Thursday, August 31, 2006

Vatican, are you kidding me?

A Vatican official has said the Catholic church will excommunicate a medical team who performed Colombia's first legal abortion on an 11-year-old girl, who was eight weeks pregnant after being raped by her stepfather.
...
Carlos Lemus, the director of Simon Bolivar hospital where the abortion was performed, said he respected the church's decision but did not share its view.

"We acted within the constitutional framework," Dr Lemus said. "We were faced with the petition of a girl who wanted to go back to playing with her toys."
-The Guardian

Nice job, Catholic Church. That's the way to help a small child. Tell her Jesus doesn't love her after all.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Timeline Part III

Okay, here we got some more. When we left off, Teta was yelling at the news and everything was going to be a-ok on the evening of Wednesday, July 12.

Thursday July 13:
Airport bombed sometime before 6:45 am. I don't know exactly what time, but I know it was before 6:45 because that's when I was supposed to get up because I was getting up early to shower since I was too lazy to shower the night before.
Dany woke me up at 6:45, told me the airport had just been bombed, and said I should get ready for class but she wasn't sure if I should (read: would be allowed to) go yet.
Got ready for class but didn't end up going. Called my friend Callie from CAMES around 8:15 (when I would normally be on campus already) and she said that she figured I might not come that day.
Found out later that one of our teachers, Hussein, couldn't get to class that day because (I think) he lives in the south suburbs.
After dropping Sandro and Silvio (my cousins) off at day camp (yes that was still going on), went to Starbucks with Dany and read news and blogs and sent emails for three hours. Sent one to Naamah that I will post later when I get on my laptop (I'm on the desktop right now because I'm too lazy to go find my charger).
Got an email from CAMES saying there was a required security meeting that afternoon, so went to last class session after lunch then the meeting.
At the meeting they told us not to worry, things will be fine, we should let our embassies know we're in Beirut but that they probably wouldn't be doing anything for us, classes would not be cancelled, they just had the meeting to make sure we were all on the same page, etc etc. The whole meeting had a very relaxed feel and no one was really worried at all.

Friday July 14:
Dany woke me up at 7:15 to tell me that I would not be going to class because things were getting worse, basically more bridges and roads and such were bombed overnight. The bombings didn't wake me up, but Dany and Teta said they were up till 3 am hearing bombs.
Kids' day camp cancelled for the day.
After lunch, went up to the Merryland Hotel in Naas which is up above Bikfaya in the mountains. Planned to stay only for the weekend then return to Beirut and class on Monday. I really really didn't want to go and was really angry that I wasn't being allowed to go to class and threw a bit of a temper tantrum because I just was not seeing any danger. I didn't hear anything that day and just wanted to go to class and not be cooped up the house for what I thought at the time was nothing at all.
Called Callie again in the afternoon and she said class was cancelled that day because neither Rima nor Hussein (our two teachers for our level) could make it in to campus.
People seriously started leaving through MedEx and International SOS (I think a Yale group and the first Harvard group left that day) and independently to Damascus (I found this out later since I was not at AUB on the 14th). The road up to Naas was crowded with Syrian taxi full to bursting with luggage. The road up was so crowded that at some points there was no road going back down.
That night Nasrallah got on al-Manar and gave his "call to war" speech and Hizbullah announced that it had sunk 3 Israeli warships (which was false as it turns out). Someone else can tell the story of AUB and crazy celebrating boys and ordering Domino's, which I was not a part of because I was up in the mountains but have heard a good deal about and it sounds like a pretty entertaining night.

