HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: eliedw@ulrik.uio.no (Elie Dib Wardini)
Subject: Re: CLAO Aug. 17 1992
Organization: Univerity of Oslo, Semitics dep.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 08:41:30 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.235528.9908@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu>
rached@blanc.eng.ohio-state.edu (rached) writes:
>
>
>Elie
>
>Very nice thoughts. Still those are everyone's dreams. Do you have any
>
>idea on how are we going to acheive this ?

a pen is the strongest of weapons! I believe in this!



>Who is going to drive out Foreign forces ? Who will choose the committee
>that will run the elections ? Who are those honest people that will
>serve on it.

let me tell you a story from the Bible:

Elijah (Elias) had fled because the Israelites had "all" gone after Baal and
wanted to kill Elijah:


 KI1 19:13  And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in
his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And,
behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?

 KI1 19:14  And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts:
because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine
altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and
they seek my life, to take it away.

....

The LORD answers Elijah:

 KI1 19:18  Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which
have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

The moral of the story:
there are any who would to see a better system instaled in Lebanon. THere are
many who would like to see Lebanon rid of our Mafia bosses! we need to
cooperate and get things done!

>As I have seen in Lebanon, now or after the Syrians pull out of Beirut,
>the same faces will be "elected" and the same faces will reappear. It is
>only a choice between old faces that we have to make.

>The real Question is:
>
>Do you (or any other netter) have a FEASIBLE way to attain democracy in
>Lebanon other then the coming elections ?

Rached, you have see that I have many times asked and called that we try to
cooperate in order to present alternatives.

*WE* are the futture of Lebanon. To resign and say that we can do nothing is
doing like Elijah and hiding in a cave.

We can run for elections. WE can chalange those who run. We can create bodies
that can scurtenise the least moves of any politicains, or officials.

I beileve that you are honest, I am willing to cooperate with you to the
utmost, even if there are issues on which we disagree. We can cooperate on the
issues on which we agree.

I do not think that we need a big group. Rather a small group that keeps in
touch with the needs of the poupulation and the doings of the politicans.

Rached, my answer is: either *WE* do it, or we can forget about it!

>rached
>

elie wardini
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: ayman@eecs.umich.edu (Ayman I. Kayssi)
Subject: Re: How is the weather? (was: Re: Chritians, Muslems, and M.G)
Organization: ACAL, EECS, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 12:21:22 GMT

Elie Dib Wardini (eliedw@ulrik.uio.no) wrote:
: 
: Ayman how is the weather to you?
: Here in Oslo it is not sure what it wants. Some rain and some sun.But the fall
: semester is surely on its way!
:

detroit metropolitan area forecast
national weather service detroit mi
420 pm edt mon aug 17 1992

 tonight...partly cloudy. low in the mid 50s. light wind.
 tuesday...partly sunny. high in the upper 70s. southwest wind 5 to
15 mph.
 tuesday night...mostly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely.
low in the upper 50s. chance of rain 60 percent.
 wednesday...partly sunny. high in the mid 70s.

--
Ayman I. Kayssi                               |    ayman@eecs.umich.edu
EECS Department                               +------------------------
University of Michigan                        |          (313) 764-8033
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: ayman@eecs.umich.edu (Ayman I. Kayssi)
Subject: Re: Symphonies in Rahbani's music!
Organization: ACAL, EECS, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 13:19:37 GMT

Wassim Alami (alami@McRCIM.McGill.EDU) wrote:
: 
: 'Assi and Elias Rahbani... 

The "Akhawayn" are Assi and Mansoor Rahbani. Elias is a new-waver in Arabic
music and is responsible for 80% of the music that you hear on FM stations in
Beirut :-). His two sons formed a hard rock group some time ago...

--
Ayman I. Kayssi                               |    ayman@eecs.umich.edu
EECS Department                               +------------------------
University of Michigan                        |          (313) 764-8033
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: borrel@dhhalden.no (Borre Ludvigsen)
Subject: Re: (Top Ten songs ...) Was : Re: Fairouz
Reply-To: borrel@dhhalden.no (Borre Ludvigsen)
Organization: Ostfold College
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 16:26:53 GMT


Have a look (listen) to the song texts and music on the liasun3.epfl.ch anonymous  
ftp server. 

