Revisiting Lebanon Trip

Prioritizing is my theme lately. What am I prioritizing, I don't know. And I'm not really prioritizing per se, rather letting things slip and picking up others. I'm in the autopilot mode since I came back from Lebanon; actually, since before I left to Lebanon. No emotions, or rather, there are emotions and many feelings, but I'm not in sync with them. Blocking them? Most likely. I have not shed a tear or thought about things since I got back to the US... Oh, there's so much to cry about--so much! But, here comes prioritizing it seems, and crying is not productive, hence not a priority.

Ennis and Juju could become US citizens very soon. The applications I submitted have been approved. It took less then six weeks for the approval to come--I'm impressed. Now, their father has to agree and get them to the US embassy to take immigrant visas. Once they set foot in the US, they immediately become US citizens.

Ennis and Juju, Moody and Tala. They belong to two completely different worlds. They have different norms, standards, and values. The gap is so wide and deep that I wonder if it could ever lessen or their worlds come closer. I pretty much doubt it. Ennis and Juju are everything I ever wished my kids not to be. Juju is a 70-year-old woman in the body of a 10-year-old girl. Ennis, well, he's constantly in fights and he once pulled a knife on another kid. As if it's not bad enough they are victims of a divorce, they are also victims of the environment surrounding them and those caring for them. Victims of a mentality that wants to make up for the loss of a mother and to display to the observants that they are not missing much. Consequentially, there's abundance of spoiling, corruption, materialism, and lack of discipline. Why am I not crying?

Having said that, is it contradictory to say I'm not judging my kids or blaming them for the way they are? I know those are the facts and not acknowledging them or being cognizant of them does not serve any purpose. The purpose, I think, is to find and make peace with those facts.

Drifting with the Flow

It's been a while!

Recent lack of postings on this blog cannot be attributed to lack of events. It's been pouring events like "cats and dogs." The same way it's been pouring rain. It hasn't been a good Fall weather--too bad! Our favorite season is almost gone, and we didn't get to enjoy it.

We're kind of just going with the drift. I don't have the energy nor the time to even think of where things are going. It's good enough to make it through the day, go to bed, and get up to start another day. The uncertainties--I hate them!

Magda visited 2 weeks ago. Too bad I was stuck in school for three days and didn't get to spend much time with her. Moody and Tala were excited to see her. "She's like a fairy godmother," said Tala.

If you're concerned with the low real estate prices, go get a St. Joseph statue and bury it upside down. He's hot these days, St. Joseph! I heard it in the news today that doing so will improve the real estate market for sellers, not that I care right now. Poor St. Joseph!

A happy 77th birthday to Dad.

Happy Ramadan
رمضان مبارك

There and Here

I made it back on Tuesday evening. I'm so emotionally and physically drained. I have to sleep on it for a while and give everything time to sink in.

Still jetlagged, I started school yesterday. I had to run around the whole day: buy my books, buy the Campus parking pass, pick up OSU football season tickets, go to an interview that lasted 2:30 hours, and finally attend class from 8 to 10 pm with a glaze over my eyes and brain. I dropped the finance class and kept Six Sigma and Business Solution Teams. I sure won't regret that.

Followed Trabilsia's lead and took the Talent, Life or Mandarin quiz. I'm a Mandarin!

You're an intellectual, and you've worked hard to get where you are now. You're a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world's problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you're determined to try.

Talent: 44%

Lifer: 28%

Mandarin: 64%

Very true. It's pretty much the same result I got with the Myers Briggs Test. Any takers?

A Cool Shot!

This is just a cool shot from National Geographic. The dark figures you see are actually shadows, not the camels themselves. The picture is a top view, and the illumination is nearly parallel to the ground, so the little white streaks under the figures are the actual camels reflecting the sunlight. If you click on the image, you will see an enlarged version, which is clearer than 10,000 of my words!

Another Holy Mess

I'm following up on Ghazi's comment that all religions of the day are competing for the distinction of being the most unreasonable in the lot. Perhaps that is made clearer by the unfolding crisis following the statements made by Pope Benedict about Islam.

Before we get to the Muslim response to the Pope's comments, it is quite appropriate to touch on some aspects of the other side. Here we have a Pope, which means the embodiment of doctrine, advocacy, subjectivity and partiality. And he is speaking about (of all things) reason, and where? at a University. Give me a break! This guy not only symbolizes the abdication of reason, but even his professional function was to be the enforcer of doctrine! Forgive me, but I think the whole thing is a major sham to begin with. A university is hardly the proper stage for partisan pontifications. Yes, I know, there is some tolerance in academia for the faith affair and for religious doctrine, but only as a subject of study, perhaps a pathological pursuit, but a university is hardly a place for the promotion of a specific doctrine or view of the world, and especially not at the expense of another. A Pope speaking about reason at a university sounds as ridiculously contrived as a political campaign manager lecturing judges about impartiality! Nothing of any value whatsoever should be expected out of such a mockery of reason.

So the Pope warms up his audience by throwing a couple blows at religious violence--or so they later told us. But, instead of singling out or including examples closer to home, the Pope chose to present someone else's finger of accusation alleging a connection between Islam and violence, but he never gave a hint of the rebuttal of the accused. Surely, the learned Pope could have chosen plenty of other examples and sources of religious violence, without venturing far from his spacetime environment. He had his own Germany of only 50 years ago, to draw from, or Ireland of only a decade or so ago, in both catastrophes catholics figured quite prominently. But he didn't, and frankly, that's not unexpected.

