What About Those New Year Resolutions !

The first month of 2016 is coming to an end......and I was just thinking if you still remember those New Year's resolutions you made on the first of January? Are you planning on sticking to them this year...seriously? You may not realize it that the tradition of making promises on the first day of the year is a custom started by our Roman ancestors.

''Rome's highest officials made a resolution to remain loyal to the republic and swore oaths to the Emperor in 1st January.,'' says Professor Richard Alston, from the Department of Classics a Royal Holloway University. ''A grand ceremony marked to occasion, where the Roman legions would parade and sacrifices were made on the Capitoline Hill. New Year's Day offered all Roman citizens an opportunity to reflect on the past and look to the new year ahead.''

People would exchange sweet fruits and honey, greet each other with blessings for the coming year and the courts only worked in the mornings, so they has a half day holiday to reflect on the coming year.

On January 1st, the Romans celebrated JANUS, the god of new beginnings who had two faces -- one looking into the past and another looking into the future. ''Janus represented doors and thresholds and the Romans named the month of January in his honour.'' added Professor Alston. ''Janus also symbolized the values of home, friendship and civilization, and the doors of his temple were closed when Rome was at peace and thrown open in times of war so that citizens could enter and ask Janus to once again restore balance and peace through the year.''

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black !

I was just thinking......

The idiom "pot calling the kettle black" was perfectly illustrated by Islamic Iran's outrage over the public executions of 47 people by Islamic Saudi Arabia on Jan. 2.

As horrific and detestable as the Saudi actions that included the beheading of human rights and democracy activist Nimr el-Nimr were, it was laughable to watch Iran's hypocritical self-righteousness in response.

Since 1979, Iran has executed tens of thousands of political dissidents, most infamously its state-sponsored execution of at least 5,000 political prisoners across Iran in the summer of 1988. Decades later the Iranian Islamic regime still makes a public spectacle of hanging political prisoners in city squares, using cranes to magnify the image of men writhing as they die a slow death by strangulation.

Iran is the only Mideast country that carries out more executions than Saudi Arabia annually and globally is second only to China — a fact lost on Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in a fit of contrived self-righteousness warned, "divine vengeance will befall Saudi politicians" for carrying out the executions.

Iran carries out far more executions per year than Saudi Arabia.

According to Amnesty International, at least 151 people were executed in Saudi Arabia during 2015. While Amnesty does not cite figures for Iranian executions in 2015, it quotes "reliable sources" putting the number at 743 executions, at least, in 2014.

That said, there's no question Saudi Arabia's disgraceful actions have added a new and unnecessary complexity into a region extending from North Africa to the Indian subcontinent.

As a result, 2015 may well have been the calm before the storm. If building world consensus to confront the threat posed by the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaida was a jigsaw puzzle, the Saudi action just transformed into Rubik's Cube.

Nimr el-Nimr

So who was Nimr el-Nimr whose ghost now looms large over the war zones of the Middle East and Islam's fight with itself?

He was a 57-year old Shia Arab from Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province (once known as Al-Ahsa until it was invaded and occupied by the Saudi family just after the First World War). He was well known for his harsh criticism of Saudi Arabia's ruling family. In 2009, he threatened to lead a secessionist movement to end the Saudi occupation of the oil-rich Al-Ahsa province that was once historically part of today's Bahrain.

Although he was Shia, he had made it known in no uncertain terms he had no links with the Iranian regime. WikiLeaks reported that in a meeting with U.S. diplomats in 2008, el-Nimr sought to distance himself from Tehran. He told the Americans Iran, like other countries, acts out of self-interest, and Saudi Shiites shouldn't expect Iranian support based on sectarian unity.

If only the Americans had the wisdom to discern Saudi manipulation using petrodollars and the facts that would serve the interests of peace and progress.