- Barre Ludvigsen <borrel@dhhalden.no>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: ccav38@ccsun.strath.ac.uk ("I.Ballouz")
Subject: religions
Organization: University of Strathclyde
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 10:44:26 GMT

Hello everyone,
As we all know, religion is a very sensitive issue in the middle east generally and in Lebanon in particular. Some of the recent articles were offensive to manynetters and the fact that we do not know much about religion has worsened the situation even further.
I have seen that following a certain painful article and out of one's COMPASSION to his/her religion, an even more painful reply was sent. These exchanges were not helpful to a better understanding of the others beleives.  
I can not say of course that netters are not allowed to hold opinions or expressthem on the net but I'd like to say that if someone is really intrested in religious matters, there exist two special groups that deal with these topics:
1- soc.religion.islam
2- soc.religion.christian
I beleive the netters in the previous groups would have a better knowledge about religions and better answers can be provided for our queries.
I think this way the temperature of this group will definetly falls.
Regards,

I. Ballouz
-- 
*******************************************************************************
* IBRAHIM BALLOUZ            **           DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE          *
* ccav38@uk.ac.strath.ccsun  **  STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY GLASGOW SCOTLAND U.K. *
*******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: rached@sample.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rached Zantout)
Subject: Historical Mistakes
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 15:21:15 GMT

Hi Fellow Netters

I agree with Hani but I found myself compelled to state some of the misinformation
that our friend "Diego Maradonna" ???  stated in his response.

The first one was that he deduced that the father of prophet Muhammad (peace be
upon him) is christian since his name was Abdallah.
The argument he puts forward is that the area was populated by christians.
Although this is true for Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan and parts of Iraq.
Little if any christians existed in the arab peninsula.
The other thing to clarify is that the peninsula was inhabitted by pagans
(Mushriks in arabic). Those people beleived in Allah as a God but not the only
one. They beleived that there are gods on a lesser level that will act as (wasta)
between them and Allah.

Finally a common mistake is to say that Prophet Muhammad was taught by a Rahed
called Bahira. Prophet Muhammad did not meet that Raheb, it was the uncle of 
prophet Muhammad who met him and the Raheb told him that prophet Muhammad had
some signs that were in the bible about being the final prophet. This incident
occured when prophet Muhammad was small. It was years afterwards that Allah 
revealed to prophet Muhammad the first Ayah of the Quran.


rached
From: phd21@seq1.keele.ac.uk (A. Jaber)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Bigots and Bigotry has no place on Arab Land.!!
Date: 18 Aug 92 12:55:24 GMT
Reply-To: phd21@seq1.kl.ac.uk (A. Jaber)
Organization: University of Keele, England

>From: minhaszt@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Zafar T Minhas)
>
>Why is there such a fuss over arabism and islam? The founder of the Arab 
>League, AbdurRahman Azzam, was an international Muslim. He claimed all of
>Africa and Asia as his own (dar al islam). The head of the Arab League during
>the woar in the persian gulf stated that there is nothing wrong with unity
>among the Arabs as long as that unity is a subset of something else. He did not
>want to refer to what that something else was, but it was painfully obvious
>that he meant islam. so why do you guys have to fight over arabism v. islamism?
>say we are muslim and we are arab, we will do things to strengthen our unity,
>but we will not jeopardize our unity with the other muslim people. is that so
>hard to grasp?
>
>proud to be muslim

	You are absolutely right Zafar. There is no Arab Muslim who is
	not proud of being a muslim.

	The association of Arabs and Arabic with Islam is  eternal
	weather people like it or not. For those who are oppsed to any
	thing Arabic I say they have no awareness that the early
	generation of Arabists like the name you have outlined above
	were fighting to bring Arabic to its past Glory to be able to
	carry the message of Islam.

	The early Arab thinkers late last century and early this
	centuary were very strong Muslims in their belief and were very
	disturbed by the fact that the non-Arab rule of the Ottomans has
	led to certain decline in the understanding of Islam. The
	Ottomans have neglected Arabic and its basics and above all
	neglected education to the degree that the population became
	less aware about their life.

