Evacuation of Lebanon

I find the photos of people evacuating Lebanon terribly moving. Part of it is the rush to abandon everything to preserve their lives, and part of it is this phenomenon of the industrialized world exerting its wealth to protect its own. We won't send troops - we won't stop the bombardment - but we'll send cruise ships to extract everyone with an American, Canadian, French, German, Swedish, Danish, Turkish, Australian, etc., passport. If you come from a country that can't afford or can't get organized to charter the Orient Queen, you are SOL. Or if you are just Lebanese, not hyphenated Lebanese. Or unable to travel. There is a feeling you get when you find yourself in danger in some distant part of the world, holding a first world passport, speaking a few first world languages fluently, living in white skin. You feel a fierce greed for these talismans. They are the signs that you are worth saving. I've tried to get my head around what it must be like not to bear the signs, but I find that I can't. They're too embedded into who I think I am. I find it impossible to think of myself as not worth saving. Maybe the Lebanese find it impossible too.

Quittin time

Thank. God. I have finally gotten a firm leaving date at work and I'll be free as of August 11. It's been 13 months of the most depressive experience I hope to have in my life. Whatever else is out there for me, it's got to be better than this. I have an adjunct teaching job. I have a couple of book proposals to shop around. I have increasingly good prospects of opening my own public interest environmental law office. Any one of those is great news. Let's put on some happy music and celebrate being alive with a lot of good years left on the engine.