Nov 01 2006
My childhood friend Yusif Makhoul harvested his crop in Mieh-ou-Mieh, just east of Saida a couple of weeks ago. He said they had a bumper crop, but that they were small. They spent a week harvesting compared to the two days it took us when I was with them in ’97. (I guess olive trees …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2006/11/01/olive-harvest/
Feb 05 2006
Shocked! World leaders are “shocked” by the outcome of the Palestinian democratic elections. Cable TV’s faux news experts are breathlessly analyzing “what it all means” when people half a world away won’t vote the way we want them to… Let’s see if we can break it down: With great fanfare and general acclamation (by those same …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2006/02/05/shock-and-awe/
Dec 10 2005
I noticed the other day that the border between Israel and the Sinai is not a straight line. About halfway across, between Gaza and Aqaba, the border has a couple of protrusions into the Egyptian side (there are other places, but these are the most noticeable). Does anyone know the history of how this border …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/12/10/lines-lines-everywhere-lines/
Dec 09 2005
From Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter’s December 7 lecture: The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm’s way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/12/09/the-dead-and-the-mutilated/
Sep 29 2005
It’s interesting how news about the war in Iraq dribbles out. Today’s local paper has a front-page story about a James Vandenberg, a Little Rock architect who serves in the Civil Engineering Corps, U.S. Navy Reserve Seabees. He recently spent 10 months in the Al Anbar region of Iraq. Here’s the part of the story …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/09/29/border-forts/
Jun 09 2005
… … … This is from part of President Daniel Bliss’ speech when the cornerstone of College Hall was dedicated at the Syrian Protestant College (now American University of Beirut) in 1871: “This college is for all conditions and classes of men without regard to color, nationality, race or religion. A man, white, black, or …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/06/09/evangelism-101/
Nov 02 2004
With Trembling Finger By Hal Crowther, circa November 2004 I used to take a drink on occasion with a network newsman famed for his impenetrable calm — his apparent pulse rate that of a large mammal in deep hibernation — and in an avuncular moment he advised me that I’d do all right, in …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2004/11/02/trolling-for-fools/