In the old days, say the days of the original debate that the Pope quoted selectively, a jab by a subscriber of one faith at another religion probably would have had no effect. Now the faith enterprise has a different reality to deal with, and it must be able to do so both on the giving and the receiving ends. The new reality is: science and technology have broken all the barriers. If you are a religious leader, a drunk Hollywood actor, or just a tabloid editor, your words can now travel instantly to every corner of the world. Of course that does not mean people should be expected to shut up just because they'll otherwise be widely heard; on the contrary, they will be speaking ever more. But they need to be mindful of the vastness of their audience, and therefore being able to do a better risk/opportunity assessment. Of course, on the individual level the constraints are much more relaxed.

I think, the burden of adjusting must fall more heavily on the receiving end, for purely practical reasons if nothing else. The differences between Catholics and Muslims are nothing new, nothing accidental or superficial. Who does not know that? Those eternal differences cannot be ignored and they will make it to the surface, through the channels of free speech, whether you like it or not. Frankly, the Muslim establishment's views on other religions, as expressed widely, are not necessarily better than the Pope's statements, not by any stretch! Not only that, but one can easily argue that over history, and present times not excluded, the most egregious acts committed against Muslims come from their own leaders, but there is little history about riots breaking out to protest those cases. The Pope speaks, and organizations like Muslim Brotherhood pipe right up! But when Gaddafi recently gassed on endlessly in a speech to Libya's religious authorities, his comments about Islam, and other religions for that matter, went completely unnoticed by the Libyan MB and everyone else who is now protesting frantically.

The Muslims need to get used to living in the global village. This is the big city, you hear a lot of things you don't like. They need to understand that "un-islamic" and "ignorant" are two very different things, that Islam can be and it is audibly rejected by a lot of ordinary people within reach, not just "ignorant" people and agents of this imperialist state or that. It is not by accident that the majority of the world population are non-Muslims. They are not ignorant, they have some beef of some sort or another with Islam, or they might just be bigoted hateful drunks looking for someone to piss off. Whatever the case may be, they are going to talk about it, and they have every right to assert their differences. It is unimaginable to think that no one can accuse Islam of anything, and the same is true for any other religion with over a thousand years on record. It was possible to silence criticism and accusations in the old days, but it is now a different reality. Muslims need to answer a few basic questions: Where and under what circumstances can people state their accusations of Islam? Nowhere? Under no circumstance? If an academic setting is not the appropriate venue for an intellectual, then what the hell is? A lot of Muslims have to grapple with that, especially those who are not accustomed to seeing religion on a level field with no special state protection. Yes, of course that means the overwhelming majority of Muslims, the same ones mentioned in one headline that said,"Pope implies Islam is violent... Muslims respond by burning churches!"

Reason not Miracles

People ask sincerely, why isn't there democracy in the Muslim world? I say, they got it all wrong, there is democracy now! Look at Hamas, afterall they won what were widely believed to be fair elections. The problem has nothing to do with democracy per se, at least as far as democracy means holding, winning and losing elections. There was democracy in apartheid South Africa, and in the US when the process excluded women and blacks, and there is democracy now in Israel. The more fundamental question is really about rights, what and how widely enjoyed they are. The appreciation of individual rights can only come with a social and cultural enlightenment, i.e., a popularization of reason, not miracles. There is the rub!

It is reasonable to assume, for a veteran political entity like the Muslim Brotherhood, that its very longevity is proof positive of its relevance. This is a "multi-national" group that boasts a presence all around the middle east, libya included for at least half a century now. Their birthplace and center of mass is in Egypt, right next door, and the Libyan branch was rooted there. The MB introduces itself as a "non-violent reformist organization seeking the establishment of civil society", and it includes as members many professionals and "social elite," not your basic disgruntled and misguided suicidal youth who populate the cliché islamist groups. In Libya, there is a world-famous case of over 100 MB members who were imprisoned for close to eight years, tried in sham courts and slapped with various prison terms and two death sentences. Ultimately, their criminality was re-affirmed on appeal, and they were released the day after by the kind heartedness of a puppet group called the Supreme Judicial Council. Among the released prisoners were US educated professors, scientists, engineers, and various other professionals. The atrocities committed against this group are nothing unusual for the Libyan regime, but they were in fact perfectly "legal," i.e., in accordance with the prevailing laws, one of which makes belonging to a political party punishable by death. The issue, once more, is one of rights! But what about the MB itself, where do they stand?

The MB know their fit in Libyan society, and they also know that political islamism cannot possibly survive anywhere without the protection of the state. So they spin a "comprehensive reform" headline, with no agenda or a working alternative program, but their spin affords them some latitude in the West, where they distrustfully live and operate, and it works toward their bigger objective of self protection, i.e., power sharing inside Libya. Anyway, the point here is not to get into the MB's strategies, but only to place them squarely in the intellectual reaches of the mainstream of Libyan society, perhaps representative of the politically powerful class that would take hold of a democratic Libya, if such a thing ever existed! But where would they be on the rights issue? That really begs the question, how reasonable is this group that boasts of a membership including professors, doctors and various educated folk? I will not answer that directly. Let the following news story do it, a story that I found on a Libyan MB news site, which they'd copied from an unknown source. The story speaks for itself, as well as for the foundations on which it was judged worthy of re-publication. It also shows the quality of discourse to be expected in practice from a group like the MB, and the depths from which Libyan society must climb befor it can begin to navigate by the light of reason.


