Mind Soup

Bayan Bibi: After a getting hit by a stray bullet and punctured lung, I am starting a social media campaign to promote positivity. This article was originally published in Cloud 961's November issue . Bayan Bibi is showing the world that she is still very strong despite all that she has gone through. She engraved the bullet that shot her and punctured her lungs just a few weeks ago while walking in Hamra and wears it proudly around her neck: A true act of courage and bravery. Instead of blaming her shooter or his political party, she is urging everyone to be positive and not hate. She has planned out a social media campaign and a web-series to spread her message. Here is her story as told by her! 31/9/2013 Lebanon – Beirut While people were celebrating some political thing, a stray bullet fell on my back while I was walking with a friend in Hamra Street. It cut through my lung and it jammed itself between my 3rd and 4th ribs. I was rushed to the emergency room...

Below is an excerpt from a post entitled “We came, We saw, We destroyed, We forgot”  by William Blum.  An updated summary of the charming record of US foreign policy. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States of America has … Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of which were democratically-elected. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders. In total: Since 1945, the United States has carried out one or more of the above actions, on one or more occasions, in 69 countries (more than one-third of the countries of the world! If you’re American and wonder why the rest of the world hates your guts, why Jihadists are out there after you, or why your government is despised, you better read more about this issue.

This is a repost guest post by a good friend Hala Hassan which was originally posted at A Seperate State of Mind , a recommended blog by another great friend Elie Fares . Hear it from those who were there. A neighboring country at war, you sympathize. Innocent civilians torn into pieces under the wreckage of their houses, you shed a couple of tears. Frightened children and sick elderly begging for international intervention, you pray deaf ears listen somehow. But what if you were that citizen in that country, held up in your house, scared like you’ve never been, reciting every single prayer that ever crossed your mind for those bombshells to stop and those warplanes hovering in the sky to go away… Yes, it’s been 5 years since “July war”, “the 33 days war”, “the 6th Lebanese/Israeli war” or whatever they want to call it. But for that traumatized girl, it still feels like yesterday… To survive a war is one supposedly satisfying ending. Not to have lost a family member is considered a bl...

I woke up this morning with a flood of news about Osama Bin Laden's death on facebook, twitter, google reader, buzz and so forth. With all the celebrations and the worldwide debate (he's even trending on twitter), something smells very fishy, and its not coming from the sea. So U.S. troops kill Bin Laden, and throw him into the sea within 24 hours of his death. You would think that after ten years of searching for the "most wanted terrorist on earth," the body would be kept for more than one day. TIME newspaper ignorantly attributes this action to Islamic tradition, and that the troops directly threw the body into the sea because the did not want to offend the Islamic beliefs of burial. I quote: The reason is bound up within Islamic practice and tradition. And that practice calls for the body of the deceased to be buried within 24 hours, according to a U.S. official, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive national security matters. [..] ...

During all police investigations it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once. If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St. Patrick's Day parade - at any time of the year. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down. The ventilation system of any building is the perfect hiding place.  No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building you want without difficulty. You're very likely to survive any battle in any war unless you make the mistake of showing someone a picture of your sweetheart back home. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language.  A German accent will do. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window in Paris. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds. If a large pane o...

Also a while back, I wrote this article in AUB's student newspaper (Outlook) about Obama receiving the Noble Peace Prize. You can read it below. Surrounding a lot of controversy, American President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace during a ceremony on Thursday December 7, 2009 in Norway. The fact acknowledges the paradox of receiving this award as the U.S. is embroiled in two wars, while maintaining that instruments of war have a role in preserving peace. In his acceptance speech, Obama told Nobel Committee members and guests in Oslo that achieving peace must begin with the recognition that the use of force is sometimes morally justified. "Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida's leaders to lay down their arms." Obama also used the Nobel platform to exhort allies to help eradicate terrorist extremism in Afghanistan. "I understand why ...

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot. Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country. We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a...

By Robert Fisk What we found inside the Palestinian camp at ten o'clock on the morning of September 1982 did not quite beggar description, although it would have been easier to re-tell in the cold prose of a medical examination. There had been medical examinations before in Lebanon, but rarely on this scale and never overlooked by a regular, supposedly disciplined army. In the panic and hatred of battle, tens of thousands had been killed in this country. But these people, hundreds of them had been shot down unarmed. This was a mass killing, an incident - how easily we used the word "incident" in Lebanon - that was also an atrocity. It went beyond even what the Israelis would have in other circumstances called a terrorist activity. It was a war crime. Jenkins and Tveit were so overwhelmed by what we found in Chatila that at first we were unable to register our own shock. Bill Foley of AP had come with us. All he could say as he walked round was "Jesus Christ"...