Goodfellas on the Gaza Strip (Part Five)

There may still be a problem here. Hate runs deep and economics can only do so much to change how people feel about their neighbour. The only real means of alleviating such tension is through the establishment of a multi-denominational committee that would listen to the complaints on all sides. The Mafia would bring in the concerns of Christians (specifically Catholics) while respecting both Jewish and Islamic concerns. Remember: business is business, and money has no political, religious or social allegiances. People want to have a steady flow of cash available and are willing to overlook hatreds to keep it going. And anyone who thinks that such a thing could never happen does not understand the respect you command when you are willing to look beyond religion, put food on many tables, develop safe neighbourhoods, and relate to the world as a business environment that needs to be preserved and protected. Loyalties to the economic system would precede any other oaths.


I used the word “respect” again. I think that the problems I have explored here are solvable if we are all willing to try a new solution. Remember what a wise man once said: “Blood is a big expense.” Let the people who understand this try and work things out. And let us offer the Middle East an offer it can’t refuse.

Goodfellas on the Gaza Strip (Part Four)

Of course, I understand that many citizens and governments would feel very uncomfortable giving that much power to a criminal organisation. My plan may even allow members of the Mob to sit on the UN (who can say that they would not be elected to local governments?). People respect strong leaders. The Middle East is no exception. The fear of crime becoming the main source of commerce after exploiting the oil resources would eventually lose out to the positive changes seen in their environment. Parents would eventually encourage their children to work for the heads of specific families instead of becoming martyrs for a cause with no root source besides an overwhelming hatred of the US and Israel.

Goodfellas on the Gaza Strip (Part Three)

A note on those punishments: mobsters punish those who disobey the rules in their own families, or those who attempt to testify against them. I believe that the situation in the Middle East would lend itself too very well to the elimination of snitches. They have already lived through a climate of fear for longer than most of the other regions. Changing the source of fear from a suicide bomber to a criminal organisation would not be such a big step. All that would be necessary, as the head of a family unhappy with someone’s attitude or actions, is the sending of a message to the right person. The right symbol would convey the right message (cf. “Godfather” and the infamous horse scene).


Now, we also have to consider the reasons why the Mafia would want to live in an area which has been a war zone for such a long time. What would motivate this organisation to become involved with the Middle East? Well, in a word, money. Let us never forget the importance of the profit motive in human affairs. There are very few people who still believe that the US invaded Iraq to simply “liberate” its people and fight terrorism, although the current administration is still perpetrating this idea. Iraq is just a stepping stone for any one nation interested in the reserves of oil available to the lucky invader. Not since the halcyon days of OPEC has any one association been able to exploit the price of “black gold” for their own ends. Just imagine how the Mafia would handle matters. Yes, they would begin by gouging the West, but I believe that the Mafia would eventually realise that they needed customers to buy their product. Prices would have to be stabilised in order to allow the families involved to maintain their business interests. Fluctuations at the gas pump would soon be a distant nightmare.

Goodfellas on the Gaza Strip (Part Two)

I said earlier that respect is a problem and it must be faced head-on by all concerned if there is going to be any sort of change that brings lasting peace. Any president of the United Nations General Assembly is looked upon as some sort of animated lawn jockey by certain elements in that cabal, and all of the parties involved in the conflicts feel as though they can act with impunity. What is needed is an organisation that will not only establish the peace but also mete out punishments to those who do not feel the need to obey the rules; a group that would allow people to feel safe in their own neighbourhoods.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need the Mafia in the Middle East. It is well-known that neighbourhoods occupied by members of this institution are some of the safest places to live. They do not bring their problems home, so to speak. Any kind of dispute between one family and another clan is handled one-on-one, not with a barrage of missiles on an unsuspected community.

Family would be the most important factor in maintaining any form of rule. Anyone familiar with the plot of any of The Godfather films or almost any episode of  The Sopranos understands that without family ties there can be no stability, no order. Henchmen swear an oath of allegiance to the head of a family; they then agree to certain rules and responsibilities once they accept the duties necessary in becoming a part of that family (even without the bonds of blood). And those responsibilities would not include self-immolation, decapitation (at least on video), and the destruction of private homes.

Goodfellas on the Gaza Strip

I wrote this for someone who ran a journal and he said that he was offended by it.  Of course, I kept it and considered when I could finally give it a forum.  With recent changes in the Middle East, it just seems right to be satirical:

Over the last few weeks, I have heard less and less about the naval blockade and how the world is finally willing to criticize Israel for its behaviour. It seems as though we have heard all of this before. Israel and Egypt managed to find a peaceful solution to their conflicts and they are an exception which proves a particular rule: you have to want peace in order to get it. They discovered that they could live with the other’s existence without it ruining their sense of self. The Palestinians and Israelis have had their treaties, but they have rarely been worth the paper they were scratched upon, and the recent decisions made by both governments will not help matters. There needs to be another solution that generates the desire for peace.


