- get moving!

- i'm coming around a corner!

- i'm a taxi, do you want a ride?

- i'm passing you on the left!

- you're in my way!

- i'm passing you on the right!

- stop stopping at red lights!

- wow!  i have a horn!

:)  :)  :)

posted by: nicolette

“The War of 33” is a new independent documentary film about Israel’s July 2006 war on Lebanon, narrated by Hanady Salman, a young mother living in Beirut and working for a newspaper during the thirty-three days of bombings. Her reading of letters she wrote during the war narrates the film. In one scene, she describes her daughter’s reaction to the bombs: “This morning I stayed home ‘til noon,” she writes. “I played with Kinda, my poor little baby. She doesn’t understand what’s going on. The first time she heard the bombing she rushed to my arms, asking if this was fire works. I said no, this is Boom Boom, Ha Ha. And I started laughing. So now every time she hears the bombing she starts singing, Boom Boom, and she laughs.” Home video footage of Kinda bounding around the apartment underscores the disjunction of civilian life under Israeli bombardment.

There are shots of Salman reading from her apartment balcony after the war, the Mediterranean deeply blue in the background. There are shots of lit up night skies, of flattened neighborhoods. There are gruesome images, photos and video that were not shown in the US media. Dead children, bodies gray with concrete dust, are pulled from the rubble of an apartment building in Qana, a village in southern Lebanon bombed by Israel twice in ten years. In a letter dated July 30th 2006, when fifty-five civilians were initially presumed dead in an air strike, Salman writes with subdued outrage: “Only to let you know that a number of these civilians are handicapped – they were hit in the last Qana massacres in 1996. Only to let you know that CNN and BBC are hosting IDF spokespeople who tell the world that these civilians were warned to leave, but they just didn’t.”

The letter is read over footage of aid workers running down a street and of bodies in the apartment rubble in Qana. One of the victims, a young girl whose body is stuck under concrete, looks strangely like Mike Myers from “Halloween,” her face so dusted that it’s made vacant, but her hair is still dark. The aid workers try to pull her from the rubble and their inability to do so is excruciating. Before this scene a camera walks up the stairs of an apartment. It pans over a destroyed top floor, a clear view through sagging walls and ceiling to the neighborhood below. Everything is bombed, the buildings still standing have no windows and few walls and you cannot see any street. There is only rubble. One pile of structure looks like a perfect module of four floors, like knock-off Le Corbusier, the building as machine. Only it’s on its side, blackened, propped up on the foundation of another flattened building. Next to it stands an apartment in faded yellow and orange concrete. It looks likes its façade has gone through a Cuisinart and that it might fall over. I recognize the building right away. I saw it last spring, when I was in a taxicab in southern Beirut, trying to convince a Hizballah patrolman that I was a journalist.

I had arrived in Lebanon two days before. It was late April, a weeklong break from classes in Cairo and hopeful material for a newspaper there, Daily News Egypt, that I had been writing for since Christmas. Recognizing the apartment from the “War of 33” nearly a year later offered a weird sense of validation, as if my afternoon spent in southern Beirut had prepared me to watch the film and not only feel my own outrage and sympathy for Lebanon, but to recall the experience of visiting the neighborhood where, the previous summer, you couldn’t see the streets. Last April they were fairly clear, but barely asphalt, unlike shiny, empty Central Beirut. And there were no sidewalks, only piles of rubble. Looking at my photos and the still from the film, it seems the orange and yellow apartment has since welcomed back tenants. About half of the gutted balconies had new windows last April.

Judith Butler wrote the year after 9/11 that as the US government explains events through the hegemonic grammar of “terrorists,” positioning itself “exclusively as the sudden and indisputable victim of violence...”

“a frame for understanding violence emerges in tandem with the experience, and that the frame works both to preclude certain kinds of questions, certain kinds of historical inquiries, and to function as a moral justification for retaliation. It seems crucial to attend to this frame, since it decides, in a forceful way, what we can hear, whether a view will be taken as explanation or as exoneration, whether we can hear the difference, and abide by it.”

