Paris Parfait

Hurricane Run

For Poetry Thursday, I detoured from the prompt; instead I've written two poems about post-Katrina New Orleans:

Cajun cookin'

On the plane from Atlanta to Paris
the baby-faced young man who'd never been out of Louisiana
described his passion: cooking shrimp gumbo and barbeque
and his daddy's nine shrimp boats lost in Katrina's wake,
everything he had swept away.

Delta blues

This freckle-faced youth far, far from home
bursting with excitement and expectation, fear and hope
then flew from Paris to Cairo, where he rode a bus five more hours
to a dangerous job, among strangers in a foreign sea,
speaking languages he'd never heard.

Innocents abroad

Before the levee spilled its banks
the young Cajun chef and oil rig worker
didn't even dream of a passport;
never expected a 36-hour 10,000 mile trip
just to find work to pay the bills.

Stand on your own two feet

No home to go back to; no insurance payout.
His mama wept buckets at the airport,
but no amount of crying could change the fact:
no shrimp boats or off-shore oil rigs left for her son the chef;
no Cajun food where he's gone.

Hurricane Run

Hurricane Run is the only hurricane welcome
a four-year-old racehorse with heart,
storming the tracks of Europe
Handy triumph at Longchamp expected;
punters' darling.

Other hurricanes create devastation,
peeling off lovely facades of cities
exposing their rough underpinnings
of shady mismanagement
and corrupt backroom deals.

Katrina's had a longer run than most
its shocking ruin on a grand scale
sending oil rig workers with Cajun drawls
flying to offshore jobs in the Red Sea;
Gulf Coast hemorrhaging oil and loss.

Government intervention
seems to worsen the problem.
Corruption and greed undercuts
the rebuilding process, moving on a slow train.
The rich get richer; the poor wait their turn.

Marc Broussard's singing about Home
but displaced residents are scattered all over the country.
Some have learned to adjust, accept any job offered;
find other ways to make a living; make new friends,
make the best of a bad situation.

But they long to return to the city of their birth.
Their hearts beat to the rhythm of New Orleans.
The music's infused in their souls - hot jazz and sultry blues
flowing through bourbon-filled nights and warm, humid days.
Now it's all a distant memory.

Thousands of such stories
to crack your heart wide open with despair,
make you weep with frustration and anger
at the ineptitude and bureaucracy fueling their exodus;
when those who can help, won't.

Angels among us

Detail of an ancient hand-carved stone angel figure at the Worcester Cathedral, Worcester, England.

Angels remind us
that light filters through the dark,
bringing a new dawn.

In memoriam: Becky Botts Dorrough, 1941-2006

Most of you won't have heard of Becky, but she was important in my life. A teacher, former beauty queen and divorced mom of two, Becky lived down the street from our family home in the small town where I grew up. I babysat Becky's young daughters Kim and Tina and helped paint their house. When a neighbourhood troublemaker suddenly appeared in a window near where I was standing on a ladder, he startled me, causing me to fall and hurt my arm. Becky drove me to the hospital. She provided many weekend pizzas and listened sympathetically to teenage confidences.

The secretary of the local YMCA, Becky helped me get a summer job working in the office. She was a lifeguard and expert swimmer, who taught me to overcome my fear of back dives off the high board. Years later during a summer visit, she taught my daughter to swim. Her kind-hearted father was the local printer and for my high school graduation gift, Becky presented me with a box of beautifully-engraved personalised stationery.

Becky had enormous patience and tremendous genorosity of spirit. She raised two wonderful daughters, with very little help. Through numerous personal difficulties, she maintained a sense of humour, earning the admiration, friendship and respect of many. Becky's death was unexpected, too soon. She will be remembered - and sorely missed.

In memoriam: Naguib Mahfouz, 1911-2006

Sad news today: Naguib Mahfouz, the first Arab Nobel laureaute has died at the age of 94 in a Cairo hospital. Mahfouz was a courageous writer, most famous for his 1988 Nobel Prize-winning Cairo trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire and Sugar Street. I first read his work in 1992 and now own several of his books.

Throughout his life, Mahfouz's writing about the foibles of Egyptian life invited controversy. In 1959, religious authorities banned publication of Children of Gebelawi, claiming it featured characters representing God and the Prophets. The book was published in Lebanon and later translated into English. In 1994, Mahfouz was stabbed in the neck by a Muslim militant, angered by his work.

Mahfouz published more than 30 novels, short stories, plays, newspaper columns, essays, travelogues, memoirs and political analyses. His last major work - The Seventh Heaven, a collection of stories about the afterlife, was published last year. In December Mahfouz told an Associated Press reporter that he wrote The Seventh Heaven because he "wanted to believe something good will happen to me after death." "Spirituality for me is of high importance and continuously provides inspiration for me," he said.

Rowing in Oxford

Rowing teams on the River Isis at Oxford, England poise in preparation for a Saturday afternoon race.

They're off! Teams start out swiftly, racing to the finish - despite intermittent rain showers.

Another Oxford competition featured teen rowers. We came across the rowing competition while walking along the river near Christchurch Meadows.

My husband and I spent time in Oxford this month, visiting his lovely daughter Marie-Claire, who works for an international organisation. As always, it was wonderful seeing her and hearing about her exciting life in Oxford. One of the nice dinners we shared with Marie-Claire and the charming young man she's dating was at a tapas restaurant, where the owners and waiters were actually Spanish.

When I told the waiter - who was speaking Spanish at every opportunity - that I was going to Seville to study Spanish, he talked enthusiastically about cities he had visited in Andalucia, including Cordoba and Granada. Then he asked how long I'd be in Seville. When I replied, "Five weeks," he looked at me pityingly, no doubt thinking there's no way I'll learn Spanish in five weeks. So I quickly said, "It's just the first class. Obviously, I'll have to take many more." He smiled and nodded, relieved I wasn't delusional enough to think Spanish could be learned so easily.

In Oxford we stayed at a historic building which has been refurbished into a charming hotel. Unfortunately the light on our balcony constantly flashed off and on our first night, meaning I got very little sleep. The next morning we reported the problem to the concierge, who assured us he'd sort it. Late that night when we returned from dinner, the light was still flashing like a wayward disco strobe. This infuriated me, because the concierge had said he would fix it. So I went downstairs and got the night manager. He came upstairs, went out on the balcony and agreed that the light was "very annoying." "But unfortunately, there's nothing we can do," he added.

At this point, I remembered just how pricey this hotel was, so I responded, "Well you have to do something. This is unacceptable. I'm not spending another night with that light flashing." I meant that he should move us to another room - even though it would have been a hassle to repack everything - or remove the bulb from the flashing light. Apparently he never considered the first option; instead he stood on a balcony chair and started fiddling with the light. He then went downstairs and returned with a screwdriver. I told him he shouldn't use a screwdriver, as he might get shocked. But he ignored me and continued trying to disconnect the light - which was set on a building timer.

Meanwhile, New Orleans suffers

Photo of hurricane damage in New Orleans - one year later.