	Those who are opposed to Arabic do it from the Option of hate
	and only hate for Arabic and the Arabs. All this anti-Arabist
	voices are coming from people who do not belong to the Arabic
	culture and way of life. If they like to opt out of our life we
	have no objection. They can go away and form their religion.

	The haters of Arabism are bigoted people because they are
	opposed to the idea of giving equality to non-Muslim Arabs i.e
	Arab Christians. We the Muslim Arabs are determined to have
	Equality with our fellow Arab Christians what ever the porice
	is. We the Muslim Arabs are not going to be like the Serbs or
	the Spanish or the Germans.

	People like this Bigot MG at Cardiff is spreading hate against 
	Arabs and Sunni Muslims and then attacks Arab Christians, I
	tell you this Guy and his likes has no place among us period.

>zafar

A Jaber
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: eliedw@ulrik.uio.no (Elie Dib Wardini)
Subject: Assad, La Fontaine and the shepherds of Lebanon
Organization: Univerity of Oslo, Semitics dep.
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 08:22:35 GMT


Quoting La Fontaine (sorry no translation)

1-
Le Loup devenu berger (you can change it to Lion if you want!)

Un Loup qui commencait d'avoir petite part
        Aux Bribis de son voisinage,
Crut qu'il fallait s'aider de la peau de Renard
        Et faire un nouveau personage.
Il s'habille en Berger, endosse un hoqueton,
        Fait sa houlette d'un baton,
        Sans oublier la Cornemuse.
        Pour pousser jusqu'au bout la ruse,
Il aurait volontiers ecrit sur son chapeau:
C'est moi qui suis Guillot, berger de ce troupeau.
        Sa personne etant ainsi faite
Et ses pieds de devant poses sur la houlette,
Guillot le sycophante approche doucement.
Guillot le vrait Guillot etendu sur l'herbette,
        Dormait alors profondement.
Son chien dormait aussi, comme aussi sa musette.
La plupart des Brebis dormaient pareillement.
        L'hypocrite les laissa faire,
Et pour pouvoir mener vers son fort les Brebis
Il voulut ajouter la parole aux habits,
        Chose qu'il croyait necessaire.
        Mais cela gata son affaire,
Il ne put du Pasteur contrefaire la voix.
Le ton dont il parla fit retentir les bois,
        Et decouvrit tout le mystere.
        Chacun se reveille a ce son,
        Les Brebis, le Chien, le Garcon.
        Le pauvre Loup, dans cet esclandre,
        Empeche par son hoqueton,
        Ne put ni fuir ni se defendre.

Toujours par quelque endroit fourbes se laissent prendre.
        Quiconque est Loup agisse en Loup:
        C'est le plus certain de beaucoup.


2-
Le Chien qui Lache sa Proie pour L'ombre

        Chacun se trompe ici-bas.
        On viot courir apres l'ombre
        Tant de fous, qu'on n'en sait pas
        La plupart du temps le nombre.
Au Chien dont parle Esope il faut les renvoyer.
Ce Chien, voyant sa proie en l'eau representee,
La quitta pour l'image, et pensa se noyer;
La riviere devint tout d'un coup agitee.
      A toute peine il regagna les bords,
        Et n'eut ni l'ombre ni le corps.



elie wardini 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: eliedw@ulrik.uio.no (Elie Dib Wardini)
Subject: Re: Postcard from Nahribrahim on liasun3.epfl.ch (GIF)
Organization: Univerity of Oslo, Semitics dep.
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 16:39:47 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.150028.13764@prism.poly.edu> medawar@prism.poly.edu
(Bassem Medawar) writes:


>Berthe, the problem is in some the ftp clients clients.  They don't know how
to 
>deal with the messages, such as "230-Welcome, archive user! ....", which the 
>new ftp server running on liasun3.epfl.ch and elswhere produce.  Fortunately, 
>some of the new servers (including yours) allow a user to enter a "-" as the 
>first character of the password.  This disables those messages to allow old 
>(brain damaged) ftp clients to interact with it.
>

of course, us Mac users have a much easier task!

we launch a program, e.g. MacIP, or even better: Fetcher and we ask the program
to (FTP) connect us to a server. we include the address or better IP number of
the server, write that we log in as anonymous and press return!

every thing is done. We click our way through the folders (directories) and
chose the files we want to copy and click on copy. We choose the destination on
our hard disk.

