I am the purple eggplant char
Hovering over your orange sunset swirl
Storming the night’s long anxious nag
Tainting your idyllic rhythmic dreams
Fleshing your boundaries raised and angry
I am the he, the hue of terror
Two shades darker painted as my beard grows longer, coarser
A wide and wooly, black and grey chaos to my heel
I am the waking flesh splitting winter dry
Seeping to chill your warm soul

I am the stomp of well-knit limbs
Snuffing your innocent Western mind
Mammoth and timberous strokes of ignorance
Blanketing your blissful intellectic seek
Marking you path exhausted and raw
I am the common, the shadow of truth
Languishly deficient as my wrap twists tighter, darker
A thin and linen, white and bloody noose to my chest
I am the satanic drip off your idle fingers
Draining the veins till body’s rest.

Merry Christmas

For these holidays I wish for you a return
to your homes
to normalcy
to peace
to freedom
to school
to clean water
to work
to a human existance with no tank gunner pushing your every move

A first short film

A Wake

pattern recognition

i’m sliding off this warped clump of insignificant dirt

pushed aside by ravenous puppet shells
trampled under their rant triggered hasty charges
sacrificed for their idol trinkets
sliding off into a cold and inhumane space
where the return is not in the stars
but in the force of natural law.

Can You Guess?

What are these pics?

Where are they and more importantly when?
Is this before and after?

or what?

Permeable Peace

There is something inescapable, even through time-travel. That is the unbearable weight of moving, the intolerable dankness of breathing, and the incurable scope of wanting. It may be that we as individuals are ultimately insignificant, doomed to run the required maze and die. But what if we choose not to? We may never become able to lift our singular stain and leave fragrant petals. Yet if we consciously attempt an altered state, can all our burdens become pliable?........

1957. I ended up in 1957. I didn’t know the significance of it but my greater concern was that I was in the same place. I don’t know why I imagined I’d land back home. I landed in my back yard in Michigan. (the real estate agent lied, this house was not built in 1960 since it was there already) Now what? Am I supposed to sit here and wait? There was no precedent as to what you do when traveling back. So I searched out my kind. Not many Arabs in Michigan, those who I found were anxious to be more American than Arab.
I thought of going back home anyway, since time-travel obviously does not allow me to jump geographically, I walked. After a couple of odd restaurant, dock loading and repair jobs I had some 1957 cash to take a ship ride back to Lebanon. Luckily the $30 left in my pocket was older and passed for current.
I arrived in Italy and took another boat to Cyprus and a smaller boat to Beirut. The trip must have been weeks, I lost track of time as I was holed up in the bottom of the ship. I felt like cargo more than tourist. I couldn’t take a plane since they were very expensive and rare.
Not very familiar with my history I do remember there being some sort of US Marine landing in Beirut around this time. Was it this year or next? I couldn’t ask anyone. In fact I tried not to talk to anyone at all. I just walked on experiencing my home land as it was before my birth. It just seemed peaceful. Farmers were plenty and hopeful.
After several days of walking, I found a small village not too foreign to me and decided to seek shelter from a friendly distant relative. Those nights of sleeping outside were beautiful yet anxious and frightful. The house seemed familiar and cozy, it reminded me of my childhood, I wanted to stay.
At that point I knew I had to return to my current home, but that meant a long journey back to Michigan. Although I didn’t know how I’d travel into the future, I knew the only chance had was back at my starting point. I left, trying not to leave evidence of my visit. Not walking very fast I was still in the countryside come nightfall. I camped out under an olive tree. Just a few hundred feet away was a dark and rocky valley that I had to cross, I thought it best to leave that trek for dawn.
I heard rumblings in the distance. It sounded like a group of men coming my way. They may have been hunters. As they approached, my breath silenced. They camped a few yards away. I thought I’d approach them, since I would be found sooner or later and really had no reason to fear. They were friendly, but suspicious. But it was me who was fearful, they had all the guns, several guns, too many to be hunters. I imagined they were gun smugglers from a newly formed militia. This place in this period was about to explode and I didn’t want to be stuck here unfamiliar and unprepared. I left, not asking too many questions, not waiting for them to tell me who they really are; I just left in the middle of the night.
I was hoping for insight, for and awe inspiring revelation, for that life altering encounter, a Gulliveresque experience. It never came, and I was too afraid to seek it out.
The trip back was arduous, boring and long, long enough for me to rethink every move I’ve made and develop several regrets. When I returned home my point of return had a glow. Did it mean I was running out of time? I dove in not knowing when I’d land. I did know where. I’m not certain I would ever be able to travel again or if I’d want to. My greatest fear is that if I do, I’d give in to the urge to try to change things or have them change me.

