no words

Order a New World

2011-02-13T02:14:00.001-05:00

I am Egypt

Mother of all nations

I am free

Therefore you are free

My voice carries wisdom as the Nile carries life

No longer for the Pharaohs

I am free

A gift to all nations

I am Egypt

Shocking Ignorance

2010-08-27T00:27:00.002-04:00

25% of Americans polled believe that Pres. Obama is Muslim. Shocked? Well it makes you think "what else do American's believe or reject?" here is a sampling...

25% of Americans believe there is no such thing as evolution.

21% of Americans still believe in Witches.

20% of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth.

41% believe that Saddam is responsible for 9/11.

85% of American soldiers in Iraq believe they are there for revenge for 9/11

63% of Americans can't find Iraq on a map.

90% can't find Afghanistan.

That may be foreign to them, but what about what they have been taught,

only 40% can identify the three branches of US government.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I know there's more but just reading this made my head hurt.

Where does this road lead?

2009-12-31T02:37:00.002-05:00

Unemployed for the first time

2009-12-09T03:06:00.003-05:00

Well, I am now unemployed. Lost my tv producer job of ten years due to cutbacks.

Been on the computer all day looking for jobs.

For a while I was helping friends find jobs, now I'm not sure I can find one for myself.

So pass on any and all leads you can.

Do you speak Interan?

2009-11-18T17:41:00.007-05:00

I saw a electronic road sign with an emoticon. At first I though it was strange, but upon thinking about why it seemed even more strange. Was this the evolution of human communication? Or just some kid having fun? Once you notice what is going on with communication these days, you'd probably agree that there is an evolution, and its not just of one language.

More and more people are communicating electronically by text, tweets, blogs, social networking, email bursts and so on. And with more people communicating with others around the world, there is undoubtable a new language being used. Emoticons, symbols, acrynoms, abreviations, code words and other articles are replacing older more established languages. This electronic form of communication is a pidgin ( a simplified form of communication that develops between two people or groups of people with no common language). But there is common language, its just that this form is chosen. That means it develops into a creole (a language developing from a combination of two other languages).

With time and regular use, this will soon be its own recognizable language. There will be no announcement or decleration. But it will soon be a universal language. One that uses symbols, as with hieroglyphics or even symbols as words like Chinese. It could incorporate new words that are abreviations or acronyms of other words. The face-to-face communication can also be altered into short sounds, gestures, grunts, hand signals.

This isn't to say we have the beginnings of Newspeak (Orwell's 1984). Sure the vocabulary may get smaller, but this isn't as scary. It isn't about control. And unlike Newspeak, emotion is limited, this is about expression. At least it's roots are. How it develops, who knows?

If this sounds odd or exagerated, just think have you ever heard someone say lol instead of saying "that's funny" or actually laughing? Just look at your company emails more closely, its even being used there and on road signs and by politicians.

A language evolves from the streets to the establishment. A government doesn't announce it's language (without being oppressive) it adobts the language spoken by the people. The great thing is that is it is not rooted in any country, or race. It can develop as a true universal language. (and no, binary code is not a universal language, you matrix geeks). (also it is not constructed like Esata or forced, or commercial like Net Lingua) There are signs the this is happening today around the world with this new form, founded in the electronic world of communication.

Good luck.

(yeah, I know the title is lame)

2009-10-10T00:05:00.001-04:00

I went off to find myself...not sure I found anything special...now where do I lose myself?

Pour dina elixtro wadfhatru, sus?

2009-08-28T13:33:00.003-04:00

lost

2009-05-13T23:13:00.003-04:00

I've passed that point in life when all the dreams have left me missing by inaction.

Is it over yet?

2009-02-10T21:47:00.002-05:00

I haven't heard anything in a while.

Are the Palestinians all dead yet?

Is the genocide complete?

No? You are not done yet?

Well, tell me how can I help you more than I have already?

My tax dollars were not enough?

My turning away was not enough?

My silence was not enough?

well, I can sit in my comfy chair and type a blog entry, surely that will help you.

That way I and many others like me can beat back the guilt and pretend we effect change and return to silence allowing you to complete your task.

Catching up

2008-12-15T23:42:00.003-05:00

Dear accidental reader;

It has been a while since my last post.

Sorry, but I've been pessimistacally engaged.

There are a couple of things worth mentioning.

First, there is that election. I become more suspicious by the day, that this "victory" is a mere illusion, just a bit fancier and more colorful than the last.

Then there is the business of disgust. I just saw a BurgerKing commercial, "Whopper Virgin" I believe its called. Title aside, there is just something disgustingly wrong about using an Inuit to sell your burger, and something wrong in the notion that she would want a burger, and something evil in spreading your diseased fastfood to the world. Commercialism, capitalism, consumerism have no end, no ethics, no decency, no resposibility. This lastest example just reminds me.

And now for something completely different...The whole shoe throwing incident was as funny as it was pathetic. Have you ever seen a president dodge shoes? A fitting end to a miserable eight years. What makes this pathetic is that we had to endure 8 years and war and hunger and environnmental disaster and so on without challenges. How can we laugh now, when we allowed this for 8years?

And now...the larch. Sorry, I meant ladder. I had a fall off a ladder and would have been bed-ridden if it weren't for the fact that I need to continue to work. Sure, I'm fortunate to have a job, or two when others are in need, out of work, or hungry. I am fortunate; however, If we had universal healthcare I would not fear losing this job, any job would do. If we had governments that truely served their people, then I would not need to feel guilty for having a job when others don't. What's a government good for, if it won't serve its people? Commercialism, capitolism, consumerism, I suppose are to blame. Then doesn't something more social and civil sound better? Will another system help?Am I assuming too much? After all we are human, and it seems to be our nature to take more than our share, take more than we share.

Convulsions of a Politico Masochist

2008-10-28T23:37:00.001-04:00

These are trying times.

Times in which an end or a beginning is one opinion swayed.

Or is that one perspective?

Or one piece of propaganda?

Will history repeat itself and a people robbed of hope?

Or will history be made?

For me, I see no source of hope. There is only a bleak end.

What will change? What can change? What will be allowed?

The stage had been set and the rules have been passed.

For every election. I am relegated to the pondering of a vote for a lesser evil.

What will change?

Perhaps a perception of change is all that is needed.

Perhaps the belief is all that is needed to cause change.

Perhaps this awakens democracy and truly a beginning of progress sets in.

Perhaps we are fooled again.

Every amateur political fan predicting a landslide victory for Obama punctuates his statements with “unless…”

There is always doubt, there is always fear, there is always an eerie whisper of unshameful mendacity.

Will there be change?

Will change be allowed?

What will that change be?

True change comes quickly.

Change is a sudden and radical alteration of present reality.

All else is evolution or stagnation, mindless of its color or promise.

After months of contemplating and complaining, I ask myself, will I vote?

The better question is “if I vote will it count, even if I vote for the winner?”

The conclusion is no, on both counts.

There is a play performed. Democracy, socialism, totalitarianism, and so on, till end, are plays performed. Anyone, a politico, is aware of the play. The roles change to suit the times, the philosophies change to hold the masses, but the play goes on.

And to this end, convulsions temper a mind unable to rest, unable to change.

Elections 08

2008-09-13T06:17:00.002-04:00

take me to Ramadan

2008-09-05T18:48:00.002-04:00

this will do just until i energize, just until i find Ramadan and live at least one month of peace.

Mahmoud Darwich 1941-2008

2008-08-11T22:46:00.004-04:00

And coffee swirls to mud

The smoke circles up mourning clouds
And I’m left gasping at somber news
The death comes an unbound burn
And he’s gone to join his immortal olive trees
The roots cut and dust replaces our precious fruit

Back from Lebanon

2008-07-29T21:17:00.002-04:00

I've been back for a week, but it's taken me this long to return to functionality from a long and frustratingly surreal trip. Lebanon kicks your ass even before you get off the plane from a rediculous 17hour torture flight. Then it gets worse. But for those who long for that breath of sweet polluted air of home and that taste of bitter sand, it could seem like heaven.
For all its grime, Lebanon posseses an unrivaled beauty that captivates us and drags us into an intoxicating abyss of nostalgia.
Lebanon is a disciplinarian that laughs at your pain then gives you ice cream in an ancient village, (damn good ice cream too).
One thought that sticks with me is the description of Lebanon that is too vulgar for print, but it survives in a rythymic khaos that mezmerizes.
I'll miss it and long to return, so much so that I'd probably lose fortunes and decades seeking the return.

On my way to Beirut

2008-06-25T00:43:00.002-04:00

This is Detroit Airport McNamara terminal from gate 60 weighting for flight to Amman with 269 other passangers
This is from inside the Royal Jordanian flight from my seat. At this point only half the people boarded and a woman insisted that I was in her seat. We and one more person had the same assigned seat. Only on RJ. BTW these seats still had ashtrays even though it's been years since you could smoke on the plane.

Take off. I had to look outside. I convinced myslef that the loose parts and paint chips were normal. At least there were no gremlins.
Sunset from 39,000 feet.
Waiting for my connecting flight to Beirut at the Queen Alia International Airport with my $9 coffe and cheese. At least I found Wi-Fi.

Next stop Beirut then South Lebanon.

Experimental design (arabesque doily??)

2008-06-19T17:05:00.004-04:00

Ok, this isn't IBJ quality, but that's why it's called practise.

For the good stuff check this out... http://ibnbintjbeil.blogspot.com/2007/03/finalization-of-arabic-design.html

lunatic experimentation

2008-06-19T16:27:00.003-04:00

as I took flight, the rivets creaked out of their placement letting parts escape without responsibility.
The hurling down to earth wings gave up on us and let us to our prayers.
I knew I'd always die in a plane over the Atlantic, but it was to be eight years ago. Today was supposed to be a good day

(still messing with a new camera, not the shot I was looking for, but I like it.)

Transient Travel?

2008-06-06T16:57:00.003-04:00

I'm not one to be impulsive, but I woke up one day and decided to go back to Lebanon, sure it's just a visit, but in my situation it's a big decision. So in late June, I'll be home, and for the first time it will be with my family.

I am anxious to introduce my two American born, English speaking sons to Lebanon. It is bound to be a memorable experience. I hope they find it as enlightening as I had my first trip.

Now, does anyone know where to take a couple of kids in Lebanon? What's safe and what's exciting and what's uniquely Lebanon?

What is not pictured

2008-05-16T14:51:00.003-04:00

Spring, in my part of the world, comes in riding a storm. This is what it leaves behind. My shutter was too slow to capture the dragonfly's taking of flight. What is not pictured is the futility of the transformation of this earth's inhabitants come spring. New storms are on the horizon and their flesh-splitting winter dry is only days away. The euphoria and sense of life are only attached by micron threads to a whilting pod. But I can not take flight. I must endure a lie and watch helplessly as one seed of hope detaches, one after the next. And then again barren, left to contemplate the change without change is an earth ready to die.

Transient is out

2008-05-12T19:07:00.001-04:00

Seeking some unvoluntary psychiatric help

Who's buying this crap?

2008-04-25T13:27:00.004-04:00

Or better yet, who's selling it? Those would be the names you should fear.

