Banality #14 Lebanon, more virgins, and my spraycan.

To view the scenes in the Information Clearing House videos (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14616.htm) is depressing. For me, today at least, it only serves as a reminder that I don't understand anything, about Lebanon, the fighting, what I'm going to do about it all. Like the old man at the end of the video, this country is also asking for God to punish all oppressors. But I wonder how many people prayed to the Virgin de Urkupiña on Wednesday for that very thing. A lot of tiny trucks were sold as symbols of what people were praying for. I didn't see any tiny bombs, or little effigies of George Bush, or miniature guns. On the same token, I didn't see any miniscule peace signs either. What does this say? That people are more interested in their own personal material desires rather than more socially productive pursuits? Or does it mean that they've prayed to the good old Mother of God long enough for that social justice stuff and realise she's just not going to cough up. I'm still this very morning hearing stories of how the Virgin has assisted in times of need, but one woman told me of how she was told by her husband to walk to the shrine and ask for rain for the crops to grow, or dry for the trees to be cut: she couldn't remember. When she got there she tossed the metaphoric coin in the air and prayed for rain. It rained. Her husband was very angry at her for screwing up the request to the Big Virgin. I reckon if the Virgin's so good then she should've known what the lady's husband wanted. You can't go smiting people for having a poor memory.

Going to enjoy the Sunday sun (the real one, not the Murdoch one). There's still snow on Mt. Tunari. And my flattened spraycan is still as comfortingly there in the dirt at the end of the street as it was on the first day I got here. How about you? How's your aerosol?

Your FNBC.