After years of roaming unable to decipher the world that surrounds me
with nothing more than the transitory emotions for order, I select to leave having created no relief.
It is not this earth I leave, but this time. I am falling to the instinct remnant of the nomadic existence of my ancestors. Although it may be not of their choosing, I willingly choose;
to be a Bedouin of time and not space. The destination time, that is a passage of unknown consequence.

If I return or happen to survive, I’m not certain of my capabilities to communicate, but will attempt some journal…

The Devil in the Room

It never fails, every time there is any news with the word terrorist in it, any time there is an incident in the Middle East, any time there is political conflict, he walks into my office with a fire burning in his viens anxious to convince me: It is my people who are insane and my religion evil and the suffering of my people is the fault of every Arab and every Muslim. This sort of trauma
is the sort I can't take. I would like to argue, but why should I?
Why is it me who always has to defend? Why must I reason with the growing population of ignorant? I don't, so I sit silent and change the subject. That only stalls him long enough to turn on the TV and show me the news which he disects for blame. And my anxiety rises and my muscles tense. But what do I say? Every word of logic sounds like and anti-semitic rage.
He is not even Jewish, but an atheist. His love for Izrael is unnatural. and this is the kind of person who dominates the information age. I had to answer for Chechniya, for that day in September, for Bali, for Iraq and Iran and so on. What was the question? I'm not really sure. But noone has ever answered for Palestine or Lebanon except with the statment "Israel has the right to defent itself!" at times I just walk away, but other times I argue and every question I ask is answered with a question. there is no logic, its seems that he is only out to knock me down as everyone he has learned from tries to do. I've stopped argueing because I know certain truths that he will never admit to.
Today six muslim scholars were forced off a plane, humiliated, interrogated and released. Yet to him they are guilty, perhaps for being muslim scholar. And that's where his hate comes in. With hate there is no logic, no truth, no humanity. and there is hate all around. Although I think politics is bad it is still simple, there is give and take and compromise to acomplish your agenda. With hate your agenda is never compromised.
Now he changes the channel to Fox news and I type, ignoring him, untill the next news story.

My Fellow Americans...

Election results have hypnotized the masses into a state of political conviction and trust.
Results like these continue to propell the ubiquitous belief that the system works and is self repairing. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is a trick. While we are lulled to slumber the agenda of this nation and consequently the world retains it's destructive thrust. The ground work has been laid with uncivil laws and policy so much so to the point of being able to release an insignificant hold on congress and senate. Change is ever-present yet, progressive, positive productive change is something that eludes us and will continue to do so as long as we believe the system works. Vote all you want, that's what keeps us drunk with trust. We've ran this cycle before. It is not the voting that makes you American it is the belief that you have inalienable rights, it is the belief that you are allowed to voice grievance and demand accountability from those who represent you that misrepresent you. I've voted every opportunity, but I did so more for the spirit than the result. My true vote comes when I speak out. And now I say, "I'm fed up" I don't want to choose the lesser of two evils as my co-workers continue to do. I don't want Republican or Democrat. I don't want liberal or conservative. I don't want labels or directions or parties. I want people, human beings. People who concider the person half-way around the world as much as their own child. People who care more about their grandchild's next breathe more than their next dollar. People who are care more about peace than profit. People care more about being part of the human race than being right all the time. This system does not allow for that and voting Joe Democrat into office does not fix it.

