Lebanon: Field Trips, Wardrobe Personification and Poetry · Global Voices
Moussa Bashir

Have you wondered why most women like shoes?  Or can blogging be life threatening? Then read on and see what answers the Lebanese Blogosphere has. This week’s blogs have topics that are as serious as a threat to a fellow blogger for his political cartoons and as light hearted as a comparison between shoes and men and neckties and women. You will also find trips to and photos of the battle fields in South Lebanon plus stories of recovery and accounts of the horrors of unexploded cluster bombs. This roundup ends with an interestingly “looking” piece of poetry.
Maya@NYC starts a post by asking: “Why do most women really like shoes?”  She then starts her detailed answer by saying: “Shoes are like men.” Well, you may want to read the rest.
Ana Min Beirut does not let Maya@NYC get away with her hypotheses. He replies in a post of his own: “Women are like neckties”.
The war on Lebanon may be over but the problems it created still linger. Many bloggers wrote about leftover ordinance that are causing post-cease fire casualties. Especially cluster bombs:
Sietske-in-Beiroet visits the South of Lebanon and posts photos and information about this problem.
“When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is “Anti-Semitic”” is the title of a post by Mirvat at the Lebanese bloggers Forum.
This same problem is also discussed by Soraya  at July2006WarOnLebanon.
Recovery stories are usually very emotional. Hilal Chouman  posts the story and photos of the recovery of 13 year old Ali Shaito and his mother Mountaha whose vehicle was hit while they tried to escape South Lebanon. He is the boy whose photos with his seriously injured mother losing consciousness in his arms (he thought she died) were widely publicized. After 12 operations she has recovered are telling their story.
How dangerous can blogging be? Can it be life threatening? Ahmad at Cold Desert has the story of a blogger and cartoonist, Carlos Latuff in Brazil,  who was threatened for his politically oriented cartoons:
It was not very surprising when I learned that my friend Carlos Latuff has been threatned by the Israeli right-wing party. His courageous cartoons must be causing a lot of discomfort for those who cannot handle an opposing opinion. The initial page is in Hebrew.
Ahmad also includes a link and a screen shot of the threat.
Anarchorev (formerly Anarchistian) updates the story of her friend Dan (who fought with Hezbollah and was mentioned in previous round ups of Lebanese Blogs) in a post titled “On Pain Memory and Survival.”
Jamal takes a trip to  “Beyond Bint Jbeil” and comes back with some photos and a story that includes:
My destination was the border village  of Yaroun, my grandfather's hometown and where he spent the first 15 days of Olmert's anger tantrum. Yaroun is one of the heavily damaged villages that didn't get much media coverage, probably because it is beyond Bint Jbeil and Bint Jbeil is more photogenic. Like most houses in Yaroun, my grandpa's is now missing a wall. On the bright side the living room is well ventilated and enjoys an unobstructed view of Jabal Al Jarmaq. So we went to the local “Jihad Construction” office to pick up some cash. Note that “Jihad” is one of the Arabic words that is never translated to English only so that the terror alert levl can remain at orange, just like Madrassa. By the way, Little Jihad cannot go to his Madrassa in Bint Jbeil because Bint Jbeil is, well, more like Bint Jbeil was.
After her visit to Turkey, Sophia writes about the “Images of the Israeli aggressions in Gaza and Lebanon and Muslim public opinion”:
The ‘War on terror’ is a dangerous imposture meant to produce or provoke on the ground a reality for its ‘rational justification’, out of false premises. By bombing, humiliating, intimidating and menacing Muslim innocents at a large scale to supposedly avenge the misdeeds of the few, Israel and the US and western countries who are accomplices of this imposture are making sure that there will be no Good Muslims and Bad Muslims, but only Muslims!
Israel's last aggression on Lebanon and willingly indiscriminate shelling of Lebanese civilians is a clear example of this tactic.
Enough for now, and “Enough …”  is the title of a poem written by Mirvat (who is also the contributor at Lebanese Bloggers Forum mentioned above) on her blog. Notice the geometry.
Enough…
You know very well things have not changed since that day
The tide still brings me back and the winds take you away
As we always meet for a promise for a lie and for a smile
As you safely criticize what you didn’t and won’t know
As you dwell on the past and as you hide for a while
And you follow some path from the sun to the snow
Days and then years wrapped a precious memory
Around and as the times changed we curl down
And we regress and in sterile lands we digress
We desecrate the remnants of a beautiful fire
And we see a little dream around the desire
I see the dream getting tighter every time
We were not perfect even in our prime
As I wrote romantic lines in my day
I could not… Ever write you away
Your story brushes not my soul
Not my heart, but my senses
What’s missing is still not
There, why can’t you
see how you made
Me see that we
Had to go…
Finally…
I say,
Enough!