The demarcation of suffering from violence was projected in pale overcast last April in Beirut, the blackened and drooping rubble of concrete apartments spilled open. Sitting in the back of the cab of a driver who had agreed to show us the neighborhood, I remember gawking and snapping photos at the crumble of buildings, of buckled concrete and steel or iron trusses bent like guts. There were plenty of photos of bombed Beirut in the summer of 2006, always in the context of captured Israeli soldiers and Katyusha rockets falling on northern Israel, so there is no need to press the point of how a thousand Lebanese dead and all this rubble were framed on American TV and in print. It is the aftermath, the eight months of rot, of flattened houses and rubble becoming part of the neighborhood, that needs attending. The fact that I recognized the building from the documentary – I recognized it in its damage – and that I saw it in person nine months after the bombs fell, after the footage was shot, might adequately describe how much remains un-built and un-repaired in Lebanon. But it also says something about visiting and revisiting, about the sustainability of views.

As I sat in the back seat of the taxi, stopped at the entrance to the especially destroyed heart of the neighborhood of Hart Hreik in Beirut's southern suburbs, trying to convince the Hizballah patrolman who had appeared so suddenly, walkie-talkie at bay, a machine gun slung on his shoulder, that I was a journalist, that -- in broken Egyptian Arabic -- that all I wanted was to see, to photograph some effects of the war, I like to think I was thinking about what any of this meant. As I tried to keep some calm about not really arguing with a Hizballah militiaman in Beirut who was insisting on seeing the photos I had taken on my camera, I wasn't thinking about the what might happen or the gun on his shoulder -- there are plenty of machine guns in Egypt. There was something strange, even absurd, like the baby girl laughing Boom Boom when the bombs fell on Beirut. It wasn’t the Lebanese militiaman – Hizballah – guarding his neighborhood from a Westerner with a camera, but me, with a camera and bad Arabic, wanting to see Israel's destruction of southern Beirut for myself. The buildings were still rubble; they probably still are. They were not and are not in the American media view; the Lebanese, and the Palestinians, and the Iraqis, have not been awarded the primacy of suffering from terrorism that has been afforded Americans and Israelis for so long. But here I was, trying to break that and get a view, and I couldn't get in. And it genuinely excited me. Boom Boom.

If understanding violence "emerges in tandem with the experience" how do we understand the aftermath of violence, in tandem with the experience of revisiting or seeing for the first time violence that occurred in the past? "Archive Fever," a current show at the International Center of Photography in New York, includes "Front Page 9/12," a collection of 100 front-page world newspapers from September 12, 2001 assembled by the German artist Hans-Peter Feldmann. Describing the installation, curator Okwui Enwezor wrote, “to revisit the events in representation is to engage with how the images have become emblematic of the aftermath rather than of the event itself. How does one then revisit, not the event itself, but its aftermath, its mediatized manifestation?”

I didn’t think the installation succeeded in its points because I didn’t know what all the newspapers co

vered in fireballs and the Twin Towers and devastated Lower Manhattan were supposed to say. But Enwezor’s analysis of the newspaper covers, his question about revisiting aftermath, has stuck with me, as I’ve watched Salman read her letters in the film and as I’ve gone over my own photographs from last spring in Beirut.

Visiting the aftermath of another war by Israel on Lebanon upfront for the first time. Revisiting the aftermath, far more immediate, in footage from a jarringly personal documentary, “The War of 33.” Sitting in a taxi with a camera during the visit and the Hizballah patrolman outside. Another truck approaches, another man in black paramilitary garb gets out. I'm only taking pictures, I'm telling them. They have been through bombing, lost relatives and friends. Did they inadvertently teach their children to laugh when the bombs fell like Hanady Salman – the mother, editor, and narrator – because how else do you cope? They have seen this leveled neighborhood everyday since the bombs fell from Israeli warplanes that summer. They are at the center here, and I'm trying to come in for a view to de-center my own American perspective. I’m not revisiting, but trying to see the aftermath, really, for the first time.

My photo of the apartment, April 2007

More photos.

The Observer, the Official Newspaper of the Catholic Diocese of Rockford, where it appeared in the August 11th issue.

I want to touch on this matter before we get too close to the November madness. As human beings, as citizens of a "first world country," as Americans, and as Catholics, most importantly, we have to take count of the circumstances in which we live. We know that the only creatures of God that outlast time are those created having intellect and will. All other things, with the passage of time, break up or break down.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.

The seven "sacraments" of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.

Since the mid-1940s we have been accustomed to look askance at Germans. They were protagonists of the Second World War and so responsible for fifty million deaths. We say, "How awful," and yet in our country we have, for the most part, allowed the party of death and the court system it has produced to eliminate, since 1973, upwards of forty million of our fellow citizens without allowing them to see the light of day.

