The word from Beirut 12 May 2008

While I spent the weekend having fun in the sun at a holiday resort, my good friend Paul was blogging for Time Magazine from under siege at his new home in Beirut. Read here:

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/05/the_word_from_beirut.html

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/05/more_from_beirut.html

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/05/the_seige_is_lifted.html

http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/05/the_news_from_lebanon.html

I had a great Skype video chat with him this evening, with the goal of telling him - as one poster in a blog post said - to “knock off the Hemingway crap”, but I left the chat completely reassured.  The contrast of the chat could not have been greater, as I sat here in the sunshine with my daughter napping in my lap while he sat with blackout curtains drawn and the call to prayer wailing outside. Technology never seemed so surreal.