Shati Tea and Falafel Shop

Terrible storms all day today and tonight, affecting the coast and the interior of Gaza.

Starbucks, Doha--a suburb of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Voici ma premiere connection wifi avec mon HP Mini netbook. Je suis a Starbucks, Doha. Je dois vite quitter pour aller a Farm 5 acheter du poisson.
A bientot sur Qahawi Al-Bahr Al-Abyad Al-Mutawasat

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

We're outraged that the state of Israel can't even take good care of the land they've stolen. There is a fire burning the area of Palestine behind Haifa and the jerks running Israel can't put it out.

Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza-du marché de Gaza, en direct

image left: oil pipelines in the desert, photo taken from the airport bus between Dammam International Airport and the Saudi ARAMCO compound in Dhahran.

Ci joint, le rapportage de Hanan Al-Masri, de Gaza à la télévision Al-Arabiya.
The Israeli governement has announced that next Thursday, Israel will announce that some formerly prohibited items will be lifted--a decision that is not worthy of mentioning:
قرارٌ لا تُرى الحكومة المقالة اهمية تُذكَر

Most food and drink still comes through Egypt, she says. I will attempt to transcribe the rest of her report today at a later time. Enjoy listening to her nice Palestinian accent and the accents of the women she interviews in the main market of Gaza city while you read my blog today on the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Saudi Arabia.


The media in the US is mostly covering the oil spill. The coverage is too American. It distracts from the ecological disaster that imperialism causes in Africa and the Middle East. The citing of Thomas Sankara's speech to the Paris Tree conference is much more appropriate:

Nor can the worked-up consciences of a multitude of forums and institutions—sincere and praiseworthy though they may be—make the Sahel green again, when we lack the funds to drill wells for drinking water a hundred meters deep, while money abounds to drill oil wells three thousand meters deep!

As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do not think about the same things, nor in the same way, as those who live in a hut. This struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism. Because imperialism is the arsonist setting fire to our forests and our savannas. Paris, Feb. 5, 1986



It should be pointed out that the Oil pushed out from under the sands of the Middle East Countries, comes at the price of millions of gallons of precious well water. The Oasis of Al-Hasa, near ARAMCO in Dhahran is nearly depleted of water because of the huge amounts of water needed to push the oil up from under the desert. The Island of Bahrain used to be all oasis, but now is dry because so much water was used to push out the oil. I guess it is the huge tonnage of water in the Gulf of Mexico which allows offshore oil to be extracted so cheaply. It is this very tonnage of water which keeps the oil gushing out without the Americans having to spend on water pumping, or having to deplete their natural water supply, as the Saudis have to do, in order to keep up with Exxon's and Chevron's, and the other big sisters', demands.

The sanctions on Iran are the way Imperialsm prohibits Iran from developing nuclear energy which could be used to form massive desalination projects to obtain water to pump out their oil, insead of depleting the natural underground fresh-water supply. Even as they are, the current desalination plants in Saudi Arabia, merely to provide waste water, are marvels of technology, much more of "an effort to make the desert bloom" than anything the rogue state of Israel did in the days when their propaganda claimed Palestine was a desert which their immigrants had "made to bloom."
Indeed, the 1947 Israeli immigrants to Palestine, at the bidding of the colonial powers, actually destroyed the water and irrigation system built through centures of practical experience, when they destroyed the 500 Palestinian villages.

If you read this blog, please tell your friends how imperialist policy is depleting the water in the Middle East and Iran.