The Arabic version is in the original form, the English is my own translation. Enjoy.

مركبة أمريكية تؤكد انشقاق القمر في بداية الدعوة الإسلامية

المنارة - 15/9/2006


أثبتت الأبحاث العلمية الحديثة صدق معجزة الرسول محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم بِشأن انشقاق القمر فى بداية بعثه نبيا للأمة. وتم إثبات ذلك من خلال الصورة التي التقطتها مركبة الفضاء الأمريكية ونشرت خلال الفترة الماضية في مختلف أنحاء العالم.

وجاء في تقرير جرى توزيعه على المؤسسات العلمية في مختلف أنحاء العالم أن الصورة التي تظهر حدوث انشقاق على سطح القمر تؤكد أن القمر انشق إلى نصفين خلال عمره الجيولوجي مع بداية ظهور الدعوة الإسلامية. وأكد التقرير أن العلماء لم يتمكنوا من إعطاء تفسير علمي لظاهرة انشقاق القمر حيث لم يحدث أي انشطار لأي جرم من الأجرام السماوية من قبل مثلما حدث للقمر.

يذكر أن معجزة انشقاق القمر حدثت في أول عهد النبي الكريم محمد بن عبد الله صلى الله عليه وسلم حين طلبت منه قريش انشقاق القمر ليؤكد ذلك صدقه ونبوته فحدث الانشقاق وشاهد سكان مكة المكرمة والبوادي في الجزيرة العربية بالعين المجردة حدوث انقسام القمر إلى نصفين حال حدوثه.

المصدر : الاقتصادية

Translation:

American Vehicle Confirms Moon Splitting At The Advent of Islam

Recent scientific research has proven the truthfulness of the miracle of Prophet Mohammed, may Allah bestow prayers and peace upon him, concerning the splitting of the moon early in his inception as Prophet for the Umma. And that proof came through the picture that was taken by the American space vehicle and published in the past period in various parts of the world.

And in a report that was distributed to scientific organizations around the world, it was mentioned that the picture which presents cracks on the surface of the moon confirms that the moon had split in two halves in its geological life around the appearance of Islam. The report also confirmed that the scientists were unable to provide a scientific explanation for the moon splitting phenomenon, as there had been no precedent where an extraterrestrial body split up as in the case of the moon.

It is noted that the moon splitting miracle occurred early in the era of the Noble Prophet Mohammed bin Abdallah, may Allah bestow prayers and peace upon him, when the Quraysh tribe demanded the splitting of the moon to confirm his truthfulness and prophecy, so the splitting occurred, and it was witnessed live by the naked eyes of the residents of Makkah the Blessed and the hinterlands of the Arab peninsula.

Source: al-Iqtisadiya (Arabic word that can be translated as The Economic or as The Economist, the latter would be an un/fortunate coincidence with the name of the well-known British publication.)

The copied story is on Almanara.org web site. Almanara means "lighthouse."

p.s. Even though "the scientific report" was widely circulated, and even though this is an internet story in the 21st century, there is not a single name, date, location or any concrete identifying information about it, let alone an actual link to this report, anywhere in the various parts of the world that received it!

Happy Ramadan. Remember not to abuse your right to eat at night, think of the poor folks in Antarctica!

A 24-hour cycle without sunset--read more about it.

Moving Forward!

Tala had her four-year physical on Friday. Her growth report is full of the number 4. On the growth chart, she falls in the 94th percentile; not surprisingly, that makes her an average 5-year-old size.

During the exam, she handed Dr. Klinger a book and said, "Can you read me this book, please?" The way she asked and the way she looked at him, he couldn't say no. He read her the page she held out. Dr. Klinger is one of the best pediatricians anywhere. He's so thorough, so patient, and pays attention to every little detail. During the visits, he watches every move and sound the child makes to assess the development. And unlike other physicians, he's never stingy in the time he spends with each child.

When shot time came at the end of the visit, Tala threw a fit refusing to take it. I said to her, "The shot will help you be healthy and not fall sick." She said, "OK, Mom!" So sweetly and calmly--I was surprised. There came the shot and she wailed so hard but had her reason. "It does burn," the nurse told me.

While in the waiting area, Moody picked up the book Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. He read it to me all by himself, from beginning to end. I'm so proud of him.

Moody, Tala, and Sol have some sort of a flu. Of course, school starts and bugs start coming home with the kids. I hope I don't catch it; I'm clear so far, except for the symptoms I experienced on Friday night. I'm flying to Beirut tomorrow to spend a week with Ennis and Juju; I don't want to be sick. I'm blank about the trip--don't know what or how to feel except that I'm going to meet two dear people that I don't really know, and I don't know what's going on in their minds. I'm sure that once we meet, things will fall naturally in place and the apprehension and anxiety will subside.

Still, there are other reasons that make me very excited about my going to Lebanon and look forward to it. I will be seeing the dear Shallouf family. Uncle Lamin and Mom go way back to their old neighborhood in Derna where the two families were neighbors. The Shalloufs were a family to me during my stay in Lebanon. They have been there for me all the time through thick and thin. We gradually lost contact through the years. Last contact I had with them was a couple of years ago when Asma told me she was getting married. It seems like a year or so ago, but I've learnt from Mohamed, her brother, that she has a 2-and-a-half-year-old boy and is expecting a girl this month. Oh, I can't imagine it still. I would spend the first night with them since I'm arriving at 7:30 pm and don't want to take a "service" to Baalbeck at night. I would visit them with the kids too over the weekend, to reconnect them. They have not seen them in years and the kids don't remember them anymore. They used to visit them when in Beirut shortly after I left, but then stopped and all contacts to the Shalloufs were blocked. Oh, it will just be wonderful to see them all!