They have done their best to make ours a true culture of death. No doubt, we shall soon outstrip the Nazis in doing human beings to death.

I do not think that we should spend a great deal of time in lamentation over the children whose lives have been snuffed out by the barbaric practice of therapeutic abortion. They passed from their lives quickly in this world and have gone into the hands of the Lord of Life and Mercy for all eternity. We must make it clear too, that many who have sought to have practiced on themselves therapeutic abortion are in many instances driven to it by persons heedless of their welfare, or by well- meaning but inept parents or guardians who regard abortion as a solution and not as what it is - an immense problem. There are some, I think few, largely given over to immoral lives who regard abortion as a good, but their number is not great.

What we have to remember is that violence breeds violence. When we tolerate unjust attacks upon the tiniest innocents among us, we habituate ourselves to violence. And so we have allowed these barbaric practices to corrupt our laws, our medical practice, and even our ordinary lives. How accustomed we have become to the immense loss of life in our wars throughout the world! Those who have killed millions under their mother's hearts cannot be expected to balk at a mere few thousand killed in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Somalia, in Darfur, in Bosnia, in Madrid, in London, in Baghdad, in Beirut, in Washington, in New York. The violence of abortion coarsens the lives of all of us.

Once it was said, "... for all who take the sword will perish by the sword." (Matthew 26:52) So we see the rise in the number of predations among youth, even among the youngest, the rise of domestic violence. We speak of road rage as a common thing. It is true what the theologians have said, that sin darkens the intellect, and weakens the will. Having sown the wind of abortion we now reap the whirlwind. This appears in every quarter of our culture and on every day. And that just from the first of the "sacraments of death" of our secular human culture.

The toleration of sexual perversions among inverts, widespread contraception, easy access to "no fault" divorce, the killing of the elderly, radical feminism, embryonic stem cell research - all of these things defile and debase our human nature and our human destiny. Should we cry out with the prophet "To the mountains, ‘Cover us,' and to the hills, ‘Fall on us'" (Hosea: 10:8), lest other peoples see and, God forbid, imitate us?

I ran across, in one parish, prayers of the faithful with the intention that "we pray for those who work and demonstrate for the cause of life and the unborn, the aged and the defected, that they may persevere in spite of the ridicule they receive sometimes, even from pastors and priests." I shudder to think that might be true. We know from the sad experience of recent years that some Catholics (even among priests) are so warped and perverted from their Catholic vocation, that they are capable of enormities. But, they should know that it was no prelate or bishop or pope that said, "Suffer the little children to come to me and do not hinder them" (Matthew 19:14). The Invisible Head of the Church will one day come to judge the living and the dead and the world by fire, particularly those who have either by acts of omission or commission, destroyed innocent human life.

It is the duty of every Catholic to support the work of the parish Pro-Life directors and commissions and to work for the extirpation from our society of all those who in any way foster or promote these things. I wholeheartedly endorse the activities of our Pro-Life Office in the sure and certain knowledge that divine justice will not allow those who act against human life to prosper. These unholy sacraments of our secular culture are the seeds of the destruction of our nation.

Think for yourself: what nation that kills its young, perverts marriage, prevents new life, and destroys the family, kills those deemed useless, makes the war of the sexes into a real war, and manipulates the genetic basis of human nature, can long endure?

Ramadan Mubarak to all sisters and brothers out there.
May Allah accept your prayers, fasting and good deeds in this holy month
and may it's virtues extend to many years to come.
Have a good 'un!

Stereogum has the new Final Fantasy songs from the forth coming EP's "Spectrum, 14th Century" and "Plays To Please" out on 9/30 and 10/21, respectively. They feature the band Beirut and a slew of Owen Pallett's many musical friends. Catch the new songs below!