When I was in England last week, I was struck by numerous news reports about the waste and corruption involved in trying to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. According to a CorpWatch report, many large companies established 'contracting pyramids,' with each layer skimming money.

For instance a $500m contract awarded to Ashbritt to remove debris equalled $23 per cubic metre of rubbish removed. Ashbritt hired C&B Enterprises to do the work for $9 per cubic metre. C&B then hired Amlee Transportation to do the work for $8 per cubic metre. Amlee hired another company for $7 a cubic metre. And at last, the work was performed by a haulier from New Jersey for $3 per cubic metre. It seems everybody profited but the citizens of New Orleans.

With half of the city still in ruins and its population severely diminished - at least 50 percent less than the pre-hurricane New Orleans - the CorpWatch report claims millions of dollars have been squandered through wasteful processes. Some 90 percent of the first reconstruction contracts were awarded to firms outside Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The report says local workers have been frozen out, while immigrant workers have been exploited and often unpaid.

The director of CorpWatch said that a year after Katrina, "the slow-motion rebuilding of the region looks identical to what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq." Pratap Chatterjee said that improving Katrina-stricken areas is "needlessly behind schedule, due to the shunning of local business people in favour of politically-connected corporations from elsewhere in the US that have used their clout to win lucrative no-bid contracts with little or no accountability."

Auction reminder

End-of-season hydrangeas at the entrance of the Hotel du Vin, Royal Tunbridge Wells, England.

For those of you who haven't heard, a fund-raising auction is underway at Hidden Haven Homestead. It's the result of a brainstorming session between Peggy in North Carolina and Miss Robyn in Australia. The goal is to raise money to help a blogger's seriously-ill husband pay for life-saving medication. For more information about Lisa's and Ed's challenging story, go here.

You can donate an item to the auction by contacting Peggy via e-mail at happe2b50@yahoo.com. One-hundred percent of the auction's proceeds will go to the family in need. All of us who have donated items will pay postage costs to send the items to the winning bidders.

So not only do you have the unique opportunity to bid on some lovely items, you get free shipping! How's that for an excellent bargain, that helps someone in the process? Please help if you can - and you don't have to be a blogger to participate! Go here to place your bid by leaving a comment under the item description.

The Peacemaker

Photo of the late King Hussein of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan by Zohrab, Amman, Jordan

His face beamed with good humour,
his compassion for all evident;
treating rich and poor with dignity.

In response to the One Deep Breath prompt "Faces of Humanity," I offer this tribute to the late King Hussein:

Born in a war zone
he became a man of peace,
inspiring others.

Courageous leader
making peace with enemies
for the greater good.

Volatile region
he tried every avenue,
seeking a just peace.

War's pain familiar,
he chose to turn towards peace,
his efforts tireless.

Never giving up
his hopes of a lasting peace;
Death arrived too soon.

A much-loved leader
a king for the common man,
Jordan mourns him still.

Ancient bells still toll

The Bell Tower in Evesham, England was once part of the Evesham Abbey, dissolved by Henry VIII in 1539. The tower stands on the grounds of the former Benedictine abbey, near Saint Lawrence's Church and All Saints' Church, the parish church of Evesham (pictured in the background). The latter has been in continuous use since it was built in the 12th-century.

Besides its resounding bell, The Bell Tower houses a carillon mechanism, which plays different music daily at 9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. In 2002, a new carillon was installed, capable of playing over 50 tunes. When my husband and I visited The Bell Tower, the bells rang out with a lovely rendition of Amazing Grace.

I was amused by these needlepoint prayer cushions at All Saints' Church in Evesham, produced especially for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Monster of mayhem

Take all the monstrous fears and doubts, stuff them in a funeral bier and banish them to the Land of Nothing. The 18th-century funeral bier pictured is from the All Saints' Parish Church in Evesham, England.

Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win
by fearing to attempt.

Measure for Measure - William Shakespeare

The monster sometimes goes by the moniker of Fear;
but it prefers the name Doubt.
Its power threatens to undermine everything we do,
silence our voices and talents.

For years, Doubt left me alone, having bigger fish to fry.
But now that writing is my raison d'etre,
my strength and salvation, my hope and my future,
it stalks me like a dangerous hunter's quarry.

It lurks in the background, waiting to pounce,
laughing while cruelly reminding me I'm not so special.
Its stale perfume poisons the air until I'm intoxicated
with the elusive promise of Might-Have-Been.

Sometimes Doubt leaves me almost paralyzed,
reluctant to write a word, in case my efforts lack merit.
Doubt can counter years of hard work,
in a few dark moments of despair.

Doubt has no regard
for the self-esteem I've worked hard to build,
for the fragile illusion of faith in myself, long cultivated.
In an instant it can send my mood spiraling in freefall from Belief's dizzying heights.

Doubt's dubious authority grows in proportion to benign neglect of talent
The longer one fears to try, the more clout Doubt gains, the bigger space it fills,
until Belief is left desperately gasping for air, searching for sunlight
beneath Doubt's smothering weight.

Sometimes I succeed in banishing Doubt from my sight
but it seizes that first sign of weakness, that flush of hesitation.
Doubt is distracting, like a small child, demanding attention,
relentless in its pursuit, in its determination to interrupt creativity.

Even as I try to hide amidst flowering fields of powerful words,
Doubt selfishly urges me to abandon my quest for truth.
"Why waste time writing, when you could be washing crystal or doing laundry?
Those blank pages will be there waiting," Doubt whispers seductively in my ear.

But I have discovered little tricks to temporarily deter Doubt:
I hold on tight to inner reserves of faith and well-being.
Doubt is confused by persistence, by the simple act of writing every day
even if the phrases remain inside my head, waiting for their moment to shine.

Doubt is puzzled by open rebellion; by my refusal to be deterred.
It watches me like an especially-attentive would-be lover,
sending the wrong kind of chills shivering down my spine,
even as esperanza holds the fort.

Some claim Doubt is Fear-of-Success in disguise,
just an occupational hazard like stage fright.
Push past the Fear and you thwart Doubt:
as with all bullies, intimidated by strength and defiance.

I started writing this piece for Sunday Scribblings' prompt "The Monster" late Thursday, but Doubt kept me from finishing it until today.

A helping hand

Ducks surround a swan on the River Avon in Stratford-upon-Avon, England

One of the wonderful things about the blogosphere is the friendships we make and how we cheer each other on through tough times. Miss Robyn in Australia and Peggy in North Carolina came up with the idea to host an auction - beginning next week - to help a friend in need. Lisa's sad story is here.

I am donating three items for auction and throwing in another for free to the winning bidder. If you can help - either by donating something to the auction or bidding in it - please contact Peggy via her website Hidden Haven Homestead as linked above or via e-mail: happe2b50@yahoo.com tout de suite! Non-bloggers also are welcome to participate in the auction. Thank you.

Swanning about in Stratford-upon-Avon

A swan preens its feathers on the River Avon in Shakespeare Country, Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

Swans gather for food from tourists near the canal lock at Stratford-upon-Avon.

