Jan 16 2010
Curious about the origins of Pat Robertson’s outrageous comments about Haiti’s latest agony, my research turned up this interesting nugget in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti): “In 1912 Syrians residing in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed.” Syrians in Haiti? My spider-sense for all things Levantine was tingling, so I digressed from …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/16/haiti-the-lebanese-and-the-bat-crap-crazies/
Aug 30 2009
I’m almost finished with Charles Pierce’s “Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free” (Doubleday, June 2009). Just read the chapter on the 9-11 fiasco and the “sexing up” of the Iraq war and I’m so angry right right now that I feel compelled to share the following links …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/30/book-review/
Apr 27 2009
For the sake of argument, let’s suppose torture works… For the sake of argument, let’s also suppose that 9/11 was inevitable. Let’s suppose that it wasn’t a circus of errors and missed opportunities and hot pursuits that were allowed to grow cold. Let’s suppose that the CIA and the FBI were a model of harmonious …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/04/27/tortured-logic/
Mar 14 2009
My pastor John, methinks, probably wonders if I too often connect disparate ideas and events by the thinnest of threads. There is an old tradition in the Middle East regarding when the feasts of Ramadan begin and end; as long as there is enough daylight to discern between a black and white thread, fasting must continue. Once they …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/03/14/personal-reflections/
Feb 28 2009
Having just finished a book that extols the virtue of harmonizing right-wing elements of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity (see http://tinyurl.com/b3levz and http://tinyurl.com/ahashg), I found the following Fisk commentary on papal perspective most interesting. And more than a bit alarming… http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html and/or ttp://tinyurl.com/avwuz3 Fisk’s last paragraph And what do I make of all this? Well, I don’t think the …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/28/all-along-the-watchtower/
Jan 24 2009
Something I have not seen or heard discussed during the rape of Gaza or its prologue… Haven’t there been all kinds of funds and research expended on anti-missile technologies? Weren’t American systems installed in Israel? Why, after years of harassment by the pea-shooters of Hamas, and the rockets of Hezbollah and Saddam before them, hasn’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/01/24/a-question/
Jan 02 2009
Interesting poem by Sean O’Brien, written in response to the latest phase of conflict between Israel and Hamas: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/02/katyusha-gaza-israel-poem-sean-obrien …about the poem: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jan/02/poet-sean-obrien-writes-gaza-poem And, in an op-ed piece titled “Inheriting Bush’s blinkers” by Ali Abunimah (co-founder of “The Electronic Intifada” and author of “One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse”), the writer suggests …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/01/02/1-of-2-katyusha-katyusha/