Reality Bytes

2008-04-10T02:28:00.003-04:00

So, U.S. Presedential Candidate John McCain would not rule out a pre-emptive war against another country, wanna guess what country he'd go after?

Gas in Michigan is $3.49/gal while U.S. oil companies made a $168Billion profit. How long before a revolt?

The FAA, charged with regulating airlines, keep quite thousands of airline violations and allowed unsafe airplanes to fly. Still afraid of a terror strike?

The U.S. administration and the generals in charge of the war on Iraq, can not point out what the qualifiers are to withdraw from Iraq. We may be there for a 100 years as McCain implied.

Food safety is at an all time low, yet everything from poisoned fish to expired milk is approved for sale by the people hired to protect us.

Some packaged foods include human byproducts, animal waste, incests, poisons, and fat that can keep you from decomposing long after you've died.

Everyone is talking about all the lead in toys from China, yet thousands of beauty products like lipstick made by U.S. companies have high levels of lead, and they are still on the store shelves.

And this is just what i can remember at 3:00am, what about everything I've missed?

A word of advice...don't eat any packaged food, don't eat fast food, don't fly, don't drink milk, don't buy into any politician's bull, don't vote Republican, don't sit quite, don't...

I am transient IV

2008-03-30T02:34:00.004-04:00

A trek unwillingly begun after a slight and minor tear of a colored wrap
warps me endlessly to an imbalanced stance and a failed state of daze. frustration from a source unknown hovers about as a merciless bird of prey praying for my soon to be end to quickly arrive. I stagger by staggered breaths pulled forcefully only to survive an elongated tortuous tale in a world unrecognizable by any bit of sanity and brush aside any remnants of a colored wrap until they send me the vivid reminders in eloquent storied photographs.

(photo borrowed from source unknown)

Defiling reality

2008-03-22T00:54:00.002-04:00

1. A local columnist wrote a peice that states that the Palestinians are getting too much love from the media.
2. Another professor has been dismissed for protesting for Palestinian human rights.
3. Jewish settlers want to sue the Palestinian Authority for suicide bombings.
4. The US is linking two traditional rivals, Iran and Al-Qiada.
5. Lebanon is still embracing its slave masters.
6. And on the second day of spring, it is snowing heavily.

Links to come...or not. Who cares really.

the richness of soil

2008-03-03T00:30:00.002-05:00

my soil nurtures the implanted
whether fruitful saplings
or cancerous vines
that grow primarily in green luster then continue to wrap and sufficate the earth
until no other life is permitted sun.
my soil is rich.

-Lebanon

failing roots

2008-02-23T02:36:00.002-05:00

So farewell—to the little good you bear me.
Farewell? a long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls as I do.

Henry The Eighth Act 3, scene 2, 350–358

Siraj's featured artist

2008-02-17T00:34:00.002-05:00

These are images of the featured artist exhibit at Siraj. The artist is Mohamad Bazzi.

Did I mention my restaurant?

2008-02-11T01:14:00.000-05:00

One of the reasons I've been busy lately. This is the restaurant me and my brother an old friend just opened. It is based on the Fawal of back home. Traditional Arabic breakfast of Foul, Msabaha, Feteh and so on. It's located at 14246 W. Warren in Dearborn in a plaza between Shatila and Yasmeen. Let me know when you're stopping by.
I'm not there all the time, gotta keep that corporate day job...for now.
I'll have better pics later (with people).

Ignored

2008-01-30T22:52:00.000-05:00

A year as this seemingly was never meant to come.
A passive meld of wait and worry, a snub of a job,
unreturned e-mails lead to calls unreturned.
sites deleted lacking of responce.
unanswered prayers, appointments not met,
even my dreams don't include me - as if I'm walking through like a ghost.
I feel an apperition walked through.
I'd be nothing more than a memory, if someone would remember.
A year as this? perhaps I'm already dead.

work in progress

2008-01-28T23:21:00.001-05:00

Although withered the root shall takeover the marbled glass

2008-01-18T03:01:00.000-05:00

Demonizing Muslims, Bush, Obama and the American Way.

2008-01-15T01:23:00.000-05:00

I tried to stay away from politics and other stressful topics, but it never lasts long...

OBAMA
I recently received a very disturbing e-mail at work. It is one that has been forwarded several times to countless people, stating not only lies, but the politics and racism of the person sending it. The e-mail stated some urban myths about U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “Muslim” background. Obama never claimed to be Muslim and is a practicing Christian.

The e-mailer asks “who is Barack Obama?” and “Let us all remain alert concerning Obama's expected presidential candidacy. The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the US from the inside out, what better way to start than at the highest level - through the President of the United States, one of their own!!!!” The signs off with “Please forward to everyone you know. Would you want this man leading our country?...... NOT ME!!!
Obviously, none of the “facts” stated by the e-mailer were checked, none of her statements were true, any bit of reality or research would prove that. More research would expose this e-mailer as a racist who just copied an e-mail that has been circulating the internet ever since Obama began his campaign.
I’m not alarmed by the misleading or blatantly false information, it is this person’s and many other’s ability to propagate this information without repercussions and with the intent of demeaning others, that is what I find so alarming.

What I find even more alarming is the implication that any Muslim is a threat to American and is by default a terrorist.

I’m not an Obama supporter, and this is not an attack on him, it is an attack on Muslims.

DEMONIZING MUSLIMS
Although alarming, this should not have surprised me, other candidates for President of the United States of America are just as racist. If my fears were not elevated during the current administration, they certainly will be if one of these guys wins.

Rudy Giuliani is running his campaign based on 9/11. He is running the “Ready” campaign using images of Muslims screaming in a commercial with the voice-over calling them “A people perverted”

Mike Huckabee uses the expression “Islamofascism” wherever he can and states on his website “Radical Islamic Facists have declared war on our country and our way of life”

John McCain when asked about religion and the presidency he stated that only Christians should be president.

Mitt Romney said that he will never appoint a Muslim as a cabinet minister.

Fred Thompson when the “clash” between Iranian boats and US naval ships apparently occurred said “I think one more step and” the Iranians “would have been introduced to those virgins that they look forward to seeing”

BUSH
Speaking of that clash…the administration is out to find a reason to attack Iran.
Reports of the incident conflict, the voice threatening the US ships did not come from Iranian boats and the boat that approached the US ships was unarmed.

Bush met with Olmert this past week telling him that even though US intelligence states that Iran does not have a hostile nuclear program, he doubts it and his beliefs lead him to think otherwise. Bush is going against his country’s intelligence and making dangerous statements to a foreign leader. What beliefs is Bush acting on?
It sounds too much like the build up to Iraq. The betting odds are 18-to-1 that Bush starts a war with Iran before leaving office.

THE AMERICAN WAY
So, why is it so easy to label all Muslims as terrorists, attack other countries based on a hunch, and say anything without repercussion? I do have my theories, but each one is scarier than the other.

And then it happened…

2008-01-11T02:59:00.000-05:00

As I finally began a relent to sleep by four hundred and forty four winks, it happened; the breaking of barriers and the release of restrictive constrictive weight, an allowance to float, wading the expanse. Lightness as the liquid, fluid coast of mind and thought, freed. Drifting, almost drowning, I succumb and gulp the waters, more drowning. Lightness turns to sink, a struggle to gain comfort in overwhelming unbound wisdom. Four hundred and forty four winks stop in shortness of comfort and rest as eyes flash open one final time. The clock is dead, caught at four forty four. I ask you, “what does it mean?”

Of all elaborate plans

2007-12-31T00:54:00.000-05:00

One more day and it will be another milestone birthday. This seems to be the worst. It is not that the destination is a source for all that is depressing, yet it is the uneventful, unremarkable, torturously bland journey by which I have arrived at this milestone that rankles me so.

As my friend IBJ insists, it is but another number, one that can be played or repainted on or molded into another shape to view as wondrous or insignificant as we please. He actually used more readily repeatable words of “Broa, shut-up. It’s just a number.” However the gist is just as memorable, I can’t focus on the number, but a milestone is reached non-the-less and for my memory being waned or failing I am unable to claim many goals attained by this passing day.

{Each New Year is another year gone for me, some say it is one of those false birthdates listed by immigrants, but whether it be January 1st or July 4th, an other year passes despite, in spite}

It is not so much the day, more the past days. What have I found along this journey, what will be found in my continued quest, and what is my final destination? My journey began more remarkable than it ends, with the obligatory marks set at college degree, employment, marriage, children and the like. Sure there was the brief stint on an illuminated trail, but no revelation, no discovery, no history and worst, no dreams realized. On the eve of a new year, my friend comments that you either are who you want to be or were never meant to be that person. Troubling words. As cryptic as they may be, they will haunt me. What am I? Who was I to be? Is this all? What determines who you are?

Is it even a question of quality of journey verses a value of destination, where is the emphasis? And if the destination is lacking in luster, will the journey fade in brilliance? Conversely, is a miserable trek rewarded? Surely in an after life, but will it in this?

By being who I am now at this stage in my life, it seems that this is exactly who I was meant to be. Or have I missed some turn? Optimistically, the journey has not ended, yet. There may be another turn up ahead. Pessimistically, I will fail to recognize it once more, or be reluctant to take it leading to a far more eventful journey. Then I may be who I was meant to be.

That story can still be filmed,
That book can still be written,
This life can still be extinguished before that turn appears.
Well, another number awaits my arrival, happy birthday to me.

another holiday passing

2007-12-20T03:25:00.000-05:00

sorry I can only create strange, unappealing greeting cards, but the main point is may you and you families be granted joy.

37 factors of a rut

2007-12-10T09:36:00.000-05:00

1. Got downsized.
2. Got new job that i don't like. same department. very strange how corporations work these days.
3. Lebanon is bracing for another Izraeli invasion. The economy is at a standstill again, former war-lords are still playing games with our lives.
4. The world is still against Palestine, in policy and rhetoric. no human rights for those who need them most.
5. There are so many wars and injustices that i tend to forget a few of them, and it seems others do the same so that those injustices remain.
5. Bush is trying to launch another unjust war, even though the case for is falling apart. They're not even working on their lies anymore, soon they'd say "we're taking over the world, deal with it."
6. Karl Rove has been trying to push blame for the Iraq war on the dumb democrats. This is the craziest use of warped logic ever.
7. Emotionally, socially, politically, environmentally, economically, culturally, humanistically, these are the worst days i've ever witnessed. More so since the knowledge and ability exists for a utopia.
8. The only person i knew who practiced love and justice passed away last year.
9. I don't ever see myself going back home.
10. I no longer see myself as a filmaker.
12. There is so much to think about that I end up crippled doing nothing.
13. I had a vision of my own demise and it isn't pretty, but is it changeable?
14. I have a problem, I know when people lie. But even when they know I've caught them, they lie more. Is that some sort of reconstructed human condition? For me to survive, I have to ignore the lies. That is painful, especially when some of those people are close.
15. there are 37 but I only have the energy to write 14. and missed # 11.

congratulations, welcome to the team

2007-12-09T00:41:00.000-05:00

Well, these past couple of months I've been out of touch with a lot of people and of course the blog.
My department at work has been going through re-structuring. We knew we would lose our jobs and have to apply for new ones in the new department.

