On Olives and Sake

4 Generals arrested in Lebanon, Lahoud is crumbling down… and some heads are gonna get chopped…

Right now, With all my heart, I hope this regime is smart enough to have sealed a deal with the U.S. [although I still feel they're not that smart], cuz otherwise, we’ve just crossed our safety zone…!!! and this region is gonna start erupting with TRUTH*

*Truth is a very TRICKY and RELATIVE concept, Especially when it gets to International Affairs…

my very very first TAG, thanx Symbols
here we go…

10 years ago: 9 years old, living with mom at my granparents house in Latakia, i USED to be both the brainiac and the cool boy at my class [popularity is soo cool!!!], my dreams revolved about how to be the BEST traffic officer, and being able to talk my mom into letting me see the 9:30pm syrian series on SyrianTV [if anybody remembers that HOLY time]. I used to be HORRIFIED from even the THOUGHT of lying cuz my cousin [I hate u for that KINDA] told me in details what happens to liers in hell!!

5 years ago: WORST period of my life!!!

1 year ago: keywords from back then: Placebo, Bakaloria, Summer, University Freshman, Living Alone and Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King…

Tomorrow: PAPERWORK!!!!! a lot of paperwork!

5 snacks I enjoy: Za3tar [I'm a za3tar maniac], Strawberries with honey, my SPECIALTY: Tuna sandwitches, Crepe, snickers

5 bands/artists that I know the lyrics to most of their songs: Placebo, Travis, Ziad Rahbani, Fairouz, Damien Rice

5 things I’d do with $100,000,000: i donno

5 locations I’d like to run away to: London, Kasab, Athens, NY, Cairo

5 bad habits I have: leave the AC running and go out, biting my nails, causing a traffic jam whenever I wanna cross the road, skip to the end of the book when I feel bored

5 things I like doing: Listen to music, hanging out, playing with my Age-of-Empires-obsessed-gang, reading and browsin the net

5 thing I will never wear: mexican hat, toxido, Ice,

5 TV shows I like: Scrubs, Talking Point, Celebrity Deathmatch, Live with Gonzo, The Tonight Show

5 movies I like: Autumn In NY, Carlito’s Way, Amelie Poulin, One Hour Photo, Love Actually

5 people I’d like to meet: Bono, Dido, Michael J. Fox, Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg

5 biggest joys at the moment: been driving the car without major incidents, my new Creative Sport C100 mp3 player, travelling a lot,

tagging
Zena, Sinan, Ayman, Dina, Ghalia, Roba

lately, I’ve been reading the letters between Abu Al3ala2 Alma3arry and Hibat Allah Al-Shirazy [Da3y Aldo3at Alfatemy]… 3 Letters from Shirazy and 2 answers from Al-Ma3arry… a piece of art… and a splendid demonstration of how flexible the arabic language is… these mails took place the mid-5th century [Hijry]..

I’m still not finished with them, I’ve read them twice but I still can’t understand fully what’s really between the lines… a real conflict of ideas… a conflict that we can clearly relate to these days!!

A thought in the first Ma3arry letter, I feel I should share here.. cuz I strongly believe in this logic..

Ma3arry was discussying the phrase “La yaf3alu allaho illa 7airan”, a group of possibilities for the correct interpretation come up..

1. That this phrase is litterly honest, but he argues that all the evils in life prove it wrong, even the prophet Mohammed used to Seek refuge with god from evil, if the phrase was correct there shouldn’t be a reason for this…
2. That this phrase is not correct, i.e. it’s a lie, and that’s not probable, because it would bad manners regarding god.
3. That this phrase is reflected [sth in the Arabic language], which means that God is the doer of both good and evil.
4. The possibility that there’s both a god for good and a god for evil, which shouldn’t be probable too.

After listing these possibilities, Ma3arry avoids selecting one and starts discussing the Evil doing… again with possibilites,
1. Either god knows about it, or he doesn’t [Which is not probable too]..
2. If he knows then, he either agrees [or have consent] on it or he doesn’t..
3. If he agrees then he’s the doer..
4. If he doesn’t agree, then he’s not even “At the level of a ruler on Earth” – Ma3arry’s words, because any ruler would react towards evil when it happens in his lands…

He brings some history examples proving his point, the death of Hussien, who was killed with the knowledge and consent and will of god, was it good or evil?! if good then it happened with the consent of God, so why do Shiites [Shirazy was obviously Fatimi, i.e. Shiite] curse the killer day and night?!, and if it was Evil, then why did the Godly Wisdom allow it to happen…?!
Again, if God has the whole will, then why can’t he get faith inside an unbeliever’s heart, instead of allowing wars and believers get killed..!!! and if everything is written then where’s the choice in life?! and where’s the fairness in punishment?!… questions that are tightly hidden inside Ma3arry’s words…

I can only qoute him talking about this huge contradiction in the interpretation of God, saying

تناقض ما لنا إلا السكوت له وأن نعوذ بمولانا من النار

Country >> Individuals
How can ui call a country after ONE family… ?! how do summerize all these ppl, relations, movements, belongings, races, religions, history and fortunes into one Family, no matter how much they’ve done… It’s not fair, It’s NOT fair that Jordan is called the Hashmite Kingdom of Jordan, it’s not fair that Hijaz, Najd, Aseer and Ahsa2 is called Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.. and even here, u donno how reliefed I was when they put the “Souria Al-Assad” slogan out of business… A country goes WAY beyond individuals!