Narrow boats are guided through the lock at the River Avon in Stratford-upon-Avon. As housing prices in Britain go up, more and more people are opting to trade homes and apartments for boats. Many boat owners continuously sail rivers and canals without a permanent boat berth. According to The Independent in London, waiting times for residential moorings along the River Thames are up to three years, with more than 300 people already on the list.

Sixty-foot narrow boats range in price from £30,000 to £120,000. Additional costs include licenses, moorings and insurance, as well as council tax for a residential mooring. But when the average house price in the UK is nearly £200,000 (about 377,000 dollars or 296,000 euros) - prices in London are considerably higher - one begins to understand the appeal of narrow boats. Some people buy two: one on which to live; the other to store furniture and belongings that don't fit in their primary boat.

A gate starts to close, after a narrow boat moves through the lock on the River Avon.

A hostelerie near William Shakespeare' s and Anne Hathaway's final residence in Stratford-upon-Avon shows the timber and latticed windows popular in Elizabethan times. While the building has been demolished, the foundation of Shakespeare's last house is visible in a landscaped garden open to the public.

Anne Hathaway's cottage

Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare, grew up in this charming cottage in Shottery near Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

The thatched-roof cottage retains its beautiful gardens filled with flowers and herbs.

Guides stand at the main entrance of Hathaway's Cottage.

An arbour made from willow branches offers shelter from the elements.

The birthplace of William Shakespeare's wife Anne, Hathaway's Cottage is in the hamlet of Shottery, a mile west of Stratford-upon-Avon, England. While widely referred to as a cottage, the structure is actually an Elizabethan farmhouse containing 12 rooms. In Shakespeare's day the cottage was known as Newlands Farm, with over 90 acres of land on the edge of the Arden Forest. With its thatched roof, timbered and bricked walls and lattice windows, the house has changed very little since Anne Hathaway's time. Parts of the building date back to 1463. Many 16th-century fireplaces remain, along with an Elizabethan carved oak bedstead, with a mattress of rush cords threaded onto a wooden frame. It is believed to be the bed on which Anne Hathaway was born.

The cottage belonged to the Hathaway family until 1892, when The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust bought it, along with its furnishings. The Trust restored the cottage to its original character. A wooden settle next to the original open hearth fireplace is believed to be the bench on which William Shakespeare courted Anne Hathaway. They married in 1582.

Footpaths from Stratford to Shottery echo the route that Shakespeare must have walked on his way to visit Anne. The cottage has retained its old-fashioned English cottage garden with perfumed flowers and herbs, as well as an adjacent orchard.

Strange times

In Oxford, England I spent much of Sunday happily ensconced in the Poet's Corner at Blackwell's. The five poetry books (pictured) were my bounty: Fernando Pessoa: Selected Poems; Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times; R.S. Thomas: Collected Poems 1945-1990; Czelaw Milosz: New and Collected Poems 1931-2001 and Yevgeny Yevtushenko: Almost at the End.

The Poetry Thursday prompt is "time." Homecoming by Bruce Dawe (below) is taken from Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times. Although written about Vietnam, the poem could easily apply to present-day Iraq, Israel and Lebanon or any of the volatile areas of conflict where time is relative to dangers encountered.

Homecoming

All day, day after day, they're bringing them home,
they're picking them up, those they can find and bringing them
home,
they're bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks
in convoys,
they're zipping them up in green plastic bags,
they're tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness
they're giving them names, they're rolling them out of
the deep-freeze lockers - on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut
the noble jets are whining like hounds,
they are bringing them home
- curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms
- they're high, now, high and higher, over the land, the
steaming chow mein,
their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific
with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,
home, home, home - and the coasts swing upward, the old
ridiculous curvatures
of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert
emptiness...
In their sterile housing they tilt towards those like skiers
- taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their
homecoming rises
surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the
splendour)
then fading at length as they move
on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset
raise muzzles in mute salute,
and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs
telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree
and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry
- they're bringing them home, now, too late, too early.

Arts & Crafts in The Cotswolds

The English Arts & Crafts silver bowl with turquoise and orange stone accents is in the style of Archibald Knox. The pewter candlestick is early 20th-century Dutch. Both were gifts from my husband, found at an antique shop in Broadway, England.

This shop is typical of the architecture in Broadway, England. The village is renowned for its charming buildings and quaint shops. The Broadway Tower just outside the village is a castle-like folly. The tower was inspired by Capability Brown, who designed the gardens at Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. Built high on a hill, the Broadway Tower affords a breathtaking view of The Cotswolds.

Once horses' stables, this ivy-covered stone building in Broadway is now a private apartment.

Leaves reminiscent of the Arts & Crafts period are carved on a pew in Worcester Cathedral, Worcester, England.

This detailed leaf design was hand-carved on several wooden benches at Worcester Cathedral.

Amnesty accuses Israel of war crimes

Photo of a Cedars of Lebanon tree, The Evesham Hotel, Evesham, England.

Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes. In a report released Wednesday, the human rights group said Israel deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure in Lebanon. The Israeli government has refuted Amnesty's claims.

Homes, bridges, roads and water and fuel plants were an "integral part" of Israel's strategy in the recent war, Amnesty said. The group also urged a United Nations investigation into whether both Israel and Hezbollah violated humanitarian law. For more information, read the BBC article.

Je suis de retour

Bonjour mes amis! Just back from a wonderful time in the Cotswalds in England. Will be posting much more about the trip, so please check back later. I am looking forward to catching up with your and your blogs, over the next few days.

You may be amused by the exhausted, but happy photograph taken at 1 a.m. August 22 at Wallett's Court Country House Hotel. The hotel, restaurant and spa is located in the countryside near the famous white cliffs of Dover. Little Britain star David Walliams stayed at the hotel in July, prior to swimming the English Channel. His swim to France raised over £1 million for charity.

Some of you may remember my dismay in March at becoming a blonde at the hands of an over-zealous French hairdresser. In the tiny village of Broadway, I found a hair salon called Spirit. The salon specialises in organic hair products - vegetable dyes, not chemicals - and a talented colourist named Louise managed to send the unwanted blonde packing. So even though the photo was taken at the end of a very long day, hours since my hair had been brushed or makeup applied, I prefer the look, rather than the blonde - less contrived, more "me."

Bonnes vacances!

We're off to the Cotswolds in jolly olde England. Back on the 23rd. See you then!

I can still...

The Scent of Rain oil on canvas by Randall LaGro, photo courtesy of the Blue Rain Gallery, Taos, New Mexico.

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is "Who else can I still be?" While I don't want to change my life too dramatically, many goals can still be achieved:

I can still make a difference
with the words I write,
pry open some closed minds
and fill ravaged hearts with hope;
sing songs of possibility;
right some wrongs.

I can draw on experience
and smooth rocky paths
for those less fortunate,
help refugees and displaced persons:
the victims of an unbalanced world,
navigating shifting sands.

I can still sketch maps
for my daughter, guiding her
along the way
and help future grandchildren
develop strength and self-esteem,
in an increasingly fragile world.

I can face time's passage,
with humour and grace;
accept that the woman I am
is more valuable than treasure
and learn to speak Spanish;
find that house in Seville.