Saturday July 15:
Hanging out at Naas, reading, went down to Bikfaya for nailpolish remover (yes this is what we worry about).
Jeddo (my grandpa) went down to Beirut in the morning to get some stuff we'd forgotten and it took the normal amount of time.
Just as we were sitting down to lunch at about 1pm, I got a phone call from Elissa (a friend from AUB who also was in my Arabic class at Michigan) telling me that the CAMES program had been cancelled and that AUB was bussing international students to Amman sometime the next morning. She assumed that I'd received an email about all of this, but we didn't have web access. I freaked out for a little while and talked to my family and my dad and decided to go down to AUB and leave with them.
Called Caroline Chalouhi to see what was going on but she didn't have any information just then and said we were leaving sometime "today or tomorrow."
Called Jake at about 1:30 (maybe?) to make sure he hadn't gone somewhere with his family. He said he was at AUB and that the bus was going at 8:30 the next morning and to call him when I got down to Beirut.
Ate quick lunch and said goodbye to Teta and Sandro and Silvio and Dalal.
Called Callie from the car (about 2? 2:30?) and she said the trip to Amman was cancelled (found out later it was because of the bombin of a van of evacuees that were told by the Israelis to leave their village, then were turned away from a UN refugee camp and were bombed).
Decided to still go down to AUB and wait for the American evacuation.
Went back to Achrafieh to pack and go to AUB.
Arrived at AUB around 5:30. About an hour or so earlier Israel had dropped a propaganda letter bomb that failed to explode in the air (they're supposed to explode in the air and rain down fliers) and instead hit the AUB soccer field and made a huge crater...about 50 yards away from the guys' dorm. Got one of the fliers. Here is a picture of the flier, stolen from Heather:

Also, here is a picture of the crater in the soccer field, also stolen from Heather:

Hung out with Sarah in New Women's lounge for awhile.
Watched Leena give an interview to NBC - this was one of the first times that the news came to see us so everyone was really shocked and excited to talk to them.
Tried to call Jake but the number was disconnected - found out later that he had just left with ISOS sometime between when I called him (and he seemed to have no idea he was leaving) in the early afternoon and when he wasn't there anymore in the late afternoon.
Callie made loads of phone calls to ISOS trying to figure out how to leave with them but she and Emily both decided against that plan at the time because they thought it would be too dangerous to travel on the roads.
Went to get crepes from creepy University Crepy (because the delicious other place that was our favorite was closed) on Bliss Street with Callie, Emily, Sarah, and Ryan from Vanderbilt. Strange, because some things were the same as always, like going to get crepes, but at the same time Bliss Street was deserted.
Went back to New Women's, then Sarah got a phone call from Heather so Sarah, Elissa, the wine, and I went to Penrose to hang out with lots of people. Lots of fun singing and entertainment and getting bombed and such.
(For all those who remember, this was the night that we went for a walk on campus and the security guy didn't know what to do with Viktor's drink and Viktor was like "it's fine, just dump it out" and he still just stood there staring at us for 10 minutes before he finally dumped it out.)
I think that the lighthouse was hit on Saturday, but we went to see it on a walk on Sunday so I'll talk about that in a bit.
When I got to bed at about 3 am the bombing was so loud that I couldn't fall asleep till about 5, so that was pleasant.

Okay, I'm tired now and so I'll finish this off later today. Yalla bye.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Home sweet home?

Okay, so just to let everyone know, I am home now. And I will be returning your calls soon, I promise. Also, I will write a more substantial entry (or series of entries, really, if I don't want to overload the system) over the course of this evening and tomorrow morning. These entries will include but not be limited to:

Freaking out over the amount of Arabic I have to learn before next Tuesday (a lot)
Completion the timeline of Beirut
Musings about Europe
Thoughts on how the world is flat for real
Complaints about how much I miss my friends
Squees about how excited I am to see Ann Arbor folk
Contemplations of things I can do to help

Also, I am taking a class next semester called Jihad in History. My Mondays and Wednesdays are all English all the time (some obnoxious pre-1600 class that I'm trying to get out of and into a British Romantic Lit class instead of, and Children's Lit - woohoo!) and my Tuesday and Thursdays are all Arabic all the time (Arabic 403 and this Jihad class). So that's neat. Plans for winter semester are not yet finalized, but right now it's looking like staying in Ann Arbor, with the possibility of London (basically I just want to read the Guardian all semester, so perhaps that's not the best choice) or taking the semester off and doing an internship instead, then coming back for spring term, then to Beirut (crossing fingers) for CAMES summer, given that there are no bombs/other weapons/militants. Well, I guess the militants are unavoidable. Anyway, I'm just toying with those potential plans and probably shouldn't put them out into the internetosphere yet but whatev.