Detroit Unleaded Trailer

check out the trailer for Rola Nashef's great short film.

So, is it over yet?

This tiny region has, throughout history, been smoldering with outsiders constantly fanning the flames. When will it end? Lebanon, a particular point of interest for me, is at the center and along with Palestine has been for centuries. The past several decades have seen no peace and if outside agitators continue to deny natural development the evolution of a nation will take a mutated course. So, how will it end? There are common denominators in all the hostilities of the region. Those factors are playing out their roles. This will never change. What remains to be decided is what role each of us will play.

http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/national/BO32835/

Continuing Charity

Hard working Haji Najah Bazzi in the NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/us/30CHARITY.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

www.zamaninternational.org

it's amazing when you go back in time and see how things were and how complicated the minor events were at the time and how little impact they had on your lives in retrospect. I recently travelled back a couple of months and other than the fact that I was frustrated at not being able to change anything, I found that all the crisises were nonfactors in the larger scheme. And life goes on. But now we face more catastrophic events that await on the horizon. How do we identify them and how do we react. What steps should we take and are we reacting to the right factor or are we causing more damage? I'm not sure of anything, but I am going back further in time to where I recognize the events and know what damage will occur. I can't stop anything but I can enjoy the moments I should have enjoyed back when they were live. I'll see you soon again.

Welcome to the world, Sukaina

Another neice enters the world. The cheap camera-phone snapshot doesn't do her justice.
She is calm and wide-eyed and although she has only been here two days, she brings me peace, much the way her father did before he died. He died in June shortly after finding out he was going to have his third daughter. He and his wife named her Sukaina.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

I've often stopped writing and thought "why am I writing?"
Why Blog? Is there a person on the other side anxiously waiting your words. Words that could be written by any of the 457,987 people that fit your general profile or share your minor observances. Why blog when there are countless people blogging more frequently, more powerfully, with a large captive audience reading their more refined writing. Then again why do any of us write.
Is this a type of escape or commitment to a vast non-functional community which holds itself captive while believing it is actually outreaching and performing.
Is this all a trick?
Is there a blogospheare brainwashing?
Are we just circling the scents of our own creation?
Spinning about in this great cyber expanse hoping to run into something life altering?
Do we believe we are activists when in reality we are drunk with our own pointless words?
I know not everyone writes to change but you write for someone or something or some cause. What if it is all non-existent or fake like the backdrop of a cheap theatrical play?
Will you still write? Even if it is to vent or recount your daily grind or talk to that imaginary friend about your day's favorite task?
What if this Blogospheare was put in place to keep us, the masses, in a stateless, powerless pattern of make believe? We think there is an effect when the effect is really our own paralysis.
This is to keep us all in an enormous cell of nothingness, no matter the weight or scope of the deed the effect on nothing is nothing.
What if this is actually keeping us from doing real work, or causing real change. It's like voting and saying "I didn't vote for that guy" yet that guy is in office.
Isn't everyone on Earth mad at something? Or wishes this or that would be different?
But then Sunday comes and we watch the game with our favorite drink and grilled meat in hand.

then I continue writing....

What is often forgotten about immigrants is that they are also emigrants, leaving behind a home, a family, a culture, a memory, a consciousness. Constantly struggling between the double consciousness, ever searching for a constant state of being, ever journeying from a distant awareness. Fragmented by the furious stream of lost thought, I am, in each world, viewed as an intruder.

Say NO to war and racism

Join the Fast in Solidarity with Muslim communities

Organized by:

NOWAR: The Arab American “No to War and Racism” Committee

http://www.solidarityfast.blogspot.com

"All the world's a stage...

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts,His acts being seven ages."

With this world being only a set, what happens when we strike it?
What's behind this flat facade? Are we bound to play out our roles, helplessly?
If we do not write our own parts and act willingly and improvise then we become more puppet than human. The stage is set, no doubt. But the set can change and the players can change and the lines can change. Behind us are only the materials that we oursleves have structured together to hide the unpleasent.

