No hoods. No electric shocks. No beatings. These Iranians clearly are a very uncivilised bunch

Terry Jones
Saturday March 31, 2007
The Guardian

"I share the outrage expressed in the British press over the treatment of our naval personnel accused by Iran of illegally entering their waters. It is a disgrace. We would never dream of treating captives like this - allowing them to smoke cigarettes, for example, even though it has been proven that smoking kills. And as for compelling poor servicewoman Faye Turney to wear a black headscarf, and then allowing the picture to be posted around the world - have the Iranians no concept of civilised behaviour? For God's sake, what's wrong with putting a bag over her head? That's what we do with the Muslims we capture: we put bags over their heads, so it's hard to breathe. Then it's perfectly acceptable to take photographs of them and circulate them to the press because the captives can't be recognised and humiliated in the way these unfortunate British service people are.

It is also unacceptable that these British captives should be made to talk on television and say things that they may regret later. If the Iranians put duct tape over their mouths, like we do to our captives, they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Of course they'd probably find it even harder to breathe - especially with a bag over their head - but at least they wouldn't be humiliated.

And what's all this about allowing the captives to write letters home saying they are all right? It's time the Iranians fell into line with the rest of the civilised world: they should allow their captives the privacy of solitary confinement. That's one of the many privileges the US grants to its captives in Guantánamo Bay.

The true mark of a civilised country is that it doesn't rush into charging people whom it has arbitrarily arrested in places it's just invaded. The inmates of Guantánamo, for example, have been enjoying all the privacy they want for almost five years, and the first inmate has only just been charged. What a contrast to the disgraceful Iranian rush to parade their captives before the cameras!

What's more, it is clear that the Iranians are not giving their British prisoners any decent physical exercise. The US military make sure that their Iraqi captives enjoy PT. This takes the form of exciting "stress positions", which the captives are expected to hold for hours on end so as to improve their stomach and calf muscles. A common exercise is where they are made to stand on the balls of their feet and then squat so that their thighs are parallel to the ground. This creates intense pain and, finally, muscle failure. It's all good healthy fun and has the bonus that the captives will confess to anything to get out of it.

And this brings me to my final point. It is clear from her TV appearance that servicewoman Turney has been put under pressure. The newspapers have persuaded behavioural psychologists to examine the footage and they all conclude that she is "unhappy and stressed".

What is so appalling is the underhand way in which the Iranians have got her "unhappy and stressed". She shows no signs of electrocution or burn marks and there are no signs of beating on her face. This is unacceptable. If captives are to be put under duress, such as by forcing them into compromising sexual positions, or having electric shocks to their genitals, they should be photographed, as they were in Abu Ghraib. The photographs should then be circulated around the civilised world so that everyone can see exactly what has been going on.

As Stephen Glover pointed out in the Daily Mail, perhaps it would not be right to bomb Iran in retaliation for the humiliation of our servicemen, but clearly the Iranian people must be made to suffer - whether by beefing up sanctions, as the Mail suggests, or simply by getting President Bush to hurry up and invade, as he intends to anyway, and bring democracy and western values to the country, as he has in Iraq."

Saturday talk

- I’m killing myself this afternoon
- Already? I thought 33 is the age. And did you find the best way yet?
- Yes I did. Care to join me?
- No I can’t.
- Why not?
- I have an experiment planned
- On a Saturday?
- Keeps me from killing myself
- Will you miss me
-Block the sun, block the moon, don’t let the water specks kiss the shore
Tear down that smile and close your eyes now
Hold yourself, hide yourself cover up and close the door
And say you miss me, I’ll say I miss you even more…
- And you won’t be sad?
- I’m used to it by now. That’ll be the third time a friend of mine kills himself.

For the time being ...

I'll keep the picture up ...

For the time being ...

- What did you have for lunch?
- I grabbed a tuna sandwich from the coffee shop
- I thought you weren’t eating bread anymore
- I was in a hurry. So what’s up?
- I’m leaving you
- Yeah I figured that much
- We’re not in love
- No we’re not. We tried though
- We did. We have a good thing here.
- Great but not enough yeah?
- Yeah. Right?
- I don’t know. I know I love you as much as I can love these days
- That’s bullshit
- Yes it is. Ok then
- Oh well. It is what it is...
- Aha yes. Anyone in mind?
- Not really. Well …
- You bastard
- What?
- See I still feel jealous. I must love you then.
- Na.. We both know how possessive you are
- Yeah you’re right but why am I always scared to leave you?
- Because you also hate change. This has nothing to do with me.
- Yeah true. See how much you know me? Who will know me like you? No we’re staying together.
- We are?
- Yeah. Hey for now at least. I mean I am leaving anyway. Oh did I tell you I’m leaving? Yes I found a job in California and I’m leaving in 3 months. Sorry I haven’t told you about my plans but I figured you were about to leave me soon.
- No worries
- Cool.. You should come visit. It’s a nice place on the beach
- You already found a place?
- Yes I did when I went last weekend
- You were away last weekend?
- See how distracted you are? So I went and found a place. The weekend was fun. We went fishing.. I used to go fishing with my dad when I was a kid…
- Who’s we?
- Oh… Did I tell you I’m wearing my hair curly again?

