For those who care, I can be heard live or on-line on Democracy Now tomorrow (Tuesday) at 5:05AM (Pacific Time) 8:05AM Eastern Time. The topic is Saudi Arabia.

From a poem by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
"Oh, ye homeland, repeated
in massacres and songs
Point out to me
the source of death
Is it the dagger
or the lie?"

From Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish's poem A State of Siege (my translation):
"...He says at the edge of death:
I have no footstep for loss,
Free I am near my freedom
and my future is in my hands...
and I shall enter, soon,
my life
and will be born free
without parents,
and will choose for my name
letters from sapphire*...
here, at the hills of smoke,
on the steps of the house,
there is no time for time,
we do what those
who ascend to God do:
we forget pain"
*This is the precious stone known in Arabic as Lazaward. I am not sure what it is in English. There is a poem by Yeats in which he uses it, but did not have time to look.
(thanks Ema for the suggestion)

US women lag in elected office

And who brought democracy to Afghanistan? The US of course, why do you ask? Karzai is alleged to have given cabinet posts to warlords in exchange for support in upcoming vote.

THIS IS ZIONISM: 111 Palestinians killed by Israei army in May alone

Nobody likes the House of Saud, but they are rarely criticized

And who brought Democracy to Iraq? US did, of course. Why do you ask? Bremer threatens to veto Iraqis' choice of president

This is very cool: An A-Z of the Iraq war and its aftermath, focusing on misrepresentation, manipulation, and mistakes

Western media talk about this as if there is no domestic violence in the West: Saudi guilty of assaulting TV presenter wife

Economic reforms mean: Russia's poorest face huge cuts in benefits

This ignorant and prejudiced writer in Slate.com thinks that the racist and ignorant author of the Arab Mind is sympathetic to the Arabs. He is writing a book on Arab culture too.

I'M EXPLAINING A FEW THINGS by Pablo Neruda
(tr. Nathaniel Tarn)

Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!

Brenda has written the following poem culled together with words from the comments' section of this site:
COLLABORATION (?)
-taken from comments on a politically charged blog

Somehow the suffering and death
and all their fat American asses
hurt your feelings
if there is a country
sabotaged
stripped
we are being locked up
hard to find good
destruction, war and hatred
America is much more
than the government
it thrives
rich and poor
many languages
attack things
drop bombs
this nonsense
Fuck your hate.
You're an idiot
I don't know
feed people
force for good
makes you feel better
around the world
innocent
free
before you speak
the face of the earth
Greatest place
what I love
I am a human being
and the planet is my home,
and the human family
is my people
all people include
good and bad
Here's an opportunity
for people to behave
like human beings
the god of the world.

From the poem Traveler without Luggage by Iraqi poet `Abdul-Wahab Al-Bayyati (my translation):
"...under the sky
without hope
inside me the self dies
like a spider
my self dies
and on the wall
the light of the day
absorbs my years,
and spits it out in blood
the light of the day
Never for me, was this day
the door is shut!
the day never was
Never for me was this day
I will! Futile,
I will always be from nowhere
Without a face, without a history
from nowhere."

"TIME has obtained an internal Pentagon e-mail sent by an Army Corps of Engineers official...that raises questions about Cheney's arm's-length policy toward his old employer. Dated March 5, 2003, the e-mail says "action" on a multibillion-dollar Halliburton contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office."

Jobless in Sao Paulo

Pathetic Yaser `Arafat (who sends millions to the account of Suha `Arafat while Palestinians starve) has no shame: he now begs Sharon for a meeting.

A good summary and critique of the lousy book 'The Arab Mind', which is read by US neo-conservatives.

Maxime Rodinson, un marxiste face à l'islam: Auteur de nombreux livres qui ont marqué la sociologie de cette religion, l'historien est mort à Marseille dimanche 23 mai, à l'âge de 89 ans.

Torture, or 'Good Old American Pornography'?

"Hundreds of Iraqi prisoners were held in Abu Ghraib prison for prolonged periods despite a lack of evidence that they posed a security threat to American forces, according to an Army report completed last fall...General Ryder, the Army's provost marshal, reported that some Iraqis had been held for several months for nothing more than expressing "displeasure or ill will" toward the American occupying forces."

The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech (By ROBERT FISK)

This is YOUR president: he is keeping Saddam's pistol in his office.