Make me stronger

I don’t hate pain but the source causing pain. Pain is a life’s necessity. Pain makes you aware and alive. Without pain we would be lifeless blobs without feeling without flex or reflex. You experience pain so you fight the source of that pain, without that there is no fight, your body and mind are numb and let the source overrun you until death. I don’t need painkillers. I need to feel everything around me, inside me, affecting me. I need pain. I need it to survive, to eliminate the cause and regain health.

The Unbelievable weight of breathing

At times these years in repetitive succession, I find myself in absent sense of memory of breath. I stop breathing not remembering the basic instinctive function. My mind occupied, I fail to breath, my land occupied, I fail to breath. Every second waking in mourning spent from occupying events. And as I pass from this reality out into a state of being not my own, I breath once again from habit and need but not from conscience activity. And again remain occupied.

Tyr view from the cemetary

Munitions mangle and i sit silent by the soft gentle light of my screen silently sipping my muddled tea swirling the smoke puffs of my charred lungs inhaling and exhaling ash contaminants silently silently tearing twice once from the smoke once from the screaming scenes and i am silent still silent silent silent how long can i in silence suppress my solicitude solemnly surging let my agonizingly anemic words age against aggress while the winds coil me hopeless helpless in silence while munitions mangle and ordnances orphan

tusstled but not worn

By my childhood home crumpled grey, I watched him rise from ashen fields with a somnolent smile seemingly speaking. “For all evil’s bidding lined up against my weary limbs I am still free, that evil’s rain not now nor ever shall reign on me."

What's Next?

Resolving to break the rules

The 1967 war began when Israel attacked Egypt. Doesn't that make most of Israel's long standing claims of defense invalid?

UN resolution 194 calls for the right for refugees to return and be compensated for their property loss. There are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who had their homes destroyed by Israel and are not allowed to even visit.

UN resolution 242 "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." and calls for "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" and right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force". These territories occupied included the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Palestinian villages have been absorbed by Israel. Israel annexed large chunks of Arab land and has refused to return anything other than the Sinai. Including a chunk of Lebanon a country that has never attacked Israel.

UN resolution 446 declares that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal. There are hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements with more than 250,000 settlers on Arab land.

The Fourth Geneva Convention forbids an occupying power from confiscating occupied land and transferring its own population to that territory. Israel has gained more land every year by pushing back Palestinians in the name of self-defense.

UN resolution 425 called for the immediate and unconditional withdraw of all Israeli forces from all Lebanese territory. Israel has remained in Lebanon occupying it for 28 years. 1978-2006. Although Hezbollah chased Israel out in 2000, they remained in Chebaa Farms and now have returned full force.

There have been hundreds of UN resolutions against Israel. All have been rejected or ignored by Israel. Other would-be resolutions have been vetoed by the U.S.
There have been about 450 resolutions condemning Israel since 1967.

Israel violated the blue line repeatedly since their so-called withdraw from Lebanon in 2000, kidnapping civilians, striking targets in the South and terrorising the public with low flight sonic booms. This is according to the UN.

Israel has never left Lebanon, including occupying the Chebaa Farms.

Israel left 300,000 land mines in Lebanon refusing to hand over a map of mines to the UN.

Israel has now littered Lebanese villages with thousands of unexploded granades. There have been at least two deaths since the cease-fire.

1948 as the world was rewarding Zionists with a state, Israel occupied and annexed Seven Villages in South Lebanese.

1967 Israel occupies part of Lebanon, Lebanon was not a participant in the war.

1968 Israel raids Beirut destroying civilian planes.

1978 Israel invades and occupies Lebanon.

1981 Israel carries out multiple attacks against Lebanon.

1982 Israel begins a large scale invasion and occupation in Lebanon killing 20,000 people. Israel has occupied Lebanon continuously ever since.