- I can not really see any fundemental difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and any of the Arab Monarchs and Regimes that got into conflict with the group…
- In general, All Ideologies are restricted and thus relatively totalitarian.
- Reading about how the Jewish lobby [CONTROLS] decision makers in the United States of America, ALWAYS cracks me down…
- I always feel down after having the [Identity Conversation] with any Armenian-Syrian individual… is it so hard to admit they owe this country the least part of their identity after 80 years of hospitality…
- One very close friend once told me, that if there was a God after all, he’s positive that he can persuade him and even prosecute him. after all, ONE lifetime FULL of sins can never justify IMMORTALITY in hell… [Me, I think i'll be more pragmatic at a similar situation!].
- Stop Crying Your Heart Out, one of my all time favorites… and YES, I do like it more than Wonderwall.
- MANY Americans don’t really Like their current system, but ALL of them are POSITIVE that they can change it through this same system.
- “There’s nothing abnormal in the assumption that the creator did draw back one or two steps, after forming the human out of dirt, and blowing the soul of life into him, making him a living creature. The surprising part about this incident is that Adam himself wasn’t really surprised.” Justine Garder – Maya [Excuse the poor translation, I don't have the English copy].
- Nothing more disgting than killing a human being, except the public consent on killing a human being [i.e. death penalty].
- 90% of Arab critics admit proudly in their reviews of Sulieman Rushdi’s “Ayat Shaytaniah” that they NEVER actually read and NEVER will read the book…
- Caligola’s primary goal was to defy the gods, too bad he died in such a tragic way!

I’ve read this article a loong looong time ago on StireWire.com… and it still feels hillariously funny,

“…Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Symantec’s AntiVirus Research Center today confirmed that foot-and-mouth disease cannot be spread by Microsoft’s Outlook email application, believed to be the first time the program has ever failed to propagate a major virus…”

Click Here for the whole article

:يقول العالم سيغموند فرويد

أن السيجارة هي تعويض لفقدان ثدي الأم
…ولفقدان طمأنينة الرضيع خلال فترات الرضاعة الأولى
ورغم ذلك… مخاطر التدخين

…أمومةٌ ساهرةٌ على جيلٍ مازال يدخن

wasn’t in town for a while…
so, as always, I’ll just pin-point the highlights of my week..
- I’m re-listening to the “Lifelines” album by A-Ha… so I’m in a tooooootal peace-of-mind state..
- Parents got lost in Amman on their way home, and according to my dad, he was the reason for a HUGE traffic jam in “SOMEWHERE”, Amman… well, sorry Ammanites…
- Hotter than it’s ever been here in Latakia, and the humidity is striking new records… a PEREFCT state for a day on the beach… but after all these news about sharks fleet escaping to the meditarranean, and the incidents here… I’d rather put that off my schaduale for a couple days…
- Stunned and Proud of the syrian artist Hala Faisal, with all do respect to every opinion about this issue, I need to get this off my chest… her naked body there is stronger than ur maleness and definitly purer than ur babblings, her “Stop The War” sentence written over it, is more sacred than any holy book u can bring, and her standing there in Washington Square, NY [Thanx Ihsan] is honest in a way that’s beyond ur understanding…
- Now in Syria. Finally, we got our own home-made PEPSI, good news for evebody’s addicted to coka here!!
- The news about “Abu Jamal” and “Shehabi” being prosecuted and fleeing to France gives me very mixed feelings, I still can’t confirm them… I still can’t even comprehend them..
- I’m finally getting some time off to start my volunteer translation job at HospitalityClub.org, anybody’s registered there is welcome to send feedbacks… in fact, PLZ DO!
- VERY excited about Age of Empires 3 primary release date [espcially after the disappointments of Age of Mythology], AOE is the only computer game that I’m TOTALLY addicted to, and one of the few that I actually play… infact, we [OBSESSIVE-AOE-FANS-IN-LATAKIA] have our own league!!
- Read a few articles about Steve Jobbs the co-finder of Apple, and I have to admit that I underestimated his innovations and creativity, he’s a real genius… a special thanks to Baher for triggering me…
- Borders with lebanon are still subject the twisted minds that’s leading this country straight off the bridge… last thing I heard was that Dabbousieh and 3areedah are OK, but Masna3 is closed… + u gotta eat every single Galaxy chocolates u got before u enter the syrian check points!!
- I’m not generalizing, but I do feel that we [Syrians] are very chauvinist. for instance, we do look down to the Gulf Ppl, and especially Saudis, we have a pre-made vision about the closeness of other communities [compared to our own, OFCOURSE], while in some cases this might prove true, in others it isn’t… I know that I do, I’m sorry about, I’ve been working on it… I know a lot of ppl that do too, I’m not proud of it… but that’s true.. I said somewhere that I believe in Human Beings as a whole…. I do, but as always, at times of trouble smaller belongings grow over wider ones, I’m trying to fight the feeling that my [Syrianism] is more important than my [Humanism]…

cheers everyone!

All the ppl who died and still dying for this city, and all the bloodshed..
All the speeches and all the words that ppl have said for this city…
All the religious and moral and sacred places there..
They never made twitch when thinking about it…

Only Fairouz’s “Zahrat Al-Madaen”.. claims an honest tear, whenever I hear it..
Only then I realize what this city means for all the ppl in this world, Arabs, Palastinians, Israelis… everyone.. only then I realize what this place really is… I can’t explain..

… للقدس سلام آتٍ

Zied, A best friend of mine has a thing for photographing… and he was showing me some of his stuff… I think it’s quite good… [the Cybershot he got last month has to count for sth! hehe]

I loved those pics…

Those pics are from a small seaside cabana compound they have in Basseet it’s called [Dream Beach, if anybody's been there]…

cheers