Saturday, January 06, 2007
15 rules for understanding the Middle East -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
15 rules for understanding the Middle East -- Page 1 -- Times Union - Albany NY
First published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
For a long time, I let my hopes for a decent outcome in Iraq triumph over what I had learned reporting from Lebanon during its civil war. Those hopes vanished last summer. So, I'd like to offer President Bush my updated rules of Middle East reporting, which also apply to diplomacy, in hopes they'll help him figure out what to do next in Iraq.
Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn't count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.
Rule 2: Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: "Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" If you answer yes, you can't go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany -- not Iraq.
Rule 3: If you can't explain something to Middle Easterners with a conspiracy theory, then don't try to explain it at all -- they won't believe it.
Rule 4: In the Middle East, never take a concession, except out of the mouth of the person doing the conceding. If I had a dollar for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasser Arafat, I could paper my walls.
Rule 5: Never lead your story out of Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq with a cease-fire; it will always be over before the next morning's paper.
Rule 6: In the Middle East, the extremists go all the way, and the moderates tend to just go away.
Rule 7: The most oft-used expression by moderate Arab pols is: "We were just about to stand up to the bad guys when you stupid Americans did that stupid thing. Had you stupid Americans not done that stupid thing, we would have stood up, but now it's too late. It's all your fault for being so stupid."
Rule 8: Civil wars in the Arab world are rarely about ideas -- like liberalism vs. communism. They are about which tribe gets to rule. So, yes, Iraq is having a civil war as we once did. But there is no Abe Lincoln in this war. It's the South vs. the South.
Rule 9: In Middle East tribal politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, "I'm weak, how can I compromise?" And when it's strong, it will tell you, "I'm strong, why should I compromise?" Rule 10: Mideast civil wars end in one of three ways: a) like the U.S. civil war, with one side vanquishing the other; b) like the Cyprus civil war, with a hard partition and a wall dividing the parties; or c) like the Lebanon civil war, with a soft partition under an iron fist (Syria) that keeps everyone in line. Saddam used to be the iron fist in Iraq. Now it is us. If we don't want to play that role, Iraq's civil war will end with A or B.Rule 11: The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation. The Israeli-Arab conflict, for instance, is not just about borders. Israel's mere existence is a daily humiliation to Muslims, who can't understand how, if they have the superior religion, Israel can be so powerful. Al Jazeera's editor, Ahmed Sheikh, said it best when he recently told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche: "It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this."
Rule 12: Thus, the Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.
Rule 13: Our first priority is democracy, but the Arabs' first priority is "justice." The oft-warring Arab tribes are all wounded souls, who really have been hurt by colonial powers, by Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, by Arab kings and dictators, and, most of all, by each other in endless tribal wars. For Iraq's long-abused Shiite majority, democracy is first and foremost a vehicle to get justice. Ditto the Kurds. For the minority Sunnis, democracy in Iraq is a vehicle of injustice. For us, democracy is all about protecting minority rights. For them, democracy is first about consolidating majority rights and getting justice.
Rule 14: The Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi had it right: "Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes."
Rule 15: Whether it is Arab-Israeli peace or democracy in Iraq, you can't want it more than they do.
First published: Wednesday, December 20, 2006
For a long time, I let my hopes for a decent outcome in Iraq triumph over what I had learned reporting from Lebanon during its civil war. Those hopes vanished last summer. So, I'd like to offer President Bush my updated rules of Middle East reporting, which also apply to diplomacy, in hopes they'll help him figure out what to do next in Iraq.
Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn't count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.
Rule 2: Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: "Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" If you answer yes, you can't go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany -- not Iraq.
Rule 3: If you can't explain something to Middle Easterners with a conspiracy theory, then don't try to explain it at all -- they won't believe it.
Rule 4: In the Middle East, never take a concession, except out of the mouth of the person doing the conceding. If I had a dollar for every time someone agreed to recognize Israel on behalf of Yasser Arafat, I could paper my walls.