1993 between Operation Peace for Galilee and Operation Grapes of Wrath Israel carries out Operation Accountability, another invasion.

1996 Grapes of Wrath more murdering of civilians as Israel shells a UN relief post to massacre more than 100 civilian refugees in Qana seeking shelter from Israel bombing.

2000-2006 Israel continues to attack Lebanon, kidnap farmers, steal water and so on and so on...

2006 Israel launches full scale war against Lebanon for two soldiers and this was the begining of the conflict? how gullible is the world?

Israel continues to strike in Gaza non-stop killing 20 civilains a day.

Israel has kidnaped more than 20 Palestinian parlimentarians and even the Speaker of Parliment and blames Palestine for not controlling their territory.

Every international law has been broken by Israel, no UN resolution has been respected by Israel unless it targets Arabs. Even then the violate the parts addressing them.

Before a Jewish State was created in any form, there were Zionist gangs and a Zionist Army that committed countless massacres on Palestinians and demolished village after village and stealing their land. How is it possible to have a "defense force" without having a country. How is it possible to operate like an independent state within an existing state ignoring the laws of the government, carrying arms and attacking civilians and get rewarded with a country on top of an existing country? Israel is the originator of terrorism. It has been in terror practice since before it even had a flag starting in England with executions of parliament members and massacres on Arabs on Arab land and continuing today for more than 80 years.

As extensive as this list is it doesn't even document the countless humanitarian rights violations committed by Israel, the killing of civilians, the targeting of UN peace-keepers, the countless assasinations, the testing of new secret weapons on civilian targets in Lebanon and Palestine, the use of torture, the use of chemical weapons and cluster bombs, and of course the targeting of fleeing civilians seeking refuge.

Of course this is only the tip of a very evil iceberg.

Cease-fire? How can we trust such an evil entity?

Zionist Expansion

What's next for Lebanon? We know the facts, but what does all this agression mean in the long run? Continued occupation? Destroy Lebanon so they could walk in and take over like Palestine?
More agression means more resistance, no matter what any ambassador, spokesman or president says. The equation has always been simple: End all occupation and you will live in peace. But to continue this state terrorism and continuous occupation for decades it becomes very clear: that's not what Israel wants.

Survey of the Arab Blogger

This post is to unscientifically survey the Arab blogosphere.
In the comments section, please include your blog address and your blogging location.
And answer the following questions:
1. What made you start a blog?
2. What is your blog about?
3. How do you classify yourself? ethnic, geographic, political, outlook, etc.
4. What statement do you have on the blogging trend in regards to Arabs?
5. In regards to mass media?
6. What is your favorite site? Why? Site you recommend?
7. Other comments?

"O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!"

What is an accident?
65 civilians massacred in Qana
37 children.
Accident?
800 civilians killed.
Thousands injured.
Accident?
40 Lebanese soldiers killed in five separate strikes on barracks.
7 soldiers killed in their cars
No Lebanese soldier ever fired a shot.
Accident?
18 civilians killed as they were fleeing their village (as demanded by Israel)
near a U.N. post. Several attacks on cars full of fleeing civilians.
Accident?
15 U.N. members killed in separate incidents. U.N. posts shelled repeatedly
in spite of repeated pleas by U.N. to stop.
Accident?
Milk factories bombed.
10 civilian factories bombed.
Accident?
Several ambulances bombed. That means the patients were bombed twice.
Accident?
Red Cross center bombed.
Accident?
Three hospitals bombed.
Accident?
23 oil depots and gas stations bombed.
Accident?
Humanitarian aid vehicles bombed.
Accident?
Power stations bombed.
Accident?
Mosques and Churches bombed
Accident?
TV transmission towers bombed.
a reporter killed. a photographer killed.
Accident?

