Lebanese blogs: August 1

Welcome to My Lebanese Dream
http://welcometomydream.blogspot.com/
Yesterday evening, as I wrapped one of the most gruelling days in my life, one more to add to the growing list of late, I turned to the CNN website and watched one of the clips relating events in the aftermath of the Qana massacre. And this is what I saw. I saw a man of maybe fifty years, standing next to a line of bagged children who, yesterday, could not hide far enough into the ground, who today finally could, I saw him walk towards one of those long stemmed flowering plants, rip a branch with two blooming pink flowers, and throw it on the lifeless small bodies lying on the ground. And he spoke. And I felt ashamed, ashamed and soiled by all the hatred and anger that took me over, and made me into someone I could not recognize. He said: "Our children are dead. But this flower is my answer. They will not turn us into monsters". No. They won't. Those children never died, and never will. But I, I thank you, today, for bringing me back to life.
Manamania
http://cedarseed.livejournal.com/
The good news is at least one package I mailed from Beirut a few days ago arrived already (gasp!), so the mail is arriving indeed, and faster than expected :D In case I do get stranded, I'll be able to mail even the things I wanted to mail from Europe and not worry about their safety. The bad news is that the electricity is so bad the UPS (backup batteries) are not powered, so that when the power goes out (which happens up to hourly, even when it flashes back on), so do the computers. THIS IS NO WAY TO WORK *foams at the mouth* If you've ever tried to work in an environment where 3 UPS are beeping constantly and your computer keeps shutting down with whatever you haven't saved, you can imagine how frantic I am today

The Perpetual Refugee
http://perpetualrefugee.blogspot.com/
So while bombs fell. And fell. And fell some more. The children of Qana looked up to their parents. Their mothers. For reassurance. Huddled together in a basement. Beneath tonnes of concrete. And they felt safe. After all, lightning doesn't strike the same place twice. Unless the IAF controls the heavens.The aftermath of this massacre is only a part of the story. The afterthought. With pictures. And commentary. Paid people doing what they studied to do. Report. The real story is not how the Israeli government yet again massacred innocent souls to fulfill it's biblical destiny. The real story is the lives that were never allowed to flourish. The real story is those innocent lives that were denied their right to fulfill their own destinies. The real story isn't the image of the dead infant with the pacifier still hanging from her pajama. It's that she was not allowed to walk her first steps. Eat her first bite of solid food. Brush her first tooth. Learn her first word. Sing her first song. Her life. Along with countless others. Denied the right to live. By some twenty-something in an F-16 way up in the sky. Defending himself from the prospect of what she could one day become.