I can still thank God
for the talents that shine,
for the love of a good man,
the joy and health of my daughter.
I can wake up every morning,
grateful for the gift of life.

UN agrees ceasefire; violence escalates

Photo from Passing for Normal

On Friday, the United Nations Security Council passed a long-waited resolution calling for a ceasefire in hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. But Israel responded by ordering further ground incursions into Lebanon as far as the Litani River and fresh air strikes, resulting in several deaths. And on Saturday morning, the Agence France Presse reported Hezbollah fired 20 rockets into Israel.

UN Security Council resolution 1701 was passed unanimously in New York after Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "profoundly disappointed" that the UN had failed to act sooner to end fighting in the Middle East. Annan said the delay in drafting a resolution had "badly shaken" global faith in the UN.

Israeli military officials have said they will stop military action only if the Israeli cabinet endorses the resolution on Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is asking the cabinet to do so, describing the resolution as "positive and acceptable." The Lebanese government was meeting Saturday to discuss the resolution.

The resolution states that Hezbollah must end attacks on Israel while Israel must end "offensive military operations" in Lebanese territory. The text of Resolution 1701 aimed at ending the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon appears on the next page:

Witness to war crimes

El Tres de Mayo de 1808 en Madrid o Los fusilamientos en la montana del Principe Pio (The Third of May, 1808, or The Executions on Principe Pio Hill) by Francisco Goya, oil on canvas, 1814, on permanent display at the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Click photo to enlarge.

Today I was re-reading excerpts of Robert Hughes' 2003 book Goya and was reminded of Goya's powerful war paintings at the Prado in Madrid. With his brushes, Goya painted the stories that today would have been captured in photographs. He eloquently showed his abhorrence for war in a series of paintings known as the Desastres de la Guerra (Disasters of War).

When the Peninsular War (1808-14) began, Goya was already 60 years old and "too deaf to hear a gunshot," as Hughes writes. "And yet, it is not too much to claim that his Desastres created a form of their own: that of vivid, camera-can't-lie pictorial journalism long before the invention of the camera, of art devoted to reportage, claiming its power." While Goya wasn't actually present at many of the events his paintings describe, he inscribed Yo lo vi - I saw it! - under a plate in which refugees from a country village are fleeing Napoleon's advancing army. Y'esto tambien - And this as well! - is the caption beneath another portrait of three exhausted women, weighed down by babies and household possessions, refugees of war.

"...Goya's ...martyr-of-the-people is one of the most vivid human presences in all art," Hughes writes. "In an age of unremitting war and cruelty, when the value of human life seems to be at the deepest discount in human history, when our culture is saturated with endless images of torment, brutality and death, he continues to haunt us. He is a 200-year-old equivalent of those few photo images that leaked out of Vietnam into long, emblematic life: the screaming naked girl running away from a napalm strike, toward the camera; the chinless police chief blowing out the brains of a plaid-shirted suspect at point-blank range with his kicking .38 on a Saigon street." And now, the photographic images from Southern Lebanon, from Beirut and from small towns in Israel.

So long before war photographers, Goya reported the news with his brushstrokes. While the medium has become more technology-oriented, the madness hasn't diminished since Goya's day, as evidenced in the bitter Israeli-Hezbollah fight with Lebanon as the battleground. Plus ca meme, plus ca meme chose, as the French say (The more things change, the more they remain the same).

One eye laughing, the other crying

"Portals"mixed media painting on board by Randall LaGro, photo courtesy of the Blue Rain Gallery, Taos, New Mexico

"One eye laughing, the other crying" is the way our dear friend Jutta describes leaving Paris for Budapest after three years here. She and her husband Ralf have become our very good friends.

We've learned some lessons about remarkable courage and grace from Ralf and Jutta. Together, we've commiserated, bolstered and supported each other through illnesses. We've shopped for antiques together and shared experiences and stories.

We've opened many bottles of champagne and wine and enjoyed wonderful dinners and lunches at each other's apartments and at restaurants. Just a week ago we had dinner at their lovely apartment in the 16th arrondissement.

So it's a bittersweet farewell, as Ralf and Jutta head to Budapest, where he has a new post with an international organisation. Of course we'll visit them in Budapest and they'll be back to Paris. But it's not the same as having them close by, at the other end of the phone.

Last night we celebrated their friendship with Ralf's office colleagues at La Petit Chatelet across the quai from Notre Dame. Guests included fellow expatriates from Germany, Britain, Scotland, France, America, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Norway and Korea. Following much merriment and delicious food, at midnight we stopped at Shakespeare & Company to get a FUSAC magazine for Paradise, who's moving to Paris this fall. Then we all took the last metro together.

Ralf and Jutta got off at Michel-Ange Auteuil to transfer to another metro line and waved from the platform as our train departed. David and I laughed that it seemed as though we were the ones departing Paris for new horizons. We shall sorely miss Ralf and Jutta. And we wish them all the best in their new life in Hungary.

Spinning the story

All day I've been reading British newspapers and listening to various press conferences televised live on the BBC. British officials were calm and measured, speaking of 21 arrests sparking terror alerts and revised security measures at UK airports. But the officials declined to provide many specifics, as the investigation is ongoing. In all those conferences and reports, not once was a reference to Al Qaida ever made.

That is until the hapless Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff - who so badly bungled Hurricane Katrina planning and aftermath - gave a press conference in Washington, D.C. Chertoff told reporters the alleged plan to detonate explosives on board planes was "suggestive of an Al Qaida plot." He hastened to add that evidence must be gathered before reaching any conclusions.

In other words, Chertoff was just spreading rumours - a bad habit he and his cronies in the Bush administration have adopted. After all, the American public must be kept in a state of perpetual fear and high anxiety, so the government can continue to suppress civil liberties - all under the guise of public safety and protection from terrorists. Disgraceful.

Walmart bows to Chinese demands

Meanwhile, the global retail giant Walmart again has demonstrated its concern for profits above all else. After years of refusing to allow American Walmart employees to join unions, the company has agreed that 60 Chinese stores can form unions. Of course, this is the price of doing business in China. Walmart wants the profits in China, so it conceded to the workers' demands. In America, Walmart already makes enough money, so doesn't care what its employees want or need.

As for China, look at the economic power it is wielding these days. To insure a share of China's economic growth, Walmart allows unions and Google agrees to government censorship for its search engine. What next?

Blogs of war

The Independent in London has an excellent piece about blogs of war in Lebanon and Israel. Read the article here.

UK travel advisory

If you're planning a trip to or from England, take note - hand luggage has been banned! This means that you can't carry even a handbag or purse on the plane and your pockets must be empty. Following security alerts and arrests of 21 people Thursday in the UK, the Department of Transport issued new restrictions. Effective immediately "all cabin baggage must be processed as hold baggage and carried in the hold of passenger aircraft departing UK airports."