I find him to be one of the most interesting actors.

From a poem (He Died Tomorrow) by Sudanese poet Muhammad Miftah Al-Fayturi (my translation):
"He died...
Not a single drop of rain was sad over his death
And no bunch of faces of people frowned
And the moon did not turn up
one night over his grave
and no lazy worm did bend
and no stone split
he died tomorrow...
dirty in his corpse..
forgotten in his shroud
like a dream..
--and the people awakened--
like a filthy tornado!"

Iraqis snap up CDs of abuse images

Chalabi Photo Album

Opposition Growing to U.S. Exemption on Global Court

Exiled Allawi was responsible for 45-minute WMD claim

News from "liberated" Iraq: Unchecked Lawlessness Strains Iraqi Society

Sen. John F. Kerry indicated that as president he would play down the promotion of democracy as a leading goal in dealing with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and Russia.

I get extremely bored on the plane. I never now travel without this. It is great; 1000 times better than an i-pod. Yet, I wasted my time on the way back from DC reading James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. If you have been reading the books on the administration and the neo-conservatives, there is nothing new here. After 425 pages, I only learned that: Rumsfeld interferred with a Gallup family member to favor Nixon in the 1970s (in Gallup polls at the time) (p. 17); that Richard Armitage may have been involved in the Phenix "program" during the Vietnam war [that was reported before] (p. 45); and that Wolfowitz was the first to recruit that awful Dennis Ross into government service (p. 80). The New Yorker always has fawning profiles: yet the profile of Aaron McGruder (creator of The Boondocks) in the April 16th&26th issue was mean and nasty.

Iraqi democracy in Action: So a new puppet prime minister has been appointed in Iraq. Iyad Allawi was a former Saddam Ba`thist and member of Saddam's intelligence service. His group (the National Accord) comprises former Saddam's henchmen. Yet, the profile of Allawi in NYT today left out that important fact and merely said that Allawi had "joined the [Ba`th] party's youth branch." Youth Branch? He was into his thirties in the party and in Saddam's secret police, and may have engaged in "dirty tricks" on behalf of the regime in London in the 1970s. The silly Washington Post had the most ridiculous allegation: that "Pick Appears to Catch Bush Administration Off Guard". Off guard? In fact, notice this account of NYTimes: "Iraqi council members said the council unanimously endorsed Dr. Alawi. L. Paul Bremer III, the chief American administrator here, then entered the room to congratulate Dr. Alawi." And as the Guardian reports, "UN sidelined in choice of Iraqi leader"

Ban child brides!!

This is Zionism: Bulldozers crush Gaza children's dreams

Make no mistake about it: The rulers of Sudan are war criminals: killing Arabs and non-Arabs, Muslims and non-Muslims.

How dare she not glorify US torturers? "After displaying a painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery owner bears...a black eye and bloodied brow delivered by an unknown assailant who apparently objected to the art work."

I shall update when I arrive home later tonight. You cannot walk without bumping into a WWII in DC. War, war, war, and more glorification war. And Tom Hanks who passes as an actor in US, and Tom Brokaw, who passes as a journalist in US, are on hand. You have to give credit to this nation: there is a commemoration of WWII, while wars are being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and John Kerry is going around telling us (to the tune of 34 times a day) how much he loves telling us about his Vietnam war experience. My friend Mary told me yesterday: that she used to find the naivete of her fellow Americans cute and charming, but that she now finds it dangerous. A new survey shows that prayer is by far the most favorite "alternative medicine" by Americans. Please, dont pray for me...Micronesia.

Several surveys appear to show that Russians prefer authoritarian order to democracy. One poll found that 53 percent of Russians opposed democracy, while 22 percent favored it.

For Iraqi women, Abu Ghraib's taint

Does anybody care about those poor? International rescue workers rushed to a remote Haitian border town yesterday where as many as 1,000 people are feared dead following the flash floods that hit the region last weekend.

Having helped found the Islamic Republic of Fallujah, Bush is now heralding the emergence of the Islamic Republic of Najaf and Karbala'.

US soldiers in Afghanistan are endangering humanitarian aid operations by operating in civilian clothes and vehicles, the EU warned yesterday.

Briton says he was held in Israeli dungeon. What is wrong with dungeons, asks John Kerry.