I survived.
I pretty much have the same job with a bit of change in focus at a different location.

The last thing I wanted when I chose a career as a video producer was to work for a large corporation with goals different from my creative goals, but that is where I find myself years later. I like my work yet working in a corporate environment is torture.

As the old saying goes "at least you have a job" That should not be an end all ambition. The economy in Michigan these days has lead people to believe that any employment is good. Of course, I'm thankful, but am no longer content, no longer loyal, no longer will I put in that extra effort. I will coast as everyone around me has been for years. And save my creativity for where its appreciated. The hell with it all.

There are no advancement opportunities. Life in Michigan is a dead end (without the dead part). "At least I'm alive"

Well now that the agony of waiting months just to see if I would survive this change is finally over, back to life I go.

maybe even more blogging.

2007-11-07T00:10:00.000-05:00

I often wonder about the loss of hope while struggling to find any remnant of the promised, any sliver of light escaping from a shattered beacon.

As time stumbles by along a cold and desolate swampy existence my guide to aspire deliberately and purposefully commits to a self-induced suffocation of will.

Now where do I turn? A friend turns and a partner gives way; an occupation becomes a struggle to survive and a peaceful room comes to torture my thoughts.

What once was innocent and removed from this world’s devilish state stages daily coups to torment and giggle along the others humiliating betrayals.

It ends in a foreign place and a foreign state. I’ll leave nothing, not a journal nor a legacy. One more stumble of a crippled limb. One more strike by a smiling man.

2007-10-22T17:59:00.000-04:00

As I looked for the moon, I noticed my son looking through my binoculars through the camera, this is what I assume he saw, so I took a shot of it as he may have seen it. This rendition appears like a celestial body, so I suppose he found the moon.

2007-10-17T00:45:00.000-04:00

mourn the innocent peculiarity

2007-10-07T04:06:00.000-04:00

He imprecisely ventured past the wrought iron gates of his parent’s home in a futile quest of a more comforting haven, one that offered rest for his tumultuous mind. He laid all his weary parts and worry thoughts upon a steel track not far from the childhood euphoria that had been lost now hiding in the brush, mocking his every plea. The track only offers cold awkward musings to tease as the rumbling sound nears. He sleeps believing a setting sun, and a serene judgeless thicket as the rumbling sound nears.

Conversations

2007-09-23T01:25:00.000-04:00

The only careless social delve I commit is a direct effect of the lure of captivating conversation.
These images are an attempted conversation with my life’s inspiration.

The timid, circling approach of an unknown destination:

The lack of quantitative response and failed repartee:

The rejective mock injuring mercilessly:

inspiration has seized to lay claim

I'd pray for peace but my Mosque is about to be demolished.

2007-09-21T02:44:00.001-04:00

Another racist and Islamphobic U.S. Representative or Congressman has made comments that just plain scare me.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who is the ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee said, "Unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country. There are too many people who are sympathetic to radical Islam. We should be looking at them more carefully. We should be finding out how we can infiltrate. […] King added, "I think there's been a lack of full cooperation from too many people in the Muslim community. And it's a real threat here in this country."

Great, that’s how you get cooperation, by bashing the people you need help from. I’d be scared to talk to such a person. And what type of cooperation does he want? Why is it ok for him to assume there is something wrong at my mosque? Does he want me to stand at the door of my mosque and point a finger at my innocent brothers as he tears down the place I worship? Would the world’s problems go away if there weren’t any mosques? Or would they go away if there weren’t any hate-mongers like Rep. King? These guys only want us to be informant citizens without voicing any concerns or opposing views. If we speak up we will go to jail, get tazered, have our assets frozen, or even get killed by some of his gung-ho, beer-drinking, flag-wearing, ignorant constituents. While we’re at it, who do I talk to about the hate crimes against my mosque and it’s congregation?

BTW, does anyone remember who other than Presidential Candidate Tom Tancerdo wants to bomb Mecca? (I’m planning on going to Haj this year, I’d like to know what’s coming)

To watch the King interview see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMydUdKtA_Q&;

From an ADC alert:
Rep. King has a history of racism and bigotry toward Arab and Muslim Americans. In the past, he has said, Muslims are "an enemy living amongst us." He has also called for ethnic and racial profiling of Arabs and Muslims. It should be noted that Rep. King also serves as a top advisor to presidential hopeful Rudy Guiliani alongside leading Islamophobe Daniel Pipes. Pipes also serves on the board of coalition which tried to derail the opening of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, New York. For more information see: http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3157

Slumbering a Silent September

2007-09-19T01:21:00.000-04:00

Some thought on this month:

Tragedy struck on the first, but I kept quite and unaffected. I've been through so much, that shock holds no value any longer.

On the 11th, I was reminded of what constitutes this country. On the anniversary of one of the biggest tragedies this country has experienced, the average joe was as ignorant as ever. People at work, oddly enough, knew we were still at war but couldn't remember why, even on Sept 11th.

Sept 11th is a bizarre day for me, not only for the tragedy and the events that followed but for the day it could never be. Sept 11th is my oldest son's birthday. Although we celebrate it at home, he can never feel comfortable celebrating with his friends, since in 2001, as he was excitedly announcing his birthday at school and ready to pass cupcakes to his class, the teacher announced to the class that they will be picked up by their parents early because "some bad people killed all those people in the two buildings with an airplane". A five-year-old at the time, he came home confused and shocked and that was the first he ever heard of death. and death is ever linked to his birthday. And he, unlike some of my coworkers, will never forget. I wanted to talk to him about death when he was older, I didn't want an angry teacher to tell him. This was almost as bad as when she brought in baby Jesus to class to teach the Muslim kids about Christ.

Side note: I found it difficult to teach me child about some realities when they were non-existant in school. I told him about Palestine, but it took a while for him to believe me since the teachers told him there was no such country, he couldn't find it on the maps or globe. I bought my own globe and drew it in, and he and I created our own flag and pasted it on a poster of world flags.

On with September; Then Ramadan began and I started noticing all the calendars with all the Jewish, Christian, African and even Canadian holidays, but no Muslim holidays. Even worse, after seven years in the same office, I'm still explaining the concept of Ramadan and our dietary restrictions, I'm tired of being polite.

This has been the most bizarre Ramadan yet. It seems idle, calm, sleepy. I am staggering through it like it was a hallucination. I keep waiting for some monstrous calamity. perhaps this is my last one.

It used to be Ramadan was my most productive month, when I would stay awake 22 out of 24 hours with the day spent working since there is no food, coffee or cigarette breaks and the night was a glorious time of spirituality and creativity.
Now only a groggy stumble through one unproductive day after another. Something is missing and I can't figure out what.

2007-09-14T13:21:00.000-04:00

my lazy Ramadan greeting card

An article on Others

2007-09-05T23:16:00.000-04:00

Here is an article on our Other Art Collective and the scene in Detroit.

read it here:
As-safir

Find out more here:
www.otherart.org

Let me know what you think...
(really, let me know, I don't read Arabic)

Pain procured for Palestinian progeny

2007-08-31T10:39:00.000-04:00

When is it o.k., even cheered to kill a child? When that child is Palestinian and the world continues to reward Israel for their ethnic-cleansing.

Three Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip were killed when an Israeli tank opened fire on the Jabaliya refugee camp which is located in the north of Gaza. According to media reports, two children, 10 and 12 years-old, were killed immediately. Their cousin, a 12 year-old girl, was pronounced dead after efforts to save her life failed. This brings the number of Palestinian children killed during this week, as a result of Israeli military operations, to nine.

And it is all o.k. Silence makes it so....

This is nothing new…

A Jewish settler who clubbed a Palestinian child to death with a rifle butt was sentenced to six months' community service.

Soldiers from the Israeli Defence Force fired live ammunition repeatedly on a 12 year-old Palestinian boy. The IDF stated that it is not their policy to harm women and children.

As a 13 year-old Palestinian schoolgirl was walking home, A soldier cautioned his commander shouting, "Don't shoot. It's a little girl". The company commander, as the soldiers testifies, "approached her, shot two bullets into her [head], walked back towards the force, turned back to her, switched his weapon to automatic and emptied his entire magazine into her." An army investigation later cleared him of any "unethical conduct"

Three Palestinian school children were "accidentally" shot while in their classroom by Israeli soldiers. The troop commander said they were on routine patrol when they thought they saw a gun through a school window. They fired without warning killing the three children.

Three other Palestinian children were shot and killed by Israel. The children were targeted and killed as collective punishment for a local militia’s activity.

and it goes on, and on...

You killed a Palestinian child today.

2007-08-31T06:45:00.000-04:00

They shuffle their feet in inches over hours as the metal barriers coral their frail bodies toward death. Destined for an agonizing demise, they can only hope that today is not their last day on this small swatch of stripped and stolen land. These were the people the world turned away from. These were children branded insignificant. These are the children being picked off by Israeli bullets while walking to school, while sleeping, while playing, while waiting for hours to cross a prison-like check point to go from home to school, these are children being picked off by Israeli bullets.

And it is all o.k.

silence makes it so.

finally found peace

2007-08-19T22:44:00.000-04:00

it was hidden past the megastructures and the highways and the malls

it was a long trial to blaze

but it's there

August 13th is left handed day?

2007-08-13T10:56:00.000-04:00

Today, I've just learned, is the 11th annual Left-Hander's Day. Sound's pretty bizzare to me. Why would there be such a day? To torture left-handers more than they have been? Is this like those scissors they made for lefties?

left handed myths

2007-08-10T16:06:00.000-04:00

.luftnevenuefilsihtmaedshtolcgninruomnismrotsgninrawretfaecnelisdetcepxenu niemocllahshtaedyM

The backstory

2007-08-01T01:47:00.000-04:00

I am Transient: part one…

As a journalist,
reporting on events and uncovering the truth as well as representing the voiceless were important ventures in my life.
I never new of the challenges I’d face in simply doing my job. Politics played a role in everything. Money controlled
everything. Gaining power meant more than human rights. Alliances meant more than human dignity. And I knew
journalism was dead. I gave it up, telling my publisher to “take this job and shove it.” From the pundits and the news for
hire to the corporate influence to the hidden foreign agendas one would be hard pressed to locate journalistic integrity.
All the rules were broken.

But just when I thought the situation was as dire as it could be
an event occurred that would highjack journalism and reshape it into something sophisticatedly evil. The 1992 Gulf war
ushered in a new era. Instant feedback of pics, stories and video meant everything had to be censored before the event.

The rise of technology is meant to serve us, yet it has derailed our thoughts and sedated our logic.

And then it got worse.
The events of 9/11 and the subsequent fear pedaling altered reality further.

In the post 9/11 era
it is important to represent yourself and your own voice since as I believe 9/11 was the final nail in journalism’s coffin. Our
voice has been mutilated and everything from our culture to our history to our image and the very words that come from
our mouths had been altered.

Not sure when
but in terms of my blogging experience and those around me, the 2006 war on Lebanon launched many bloggers and
many more readers. It was a treasure of information, counter opinion and visual evidence. The Arab Blogoshpeare did
wonders to lift spirits that had given up hope of truth’s survival.

