Monday, July 31, 2006

"I am dying, Egypt, dying."




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

Friday, July 28, 2006

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


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

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

"Nothing can come of nothing: speak again."


LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES
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"Nothing can come of nothing: speak again."
Everyone must speak. Let your voices ring across the globe.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

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


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

"All that glisters is not gold."

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

"Now is the winter of our discontent."


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

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

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

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

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

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


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

"Et tu, Brute?"

I was told that this never happened



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