiscriminate of age or gender, also with much abuse. The Armenian Genocide is the second most studied case of genocide after the Holocaust.

The shortest way of disposing of women and children was to either burn them or take them out in boats and throw them overboard, doctors would also inoculate them with blood from typhoid fever patients. However the Republic of Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, does not accept the word genocide as an accurate description of these events. When I read this article I immediately thought of the Iraq people that Hussian slaughtered and buried them in large pits.