I just really liked this post…how tolerance is embraced, how the city’s interculturalism lends spice instead of fear, how it reminded me that every city on the planet is somebody’s cherished home, and how the descriptions and self-effacing humor transport me there…

Now I love Beirut, too.

From Cold Desert:

I Love Beirut
by Anonymous…

“I love Beirut for its opposites. I love Beirut because I see a girl in a mini skirt and her sister in a tchador. I love Beirut because it is neither West nor East it is both. I love Beirut because one can party till 6 in the morning and not realize that it is tuesday morning. I love Beirut because Beirutis live as if they are going to die tomorrow and party as if they are going to live forever.

I love Beirut because I can be swimming in the morning and 30 minutes later I’m on the slopes skiing or doing apres ski. I love Beirut because I have never seen the sun this strong anywhere in the world.

I love Beirut because I can see 6,000 years of history. I love Beirut because Christians and Muslims are living in understanding and do not need to have Christian Muslim understanding classes. I love Beirut because every Beiruti has a political opinion and will share it with you even if you could care less about his and you want to share yours with him. I love Beirut for all the conspiracy theories and how many people actually believe them.

I love Beirut because any night I can find a friend to go out with. I love Beirut because I do not need to call my friends to go and see them at their houses I just stop by. I love Beirut because as soon as I arirve at one of my friends houses his mom takes me to the kitchen and becomes the spokesperson of the refrigerator. I love Beirut because one can smell gardenia , and jasmine. I love Beirut because strawberries taste like strawberries and fruits taste like fruits. I love Beirut because the food is so good that one gains so many pounds even if she tries to lose .

I love Beirut because although the Lebanese women at times look alike as some did their surgeries at the same plastic surgeon they are the most elegant women I have ever seen. I love Beirut because when I go out at night I don’t know at which women to look at as each one is gorgeous in her own way. I love Beirut because everyone knows me by name.

I love Beirut because I don’t have to explain myself. I love Beirut because of the traffic jams and the people you meet because of them. I love Beirut because of the noise pollution from cars honking.

I love Beirut for the spirituality of the people whether Muslim or Christian. I love Beirut because I’m the first to call my Muslim friends on Ramadan and they are the first to call me on Easter. I love Beirut because on May 1st I see Muslims visiting Harissa ( Virgin Mary ) just like I see Christians. I love Beirut because we can differentiate between a Jew and an Israeli. I love Beirut because on the 22nd of every month I see Muslims going to Mar Charbel (Saint Charbel) and believing that a miracle will happen.

I love Beirut because women look like as if they are out of a Vogue magazine. I love Beirut because you eat to live and live to eat. I love Beirut because one leaves one cafe to go to another and one does this all day.

I love Beirut because all the Lebanese living outside want to come back and the Lebanese who are in Lebanon envy the ones who are living abroad not realizing what it means to live away from Beirut.

I love Beirut because my sister , her husband are there and my niece and nephew who are 5 are waiting to see their uncle. I love Beirut because my niece asks me to bring her a pink skirt and tells me : “I love You”.

I love Beirut because a girl or a guy can easily tell you I just had a couple of Lexo or Xanax as if they just had a chewing gum. I love Beirut because for every Lebanese we have a singer. I love Beirut because the Lebanese star singers sing in nightclubs. I love Beirut because women go into the swimming pool with full make up. I love Beirut because guys go in with their cigars.

I love Beirut because it has been destroyed 7 times in History and has risen. I love Beirut because since 1975 the Beirutis have withstood the PLO , Syrians , and the Israelis. I love Beirut because the Beirutis will not accept anyone to occupy them and rule over them. I love Beirut because we feel that it is better to die on our feet than to live on our knees.

I love Beirut because each street is a two way street even if it is a one way officially. I love Beirut because one can park anywhere and not get a ticket. I love Beirut because one can go as fast as his speedometer.

I love Beirut because MEA lands there. I love Beirut because on MEA we can clap in unison when we are about to land. I love Beirut not because it is my city , but because it is the city of every Lebanese. I love Beirut because it welcomes every exile freethinker , independent mind of the Arab world.

I love Beirut because we have hundreds of newspapers and our press is finally Free. I love Beirut because every Arab dreams of coming to Beirut and wishes his capital was more like Beirut.

I love Beirut because when I explain Beirut to my Western friends, my friends see the passion of Beirut in my eyes. I love Beirut because there is so much misconception about Beirut in the media and in the minds of people who have never visited. I love Beirut because when I tell my friends that I’m going to Beirut they tell me can you take me with you.

I love Beirut because we argue over who is going to pay the bill at a restaurant as everyone wants to pay it. I love Beirut because although many whine about not making enough money everyone is living. I love Beirut because if I do the cross before I start driving the person next to me does not ask me if I fear that I’m going to get into a car accident but instead does his cross as well.

I love Beirut because we accept our differences as we disagree with each other. I love Beirut because it serves as a beacon of freedom to the rest of the Arab world. I love Beirut because to praphrase what Gibran said about Lebanon ” Had Beirut not been my city I would have chosen it to be.” I love Beirut because there is no city like it.

I love Beirut because even if Beirut is being destroyed you are still beautiful and will remain beautiful no matter how disfigured you are.

I love Beirut because you are always on my mind.