Final Fantasy--The Butcher

Final Fantasy--Ultimatum

eu não queria pensar sobre o Beirut, porque isso pode matar o sentimento, isto é, nada do que eu escrever vai ser meramente próximo a o que sinto quando começa Postcards From Italy ou Elephant Gun. como você descreve isso: fiquei um ano sem escutar o Gulag Orkestar, numa tarde baixei as faixas e, ao primeiro acorde de Postcards, duas lágrimas gordas e pesadas caíram de cada olho, ao mesmo tempo, enquanto algo parecido com um calor confortável tomava conta de tudo que se esconde entre meu ventre e minha nuca, e um nó fechava a minha garganta para que tanto sentimento não explodisse e me fizesse gritar de alegria.

essas músicas são uma saudade que a gente não sabe de onde vem, não exatamente do que tivemos ou não, mas uma saudade de ter o peito fervendo, uma saudade de ter o espírito calmo e festivo ao mesmo tempo; tenho a mesma saudade quando escuto os afro-sambas do Vinicius, saudade de poder ter sido aquilo, de poder sê-lo sem me desamarrar de mim, porque música é você, você é o que você escuta.

não tomem isso como verdade universal, eu analiso pessoas pelos sapatos que elas usam e pelas músicas que elas escutam e - não, não, não e não - nunca me daria bem com uma pessoa que não sente nada pelo Beirut mesmo que ela tivesse calçando um adidas campus de pelica da safra de 84.

eu tenho muitos amores por aí, amores novinhos em folha que quando tocam no rádio ou na vitrola me pegam pela jugular, mas o Beirut é tipo aquele menino que você paquerou durante toda a sétima e oitava
série e, mês passado, encontrou no metrô e tudo renasceu em você, como uma nova primavera antecipada. Beirut é um remédio. não importa se você está feliz ou triste, aquele trompete não sabe da sua dor, aquelas letras não sabem das suas nostalgias, mas eles conseguem chegar num lugar que poucas bandas e pessoas conseguem acessar tão gratuitamente.

e, por fim, eles têm o que vem faltando ao mundo: honestidade. a honestidade adolescente de mandar uma carta de amor com perfume, de ficar bobolhando pra pessoa que passa e te ignora, de sentar no parque só para gastar seu tempo com sonhos, de deixar o sorvete escorrer pelo braço, de ficar feliz com um cartão postal, de enfrentar uma bebedeira homérica, de dançar com a alma, de não ter medo de sentir e poder ser o mais humano dos humanos quando se trata da tristeza deixada por alguém que foi embora.

* * *

Aspen é como uma noite fresca com lua e trilhares de estrelas dançando no céu, jantar festivo com os amigos ao ar livre e cicatrização de feridas muito antigas, do tempo que a gente bebia água pura do poço e acordava com o galo, que cantava logo que o primeiro raio de sol se atrevia a rasgar de vermelho o horizonte azul-petróleo. e sabe quando você já não vê mais beleza em nada, que tudo parece calculadamente melancólico ou desesperadamente nostálgico só para angariar meia dúzia de adolescentes bobos ou para preencher a lacuna do desesperados, e que a música já não parece mais ter sentimentos, só pretensão?

então. daí chega o Aspen, o avesso de tudo isso. desde Lulina eu não ficava tão hippie e com o peito tão cheio de flores e pássaros, sentindo tanto amor raro e abundante, querendo tanto fagocitar as canções e as intenções, achando tudo tão honesto (no mundo de hoje, idoneidade tem, mas acabou) e tão certeiro e tão preocupada em não perder nenhum show que, sim, eu estou matando trabalho para falar sobre isso.

porque a humanidade perdeu seus valores verdadeiros, só se pensa em dinheiro, no emprego que paga seu salário, nas contas no fim do mês, no que o dinheiro comprou e deixou de comprar, parece que todos reduziram seus passos e avanços a o que o dinheiro pode agregar ou oferecer (e isso me deixa extremamente triste e desapontada), então, sim, eu ainda tenho coração e me sinto no direito de matar meia hora de trabalho pra falar que o mundo tem outras belezas e outras felicidades que o dinheiro nunca vai comprar.

Aspen é exatamente a felicidade que não se compra, nem com a maior montanha de dinheiro do mundo. é melodia que entra pelos poros até alcançar seu hipotálamo e então um mar de hormônios é despejado na sua corrente sanguínea, amolece seus músculos e relaxa seus nervos a ponto de te fazer soltar um sorriso, não um riso rasgado ou frouxo, um sorriso leve, de criança, rosiano, confortavelzinho, com jeito de folha caindo, que vem lá de dentro.

se fosse uma fotografia, ainda, Aspen seria uma polaróide velha, manchada do tempo, com as cores ocultas de Sebastião Salgado e a brincadeirice de Miró, marcas de dedos, muitas marcas de dedo, porque é aquela foto que você sente um afeto quando olha, então você pega com frequência, e ela guarda em si toda uma carga de sentimentos e histórias do mundo.

eu não sei porque eu nunca tinha falado deles. semana passada eu fui vê-los na Folk This Town e a cada música eu me convencia mais de que o mundo precisa deles, de que eles são magnanimos na arte das canções despretensiosas feitas com o coração. e não pense que é puxa-saquismo. nem é. não gasto meus dedos falando de bandas que não valem a corda do violão que tocam. mas Aspen vale. vale na insônia, vale no crepúsculo, vale no peito, vale no sempre.

