Sunday, August 06, 2006

Another Day in the Breezes of the Med

Days stretch out and melt one into another here in Cyprus…It’s hotter than Florida but the sun is weaker in the tanning department… I am still trying to grapple with the reasons why…

My one eyed cat roommate has taken it upon himself to demand a daily combing…His hair seems trapped in "bad hair day mode" for the entire duration of his life...
Being a 15 year old (cat to human years is like 105!!!) I am sure that he has gotten to the point where all crusty old man principles apply.

I have become a regular at the pool below and am often running along the sea road… Did I mention earlier I miss my bike?

I have been in contact with Abed and what he told me wasn’t where I gathered my details… It was what he DIDN’T tell me that sent the message home…

Abed’s wife had family in Dahiyeh… The young couple had rented a large apartment in Choueifat…Abed’s family lives in Ouzai…

To give the audience of intellectuals the background on Abed…
Abed’s wife has recently gotten out of hospital after giving birth to a son…C-section. This labor was a near 18 hour episode that shows the amazing competency of the Lebanese Doctors at AUH. She was puffed up like a toad when I saw her thanks to the free of charge nosocomial infection…
It would be nice if HOSPITALS PAID for infections they gave you!!! But no....
AUH was billing her for staying in longer…
I won’t even start on the fact that the young lad was stuck in the NICU for almost a week… Pretty trying times for these two young people.

Just to make things a bit more dramatic...Israel decided to play an important role in its Hezbollah recruitment position by destroying the neighborhood where the wife’s family is from.

I have several colleges at AUB who go back to Dahiyeh every now and then to make sure that their building isn’t destroyed…If they are unfortunate enough to see their home reduced to sand they start polishing their only remaining possessions…memories...That is all there is that is left...
It is amazing how valuable memories are when the roots that they grew from are severed by a made in the USA and delivered by the local Hebrew pizza boy weapons start raining down. Human emotion protects the human mind from the inevitable erasure of all things in existence…

God bless the Buddha for putting it so well!

After getting married Abed had rented an apartment in Choueifat … That home’s glass was vaporized by a too close for comfort strike…

Abed’s life history is quite a bit more interesting than what many may find as the boring undeveloped numb story of destruction…I shall begin at a pivotal moment in his life…He was a young man of 18…sitting across the table from Dad at breakfast… Dad didn’t come home that night for dinner. Abed would be burying him in a few hours… His father had fallen three floors in a construction accident leaving Abed at the tender age of 18 his three brothers and sister fatherless. Their mother managed the home in Ouzai that Abed’s father built with his bare hands… There are marks of his work left on the walls and in the mortar…

I found out in so many words the other day over the phone that the now 27 year old’s family home…The home of his older brother and niece. His younger brother’s home (a cleric) and that of the sheik’s son and daughter {the one where I worked on the wiring and plumbing during one of the political breaks we had last year at the faculty}…The home where his mother held together a poor family once their father left a vacuum in the stability of life is gone…
That little parched scruff of land that I had ridden past on the bicycle…that I myself had helped build additions to[my very own version of habitat for humanity in Lebanon]…GONE…

I have undertaken the solemn task of rerouting my future...I hope the detour is temporary…although not one of them ever has been…Those whom I have met along the road I thank you for the time and wonderful dialogue…
Life’s explorations are always better when there are witnesses to me screwing up. Alone here in Cyprus …
Screwing up isn’t even possible there is nothing to do…other than wait for Lebanon

Unless, of course, you consider me screwing up with the cat…
He’s constantly angry at me these days I have come to believe he has formulated the hypothesis that I am forcing him on a diet… This could have consequences…I hope that he doesn’t decide to start military sorties to stop my militia from creating an undemocratic situation in the penthouse…

The wind is starting to pick up here on the patio and my patience is wearing thin…I have been trying to get a piece going for a while now…it sits curled up and unmoving like some aborted fetal idea... this one is currently without the decency to get itself into shoes and take off running like some other famous ideas I have had…

The ones you want to be living always take the most work as they go on to code and drain you to the point you abandon these fleetings in logic...These patients of the mind get called DOA (dead on arrival)

On another subject...Just to clear it up for the armies of the world… Phosphorus... yeah, the neat stuff that makes that match click into a tongue of flame by just scraping it along the cardboard.
SHOULD NEVER BE PUT IN BOMBS headed for civilians…

I’m fine with it hitting tanks, bunkers, pill boxes, hangars, and armored personnel carriers but homes no that is a BIG NO NO…Those troops know they are killed and kill for a living…

The kids and families don’t…

But this my point is double edged yes readers I must admit it is a little tirade…

Those of you that run around in Battle Dress should expect to take the same treatment…
melting into the population just proves you were never a warrior…you were never someone who believed enough to die for it…those who you kill are as meaningless to your cause as you are…
If you want to fight by all means fight… but do not bring your family to the front by retreating back to them to drink tea…This process of letting their lifeless bodies be paraded around (you don't expect red cross workers to do their job ON NO THESE BOYS PLAY PRESS JUST LIKE THE OTHERS) weapons turn them into a side of kibbi nayieh just like the rest of us.
Such behavior is more cheapening of human life that you idiots thinking you are Rambo by putting on pretty little marches every other weekend.

Yes troops they are ALL wrong because they are both doing the same thing…
They aren’t fighting one another...
They are fighting against people living and dreaming…
People should only have politically permissible dreams according to these jerks…
Sorry you guys with guns…I don’t agree…
Dreams and evaluation of the real facts are our human rights…I refuse to be a sheep.