In a single plastic carrier bag, passengers can take only the following items:
- Pocket-size wallets and pocket-size purses (containing money, credit cards, identity cards) but not handbags or briefcases.
- Travel documents essential for the journey (for example passports and travel tickets)
- Prescription medicines sufficient for the flight (eg, diabetic kit), except in liquid form unless verified as authentic
- Eyeglasses and sunglasses, without cases
- Contact lens holders, without bottles of solution
- Female sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight, if unboxed (tampons and pads)
- Tissues (unboxed) and/or handkerchiefs
- Keys (no electrical key fobs)
- Passengers travelling with an infant can carry only baby food, milk (the contents of each bottle must be tasted by the accompanying passenger) and sanitary items sufficient and essential for the flight (nappies, wipes, creams and nappy disposal bags)
- All electrical or battery-powered items including laptops, mobile phones, iPods and remote controls must be checked in as hold baggage.
- All passengers must be hand searched and their footwear and items they are carrying must be screened.

Pushchairs, strollers and walking aids also must be screened, while only airport-provided wheelchairs may pass through screening points. In addition, all passengers boarding flights to the USA and all items they are carrying - including those acquired after the central screening point - will be subjected to a secondary search at the boarding gate. Any liquids - including water - discovered will be taken from the passenger. British Airways said passengers failing to comply with government restrictions on luggage and other items would not be allowed on its planes.

A Heathrow Airport spokesman said that airport shops remain open and that passengers could still buy duty-free items and take them on board. However, all items carried by passengers on flights to the US will be checked at the boarding gate.

Outrageous!

Update August 10 - For information about an international aid convoy planned for Saturday, Aug. 12, read updates at http://www.lebanonsolidarity.org. Thanks to Mirvat for the link.

So much for Israel's promises to allow humanitarian aid into Lebanon. The Independent in London reports that the United Nations "was forced to halt all attempts to deliver humanitarian aid to the thousands of civilians stranded in southern Lebanon last night, despite repeated Israeli assurances of secure corridors. The move, echoed by major aid agencies, followed Israeli threats to destroy any vehicle operating south of the Litani river." Jack Redden, from the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said, "In many places, particularly in the far south, it is completely impossible to get anything into that area."

"The head of Médecins Sans Frontières' (MSF) mission in Lebanon, Christopher Stokes, described Israeli assurances of protected aid corridors as delusional. "For many days, the concept of humanitarian corridors has been used to mask the reality," he said. "It is impossible to get safe access to the villages in the south." Read the full story here and here in journalist Robert Fisk's article "Israel's promise of humanitarian corridors is exposed as a sham."

Unfinished business

"Dignity" by Randall La Gro, oil on canvas on board, photo courtesy of Blue Rain Gallery, Taos, New Mexico.

"Unfunished conversations" is the theme of this week's Poetry Thursday.

They planned a life together,
then she flew across the Atlantic,
leaving nine suitcases
to send with friends to London,
while she took care of unfinished business.

Cards and phone conversations followed,
brimming with love and hope
and prospects of another life
in a neutral country
where opportunities beckoned.

She was the older woman with a young child;
he the beloved son of a well-known judge
in a country where possibilities seemed limited
and acceptance of their union unlikely.
They thought London was the answer.

But others conspired to part them.
In her absence they stole his unread mail,
intercepted phone conversations
or listened on another line,
as they discussed their plans.

The pressure proved too much:
caught between his heart's desire and society's expectations
trying to please his family,
but longing for the one thing
he knew they could never accept.

A life in the city where he'd attended school and college;
a life doing work he enjoyed, with recognition by merit;
not for his family name, but for his talent.
A life he earned, with the woman he loved,
Freedom to make his own choices.

That last phone conversation
she struggled to understand; to grasp that
he so easily had caved in to pressure;
that he was giving up his dreams
for someone else's peace of mind.

She tried to ask questions, to follow the hidden links
that led from joy to despair
in less than two months' time.
He couldn't explain; couldn't bear to say the words
he knew would forever unravel the web of dreams they'd constructed.

So in the end - as in the beginning - everything was left unsaid.
He didn't have the strength to make his voice heard.
He lacked courage to save his life, by following his heart.
Instead, he started to sob and hung up the phone.
As others' demands determined his path, she walked free.

Baking with B.B. and the blues

Photo of blues legend B.B. King by Kevin Westerberg.

This afternoon I was listening to B.B. King and Eric Clapton's wonderful CD Riding with the King, while yet again, baking cookies! That's twice in two weeks. Note to self: Must choose a less-fattening way to diffuse anxiety.

Listening to their Worried World Blues made me wish I had a piano to play the blues - even though I can't imagine where it would fit. The balcony? And I've had a relatively news-free day (for me, anyway), meaning I've only looked at newspapers two or three times and BBC television news once.

In any event, if you like chocolate, you'll like this treat from Allysa Torey's More from Magnolia book of yummy recipes. Perhaps you've sampled the cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery in New York? Enough said!

Chocolate chocolate chip drop cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
One-half teaspoon baking powder
One-fourth teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
5 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar plus 1 tablespoon (for sprinkling over cookies)
1 large egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
One-half cup miniature semisweet chocolate pieces

In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, cream better, shortening and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Sprinkle lightly with the sugar. Place the cookie sheets in the refrigerator and chill for 20 minutes.*

Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool the cookies for 5 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

*Skipping this step will result in one giant flat cookie covering the baking sheet!

Who are the predators?

In Arabic, the word "hiawan" or animal is shouted in disgust when men behave like beasts. Syrian political cartoonist Mohammed Ali Ferzat produced this drawing years ago, but the message is just as relevant today. Click photo to enlarge.

Former hostage slams policy

Irish journalist John McCarthy weighs in about British Prime Minister Tony Blair's woeful stance in the conflict in Lebanon. In 1986 McCarthy was kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon for five years. An excerpt from his commentary "Israel and the Art of Sophistry" today in The Independent in London:

Israel has been occupying Palestinian land, in defiance of UN resolutions, for almost 40 years. Instead of insisting on Israel leaving all Palestinian territories, Mr Blair spoke of the former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's "brave step of disengagement from Gaza" last year. What is brave about giving back something you have stolen, still keeping the rightful owners in a virtual prison? Until the safety and human rights of Palestinians - and of all people in the region - are valued as much and put on an equal footing with those of Israelis, there is no hope for a peaceful settlement.

Singing the blues

Photo of B.B. King and his guitar "Lucille" by Kevin Westerberg. Photo below by Bob Guthridge, courtesy of Bob Guthridge.

B.B. King holds court
center stage in Memphis club
velvet voice, guitar.

This morning I was hand-washing crystal wine glasses, listening to the CD B.B. King & Friends 80. The CD features the 80-year-old Blues superstar from Mississippi singing and playing guitar with 12 talented musicians including Eric Clapton, Bobby Bland, Van Morrison, Sheryl Crow, Daryl Hall and Mark Knopfler.

I was thinking about how the poverty of the South inspired the blues, sending some musicians north in search of jobs and spreading the blues genre further. I was remembering all the dives and juke joints and little clubs in backwaters where I used to go to hear talented blues musicians pour their hearts out in song, from Arkansas to Louisiana to Mississippi to Alabama to Tennessee - and later, in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, where the clubs were more sophisticated, but the music was the same I heard growing up in the South.