Okay, real update of real substance about things other than myself coming soon. Just for now, know that I'm alive (that is probably the most-used phrase in this entire blog).

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Birthday gift to myself

Had a cuba libre by the pool just now, and thought that it was worthy of its very own post. Not as good as Barometer, but worth it for nostalgia's sake.

Aaaaand we're back.

Hariri slams Assad for trying to "steal" Lebanon victory from the Daily Star.

Finally, things are back to normal.

Timeline continued

On BBC news they always have some little quotes from readers down in the corner. On the lead article on Lebanon today, which is about how Lebanese troops are going down to the south and UN troops are coming in to replace the Israeli troops leaving, there this quote from Doron Archi, Boston, USA: "Make Shalom, not Jihad." Because apparently peace is a concept that can only be conveyed in Hebrew and war is one that can be conveyed in Arabic. Apparently Israel (I assume they mean Israel, not something like Jews in general or anything like that) is responsible for all peace and Hizballah (I assume this is who they mean, and they better not be thinking Lebanon, or all Arabs, or all Muslims) is responsible for all war. Little implied things like this are what make me the angriest.

Also, just when I'm beginning to feel okay about the ceasefire thing, I'm starting to feel very uncomfortable about the civil war possiblity. I haven't finished reading it yet, but here is an article from the New York Times written by an editor of the Lebanese Daily Star that I stole from my friend/fellow evacuee Courtney's blog. It's quite long, and I'll refrain from commenting until I've read the whole thing, but the first two pages were enough to get me thinking. Oy is what is have to say so far.

Okay, so war timeline continued before I head to the pool (this feels a little ironic):

Wednesday July 12:
Heard gunshots during second class period, around 11:30 possibly, but didn't realize what they were.
Went to a lunch lecture from the two American (well, one of them grew up in China, but is now American) teachers, Li and John, which explains why only one person in my class read the news during lunchtime.
Got back to class at 2 after lunch and Carol, one of the people in my class and a professor at UCLA, told us that Hizballah had just kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Our teacher Rima's reaction was pretty odd: she sort of laughed and told Carol she was truly Lebanese now because she paid so much attention to the news, and that was pretty much it.
Ironically, we watched the video story for Lesson 20 of Al-Kitab 1, which is about Maha's mother having to leave Jerusalem in 1967, and how sad she is not to have a home anymore. Yup, no political lesson there at all.
Mostly I remember not feeling like what had happened was a big deal, and not believing Israel at all when they said that Lebanon would pay for Hizballah's actions or that they would set Lebanon back 30 years.
After telling Dany about the gunshots we heard in class, she explained that it was probably celebrations after Hizballah supporters in the area found out about the successful raid.
We heard about some friends of friends leaving who were visiting from the States leaving for Amman to escape that night and sort of laughed at them, thinking they were overreacting, because it really really seemed like they were.
Basically, watched Teta (my grandma) yell at the news all night and did my homework, fully expecting to be able to go to class in the morning.

Okay, this is taking way longer than I anticipated. Now I must go to the pool because this is getting ridiculous, but later will do a big push through some of this timeline because I need to get it up here.

How to enjoy Athens

Today we went to the Acropolis, which was neat I guess. I evidently have no appreciation for ancient civilization. I liked looking out over the city better. There are mountains in Greece too, as it turns out. I also liked Baalbek better, but again, biased...although Baalbek really was better for several reasons, mainly that it was not as crowded so you were allowed to go up closer to stuff and look at it. At the Acropolis, there are so many tourists so everything is sort of blocked off and anyway you can't really see anything because the place is absolutely crawling with Americans. Also, there is some kind of restoration construction going on at the Parthenon right now which really obstructs the view and makes it difficult to get a picture in your head of what it would have looked like in the past. Sort of disappointing. Also, it cost 12 euros, which is ridiculous, and there was no still water so I had to get sparkling. Boohoo.