What sells?

Even if your heart is in it, even if your hard work and devotion was put forth, it is all in the presentation. This is the American way. It is all about a clean extensive consistent brainwashing propaganda.

From advertising to journalism, bridging the gap between manufacturer and consumer, between leader and followers, the means are by all means and the story behind the news is news in itself. Flooding the markets with rotten products and our life and brains with rotten concepts and mere lies, you have to leave some credit sometimes for their imagination and initiative and their respect of our intellect and our approval. There is nothing I like more than a smart ad. It gives me the illusion that I, as a target audience, matter.

What pains me today though, is that it is all there for us to see. Nothing is covertly hidden for our common basic human taste. The teeth of the empire snatch morsels from the world and it is all done in arrogance and distaste and condescension. How could we not wake up angered every morning when a quick glimpse into media outlets to check on our beloved world throws us in dire despair? It is weaved for you to believe that the world is too screwed up too angry to hateful for you to comprehend and that it should be left for the experts to handle. You are made to believe that you almost cannot carry a sympathy feeling long enough for a people who are trained to hate you and destined to die, let alone carry a thought long enough when journalism gives in to advertising to bombard your life with worries and needs and cheap entertainment.

What pains me is that it is all there for us to see. They are not even trying to cover up. The stupid nationalism that blindly drove us to believe in the absurdity of wars and being ruled and being told what to do and what to say and what to think, the fear that took over our dignity and right to live, the misanthropist drive that closes us up and tucks us in, will kill us all.

What pains me is that it is all there for us to see in so many ways if we only care enough and respect ourselves enough to want to know and to want to make a change yet we choose not to look, we look the other way. We are selfish and animalistic more so every day and we are endangering our kind. They are not smart enough to hide the abject poverty starting here, the injustice, the torture, the double standards, the cries for help from children all around the world.

It really pains me that they don’t care to hide it and that we have willingly given our freedom away.

Today's article
Today's lyrics
And from apartheid, read here (from transient's blog) and here.

Don't want to grow up!

We don't want to give stupid lectures and have stupid jobs and carry stupid labtops around to stupid meetings ...

We want to dance and be silly and never grow up and never leave each other...

Why is it that we have to keep saying stupid goodbyes in this country every couple of years...

Bad enough it takes so long to make a home for ourselves from scratch, we have to do this all the time now ... Everything is changing and it is my highest stress level possible ...

I'm having meltdowns ... No i know .. A lot of people do it all the time and get adapted fairly quickly ... Bastards!

We invest in our careers but we also invest in the people we love. We don't have to drift apart even when we're apart? not true! It's not the same. If i don't see you in a couple of years i probably will forget your face and your habits and why i loved you in the first place.

Someone said to me that i'm always stuck in the past. Well of course i am. My present keeps changing and my future 3a kaff 3afreet. 3afreet eh.

When we were kids we wanted this life. Remember? Vivre comme des vagabonds. Fresh starts at every step. Never buy furniture and never get too close or too attached but travel light and carry a pad to write each other ... Two drifters ...

Yeah? Well i'm tired of drifting. You drift away. I'm settling again another time but for the last time. I'm saying goodbye for the last time. I'm buying furniture and a washer and dryer and maybe i'll even get a mortgage ... Who knows ... I'm shipping my cats for the last time ... No more moving sales, no more address changes and no more life changes ...

For the next ten years you know where i will be ... Stuck in my stupid new place, in my stupid apartment, in my stupid job ... I have to grow up ...

We're no longer students forever, no longer starting over ... no writing fellowship in London or an editorial job in Barcelona. kbirna we t3ibna we 3eefouna ... It's over ... This is it my dear ... Shou? Coming?

TUFFA7A



On a sleepless night ... She was born and she seemed sad ...

Broken hymns of the olive land ...







