Get down for a good cause.

CARE FOR CIVILIANS, RELIEF FOR REFUGEES
A Benefit Concert for the Lebanese Red Cross
and an appeal for ceasefire and calm in the region.

SUNDAY AUGUST 6th @ 6pm , 2006
Kresge Auditorium, MIT Campus, 48 Mass Ave. Cambridge MA.
http://whereis.mit.edu/map-jpg?selection=W16

$20 at the door / ALL proceeds go to the Lebanese Red Cross
http://www.dm.net.lb/redcross/

A two hour concert with performances by:

SHARQ Arabic Music Ensemble
The ZAITOUN Dabke Troupe
Japanese Taiko Drummer Eaine Fong
Moroccan Gnawa with Boujemaa Razgui
South Indian Dance with Aparna Keshaviah
Members of Boston Camerata Early Music Group

Organized by:
ADC Mass, Arabesque Mondays, MIT LCM, NAAP Boston

The following story is reprinted, with permission, from Counterpunch. For me this moving letter captures the spirit of non-violent resistance coming out of Lebanon and the hope of possibile alternatives, the hope of transcending mutually assured cultural degradation.

In solidarity with the spirit of the wedding,

Ginan.

"You can tell them that I’m not leaving.We love Lebanon.”

From ZENA EL-KHALIL

BEIRUT — I have started coughing, but I don’t know why. I am not sick. I don’t have a cold. I think it’s a reaction I’m having to stress. My body feels weak. My mouth is always dry, no matter how much water I drink. And I’m afraid to drink too much water because I don’t want it to run out!

Laure Ghorayeb: In Beirut, There is a Resistance

"The cease-fire: everyone talks about it but nobody wants to implement it"

From her son Mahzen Kerbaj's site:

LAURE GHORAYEB attempt for an objective biography

laure ghorayeb is a lebanese visual artist/poet born in 1931. after publishing 2 books of poems, she slowly stop writing to consecrate herself tothe unique style of painting she developed over the years. this style, melting words, drawings and signs together could arguably be described as abstract/poetic comics (it is at least my opinion).

she did many solo exhibits and hundred of collective ones. she is holder of an award of distinction from the paris biennale (1967) and won the first award of the alexandria biennal in the category of drawing (1997). she also participated in the international forum of art "europ’art 2003" in geneva.

during the 15 years of the civil war, laure ghorayeb never stopped drawing. a selection of these drawings, directly connected to the war, were published in a limited edition book titled “témoignage” (testimony) in 1985.
it seems sadly that art cannot fight war. here she is today starting a new series of her marvelously depressing war drawings in a blog titled “witnessing (again)”.

You're young, female, and terrified by the very real prospect of being hit by a Hezbollah missile. What better way to deal with your trauma than to go and sign your name or write a nasty message on a shell about to be fired into Lebanon.  

(Never mind that the shell you signed is far more likely to kill a Lebanese child than a Hezbollah fighter, but anyway…)

This well-known photo is an interesting contrast to all the footage we've been seeing of gun-carrying Hezbollahi young men. The Hezbollahis are made to represent Arab/Muslim masculinity run amok, not only guilty of kidnapping, but also of penetrating the Israeli border time and again with erratic rocket attacks. Even their poorly aimed missiles—-erectile disfunction?—-still cause death and mayhem.

I was watching video clips of evacuees being flown out on a Marine Helicopter. My wife used to wear hijab. Here's how these things are related…

So, in the clip there are some women and men of Lebanese origin sitting in the back of a Marine helicopter. Its the same type of squadron which was my first assignment back in 1996. Thus, I felt a pinge of "being there" since I, too, participated in a evacuation operation in Africa, 1998. Then I noticed a few of them had hijabs and beards. I am going to be brutally honest here, so read this only after the kids are in bed. My first reation was that if I was the crew chief of that bird, there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell that any hijabi or beardie would get on board my helicopter! Now, I know this is politically incorrect and simply not nice, even for me. But, I just couldn't help myself not to see the hijabi and beardie as Hezbollah sympathizers.

What a way to begin a blog.

I've been reading about the attacks on Lebanon for the past couple days now, my reaction going from shock to denial to anger, back to shock, denial and anger about the UN Security Council's refusal to do anything that would resemble them doing their job. I'm deeply worried about friends and family of friends in Lebanon and Palestine, furious at what was probably the U.S.'s call to do nothing while homes are destroyed and people are maimed and killed. The fact that there is nothing that citizens can do, it seems, to help, to protest, is the most infuriating part. There are no petitions to sign, no charities to give to, no protest songs to sing, only dirges to mourn the destruction of the land of cedar and Fairuz.