Rule 5: Never lead your story out of Lebanon, Gaza or Iraq with a cease-fire; it will always be over before the next morning's paper.
Rule 6: In the Middle East, the extremists go all the way, and the moderates tend to just go away.
Rule 7: The most oft-used expression by moderate Arab pols is: "We were just about to stand up to the bad guys when you stupid Americans did that stupid thing. Had you stupid Americans not done that stupid thing, we would have stood up, but now it's too late. It's all your fault for being so stupid."
Rule 8: Civil wars in the Arab world are rarely about ideas -- like liberalism vs. communism. They are about which tribe gets to rule. So, yes, Iraq is having a civil war as we once did. But there is no Abe Lincoln in this war. It's the South vs. the South.
Rule 9: In Middle East tribal politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, "I'm weak, how can I compromise?" And when it's strong, it will tell you, "I'm strong, why should I compromise?" Rule 10: Mideast civil wars end in one of three ways: a) like the U.S. civil war, with one side vanquishing the other; b) like the Cyprus civil war, with a hard partition and a wall dividing the parties; or c) like the Lebanon civil war, with a soft partition under an iron fist (Syria) that keeps everyone in line. Saddam used to be the iron fist in Iraq. Now it is us. If we don't want to play that role, Iraq's civil war will end with A or B.Rule 11: The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation. The Israeli-Arab conflict, for instance, is not just about borders. Israel's mere existence is a daily humiliation to Muslims, who can't understand how, if they have the superior religion, Israel can be so powerful. Al Jazeera's editor, Ahmed Sheikh, said it best when he recently told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche: "It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this."
Rule 12: Thus, the Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.
Rule 13: Our first priority is democracy, but the Arabs' first priority is "justice." The oft-warring Arab tribes are all wounded souls, who really have been hurt by colonial powers, by Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, by Arab kings and dictators, and, most of all, by each other in endless tribal wars. For Iraq's long-abused Shiite majority, democracy is first and foremost a vehicle to get justice. Ditto the Kurds. For the minority Sunnis, democracy in Iraq is a vehicle of injustice. For us, democracy is all about protecting minority rights. For them, democracy is first about consolidating majority rights and getting justice.
Rule 14: The Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi had it right: "Great powers should never get involved in the politics of small tribes."
Rule 15: Whether it is Arab-Israeli peace or democracy in Iraq, you can't want it more than they do.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Blog d'Elisson
Blog d'ElissonPowerful Eyes O’ Jeremy Tait, by the late Wallace Irwin.
The Powerful Eyes O’ Jeremy Tait
An old sea-dog on a sailor’s log
Thus spake to a passer-by:
“The most onnateral thing on earth
Is the power o’ the human eye -
Oh, bless me! yes, oh, blow me! yes -
It’s the power o’ the human eye!
“We’d left New York en route for Cork
A day and a half to sea,
When Jeremy Tait, our fourteenth mate,
He fastened his eyes on me.
“And wizzle me hook! ’twas a powerful look
That flashed from them eyes o’ his;
I was terrified from heart to hide
And chilled to me bones and friz.
“ ‘O Jeremy Tait, O fourteenth mate’
I hollers with looks askance,
‘Full well I wist ye’re a hypnotist,
So please to remove yer glance!’
“But Jeremy laughed as he turned abaft
His glance like a demon rat,
And he frightened the cook with his piercin’ look
And he startled the captain’s cat.
“Oh, me, oh, my! When he turned his eye
On our very efficient crew,
They fell like dead, or they stood like lead
And stiff as a poker grew.
“So early and late did Jeremy Tait
That talent o’ his employ,
Which caused the crew, and the captain, too,
Some moments of great annoy.
“For we loved J. Tait, our fourteenth mate
As an officer brave and true,
But we quite despised bein’ hypnotized
When we had so much work to do.
“So we grabbed J. Tait, our fourteenth mate
(His eyes bein’ turned away),
By collar and sleeve, and we gave a heave,
And chucked him into the spray.
