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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons The Ovi covers.
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The Ovi
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons The Ovi covers.
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday Thursday 16th, 2023
Managing your persistent fears, anxieties and stresses by Stan Popovich
Everybody deals with anxiety and depression, however some people have a difficult time in managing it. As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their most persistent fears and every day anxieties.
When facing a current or upcoming task that overwhelms you with a lot of anxiety, the first thing you can do is to divide the task into a series of smaller steps. Completing these smaller tasks one at a time will make the stress more manageable and increases your chances of success.
Continue reading HERE!
Joshua Tree #poem by George Cassidy Payne
“is a place that has nothing
to do with us. A place where
deer sleep and mammoth did
before them. Hidden and held
in place by a secret grammar
of grace, the kind that makes an
old hippie smile at a handful”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #70 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday November 1st, 2023
Managing Your Persistent Fears And Anxieties by Stan Popovich
Are you looking for all of the answers on how to reduce your persistent fears and anxieties?
Fear and anxiety can ruin your life if you do not know how to overcome it.
As a result, here is a brief list of techniques that a person can use to help manage their everyday anxieties, stresses, and fears.
Continue reading HERE!
The Snuff #poem by Jan Sand
“I have seen lots of stuff
In the heights of the mountains of the nights
And the valleys of the days
When the Sun displays realities enough
To offer suspicions that conditions link
To provoke that everything may be a dirty joke.”
Continue reading HERE!
Manish’s Zodiac Signs Predictions for November 2023 by Manish Kumar Arora
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Fika bonding! #069 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Tuesday October 17th, 2023
Violence Against Human Animals: Images from the Israel-Hamas War by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
With the body count rising in this latest, and particularly bloody Israel-Hamas War, the narrative of Israel the wounded, Israel the desperate, has now been annexed to Israel the just warrior State, fighting darkness and primaeval stone age barbarism.
This has taken two forms. The first is the way the victims of the Hamas attacks inside Israeli territory have been elevated, ennobled, sanctified. The second is the manner with which the Hamas killings have been rendered exceptionally ghoulish, visceral, blood curdling.
Regarding the former, Israeli suffering has been personalised, individualised, and given the spit and polish of reverence. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for instance, stated his shock at the “depravity of Hamas” while feeling a jolt of inspiration from the Israeli “grandfather, who drove over an hour to a kibbutz under siege, armed with only a pistol, and rescued his kids and grandkids; the mother who died shielding her teenage son with her body, giving her life to save his, giving him life for a second time; the volunteer security teams on the kibbutzes [sic], who swiftly rallied to defend their friends and neighbors, despite being heavily outnumbered.”
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I beg #poem by Bohdan Yuri
“I beg my will to show me still
the simple strength from within,
that I may hold on beyond the end
and not fall weak to wanting trends.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #68 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday October 2nd, 2023
Advice after reviewing resumes by Joseph Gatt
Advice after reviewing 1,000+ resumes, in no particular order.
-Messy resumes (almost) always head straight to the trash bin. Unless you’re on the team that designed a NASA spaceship, you want your resume to be clean.
What do I mean by messy resumes? Spelling mistakes, inconsistent alignments and fonts, information all bundled up, wording and paragraphs not consistent. In sum, the resume does not look pretty.
So if you want a tip: go online, look for sample resumes, look for the pretty ones, and emulate the style. That will give you more chances to get a job.
Continue reading HERE!
Life crowded with details #poem & #painting by Amir Khatib
“Your life is always crowded with details.
There is no time to remember…
Memories attack the mind when it is empty.
A torrent descends towards abandoned hearts,
My teacher said: “Man, insofar as he is a part of nature,
be part of its destiny.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #67 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday September 2nd, 2023
Julia #Fiction by Abigail George
I suppose it will always be there. Touch. Life. Boys and girls always looking for answers. Always looking for intimacy in all the wrong places. It is inevitable that the children born from those unions end up themselves searching for intimacy at the end of the day in all the wrong places. It does not make them people. It does not make their parents bad people. It is just symptomatic of the world that we live in. I suppose just like earth that there will always be sad people in the world. People who keep to themselves. The savants and the muses. Childhood will also be there. Everybody has a childhood. Not everybody has a mother, a father, a home, and siblings. People can live in houses. I suppose no matter how I measure the love of my parents’ it will always be there.