接下來要介紹的都是Later節目的現場表演，但沒有收錄在DVD中（Not included in DVD）。
Sigur Rós – Hoppípolla/Með Blóðnasir
來自冰島的Sigur Rós，雖然大部分的歌我都聽不懂在唱什麼（畢竟是冰島語），
不過音樂真的是無國界，仔細聽還是能意會當中的情境，
主唱Jónsi右眼失明，但依舊能彈好電吉他，搭配其細柔的音調，
在在都讓Sigur Rós的音樂彷如天之籟，予人一種遙遠但又觸動內心的感受。

Beirut - Nantes
什麼叫做忌妒，大概就是我對Zach Condon（Beirut主唱）的想法，
高亢的聲音，就像他在樂團中扮演的角色一般，
就算伴奏再大聲、再激昂，他的聲音也無法被淹沒，
Beirut的專輯多歸類為folk，但頗有異國情調，搭配旅行再合適不過。

Feist - Sea Lion Woman
其實這張DVD也收錄Feist的1234，不過這首實在不是我的最愛，
這首名為海獅女人（Sea Lion Woman）的歌才能把Feist聲音的特質表現出來。

I kept reading her sms over and over again. There were two sentences that irritated me. "Still hope you havent left my village for good...", the one. And: "They obviously dont care for you the way i do" the other. So she did care for me. Esme did care for me! I had had no idea.

But in what way did she care for me? Apparently in a way that made her want to see me again, if that's what she meant with she hopes I haven't left her village for good. Or is this something you say to be polite?

I didn't know what to make of this. Couldn't sleep. Felt the fire burning inside me. Lying awake, I heard my girlfriend breathing next to me, heard my youngest kid move. "Care for you the way I do" - I had to know what she meant by that. I had to find out.

I didn't find out this day. I flew down south, had financial talks the whole day, had to talk numbers I did not know anything about, then rushed back to the airport with the city train. Whenever unoccupied, my mind wandered to Esme. I couldn't bring together our good-bye and her text message. Had I missed something? Was she playing with me? I was stuck. During my flight back home, I kept rushing those questions through my mind. It was futile.

When I checked my mail in the evening, I found her message. My email address was on the business card I had given her on our last day when we were to meet for a coffee downtown. There was no text at all in the mail, just an mp3 file. I didn't know the band (Beirut), didn't know the song ("Nantes") either.

I downloaded it, played it - and felt a rush of emotion taking over.It's a cool, melancholic song, with and a voice that fits. Here's what it says:

well it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile
And I'll gamble away my fright
and I'll gamble away my time
And in a year, a year or so
this will slip into the sea
Well it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile

Nobody raise your voices
just another night in Nantes
Nobody raise your voices
just another night in Nantes

It was an unusual song in many ways. That's why it was so Esme. She also was unusual in many ways. Was it that which attracted me to her? Her being so different from all the other women I knew, all the other women I had known?

Did I feel so close to her because she was so different from the others because I deep inside felt that I am different, too?

 Mi manca quella sensazione di casa, di antico, di smarrito e ritrovato.Quella sensazione di aver fottuto il tempo, il progresso e il futuro...semplicemente fermandosi, assaporando, respirando a pieni polmoni un'aria priva di frenesia, di desiderio di potere.Mi manca quel cielo stellato, quel silenzio improvviso che fermava la città, mi manca il non capirci nulla, il vagare senza meta se non quella decisa dai rullini, dalla fame, dagli sguardi vogliosi di un mondo che ero solo io. Che non aveva amore, non aveva sesso, non aveva impegni...un mondo che non aveva nulla se non di guardare oltre, di catturare tutto per non lasciarlo andare mai più via.

Ed è quello l'unico bagaglio che mi son portata, l'unico che non mi hanno potuto strappare via.
Il ricordo di quel mondo che era tutto mio, che era giusto, che era nuovo.
Il ricordo che mi trasmette energia...la sensazione di pace che mi da il pensare che infondo è tutto lì,
che basta ricominciare il viaggio da dove lo si era interrotto.
Che basta ripartire da quel goccio d'olio, da quel confine violato, da quel dolore rabbioso.