At Baalbek you can get up close to everything and touch it, and it's even bigger than the Acropolis, and way more impressive in my opinion. And the views around it are way better too, but I guess that's not what most people are there for. Maybe I was a little disappointed because we didn't have a tour guide telling us all the history.

So the point is, we spent about an hour and a half at the Acropolis then went to get a cab. We asked the cabbie to take us to this kind of shopping/flea market area of town that we wanted to see but instead he took us to a restaurant that he suggested, which was fine because the whole point was to find lunch, and it turns out all the shops close at 3 anyway (oops, we'll go tomorrow).

And this is where the real enjoyment of the tourism began. You don't even understand. No one actually needs to go and see the sites in these places; all you have to do is go out to the restaurants. We had this amazing Greek salad with the freshest vegetables and the best feta cheese I have ever tasted in my life, and this toasted bread with olive oil and black olive tapenade (basically just mashed up olives to spead on the bread). Wow. All I need in my life. And then I got chicken, but Katie got this calamari that was just...wow. Unfrigginbelievable. So we decided that our life's ambition from now on is to start a food tourism company where we take people on tours around Europe and the Middle East (for starters, we might expand later) and maybe take them to one touristy place a day, but also take them to all the amazing restaurants. Because clearly this is all people need to do. We are calling it Tummy Tours, and we figure there's a pretty big market for it, especially in the US, where all the people are fatties like us, and Britain, where the food is crap.

Now we're going to the pool and then (you guessed it) out to dinner. Tomorrow is the Archaeological Museum, the flea market, and then the boat to Santorini.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Athens and Beginning of Timeline

I arrived in Athens last night around 11. I'm here with Katie until Friday and then we're going to Santorini, then back to Athens to catch a boat to Venice, then leaving for home from Venice on the 25th. So it should be a fun 10 days.

I can't read the news anymore because I just feel suffocated by it. I don't know what happened in the last few days, but all of a sudden I feel so lost. I can't even process the news anymore, it all just goes right through me. This ceasefire looks like a step in the right direction, but I don't know what kind of long-term effect it's going to have. And there is all sorts of interesting analysis that I would like to read/participate in (who won this war, if both sides are claiming victory? is this when the real war begins?)...but I just don't have the energy anymore. I just feel a serious need to retreat. I feel almost homesick, but I don't want to go home. I want to close my eyes and just be alone for awhile, or I need someone to tell me that it's all going to be okay. I don't want to think anymore, and I just want to hide from everything that is happening, but at the same time I always have to know what's going on.

Maybe once we get out and start seeing Athens I'll feel better. Katie is napping right now because she just got off a 12 hour flight.

I have no idea how I'm going to be able to do school if I keep feeling like this. I just want to go back.

I'm going to start typing up my timeline of events, starting the Friday before everything started.

Friday July 7:
Went up to Shahtoul in the mountains to Soha's (Mom's cousin) husband Danny's family's house. Such a beautiful place with amazing views of everything, up about 1500 meters I think but I might be wrong. They had all these fruit trees and we had the most amazing blackberries I've ever had in my life. Like I can never appreciate a blackberry again after this. And we saw the church where Soha and Danny got married, which was tiny and made of those white stones like everything else in Lebanon and with beautiful arched ceilings that Mom said were to make the building strong so that it couldn't get bombed out.

