How can a mother forget who burnt her son’s face?

Unfortunately I saw today a lebanese mother who just lost a husband and her two children were injured in the bombing.

I am from a generation who is sort of detached, not fully, but partially from what is known as the Middle East Crisis. I wonder who came up with this name. That is I assume that I am using the right words in English. My generation did not witness the evacuation of Palestinians from their land in the 1948, I have been told some stories of how things went then but I was never there. When I was a teenager I vaguely remember some attacks of the so called Israelis on Lebanon, the victims of which were mostly Palestinians who escaped their lands under the fire of the Jews years back. Later, after some years there were the attacks of Israelis (Jews) on Southern Lebanon.

Years followed and Peace talks started and the so called peace agreements were signed here and there. And you started to hear the international community talk about forgetting the past and helping generations to come forget all the hostility between the Arabs and the Israelis, mostly expecting Arabs to forgive and forget both their martyrs and their stolen lands.
But come again another aggression. Every where you turn these days you see dead lebanese children, and yet again, the blame is on them for being naughty, right.

I just want to ask do Israelis, Jews or whatever they want to call themselves want the Arabs to forgive and forget? Because they certainly don’t behave like it. It seems that they actually try their best that every generation witnesses some or other disaster caused by them, it’s like they are trying to tell us, we are here to kill you whenever we please. Well, I suppose we should be grateful that they have let us live for this long right!

Natural Beauty

Its funny how when we are doing all kinds of unnatural things, our main quest is natural.

I am a beauty everything freak, I love to read about how to take care of your skin and hair and how to wear make up, I am always keeping on track of all the latest fashions, I don’t have to follow them I just need to know about them. Anyhow, it occurred to me that through my readings one word shows up a lot “natural”, it seems that we are after naturally looking beautiful hair, and naturally looking beautiful skin and so on and naturally looking beautiful make-up. The irony is what ever process we go through to achieve this naturally looking beautiful whatever is most certainly not a natural one, and most certainly the result is far from natural either, it maybe beautiful but it is most certainly not natural.

This is so ironically true in particular with make-up. Are you trying to tell me that a made up face is as natural as a morning puffy eyes face. A natural looking made- up face would definitely have some concealer to cover dark circles under the eyes, and other spots in the face, it will include some foundation or powder on the face to eliminate shine and unify skin tones on the face, after all that there will be some blush, mascara and at least lip gloss, all this to achieve a natural looking beautiful face. The truth is a natural looking face of a beautiful woman, would generally have some uneven skin tones, some spots and shadows and lashes may not be as long or curly as without the mascara. So are we really after what is natural? I think not. We may wish we were naturally born with glossy lips and twinkly eyes and a dewey complexion, but the truth most if not all are not. Ok maybe we are born with those traits but we certainly don’t keep them beyond the age of 12, when puberty hits all kinds of beauty issues come with it.
Don’t get me wrong I am not against embellishing one’s self, on the contrary I am more than obsessed with my looks always have been and my greatest hobby is to dress up. I am just saying lets be real about it and honest. It is not natural that we seek . It is the ideal image in our heads of what natural beauty should be like that we are after. I just wish people writing for women’s press about those issues would stop with the over use of the natural word. If you want to be natural then stick with the face you wake up with. On the other hand if you like to embellish then the more honest you are about it the more comfortable you are with it.

So if you like your mascara then enjoy it and flaunt it. Natural is overrated anyway...

Trends and what have you?

It seems to me that we live in an era where trends have become essential to people. If you look at people around you fashion and beauty trends are so obvious, if you hear them talking you will be listening to whatever hot issue is going around now.

I returned from vacation to a European country a couple of weeks ago. There I noticed how young girls there are so hooked up on the beauty and fashion trends, they all looked like they are trying to imitate a photograph they have seen in a magazine. I always thought that the european approach to beauty is much simpler that that of country were I live, here people have always been going around with heavy make up and they looked over dressed. Apparently this has become the Trend world wide. The young girls I noticed were school girls who hit the malls right after school and hang around with there friends while their parents got home from work. Anyhow, they were still in their school uniforms, but the hair is all done in the latest fashion, the make up is quite strong with kohl and mascara. Those girls could not have been more than 15 or 16 but they were trying to look 24. Now I understand the teenagers need to attract but it looked like it was too extreme, and mores, it looked like each one was trying to be someone else.

I came back home and viola’, I thought those girls were over made!!! I had another thing coming. Of course girls here go to malls at night which gives them more chance to indulge in make up. The thing though is they were all tanned, and it did not look like a natural one either. I mean we are blessed in this part of the world with a natural tint, so you would think people would be wise enough not to follow the tan trend so religiously, don’t they realise it was intended for those who lack natural color. But helas, every and each girl I saw looked like she was baked in the sun for hours,add to it all this tan looked so fake. I have not seen a girl around here going around with here natural skin color. What happened to individualism and personal character; all soaked up by the influence of media I suppose. It just gets you thinking deeply of how strong a hold does media have over us.