Only some people in the Middle East really understand Thanksgiving Day. More often than not, that might be because there is little to be thankful for.
In 1984, I brought together a group of Lebanese, Syrians, and a bunch of Europeans in the middle of one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Many of us worked in some way for ABC News in Beirut and Damascus.
It was difficult to travel between the two cities as foreigners, so I decided we should meet near Baalbeck, an ancient city about six miles east of Beirut and just about the same distance west of Damascus.
The Romans built an exquisite city there, which had become a training center for terrorists. Ironically, it was about the only place that we could get people from Syria and Lebanon to meet, where most of them could be safe. Americans—actually, I was the only one—weren’t so safe. But I had spent a lot of time in Baalbeck, and I was young and rather foolish back then.
The infamous Commodore Hotel in Beirut found a turkey and some sweet potatoes—no small feat—and added some traditional Arabic dishes. I still remember how the chefs put everything on platters.
The group of about 20 people included:
Two British and French videographers who didn’t get along too well.
Two Syrian and Lebanese businessmen who didn’t like one another.
Two Shia and Druze men who didn’t trust one another.
Others who didn’t think much of me.
The sun shone brightly over the Bekaa Valley, a beautiful but troubled part of the world. No one talked about football games or family feuds. We didn’t talk about failed peace negotiations or the deaths of more than 200 U.S. soldiers sent to Lebanon as peacekeepers and killed by Islamic terrorists. We didn’t talk about the bombing of Lebanon by U.S. ships. We spent a wonderful afternoon talking about the present and the future, our families, and our dreams. We talked about everyday and important things in life. We drank a bit too much wine and araq, a potent Middle Eastern liqueur.
We left with a better sense of what we knew about one another and what we did not know about one another. More importantly, we talked about what we had in common as human beings.
I was looking at Stacy McCain’s site and he quoted a stat from Douglas Murray that I recall Rick Santorum advancing during his quest for the 2012 GOP nomination which unfortunately he lost to Mitt Romney who lost to Barack Obama whose 2nd term is the primary source of a lot of the ills we are facing today.
However, one of the key insights Murray found from studying poverty statistics was that any young American had a 97% chance of avoiding long-term poverty if they accomplished just four simple things:
1. Get at least a high school diploma. 2. Get a job and keep working. 3. Get married and stay married. 4. Don’t have children before you’re married.
Is this too much to expect? Is this an impossible obstacle to overcome?
For dozens of generations these basis steps (with the exception of the high school diploma which only became common in the late 19th century) were considered so natural and so normal that they didn’t even have to be said. Then again during that same time nobody needed to be a biologist to define “woman” or “marriage” either.
The sad thing is the days when these facts were known by all are in fact still in living memory but my generation of baby boomers, unable to cope with the safe and secure world that their parents had given their blood sweat and tears to bequeath them ran away from these values and thus now their children and grandchildren are at a point where you have them idolizing a terrorist whose primary ambition was to kill them.
But the idolization of Bin Laden and even the Hamas Terrorists have a more basic source, the forgetting of just how lucky they are to be in the position they are in. All of this is achieved in erasing history and forgetting the collective acquired wisdom of millennia that were the building blocks on which their lives were made.
A day after Operation Protective Edge ended, a truer picture slowly began emerging: foreign reporters leaving the Gaza Strip revealed what Israel has claimed all along – that Hamas had fired out of population hubs and near UN facilities.
Why didn’t they report those facts during the ongoing fighting? According to the reporters, they feared for their lives. “We saw the Hamas men,” a Spanish reporter admitted. “But had we dared point the cameras at them, they would have opened fire at us and killed us.”
Now that they’re out of the Gaza Strip, the reporters are revealing what Hamas tried to prevent the world from seeing. An Indian reporter, for example, documented how Hamas militants launched rockets from a post right outside the window of the hotel where he was staying in the Gaza Strip, shortly before the ceasefire came into effect. The video aired only after the reporter left Gaza. When asked about it, he replied: “There’s a conspiracy of silence rooted in fear – no one wants to report in real-time”.
As Glenn Reynolds would say: Read the whole thing.