On Friday, Sol and I watched Fahrenheit 9/11. I highly recommend it. Sol said to me, "You are flying on the 9/11 anniversary." Oh, no! It didn't occur to me and I never paid attention to the date. I was looking for a flight starting September 8th and Monday was the first available I got. This is the third ticket I book in a week. First one was to Qatar after I made arrangements with my ex's sister there for my visit. But then, as soon as my ex knew I was going there he insisted the kids fly to Lebanon immediately. He's now in Sierra Leone where he's been working for years. I cancelled the ticket and lost some money in the process. I was then told by his sister that the kids will stay and I can come, so I rebooked again. And once again, I was told that they're leaving to Lebanon the next day, on their father's insistence. So, I cancelled again and started looking into flights to Lebanon. The kids got very excited and happy, then disappointed, then excited again, and disappointed again... I decided to go wherever they are. I know my visit will raise their morale and give their spirits an uplift.

Back-to-School Day

School started today for Moody and Tala. They both were very exited, well behaved, and insisted on wearing new clothes and all. They even wanted to wear coats though it's not cold yet! After dropping them to school, I realized I have a whole 2-and-a-half-hours all by myself, for myself. It's the first time it happens. Last year, Tala went to school in the morning, and Moody in the afternoon. So I always had one of them with me. I planned to go shopping earlier, but after this realization I decided to indulge myself. I had a doctor's visit this morning and she advised me to take time off during the day and to pamper myself frequently. I might as well do it now. I could even watch a soap opera for some brain freeze, lol.

Tala had ballet this morning. We changed school this year to Straub Dance which is owned by the mother of the Generations' owners. We left Generations because of religious reasons, or irreligious reasons to be accurate. For the two years we were part of Generations, we didn't notice the religious stuff till recital this year. I was walking by backstage when I heard the older kids saying a prayer before performance, and then they had a dance around a cross in middle stage. We liked Generations; such a shame they have to incorporate religion into dance. As one parent put it, "We pay for dance lessons, not religion." Damn right!

Religion is becoming more visible in American public life. We have been facing this issue over and over in many different places, including the public school where--by law--religion has no place there. What is wrong with being a secular society that accepts all members, and nonmembers, of the different religions on equal footing. Why equate being American with being Christian. It's hard enough to fit with all the other differences. Why don't people leave religion for the gods and in the confinement of their own homes. My personal opinion: Religion is the source of all evil.

Who Rules?

Yesterday, during the day, Moody was going to play in his room.

Hanu: Don't make a mess in your room.

Moody: It is my room and I do whatever I want in my room.

Hanu: No, you don't.

Moody: But it's my room, I own it and I rule it.

Hanu: It's your room, but it's in our house and we make the rules.

Later when I was tucking him in bed:

Moody: I want to own my room. Kids should own their rooms!

Hanu: When you have your own house, then you will own all the rooms in the house. And then, you could do whatever you want in them.

Moody: But why can't I rule my room?

Hanu: Because you are under our rule.

Moody: What does above the rule mean?

Welcome back, school. Welcome back, me!

Hmmm, I'm not the one who should be welcoming me back... Oh, well!

I'm back for good, done with the internship. Three long months in that old, wet, soggy city of Fort Wayne. The internship was good in many unexpected ways. The major take away from that, which happens to be a question I need to find an answer to, is: Do I want to work in Corporate America? I don't fit; don't like it. Too much politics, heavy politics. Damn the politics! I will have to do some more career counseling once school starts.

Moody's orientation was yesterday. Kindergarten, yay! He's thrilled. And yes, he has school on Fridays too. "Tala doesn't. Only I go to school on Friday," he keeps saying.

Tala's orientation was today. She "cutted" bits of her hair... again! And some of her "Chicago dolls" hair. I was not happy at all—I was mad! At least I couldn't even tell where she cut her hair; no bald spots visible. She didn't want to take the picture. She said, "I don't feel good because I cutted all our hair."

I'm glad I'm back. It feels good, though overwhelming! All those months, I kept thinking that once I'm back, I'll have some relaxing and quality time with the kids. Today, I even entertained the idea of taking a nap. Oh, the kids! They have to get used to me again. They've been in my hair all day! Demands, whining, arguing, complaining, never-ending attention seeking. Oh, the closets! I need to sort them out. The kids' closets, the coats closet, the mud room, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera! Oh, the forms and paperwork! They loaded us with forms and forms from school. Things to fill out, lists to buy, lists to do... Oh, my—whom was I kidding!

Although I didn't do any of the things I imagined I'd be doing, I did something useful: I cooked dinner. I bet the house hasn't smelled like it does now in a long time. We have sharba, green beans stew, and rice. I make good rice; sol would eat it all by itself, white--that's how good my rice is. Moody asked when I was cooking, "What are we having for dinner?" I said, "Sharba." He whined, "Oooh, that makes me choke!" Thinking that he forgot, I asked him, "Do you know what sharba is?" He answered, "It's the soup with the potato beans in it. The beans make me choke!" That's hummus for you, aka chick peas, aka garbanzo beans!

It's nice to be back. Nice to be home!