My first blog
After the loss of my younger brother I gave up writing. After his burial, as I returned to the US, the war started. The
frustration with traditional media, the need to vent and the need for an outlet of emotion led me to my first blog. At first, I
blogged about the war by recounting my relatives’ experiences, then followed with stats about the war, artwork and
various political statements. I settled in after the war with everything from politics to poetry. I began to notice other
bloggers doing the same; it was at that point that I realized the real worth of an Arab on-line presence.

The Arab voice could be heard
in a crisp, concise manner. The beauty of it all is that I learned more about Arab dynamic and the complexity and diversity of what is an Arab than any TV show or book I’ve read or from the limited experiences of a hyphenated soul stuck in transit. I was sure many non-arabs were getting the same lessons. The interactions of people online seemed honest and stripped of the political correctness that conceals the stabbing knife.

Now the rise of technology serves us as it was meant to do.
The advent of cheaper technology and it’s ubiquity assured that you can’t censor or silent everyone. Since anyone could
send video to millions of people to witness events for them selves to combat reports to the contrary, everyone with a
camcorder or a digital camera or a blog or even just an email address could act as a reporter.

Sites I frequent vary from the hard-core political to artists to peacenik philosophers to Arab sites that can not be categorized. They all have their time and value in making the Arab Blogosphere instrumental in regaining our stolen voice. Perhaps there is hope after all.

"No End In Sight"

2007-07-20T15:24:00.000-04:00

An insiders film about the war on Iraq and the military planning, preparation and preparedness, in theatres July 27th.

http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/

Not that anything will change, but...

2007-07-19T14:55:00.001-04:00

check out this report from the ADC on Israel's war crimes from last year's war on Lebanon. http://www.adc.org/PDF/Lebrep.pdf

It's been a year, people are already expecting the sequel.

five ramblings of a textured stone

2007-07-13T02:31:00.000-04:00

As the wind swiftly crashed the tent around me leaving my flesh exposed to piercing droplets of acidic rain, I woke stumbling a lethargic grog trying to catch up to the half-spent night. I always lament the incomplete dream halted by necessitated waking hours not longing for longer sleep, but an urge to see a vision through that hints a path of my future battles is turned away.

I walk. As though not accustomed to limbs carrying this burdening weight, I stagger my pace into tree limbs for stability. Losing control is not as devastating as I had once feared.

The fear comes in exciting doses of shifting concerns rushing in increasing intervals till time mashes all to one overwhelming isolation. The laboring rain is gone. Even the trees are gone.

I’m left to roam a parched earth weary of my steps. I can not float. Perhaps the vision is meant to abandon. As a child I witnessed my impending doom. This was a vision I could grasp. As an adult the vision alarms into an aim broader with me surviving for moments longer to serve. I remain idle.

As the wind reshapes my forgotten face into guiltless smirks that keep suspicious strangers from attacking, I seek coyly a silent cave trying to pray a solution, waiting for sleep to recapture a wondering mind urging a vision complete.

Sans Islam?

2007-07-10T00:13:00.000-04:00

So Yusuf Islam continues on his comeback to pop culture with a new album "An Other Cup" (first in 28yrs, released last year) and by performing during Live Earth Concert at Hamburg. Leading up to the concert Fox News ran a special attacking Islam, portraying the man as a terrorist, a US hater and claimed that he is on a "watch" list and "no fly" list. He is not on any list. Why is the man with numerous peace awards being attacked so much? and are these attacks influential enough to have his stage name shortened to just Yusuf? He has been misquoted and bullied into making comments he does not support. Regardless of what the West makes him out to be, his music is classic. Just listen to Peace Train. PBS aired a documentary that clears the air and calls any allegations against him comical. Good program, but I can't find it anywhere. (if you know of it let me know).

Well, I'm certain there is a lot that could be made about him, his music, his life and statements, I don't think hes' a "great" man but a good man and deserving of some peace like the rest of us, but forget all that and listen to his music, it's less stressful.

4th of July in Dearborn...do you still miss it?

2007-07-05T01:33:00.000-04:00

sure this looks like a professional display of some 4th of July fireworks in a large park somewhere

but this is in my neighborhood! The entire neighborhood was lit up by kids firing their extensive stash. The streets filled with empty shells and the air was smokey for hours. I can still hear them going off at 1:38 in the morning. I also saw the Dearborn police patrolling with no action taken, perhaps they were happy with the display of patriotism.

2007-06-30T01:20:00.000-04:00

Get off of my Cloud!

2007-06-23T17:03:00.000-04:00

“If left to their own means, the Lebanese would destroy Lebanon,” said Hilal Khashan, professor of political sciences at the American University of Beirut. But “There is an international decision that Lebanon be maintained.”

I wonder who's paying this guy.

If Lebanon would be left to the Lebanese, it would be heaven on Earth.
The problem with Arab nations is not the people, it is with all the people who want to run each nation, or destroy it, or create a "civil war" or instill a dictator.

If each Arab nation would be left for the people, the people would be happy and more importantly, Alive.

Lebanon's leading Chirstian, Sunni and Shiite clergy all said pretty much the same thing, all of Lebanon's sects want, can and will live together in peace and harmony, if not for all this outside agitation by powers looking out for their personal gain, where Lebanon is a proving ground, a test facility, a target, a battle ground to settle old scores, a lamb sacrificed for a glutinous gorge by perverted tastes. of course most of this could not happen without a couple of crackheads who are in government selling their constituancy and power for a chance to party with condi.

I've heard every theory and every excuse and every blame, but hell...just leave Lebanon the hell alone, they'll fend for themselves and they'll thrive in peace.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is being paid to think so.

Ignorance is Bliss?

2007-06-23T04:57:00.000-04:00

Today, I realized I've been living a lie.
Living in denial.
Living in fear.
Today I realized that what's important to me,
is in conflict with what's important to me.
What's important is a lie.
Everything around me has been built to perpetuate a lie.
And I believed it most, because I believed I knew what the lie was and what the truth was.
And that's the lie.

But it's about to change

convergence

2007-06-10T01:29:00.000-04:00

A week ago I heard my phone ring. I chose to fall asleep rather than answer. In my sleep I did answer, it was my friend telling me to take him to the hospital. He was having a heart attack. I ignored him. The next day, I decide to call him. His brother had taken him to the hospital in the middle of the night. It wasn't a heart attack but he felt he had one. I didn't tell him about my dream.

A couple of days ago I woke up from a dream violently due to its last action. I dreamt chronologically, a rare occurrence. Playing out like an opening sequence of a surreal film, it was quite and erie. I was driving. At an intersection by my house I heard a loud revving of an engine, I was stopped in the left lane. A motorcycle swerved around the corner hit my driver side and crashed, the rider landed in the intersection in the path of oncoming traffic. His head was crushed by an oncoming car.
After I woke up, I thought nothing of it. I got dressed and headed for work. I stopped at an intersection by my house. As I was stopping in the left lane, I heard a voice say "Right" so I took the right lane. Then I heard the loud revving of an engine, the motorcycle swerved a bit less then in my dream and didn't have my car there to hit, he missed the oncoming traffic and rode off.

This morning as I was gardening, I gave my son a simple task of bagging some yard waste, I thought I was making a mistake leaving him alone in the back yard alone while I was in the front. Then a vision popped into my head of him running to me screaming with his head bleeding. I ignored it and went back to work. ten minutes later, I heard a scream. My son came running with his hand on his ear crying. His little brother hit him with the rake. Luckily it was a minor flesh wound.

After a long day of gardening I decided to sit in the back yard quietly with my coffee and smokes. I was shocked by an instance of violence and what appeared to be a bullet coming straight for me, there was no bullet...
as of this writing, I'm still alive.

2007-06-04T16:56:00.000-04:00

well my friend is back home, surviving a small scare and a couple of days in the hospital. Thanks to those who prayed for him.

2007-06-01T15:46:00.003-04:00

I can't believe it has been a year.
I never thought that I'd be able to live a year without my brother or be able to function or get back into the routine.
I never thought I'd be able to let life take over again. I always thought life or time or I would just stop when the person I loved most in life died, but it didn't , the world didn't stop. It kept going and even faster, unrecognizably.
I can't believe it's been a year.
I often catch myself in a normal everyday situation and wonder how it is possible to be normal, how is it possible for me to do alone the things we used to do together, how is it possible to laugh with his children without him, how is it possible for me to live after the realization of the fear that haunted me since his birth.
How is it possible that it has been a year.
My son says he feels like his uncle is not dead, but more like on a long vacation and he expects him to come through the door any minute, all he can remember is his smile. I remember more, more of the pain and know more about death than I care to.
My friend lost his son as he came to mourn my brother, my brother-in-law lost his father before my brother, then his mother shortly after. I lost a friend in the war and then a couple of relatives, then more friends. A family friend lost in the hospital where my brother's blood had not yet dried, then another. My grandfather lived longer than most, then he too joined them, I lost another loved one.
I can't believe its been a year, I can't believe this year.

Now my best friend is in the hospital. All I can hope is that the trend is over.

all too familiar...the distance

2007-05-31T16:13:00.000-04:00

“what information should I transmit and how?”

"Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't"

2007-05-25T13:22:00.000-04:00

The strangest part of the latest violent events in Lebanon is the military assistance Lebanon has been "offered" by the Arab League and by the U.S.

Most Arab countries turned their back on Lebanon last year when Izrael attacked and cowardly backed the Izraelis. The U.S. offered the limited, half-hearted humanitarian aid, while suppling the Izraelis the bulk of their weapons and political support. Now, they are offering ammunition to Lebanon?

What sort of sick game is this? I know it has been going on for decades, but really, who is buying all this as sincere?

The elements that are plaguing Lebanon are external. There is no doubt that there is a sinister plot developing. The militia in the North appear to be invited guests of some unnamed Western governments via a cocaine addicted Lebanese politician.

Sounds simple enough, introduce an untamable element, hostile to your biggest rival, then use the situation to bulk up in the region in order to eleminate your challengers. In the media, this seems like an extension of the war on terror, but this is a war on every sovergn country not in the Western line. If Lebanon was truely a friend, then you would not have helped distroy it last year. This is far worse than appears. If Lebanon continues on its path of gullability, then we are all in danger.

Lebanon's military has always been weak, leaving room for others to control Lebanon with claims of aiding the nation against its enemies, but this has never been successful, and there has never been support when Lebanon has been attacked or invaded. Lebanon continues to be a pawn and the power hungry politicians of Lebanon don't seem to care since they are easily divided.

I used to think that Lebanon can take care of itself if left alone, but it is becoming more clear that some politicians do not want to be left alone and allow the people to control their own fate since it would certainly mean the loss of power.
Some would rather be president of a dependant, chaotic war-torn mess of a country, than be an average citizen in a vibrant, progressive one.

Sure there are elements inside of Lebanon that need to be weeded out, but just be cautious of who helps you do the weeding. It would be like poisoning your drinking water to kill those weeds, sooner or later even those on golden thrones need a drink.

For the record: at this point the losers are the Palestinian refugees, who now must flee again and are the majority of those killed. I hope that noone confuses the militia with the Palestinian or Lebanese people. Fatah-Al-Islam seems like everyone's enemy, but the curiosity is where they came from and who is offering to rid Lebanon of them. People should question everything now more than ever.