From my appartment

A collage: Plate of frike and chicken, lettuce from Syria, olive oil from Palestine, Apple OS X, Nadira Sururi poem called "Rejection" in Opening the Gates, Mandela at Havana with Castro--"How far we slaves have come," Pathfinder Press, Dome of the Rock, Mada'in Saleh postcards, l'Officiel des Spectacles


First The Mavi Marmara, then The Rachel Corrie; soon another. Why it is becoming another way to make the Pilgrimage, just like in Chaucer's time, when the Wife of Bath made several pilgrimages all the way to Palestine! The difference this time is that when one arrives off the coast of Jaffa and Akka, pirates occupying the land board your ship and deport you to Jordan or, if you are from an imperialist country, on a plane back to Ireland or America. I sit back in my apartment, glad that I can at least eat Palestinian food... things like my Shammoute ("Jaffa") oranges coming to my from Tripoli, Lebanon, and Frike (فريكة), one of the special foods of Palestine. And the box is from Palestine! I washed the frike, soaked it in a little water, and then, after melting some margarine and a little olive oil in a sauce pan, I added a fair amount of chicken broth and cooked it until it was soft. Had a special sweet taste.

In the quicktime movie,attached below, is an experiment with doing a blog with Quicktime Broadcaster. Remember, with Quicktime broadcaster and a Mac, you have to use the internal microphone and set things to mono, as the Mac does not record in stereo, except with applications like Garage Band. I'm reading this: ...from Nadira Sururi's, "Female Contractions"--a poem which forms the Chapter heading for other Arab Women writers on "Rejection" in Margot Badran and Miryam Cooke's Anthology:

She did not know
Nor her family knew
But the bridegroom Was a Ghoul
They sang and sang...
‘He’ll feed you
Fatten you
And on your wedding day
Will eat you...’

They sang and sang
She wept and wept
And then sang
‘I don’t want. I don’t want.
I’m no fool
He’s a ghoul
Wed? To a ghostly host? Am I?
Fed? His bridal-roast? Am I?
She wept and wept alnight
‘He was alright except

At night he was a goat’
They sang...Alweddingnight
She wept and sang and wept and sang
Alweddingnight
At dawn he slept
At last she crept. Away
She went. Away. Unwed.
They sang, resang...
Unwed...She left...Away...
They sang...

... in the book I reviewed in 1975 for an English Language Jordanian newspaper, Female Contractions, by Nadira Sururi, RSS Press, Jordan 1975; this one poem of her poems and illustrations is published in Opening the Gates an Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, edited by Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, Indiana University Press, Bloomington 2004, p. 123.

from my apartment-listening to theater in the beautiful Palestinian accent

Hanan al-Masri reported on a play being performed in Gaza. I recorded her TV coverage from Al-Arabiyya TV--the recording starts a bit into the report, and the volume is a bit low until a raise the volume of the TV. Below is the recording and to the left is me in front of my apartment with Shamouti oranges(the original "Jaffa orange" behind me.

Recording of Hanan Al-Masri commenting during the play

Café de Flore, Paris-à la recherche du café Yémen

Je viens de retourner de Al-Khobar, ou j'ai acheté encore de figues--cette fois de Syrie--et du café éthiopien, moyennement torréfié --pas bien--et légèrement torréfié: un peu mieux; et comme ça l'arôme du chocolat existe un peu.

J'ai lu une article par un aficionado du Café qui a visité les agriculteurs du café au Yémen et il a dit que pour vraiment avoir l'origine du café il ne faut pas trop le brûler, et je crois qu'il a raison. "Le french roast," et le "Expresso roast" sont goûtés pour l'odeur de la torréfacteur, et pas pour le café. Je crois que le café du Yémen ne doit pas être trop brûlé, trop torréfié. Les vrais amis du café, torréfient leur café eux mêmes avec une machine à pop-corn ancien et américain!!!

cuilliere verse le poudre--spoon pours the ground coffee stir coffee and water








heat kanake









boil 1










boil 2












pour





















second cup; spoon pours coffee into kanake








second cup; spoon-full

Shati Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza

February 1, 2010 Israel repremands a couple of Israeli army officers who ordered phosphorous bombs dropped on the UN warehouse in the center of Gaza City today.

I found, from a course website of an English teacher in Virginia, that some of Nadira Sururi's book, Female Contractions, is in the Margot Badran anthology of Arab women writers: Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing. Ed. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990.