The World According to Abufares of Tartous

You and I deserve a little break. What’s been going on all around, in our backyard and beyond, can and eventually will bring the best of us down. To compose ourselves, to maintain a glimmer of hope and sanity, nothing beats getting back to the basics. We certainly need food for the mind but at the primal level we must first secure food for the body. As if the troubled world didn’t exist, I woke up one Friday morning earlier than my normal workdays. Still 6:30AM and I had an insatiable hunger for the early sun, for the streets, for the open market and for some fresh real food. I needed to slow down though. Only a virgin, still wet behind the ears, rushes moments of pleasure. I should savor every little detail, every small nuisance of a slow day ahead. It’s my day off, and I’m not having many of those lately. -“What do you want to do, where do you want to go?” -“i wanna go shoppin 4 food, green stuff & fresh meat. You’d cook 4 me. I’ll eat it all…” -“Ahh, it’s one of those days

"… why are we never treated to illustrations of male beauty every now and then, heh? Would it kill you to show, say, the many delights of George Clooney? Sorry, but my feminist leanings sometimes do come out when provoked. :)" Rime of Mosaics When an intelligent and delightfully attractive woman poses such a query, only a fool such as me would oblige. But here I am, win or lose, embarking on a dangerous proposition, what kind of a man I would have liked, had I been a woman. It’s stupid isn’t it! My attempt to write (at least a page) about an idea which has never crossed my mind. I want my man to be of the strong and silent type. Well, what the hell, let’s get it out in the open. He has to be bright to start with. I can’t stand a dumb broad so I, and my fellow women, deserve an intelligent man instead of a stupid bloke. A man with brains knows when to speak and when not to, how to be close when needed and how to distant himself when some extra breathing space is all wha

Since the turn of the century the rushing flow of events has swept us all, nations, communities and individuals. Political and social polarization has reached an unprecedented level of intensity. Diplomacy in its traditional role has all but vanished, and it has become not only fashionable but rather acceptable that coercion is the new lingua franca of the world. From the micro scale of the basic family upward to the clash of civilizations, one side is trying to shove its sense of justice, of right or wrong down the other’s throat. Dialogue is fading from our collective conscience like a piece of meat rots in the sun. Although censorship, in all of its manifestations, is not a novel development, political, social and economic evolutions have always been successful in eroding the extent of its prevalence. The mere fact that censorship is on the rise again is an evolutionary mutation. It has appeared time and again in human history in the form of indoctrinated politics and religion. My

In her effort to tag my ass, lovely Kaya had actually saved it. It’s been one hell of a busy week. Since I cannot claim that I’ve been amused at work there’s no point in posting about it. You already have more than your fair share of problems, I fathom. The least I could do is manage to provide you with some entertainment. I have been running on empty for the last few days until this morning when I hit a brick wall. Here I am, I reckoned, one day away from the weekend with nothing to show on my blog. Then Kaya, bless her, came along and did me a favor. She tagged me and boy what a relief that was. She wanted me to tell her, and the rest of you, about my five favorite restaurants in or around Tartous . I have already posted about a couple of these places, nevertheless, for the short of memory, for newcomers and for lack of anything else to write about, here’s my list with two different ratings. The first is what these places think of themselves while the second is my own. 1) Ayn Al Ja