I wake up in the dark and I still feel as frightened as I did when I was a child waking up to darkness. I prefer loneliness to happiness. I suppose that makes me strange and estranged at the same time. I prefer the black dog of depression to happiness. I prefer writing to not writing. I prefer not to make love. Not to laugh. Not to smile. I prefer animals to people. I prefer to forget that you loved me. I prefer sanity to having elegant answers to the despair of madness. I prefer to forget that you accepted me just the way I am. That you did not expect anything from me in return. I hear my voice. I can actually hear you listening to me. It reminds me of the word ‘tender’. It reminds of the words ‘measure of love’. I never thought that a person could measure love. I am touched that you are in fact listening to me.
Continue reading HERE!
Dance of Tears, Chief Nobody (V5) #poem by Michael Lee Johnson
“I’m old Indian chief story
plastered on white scattered sheets,
Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #65 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday August 18th, 2023
Hope for resolution in the long running Assange case by Murray Hunter
Just two weeks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly rebuked any possibility of resolving the Australian journalist and Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange extradition to the US from Britain to face espionage charges, the US Ambassador to Australia, Caroline Kennady has publicly indicated there could be a resolution to the case.
Assange is languishing in solitary confinement in Britain’s notorious Belmarsh Prison, awaiting extradition to the US on 17 charges of espionage, and one charge of computer misuse, over the Wikileaks publication of hundreds of thousands of classified documents and other materials in 2010.
The Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais, and Der Spiegel, which jointly published the documents were never charged. US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning stole the classified diplomatic documents and military files, that Wikileaks later published. Manning had been treated much more leniently when former US President Barack Obama commuted her 35 year sentence to seven years, which allowed her to be released in 2017.
Continue reading HERE!
Celebrations All On In Earnest #poem by Saloni Kaul
“In each and every lifetime there appears that phase
When all your yearnings get granted like matters drilled,
Your far-flung dreams realised in minutest ways,
Your impossibly distant whims and fancies all fulfilled.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #064 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Thursday August 3rd, 2023
Subsidies and soft loans: facts and fallacies by Joseph Gatt
In many countries, notably France and former French colonies, I hear a lot of businesses saying things like “we need the government to help us” or “our business needs subsidies” or “our businesses needs soft loans.”
So here are the facts and fallacies.
Fallacy: subsidies help increase production
Fact: a lot of the subsidies go to new technologies but also training in the new technologies, hiring new staff, and other expenses.
In the case of agriculture, production depends on many factors, including weather factors and the overall economic health of the nation.
Continue reading HERE!
A Whisper Of Regret #poem by Jan Sand
“To gently touch this world,
With fingertips of delight,
Which still glistens with a red rose,
Still hums in quotidian industries
Of bees and other serious folk
To maintain the functions of existence,
Is to capture a fragile momentary dream. .”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #63 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Wednesday July 19th, 2023
AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) by Jan Sand
Several highly respected prominent thinkers such as Elon Musk and the English physicist Stephan Hawking have warned that the creation of AGI, artificial general intelligence, which can quickly self-mature to a powerful control of all human civilization to leave humanity helpless in its power, represents a danger to human civilization that is far greater than the threats of planetary global warming or the misuse of nuclear weaponry that can alter this planet so completely that humanity and much of other life cannot recover. Since this development remains within the future of possibly a few or even many decades ahead, its occurrence is still very theoretical and unresolved. Some digital experts have declared that they feel the huge advance of artificial superior intellect is so valuable and yet, controllable, that there is no real danger. But even in its current primitive state, it has occasionally provided solutions to difficult problems that were beyond the understanding of the experts in control. This is a clear demonstration that this area of research can present problems that lie beyond the control of the experts investigating them.