Surviving an Arab writer's conference

2007-05-20T02:02:00.000-04:00

It was only two days, yet my legs are left angry, complaining of walking for what seemed like a week and a few hours. It must have been my nervous cyclical circling of tables and groups chatting seeking a way in. I paced unevenly between the various discussions and paneled my interest with smiles and smirk filled nods as that odd incoherent question to a hero who I couldn’t release unquestioned.

Few knew who I was or am or who I may be or become, a fact truer than my knowledge of that fact or current fiction, And who I was seemed to come forth and drown who I thought I was becoming because of what I lacked. I left too wide a slit in the door for that not to occur. I was a timid awkward geek who feared too much.

A poet read and I paced the distance she had traveled here. When would my legs carry me close enough to…to…I wasn’t quite certain of why I was hoping to get close? I knew I would babble and I walked on as the woman with the blue Marcel-style scarf looked at my passing with pity, not pity that I couldn’t approach but pity to a man who seemed relieved in failure and she took my spot and shook hands with the poet. I didn’t need an autograph or expected her to know my name the next year we meet, I needed to meet.

As Wadsworth and Keats wrestled over my use of I, I prepared for my presentation. It was a last minute drool with no time for revision as was my style. I was looking at the few who sacrificed sleep to attend and do their best to present an interested face, giving them loosely linked words. The interest didn’t seem that contrived the more I went on. Perhaps I was making some sense. If only I could listen to my own words instead of those voices of imprisoned grappling writers who mocked me and undermined any coherent proclamation. The poet came to me as destiny rehearsing her game. Surely she couldn’t have meant that my presentation was as fantastic as she announced. Was it just the product of the customary congratulatory comment native to conference camaraderie? She smiled again to confirm her delight and promised to visit my blog. My blog? This triviality?

The conference broke for lunch. Feeling a bit more confident that I would not suffer any bites, I gave my legs some rest and struck limited conversation with the woman sharing my table. Although I felt it her table by the way in which she snuck a wondering peak of “why is this awkward unpublished man here?”
She did her best to politely end the conversation and I worried. As I saw her the next day, I sent a passing greeting as casually as I could to avert any awkwardness and misrepresentation. Her uneasy smile damned me back to 9th grade.

Marching into a peaceful exercise unarmed rendered me battle worn.

And I was an outsider again. The second day felt like a sentence of no performable tasks giving demons exercise. What venture undertook me?
My desire to become what each of them has become, a published Arab writer, kept me confined comfortless.

The two-day self-inflicted anguish ended, but I had questions left unasked and heroes unapproached. I survived…regretfully.

Allahyirhamak ya Sayed

2007-05-17T00:42:00.000-04:00

(Jiddi with my uncle during a dinner in his honor in March)

My grandfather has passed after a long and difficult battle in the hospital. He came to the U.S. when few Arabs lived here, and raised his children without compromising traditions or faith. He survived two world wars as a child and a soldier. After gaining in years he returned home to Tibnine. He missed his children and their children and wanted to see their children's children and play and tell them stories. So he returned to the U.S. in early spring this year. My grandmother was stuck behind and never had the chance to say good-bye. He was 99 years-old. Alhamdullilah he lived a long, productive, clean life. He was a good, religious man who raised nine families. He leaves behind wonderful memories and enough great-grand children to tell his stories for generations to come. I just wish I could have been with him a bit longer to hear one more story.

May Allah grant you his mercy

RAWI this weekend

2007-05-16T11:54:00.000-04:00

RAWI 2nd National Conference at the Arab American National Museum May 17 - 20-- Please join us! Check out our schedule at www.rawi.org REGISTRATION AND TICKETS Full registration $120-includes one year membershipStudent registration $75-includes one year membership1 Day Pass $35-includes panels and lunch Thursday Night Reading $10Friday Night Reading $10Friday Night Party $10Saturday Azouma & Awards Night $35

I'll be part of a panel Fri 9am

May the chips lay where they fall.

2007-05-08T15:44:00.000-04:00

So, if it wasn't enough to be teased by co-workers endlessly about what we Muslims can and can not eat, now we discover that that list is growing. Say Kosher and everyone understands and is supportive, but say Halal and you get confused looks and ignorant statements. I don't mind the ignorance as much as the deck being stacked against us. It becomes more and more apparent that this world is oblivious to our concerns.

Perhaps that is the way Allah created it, we are constantly tested. Certainly the concern of a few food products not being Halal is trivial compared to the wars being waged and the daily oppression millions face, but it is a concern none-the-less, especially when you have children.

The reason for this topic is because I keep getting emails about a new popular food that is now found to be Haram. I've heard of McDonald's fries (beef flavoring), then Wrigley's gum (animal based gelatin) , then Altoids (pork based flavor crystals), then Doritos and other chips (pork based seasoning) and even recently about Burger King and their practise of frying Fish in the same fryer as pork and other meats. The list goes on and on. The crazy part is that you won't find this information from reading the ingredients and that is the part the gets me mad the most. Burger King says they fry in vegetable oil, but said nothing about using the same fryer as pork and other meats. McDonald's says they fry in vegetable oil but didn't say the fries are seasoned with beef. I'm slightly concerned about not being able to eat most of the chips made by Frito-Lay anymore, but I'll live.

The products that I'm most concern with are products like Advil, Tylenol and Motrin, they use a pork based coating of all things. Now that's the three most popular pain killers. (only Advil relieves my headache) Where will Muslims turn in that department? Anyone have alternatives?

I won't list every product I've found, there are sites that do this. I'm just frustrated. I expect companies to use whatever product makes their food taste addictive and cost less. I can't blame them for doing so, but can blame them if they hide these products as McDonald's did for years. Right now I'm not sure if this is worth an uproar, I'll just have to be more careful and less trusting (with corporations).

Anyone want to recommend sites that track this issue?

What about alternative products?

Am I wrong about any of these?

Spread the word

2007-05-03T15:28:00.000-04:00

First Boston Palestine Film Festival coming this fall.

Make plans to attend and pass along to filmakers.

Call for Entries 2007
http://www.bostonpalestinefilmfest.org
The Boston Palestine Film Festival (BPFF) is now accepting entries for its first annual festival to be held in September-October 2007.

Criticisim of Contemporary Arab Society or Just a Divergent Rant

2007-05-02T12:31:00.001-04:00

The drive, the evolution, the creativity, the progress is all at a standstill. A stagnant existence cripples us like a drug addiction.

It seems the Arab masses have rested too long. We have developed an aura of arrogance based on our previous historical accomplishments. We have contributed nothing of value in the past century other than sitting on oil. All we have become is the purveyors of perpetual pop.

Sure we can say things like we invented the numbering system, algebra, the two-stroke engine and the torpedo 800 years ago, the ice cream cone or whatever, but what has been our contribution lately is a knack for mimicking. The strive is long dead and we didn’t even mourn since we are in denial. To be like others and to blend seems to be only saving us from temporary destruction. We quickly give up the things that make us who we are.

This is not meant as an attack on our society (and by no means is this an academic work) rather, a venting in hopes of sparking some revival within myself and others.

There are several issues I have on our perception, our reputation and our future.

The perception is that we are special. Others' perception of us is disturbingly negative.
Why such a chasm? Is there something we don't see or is this a product of years of propaganda purposing a divergence of truth staging our demise? It appears to be a combination of both.
We see our selves above all with no fault, resting on the weight of past glory. And we are victim to centuries of unjust attacks. Our reputation is a violent and decadent one, certainly unjustified to the extent propagated, yet clearly we have lost our way. This is not to say that we all are guilty but when there is this grim cloud covering our movement we all suffer, therefore we all need to act to reignite our evolution into a perpetual positive progression. The future is not bright by any means, in fact the reality is that we are headed into our darkest hour since the time before Prophet Mohammad. And there may not be a recovery. There is a correlation between the rise of Islam and the dawn of a great Arab civilization, one which rescued vital ideas of justice and philosophy. Now it is believed that most of Europe's advancements were merely inventions copied from the Arab world centuries earlier. I mentioned the torpedo, but weapons of destruction aside, there was the creation of the library, university and hospital. And the advancements in irrigation and the time piece and so on.

Where is that knowledge now? I'm assuming it all went into the abyss to replace the oil that was drawn out. the majority of Arabs do not have oil but this has cursed us all, since the powerful have taken us down with them. There is no shining light leader to bring us back up. and we wallow in a mucky swamp of pop culture imitation trying to fit into a new society. We graze the diseased fields like sheep. And like sheep we find ourselves behind fences and walls. To what end, a violent catastrophic one?

When do we take control of our own lives, lead ourselves, create our own track, represent ourselves, draw our own boarders, embrace our own culture, protect our brothers and sister and not kill them to serve others?

I'm not sure I even had any coherency or direction in this, but I am tired and frustrated and unwilling to go on in this present state.

A wall is a barrier, a form of oppression, just ask the Palestinians.

2007-04-27T11:32:00.000-04:00

Iraq It seems that Iraqis don't want a wall after all. after the US military started building a wall to divide Sinni and Shi3a neighborhoods based on "granting the Iraqi's wishes" They protested and stopped the wall...for now. There will be other ways to divide and conquer.

Palestine

Mexico

An Interview with Marcel Khalife

2007-04-19T14:46:00.000-04:00

An interview on the state of music today with Marcel Khalife from the Arab International Festival in 2002. Interview by Transient and IBJ
(Sorry audio is low, don't forget to turn off music at bottom of page)

Fire them all

2007-04-16T16:13:00.000-04:00

Radio Idiot Don Imus was fired for his racial remarks.
Ok, this sounds good; people held responsible for thier actions and their racist words.
But why only him, and why not until now?
Shouldn't he have been fired directly after those remarks, did his employers have to wait until they were threatened? or until the sponsors started pulling their money?
And why wasn't he fired years ago after many racist statements about others?
The claim that this firing is the right thing to do is BS.

Why isn't every post-911 journalist, reporter, shock-jock, pundit, news anchor, TV host, and so on fired, since almost every single person with an audience has made inflamitory, derogatory, racist, stereotypically bold statements about Muslims and or Arabs since 911. They should all have been fired, or are Muslims and Arabs not due the same respect and dignity as other human beings?

The problem is, Imus could call me a terrorist or any thing else he like and not one person would call for his job. If he says "nappy-headed hos" he gets fired. Both are bad, but being called a ho may not hurt you, stereotyping Arabs and Muslims makes them targets.

You'd think that this double-standard is bad enough.
Then the thought of this being a racist country that uses money as a moral guide sounds a bigger alarm. I am under the belief that not one person would defend what's right if the price was too high.

So, why have there not been any firings after much worse remarks aimed at Arabs and Muslims? There have been arrests, firings, deportations and violence towards Arabs and Muslims as a direct result of some of these comments, and not one media member has been fired. Why is this? Is it because the sponsors believe in the same aniti-Arab and Muslim agenda as people like Bill O'Rielly, Don Imus, Howard Stern, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and so on? Or are they the ones who dictate what should be said?

Either way the issue of racism in this country cannot be solved with one firing and a diversity session, especially when the biggest target is left unprotected.