Sei il mio pensiero felice, sei la mia forza, sei la mia energia. 
Se non torno a te è solo perchè mi hai insegnato a sognare, mi hai insegnato a mettere delle priorità, mi hai insegnato a guardare in un altro modo...quindi ci devo provare.

To promote the line of Procter & Gamble’s Wella Koleston Hair Care Naturals hair colorant, H & C - Leo Burnett Beirut did this creative piece of outdoor where the woman’s hair, die cut out of the billboard, allows the color variations of day and night shine through. Brilliant!

http://www.thecoolhunter.net/ads/Koleston-AD/

And then I had to leave. For what? Why leave this home that as I stepped onto it's streets I had this visceral reaction run from my stomach to the rest of my body? Why leave loves for so many people, so much family, and so much belonging?

Because my work here, my life in this country, the US is calling me, no matter how much I'd like to say otherwise. My approach is different this time; no more 12 hour work days, and crazy long conference calls. My desire to live every day as an example of what future I want to create is overriding every other tool or means to an end.

In order to do that, I've enrolled in Gaia University, which is sort of like a low residency program, working on projects with the help of advisers; this also gives my restless self the ability to travel around.  I step out on my own again, to re-remember who I am and who I am becoming. I search for the divine within myself to guide my steps.  I surround myself with this earth's beauty, with her children, and her love.

Come Join me.

No hago más que promocionarlos entre mis amigos, así que me veo obligada a subir el disco.

Este grupo de indie folk viene de Nuevo Mexico (EEUU), pero la música que nos ofrece lo disimula totalmente. Evocan sonidos de Europa del Este y Francia, con sus acordeones y trompetas. Y todo debido al viaje por la Europa balcánica que realizó el principal componente de la banda, dejándose influenciar especialmente, por la orquesta de Boban Marković.

Tienen dos discos Gulag Orkestar de 2006 y este que os cuelgo, The Flying Club Cup, de 2007.

Espero que os gusten, es uno de mis grupos favoritos, pero no sólo me ocurre a mi.

Podéis escucharlos en Myspace, y leer un poco más sobre ellos aquí. Todos sus vídeos tienen aire antiguo y casero, nostálgico, como la portada del disco, pero me encantan. No me enrollo más y os dejo con el link de descarga.

Well it's been a long time, long time now
since I've seen you smile.

Sarkozy renews Afghan commitment

The French president insisted that France was committed to Afghanistan

President Sarkozy has pledged France's continued commitment to Afghanistan after visiting French troops and meeting President Hamid Karzai.

He was speaking in Kabul after French troops suffered some of their worst casualties in recent times.

Ten French soldiers were killed and 21 injured in an ambush by Taleban fighters east of the capital, Kabul.

Mr Sarkozy said France was committed to the fight against terrorism, and  the mission in Afghanistan would continue.

'Indispensable'

"Even though the toll is so high, you should be proud of what you are doing. The work that you're doing here is indispensable," Mr Sarkozy told his troops.

"We're going to make sure that the means are put in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again." France has 2,600 troops serving in Afghanistan.

The 10 deaths brought to 24 the number of French troops killed in Afghanistan since 2002, the AFP news agency reports.

There was more violence on Afghanistan on Wednesday. A bomb went off in a busy market in the south-eastern province of Khost.

Officials say that in addition about 19 Taliban fighters were killed in two separate clashes in Khost and in the province of Paktia.

Tributes paid

The loss of life is thought to be the heaviest suffered by the French military since 58 paratroopers were killed in Beirut in 1983.

The arrival of Mr Sarkozy, who was accompanied by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defense Minister Herve Morin, was marked by a flurry of helicopters across Kabul on Wednesday.

The cause is just, it is the honour of France and its armies to defend it Nicolas Sarkozy French president

On a brief visit on Wednesday, he saw the mortuary at the French camp in the capital and spoke to injured soldiers who were involved in the battle. He also held talks with President Hamid Karzai.

His message was one of support not just to the troops, but also to the Nato alliance and Mr Karzai.

The French deployment is not popular at home and the decision was made in April to send extra fighting troops to an even more dangerous part of the country, our correspondent adds.

Ambush

The French troops were caught up in fighting that started on Monday in the area of Sarobi, some 50km (30 miles) from Kabul.