Saturday July 8:
Went to Baalbek with CAMES/AUB. Baalbek (for people who don't know) is in the Bekaa valley and has these amazing ancient Roman ruins. It was beautiful but personally I enjoyed the drive over through the mountains (you have to cross Mt. Lebanon to get into the Bekaa) more than the actual ruins...but that's just me. Also, Baalbek is a huge Hizballah town so there were posters of Nasrallah all over the place and some of Khomeini as well. People bought Hizballah t-shirts as souvenirs. Also we went to Anjar which is more ruins and is in an Armenian town. Went out to lunch there in Anjar and that was fabulous of course, and Jake and I judged the food together because we are Lebanese food connoisseurs.
That evening went out to dinner with Mom and Dany and two of Dany/Papi's cousins at ATCL (fancy shmancy pool club on the water, aka Kaslik, by Jounieh).

Sunday July 9:
Homework all day, then the World Cup Final at night. No one should ever be allowed to win anything besides the Italians because no one else knows how to celebrate properly. Celebrations all night, very very loud...fireworks are pleasant explosions.

Monday July 10:
Nothing of particular note, just went to class all day. Mom left for home at 2am (actually 2am Tuesday, but Monday night).

Tuesday July 11:
Again nothing of particular note, but for my class it was a neat day because in the afternoon Hussein (one of our teachers who let us ask him questions like "how do you say Axis of Evil in Arabic?") took us to a couple of Arabic bookstores to look around.

Okay I better go wake up Katie now, but stay tuned because, as you can guess, Wednesday July 12 is a doozy.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Woohoo Internet!

Okay so I finally have some kind of helpful internet access but am kind of tired and don't want to write out my entire life for the last 2 weeks all right now. Right now I am in a hotel in Venice with wireless internet access in the lobby so I will hopefully use that at some point tomorrow and do the whole writing up my entire life thing. Or if not that, then I am in Athens the night after tomorrow all by myself with internet access which should be awesome and very exciting, so you'll get the story then.

The short version is basically that I love everywhere in Europe except for Croatia which is a little bit boring and dirty as it turns out. Croatia actually does look a lot like Lebanon, to a point where, if I had fallen asleep on the bus and woken up in Croatia, I would have wondered how I got back in Lebanon and whether the last month of my life was just a dream. Mish ma3oul.

Also, I have been spoiled by Lebanon as it turns out. Driving through all these places, I know on an intellectual level that they're gorgeous. I mean the mountains all through Germany and Austria and all that were lovely and green (although I couldn't see the tops of them because the clouds were so huge and low and gray). And they're a huge improvement on the Midwest, obviously...but they just don't hold a candle to Lebanon. That's why I got so excited when this little city just at the beginning of Croatia looked just like a mini Beirut - it even had a bay and then the moutains all coming up behind it and buildings with orange roofs and everything.

UN resolution approved today. Only took them a month to do pretty much nothing. I'm trying to be optimistic but I'm sort of exhausted.

My friends from Beirut that I have been traveling with are leaving tomorrow, which scares me sort of because then there won't be anyone to talk about Barometer/getting bombed with.

Okay, that all for tonight. I'm very sleepy and would like to play with the internet a little more before going to bed. More interesting stuff tomorrow, but just know that I'm alive.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Standstill

BBC basic coverage for today

I keep finding some way to get away from it, but the second I get back online there it is again. I keep forgetting that it might be over for me, but it's so far from over for anybody else. I feel guilty for finding distractions, and all I really want to do is sit in front of the news all day, but I just can't do that to myself.

God please make this end.

Croatia

Ok, so I am now in Croatia and have been to Slovenia since I last updated and have a lot to say but this keyboard is again awful and it costs money so here's another post to tell you all that I am in fact alive. There are adjectives other than beautiful in my head but I can't be bothered to type them right now so I'm going to go write some stuff on paper and then post it all when I get to a normal computer (if I ever do ever again).

Time to read the news....gulp.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Alive in Austria

Okay, now I'm in a laundromat in Austria. I'm still alive (which means that I did not go skydiving or parasailing or repelling off a cliff or any of that like a lot of other people on the trip are right now!) and the Alps are very beautiful even if they're not Lebanon. I do not have much internet time but I might get online again later tonight (maybe with a less screwy keyboard) but I thought I'd update and let you all (anyone? Bueller? Bueller?) know that I am alive and having an awesome time.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Still Prague

Prague is neat. I have no time, but I am still alive (can't have gotten into too much trouble since this morning). Went on a walking tour and saw pretty buildings, but I think I prefer it at night.

