Date: Aug 10, 2006 9:28 PM

Sureal was the painting of Dali or the story of Poe. Surreal is a dream when the unusual comes so close to reality. Surreal is a child whose life is not even half lived... where they cannot run around freely, play and be what God intended them to be. Surreal should not be reality…. it is not meant to be visualized as a normalized life experience. It is what we say of as strange weird, unordinary and unreal.

But when the word enters the vocabulary of a life over and over and over and over again our lives involuntarily become those ways. We begin to realize what surreal is… a daily picture of our ordinary-seeming lives. How unreal does it seem to me that twenty miles to my south there are people with nothing left of their lives… how weird does it feel that the children at the school we visited yesterday are still running around, playing, without a single one of their toys.

How weird does it feel that more than two-thirds (way beyond a million) of my country’s people have been displaced and more than one thousand killed… God only knowing now how many are injured. These are our people, these are your people…these… are people. They did nothing… they wanted to enjoy life as much as possible…. maybe …not ever considering life, liberty , or the pursuit of happiness, nor egalité, fraternité, liberté. They just lived to live… maybe they didn't see to a higher purpose in their lives but being the best that they could be, treating others as the wanted to be treated (all schools’ golden rule), being all that they could be.

But alas, in the past few years have we not learned of the cheapness of their lives? Ours, I should say! \In Palestine, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, now here in Lebanon… again. It is but our turn…. As each person's turn will come soon, as each moment we only approach nearer our death. Some are just chosen early to live less of the of life's misery. As in the 80s and 90s it was the turn of the Latino Americans. They were being sweep away by the dozen a day… US military intervention it was called…but who bugged? Who cared… as who does now? the compassionate? They are not enough.

Is it an act of human nature to sit and watch the suffering of your own fellow species and do nothing about it? Is it an act of kindness to end their suffering early? Is it an act of hate? Or Is it but an act of survival of the fittest… Because we are fit. Very fit in fact… after a war or two, most even know well how to deal with war. They know the sequence of their reactions as if taught to them in a classroom.

There seem to be only the Iraqis and the Palestinians that I can say are like us, and even the Afghanis have not long ago suffered numerous wars. They know the lives of the dead around them…the smells of death…and the rise to no victory.

But no worries world… everything happens for a reason, no!?! we will turn back, our memories will not fade, and we will but fade into a longer history.

Someone I love very much used to ask me, why do you spend so much time thinking and worrying about the Palestinians? Don't you see that your own people are suffering… they are hungry, the are recovering, they are occupied. I would usually turn and smile and say, come on! "My" people were fine. They seemed fine.

Less than an hour ago for the first time which we can now measure as a month, Israel hit us here in Ras Beirut. There are no military bases here, no ports or no lighthouses, there is not a single Hizbollah missile that has been launched from this area, and not a single road to leave the country. There are just us living here thinking we are safe in the capital... if they hit Beirut we all figured they would hit Tel Aviv and this will lead to an even more atrocious tragedy with other of our close by neighbors. Mark my words...and don't forget to pray.

Najla, i hope you don't mind me quoting you, quoting your dad... Naj...Life in general is pretty awful, but in particular may be made OK, and that's what i want for you and I'm sure it'll work out... Love, as ever, Daddy

Yesterday George (now my fiancé) and I went to one of the schools that my friend is working in. We were there to play a bit with the kids, as they do daily, and also to capture some photographs. We've now become attached to the idea of returning and soon giving them the photographs that we took of them…they were so eager to see them "show me the picture, show it to me. Why didn't you give me the picture?" as one of my personal favorites stared at me and I into her precious sweet little dirty faced eyes we hear a bomb in the background and without a flinch our eyes continued doing their dirty staring. They're hitting Dahiyeh again (the Beirut southern suburbs) we hear. I've been there. It is a war zone but without any soldiers fighting and with so few of its citizens surviving. Some refuse to leave. I guess the feeling of dying in your place of birth is an honorable thing.

salam

Rayya

Date: Aug 11, 2006 1:39 AM

Hi everyone.  This is Chadi.  I have never done this forward thing before, but I need a big favor out of all of you.  I have copied a link below of an interview with a British Member of Parliament that is very relevant to the war that is taking place in Lebanon, where I was born and to this day have many family members (including infants and little cousins) still living in the heart of Beirut.  I would really appreciate it if everyone watched the interview and then reflect on it. 

http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,31200-galloway_060806,00.html

It is very important.  Just as important, I need everyone to email that link to as many people possible.  It is urgent that people begin to understand the conflict and also view Arabs as humans.  The interview is only about 5 minutes long, and the whole interview is relevant so please watch all of it, especially the end : ).  I know everyone on here knows a lot of people because you're always sending me them damn forwards with hundreds of emails on them!!!  : ) ...so please, send it to as many people as you know and make sure that they watch it.  Best of luck to everyone.  I beg you of this one favor.  Take care.  (o ya, and change the subject title when you send it out, cuz most people dont know what a "chadi" is, and will think it's just another porn solicitation : )  just joking!  just joking!  But in all seriousness, my family and the people of Lebanon and Palestine are in danger of dying and I need this from you:  thank you. 

Chadi

http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,31200-galloway_060806,00.html