“His eyes they flashed as in he splashed,
But this glance it was sent too late,
For close to our bark a man-eatin’ shark
Jumped after Jeremy Tait.
“And you can bet he would ha’ been et
If he hadn’t have did as he done -
Straight at the shark an optical spark
From his terrible eye he spun.
“Then the shark he shook at Jeremy’s look
And he quailed at Jeremy’s glance;
Then he gave a sort of a sharkery snort
And fell right into a trance!
“Quite mesmerized and hypnotized
That submarine monster lay;
Meek as a shrimp, with his fins all limp,
He silently floated away.
“So we all of us cried with a conscious pride,
‘Hurrah for Jeremy Tait!’
And we hove a line down into the brine
And reskied him from his fate.
“And the captain cries ‘We kin use them eyes
To mighty good purpose soon.
Men, spread the sails - we’re a-goin’ for whales,
And we don’t need nary harpoon.
“ ‘For when we hail a blubberous whale
A-spoutin’ the water high,
We’ll sail up bold and knock ’im cold
With the power o’ Jeremy’s eye!’ ”
And thus on his log the old sea-dog
Sat whittling nautical chips:
“Oh, powerf’ler far than the human eye
Is the truth o’ the human lips;
But rarest of all is the pearls that fall
From a truthful mariner’s lips.”
The Powerful Eyes O’ Jeremy Tait
An old sea-dog on a sailor’s log
Thus spake to a passer-by:
“The most onnateral thing on earth
Is the power o’ the human eye -
Oh, bless me! yes, oh, blow me! yes -
It’s the power o’ the human eye!
“We’d left New York en route for Cork
A day and a half to sea,
When Jeremy Tait, our fourteenth mate,
He fastened his eyes on me.
“And wizzle me hook! ’twas a powerful look
That flashed from them eyes o’ his;
I was terrified from heart to hide
And chilled to me bones and friz.
“ ‘O Jeremy Tait, O fourteenth mate’
I hollers with looks askance,
‘Full well I wist ye’re a hypnotist,
So please to remove yer glance!’
“But Jeremy laughed as he turned abaft
His glance like a demon rat,
And he frightened the cook with his piercin’ look
And he startled the captain’s cat.
“Oh, me, oh, my! When he turned his eye
On our very efficient crew,
They fell like dead, or they stood like lead
And stiff as a poker grew.
“So early and late did Jeremy Tait
That talent o’ his employ,
Which caused the crew, and the captain, too,
Some moments of great annoy.
“For we loved J. Tait, our fourteenth mate
As an officer brave and true,
But we quite despised bein’ hypnotized
When we had so much work to do.
“So we grabbed J. Tait, our fourteenth mate
(His eyes bein’ turned away),
By collar and sleeve, and we gave a heave,
And chucked him into the spray.
“His eyes they flashed as in he splashed,
But this glance it was sent too late,
For close to our bark a man-eatin’ shark
Jumped after Jeremy Tait.
“And you can bet he would ha’ been et
If he hadn’t have did as he done -
Straight at the shark an optical spark
From his terrible eye he spun.
“Then the shark he shook at Jeremy’s look
And he quailed at Jeremy’s glance;
Then he gave a sort of a sharkery snort
And fell right into a trance!
“Quite mesmerized and hypnotized
That submarine monster lay;
Meek as a shrimp, with his fins all limp,
He silently floated away.
“So we all of us cried with a conscious pride,
‘Hurrah for Jeremy Tait!’
And we hove a line down into the brine
And reskied him from his fate.
“And the captain cries ‘We kin use them eyes
To mighty good purpose soon.
Men, spread the sails - we’re a-goin’ for whales,
And we don’t need nary harpoon.
“ ‘For when we hail a blubberous whale
A-spoutin’ the water high,
We’ll sail up bold and knock ’im cold
With the power o’ Jeremy’s eye!’ ”
And thus on his log the old sea-dog
Sat whittling nautical chips:
“Oh, powerf’ler far than the human eye
Is the truth o’ the human lips;
But rarest of all is the pearls that fall
From a truthful mariner’s lips.”
