Notes From Beirut

Zena el-Khalil, an artist friend of mine from graduate school days, lives and works in Beirut, Lebanon. This past week she has been sending regular email updates to family, friends and acquaintances. These missives are now being collected online at Beirut Update.

Whatever your feelings about the region's hellish situation, I recommend a read. Zena's voice vacillates from that of an anxious hysteric to a relatively calm observer. Any perspective or agenda, be it that of the BBC, ABC, NPR, the Jerusalem Post, or Addiyar, will be regarded as biased. Rightly so! Such subjectivity, then, demands vigilance on the part of the participating global citizen. The more sources considered, the more complete the picture, terrible and indistinct though it may still remain.

Let us hope that some sense is made of this mess, and that the killing ends soon. What's more, let us remember that faraway conflicts are, in this day and age, immediately relevant to each and every one of us.