2007-04-12T00:30:00.001-04:00

(Minor lines found along the way in my writing while writhing of words in search of that story I long to hear)

Either, other, or, no not me.
I am sentenced here to pleasing demons,
rising fire-winged from the depths of my ill remorseful soul,
bleeding my heart into submission,
taking no care in banishing my identity into the abyss of that dark sea I over flew many decades ago.
The wide sea tears away at the flesh of my being as crashing waves crash endlessly about for my self-lost identity.

By the light of improbability
The other stakes the claim of passion in verse as stakes pluck his eyes.
Seeing by not seeing, as now truly has light shone his way and all things clear,
a vision of what's to come. Let me be blind to this world and hence traverse
the endless wild of being.

For when my others falter,
I sit sipping my muddied drink and swirl the smoke taken in and taken out.
By lit darkness my eyes swell a tear or two, one from the smoke that infests my lungs
and the other for the days that should have come.
The studio creaks out its asbestos skin as it lay silent.
No strokes brush the coarse canvas with their customary passionate hues.
No voices break with laughter the silence that becomes my days ever more.
The doors must close a final time and I sit longing for the days that should have come.

by now the road is narrow and baleful is the passing

2007-04-12T00:30:00.000-04:00

Marcel Khalife in Detroit

2007-04-06T19:43:00.000-04:00

I've been a fan of Marcel ever since I heard the first song, for obvious reasons. Other than being the premiere Lebanese folk singer, composer, musician, he just seems to represent everything I hope for in an artist; integrity, progress, creativity, ethics, human concerns, political awareness and so on. many people hear his songs or his music and get transported to a better time or place where nostalgia overtakes the melancholy. There is the sound of a timid hopefulness that most Arab's hear and it goes on long after the song.

The concert at Orchestra Hall was good, but it did seem a bit odd. He wasn't with his usual ensemble or Al Mayadine or Omayma or anyone else you'd recognize. He was playing with Kristjan Jarvi's Absolute Ensemble. They were pretty good, but it seemed that Marcel was their guest and it was not his concert. He only sang one full song, three total.

The Hall was not as posh as I thought and the sound engineering seemed lazily prepped for the concert. The acoustics seemed pretty bad as well. It could have been just my perception, and my one faulty ear, but it didn't sound right.
And the energy was not there as if it was a dress rehearsal and Marcel was going through the motions. Sure he was still great and the ensemble was very good at times, but not what I expected. Maybe it was his age...or maybe it was mine.

Perhaps it was the latest controversy that surrounded his music, or maybe even the extensive travel burdens and being detained at every port. Whatever the reasons for this being less magical than past performances, it was magical none-the-less and I'm glad to have been able to see him again.

moment of clarity

2007-04-04T22:50:00.000-04:00

In that composed moment after grief, that moment of indifference, I became a part of this earth and not this world.

The Inanimate became animated and the animated became still.

Conventionally life-less objects began to notice my state in their approach, welcomed me without reservation, and all those people bound by habit seized as I walked through their tired immobile forms. Clarity reigned as for purpose previously reined by stagnant revolving souls, still, still I chose to venture past my destiny and remain as they, life-less.

I'm back

2007-04-02T16:30:00.000-04:00

Diwan: A Forum for the Arts has come and gone, maybe too soon. What should have been an opportunity for me to network with people who can help my Film career was spent sitting back and marveling at the wealth of amazing Arab artists from across the country sharing their experiences and hanging out as old friends. It was inspiring.

I finally met Jack Shaheen, Malek Akkad, Assad Kaleda and others, but I never talked about film. It was interesting talking to people about their art, their state of mind and of course politics. The art was amazing especially the two exhibits coinciding with the forum.

One of the highlights was the presentation “Brooklyn Beats to Beirut Streets” with Nizar from The Philistines, Omar from N.O.M.A.D.S., Joe Namy and some guy named Mark Gonzales.

Most exciting was just meeting new people and hanging out. There were old friends and some odd new ones.

(images were altered to protect the not-so-innocent)

Then there was the after party hosted by Other. There are still a few people trying to recover from it. (will someone claim the little arab man we found behind the couch this morning). It wasn’t as wild as past parties nor as energetic, but fun none-the-less. Of course no party would be as crazy without the Iron Sheik and the kibab. If you were there, I hope you had fun and thanks for stopping by, hope to see you next year, if Diwan survives (more on that later).

BTW, happy birthday RED.

PASSAGE UNKNOWN

2007-03-26T12:23:00.000-04:00

(the following bit of writing is from a peice I wrote a couple of years ago,
it is part of an epic that will continue to expand and evolve.
The style and structure is an extensive divergence from my other works. any questions?)

Passage Unknown

‘06
Steady jagged edge
Treachery treks down my suited ship.
Boasting episodes of troubled seas spend it whole
The rut’s rot infests prestigious planks and she is compromised
What is the charge for the passage home
To compose her conservation before the sink
And row
And row
To charge my contemplation after the fall
What is the fault with the mounted grief
The gut’s glut plagues exalted minds and spells out our demise.
Ranting mourners for anxious relieve spend me whole
Trading tears near my sinking ship.
Stop journey’s dead

‘73
They came for me in the darkness cast by doubt
Placed me here among the rusted stacks smoking
They took me in the toddling innocent state
Cast me here helpless, life without a spear
I’m losing this bout
No one to hear my raving
I looked east and saw nothing
I lived west and am nothing
My mind grows wearily old with time’s torrid pace
Always running from and toward my passage unknown
I’ve labored the return through washed out bridges
Sinking in the rapids, drowning by the fear
I’m losing this race
In the end, I’m alone

‘00
I drank my dose of reconcile
As they pleaded me do
At gun point
Execute
Intoxicate
I lose my sights
As they need me be
Blind, I no longer inquire

‘83
But for this flight I have been rendered crisp and normal
My conscience drives the reason
And I myself trail my trekking mind
Ever searching truth as illusions lead its elusion
Ever searching passage as it was flushed in a flash
And my passage was lost, too heavy for the journey
My soul’s pestering plea drives me further
But for this fight I am beaten, turned conventional

‘89
I’m searching the Passage Unknown
Not for now, the journey doesn’t end
I am still looking
It draws near to my shoulder resting a cold hand
Caressing my carcass, my skin, pale with decay
Carelessly tugging at the soul it‘s seeking
Its smile turns grim drawing out my faith
I’m not leaving
Not as now the end is nearing
Death waits no longer and I relent
I’ve lost unrealized the Passage Unknown

‘04
Upon my ancient steps on idle streets
The asphalt warmth into me did seep
The mind burdened absent as I trek deep
Into villages reeking of vile concrete
What lay ahead for me lay dead
And my anthology behind for lament
What worlds did you pass for this
To set me free into a void abyss
To weep of longing, misery and ill-fate
Shall I thank you for the freedom served
Without responsibility it is deserved
Is this your land teaching myself to hate
Dreams of promise yet bring my peace
But first a ransom of your life’s deeds
What people made you die for this
Do you believe their ignorance is bliss

And the Winner is......

2007-03-23T19:09:00.000-04:00

Me!

I received five Telly Awards this year.

Feels good to be recognized. My department won 19 altogether ( I was involved in all)

My son is now a blogger (i feel old)

2007-03-22T18:21:00.000-04:00

Is that good or bad? I can't tell yet, but it meant I had to give him an email. I'm not sure if this opens up the evil of technology or the benefit, either way, it had to be done. I'll just keep a close eye. (it also means I'm older than i thought i was)

Anyway check out his blog and post something nice (he's only a kid).
he love math games and riddles.

www.bibosite.blogspot.com

and calls himself the mathmagician.

"The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." - W.S.

2007-03-19T18:42:00.000-04:00

There was this lingering image of happiness, now lost...

I loved going to the Fox Theater with my father to catch the latest Kung Fu film. The days you thought you'd have forever and take for granted are gone. Now it will host Nancy 3jram (but i appreceite them re-modeling)

I miss the Pandora theater, before cable or satelitte when they showed an Arabic film, that made the immigrant collective laugh from joy and cry from longing. ( I loved watching Ghawar, even if I couldn't understand him and remember my father and his friends talking about the "good ole days". Now it's an office building.)

I hate my friend for turning my childhood movie house into a grocery store. (bastard, sorry J...yeah, I know people gotta live) The Camelot was a bit of heavenly escape that was just down the street. Watched my first Bruce Lee flick there, got into my first fight after such flick.

Can't even remember the name of the dirty, smoke-filled dive in Lebanon that I was told was destroyed in the war. I film on the 3eid for khams 2roush was a delight.

I saw my first horror film at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In (this one is still there, it even expanded)

A Little Spring Cleaning

2007-03-16T17:19:00.000-04:00

This post is about getting some lingering thoughts out of my head and onto this blog. there is no rhyme or reason nor relation or relevence to these thoughts. The random order is required.

#1. Have you seen the living conditions in Iraq? Have you seen the occupiers teasing the people? it makes Lebanon look like a garden party.

#2. Hunker Down Emiraties! Haliburton is moving into your little patch of glitter filled desert. This makes me worry that the Apocalypse is days away.

#3. The owner of one of my favorite sports teams (Detroit Pistons) is a major doner to Izrael. Well it always has been a bit of hipocracy paying taxes and living in a land that hates you and supports your killers.

#4. The film "300" supports my propaganda theory. Iran has condemned the film as being a slanderous portrail of Persians. Hollywood did not disagree.

#5. Olmert admits that Izrael has been planning the war on Lebanon as the resistance has stated. Where is the outcry? Where is the appology to the Hizb? Where is the...never mind. (sidenote: Japan had already surrendered before the attack on Hiroshima, Truman bombed them anyway, and then again)

#6. Izraeli companies are selling property and housing in settlements stolen from Palestinians. They are selling in New Jersey. more info: http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=3067

#7. Passing for Normal posted a pic of a clothing label that included an appology for having Bush as the president. I wonder how long that company will last.

#8. I heard that the US is passing a law that would guarantee the Izraeli right to Return to Arab countries. What??? Who has this info? Where can I read it?

#9. The state of the world today makes me think that the Apocalypse is right around the corner, the signs are there. But perhaps we ignore it. When was the last time there was Peace on Earth? Has that ever happened?

#10. Children in Lebanon are still being blown up by Izraeli bombs. Remember they sprayed the country with tens of thousands of grenades before leaving.

#10. I'm sure you've seen this pic before, but it seems like Lebanon has gone through several states of love and hate in this past year or so. What a volatile country with a schizophrenic identity that you can't help but love.

#12. Sure i know this is trivial but Blogger hates me. It will not let me switch to the new blogger and I always have trouble leaving comments among other issues.

#13. I received a rejection letter for my poetry that was submitted for an Arab anthology. OK so my stuff is not great, but to get that in a formal letter is painful.

#14. Why do I have 1,000 visits from the Manitoba area but no comments? Why do I have comments from places that do not exist?

#15. Why is everyone moving to Dubai? For some reason, I feel like if I try it I'd turn into a pillar of salt.

#16. There are about 376 more thoughts to clear out, some more important than the ones i got to, but I've run out of time.

