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

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

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

The Devil in the Room

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

My Fellow Americans...

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

Detroit Unleaded Trailer

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

So, is it over yet?

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

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

Continuing Charity

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

www.zamaninternational.org

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

Welcome to the world, Sukaina

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

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

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

then I continue writing....