Maps released of Hizbullah's military sites, bunkers

Maps released of Hizbullah's military sites, bunkers

Now, the world will believe the gravity of the situation?

Restoration

I've read recently several articles about the restoration of the synagogue from Beirut. With various lectures in the Arab blogosphere relating this "event" with the debate regarding the mosque/cultural center from the Ground Zero: "yes, we can, look at us how generous we are with them".

Exactly those arguments gave me the benefit of a huge doubt about jumping high of happiness after reading what it is happening in Lebanon. Because, no, I don't think so that the building of the mosque/cultural center from the Ground Zero is a welcomed decision: at least at the symbolical level, it is not about time to embrace wholeheartedly such an initiative. As for the Beirut case, there are synagogues built for a community decreasing from a year to another. And, yes, in Iran, the Jewish community is represented into the legislative body. Just saying...

What you could do from inside a tank?

Shooting a movie. About Lebanon.

Images of wars

Micha Bar-Am was born in Berlin in 1930 and moved with his family in Palestine in 1936. During the War of Independence was part of Palmach units. As a photographer, he documented the Six Day War, the conflicts in Lebanon or the Egypt Peace Talks. Since 1968, he joined Magnum Photos.

Long life to cartoons

Maybe we are very much used to see cartoons as humorous illustrations or movies dedicated mostly to children. In fact, they are part of the visual universe, so they could be used freely to express any kind of subjects. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis or Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir found the proper tools to illustrate political and social subjects - The life in Iran before and during the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the 1982 Lebanon War - without diminishing or disregardingly approaching the theme. After seeing them, I tryed to imagine a real movie with real actors with the same synopsis. It's possible, of course, as long any subject and any idea could be seen from an infinite perspectives, and still could remain many untold stories. But in these two cases, the focus is more on ideas than on the glamor of real-time actors. And, in fact, you don't have too many regrets for this choice of the film directors, because the movies are displaying each minute thinking products of good quality.

Originally, in fine arts, the cartoons are preparatory drawing to be covered later with color. Nowadays, cartoons, like blogs, are enjoying a high degree of access by a large number of people. You can find on the Internet many websites where it's easy to learn how to draw one and, with an easy to handle program, you can produce your own and distribute via the Internet, almost cost-free. It's not necessarily democratization, but is part of the diversification of the tools we have in order to express ourselves. Of course, not too many are using it or could give them a substantial content.