I strongly recommend the program Fethcher it is a breeze to use. It also tells
us how big the file is before we start tranferring, it also allows us to cancel
procedures.

One other problem that I encoutered was that when I logged in to the server
with the address, it did not work, but when I used the IP number it worked.

The server that Berthe has let us use has the following IP number

128.178.36.30

insert this number where you would insert the address.

>bassem
>



elie
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: petrak@watson.ibm.com (Raja Petrakian)
Subject: Re: Anyone read Samarakand? By Amin Maalouf
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 13:26:16 GMT
Distribution: soc
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

In article <Aug20.214354.16180@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>, najjar@CS.ColoState.EDU (walid najjar) writes:
|> 
|> Does an english version EXIST?
|> if so can someone please post the publisher's name? is it published in UK or US, also
|> is "Leon l'Africain" translated too?
|> 
|> walid
|> 
|> -- 
|> Walid A. Najjar, Computer Science Dept.
|> Colorado State University, najjar@cs.colostate.edu
|> 
|> -- 
|> Walid A. Najjar, Computer Science Dept.
|> Colorado State University, najjar@cs.colostate.edu

I don't know about <<Samarcande>> but I am sure that an english
translation of <<Leon L'Africain>> exists.  I think the title
becomes "Leo the African" in English.  I remember that an American
friend of mine found it in the U.C. Berkeley Library.

Raja
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: eliedw@ulrik.uio.no (Elie Dib Wardini)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
Subject: Re: Elections and deputies
Date: 23 Aug 92 10:50:58 GMT
Organization: Univerity of Oslo, Semitics dep.

In article <1992Aug22.190129.12685@ee.eng.ohio-state.edu>
rached@blanc.eng.ohio-state.edu (rached) writes:
>
>Bassem
>
>
>rached
>

Bassem and Rached are onto a very intersting and important discussion.

Let me say that I doubt the honesty of most of our deputies. But just for the
sake of argumentation let us look aside for a moment and discuss the issue of
staying in or leaving an occupied Lebanon is best.

In fact no matter which side we feel is best, we will be able to find examples
that support each group.

Note for example: Lech Walesa of Poland, and President Havel of Czecoslovakia.
They both remained in their country and lead an opposition that in the end won.

Yet we can cite: de Gaulle, Khomeiny wh sought exile, yet came back triumphant.
(let us not discuss Khomaini's qualities or lack thereof, but he achieved his
goal)

What is best?

My gut reaction is like Rached: who the He** do they think they are? That they
think their life is more important than the lifes of the 10s of thousands who
have died?

In fact this also applies to Dr. Salim el-Hoss who to me takes very and all to
lenient stances. (nevertheless he is impecable in his honesty!)

Why should a deputy either lie or go to exile while others are dying for their
country?

Yet Bassem has a point. The porverb does say: better a live dog than a dead
lion!

Look at those who have remained in Lebanon. Only an eighty year old man dares
to speak up! Albert Mukhayber.

Even those who denounced Syrian occupation most, don't dare or have chosen to
keep their mouths shut for some reason or another.

Even those who denounced the Massacres of Sabra and Chatila have to live with
Elie Hobeika as deputy and minister (of matters rrealted to refugees!)

What I would like to see is that both groups of politicains (for they do not
represent me any longer, they are not my deputies!) do their utmost to
cooperate and defend their and our country with allthe means at their disposal.

Let me note very quickly that an important part and way of defending a country
is by tending to the needs of the people who constitute this country.


elie wardini
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: faris@sarcasm.trl.OZ.AU (Aziz Faris)
Subject: Re: Chritians, Muslems, and M.G
Reply-To: a.Faris@trl.oz.au 
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne,Australia
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 02:57:24 GMT

This is primarily aimed at that creature by the initial M.G.