Continue reading HERE!
Swimming at a standstill #poem by David Barger
“I swim in a sea of blue mustard
Where food coloring arranged
This acrylic liquidated display.
There must be fifty feet between
The brown sand and where I drift.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #62 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Tuesday July 4th, 2023
Democratic Republic of Congo: Sky Getting Darker by Rene Wadlow
The armed conflict in the eastern area of the Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC) on the frontier with Rwanda seems to be growing worse and is impacting in a negative way the lives of people. The current fighting adds to the insecurity of the area and has virtually stopped cross-frontier activities largely done by women small traders. As a result, the price of existing food supplies has increased greatly, and shortages are to be feared.
The current armed conflict is among a Tutsi-led militia, Movement du 23 mars (M23), the forces of the RDC government and different ethnic militias. The President of the RDC, Felix Tshisehed sponsored the creation of local militias to help government soldiers, but the government does not control these militias. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Congo (MONUSCO) which has been in the RDC since 1989 is the largest U.N. peacekeeping force with some 15,000 members.
Continue reading HERE!
The Sacrament of Summer #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“We break the bread
And drink the wine
To the sacrament of summer:
The beginning of long hot summer days,
Love, laughter, oiled brown skin,”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #61 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Monday June 19th, 2023 – International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict
Every year on June 19th, the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict raises awareness for conflict-related sexual violence. The day also honors the victims and survivors of sexual violence around the world. Women and girls are not the only victims of conflict-related sexual violence. Men and boys are also subject to it as well. Unfortunately, many survivors of this type of sexual violence do not come forward. This is primarily due to fear and cultural stigmas. When the survivors do not come forward, justice does not get served. It also allows the perpetrators to repeat their violent acts.
The most important people in her life by Abigail George
So I turned to my father. I was this kid and said to him.
‘You’re mean. You’re just being cruel. Stay away from me. She’s not dead. I just saw her this morning.’
What does death mean to a child after all said and done but when you’re an adult it defines you.
The grief and then the denial of it all settles in with depth and seriousness. There was still the life of the girl inside of her. You’re there but you’re also not there. People talk of cancer. I saw something inside of my aunt that paralysed me. Her beautiful face that was so open. That spoke of kindness and grace. Mercy but all I could remember of her was her cleaning the kitchen. Cleaning up after us all. Her boys and us, her nieces. All I remember was her grilled cheese sandwiches. The two pizzas ‘they’ bought after a trip to the beach.
Continue reading HERE!
Everything changed #poem & ArtInstallation by Amir Khatib
“Everything around me changed,
change on its own without interference;
streets and house facades,
bridges and under them,
tables and food and the smell of bread disappeared”
Continue reading HERE!
The Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict: Greater Awareness Building Needed by Rene Wadlow
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed 19 June of each year to be the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict in order to raise awareness of the need to put an end to conflict-related sexual violence and to honor the victims and the survivers of sexual violence around the world. The date was chosen to commemorate the adoption on 19 June 2008 of Security Council Resolution 1820 in which the Council condemned sexual violence as a tactic of war and as an impediment to peacebuilding.
For the U.N. “conflict-related sexual violence” refers to rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced abortion, and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls and boys, linked to a conflict. The term also encompasses trackficking in persons when committed in situations of conflict for purposes of sexual violence or exploitation.
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #60 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Sunday June 4th, 2023
4 June: Memories of Tiananmen Square by Rene Wadlow
4 June makes the security forces in China somewhat uneasy, especially in Hong Kong where, in the past, there were large memorial meetings tp remind people of 4 June 1989 when the military and police moved against those who had been protesting publicly for over a month. Students from colleges and universities in China’s capital initiated protests after the death of the former General Secretary of the Communist Party, Hu Yaobang on 15 April 1989 who was considered a liberal reformer. The movement then spread over a number of weeks to most of the major cities. Students made numerous demands, among them were calls for an end to government corruption, increased funding for education, and freedom of the press. As the movement went on, students were increasingly joined by industrial workers.