Mr Sarkozy said the troops were killed in "an ambush of extreme violence"

French defence officials said about 100 soldiers - from France, the US and Afghanistan - were on a reconnaissance mission when bad road conditions forced them to stop their vehicles.

A group of French soldiers was sent ahead on foot to check the terrain, but they were ambushed by Taleban fighters and nine were killed.

A tenth French soldier was killed when his vehicle overturned on the road.

An Afghan intelligence officer told the BBC the troops were ambushed from several directions by heavily armed Taleban and al-Qaeda forces.

The fighting went on for 24 hours and it is understood that reinforcements had to be called in to airlift the troops to safety.

The deaths came amid warnings that insurgents are closing in on Kabul.

The French recently took over control of the Kabul regional command, which includes Sarobi.

P.S. I want to thank Prof. Abdul-Rahman al-Obaid and Dr. Ashraf Mahmoud for their understanding and support.

Finché non bombardano Roma, non finisce.
Strano vaccino per l'epidemia, che razza di siero antiguerra.
Si era ficcato in testa per le città d'Italia
bombardate a martello, prima solo di notte,
poi pure a mezzogiorno, e a Roma niente. 
"Ce sta 'o papa, nun ponno mena' bbombe 'ncopp' o papa".
A Napoli spiegavano così la malasorte,
la più bersagliata dall'alto dei cieli, e Roma niente.
"'O papa, ce sta 'o papa, nun le ponno fa' niente, sta San Pietro."

Nel luglio del '43 il cielo sopra Napoli era un campo di croci con le ali,
altissime passavano e sganciavano,
sopra obiettivo libero, a terra senza allarme,
senza sirena in mezzo alla città.
Sono più avvelenate di terrore le bombe a mezzogiorno.
Di notte è già normale correre al rifugio,m dentro il buio
a ripararsi, ma di giorno è peggio. "Quanno fernesce? Mai?
E il caldo, 'o calore, d'o mese 'e luglio d'o '43".

 Mia madre teneva diciottanni, legati stretti
per non farseli scippare, passava per la piazza
della posta centrale dopo una delle scariche,
e s'accorse che non c'erano le mosche,
erano morte pure quelle per lo spostamento dell'aria.
"Sui corpi scamazzati, scarognati, nun ce steva 'na mosca.
Nun era manco nu bumbardamento,
ma 'na dissenteria di bombe, ci cacavano 'n capa.
E a Roma c'era il cinema, la guerra la sentivano per radio,
la gente la sera usciva, ieva a teatro,
nun le mancava niente. Tenevo diciottanni,
due fratelli nascosti,
i tedeschi fucilavano i guagliuni che non si presentavano".

"No, ma', questo è successo dopo, nel settembre,
quando gli americani ancora non entravano
e i tedeschi mettevano le mine in mezzo al golfo.
Stavamo ricordando 'o mese 'e luglio".
"Senza pute' durmi' manco 'na notte,
a sirena sonava doie, tre vote,
andavamo a durmi' coi panni 'ncuollo,
manco le scarpe mi toglievo, pronta pe' n' ata corsa,
giù per le scale, 'a sirena int'e rrecchie
che m'afferrava i nervi, spìcciati, presto, curre,
le posate d'argento nella borsa, la ricchezza nostra,
mammà che mi sttrillava dietro: "Piglia i posti buoni".
C'erano i posti buoni e quelli malamente, comm'a teatro".

"Finché nun bumbardano Roma, 'sta guerra fetente nun fernesce.
La milizia mo' sente e fa finta 'e nun senti',
o' ssape che è fernuta 'a zezzenella
(lo sa che è finita la pacchia).
'O fascismo per me è stato 'a guerra. Tenevo quindicianni,
'a meglio età, quanno 'o fascismo s'affacciaie 'o balcone:
vincere e vinceremo. Se credeva di fa' 'na guapparia,
quattro mosse dietro ai tedeschi e subito vinceva.
In capo a qualche giorno a Napoli sentéttemo  'a sirena,
'a primma sirena d'allarme. Ancora me la sogno la sirena.
Dentro ai sogni nun m'arricordo 'e bbombe, ma 'a sirena.
Tenevo quindicianni all'inizio d'a guerra, 'a meglio età.
'O fascismo me l'ha inguaiata fino a diciottanni.