To begin, Christains lived in the middle east six hundred years before Islam begun. In
case you did not know, most of the generals that lead the armies of Mohammed were
Christains who were hired by the prophet and his associates. Later on they were forced
to convert to Islam or face death by the sword like every one else.

Christains DO NOT LOOK TO FRANCE OR ANY OTHER WESTERN COUNTRY AS THEIR MOTHER COUNTRY.
It is only through desparity that they have any feelings toward the west. They have
been alienated by the present political climate from beeing involved directly and do no
have control over their destiny. Islam has never and will never lead to unification
(sorry to disappoint you). People will unify when they have common goals and agendas,
not because they beleive in the same god and religion. You happen to live in a unified
country and I perceive that you are Muslim like many other people living in the UK.

The christains consider the Middle East as their home, as I do. To be honest with you,
if the christains were in political control, the Middle East will be in its GLORY.
People will not be treated as political "hotdogs" by western powers and Isreal.
Civilisation will be very technically and socially advanced as these people have proven
in the past. Look at the Assyrians and Babylonians in your back yard, look at the
Pheonicians, look at the syrians in the north (Haleb, Ebla, etc), look at aramaic
people of damascus. They have built great civilisations that western powers are still
relying on to this day.

To summarise your education lesson, christains are not to blame for the present
problems in the Middle East and did not spoil your effort to unify under Islam. I
beleive Islam or any religion with the exception of Judiasm is incapable of unifying
people. This is exactly how Jews meant it to be when they created Christianity and
Islam. You should read the epics of Gilgamish a famous Assyrian, study the recent
findings in the ancient city of Ebla in northern Syria, and read the codes of Hammurabi.

A.Faris
Newsgroups: soc.culture.lebanon
From: eliedw@ulrik.uio.no (Elie Dib Wardini)
Subject: Corruption in Lebanon
Organization: Univerity of Oslo, Semitics dep.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 14:34:58 GMT

I was speaking to one of my best friends from hame. We speoke of our nice days
in Bickfaya while we now linger in the cold nordic countries.

We invariably came to the subject of corruption.

I got irritated with one of them, since every time I mentioned someone or some
politcal figure, he alsways commented how this person had become rich through
corruption.

THe reason why got irritated, was not that I condone corruption as much as this
same friend, who has not become rich through corruption, always tried to find
ways how to get things done by means of connections - waasTa -

To give you an example:

For the last 6-7 months the telephone was out of order to my parents. I could
not ring them directly but had to phone my sisters instead. I asked them why
and my father explained:

THe first time they said they needed 30$ to repair the line. It worked a couple
of weeks and then broke down.

THe second time they needed another 30$, agian it worked a couple of weeks and
then broke down.

The third time they needed 100$ to rapir the line! My father not having this
much moey available told them that they could ***** the line. THey did
(unfortunatly) and our phone did not function for 6-7 months, until one of my
sisters with her children visited Lebanon for the summer and needed to get in
touch with her husband that she payed the 100$ to get it fixed. (maybe it will
function more tha a coupl e of weeks?)

when I told my friend this story, he told me, Ah you should have told me, my
uncle has connections in the phone company and he could have helped you get the
line fixed.



That is why got irritated with my good friend. It seems that many of those who
complain a lot about corruption do not hesitate one second to indulge in
corruption!

lies are the salt of the man!, the clever ones win etc. etc. etc.


I got disgusted with the whole thing, and thought how could we work against
such corruption as citizens?


I got an idea, maybe some of you have others:

1- pledge that I will never do any thing axcept the way it is presecribed by
law to be done. e.g. throw away my drivers licence which I got as a gift on
Christmass

2- follow up case of corruption and if necessary go to court. e.g. find out why
our telephone line does not work, and point oput the persons or reasons why it
takes so much money to repair a line when we already pay for our calls and the
phone subscription.

3- if there are any illegal acts, to sue the person or instance invloved


This will take much work and expertise. I therefore suggest that we start an
anti-corruption group. THis group will gather expertise and experts that will
follow up cases of corruption. It will help cover the expenses of such action
(expenses from donations etc.). It will include engeneers, doctors, lawyers
etc.


what do you say?

elie wardini