Lynnś Weblog

Things are good here. It was an exciting start to the week with the presidency of Lebanon finally being resolved. We both found ourselves getting emotional over the whole event. Whereas if we were in the states – I just cant imagine that elation and feeling like you can finally breathe out again over US elections. Last saturday we walked over to Bourj Hammoud for dinner. The walls and buildings are plastered with the Lebanese flag and what must be Michel Sulayman’s first official presidential poster – suit and tie in place of military uniform. Walking back home we found a large Sulayman poster taped to the wall and not glued. We nicked it along with a smaller version of it. Its not like they will be missed the city is plastered with them. The poster size Sulayman is now hanging and greeting people as they come in the front door.

Sulayman has been sworn in, Hezbollah demands were met and this scary ‘terrist’ (bush speak) organization is now a legitimate part of the government with veto power. Hows that for a cold-steel, back-of-the-hand bitchslap in the face to George and his merry band of war mongering pranksters? None of those twats can claim victory to this achievement. It was done with out US meddling.

Scott McClellan wrote a book (nice segue). After watching him lie and stammer thru white house press conferences for several years — who knew he could write – let alone embrace honesty so scathingly. And now he gets the Richard Clarke treatment from Bush and company. They can only smear him and beat their chests wailing ‘this aint the lil neocon we used to know and love’. They have yet to actually refute any of his allegations, let alone read his book. There was a bit of dialog between Scott and Keith Olbermann that was funny(?) enlightening (?)

http://http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/29/scott-mcclellan-on-countd_n_104194.html

Towards the beginning of the interview Olbermann noted a passage in McClellan’s book where he says Bush’s foreign policy view was grounded in a “philosophy of coercive democracy.” Olbermann noted, “it’s a marvelous phrase, but is it an oxymoron?”

Scotty warns that if you hear the same cage rattling over Iran that we all heard prior to Shock and Awe…wake up. The link has more of the transcript and video.

Watching the political goings on in the states went from interest (over the ‘historical’ dem race) to an inner disgust realizing I am now guilty of staring at a bloody train wreck. I wish Clinton would go away simply because it aint gonna happen for her. If you choose to ignore the laws that punished Michigan and Florida and re-instate their delegates then go for the whole thing…Be honest and embrace the republican think of ‘rules/laws? what rules/laws? we doan need no shtinkin rules/laws’

I don’t really favor either one as long as Johnny Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran McSenile doesn’t become Dictator, King or president, whatever they are being called now. If McSenile wins (face it he knows not a damn thing about this region) it will be because Hills couldn’t let go with a bit of dignity still intact and brought division to the party.

Ahhh I went off on a tangent…

Things are returning to a normal I have never experienced here, being my first time here. Normal in Lebanon to me has been an earthquake, marches, funerals, political speeches made where the whole country seems to hold it’s breath while listening, a ragged Hezbollah tent city in the middle of downtown, tanks and soldiers, gunfire, fireworks, meeting Jibril’s Lebanese friends, drinking on Gemmayze, group dinners, relaxing, walking everywhere and enjoying the scenery…The weekend of Sulayman’s swearing in, the Hezbollah tents came down and Gemmayze was bumper to bumper cars and people everywhere. Bars and clubs that always seemed to be empty everytime I walked by are now seething with people. Outdoor patios of cafes and restaurants are no longer vacant looking. Jibril mentioned it was like this prior to 2006. Its been a very Beiruti crazed roller coaster ride since I have been here. I cant imagine what normal will be like or even if there is such a concept.

We are moving to East Beirut tomorrow. Steven and Rana found an apartment building newly built in the Nabaa neighborhood that had 2 empty apartments next to each other. So…now the mild anxiety of yet another move. Granted we fled Amman with two bags each and two carry-ons each, its the act of working under a time  limit while depending on others to stick to the schedule that slowly gnaws. It will be nice to finally have a permanent place to unpack in, unwind in, make ones own after 4 months of living in bags and trying not to scatter your belongings all over. While this place looks like an apartment, its still a hotel run by a very unbalanced hotel owner who cant make up his mind whether he wants to treat the place as a hotel or as an apartment, or he just enjoys playing mind games with all his hamsters in the habitrail.

Moving means we will be running to internet cafes to get online until we can get the apartment wired up. There may be even longer spans of silence here for the time being. I will still be in email on a regular basis.

Happy Birthday Mom and Jibril. I love you.

Its Saturday night — rather Sunday morning 1am. The techno clubs are in full throb mode. The streets are heavy with traffic. I made a run to the all-night gas station for milk (and chocolate of course) and was pleased to see the normal insanity back in full swing. Valet guys running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Women of all ages dressed to the nines strutting their stuff, and guys of all ages wearing enough cologne that as they walk by, you choke on the fumes. Walking by Gemmayze street – street of a thousand bars and clubs — the traffic was at a stand still,  cars were bumper to bumper and people swarming all over. This is a good thing. Past week or two had to take a toll on the businesses there. That quiet, nervous tension of waiting to see whats next seems to have evaporated. Tonight Beirut finally exhaled with relief and a desire to party.

I actually am glad to see the annoying techno clubs in our little alley back in full swing. The guys who run the little hotdog stand at the end of the alley came back yesterday and tonight stand to make a killing on the club goers.

I can deal with the noise for a few more weekends, because that is all the time we have left in this place!! We move to our own little apartment in the Bourj Hammoud neighborhood the first of the month. Steven and Rana are renting the apartment next door to us. I will miss Alex and his sense of humor, but he knows where we live and is always welcome over for meals and playing dueling guitars with Jibril.

