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/
Oct 31 2006
I’ve been thinking about your theory lately, that the never-ending war in Iraq exists because GW needs/wants to avenge his father’s honor after Uncle Saddam tried to kill him (can’t imagine why, can you?)… It’s an interesting idea, but I just can’t accept that a US President can order the world’s most lethal military into action on …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2006/10/31/space-the-final-affront/
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 30 2005
I had always wondered how our nation’s founders (terrorist insurgents that they were) argued the merits of their rebellion to a profoundly Christian population, so I did a little Googling on the subject. Turns out to still be a pretty hot topic (732,000 hits). Anyway, I came across an interesting essay at http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=40. Near the end …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2005/12/30/political-catechism/
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/
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/
