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 …
Category: The Middle East
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2006/02/05/shock-and-awe/
Dec 10 2005
Lines, lines, everywhere lines
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
The dead and the mutilated
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
Border forts
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
Evangelism 101
… … … 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
Trolling for fools
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/
Oct 11 2004
Vanished like the strange times we lived
Strange Days By Jacques d’Nalgar, October 11, 2004 1974 was the year I graduated from ACS. We were one of the last classes from those strange days between the wars of 1967 and 1973 and the horror that almost erased Lebanon, a time and place that 30 years later, still weaves itself into my …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2004/10/11/vanished-like-the-strange-times-we-lived/