That is all. Here's hoping the UN gets its shit together and Kofi starts doing something other than being "'deeply, deeply concerned that it is taking so long'" to pass a resolution" (same Daily Star article as previous post).

No rest for the weary

The United States was working with France on a U.N. resolution to end the fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas and propose a "road map" for a political settlement.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said a deal seemed close with France, adding, "We are prepared to work through the weekend."

-Washington Post

That's really tough, Sean-o. I appreciate your huge struggle and the favor.


Neither [US Ambassador to the UN] Bolton nor [French ambassador to the UN] de La Sabliere attended a briefing to the Security Council on the growing humanitarian crisis in Lebanon.

-Daily Star

But maybe if the briefing had taken place over the weekend they would have been prepared to sit through it.

Honestly, what the fuck are they doing?

Prague

Right now I am sitting in a quasi-internet cafe in the Prague airport. I had to come here to get my ticket changed by AirFrance so that I could come home a couple of days early, so now that is taken care of and I will be home on 8/25. I figured I'd use the internet while I was here and then head back and get some Prague-ing done.

The trip so far has been pretty great. We left from London at about 7 on Tuesday morning and drove down to Dover to catch the ferry. The cliffs are pretty neat and very white as it turns out. From there we took the ferry to Calais, France and drove through a bit of France and Belgium to get to the Netherlands. We spent the first night of the trip in Amsterdam which was pretty great. First we had a dinner cruise with Indonesian food which was odd but delicious, and Amsterdam is a pretty cool looking city. We went to this club called Bulldog where, as it turns out, there are pictures of naked people all over the walls. I failed to notice this while we were actually in the club but then we were looking at Heather's pictures afterward and there is a giant naked ass behind me and Aaron in this one picture. There was also karaoke there which was pretty entertaining. Then the next day we slept too late and then walked to the Anne Frank House museum which was quite depressing but very cool to see. It's neat because you actually get to look out the window and pretty much see what she saw while she was in there.

Then we spent pretty much the next two days driving from Amsterdam to Prague. It was probably one of the more beautiful drives I've ever taken in my life. I wrote in my journal on the first day that we were in the Rhine Valley and that it was beautiful, definitely an improvement on Michigan, but didn't hold a candle to Lebanon. I am biased of course. It is a different kind of beautiful though. Everything is so green and it's very picturesque. We spent the night in the randomest little hotel in the middle of Germany and sat out on the porch singing along with Jeff's guitar.

Yesterday we arrived in Prague in time for dinner and then a night walking tour, which was also beautiful. The city is all lit up at night and it looks amazing.

Okay, I only have 15 minutes of battery left so I better post this and then send some I'm-alive emails because I guess those are important. I'll have more interesting things to say about Prague later.

Oh, actually, important thing. The most interesting thing about this trip might actually be seeing what different people's reactions are to our having been in Lebanon. It's the tone of voice when they ask the inevitable "What were you doing there?" Americans have a very different reaction from Britons who have a different reaction from Aussies and New Zealanders and Canadians and South Africans and Mexicans and Greeks. Yup, that's everyone on the trip.

Okay, more later.

Qana, quite late

Okay, I wrote this on August 1, but this is the first chance that I have had to get online on my laptop since then so I'm posting it now. Pretend you're reading it five days ago (although when I wrote it it was already a little bit late...hence the original title, Qana, a little late).


Right now I’m on the ferry from Dover to Calais at the beginning of the ridiculous, nearly month-long European timewaster trip of the century. I am VERY excited about all of this, but mainly excited about the bus rides all over the place. Today we are traveling through France and Belgium on the way to spend the first two nights of our trip in Amsterdam. My mother told me not to take too many drugs while I’m in Amsterdam, which is advice that I will try to follow, no matter how tempted I am by peer pressure (Aaron and Heather are pressure machines).