The key problem here is a lack of respect for the opinion of the world community. The United Nations has never been able to guarantee that innocent civilians will stop being bombed, killed and kidnapped by terrorist groups and occupying armies. Even the leaders of the aforementioned countries and political entities have found their authority questioned and denied by radical elements within. Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat both knew that their authority only reached as far as a code that could not affect the grudges held by their people. They could not hope to control the actions of certain soldiers or jihadists. The future of the present leaders of the more volatile areas of the Middle East promises more of the same instability.

Sounds bleak, doesn’t it? I must admit that there have been many times when I have just changed the channel when a newscaster makes any mention of Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, Hamas, Al-Qaida, jihad, and so forth. And I know that I am not alone. It is too tempting to change the record when it keeps playing the same tune. But all is not lost.

A Writing Life (Part 21)

There is one final problem that is clear by now: you have never heard of me. I have had only a few things published (nothing that would give me any sort of fame worth the time needed to write about how I created different types of poems, stories, articles, essays, reports, plays and so on). Also, I have only skimmed the surface, as they say. Very little of what I have written here hints at any of the incidents in my life that were not directly related to writing and literature. There were many moments that led me to choose pen and paper as my method of communicating my feelings and responses. This work would be open to anyone willing to read my thoughts and ideas. Some of those moments are painful; others still make me laugh when I recall them. I do have many stories to tell and I see what I have written here as a sort of leap of faith; a promise to do something worthy of this very slight examination. If more of my work is allowed the exposure that I hope it receives and deserves, this effort will not seem so unnecessary and redundant. My wish remains to have this accepted after my other work has had some success. This is simply a step to something bigger than my own personal best.

It seems right that the last entry of this piece is coming out on Bloomsday.  Fellow Ulysseans, Re-Joyce!

A Writing Life (Part 20)

I am almost at the end of the notebook I used to write this (forty pages on the recto). I know that I will make a lot of corrections and changes that will completely obscure some of the ideas here and lead to certain tangents that I never considered (the best writing is always rewriting). One of my plans is to (perhaps) break this up into several brief sections that I can then post on my blog as a series of thoughts on the life of a writer. I cannot imagine any publisher taking a real interest in putting this together in a book.

A Writing Life (Part 19)

There is an envelope next to me with a letter I plan on mailing tomorrow. It is addressed to my mother. It has been a long time since I’ve written to her. Usually, I have a weekly phone call from home and she now has an email address. In our last conversation, she admitted that she had not used the computer in a very long time (my stepfather, now retired, also uses the computer quite rarely). I won’t admit it, but I like the fact that they are not in front of a computer screen when they try to reach me. Also, I like to write as often as I can: letters, journal entries, ideas for stories, poems, plays and screenplays. This is why I have not yet shaken the habit of passing by dollar stores and stationery shops and picking up the occasional notebook or writing pad for the price of a cup of coffee. Many writers will admit that having a pen and a pad in their bag, purse, backpack or pocket means that there is also a good chance that they will use it. To return to how I opened this paragraph, I have to mention advice that my mother gave me about writing (something that suits a temperament and personality that has to have an endless number of notebooks in use and lying about with half-finished work): When you cannot sleep, write. This does work for me, and it is the best advice I have ever received because it is best suited not only to my routine, but also to my temperment. Put the page in front of me, and something will end up on it.

A Writing Life (Part 18)

It should be clear by now that I am no longer in the same café where I began writing this out. I am at home on a weeknight with another work day ahead of me and the week-end not too far ahead. I am in our shared kitchen at a table that my roommate will use for a dinner party she has been planning for the last week (the theme will be Mexico). She is preparing tamales, lime soup, drinks and other food. The two fridges are filled with dishes that are either cooked or need to be cooked on the day of the party. I am looking at bottles of salsa, a shaker of chipotle chili powder, a sombrero (ostentatiously made; obviously not for a night out with friends), a colourful pile of fabric, swizzle sticks with plastic fruit attached, avocadoes, pineapples and plastic plates, bowls and spoons. I am also playing a selection of music that she may like for the get-together. I know that I have to go to bed soon, but I want to hear this music. I have not played most of these CDs in a long time and it makes me recall moments from my life as a teacher in another country.