So when I saw the One Deep Breath prompt "The Scenic Route," I remembered all those backroads; those gravel paths; those slick streets traveled to hear the blues. In tribute to the extraordinary B.B. King and other blues giants who have enriched the world with their talent, I offer these haiku:

Southern sharecropper
from the wrong side of the tracks
learns to sing the blues.

Black man's burden weighs
heavy; hard to make ends meet
mis'ry makes music.

Hand-to-mouth life here
picking cotton, sowing crops
Blues ease trouble's grip.

Self-taught, self-made man,
he learned to play as a kid:
gospel's cousin Blues.

Hardship, poverty
turning tough times into song;
stories fuel music.

No complaints heard here;
His guitar does the talking
Wailing the world's woes.

Deep lines on his face
reflect hard work, dignity
Still living the blues.

Plowing the field's crops
hands busy, worries threaten;
whistle troubles gone.

Iced silver goblets
mint juleps tinged with bourbon
sultry nights, raw pain.

Arkansas trav'ler*
Mississippi Delta blues
swimming in music.

*from the 1850 folk song "Arkansas Traveler" by Col. Sanford Faulkner

Double standards

A controversial treaty linked to terrorism and allowing extradition of persons suspected of crimes - without producing evidence of their involvement - sent British bankers known as the NatWest 3 to stand trial in America. But that same treaty is meeting some resistance when it comes to extraditing an Israeli soldier who allegedly killed a British documentary-maker. British peers are also seeking justice in the 2003 murder of a British pro-Palestinian activist.

In its 4th-17th August issue, the British satirical magazine Private Eye reports the story:

"Can it be only three weeks since the 'NatWest Three' were air-freighted to Texas, US marshals at their side, manacles dangling?

The Blair government kept stressing the merit of making suspects face justice in the jurisdiction of an alleged crime's victims (in that case, Enron investors). Tony Blair repeatedly said that it was "the right thing to do." Extradition was the handmaid of global justice. Let truth be judged in an open court!

In the House of Lords a few days later, however, the attorney general proved very much cooler to the idea of extradition. A different case, you see. Politically more embarrassing. It concerned trigger-happy Israeli soldiers killing unarmed Brits. Suddenly extradition was a matter of great tentativity. Doubtful chins were stroked. Extradition? No, no, no most difficult.

Lord Goldsmith was facing demands that the government try to extradite the Israeli soldier who allegedly killed James Miller, a TV documentary-maker shot in Rafah in 2003. Peers also wanted British justice to pass verdict on the 2003 murder of Tom Hurndall, a young British pro-Palestinian activist. A 22-year-old Arab member of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) was given a short sentence for Hundall's manslaughter. Taysir Hayb insisted he was made a "scapegoat" because he was a Bedouin.

Lib-Dem Lady Northover noted that Miller's suspected killer was "not only still in the Israeli Defence Force but has been promoted in it." It was hardly evidence that the Israelis were taking the matter seriously. She added that the British coroner investigating Miller's death was given the bum's rush by Israeli authorities. How much better had Goldsmith fared when he went to Israel recently? Oh, said Goldsmith, they had been most "cooperative."

Indeed. The Israelis were thinking about giving him some sensitive information which was at present not being made public. And, er, that was about it. He went on to explain that "it is difficult to reinvestigate something after this length of time"- not a difficulty, mind you, that has stopped the government spending umpteen hundred million on the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

Former Thatcherite Home Secretary Lord Waddington explained that James Miller was the brother of his daughter-in-law. An unhappy Waddington said that since any progress in Israel was "very unlikely," he felt that "a prosecution in England is at present the only way in which any justice will be done for James Miller's family."

Goldsmith claimed again that "the Israelis have been cooperative." He gave almost as little evidence to support this assertion as he did to support his now notrious change of mind that war against Iraq would be legal. Really, this was a lamentable performance.

Lord Thomas of Gresford (Lib-Dem), a notoriously tenacious lawyer, then gave ministers and officials good reason to gulp. He started quoting the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957 and said that the unlawful killings of Miller and Hurndall had been ruled by the coroner to be "an extraditable offence with extra-territorial jurisdiction that the courts of this country have full power to deal with." In other words - we'd be well within our rights to tell Israel to hand over its suspected soldiers now..."

"A watery Goldsmith accepted that "in theory, there are offences that would be extraditable" but tried to waffle that the coroner had not seen all the evidence. Yes, we know that. He himself had just admitted that the Israelis were withholding some of it.

"We are not at the stage where it would be right" to look at extradition, said Goldsmith. What a difference three weeks make!"

Paix maintenant!

Peace now - This digital photo of a 35mm photo isn't the best quality. But the message of the "Peace Plaza" installation on the Champ de Mars near the Eiffel Tower is universal. Each pole features artistic interpretations repeating the word "peace" in French, English, Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Hindu and many other languages.

An accident of birth

A stream of raw sewage runs through this Palestinian refugee camp.

Tin roofs on simple mud and concrete dwellings are weighted by heavy stones.

"Who else might I have been?" is this week's Sunday Scribblings prompt. With all the bad news emanating from the Middle East these days, people have often said to me, "Thank God we were born in the West." Certainly being born in a Western nation provides opportunities few in the world can ever imagine, much less achieve.

We are privileged to live relatively stable lives, with adequate nutrition, roofs over our heads, healthcare, education and jobs. Until fairly recently, being born in a Western nation provided an immunity of sorts, guarding against many problems ever directly touching our lives. Of course exceptions exist in pockets of poverty throughout the United States, particularly in the industrial North and the rural South, including the Mississippi Delta.

I spent years in the Middle East, thanking my lucky stars I was born in the West. Because not only do the Arabs live with the constant threat of conflict with Israel, many many people in the region live far below what we would consider the poverty line. Many Palestinian children grow up in refugee camps in simple dwellings, their corrugated tin roofs held down by stones.

I first visited the Beqaa Refugee Camp in Jordan in 1983. Children played games next to a stream of raw sewage running through the dirt roads. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and numerous private charities have contributed to proper sanitation facilities as well as schools, medical clinics and improved living conditions. But more often than not, school consists of one unheated room, furnished only with a chalkboard and hard wooden benches and desks.

Despite the physical discomforts these children pay attention; they're eager to learn, because they know that the only way out of poverty; out of their predicament is an education. You'd probably be surprised at how many Palestinians growing up in dire circumstances speak two or more languages. Their ability to adapt to changing environments and learn languages puts most Americans with expensive educations to shame. These Palestinian children grow up to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers and diplomats. They work hard to ensure they aren't mired in the circumstances in which their parents were forced to live, after fleeing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

As a reporter based at the United Nations, I covered so many Security Council and General Assembly meetings regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict and traveled to so many countries in the Middle East, the Palestinian delegation used to joke that I was becoming like them - "a refugee" - always moving from place to place, country to country and never really settling anywhere. For too many Palestinians, home is an elusive dream. But that's another story for another day.