Keep Walking...

Orginal post on: Free Cedar: After war ad'

New Johnnie Walker billboard, standing in Beirut.

Of War and People

Last Friday, NPR's All Things Considered featured a segment about the southern Lebanese village, Qawza, and an interview with a couple who were there when the Israelis arrived. The couple talked about the contradicting actions of two groups of Israeli soldiers. Listen here

Abi Elias, the interviewee, passed on this message to an Israeli soldier: "Thank you, my son... I don't know what is your name, but I know you are a gentleman; you are a good fellow; you are a good man."

On the other group of soldiers, Abi Elias says, "They are not army, they are like 'junkestan' army."

The story doesn't make the puzzle of the war any easier to solve. I still think about Moody's question of who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. I answered him then that in war there aren't necessarily bad guys and good guys. What do I tell him if I am to attempt an answer? There's this good guy, with his soldiers unit, who are on the side of the bad guys who killed many civilians in Lebanon. Those bad guys are fighting the other bad guys in Lebanon who claim to be fighting for the good guys in Lebanon. There are the other good guys in Lebanon, and the Arab world, who are chanting their support for the bad guys who caused the destruction of Lebanon and loss of civilian lives. Those good guys hold the leader of the bad guys as their hero...

Does Hezbollah Stand for Arab Pride? A commentary of All things Considered by Adeed Dawisha, an Iraqi-American professor of political science at Miami University, OH. Dawisha says of the contemporary Arab condition, “Simply put, it is a region that suffers from a perceptible achievement deficit. A region mired by authoritarian rule so suffocating of the creative spirit that it leaves people desperately clutching at the slightest bit of accomplishment that comes their way.” more here

Tala is 4!

Happy Birthday!

Updates, August 27:

"I had a great day!"

"This is the best birthday ever!"

"Thank you for the most great gift!"

Tala is still repeating those phrases since yesterday. Such a sweet darling! Her day started in a special way: She had her first ice skating lesson—first time for her on ice. She was frozen on the ice the first fifteen minutes, afraid to move, blink, or even smile. At the end of the class she ice-walked all the way from the middle of the rink to meet me at the gate.

When she woke up in the morning she put on the dress we picked at the mall on Friday, on top of her PJs (picture above.) She loves dresses and skirts. She asked for an Aurora dress, tiara, and slippers, and was elated when she got them.

As per Juju's request, I called her and Ennis and we all sang happy birthday to Tala together. Later, Grandma Safia called and khalu Aymen. Tala was happy!

At 2 pm, she and Moody had T-Ball practice, followed by cake, candles etc. Tala and Moody chose the cake with Cinderella and the prince, so Moody will get the prince and she will get Cinderella. They play so well together. Later at dinner, a whole bunch of people gathered around our table and sang for her. Tala was happy!

Today, we went school shopping for supplies and clothes. I hid the clothes and shoes away and told them they'll get them when school starts. Kind of reminded me of my school days and school shopping with Mom. Such nice memories!

We saw How to Eat Fried Worms today at the theatre. Sol dropped us at the entrance and went to park the car, as usual. Moody asked the cashier for four tickets, and Tala said, "The other one is my Dad. He's still outside. He has grey hair!"

From the Bush Monument Committee

[I got this from a colleague--pretty funnyyyyy!]

Dear Friends and Relatives:

I have the distinguished honor of being on the committee to raise $5,000,000 for a monument of George W. Bush. We originally wanted to put him on Mt. Rushmore until we discovered there was not enough room for two more faces.

We then decided to erect a statue of George in the Washington, D. C. Hall Of Fame. We were in a quandary as to where the statue should be placed. It was not proper to place it beside the statue of George Washington, who never told a lie, or beside Dick Cheney, who never told the truth, since George could never tell the difference.

We finally decided to place it beside Christopher Columbus, the greatest Republican of them all. He left not knowing where he was going, and when he got there he did not know where he was. He returned not knowing where he had been, and did it all on someone else's money.

Thank you,

George W. Bush Monument Committee

P. S. The Committee has raised $1.35 so far

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The Name Game

"The Name Game," or "The Banana Song", is a children's singalong rhyming game that creates variations of a person's name. It was written by singer Shirley Ellis and released in 1965... [Source: Wikipedia]

Tala loves that song, and she's so good at it. She picked it up around December of last year because the song has Nick's name with its variations.

Now here's the real name game:

In the process of obtaining passports for the whole family in case we decide to visit Libya or wherever, depending on where Ennis and Juju end up, I sent lots of forms to the Libyan consulate in DC (it's still the Libyan Liaison Office.) Among those forms were the birth registration forms for Moody and Tala, and the forms to add them to my passport. Wait, wait... keep reading, it gets to be interesting...

Today I received a call from the consular saying that they cannot register Tala; her name is illegal! Holy crap! I just kept laughing and still laughing. She suggested that we fill the application with a different name--one that is legal--and send it back. "Hold on, you mean we need to change her name?" I asked. She said, "No, just put a different name on the form and send it back to us. Then later, you add or change her middle name with a legal one you can use to register her in Libya with. A lot of people do that."

Hmmm, I started thinking, my mind spinning. Sol was not for even taking his pictures for the Libyan passport, let alone sending it for renewal, and yet worse going to Libya. How did he react? Exactly as I expected: "To hell with them. We don't need them. She [Tala] does not need anything to do with them. We are not going!"