Ignore this post

2007-03-14T02:03:00.000-04:00

Twisting thoughts ransacked my mind through the night.
Six a.m. not a wink was batted.
Struggling passions tatter my heart and soul in their fight.
Next day no work mattered.
“I hate you!” to both you and you, I cried.
Make me choose between passion and peace.
By you the truth was told, I lied.
Take my chances with poverty and pain.

Peculated passion I steal
Progressive pain I sooth
Peaceful pandemonium I skill
Prosperous possibilities I see
Pity politics I sneak
Paralyzed pansy I subsist
Peaceful poverty I suture
Pious pessimism I swear
Pathetic pondering I surmise
Putrid potential I save
Pampered pardon I salvage
Partisan pacts I sell
Parental pageantry I seek
Pale panache I show
Parlayed pendulum I slave
Pacified perception I stick
Personal perdition I seize
Pestering pestilence I sense

And I sleep with death’s final call

serving up the night

2007-03-10T02:40:00.000-05:00

Hunched over bistro tables rolling the cigarette about in a dance of deceitful defiance, convincing my cup to remain full of coffee, I reach for another match.

They walk in with a traditionally late strut, nodding their greeting. I didn’t care to move as their usual demeanor of artist’s arrogance didn’t move me. They sat after an emphatic plop of their pens and notes and I was to read every last one.

Somewhere along the night interest waned, passing by the black silken mud infested with a creamy swirl, an insistence of those too timid to venture.

Again another night ends its reign at the coffee house, this time there are people I’ve never seen and Abbas. He smokes his damned clove cigarettes that clog your senses with a musky stench that bullies the finest of sweet fragrances into submission.

I’ve drunk maybe five cups of my usual ghastly drug, before their arrival, my mind wrestles with beans and memories. Then she came to fill their cups. Before I could motion the waitress “I’ve had my fill”, my cup is filled again as I reach for another match in a cyclical habit that is regretfully undying. The clove scent just dissipated by the charm of the aroma she drew along, moving my loss of thought. They noticed her. I noticed her. My reasons were not as obvious. Although my appreciation for beauty is intact, I found her approach uneven for her position. She was in need of something not found at an all-night café. I knew her. Not by name but by stance.

Just as my thoughts shifted to her presence she stopped, retracting the pot in a slow manner careful not to scold and looked.
Feeling the stare, I looked up, she knew I had the answers but knew I couldn’t help. And she returned to her uncomfortable routine.

Then I began to read the notes of failed writers and the moves of an unfortunate woman. Sometime before she landed here, her cascading black Bedouin hair brushed her shoulder a time too many and identified her all too often. She couldn’t hack at it with enough haste.

That gave her limits notice and she began her journey. Her approach to our table was a unique variance to her exit. Coming, she was confident, charged, and powerfully live. Leaving she was morbidly tame.

Her walk wore her down as the tally of the night and the weight of those ancient accessories took their toll. That tired smile ventured on in spite of the challenges befallen her. The read was shorter than I anticipated; that stance didn’t have the legs for long stories.

Her one attempt to escape was cut short, a guilt-ridden run-away from home. Delicately worn hands showed me the timeline. It was painful, but just a mild step on the road to come. Her days were ahead as she realizes there was power in the attempt. After her shift she gathers notes on napkins to merge into stories.

She will be the writer she had always hoped to be. As for those who infest their coffee, those days may never come.

An anomaly, an apparition, and another abnormality

2007-03-06T00:24:00.000-05:00

I'm packing my bags and moving to the Jabal. I will make films of absurd meaningless visions that I project on the barks of neglected trees for me and the animals to see. Each morning I will rise with my daily primordial scream of pain mixed ecstasy as the bites of large insects blood-let my putrid whitened body and I will be darkened by the revolving suns and by dried blood and will be smirking happy expressions to pass the day till the night lets me project again those ominous yet trivial cells that inlet curious or accidental passer being into the dreary soul of a trite and out of focus man.

I'm packing my bags and moving to the Nahur. I will sculpt monstrous reflections of demonized memories to let stand as dams for the neighboring constructionist mammals. Each night I will give to slumber by the warmth of the drying clay that plasters its weight upon me and sooth my doubt with membrance of the cuddled days I spent on the moon and will pass this night by the water's conversing rise and fall adding rhythm to my dreams until the morning crashes of dying trees unearthing clay to sculpt into the shapes of idols lost by a trite and shapeless man.

I'm packing my bags and moving to the Wadi... I will sketch sarcastic shadows that darken the passing clouds casting memories on my captive hills to use as barriers. Each new moon I will sacrifice another dream as a child of my past regretfully wanders the tomb of hope carved from the mountain by enslaved lost hands that I stare with apathy as the last drop takes with it the last breath and there is no turning back for a trite and putrid man.

2007-03-03T03:55:00.000-05:00

Massari

watch the video, leave a comment on the state of the world today or don't, at this point i don't give a damn!

Steven Wright comedy

2007-03-01T00:25:00.000-05:00


for those who need a laugh just about now. (turn off music on bottom of page first)

Insomniac’s Log

2007-02-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

12:18am finally they are leaving. Not that I don't like them, I love people, but they have a knack for leaving you alone when you need them and staying with you when you need to be alone. I need to be alone; I need rest. I can't sleep haven't been able to in three days. I was sleepy last night, but she decided to chat, until 6:32am. Wonder why she couldn't sleep? Why was she asking questions that she didn't want answered?

12:32am I wonder if I hurt anyone's feelings? All evening I was sitting watching my guests, not sharing in the conversation. I'm a rude host sometimes. J was just sitting in the corner quietly sipping his bitter sludge too solemn to ask for sugar. L was discussing her career choices and I sensed regret. H was stuck in a dead end job 3,427miles from his birthplace and he didn't know how to get back. I had the answers but chose not to share. I had my own problems.

1:18am I tried to sleep

1:18:32 I failed. The seconds kept on ticking and I watched the seconds hand stutter around the face of the clock. I could hear the click and the gear driving, clicking and the spring snapping about inside one second after the next in a hopeless cycle; tick tocking my existence, slipping a second or two back every hour as did i.

1:38am got up to incur exhaustion watched my show on TV. I love that DVR, I can stop time. The show was good, too good. Made me think even more.

2:13am reading news gets me drowsy, I turned on the laptop. More people die as elitists die their hair, hate the news.

2:16am she logged on. I ignored her, she didn't know. She asked about her artwork and I ignored her. Her art sucked. She asked me and I had to answer "your art sucks" but then put that sophomoric smiley face after my comment and told her we'll look at it tomorrow, I need sleep.

2:19am still can't sleep. But I must admit it is difficult when I'm still on the computer. I surfed my favorite blogs. No one had posted in several days. Where'd everyone go? Do they have lives that they are enjoying? Why can't I? And why am I talking to myself as if to have a conversation with a third person? I already know the answers. Am I schizophrenic? Can't be I wouldn't be aware of such a thing.

2:23am the thoughts attack me, riding the energy of the moon's lure as waves crashing my fragile shore. and my mind deteriorates. severe vengeful thoughts...
how many years lost?
what am i doing here?
why have i cursed the woman i love with indecision?
will i be damned to raise children in a place i don't beleive in?
have i given up on the studio too soon?
should i have taken that job?
why are these nasty nightmares recurring? is that why i can't sleep?
too many deaths this year. too many loved ones lost.
did he die because of me?
why is that bird on my car every morning talking to me waiting for an answer?
too many thoughts spin endlessly into a web of confusion
and the spider laughs at my pain.

2:48am if I don't sleep now, I never will, shouldn't have put that thought into my mind.

2:56am Sleepy, sleepy, no. tossing and turning too many times, it's the pain, the pain just keeps on growing. I focus on it and try to stop it. If I can see it, I can bid it's movement. So I scratch the surface, digging, into my skin as if pealing old lead paint off walls flaking off swatches of bad experiences tearing away until the flesh is exposed and there is only raw muscle. A single cell scurries about a lower vein identifying the source and is searching the path to my brain. It will signal to tell of more pain. I must stop it, I focus on it but it wouldn't hear my commands it can just do its duty to deliver the news. The response is immediate and sleep has escaped me. I wish I could short circuit the node to eliminate the response.

1:56am 1:56am? Damn it! Time slipped back one hour. I hate that. I gain an hour of restlessness, and worse I lost an hour of my life, I'm older and no more tired, just older and helpless, I couldn't take advantage of this hour. Why doesn't the slip happen when I really need it, like when I make a mistake.

2:19am i reach for some relief, into the medicine cabinet i dove as if sure salvation was there. What's this bottle with the label worn off, expired? Can't tell, there is nothing there to help, nothing there because i hate medicine and never bought anything.

3:17am back online. Getting too many invites for chats, damned MSN, never should have installed it. Then California logs on. Long lost friend chasing Hollywood dream. Talked chatted for minutes, promised to visit and so on. Made me want to work on my script.

3:29am script sucks, I deleted it, then regretted it. I decided to search for jobs in dubai. Having family and newly relocated friends their, I think I'll try it. But I kept getting pop-up messages of the evils of the U.A.E. and i can't justify from ghourbi to ghourbi. gotta sleep on that one.

4:12am try again. She's already sleeping, has been for hours. I turn and see her. Her eyes are softly shut. I wonder if she lies about her dreams. She must have dreams as I do. Have I been as supportive as she has? Did I do all I could to help her achieve them? This is a bad time to wake her. I just know I haven't sacrificed for her. She'll never tell me.

4:17am now I'm restless and guilty.

5:27am still too many thoughts, too many unsolved mysteries, too many issues race inside my head for supremacy.

6:11am third night in a row I notice the time at the same point.

6:30am she gets up for work. I pretend to have slept, she doesn't have time this early for my problems.

7:01am I stop talking to myself and sleep...

7:02am alarm goes off. Who sets the alarm for 7:02am. Damn, I did.
I set it to remind my of a story idea. I hate writing.

Off to work, I'll sleep while driving. my car has learned the roads of mondanity

Lost Transient of Temporal Disturbance

2007-02-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

It was a full mewn. No the mewn was broken,
fragmented
Everyone here was massacred and doubly replaced
But they didn’t know it
They all looked at their faces, their faces
and couldn’t recognize
Who they were
My cigarette stopped burning
The remaining smoke slithered down my arm
forming text I couldn’t understand
Light another
And another
And an other
The studio is different while keeping everything in place
I am not stoned, I am pulverized

Goddard and Darwich visited our studio today
I think they just came to fuck with our heads.
Jean Luc made a pot of coffee swirling with drab colors
While Mahmoud laughed uncontrollably at my tears
I suffered many longing days expectant of the visit
I regret ever longing

The exit at Addison is strewn with shattered glass, always
Today it was swept clean in preparation
Of what, I don’t know.
There was an electric scurry of preparation
And I had to get out of the city
Cars of all races jocked their position
Black cars, brown cars, white cars jocked
And the Arab riding along in my car sat unsuspecting
What preparation
What was the mewn commanding happen
I knew I would not survive, this my last night on earth
I knew
My last night on Earth
My breath got shorter as this brilliant stroke occupied my heart
Now I can feel
And I know
But how to know how to wake the next day
Who would I be then
To wake I must transform
into being

Death comes with a smile

2007-02-23T16:16:00.000-05:00

as i was producing a show last night, a guest arrived for an interview.
i recognized him, but didn't know from where.
he was a doctor.
i've seen him before.
we talked and he began to remember.
then i remembered.
he was the doctor who first saw my brother the night before he died.
my mind stiffened not allowing me to continue the conversation.
he didn’t seem like a bad man, he was nice and smiled. he even came to the house to offer condolences.
but he was also the man who didn’t recognize what was wrong with my brother.
he was the man who sent him home mistreated and in agony. he was the E.R. doctor who worked with my brother, an E.R. nurse.
as he sat in the guest chair, i checked the lighting and saw his face close up.
i saw the same smirk that was hovering over my brother in his last moments.
i saw the pain, the struggle, the white bloodless face of my brother as the doctor’s face smirked nothing wrong.
it wasn’t the doctor, it was the flashbacks that made me leave the studio shaken.
it was death coming with a smile to take my little brother and all I could do was be polite and trust him and the doctors.
i trusted them when they said “he’s one of us, we will do everything in our power, trust us.”
i trusted modern medicine with million dollar machines, ten-acre hospitals, and an educated staff.
but death came regardless and he wore a smile.