Nomads by choice

The Bedouin tribes are nomads by choice. They travel throughout the Arab World, pitching tents, shepherding sheep for a time, then moving on to another locale. At first glance, they might appear poor. But many of the Bedouin have healthy bank accounts and houses in town; they prefer the freedom and open spaces of desert encampments.

The Bedouins are a hospitable people, generously sharing everything they have with anyone who turns up at their encampment. Often they kill and cook a goat in honour of their guests. By tradition, the Bedouins have a responsibility to shelter and protect guests for three days, no questions asked. They turn no one away, regardless of religion, politics or nationality. At the end of three days, the traveler must go elsewhere.

In 1980 in the ancient Nabatean city of Petra, Jordan I first noticed a blonde woman wearing Arab dress. She was selling necklaces and earrings fashioned from polished agate, aventurine and other stones mined in the region. I asked her how she'd come to live in Jordan. She told me she had been a tourist, visiting from New Zealand and had met and fallen in love with a Bedouin man. They married and lived very simply in an open cave near the Petra Treasury. Later the Jordanian government moved the few people living in the area to government housing in a nearby village.

Years later I saw the woman at Safeway in Amman, fashionably dressed in jeans and sandals, her hair pulled back into a braid. The next time I went to Petra she was again dressed in Arab dress, selling jewelery to tourists - apparently quite a profitable venture!

Art and accidents

The famous Pompidou Centre in Paris has experienced a few mishaps with its latest exhibition. Accidents have resulted in destruction of two pieces of art and damage to a third on loan from Los Angeles and New York! Read the full story here. Now the battle is on convincing French insurance companies to compensate the museums who loaned the pieces, as well as the individual artists for their losses.

And it will be a battle. Because French insurance companies are notorious for endless bureaucracy, delays and more delays before paying even the simplest of claims. For instance, in early September 2005 our neighbour's apartment flooded, causing damage to his apartment, the hallway and two other apartments, including ours. Of the lot, ours sustained the least amount of damage, warping the door, making it difficult to open and creating a small amount of mould and damage to carpet in the entryway. After filing numerous claim forms to two agencies, three persons - all from the same agency - came on separate occasions to inspect the damage. They were in general agreement that the repair costs would be 500 euros (about $650 or £350).

Even after these three inspections, a bewildering selection of official documents and queries flew back and forth via certified mail. Eleven months later we received a settlement of 485 euros. As for the poor guy whose apartment flooded, he's still trying to resolve his insurance claim. And we're all waiting for the hallway carpet to be replaced. So bonne chance et bonne courage to those seeking compensation from French insurers!

Counterpoint

The author is a Los Angeles-based writer and web producer. He is also the creator of the popular weblog Citizen of the Month.

By Neil Kramer

I was honored when Tara asked me to write a post about my feelings on the current violence in the Middle East. As a Jewish man, an American and a supporter of Israel, my political views are quite different from hers. But the two of us have one common denominator -- neither of us enjoys seeing people dying and suffering in war.

I see a lot of anger when I read politically-oriented blogs, each side accusing the other of atrocities. I'm not a political person. I write a personal blog where I mostly write humorous stories. In Tara's last post, she displayed a painting by Felix Vigil that was titled "The Storyteller." I like that term. Consider me a storyteller.

What can a storyteller say about the Middle East that a politician or historian cannot? In a way, I think a storyteller is the most important critic of all. A storyteller knows that storytelling is everywhere and everything. The fighting in the Middle East is not over land or religion. It is fighting over storytelling.

This story being fought about in the media and blogs is based on a Biblical classic: David and Goliath. Unfortunately, you and I may have different versions of the story. Your version might be about this aggressive, warlike country named Israel. Settled illegally by a haughty people, they pushed innocent farmers from their homes and started an aggressive campaign to win land from all their neighbors. Whenever there is the slightest provocation, this mighty Goliath lashes out, killing anyone in its sight -- men, women and children. Whenever the civilized world tries to stop the insanity, Israel is backed up by its big brother, the United States.

When I read the comments on some blogs, I repeatedly hear this story. It's not the story I know and believe. It's like I've walked into an incomprehensible foreign movie without subtitles.

My David and Goliath story is quite different. Mine is about a people who have been pining away for their ancestral land for 5000 years. A people who were treated horrendously and viciously for centuries everywhere they went. After millions were murdered, the powers-that-be agreed to partition British land to form a home for Jews and a home for Palestinians. This tiny Jewish state was immediately attacked. Then attacked again. This David is surrounded by a multitude of Arab countries that hate to see a non-Arab country in their midst. Both Iran and Hezbollah say they will fight until Israel is eradicated. It was Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, that attacked Israel by sending in missiles and kidnapping soldiers. This is my David and Goliath story.

The recent conflict has very little to do with the Palestinians. It is about the non-Arab Iran wanting to win favor with the Arab Muslim world by arming Hezbollah to the teeth and provoking Israel. If this works, Iran wins favor. There is also a side benefit -- it makes the international community set aside key issues about this despotic regime that is developing nuclear weapons.

Suddenly Iran and Syria are not the villains anymore. This David and Goliath story casts Israel as the bad guy. If you ask some European school kids today, they think Israel takes up half the Middle East, rather than the tiniest slice of land with a small population. Yes, I know they are the "Western" country with the biggest military might in the Middle East, but is their aim anything other than to protect themselves?

I find it astounding that Israel's "Western" status makes their hardships and casualties seem less important to so many other Westerners. You don't believe me? On Thursday eight civilians were killed in Israel by Hezbollah missiles. But did anyone write any poems for these people? Were poems being written when buses were being blown up in Tel Aviv and body parts of Israeli children were flying onto the streets? Since Israel is the big bad Goliath in this story, the death of Israeli children just doesn't have the same impact as that of Arab children.

To me, this stinks of a condescending attitude toward the Arab World, as if Israel should know better than to hurt civilians during warfare, but terrorists -- well, that's just how they are!

I remember reading a lot of angry comments when Israel started building a wall. Israelis were called "racists," even though the wall actually was effective in stopping suicide bombers. Do you lock your door at home if there is a spree of robberies in your neighborhood? Are you being racist?

I appreciate the story many of you tell, where Israel is the Goliath. I still believe that Israel takes every precaution not to injure civilians during war, but I would be a monster if I didn't feel for the plight of the dead and displaced in Lebanon. But where is Iran or Hezbollah in this story? Are these provocateurs secondary characters? Do you feel comfortable telling a story where democratic Israel is a bigger villain than a despotic regime or a terrorist organization?

Stories are partly constructs of the imagination and the same situation can be written in hundreds of different ways. If I try to appreciate your David and Goliath story, I would like the same respect for mine -- because I rarely hear it being told in some circles. In all the talk of violence and death, will I be the only one to lament Israel's dead?

I will remember you

The Storyteller mixed media painting by Felix Vigil, photo courtesy of the Blue Rain Gallery, Taos, New Mexico.