OK, so I do a good job at predicting Sol, and I had an incentive stashed to overcome this obstacle. When we got married, Sol's Dad 'requested' that we name the girl, when we have one, Amna, after his mom and Sol's mom. We didn't, but he got his wish with naming Ahmed. But then after we registered Tala, I kept saying that we should have used Hana for her middle name and not Suliman. Not fair to have his name be the middle name for both kids, and really why would she have a guy's name as the middle name? Well, I know, in Libya the middle name is the Dad's--doesn't make it any less unfair. So now I started thinking that here is a reason to change her middle name to Hana, or even to Amna--whatever it takes to get things going.

Sol, ball in your court!

Damn the war for bringing all this back!

Worrying about Ennis and Juju, while sitting here alone in Fort Wayne, away from Moody and Tala and Sol, makes things even worse and makes the world feel more lonely... I feel more alone!

My mind was set that one day I will write about my previous marriage and divorce. I want to write it for my kids, the four of them, to know why and how it happened. I want to write about the choices I had and the decisions I had to make and made.

The last two weeks re-agitated many forgotten, unhealed wounds. It's as if I'm in the middle of the divorce again, facing the possibility of being separated from my children. Did I really forget the pain of separation? No, but life happens and keeps happening. Eventually one loses sight of the things that are not in focus.

Now, I ask myself: How could I write about all that happened back then? What I write will bring more pain, and will jeopardize some relations time managed to heal. I can't write about my ex-husband for he's the father of my children. I can't write about all the people that let me down when I needed them then--those that not only turned their backs on me, but helped separate me and the kids... Those are my parents, my sisters, my best friend--all of whom I still love. I don't want to hurt any of them anymore. How do I explain to my children that my family deserted me because I brought them shame by wanting to be a “divorced woman”?

Could I ever forget or forgive? No, but life goes on! What could bring back the forever-lost times for my children and me? Who could give them back to us? Maybe we will have time together again, but the bygone times will never be again!

The wounds are still alive; the pain is still alive; I still can't deal with it--I don't want to deal with it. So, I decided I will not write my story.

My Babies

"I'm very worried about Ennis and Juju," Moody told me when I got home yesterday. Sol has told him and Tala about the war, explaining what war is and that their brother and sister are caught in it. Tala wants to "bring them to this world, our world!" She and Moody got all their stuffed animals down to the basement to help fight the war.

Ennis and Juju live in Baalbeck, in the Bekaa Valley, which is the capital for Hizbollah. It was inevitable the Israelis would bomb it; I was waiting for that. They did, many times, and the kids, along with other family members, have been on the road. They fled to one village, to come back to Baalbeck for another bombardment and flee again.

Juju's Grandma told me that Juju is very terrified and freaking out. Ennis told me that he liked to watch.

I have not started the naturalization process for the kids, because I need their father's consent. He would not agree to that; partly, in fear that I would take them away from him, and partly to punish me for getting out of the marriage. I have contacted the Congressman's office, Senator, and friends to try and get them deported. There isn't much hope for that since they are not US citizens or legal residents of the US. I was told that dependents of US citizens who don't fall in these two categories might be deported after all citizens and legal residents have been. I don't think that would happen. The first thing I will try to do when/if this war is over is to start their naturalization process. I hope the father will agree and put the kids' interest above all else.

I'm dead worried about them... What if the car they're traveling in got hit, what if he road they're on got hit, what if the house they're in got hit? Can't sleep, can't think of anything else... Every time I call, I expect no answer or to be told my worst fear. I wish they'd fled the country earlier. I wish there was a way in for me. I wish they do get out of there somehow, but how... there's no way out!

Shame on the World!

From infoplease.com

The Israeli's offensive in Lebanon hit 8 days now. Lebanese are paying a price for a decision they didn't make and do not own. Every day exposes the international community and the US administration for what they really are--impotent, racist criminals themselves. A nation is pleading for help and the whole world is turning their backs on them!

It's a shame to see what's happening in Lebanon, a country that suffered decades and decades of war and managed despite all that to rebuild and rise above all other countries in the region and the Arab world. I still ask, what's the point in destroying the best democracy in the region?

I happened to move to Lebanon in 1991, just at the end of the civil war. The ugliness of the war was everywhere, on the streets, the buildings, the infrastructure, and most prominent on the faces and morale of the people. You can rebuild a country, but can you restore morale?

The psychological damage of war is much more grave than the physical damage. People don't have the same view of life as those living in peaceful countries. Despair is part of who they are, living everyday as it comes, no guarantees, no worries about tomorrow. What a life and what a destruction of human life!

During my seven-year stay in Lebanon, I had witnessed many Israeli and non-Israeli attacks. I was astonished beyond comprehension by the reaction--or better yet, lack of it--of those around me treating it business as usual. I was horrified and scared like I've never been or could have ever imagined possible. The destruction, the ruins, tangible and intangible, were horrific! I have seen only a glimpse of the war, really, so imagine the scale of damage to those who lived through it for decades, the generations that were brought to life in the middle of it and knew no other way of life.

The current attacks on Lebanon brought all those feelings back; it's hard to explain what feelings war provokes in a person who lived through it, in it, to those who are watching from the outside. The best I can do is that a dark gloomy cloud engulfs you and all your senses, and you see things only through that dark cloud...