Friday, December 29, 2006
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Gut Rumbles
Gut Rumbles: "I knew that!!! RIGT ON ACIDMAN!!!!
Originally published June 2, 2004
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wacko-environmentalists are religious freaks, every bit as obsessed and misguided as Islamic extremists. Those people give me the creeps.
Environmental alarmism/hysteria is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. It bears many traces of ancient myth and similarities to religious mania. It also has close ties with that most powerful, and delusive, of all political religions: socialism.
Close ties to socialism? I would call it more than that. Environmentalism is anti-individual, anti-private property, anti-capitalist and anti-progress. Environmentalists don't care how many people die because of their idiotic cause. In fact, they would be the first ones to throw virgins into a volcano to please the appetite of Gaia. They are that goddam superstitious and that goddam crazy.
They won't be happy until we all freeze to death in the dark."
Originally published June 2, 2004
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wacko-environmentalists are religious freaks, every bit as obsessed and misguided as Islamic extremists. Those people give me the creeps.
Environmental alarmism/hysteria is a fascinating psychological phenomenon. It bears many traces of ancient myth and similarities to religious mania. It also has close ties with that most powerful, and delusive, of all political religions: socialism.
Close ties to socialism? I would call it more than that. Environmentalism is anti-individual, anti-private property, anti-capitalist and anti-progress. Environmentalists don't care how many people die because of their idiotic cause. In fact, they would be the first ones to throw virgins into a volcano to please the appetite of Gaia. They are that goddam superstitious and that goddam crazy.
They won't be happy until we all freeze to death in the dark."
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Thursday, November 23, 2006
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: Tisquantum
FORGOTTEN PROPHETS: TisquantumSquanto
Tisquantum
That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian. Tisquantum. The shortening can be forgiven, of course. Algonquian rivals ancient Elamite for its opaqueness. Nquitpausuckowashawmen. No, I've not lapsed into glossolalia. That's how Squanto would have said, "There are a hundred of us." Tashuckqunne cummauchenaumiz? "How long have you been sick?" Yep. Tough language.
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe in English -- and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left -- his people: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
Well, he must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, you understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. For untold years he labored -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interupted by one odd intermission in Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in God to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence ... or is that unworthy? It is a fact that having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we'd never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable failure of our biology, though -- in the face of ultimate fatality, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of Jesus. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may very well be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that daylight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. Thus as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight that the visions of night have promised.
Tisquantum
That's "Squanto's" real name, in Algonquian. Tisquantum. The shortening can be forgiven, of course. Algonquian rivals ancient Elamite for its opaqueness. Nquitpausuckowashawmen. No, I've not lapsed into glossolalia. That's how Squanto would have said, "There are a hundred of us." Tashuckqunne cummauchenaumiz? "How long have you been sick?" Yep. Tough language.
Of course Squanto could have numbered his tribe in English -- and in Spanish. Alas, there were not a hundred Patuxets left -- his people: all had perished, to smallpox. He alone survived, like some servant of Job -- as indeed he was, to the hardpressed pilgrims. As for how long Squanto was sick, sudden fever took him the year after he had settled with his new tribe of pilgrims.
Well, he must have been used to being snatched away. He wasn’t kidnapped just once, you understand. In 1605, one George Weymouth whisked him away to England -- whether kidnapped or volunteered, history does not record. For untold years he labored -- well, eight or nine -- until returning to America in 1613 as translator for none other than John Smith. Set free as reward for his service, Squanto returned to his own tribe, only to be enslaved and taken to Spain -- kidnapped in 1614 by Thomas Hunt, a lieutenant of Captain Smith. He escaped to London where he remained until 1619 (interupted by one odd intermission in Newfoundland), then he joined an expedition to America. There he found his family and tribe all wiped out.
Providence? To find an English-speaking Indian wandering the coast at just the right time to save the Pilgrims? Well, yes. But how many other Squantos have wandered the earth, who never found their mission? -- Jonahs who made it to Tarshish?