Poetry inspired by music is the prompt for this week's Poetry Thursday. My poem includes a stanza from the Sarah McLachlan song I Will Remember You. The poem was inspired by children in Qana, Lebanon, who died when Israeli bombs crushed the house in which their families were sheltering - and by all the children who have perished in wars and conflict throughout the world.

Again, death has come calling
in this place where Christ performed miracles.
Not one, but two massacres a decade apart
provoking international outcry
and fanning the flames of hate, when hope was needed.

Under sheltering skies, a gathering storm:
in a basement families slept,
while diplomats' reason failed to keep
the stealth bombs at bay, intent on revenge.
Nothing can help them now.

The protective cover of darkness,
safety dependent on mortar and bricks.
Nightfall's silence shattered like glass, a blaze of fierce light
as bombs exploded, destroying all options
No safe havens here.

Buried among the rubble, their small bodies broken
like limp rag dolls, hair and clothes singed by fire
their lives cut short by a calculated risk
an act that failed to kill a single enemy,
but broke hearts around the world.

I will remember you
history will record the guise of self-defense
the senseless violence responsible
for innocents dead, like lambs to the slaughter.
Collateral damage? Children died here.

I will remember you
childhood innocence destroyed
A story grown familiar: a moment of madness;
the wails and tears of your parents
Rock of ages echoing Jericho's trumphets.

Though promise in your eyes, your life unremarkable;
but your death captured our attention.
Along the rocky path to peace,
tears wash away the blood of innocents
spilled in someone else's cause.

Your parents left with nothing
a tiny plywood coffin in a mass grave, a hasty burial.
No songs were sung; no flowers softened the crime.
Only tears mark your grave
in this troubled land where so many have fallen.

I will remember you
the Songs of Solomon you couldn't sing
the words you never spoke;
the stories unimagined
you didn't live to tell.

I will remember you
I will speak for your small voice
that never had a chance
to develop and be heard.
I will remember: you mattered.

Rising death toll of reporters

Israeli destruction of television transmission towers and a deadly attack on a media convoy in south Lebanon are grim reminders that the media "have become targets - and weapons - of war. The pen may be 'mightier than the sword,' but in recent years, the sword has left a trail of spilled ink - and blood," said former CBS correspondent Lawrence Pintak. In his article in the Columbia Journalism Review Daily, Pintak calls for an international law banning targeted attacks on the media.

Pintak is the director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at The American University in Cairo. He is the author of three books about the Middle East.

An insider's perspective

The author is a poet and former public information officer at the United Nations. Born in Palestine, he is an American citizen and lives in New York. He wrote this piece at my request.

By Yousef Hamdan

The pictures of dozens of children pulled out from under the rubble in Qana, Lebanon streamed out of TV screens and caused maddening outrage in millions of homes throughout the Middle East. Qana was not just another town. The massacre of its people in 1996 is still imprinted in the collective memory.

In the morning, demonstrators stormed the UN building in Beirut and Gaza. In many cites in the Arab world, men women and children took to the streets denouncing George Bush and his friends in the Arab World. On Sunday morning, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called for an emergency meeting of the Security Council and urged it to condemn the attack on Qana.

After a day of consultations, the council failed to condemn the massacre. US Ambassador John Bolton blocked it from doing so. Only a few days earlier the Israeli delegate proclaimed Mr. Bolton a member of his delegation to the UN!

Just before the air strike on Qana on July 27th, 2006, Israeli Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, told Israeli Army Radio: "All those now in South Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah." Ramon also said "villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops move in."

Anyone who thought Qana may have been another “accident” should think again. If this was not a war crime, what is? Yet the Bush administration insists it must go without rebuke.

When you hear people in the Middle East calling talk shows on TV and screaming in outrage against their inept leaders and the US president, you sense a volcano about to erupt. They know the US is the only Member State blocking the UN from calling for a ceasefire; a ceasefire on the civilians in Lebanon, its basic infrastructure and every means of civilized existence. They heard Chief of Staff Halutz saying Lebanon’s clock will be turned back 20 years.

Yet the US thinks a ceasefire is not a good thing - yet. Instead, the US rushed laser-guided bombs to Israel. In their haste, they forgot to tell Tony Blair they would be using British airports for the delivery of the bombs.

Earlier this month the US cast yet another veto, killing a draft resolution calling on Israel to stop its onslaught on the Gaza strip. Civilians are killed every day in the besieged strip, without electricity, food or medicine. But while that receives wide coverage in the Middle East, the US media pays little attention. A UN delegate from the region said Monday that the children who witnessed Qana ten years ago are those who are now launching rockets on Israeli towns.

Bold headlines throughout the Middle East announced that the US Congress almost unanimously backs Israel’s onslaught on Lebanon. Israeli press is filled with commentary indicating this war is a US war by proxy. One Israeli news commentator revealed that a Republican fundraiser, close to the Bush administration telephoned Israeli officials and urged them to “deliver the goods” and achieve a clear victory.

Now that the “beacon of democracy” called Iraq has not delivered the “goods," a “war president” must have another war with a possible successful outcome. After all this is an election year. Not by accident, Mr. Bush, Monday in Florida, called the war in Lebanon part of the War on Terror. Was the milk factory in Beirut, destroyed by air strikes, a terrorist target?

In the meantime, one third of Israel’s citizens continue to suffer in shelters and a third of those are refugees. As guns will go silent, the vast segments of Israeli society living in poverty will expand and get poorer. On the other hand, the American-Israeli military industrial complex will get a windfall out of this war. We - the American taxpayers - will pay the bill.

Why do they hate us?

A friend in the region called me a few days ago and asked how I could continue to live in the US? I tried to explain that America is not this Bush, nor is it this Congress. Most Americans are waiting to wake up from this nightmare.

Home comforts

Monday was one of those days that tries the patience of a saint. Never mind the mad state of the world, a lot of little things went wrong and a couple of household accidents wreaked havoc with my state of mind. All this was capped with a conversation with my daughter, making some big decisions regarding her school/career path. So the only thing to do was bake something.

I turned to the Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book given to me by my mother's best friend when I was nine years old. And I made sugar drops, the easiest way to satisfy a sweet tooth craving. You can see by the stained pages (pictured) how many times over the years this recipe has been used. Sometimes the simplest solutions really are the best, don't you think?

Some other - and less caloric - stress reducers are reading a good book or leafing through favourite magazines. I also like watching DVDs that make me think (the CSI series) or movies that I missed in the theatres. And for real escapism, there's a very camp British series/soap opera currently on French television called Footballers' Wives. The actress Zoe Lucker is superb in the lead role. The series features sex, sport, drugs, fashion, attempted murder, kidnapping and general mayhem. It's so bad it's good in its thinly-veiled send-ups of certain real life Brit football managers, players and their partners. Delicious!

Riding a bicycle or taking a walk are healthy stress relievers. I also like strolling around a museum and looking at art, which helps me focus on something other than immediate problems. Taking care of a garden or looking after plants helps calm me, as does working on decoupage or some kind of art. And of course, counting my blessings usually makes problems diminish in importance.

What helps you combat a bad day? Do you do yoga or play music? Do you have a glass of wine? Do you pummel a punching bag? What works for you?