Archive for January 14th, 2009
The Oklahoma Daily (of the University of Oklahoma at Norman)
I wrote a lengthy article in 1976 about the causes of the civil war in Lebanon which the Student newspaper The Oklahoma Daily published as a series in two successive issues. My friend Ramez aided in the editing because he was familiar with journalism and was studying History of Science. Somehow the Chairman of the Syrian National Social Party at the time, In3am Ra3d, received a copy and he sent a delegation from Houston to link up with me; I kept a copy of the article and then lost it and then years later I contacted the Oklahoma daily to mail me another copy but never receive it.
Foreign student organizations
At this period there were hundreds of Iranian students on campus and they were the main core of all the demonstrations and the few Arab students were organized under the wide banner of The Arab Students association and I was appointed president of this association (since not many met anyway) for a year. We had a room allocated to us in one of the university buildings but since we never met in that room the student association decided to allocate it to another association but I fought for it and retained it for a short while. The Iranian students were active politically and well organized and the Komeinists arrived to power in 1979 while I was in Houston. It was in 1975 that I was beaten up by a group of Lebanese Phalanges coming from Oklahoma City and they never showed up because I complained formally to the police and spent an overnight at the university hospital.
My roommate Fouad, a Lebanese student majoring in pharmacy, used to travel two hours on weekends to work as a bartender at an Army base in Lawton. He spent the rest of the week studying to be a pharmacist in Oklahoma City, one hour away the other direction to Norman from where he rented. He used to pick me up in his Spitfire. Fouad married a US “Philippina” and then divorced after he obtained his US passport.
I finished my program in two years but I was displeased with my thesis which was suggested by my advisor, Dr. Foote, another Jewish professor. I was just inputting random numbers in a written computer program that another student had written and dealing with stochastic production demands. The results didn’t turn out encouraging and suffered grueling months very unsatisfied with the whole project. I decided not to pursue a PhD program.
Today’s lucubration: The Horror; the Silence of the Able! (January 14, 2009)
I am single; had always been but I sometimes have horror dream. A few of these horror stories in dreams is that I am married; I wake up in sweat. Just imagine living in close intimacy with another sex for over 40 years. I think married people created laughter; it must be; otherwise why hysteria is such a close relative to laughter? When a couple is visiting then what do you think the subject of laughter is about? It must be at the expense of the spouse (no difference in gender here). When one of the spouses is murdered what do you think was the cause? Someone was laughing hysterically but had no idea of the dangerous consequences.
Forty years have elapsed since I was twenty; it seems like yesterday; I reverted to how I used to be; I am as confused as ever; a full cycle; which is good.
Too many disturbing news of doom: Earth is vanishing in the year 2012. One of the causes, as they say, is this mass of energy, larger than the Sun, that circle the sun once every 4,200 years and brings destruction and change in magnetic polarity; the cycle of this mass of energy is due in 2012. After what I witnessed in Gaza I feel like it is about time to be cleansed once for all. If the so-called civilized western States are unperturbed of the modern age genocide in Gaza then how humanity should be able to discriminate between good and evil? The Horror; the Silence of the “Good Guys”, the Silence of the Able!