I left Lebanon after seven years, and it took me well over two years to recover the psychological damage and regain my sanity and my self. My two children, Ennis and Jenna, are still living in Lebanon. I could not take them with me because of the many restraints and inequality women still face in the Arab and Muslim world. Even though it is very clear to everyone involved that the children are better off leaving Lebanon--and they do have more than one place to go to--their wellbeing is not superordinate to those involved in making the decision on behalf of the kids. My heart goes out to them and I wish they don't have to witness and live a war... My hands are tied and my heart is knotted!

---

From Lebanon's The Daily Star:

Diplomats leave Lebanese civilians to pay for a decision they didn't make

Seven days into Israel's war on Lebanon, there is no hint of effective international diplomacy on the horizon. The Lebanese are being forced to accept that they are alone in the world, without a friend who can defend them against an undeserved onslaught. The Syrians, who many have argued share a healthy portion of blame for the current crisis in Lebanon, are too busy saving their own skins, threatening fierce reprisals if their nation comes under attack. The Iranians, also fingered in this latest wave of hostilities, are cozily sitting back and enjoying the luxury of sacrificing Lebanon and Hizbullah in their quest to sweeten a deal with the West over their nuclear program.

Saudi Arabia is abandoning its role as a regional peacemaker, placing all of the blame squarely upon Hizbullah and Iran, and expressing no hint of outrage over the collective punishment and destruction in Lebanon. They apparently have adopted the belief that the more than 220 innocent civilians killed are among the "elements" in Lebanon who are responsible for the current crisis.

Egypt, the home of an ineffective Arab League, which cannot even muster the diplomatic will to hold a summit, is busy scolding Hizbullah for its misdeeds. As Lebanon burns for a seventh straight day, we see no sense of urgency on the part of Egyptian leaders to convene emergency talks among regional heads of state.

Even in Israel, there is no sign of diplomatic efforts on the part of leading politicians. The rookie Israeli government - which has achieved record destruction at a scale and pace rarely seen, even in this part of the world - has stepped aside and let Israeli generals take the lead. They fail to see the irony in the fact that their commanders have been pounding the very army that they expect to impose order over Lebanese territory.

And the Europeans and the Americans are blindly following as the Israelis lead us all down a treacherous path. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, formerly an advocate for the Lebanese people, is still lingering in Washington, apparently reluctant to even try to come and resolve this conflict.

In these darkest of hours, with the skies of Lebanon and the brains of international leaders clouded by the haze of war, the Lebanese are desperately searching for an outstretched hand of diplomacy. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has pleaded with the world to stop Israel's "barbaric" attacks on the country. But the world has effectively abandoned the Lebanese people to their misery and turned a blind eye as they suffer the consequences of a decision that they themselves did not make. Instead of sending us their diplomats, the world is sending us its boats and buses for the refugees who hold foreign nationalities.

The Lebanese who don't hold dual citizenship have no choice but to hunker down in their basements and shelters and watch the return of an international war that has been played out again and again on their territory. This time, their beloved homeland has been chosen as a battleground in which the Israelis will brutalize the Lebanese in order to teach the Iranians a lesson on behalf of the West. The war-weary Lebanese have no choice but to pay the ultimate price and once again bear the brunt of the consequences of world diplomats' failure to resolve a crisis peacefully.

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=74060

Tala, the experimentalist

Hi, Mom. I just wanted to show you the results of my heat sensing experiment from last night. Right after Dad told me the red light on the cooktop means it's hot, I had to confirm it for myself; and sure enough, it was hot! Not a very "contherble" feeling. Now I also know what the word blister means.

I also drew this picture for you to mark the occasion.

July 4th weekend in Chicago

This year, the Fourth of July fell on Tuesday, and we decided to spend the long weekend in Chicago, visiting our friends: Magda Fehema and Tawfik Sharkasi. They are very dear friends, and we hadn't seen them since they moved back to Chicago. The kids and I got to Ft. Wayne on Friday, picked up Hannu and continued on Saturday. Chicago is a nice city, very nice in fact. But what made it especially nice for us was really the company of M&T. They'd lived in Chicago before coming to Columbus in the early 90's, then Egypt for a few years, then France, and now back. They have two children: Nahil, works and lives in the DC area. Adam just got his BS in Mech. Eng. at Virginia Tech, and planning on continuing for an MS degree.

M&T are very pleasantly engaging, their company is enriching and stress free. Tawfik is VP for Research & Development at Wrigley, and a food scientist by training. I learned a lot about food from him, as it relates to my field of materials science. Prepared foods are basically "engineered materials," so we always have interesting cross-disciplinary conversations, often yielding "exotic" examples for my junior phase transformations class. The food lecture seems to "stick" to my students memory better than anything else in that class! lol lol

Magda, on the other hand, is the co-founder of the Tibra Foundation. She is very caring and very active in her community. She volunteers and participates in activities for different causes. Recently, she has been teaching immigrants, Somalis and Hispanics I believe. She is also creative and artistic, like her brother Abdelmutalib, and Tawfik who designed the Libyana logo. In short, Magda is a wonderful, caring, and loving person—Moody is lucky to have her for a Godmother.

Our hosts also have a good taste in music, and they usually have something interesting to share. This time, it was a set of CDs featuring Sufi music and poetry-song improvisations by al-Kindi Ensemble of a Syrian band of musicians and singers, including a Sheikh Habboush and a French artist named Julian Weis. This is a fantastic double CD set, both musically and poetically. You know, those Sufi guys got that "don't take things literally" cover, so they can get away with saying all kinds of taboos in poetry-- I mean, anything!