I stand with open arms a chorus behind me with nothing to say and my eyes teary
I hang by a thread from base to abyss, my neck stretched and my back weary
The years unravel throwing morsels of letdowns and putdowns my way
I wait in patience and good faith for a gift from above for a much better day

Dark are my words dim are the signs endless is the night scary is a life without quest
I would have lived as I wished thrown of life what I wished and taken the best
Hair avalanching colors of life and arms inebriated with the moist peck of the ocean
Chuckles breaking in the background and hearts racing skipping beats without caution

Their shadows haunted mine imprisoned my heart in shackles and tied the rest
Far on the hills echoes of my madness cascading pain of the world on their chest
Their eyes on my walls their fingers in my daily bread my olives a bitter potion
A story of boiling hate that masks by the weight of living the magic of creation

I stand with open legs with twisted arms stories behind me and my eyes teary
I lay sweating and shivering forever forgotten, my words forgiven and my back weary
I wait in fear for your light for your revenge for your wisdom and for a much better day
You ask of my children to live and forgive and to smile, eyes to the heavens and I say; until I forgive you my rage my grief, my torture, my ailing limbs and my dismay,
My children will stand proud will look away from your heaven and will smile my way

Left alone ...


We are more and more alienated.
More and more dispensable.
More and more unfairly treated, belittled, left alone,
More and more …
More and more mocked
by our spouses,
mocked
by our bosses,
mocked
by our governments,
Left alone ...
By our children, our neighbors, our loved ones,
our friends,
left alone ...
By the world, by the gods, by the skies
More and more endangered, enraged, entangled-
together-
on a stage,
and at the end left alone ...
Used and abused and stepped on and pushed aside.
Used and overused flipped and thrown by the tides.
Used and seduced and laid flat and left alone.
Panting and chanting and ranting and spinning,
a fever of pilgrimage from dusk to dawn,
a fever of passion turned paper-
turned stone.
Behind the scenes behind the curtains behind the doors,
left alone ...
Oozing squealing tiny screams from heads thrown-
on pillows of hay pillows of silk pillows of tears-
sawn with strings of light strings that break,
that disappear,
that fall apart,
till the morning light,
Left alone.
Images and words and colors and lies and blindness,
rushed flushed crushed with rudeness,
with lack of kindness.
Rage of the skies on virtues slipping-
on hearts ripping,
on life wasting life,
to be left alone ...
We are more and more,
alone.
More and more atone-
to one heart beat,
to one opinion one idea one road.
More and more predestined propositioned predisposed,
Pre-packed pre-peeled-
our fate sealed,
our souls torn.
From dusk till dawn we spin we grin,
we pre-paste our little titles and self pack in little bins,
we self code self erode and explode from within ...
Behind the doors,
behind the stage,
and left alone …

The iron man
As the golden rays tenderly reinvade our days. As the shy Spring springs the first promise of summer and heat and fun, everyone around me seems to be falling in love. I am falling in love too. I am falling in love with Bobby Flay. I am. This is serious! I am clearly not one of those teenage girls who fall in love with television characters so where is this coming from? I really love him. I’m obsessing with the guy. I can talk about him for hours. I know everything about him. Anyone knows him? He’s a New Yorker so it’s not like I’m falling for a Hollywood personality. Now that would be tacky. He’s also very real so this is not coming from an immature fantasy. Real? He’s an iron chef.. How could that be real? Iron chef, how sexy is that? I need to be put behind iron bars, now that’s for certain. I have been staying up all night, every night for the past week to watch reruns of his show. I'm exhausted and very busy these days to be doing this. Again, anyone knows him? Seriously! Forget it. Forget I said all that.

Happy mother's day!

I recommend this website if you want to send flowers back home. It's always on time and their flowers are beautiful.

Suicide building, yeah right!

Palestinians need an impossible to obtain permit in order to escape the demolition of their homes built on land they own, while settlers get military protection but i gave up on fairness and empathy on the Israeli side long ago.

And nothing we didn't already know and argue here but i gave up on logic and honesty on that side long ago.

While you might be predisposed to some ideas growing up, the strongest opinions of others and the character-changing lessons in life are really the ones you form based on what you live and what you experience. We don't propagate hate, we just propagate ourselves. We are who society makes of us. We are the result of a global collective human interaction that will be affected by international politics, economics and culture. In today's wars, racism, commercialism and globalization of cheap ideas, cheap lives double lanes and fast gains, what a sad generation we must be raising!

Ya 3youn Baghdad ...

powered by ODEO

Four years ...

La Pedrera
Some chapter ...