It’s interesting to read the ways that different publications describe the events in the Middle East. Earlier I quoted Newsweek, which had the genius observation that although it was “difficult to determine” (if by difficult to determine you mean upwards of 750) the number of Lebanese deaths since the beginning of the conflict, Israel was saying that 200 of the dead were Hizballah fighters, but - oh, yeah - other sources reported that number at around 35. The Guardian, reporting on the deaths in Qana in an editorial aptly titled “Death in Qana” in its July 31 issue, reads:

“An airstrike on the Lebanese village of Qana killed more than 60 people, including 34 children. At a stroke, Israel’s armed forces destroyed almost as many Lebanese lives as the total number of Israelis who have died since this conflict began nearly three weeks ago.”

Obviously both of these sources are reporting true information. Israel really is reporting that 200 of the Lebanese dead were Hizballah and it really is true that the number dead in Qana is comprable to the total number of Israeli dead. It’s just the way they say it that I find interesting.

On a sidenote, the Guardian is probably the coolest newspaper I have ever seen in terms of layout and graphics and stuff. The front page has a giant photo of a man screaming and carrying the body of a young child away from the rubble of a destroyed building in Qana. In the centerfold of the front section is just a giant photo of rescue workers carrying a body out of the ruins - it takes up the entire two pages with just a small caption in the corner. Honestly I’ve never seen a layout this cool since the highly esteemed Day Times of yesteryear. Ah, memories. Only I’m not sure what Mrs. Langley would have done if Accent had said, “Okay, this issue we’re just gonna print a giant picture of death and destruction.” Although, probably what they would have wanted to print a picture of would have been a giant Louis Vuitton purse.

Anyway, so ‘bout that death and destruction. WTF. Well, sort of maybe people shouldn’t have thought they’d be safe in Qana since the exact same thing happened 10 years ago in a pretty similar situation. So probably if you’re hiding out in Qana and the Israeli army tells you to get out of there, you haul ass, because you know they know how to level the place. But perhaps this will make the ceasefire come faster, inshallah?

Who knows. All that needs to happen is that the US needs to say “Hey, guys, I have an idea, how about you stop killing people?” and the hot Israeli soldiers will go back to their normal operations (illicit sex with American Jewish girls on Birthright). But Bush doesn’t like illicit sex. No sir. That might lead to abortion, which would be a loss of innocent life.

On the attitude of Lebanese Christians toward Lebanese Muslims, specifically the refusal of Christians to donate money that would go toward helping Muslims:

Honestly, maybe it’s because I did not grow up in Lebanon and I wasn’t around to experience the war, so I just don’t understand the extent of or the “justification” for the division between the religions, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how bitter the relationship is because at this point the only thing that matters is Lebanese unity. Lebanon is just so tiny and easy to kick around to begin with. It’s an easy victim, but on top of that it insists on making itself even weaker by dividing itself up like this. What was the point of the last year and a half, what was the point of all the posters of Hariri all over Beirut, if you’re just going to lose whatever progress you made the second something bad happens, which happens to be the very second you NEED all that progress.

I understand, Hizballah started it, so yes, blame them - I know I do. But I’m pretty sure that none of those 34 children who died in Qana - or almost any of the other 750 dead so far - had the idea to kidnap those soldiers. So help all these poor innocents instead of punishing them even more. Because honestly that lack of humanitarian discrimination makes you not much better than Olmert and Israel.

If you don’t want things to spiral all the way downward all over again, if you don’t want Israel to succeed in bombing Lebanon back 30 years the way they promised they would, if you want peace again (so you can party in Beirut instead of up in Bikfaya), then helping the Muslims is the same as helping other Christians (if you’re just so set in your bitterness and bigotry that that’s the kind of justification you need). In the end, you’re just helping Lebanese.