Three Reasons. . . Four Thousand Middle Eastern Women Recently a group of 20 Israeli women set off from northern Israel, near the Lebanese border, planning to walk to Jerusalem. All along the way they were joined by other women and two weeks later, 3,000 strong, they reached the Palestinian city of Jericho where they […]
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Before you read this article, I want you to know that I wrote with some ignorance and what I have said is inaccurate at one point. Because I want to stand by my conclusion and preserve the truth about how I reached it, I have decided to post the piece as I wrote it and […]
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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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Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, whoever he was down deep, whatever his motivation, regardless of his legal right to own an assault weapon, has done more than he could have expected to do when he planned to slaughter a roomful of unsuspecting people. He may not have intended to play into the hands of a reckless […]
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Memorial Day is a perfect time to commend and defend the soldiers whom we as a country have burdened with tasks risky to their bodies and souls. It goes without saying that, if our country is at war then the people on the front edge of executing that war deserve our love. This does not […]
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Jesus was an original thinker, a revolutionary, with a tendency to turn the prevailing ideals upside down. But when Jesus said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” he was quoting the Old Testament, reminding his listeners of something they were supposed to know already. And you, my reader, know that […]
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On the day I intended to post this blog I named it “Happy Hiroshima Day.” It was August 6, the birthday of my eldest daughter and the 70th anniversary of the day America, sweet land of liberty, dropped an atom bomb. But on that day I could neither finish nor post the blog because a […]
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I happened to be in Burlington, N.C., when a man asked me, “Are those people (the Arabs) just wired differently than we are, so that they like to fight?” Of course, you can guess what I said. They are not. Violence is not an Arab trait. It is a human trait. The history of […]
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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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In my book there is a story called “John and Elena.” Elena was a pretty young Lebanese woman, a friend of ours. John was an American Marine from Minnesota. The two of them were the poignant center of my account of an event that shook both Lebanon and America and has not ended even yet. […]
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