Niente sapevo, niente m'importava, d'a politica,
io vulevo fa' ammore, uscire colle amiche mie,
ballare, andare al mare. Si m'o ffaceva fa',
si ' o fascismo me faceva campa', bene per lui e bene pure a me.
Invece niente, s'è arrubbat'a giuventù,
ha mandato a muri' 'i meglio guagliuni pe' na guerra fetente,
se ne futteva 'e me, 'e Napule, 'e l'Italia. Stava a Roma
arriparato sotto 'a tonaca d'o papa,
a Roma non gli succedeva niente."

"E com'è stato lo strillo, la voce che hai sentito
all'uscita del ricovero, quel giorno?"
"Sarà stato mezzogiorno, o primo pomeriggio,
nun saccio di', ce stava 'o sole, da due ore
schiattavamo 'e calore int'o ricovero.
Sunaie 'a sirena di cessato allarme, ascèttemo all'aperto,
tossivo per la polvere alzata dalle bombe,
m'abbruciavano gli occhi per la luce potente dopo il buio,
mezzo stordita m'arrivaie 'nu strillo: "Roma!
Hanno colpito Roma! Hanno menato 'e bbombe
             'ncopp' o papa".
E doppo ' o strillo ne venette n'ato: "E' 'm mumento,
fernesce 'a guerra, mo' fernesce 'a guerra".
La gente usciva dai ricoveri scunfusa, stupetiata,
e tutt'insieme dietro a quello strillo
s'abbracciava, chiagneva, alzava 'e manne 'o cielo.
"Fernesce 'a guerra" e : "Roma bombardata" erano 'o stesso strillo.
E a me, che manco me pareva overo che puteva fini',
si gelò il sangue a vedere quella festa
perché Roma era stata bombardata.
Noi che sapevamo che malora era,
ce mettevamo a fa' chell'ammuìna?
Che t'aggia di', 'a guerra è 'na carogna
e 'o fascismo ci aveva incarogniti.
Poi uscì la milizia e tutti quanti ce ne tornammo a casa
a senti' 'a radio: Roma era stata bombardata
la mattina, da 'e pparti d'a stazione, no a san Pietro.

E così fu che cadett' o fascismo.
o' rre fece arrestare Mussolini
e 'a ggente se credeva che ferneva tutte cose,
'a guerra, 'a carestia, tornava il pane bianco, veneva 'a libbertà.
Fuie 'na fantasia, nun era tiempo.
A Napoli finì due mesi dopo, a fine settembre,
'o popolo s'arrevutaie isso sulo contro i tedeschi,
quattro giorni e tre nottate sane,
al buio in mezzo agli spari, pieni di volontà,
quattro giornate per levarsi gli schiaffi dalla faccia.
Finché non se ne uscirono i tedeschi,
entrarono i guagliuni americani, figli 'e napoletani d'oltremare.
Cominciò quel po' di gioventù che mi avanzava.
Mi so' sposata nel '46, perciò la gioventù durò tre anni.

E di tutto il fascismo mi rimane il peggio di quell'ora
di festa per Roma bombardata.
Anche se in quella polvere di luglio, ' calore, 'o sudore,
non mi sono abbracciata con nessuno,
è per la gente mia che mi dispiace.
Allora fu normale, perciò chist'è 'o fascismo pe' mme,
la fetenzia che ci ha portato a quello, di applaudire.
Ti parlo de 'sti ccose addolorate pecché tu saie senti',
ma nun pozzo permettere a nisciuno di voi venuti dopo
di giudicare Napoli in quell'ora, 
pecché 'o fascismo vuie nun 'o ssapite".

                             L'Estate del '43.   ERRI DE LUCA, "L'ospite incallito"  -Einaudi Editore-

NOT!

Something which I find both amusing and annyoing is that most people (except for the average Western expats) here seems to assume us European expats are loaded with cash. Having our mattresses stuffed with 20 dinar bills, wiping our asses with the same in the loo. Some do yes and some don't... I bloody don't and it is annoying when people are insinuating that one could and should pay more for goods and services cus oooh I am so loaded. Well I'm not fucking loaded ok and I can tell you that the average maid on the street most likely have more money in her pocket than I have during the month. Really, it is annoying so stop bloody assuming we are rich just cus we have white skin and a (kind of) clear accent.

stay til the end, there's a fishy!!

beirut has several versions of this and ive been trying to decided which one i like better. i like them all! you can find them at:  www.blogotheque.net ... if you haven't been there already, there's plenty of treats!