The preceding was just a brief list of the many violent acts of the Israeli war machine in a three week period in Lebanon. Acts which they labeled as accidents and silenced the international community.
These horrific, inhumane, terrorizing events were all explained away by Israel as accidents. Can they all be accidents? Is an army supplied with the world's most sophisticated, refined, high-tech, intelligent and precise weaponry capable of so many accidents? Statistically, these events could not occur in such a short period of time if not deliberate.
What the events show is that Israel and its suppliers are active in committing severe war crimes. How long will the world wait silent? If you are silent then you are a willing participant of this genocide.

This list is just the tip of a long list of barbaric acts committed by Israel and its enablers.
Other acts include:
800 civilians killed
4000 civilians injured
1,000,000 civilians displaced
3,000,000 civilians under threat
500 miles of roads bombed beyond use
100 bridges bombed beyond use
4 airports bombed
7 seaports bombed
10 civilian factories bombed
5 Lebanese army barracks bombed
3 civilian hospitals bombed
10,000 buildings destroyed
Ancient historical cites bombed
Power plants bombed
Power stations bombed
Sewage plants bombed
Water facilities bombed
Milk factory bombed
Fuel stations bombed
Transport trucks bombed
Humanitarian aid vehicles bombed
Ambulances bombed
Fleeing civilians bombed
Even an amusement park and a zoo bombed

Israel has also enacted chemical warfare using phosphorous to burn their victims to death and cluster bombs to kill every living person and thing around the target.

No one is safe, nothing is immune.

War crimes? Israel leads world history.

"I am dying, Egypt, dying."

Israeli evil rains down on my villages and my people in a continuous shower of tyranny, terror and inhumanity and you remain idle in your contrived anger shouting words that change as soon as your pockets get threatened, the world watches my children’s bodies dragged out of the rubble in pieces and turns away as easily as switching the channel, leaving me here to suffer, to die.

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude;"

after fears of death and the unknown. after anxious weeks of dialing phones that never answered. after bombings and news of closer bombings. My parents are here. In minutes after Cyprus and military planes and this and that I will see them.

I am happy but am reminded of those they left behind, friends, family and just people left to suffer with no foriegn passport forcing a country to care.

"Nothing can come of nothing: speak again."

LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES
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"Nothing can come of nothing: speak again."

Everyone must speak. Let your voices ring across the globe.

"Now go we in content, To liberty, and not to banishment."

Racha, my recently engaged sister-in-law, had been sitting quietly in her home with her brother and sisters and my widowed mother-in-law. She told me of her frustration and anxiety, sitting home in the dark, waiting to die. She is a nurse and needed to get out and help her people. Fearing for her life, her mother agreed only if she’d stay in a hospital or the Red Cross center. Today I saw her on TV in an MSNBC report. http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=2aff6882-ef72-4533-aae0-037400590ae2&f=00&fg=email She was working with the Red Cross with an ambulance while dodging missiles. She seemed alive doing what she was trained to do.

"All that glisters is not gold."

Updated from previous post. Now I have heard that the mosque may not have been the building leveled but the appartments attached. In one of those apartments is my cousin and her husband, a real humanitarian doctor who never let those in need pay for his services, Dr. Ghassan. Someone said they saw him on TV. He was ok, no official report on the casualties (I've heard that one person was killed). So what may seem like good news yeilds to more tragic news. And it goes on.

"Now is the winter of our discontent."

Every time I visit Lebanon I stay in Tyr. Tyr is a pretty crowded and historic sea-side town http://www.tyremunicipality.com/ . About a hundred yards from my parents apartment is the neighborhood mosque, a quaint little mosque built as part of a neighborhood complex complete with a school a couple of apartments and a couple of shops. This morning it was bombed. The mosque has been leveled. I don't know how many casualties there were. I'm still trying to find info on the net. My parents live a hundred yards away. I haven't heard from them as of this morning. One day I will make another visit to Lebanon, I'm afraid there may be nothing left for me to see, no mosques, no schools or playgrounds, no memories, no friends or family to visit only mourn.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

The town of Khiam was the location of a famous Israeli prison where thousands of Lebanese were tortured and held captive for years and even killed. In 1989 while in Lebanon visiting my grandparents, I heard of Hussien, a teacher and Khiam prisoner. Tortured once too many times, he tried to escape. Digging under the fence an Israeli bulldozer came in and buried him alive, no escape. This prison has been leveled seemingly to erase this part of history. Khiam was hit repetedly even the UN post where four UN peacekeepers were killed by Israeli strikes.