She sat across the table from him, loosely following his gestures. Her lazy looks wandered around the old French cabin only to rest her eyes on her glass and then on his eyes. The tip of that decadent red encircled her existence that night. She oscillated between her half clear glass and her half-lit cigarette and half a smile. The smell of cognac invaded the intimate aroma of her wine which seemed to protect her from a world she was not ready for. He looked right through her. They locked eyes sporadically and it was enough to send fire through her spine. She guzzled her wine to allow her nerves to catch up with his.

She took the chance while he was deeply engaged in his conversation at the other end to examine him. His silence as he listened was somehow more forceful than his words. He had a pleasant air about him. He had a mysterious quality wrapped in his years. He had a fire inside him secretly disguised in his carefully pleated scarf that hid the color of his chest. While he looked distant, while they laughed and gesticulated around him, his gaze into the empty space got deeper.

Her body was wired to his intonations. She felt as if he was whispering to her across the table. He rested an arm on the linen and started caressing it with his fingers. She secretly touched the linen with her knee only to blush. It was as if he was caressing her skin. It was intoxicating but it seemed like she was the last thing on his mind that night. He listened to his host resting a look on her hand, which made her nervous. Her right hand suddenly felt bare of any sophistication and of necessary distractions.

She reached for her cigarette again. He still looked at her hand. It was strange. It was as if he was controlling her gestures now. As if he could see her nervousness. As if he knew that she was not to belong there. She laid her palm flat on the table with the cigarette still between her fingers. He could not possibly know who she was. He did not notice her but why does she feel like he knows her? Why does she feel calm when she looks in his alarming eyes? Why does he strike his conspiring fingers on the table to keep her breathing? Did he not invade her sanctum with his stares to let her know that he was there? Does he know all what went in her head that night?

She felt silly and she realized that she was silent. She came out of her deep thoughts to notice a silence around the table. She smiled nervously at their host and she felt her heart beats. He was looking at her. Quiet. Sure and relaxed in his seat. He looked at her with no explanation and no embarrassment. Like it was his right to sample her face now. To slowly work his eyes through her lips and through her cheeks and through her eyes like he did her fingers. She could not breathe. He tilted his head and smiled. That half smile that made her knees shake.

The host stood up to usher her friend to her room. That is when she realized that she was alone with him. They walked away and she could not get herself to look at him yet. He stood up and came to sit beside her.

- You have the most delicate air about you. He said. I have been distracted all night. I think you are charming. I am simply intrigued. I tried to get you to look at me. I tried to let you know that I was there.
- You did? She replied calmly while still looking away. I have not noticed. The smell of cognac gives me a headache.
- I thought we took common interest in each other tonight. The way you looked at me.
- I think it was all in your head and I wish you would refrain from whispering. My fiancé will return shortly...

In bold letters
It took me years to forget the pain. I was dysfunctional for months at a time. I cried for almost a year. I loved you with all that I was and you were cold enough to have a secret life… back then … You shamed me in your disloyalty and shook my young pride to the core … back then … You were a set back in all my relationships. The challenge that haunted me since ... the distrust that came with the game since then …
As it turns out, I am not interested in glimpses of the past. I summon the pain to wash it out but I don’t have it in me anymore. The memory doesn’t hurt anymore. I am indifferent to who you are, where you are and what you do.
All I am to you now is a memory and this is how it should be. I said pack your memories and go and leave the past in the past …
Even the friendship had passed, just leave me be ...
I never want to see you again ..

A pro-active care label (link)

Very funny blog

Douleur d’amour


And you had the heart to cheat my heart
My heart that loved you
and guarded you
You had the heart…





And tell me darling
When you planted your nails in her flesh
Did your fingers cringe?
Your fingers that know me
Like a shear blanket have thrown me
When your eyes gazed in her eyes
Where did your tears hide?
Your tears that adore me
Like a secret lover mourn me
When you rested your lips on her hair
Did you smell the desert night?
Did your lips fight?
Your lips that tasted my sweat
That shivered nights as I wept
When you squeezed her in your arms
Did your heart die?
You heart that belongs to me

Did you hear my sighs?
Crimson bed, rotten lilacs
Broken cribs
And cries

A life reduced to mockery
Break down the world
And turn off the skies

You had the heart to cheat my heart
My heart that loved you
and guarded you
Was it all lies?

