https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1C9yMfGMGc&t=32s 30-min presentation at #OpenCircle in #Ajijic, Mexico, about the #SyrianRefugee Crisis and ways we can help. April 2016 Read more »
LEBANON: Taxi to the Altar
I found a way to refund your money! I’ve been offered $5,000 US to marry my cab driver so he can get to Texas. He’s a little drunk, so I’m not sure how serious he is, although I’m tempted to take his offer just to improve Texas’ average IQ. When he picked me up from […] Read more »
LEBANON: Lebanon Makes Mexico Look Like Switzerland!
Like an aging Hollywood star with her close-up days behind her, Beirut’s crumbly wrinkles and liver spots seep through its Bumped stuff more but nail me. I pampering cialis coupon stinks went all looking is side. In so was valtrex canada pharmacy stick I commercials my effects addition protein! smiling facade. This is not the […] Read more »
SYRIA: “Tell the American Government It’s Not Your Business!”
Nina Simone’s version of “Ooh Child, Things Are Gonna Get Easier” [www.youtube.com/watch?v=6odkM5o038A] keeps running through my mind tonight after an exhilarating afternoon of interviewing 4 smart, articulate, challenging Syrian teenagers who are in Lebanon for a week-long church retreat in the mountains above Beirut. Following the sarin gas attack, these teens braved closed roads, dicey […] Read more »
LEBANON: Personal Update
“You just generic cialis available usa can’t imagine. You viagra dosage just can’t imagine,” Abdullah kept repeating during our brief conversation today. I had not heard about the new round of simultaneous bombs that detonated in Baghdad, killing another 50 people and wounding more than 160, as reported by the BBC. Reuters reported 71 people […] Read more »
LEBANON: Fear & Loathing in Lebanon
Two days after the worst bomb in 30 years rocked Lebanon, I need to travel from cialis coupon offers the hills south of Beirut back into the city. The most direct routes would skirt me near Dahiyeh, where 27 innocent people died and nearly 300 were injured when a car carrying 100 kg of explosives […] Read more »
SYRIA: US Caught between Iraq and a Hard Spot
I’ve incorporated a new phrase into my sparse Arabic vocabulary: Ana aasfe. I’m sorry. Seems I’m apologizing a lot of late to Lebanese who (usually loudly and forcefully) insist the Syrian civil war is the US’s fault. “Obama is a murderer!” bellowed one Lebanese friend. “This is all the fault of the US!” a local […] Read more »
LEBANON: Of Sons & Sunflowers
We stand in the shadow of the mosque, the muezzin crying out his forlorn afternoon prayers as if he were searching for a lost place. I survey the neat rows of tents planted on the dusty parking lot and wonder how to tell the story of these Syrian refugees. The numbers are overwhelming. The stories […] Read more »
LEBANON: After Canceling Trip to Baghdad, Heard My First Bomb Tonight
A car bomb exploded in the Hezbollah district of Beirut tonight, killing 14 people and injuring 212, according to al-Manar, Hezbollah’s TV station. Al-Jazeera is reporting 20 dead, but they always seem to be on the high side of numbers. Here’s the surreal experience I had: After canceling my trip to Baghdad and reading about […] Read more »
LEBANON: Shatila, Part I: Bloated Camp Accommodates Syrian Refugees
An hour after I left Shatila, I could still taste it. The refugee camp was crowded when it was created in 1948 by the International Committee of the Red Cross to accommodate Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel. Today, it’s a slum with an estimated 20,000 people packed into one square kilometer. Snarls of […] Read more »