There were differences of opinion within the ruling government circle as to how to deal with the protests. As the protests continued, there was more and more international media attention, especially as there were an increasing number of journalists in Beijing in advance of the visit of the Soviet leader M. Gorbachev with a large delegation of Soviet officials.
Continue reading HERE!
Barren World #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“You drank the wine,
I drank your soul,
You kissed my lips,
We held each other”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #059 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Saturday May 20th, 2023
That summer by Abigail George
‘Let’s go out tonight. My treat, Ingrid.’ Amanda said, with palpable excitement in her voice.
‘But what’s the occasion, Mandy?’ a rather withdrawn and serious Ingrid asked.
‘Ingrid, there doesn’t have to be an occasion to go out and eat at a fancy restaurant during the week.’
‘Oh, Ingrid,’ said Mandy with an urgency in her voice. ‘It doesn’t have to be your birthday or an anniversary or a promotion or something like that. When you live in a city, people go out and eat all the time. There’s no room for the mentality of a small-town brain like yours anymore. You have to think out of the box now. You’re living in Johannesburg now.’ Amanda laughed. ‘You’re such a mouse. You should meet Scotty’s Samuel. He’s also a mouse. Mouse people belong to mouse people. I’m a cat person.’
Yes, Ingrid thought to herself. I’m living in Johannesburg now. After all, I’m a city girl now, so, I should act like one.
‘What was growing up in Swaziland like?’ asked Ingrid, glancing up at Amanda while she perused the menu of the fancy Italian restaurant.
‘Boring but I had my freedom. Should we have wine with our supper, Ingrid.’
Continue reading HERE!
THE DAY ARRIVED #poem by David Sparenberg
“The day (once more)
when the world as we know it stopped
the Doomsday Clock, barely
in the nick of time, stood still
the power of political death over
individual life ended, the
civilization
of greed and ego and violence
collapsed
returning to dust.”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #58 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems, the thoughts, the reviews, the photos, the paintings and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Friday May 5th, 2023
Religion by Dr Elsa Lycias Joel
We witness, hear and read about religious incompatibilities, tension and violence. Indians fear the outbreak of riots given the way hate speech and insinuations make their way into every nook and corner. India has an enviable religious diversity, which is also the reason for religious conflicts and thousands of deaths. According to a report released by the US think-tank Pew Research Center, India had the highest rate of social tensions along religious lines globally in 2020. If we are to analyze the reasons behind social hostilities and blame people who make sure about religiously inspired nationalist movements gaining prominence, then we will realize we have a prime duty as a parent or teacher. Whatever is our faith or religion, training a kid to seek the truth or God with the tenets of one’s own holy book is most necessary in a multi religious country like ours. All religions profess peace and universal brotherhood which unfortunately is the most ignored when any political resurgence happens on the premise that Indian culture is coterminous with Hindu culture. This is totally fine as long as people belonging to other faiths are not intimidated and assaulted. A political party’s inclination towards one particular religion can be ignored if it isn’t desperate to make laws that are fundamentally discriminatory in nature.
Places of worship and pilgrimage are aplenty here. We need more schools, colleges, factories and hospitals. These places of worship encroaching public lands keep officials busy in demolition operations. So, knocking down and building places of worship seem to take too much of our time and resources. In this world’s most populous country where every other person is a devout, why are we finding it impossible to give lasting peace a chance? When we boast of religious freedom why do we suffer religious violence? The answer must come from individuals like you and me, not from politicians or religious leaders. Peace and harmony are shaped by the forces of individual desire. Our desire for creating sane minds should never wane.
Continue reading HERE!
What will survive us? #poem by Abigail George
“I sit here writing
and the words seem to pour out
of me effortlessly
but as soon as they
leave the vessel that contains
my body I freeze”
Continue reading HERE!
Fika bonding! #57 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
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