Now for a couple valium to blot out the fact that my bed will be vibrating to a repetitive bass and drum beat until 5am.

The first night of fighting also had a huge thunderstorm roll in and knock out our wifi. As of today it is back on. Thanks to everyone who sent emails which I was able to check and quickly respond to at a place that had a connection.

We are safe, although our safety was never at any time an issue – as long as we didn’t go looking for the gunfighting. Its just the boredom of being cooped up waiting things out. The fighting in Beirut has calmed down and roadblocks are slowly being removed. There is still news of fighting in  Tripoli, Sidon and the Bekka Valley last I heard. On a mini break from news. The horrors of Burma and China made the horrors here pale in comparison. Cant really wrap my brain around the numbers of dead being reported in both places, and I certainly cant stomach any news of Georgie in Israel to help raise the roof over 60 years of apartheid.

Things were pretty active earlier. We went up on the roof after seeing bright white flashes of light only to be relieved that it was lightening zapping across the Mediterranean as gun battles waged on below. After a bit we came back down and ended up watching Eddie Izzard for entertainment and to drown out the explosive sounds around us. Odd, once the dvd was over there was silence. Beirut and  silence, kind of unsettling. No street traffic noise, no sirens, no explosions, an occasional crackle of gunfire. Its only 1:30am.

Around nine or so earlier this evening there was a news story online about how 2 people had been killed — a woman and her son when a grenade hit their apartment. Another woman was killed from celebratory gunfire and several people wounded during the street fights. I believe the death toll has gone up a bit since.

Sounds like a lot was accomplished and perhaps all the brave street fighters have called it a night. They have gone home to their loved ones and are mulling over the utter uselessness of their big day. A woman and her son…Bravo. 

Please, no encores. 

We close the evening with a rather loud thunderstorm rolling in – or maybe God is just pissed off. Its been asked several times now — ‘uh…that was thunder right?’ I believe its time for some sedatives and a little prayer before they kick in that tomorrow will bring back a touch of sanity to this place.

Peace

 That song has been playing over and over in my head…a continuous loop of David Byrne.

Was suppose to go meet a Lebanese friend for a lecture on Climate Change at the AUB. That got cancelled. Not a surprise seeing how we were able to sleep with the balcony door open — quiet, none of the usual heavy, loud traffic. Was in the middle of a really long email diatribe to my favorite Dr. Dolittle and the electricity went out half way thru the rant. Then the cabin fever took hold of me and it was off to the bedroom for some pointless sniffling. With the electricity cut at 3pm it meant no watching of Nasrallah’s speech at 4pm. Convenient…?

Jibril and I decided to go for a walk.  

We stopped at the sandwich shop nearby to see if the TV was on there, he has a generator. Nope. So we hit the empty streets. We heard gunfire to the east and decided to go west and south – cant get any more north then where we are. There is a heavy presence of soldiers and tanks. Civilians were few and far between and scattering rapidly. We walked on. Suddenly walking thru the downtown “souks” things seemed rather surreal. All the glitzy over priced stores with their fancy window dressings…gaudy sequined gowns on faceless mannequins, buildings under construction – on pause for the moment. All I could think of was the actor from “Suspended Dreams” mocking the pointlessness of the ritzy glass and steel structures going up during reconstruction and asking what about the reconstruction inside the human being after surviving the hell of war.

Is Lebanon really going to sink into civil war again? As we walked Jibril mumbled a couple lines from Leonard Cohen’s “Waiting for the Miracle”…’Lets do something crazy, something absolutely wrong…’ OK, lets continue to walk then. Barely anyone out. Official looking black SUV’s occasionally zipped by, the odd taxi beeping to see if we wanted a lift, and of course the guys on mopeds. Again lots of soldiers and tanks, roadblocks everywhere. We walked thru some cramped neighborhoods and found a corner shop with Nasrallah speaking on the telly and planted there for the gist of the speech/press conference. I don’t understand Arabic but I think I can put on a pretty good show of pretending. After we headed out Jibril gave me a summation of the speech. We decided to head back in case there was the stupid act of celebratory gunfire. Don’t want to be out in the open when the bullets come back down.

We were definitely in an area I wouldn’t want to be in once the sunsets. Roadblocks and neighborhood militia guys with walkie talkies hanging out, waiting, anticipating…Keep walking. Nobody gave us a second glance. Gunfire is becoming less sporadic, more constant and close by and new sounds are being heard. RPG’s, and a couple explosions further south. We got to the Hezbullah campsite and were told rather nicely there was no cutting thru their turf. We crossed over a blocked off bridge occasionally stopping to see where the fighting sounds were coming from. Got back to the apartment without any real hassles and have settled in.

I have to say I am not panicked, not jumpy just rather depressed. The soldiers faces are all young, the faces of the guys on the streets – young. Has reason hightailed it out of this country thru some blocked off road? Do people really want to suffer thru more of this insanity? And right now, if you said maybe it would be wise to go back to Amman and ride this out I would laugh at you. I don’t want to leave Lebanon. Perhaps working thru a depression leaves one with a fatalistic streak in its place…

I have been told I am a glass-is-half-empty person, lets try a glass-is-half-full on for a moment. The only good thing that can come from this is…The two Techno clubs that throb the apartment all weekend long until the wee hours of the morning will be closed. The only thing that will vibrate the beds now will be the occasional mortar shell going off nearby. How’s that?

Fisk has some fun facts about the current situation.

http://http://www.independent.co.uk/news/fisk/robert-fisk-lebanon-descends-into-chaos-as-rival-leaders-order-general-strike-822840.html