Here in the place where I live, the population is old. That’s the nature of life in a retirement village. But none of us were always old. We have been places and done things. We have stories to tell. Lately I have been asked by several different groups to talk about what is happening in […]
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The Solution We Are Afraid to Try A relative of mine who had earlier divorced in his wife, created a scandal in our family with his relationship to another woman. There were two horrifying things about the relationship. First they were a man and a woman living together and not married. Second, she was black […]
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At the publishing house I directed for 24 years in Lebanon our chief translator and editor had unusual editorial skills. As a translator he never wrote a word until he was sure he understood the intention of the English author, and in the end the work seemed to have originated in Arabic. The classical […]
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Recently, while traveling, circumstances beyond my control caused me to become uncommonly hungry. Hunger is something I cannot endure well, because of a tendency to hypoglycemia. I have on occasions become dysfunctional, unable to think, and afterwards could not remember what I had done. But on the day I am speaking of, I just […]
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I have a sister who is very ill. Actually I have three sisters, but this story is about “Deanie,” the second of four girls, the sister who is only 18 months younger than I. If this doesn’t sound like one of my blogs about the Middle East, hang on. In the end everything is connected. […]
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Early in 1975 one of my sons was standing at a municipal bus stop on the Corniche, waiting for a bus to take him home to our area, called Musaitbeh, after a long day at school—the American Community School of Beirut. Beside him on the curb a Lebanese youth also waited. The two of them […]
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February 18, 2015 A CNN poll has come up with an astonishing statistic: 62% of the American people want the US to be neutral in Middle East conflicts! For fourteen years this country has been sending its young people into Afghanistan and Iraq to kill or be killed. We have been fighting dictators, defending the […]
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October 10, 2014 So long as there is evil in the world, there will be bad people who claim to be Muslims and bad people who claim to be Christians. Nevertheless there will be religious and social principals that caution us against maligning either as a group. Though I believe in these and in lots […]
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