I love Beirut for no reason. I love Beirut for all the reasons of the world.”

Read More: Beirut, war, religion, Muslims, Christians, Lebanon, Israel

A National Geographic survey of Americans between the ages of 18-24 found that:

• After three years of war, 63% can’t find Iraq on a map.
  
• With New Orleans still a mess from Katrina, 33% could not point out Louisianna.
  
• Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border in the world is between the USA and Mexico (not yet…right now, it’s between North and South Korea.)
  
• Nearly three-quarters named English as the most widely spoken native language (by the way, it’s not…)
  
• Only 50% could point out the state of New York, but 70% could find China (my take: more likely to hit China with a dart than New York.)

The survey results were partially explained when this map was found in a majority of high school classrooms:

(+) click to enlarge

Read More: geography, iraq, National Geographic, survey, high school, New Orleans, New York

“By a four-to-one margin (48 percent to 12 percent), Americans think the war in Iraq has made the threat of terrorism against the United States worse rather than better,” says a CBS News Poll.

Why? Maybe because terrorists are still trying to kill Americans on US soil. Here are just a few terrorists that have been arrested since 9/11:

Dirty Bomb

In October, 2004, the FBI arrested Demetrius Crocker in Tennessee. He was caught on tape fantasizing about detonating a dirty bomb at the U.S. Capitol. The 40-year-old white supremacist tried to purchase Sarin nerve gas ingredients and C-4 exposives from undercover agents. On November 28, Crocker got thirty years in prison.

Sodium Cyanide Gas

William Krar was arrested in 2002 in east Texas. Krar, also a white supremacist, sent a package full of fake DOD and United Nation IDs to a militia member in New Jersey. Fortunately, the package was misdelivered to a New York family who opened it and said, WTF? They called the FBI, who found enough sodium cyanide in Krar’s posession to gas a packed high-school gymnasium.

Krar also had nine machine guns, 67 sticks of explosives, and 100K rounds of ammo. He got 11 years in prison.

Arab on Family Vacation

In 2002, software engineer Maher Arar was returning from a family vacation in Tunisia. Although he was a Canadian citizen, Arar was detained by US authorities in New York’s JFK airport, then deported to Syria. In Syria, he was regularly tortured until his release over a year later.

Unlike the first two terrorists, it was later confirmed that Maher had no link to any terrorist activity whatsoever. He was finally allowed to return to his wife and children in Canada.

Racial Profiling

In the argument to use racial profiling in the war against terrorism, it must be noted that when the real evidence is tallied, it may be white male bigots—not Arabic Muslims—who have to get strip searched and questioned at the airport.

Invasion?

It’s yet unknown whether President Bush will give the nod to bomb and invade Texas and Tennessee. Both states have failed to crack down on the training of extremists and, as this article points out, both have produced their fair share of terrorists.

And in the War on Terror, if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Read More: Iraq, war, terrorists, Bush, dirty bomb, Cyanide, Demetrius Crocker, William Krar, Maher Arar

The Bush administration is about to ask for more money for the war in Iraq. Reports say it will be a request for $100-128 billion.

Including money already budgeted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that will bring the total for 2007 to around $200 billion.

The total for 2006 was $120 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“Although the Democrats are very uncomfortable with the way the Iraq policy is being executed, they are at pains not to appear that they are shortchanging troops in the field,” said Loren Thompson, chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area think tank.

“This is their opportunity to show that they, too, are pro-defense,” Thompson said.

Translation: It doesn’t matter who’s in charge of congress; they’re going to funnel money to the same black-hole Pentagon that lost and still hasn’t accounted for $9 billion in 2004.

The missing $9 billion was uncovered by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), and what was its reward for embarrassing the Bush administration? It’s scheduled to be closed on October 1st, 2007 under the terms of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The Military Commissions Act of 2006—you know, the same act that killed the writ of habeus corpus, which means the government can now lock you up without telling anybody why they’re locking you up because it “can’t comment on items of national security.”

But back to the money…remember, we shouldn’t worry about it because, as then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said in 2003:

There’s a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people…and on a rough recollection, the oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years…We’re dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.

How was Wolfowitz rewarded for this incredibly wrong insight? He became President of the World Bank. And, besides the missing money that gets pocketed by the good folks arranging endless wars and police actions, where does the “accounted for” money go? Check out the Company Profiles on the left sidebar at this site: warprofiteers.com.

Just for kicks, let’s look at the first company on the list: smart bomb and F-15 maker Boeing. CEO Jim McNerney receives an annual salary of $1.75 million and a bonus of as much as $4.03 million a year.

Ok, what about the second company on the list: F-16 and Javelin missile manufacturer Lockheed Martin. CEO Robert J. Stevens gets 4.8 million dollars this year, plus stock options.

Nice work if you can get it.

Read More: Iraq, war, profiteers, Bush, Wolfowitz, SIGIR, World Bank

Hope (Visions of Whitefeather) is based on the ideas of Willy Whitefeather, a Cherokee storyteller, healer, and survivalist. The eight-minute film, directed by Catherine Margerin, combines animation with live action to take us on a transfixing journey through human existence, and offers a message of hope for the future.

Go to IMDB

Try watching it with your morning cup of coffee…great way to ease into the day.

Read More: war, friends, video, art, animation, Cherokee, Willy Whitefeather, Hope