A journey, indeed it is. The Kinks are celebrating their 60th anniversary.
A big part of the revelry is the release, on BMG records of two double-CD or vinyl anthologies, the Journey Part 1, which was released in March, and the Journey Part 2, which was issued last Friday.
The Kinks emerged from North London and a year later they were at the forefront of the second pack of the British Invasion–or the beat groups, if you are reading this in the UK. Among those early hits were the power chord classics “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” and “Till the End of the Day.” The Journey Part 1 kicks off with first two, The Journey Part 2 starts with the third one.
Looking at the compilations from the vinyl version, each side is represented by a theme, which I just couldn’t make sense of, so let’s just move on.
Each cut was selected by the Kinks–the surviving members are Ray Davies, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter, his younger brother Dave, the band’s lead guitarist and occasional songwriter, and drummer Mick Avory. Among the many hits on the Journey, you’ll also encounter some rare tracks and alternative recordings.
Both are collections are essential collections for rock listeners with eclectic taste, and more importantly, a those with a strong sense of intelligence.
If you only have a bit of time and you want to know which compilation is best, then go with Part 1. A crucial reason is that amazingly, there are no songs from my choice as the Kinks’ second-best album,Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire), on it. You’ll find “Australia” and “Shangri- La” on Part 1. Of the Kinks often maligned 1970s”theatrical” period, the best of that bunch isSchoolboys in Disgrace.Part 1 has songs from it, Part 2 does not.
The second collection delves surprisingly heavy into the Preservation Part 2 album, which even many Kinks fans dislike. Preservation Part 1 contributes a song to the Journey Part 1. Although through the flaws, I am a fan of both. Critics hated them, although the stage presentation of Preservation was better received by them. Preservation tells a civil war between a womanizing real estate developer-turned politician Mr. Flash (liberals will see him as Donald Trump, conservatives as Bill Clinton), who is challenged by the seemingly morally righteous Commander Black, a Jerry Falwell Senior-type character.
If you are British, you can think of Preservation as a 20th-century replay of the English Civil War, when King Charles I and his cavaliers battled Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans.
The Journey Part 2, includes some of the best tracks from Preservation Part 2 including a previously unreleased version of “Money Talks,” along with “He’s Evil,” and “Artificial Man.” Sadly, one of the worst songs from the second Preservation, “Scrapheap City,” which is flatly sung, literally, by Maryanne Price, is also on the Journey Part 2.
What were the Kinks thinking on that one?
While the Journey Part 1 has no live tracks, Part 2 does, three live cuts recorded in 1975 at the New Victoria Theatre in London, “Everybody’s a Star (Starmaker) one of only two good songs from the loathsome Soap Operaalbum, “Slum Kids,” a solid Preservation outtake, and another song–not one of the goods ones–from Soap Opera, “(A) Face in the Crowd.”
On the flipside, the other good song from Soap Opera, the 1930s-style “Holiday Romance,” follows the live tracks. You can think of “Holiday Romance” as the Kinks’ answer to the Beatles’ “Honey Pie.”
If you’re a Kinks fan–or of you think you might become one–then here’s a song for you, “I’m Not Like Everybody Else,” the B-Side of their hit “Sunny Afternoon.” The first track is on the Journey Part 1. The A-Side is on Part 2.
Is “Lola,” perhaps the best-known Kinks song besides their power chord nuggets, included on the Journey? Yes, it’s on Part 2.
One more bit of bad news–the Journey ends abruptly. There is no talk of a Part 3, and there are no songs from the Kinks post-theatrical era on Part 1 and 2. Some of those stellar albums omitted in these collections include Sleepwalker, Low Budget, Misfits, and Give the People What They Want. What’s the heck is with that? Contractual disputes with record labels?
Back to the Journey: Even with one collection being a bit better than the other, both compilations contain plenty of pleasing gems. Back-to-back, they are ideal road trip albums, a great complement to any journey, either cross town, cross country, or as a companion to your life’s journey.
God Save the Kinks!
John Ruberry, who saw the Kinks live twice in Champaign, Illinois in the 1980s, regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.
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