We spent all of our time in downtown Chicago, got to walk to some of the city's points of interest, and took lots of pictures! Some highlights are shown here, and if you click on any image, you'll get to the full set, where you can pick and see larger copies. To start with, here is a view from M&T's apartment, which overlooks Navy Pier and the harbor on Lake Michigan. All the pictures below were taken within walking distance from here.

They call it "the Bean" for its shape, but to me it looks like a drop of mercury. The Millenium Park structure captures part of the city skyline in the left image, and if you hide the bottom of the image (everything from my head down) it looks like the city is inside a bubble. From the side, it looks more like a kidney bean lying on its clefted belly. I was especially impressed by the engineering of the whole reflective surface-- a completely seamless mirror, even on close examination.

At the Millenium Park, they also have two huge towers facing each other, and spraying water on ecstatic kids gathered underneath. The tower displays Chicago faces that stare and blink, smile... then pucker up and spew water out of their mouths. The kids (and some grownups) loved it! On the right of this picture is Moody, Tala in the center, running away frantically from the water spray.

A famous section of downtown Chicago is a stretch of Michigan Avenue called the Magnificent Mile, from the Chicago River to Lake Michigan. The name was coined in a major rebuilding campaign of the city back in the late 40's. Overlooking Wrigley Square on Michigan Avenue, there is the famous buildings of Wrigley, the white one on the left, and the Chicago Tribune on the right in the above picture. Both were actually built in the 1920's. Wrigley, of chewing gum fame, is a name that has a strong association with the city, including its baseball tradition at Wrigley Field.

On the face of the Tribune building there is an interesting collection of "implants," you might say. In the stones of the building there are lots of small inlaid pieces, brought from famous structures all around the world, including the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Forbidden City, even the World Trade Center, and... there is a little piece of marble from the city of Libda (Leptis Magna) in Libya. This city, about 60 miles east of Tripoli on the Med, is the birth place of Septimus Severus, who grew up there, then moved to Rome, became a Roman Empiror ca. 200 AD, and died in York, England.

Since we were staying downtown, we had no worries about driving or parking. We just walked everywhere, then we walked everwhere else! When we went to the Magnificent Mile, it was more like the magnificent eight miles! We walked a lot, but thanks to Hana's forethought, we took the wagon with us. As you can see from the pictures, it was not only handy but downright cozy at times!

The Cultural Center is a beautiful old building that's open freely to the public, and offering art exhibits, music shows, majestic ball rooms for holding functions, etc. For example, the city's Arab American Council held a function in the room with the high Tiffany stained-glass dome. We saw an auto-art exhibit that was interesting. We also saw a nice exhibit of wild looking clothes for creatures you might meet on Star Wars or some such place. Still, really interesting stuff. Of course, there was the one exhibit that showed a little too much culture for kids, if you know what I mean. I knew the risk when we entered the room and saw a flat TV on a wall, displaying a video of a woman in her underwear, peeling a layer of transparent plastic off her skin, which made her look like she was peeling off her own skin. By the end of the loop around that room, I was kinda racing the kids past some of the stuff on the walls. Fortunately, and quite surprisingly, neither of the kids asked any thing. My worst fear was reverberating in my head: "What's that, Dad?" I just moved them faster after Hana and Magda busted out laughing behind us. Man, that was close! Too close! What was it, you ask? If you must know, I'd say I didn't read the name of that work, but I imagine it was something totally Sufi!

Chicago has a lot of interesting political history and a rich ethnic makeup. For example, when Pope John Paul visited Chicago, I heard it is the largest "Polish city" in the world, with a larger Polish community than any city in Poland itself! It is also the place where the building in the left picture used to house the Medinah Temple of the Nation of Islam organization. Now that building is a Bloomingdale department store. Life goes on. It reminds me of the old Syria Mosque building (that used to be?) in Pittsburgh, which was a theater when I lived there, both buildings displaying a decorative Islamic/Arabic saying, "la ghalib illa Allah" repeated. It means, "No conquerer but Allah," as opposed to Bloomingdale's, you see! The picture on the right is just some stately looking dudes in town, dressed in proper attire... They could also be a bunch of lonely Canadians! (H: Actually, they were in front of the Freedom Museum, in Michigan Ave., inviting passersby to visit the museum.)

On Monday night we caught the fireworks on the lake from a 2nd floor terrace. Seen here is Saida, a friend and neighbor of M&T, living in the same building. She is Moroccan-American, and a woman about town, active in a civic body that advises the mayor on diversity. She and Magda met at an Arab American Council function in the Tiffany domed room above, before they discovered they lived in the same vertical neghborhood. Saida kindly took the Kids one evening, so Magda and Tawfik could treat us to a fantastic dinner at one of Chicago's fusion cuisine restaurants. What a friend.

Our friends did not make couscous, no bazeen, and no macroona. They didn't slaughter any unsuspecting lambs in our honor, noooooo. But they did take us to a Thai-Hawaiian fusion restaurant. My appetizer foamed! I thought to myself, "I need a blindfold." lol lol. I think all the rest of the food was from this planet, though. Actually, the foam was a white chocolate emulsion, but the entire meal was really out of this world. Thank you, Magda and Tawfik. Thank you, Saida.

Ironically, we spent most of July 4th on the highway, driving back all the way to Columbus with a little break in Ft. Wayne. It was the day to unwind happily. Good times were had by all. Even the kids were quite relaxed and happy for several days. It was good for them to see Americans like them on the 4th of July.