To know one's purpose is something to be thankful about. Father, mother, friend -- and to bring light and love not only to those you care about but to the stranger -- well, this is something in which we might make our own providence. The rest of it -- being kidnapped and orphaned and dying young and such -- we count as beyond our understanding, and trust in God to resolve.
Much fiction will have crept into the story of Squanto and the Pilgrims. Of course. It's not that it wasn't a good enough story on its own. It's just that the reality is complex, and myths have a happy simplicity to them. The tales of childhood are for inspiring us to emulate an example of excellence ... since there are hardly any real examples of excellence ... or is that unworthy? It is a fact that having heroes who actually lived requires a degree of selective blindness on our part. We give importance to what is admirable, and choose not to see the flaws -- or at least to down-grade them. This is as it should be. If we saw the chamber of horrors that is the heart of every human, we'd never stop screaming.
So we have myths.
Is America everything it might be or that we wish it were? The question answers itself. The same holds when we inspect any ideal. There are no “ideals.” If they were real, they’d be “examples.” But part of living in the real world is understanding that it is hopelessly flawed. Well, not hopelessly. Fatally. Even in the face of the inevitable failure of our biology, though -- in the face of ultimate fatality, we need not be hopeless.
And so we have Thanksgiving. It has its own mythology, as does Christmas. But for all that there is the fiction of Santa, there is the reality of Jesus. And for all that the Hallmark and Rockwell images may very well be nothing but a happy conceit -- of convivial Indians supping in sumptuous abundance with the wayfarers from across the gray waves of the churning seas -- yet they have the reality of vivid dreams, that might be true, for all that daylight says otherwise.
The cherished dreams of our hearts have no guarantee of coming to pass. Every prayer of thanks must, must include a prayer of abject supplication, begging God that evil, or greater evil, should not strike us. Thus as a nation we take a day, a single day, collectively to call to mind the many blessing with which we have been blessed. We recall that it need not be so. We understand that who looks for perfection is a fool. We understand that who accepts the inspiration of a myth honors the daylight that the visions of night have promised.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Sunday, May 28, 2006
Emigre with a Digital Cluebat
Emigre with a Digital Cluebat: "Kids say the DARNDEST things
JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while he asked: 'Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for
cold milk?'
MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was
so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you
must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.'
STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. 'I love you so much,
that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window.'
BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in
vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained
it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with
wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?
SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. 'Please don't
give me this juice again,' she said, 'It makes my teeth cough.'
DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: 'How much do I
cost?'
MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and
kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: 'Why is he whispering in her mouth?'
JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: 'The man named
Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked
back and was turned to salt.' Concerned, James asked: 'What happened to the
flea?'
TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled
woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for awhile and then asked, 'Why
doesn't your skin fit your face?
The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday
sermon...'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust.'
He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) Leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little
girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?'"
JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while he asked: 'Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and one for
cold milk?'
MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied she was
so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, 'If you don't remember you
must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six.'
STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom goodnight. 'I love you so much,
that when you die I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window.'
BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a painkiller. She tried in
vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom explained
it was a childproof cap and she'd have to open it for her. Eyes wide with
wonder, the little girl asked: 'How does it know it's me?
SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. 'Please don't
give me this juice again,' she said, 'It makes my teeth cough.'
DI (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked: 'How much do I
cost?'
MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that were hugging and
kissing in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad: 'Why is he whispering in her mouth?'
JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read: 'The man named
Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked
back and was turned to salt.' Concerned, James asked: 'What happened to the
flea?'
TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly, rather wrinkled
woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for awhile and then asked, 'Why
doesn't your skin fit your face?
The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget.... this particular Sunday
sermon...'Dear Lord,' the minister began, with arms extended toward heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. 'Without you, we are but dust.'
He would have continued but at that moment my very obedient daughter (who was listening!) Leaned over to me and asked quite audibly in her shrill little
girl voice, 'Mom, what is butt dust?'"
Saturday, May 27, 2006
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