F.I.H.1975-2006 (alfatiha 3rou7u)

Triumphant Transient's Reveled Return

2007-02-22T22:13:00.001-05:00

Finally I have conquered the virus of Abbas and regained my blog. Rejoice fellow bloggers. The hybrid high-jacker is no more.

For my friends I apologize if his tactics were less than pleasant. (sorry dareen)
This was merely an exercise.
To those who believed it was really transient in disguise (mone), I say HA!, his poetry can not compare to mine :) as you will soon see.

Anyway if you were not offended and liked Abbas's style please visit his newly launched blog.

The Lawrence Tree

http://tthebbc.blogspot.com/

BTW I did like his poem he has created a style of uniquely murky amalgamation.

2007-02-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

painting by jean-michel basquiat

I am the deliberate intrusion: Abbas.
I am as the hated morning disliked and resisted.
I have taken over this blog with the intent to post a poem. The poem that has been posted is a lament about the night. I was always one who loved the night, but now with a new career in the horizon--my dear night has been lost. This untitled poem laments you, my dear night; you, who had always froze time and diluted its realities, brining near the taste of eternity before the morning sun.

The poem is untitled but numbered—because I removed it from its mother’s nest— and I must return this egg soon enough before the mother cobra counts the poems, discovers one missing, and comes looking for me in my dreams as I sleep.

Please feel free to post comments—preferably in those sacredly blind AM HOURS—ambiguities will be cleared away as soon as I wake up.

#2

You know what you should practice?

The sucker punch—It ‘s bad.

The Dark night walks in on violence and desires to remain blind until morning beats it to sleep.
Then is when you will see it with powerful sun eyes.

High as a criminal.

And his breathing animal cage.

Survive dear beast.

Being put here—I can speak for you.

But…I chose to occupy the middle where good gives me depth
And bad gives me somber depth.

The color some say about here is grey.

But I see the assassin in the hills—I see him spotting you cold
He’s dressed in black and green remains the shield.

Above—Jupiter—Exploding—Red—Storms.

But you see me as bottomless black.

But Void inside you is room for a spider’s sac of eggs,
Occupying you next.

Hours later you will see

I’ll return and you will see.

Abbas Bazzi December 2006.

Didn't make it

2007-02-21T16:57:00.000-05:00

Well I didn't make it to the cabin
got lost
gotta a flat tire
no one to take over my workload so took it with me
got stopped on the Canadian border
held for six hours
lost food rations on side of highway
got into an altercation with local poachers
got shot at
found cabin
lost keys
dug keys out of snow
then turned around and walked home
not bad for a 24hour day.

now I come back and my blog is highjacked by some strange hybrid of an Arab writer who doesn't care about clarity, spelling, grammar, or my ordeal. gotta find a way to take it back. Hopefully I can sneak this one post in before I'm locked out.

That's it, I'm out of here.

2007-02-20T17:34:00.000-05:00

Time to leave all this behind.
To hell with work,
politics,
money,
people,
etc.
and to hell with technology.........

I'll be at the cabin.

A Modest Proposal

2007-02-16T03:36:00.000-05:00

FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF FREE BIRTHING ARABS IN MIDDLE EAST FROM BEING A THREAT TO THEIR ISRAELI NEIGHBORS OR WESTERN IDEAL, AND FOR MAKING THEM FINANCIALY PROFITABLE IN A FREE MARKET SOCIETY

IT IS a melancholy object to those who walk through this encased civilization, when they see the market place, the groves, and the dirt play fields, crowded with olive skinned natives to this holiest of lands, followed by three, four, or six children, all with rags on their heads. These parents, hair on blanked faces, crowd prime real estate, not realizing the value they trample.
Instead of idle hands on idle street, need some semblance of modernity. Precious time wastes in caring for multiples of offspring. These offspring will in turn, having neither hope of structured education nor a future of promissory employment, transform frustration into violence and the fine democracy of Israel will suffer. The numbers gain, the population soon may burden not only Israel but also the whole of the Arab world, so much so that a downward spiral of spite leading to action and reaction will spin the region into chaos.

To save this great parcel of strategic plain, I implore you this consideration, on the heels of too many military escalations due to too many unresolved grievances, of a proposal; a proposal that must implement the salvation of our peoples at the cost of few minors. I, as many scholars and politicians wrestled for decades with the notion of the swiftest and fairest of all operations. This that follows is my assessment, in light of new technologies made possible via the Hiram Dydromulator, named after its inventor Hiram Balm. The Dydromulator works to extract water from various objects. It has been tested extensively in South Africa and has recently been awarded a U.S. patent.
This invention is a great problem solver; one, it extracts water a resource in great need and of short supply; two, it will proceed to solve our primary issue of the former mention above.

Given that the human body consists of anywhere from 68-89% water, that number slightly varies in youth, and the average weight of an Arab youth being 87lbs,the Dydromulator can extract roughly 60liters of water. Of course, the water must then be filtered for drinking (giving a lesser yield) and the youth will seize to exist; yet the results would be astounding. Given the large ever increasing number of Arab births, the supply of drinkable water will solve many issues. And the possible resolutions from this sole proposal is an exponential gift.

My intention is very far from being confined to resolving the issues my Zionist strategists struggle with, the result will in no doubt benefit the Arab parent as they primarily will be rid of the burden of having to raise a youth in a world stacked against them, no education, no employment, no hope, no property, no attainable dreams, no peaceful resolutions. This will give the parents freedom and in turn freedom to explore the Western ideals. The compensation will be substantial, yet far less costly than building walls, tanks and a public relations army. The parents may use that newfound wealth as opportunity to join the modern society, rich with capitalistic potential. Luxuries such as Starbucks, a Whopper and an iPod are now within reach. Moreover, more land will be vacated; the population ratios will balance and eventually favor the right, leaving less possibility for conflict.

As many would only naturally wonder, what backlash would arise? This is a noble concern; however, given that the core of this plan deals with decreasing the mass of Arab populous and with limited numbers of future generations as well as the fate of those capable of concern leaning to extinguish due to age, the uproar would be eventually become negligible. Lest we forget the older generation having sold their young would be enjoying the benefits of commercialism and have less need for quarral.

As a concerned citizen of the region, a scientist, and a man who has given great care to the study of this situation, I humbly present this most modest of proposals for debate and consideration.

---Dr. Mafishi Beid

Cool Upcoming Events in Brotown (Dearborn area)

2007-02-15T13:03:00.000-05:00

www.galeriecamille.com

MARCH 16-31
at the Arab American Museum www.arabamericanmuseum.org
Adnan Charara: JUXTAPOSED

Adnan Charara (friend and neighbor to otherart.org) exhibits his unique art.
The exhibit features new artwork that explores the challenges of immigrating to the United States, and the process of becoming American. Drawing upon the firsthand experiences of an immigrant artist, this work will reflect upon the ways in which people retain their traditions while assimilating to a new culture, and how these traditions contribute to a broader American identity. These themes speak not only to the Arab American experience, but also to the experiences of a number of immigrant communities in America.

www.elff.com
www.detroitunleaded.com
MARCH 21-29
East Lansing Film Festival & the Lake Michigan Film Competition

Schedule is not yet announced but if you’re in the area check out the LMFC for my good friend Rola Nashef’s entry and the best short around Detroit Unleaded

www.arabamericanmuseum.org

MARCH 29-APRIL 1st
DIWAN: A Forum for the Arts

Annual artists conference at the Arab museum I was part of it last year, now I’ll just relax and enjoy it
Diwan unites Arab-American artists, scholars and performers from throughout the United States, representing myriad academic fields and artistic genres. Activities include presentation of new research into Arab-American arts; poetry and prose readings; film screenings, and musical performances. This three-day dialogue reinforces AANM’s commitment to providing a place for community members and artists to meet, exchange ideas and exhibit their work. It also encourages audiences to explore the boundaries of art in addressing social and cultural issues related to Arab Americans and to the community at large.

www.marcelkhalife.com
APRIL 5th
Global Thursdays: Marcel Khalife with Absolute Ensemble

My fifth Marcel concert going with about 20 friends. This one may already be sold out.
Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center
One night only! Global Thursdays moves to the Max M. Fisher Music Center as AANM and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra present Marcel Khalife with Absolute Ensemble at Orchestra Hall. Khalife is renowned for his signature blend of poetry and lyricism, while Absolute has made a career of crossing musical boundaries.

www.rawi.org
MAY 17-20
RAWI 2nd National Conference

I’ll be speaking on a panel there. Arab writers, my kind of group, I think I’ll join. the Radius of Arab American Writers, Inc. - is organizing its second national conference in Dearborn, Michigan on May 17-20, 2007 at the Arab American National Museum. The conference welcomes RAWI members and others who are interested in engaging in the Arab American literary community. The conference will provide a venue to present our writings and ideas to one another and to the Detroit and Arab communities. Our gathering will offer an opportunity for colleagues to share strategies for publishing and circulating our work and also for confronting academic, community, and political barriers.

JUNE 22-24

www.alliedmediaconference.com
9th Annual Allied Media Conference
Otherart.org participated last year at Bowling Green, now it’s on our turf, should be great. Tower was designed by a fellow Otherite Joe Namy www.olivetones.com
The Allied Media Conference is an annual, weekend-long gathering of influential alternative media-makers and committed social justice activists, a unique cross-section of media workers, community organizers, daring filmmakers, ambitious radio producers, serious publishers, skilled web designers, and artists whose work makes revolution irresistible. This year's theme focuses on participatory media that transforms the producer and receiver, "Breaking Silence, Building Movements."

www.americanarab.com

JUNE 15-17
12th Annual Arab International Festival

I’ve covered this event every year, it’s exhausting. But you’ll see people from all over the world and reunite with old friends.
The estimated number of visitors is 300,000 filling about a mile of Warren Ave. for three days. The usual festival atmosphere with an Arab-America flare.

pics for above posted events

2007-02-14T21:25:00.000-05:00