A source on politics, war, the Middle East, Arabic poetry, and art.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
For some reason, this computer at the Virgin Atlantic Lounge, does not permit me to copy and paste. This is quite frustrating as I was planning to post. I just finished reading a front page article in the Washington Post about the time in 2002 when Israeli soldiers in a crime of revenge (not to be confused with other crimes of their revenge) "opened fire without warning" on a group of Palestinian policemen. The amazing thing is that the article is quite sympathetic to the killers, and a picture of the soldiers in grief is attached to the article. Only in the US media. Even when Israeli occupation soldiers engage in killing of Palestinians, which they habitually do, the US media focus is always on the "anguish" of the killers, about their "spiritual struggle"; about how for 3 days after their killing they could not eat carrot cake. Such coverage by the way is the specialty of the lousy journal known as Tekkun. Which reminds me, is Michael Lerner still in his new agy mode of the "politics of meaning" as opposed to the politics of meaninglessness which he is really good at? We need to know, NOW. This morning in my hotel I caught on Showtime the last part of a documentary on Iraq which featured Raed Jarrar who has a good website. Is that the same Raid who posts comments here? What is the name of the documentary I saw? And at what time did I watch it, and why? You have 4 minutes to answer my questions in sequence. Also, my friends who were behind the excellent About Baghdad documentary are doing a great documentary on the "war on terrorism." They have conducted interviews in (I forgot, 20 countries or so). It is going to be spectacular. In one interview, the..I forgot, that I was not authorized to talk about contents of the footage that I saw. Damn. I heard that Bush is worried about Syrian intelligence agents in Lebanon. Really? Really? And more stupidly, a UN team will be dispatched to look for them. Really? Really? And how will they search for them? Under hummus plates? As if Syrians can be distinguished from Lebanese, and as if Syrian mukhabrat people in Lebanon wear special badges that say "mukhabrat of Syria loves you." How stupid can US policy be these days, and how stupid can Syrian government be these days? And as if there are no intelligence agents from Israel, US, France, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iran, Libya, and Egypt roaming in Lebanon. But will that gifted UN team also look for them? Or are their electronic devices only capable of pinpointing the genetic presence of Syrians? Let me know Kofi Annan. And Syria's Lebanese corrupt politician Michel Murr (who previously was the corrupt politician who worked with Israel after 1982 and who bribed deputies on behalf of Bashir Gemayyel then) gave citizenship not only to some 17,000 people to vote for him in Northern Matn, but be certainly gave citizenship to whomever Syria (or Israel before that) wanted that "privilege." Whenever I go to London I dread the lousy airport and the dirty restaurants although I love the city and people (and the mayor). Let us hope that I do not run into the demagogue George Galloway this time on Edgeware Road (my favorite food street in London). I said this before, and I shall say it again, the best weather in the world is northern California. Thomas Friedman's book is at every corner at every American airport. You have to close your eyes to miss it. My eyes have been closed all day. Where is the screen? Where am I? I can't see. Help.