"By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes."

"O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!"

She comes to me bearing the smile that burdens her, promising nothing. We’re waiting for the end, she promises nothing. Nothing but pain. Nothing but suffering. “I support you” but nothing. I understand you can not make your friends angry, so my people are left to die.

"Et tu, Brute?"

I was told that this never happened



A journalist’s job is to research & question, report & question. It is a journalist’s duty to remain unbiased and focused on the who, what, when, where, how and why. I have studied journalism and worked as a reporter for several years. After battling editors and publishers in attempting to report those facts and losing, I concluded that journalism is dead. It has never been more apparent than now. The war on Lebanon continues with now end in sight. The media chooses to regurgitate Israeli military statements in spite of overwhelming facts proving the contrary. The media has betrayed the people more so than the policy makers. The Israeli military will lie and cover up. They will massacre and claim self-defense. That is what an occupying army does. But it is not the duty of the media to assist in their lies. Israel must be very happy to have the media do their work just as they have been conditioned to do. It boggles the mind how the media can question, hound and criticize the US administration infinitely more than the Israeli government. In their eyes, Israel can do no wrong. Accusations against the IDF and their witnessed use of illegal weapons were dismissed by the US media without research. A journalist who does not research a story is not only a puppet, but a coward and a traitor to his reader.

"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,"

As I called my parents to tell them to get out of Tibnene (where my grandparents lived) I saw the constant bombardment of our hometown Tyr on TV. When I finally reached my father on his cell phone, he had already left and just arrived in Tyr. They hitch-hiked and walked and rode any vehicle heading north. His brothers and sisters and family and my parents' passports were in Tyr. I begged them to leave, to keep going, to find a way to Beirut, to seek help from the embassy to evacuate with other U.S. citizens. The onslaught continued. The phone was cut off. The TV reported a car with four people trying to leave Tyr was hit by a targeted airstrike. I missdailed several times before my frantic fingures connected. They were ok, but could not leave. My aunt sat in her house defiant telling me she would never leave, "they will not force me out again." My parents could not leave. No word from the embassy, no roads to drive, no bridges to cross, no shelter to seek. My parents usually laugh about things and tell me not to worry "what you've heard is far from us" Today my father said "Everything you've heard is true, but where do we go? Should we beg a cab driver and pay him $800 only for him to leave us stranded by the blown out bridge? Or should we try to drive ourselves out and get attacked like the last family?" I had no answers, only prayers.

"And thus I clothe my naked villany..."

My uncle's sister-in-law tried to pull herself up and help her two young daughters after one bomb hit their building, as neighbors came to help a second "personalized" bomb killed them all.

"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

it is the bombs, and we are all damned.

As my vacationing cousin was contemplating an escape route for his family (there were no roads left and all the gas stations had been bombed), he stepped onto the balcony to ask his neighbor how he planned to leave. Before he could answer a bomb fell, silencing his neighbor and sending a shock wave that shattered the windows of his daughters' room and tossing him back. Unharmed and having no time to be shocked, he rushed his family into the car with little gas. It had only one trip left in it, he had to choose his route carefully. Speeding through banana fields his daughters complained of burning skin. Behind him he saw the white cloud cover the neighborhood. He pressed on realizing he just escaped the phosphorous bomb that could have burned their flesh to the bone. He had to get to Tyr in hopes of shelter. He called his other neighbor praying his escape was not far behind. He did, but not many others did as the neighborhood had been obliterated. The shelter was a dentist's office that was half underground and half exposed. The dentist was a relative, but he had his family and 24 others. He heard the stories of people driving away from the bombing only to be killed by airstrike. There was no other choice. Nowhere was safe. So he pushed on...