May your heart forgive you
As mine will …

Back to the region
It seems that we go into denial every now and then. Call it survival mechanism. If i don't read the news, they don't exist. Lebanon is not in turmoil still and Palestine is stable. Even more dangerous the proactive political sites that refuse to see and reflect the truth and all the truth. In Lebanon, things did indeed stand still. The sterile process of splitting the goods or the calm before another blow. We will wait and see. In Palestine, the silence is always deafening. Headlines that don’t abuse you and flash in your face only hide a fake stability. Every lack of reporting tells you that something very wrong is happening or will happen soon. What you don’t hear about is what you need to know. The lack of noise in the mainstream outlets, as we all know, only means a lack of spirit and a lack of resistance on ‘our side’. Trying to run away from the silence again..
So what do you call peace for peace?

If you're in Lebanon, visit the pub on the corner
http://thecorner.skyblog.com/

Leave the past in the past

Years had passed
He floated in as he dissolved away
Too magical to be true
too tender to be felt and tasted
Some encounters are better wasted
Better kept separate from the crudeness of the next day
The debt of past had passed
forgetfulness is its own bliss
Has it not been a decade since his last kiss?
Has she not gone-
pleasures forgone rights relinquished
Has she not lived tasteless-
her fires quenched
Has she crossed oceans to be followed with his dismay?

Some hearts love with no regrets
Some do it to forget
And some are torn to shreds
Leave the past in the past dear
It is just better this way …

Some foolish things...

- You sound calm
- Renewed appreciation of disaster
- Like the girl I used to know
- Renewed sense of self
- You sound happier
- Renewed confidence in life
- Still lonely?
- Just alone
- And happier?
- I just sometimes need to be left alone
- Then why do you go out of your way to be loved?
- With accepting one’s mortality there’s a need to be remembered
- And calmer now why?
- The feeling of loss finally left me and my heart is full of hope
- The loss is still there, what have you gained?
- Everything I haven’t noticed in the meantime,
the birds in the sky
the salty breeze in July
the promise of winter days
Forgotten as the snow melts away
The moment you know you're shedding your last tear
The excitement of welcoming a new year
The feeling as you spread your arms
embracing the morning light
Your secret whispers to fate every night

your chukles under the sheets

the warm sand under your feet

Sunsets and flowers and smells you love
Missing every moment you were with someone you love
Songs that make you cry and tastes that you crave
Dreams that keep you going and souvenirs you save
Words and faces and kisses and embraces
And a hundred little tunes
A hundred times you hugged the moon
Little freckles and little lines
Scars you carry with you
Armed against the times
A thousand memories that you are
You lose some but you gain yourself
The marvel that you are
I found myself,
While looking I found you too
Not lonely, just left alone
Not away, I just came home…

(pic)

First sign of growing up








when sitting in men's laps puts them to sleep
second sign
when your body can’t catch up with you
when the best part of a late night out is coming back home
when flirting feels merely exhausting and getting men’s attention just irrelevant
when instead of wanting to dance all night, you want to talk and, if ever possible, connect to others..
when you don’t seek approval but you like to surround yourself by social behavior you approve of..
when your 57 year old professor says you became too cynical
The best part of growing up is loving who you are with all the good and the bad and realizing but embracing that it is too late to change and that you like that you can't..

Still on the road...

Still making our way to get there..

How many times i tell you the joy is in the journey

and how many times you say

we live tomorrow but we struggle today..

Tomorrow comes and the day after

and every Spring we dream of summer...

this blog is well over a year now,

nothing has changed

i remember your first post like it was yesterday

and you remember mine

we started this to get closer as you moved away...

i remember,

i remember well..

the first month was exciting. we found our lost love for poetry and writing. we stayed up to chat and comment and we met new people. the second month we started painting. we painted images of the night and of long walks in the park. the third we went on vacations and send letters from far away places. the fourth we shared a taste of what we love. we renewed our promises and we sang for each other. we explored the town day and night. the fifth we turned political and we hurt. the sixth we hurt some more. we bonded over war stories and memories of home. we ran away at first but a cynical world invaded our little virtual life... months followed and we lost it...

when it is all written to be seen and to be evaluated, what remains of the mystery and of the tender privacy of love and life...

i remember but let's start again..

as you always say...

we suffered yesterday and we suffer today

but we live tomorrow...

we live the dream of sunny days

the dream of comfort and calm

the dream of waking up happy

one day...

Under the sun ...

And away..

It has been a blur. Hotels and cabs and airports. Fix a talk here. Interview there. Give a talk here and there. In and between, i found my heaven ...

I can't remember the last time i was this happy...

As it turns out, life can be just amazing!

It is summer here but happy soon-to-be Spring everyone.