A Writing Life (Part 17)

I am still trying to find a way to write about this part of our lives, and many others, without embarrassing them or myself. My first effort should remain unread. It was a short story about a boy playing rounders and being hit by a ball thrown by the girl he likes (you could be tagged out this way in our version of the game). I also put these moments into poetry. This work also remains unseen and hopefully lost. Perhaps it is true that the best way to write about anything is with a sense of distance from the event. There should be a space between experience and how that moment is recollected on a page. This is how the best literature is created. This is how art exists.

A Writing Life (Part 16)

I once wrote, as a university student, a story about one of our trips to a public park. Every summer, we would go to the same place as a large group for recreation and relaxation. It was a conservation area just over thirty minutes from my hometown. Coolers and barbecue grills would come out, as would collapsible chairs and tables for games of dominoes. The sound of those tiles clicking together as they are shuffled, or being slammed on a cardboard-topped table nearly broken with blows, is one of my vivid aural memories. The children had to amuse themselves; not a difficult thing to do with the trees, the man-made swimming areas, outhouses, canoes and the wider river, balls and games of distraction. I often climbed trees, played soccer or went down to look at the river. What I enjoyed most was to walk alone on one of the many trails on the other side of that river and end up on the far side of that park (I still wonder how I was able to get away like that without telling my mother). Later, back at the tables and benches, there was music, laughter and boasts. We would eat and then arrange things for a game of rounders. I remember making the small indent in the ground that would count for the home base (your heel had to be in it as you tried to swing at a pitch). Adults and children played this together (this was rare in the teamed domino games) and I am glad that I saw these adults at play as a child (another important memory). And then, without noticing the new darkness, we packed our things and found the exit home.

A Writing Life (Part 15)

In all of this, there was my family. My mother was, of course, very proud of me. The experiment with me had worked while failing for so many of my other relatives and members of my community. She came to the high school and university graduation ceremonies with some other people in my extended family and took many photographs. My older brother, after spending years working in another city and parts of the northern wilderness, was also proud. He also came to the ceremonies. But there was still a problem: I had not yet written about them or my community. A play I wrote and had performed at the student art gallery was politely applauded by my mother, soon-to-be-sister-in-law and nephew, but it was clear to me that my experiment had left them unmoved. Any of the writing I did back then was a means of putting me at a distance from my family (again, it took me some time to realize this). It is terrible to learn such a thing, but it also makes you aware of what a family is willing to sacrifice for their children. They accepted my not writing about them. And I have never forgotten this when I write. And this is what makes things so difficult for me when I try to describe my very real and very vivid family. Things get lost, reshaped, re-cut and recorded in a way that feels false.

A Writing Life (Part 14)

There was another odd effect with all of this reading. We had learned to create the structure of an essay in elementary school. A folder divided into different pockets for each stage of writing was given to each of us at the beginning of one class, and then we began to write. What I noticed was how difficult it was for me to put my own ideas down on paper. I could argue about how I felt about what we had read, but I could not put those arguments on paper with the same clarity. I already mentioned how schools fail to teach good writing, a much more serious problem now than before, especially at the university and college level. I remember how surprised I was the first time I saw a writing clinic at university (even the term “writing clinic” sounded strange to me). I should not have been that surprised. My classmates (not always English majors) often admitted that writing essays was the one thing they could not stand. I received a lot of interest from people who had difficulties with their papers. Money was offered for writing out papers and it was tempting. I do not think I could have handled the sour feeling I would have if I had written for the grades of someone else. Also, I did not trust myself to give them a high enough mark. My own essays, after encounters with difficult teaching assistants, improved and carried me through the semesters. It was like exercising a different muscle with those essays. To not write my own work would have seemed a private form of laziness. And that was how I thought of the people who wanted me to create their arguments for their essays.

A Writing Life (Part 13)

I realize now that I do not want to give a complete list of writers. There were the usual distractions (comic books, cartoon adaptations of folk tales and novel, nursery rhymes, etc.), young adult and adult junk (Stephen King, Sue Townsend), magazines and journals (from Highlights – a youth-centered magazine – to Rolling Stone, The New Yorker), and the important names of literature. “Julius Caesar” was the first work of Shakespeare I read. In class, we had to remember speeches and soliloquies from the play and what seems odd about that experience is that I received an excellent mark for a reading I did not remember giving. That was in my first year of high school. There were also poems that dealt with romance, death and loss. This led to my first attempts at the form and an intense interest was born that has lasted to this day. In between all this school-based reading, I continued to go to the library, discovered secondhand bookstores, and yet managed to enter a science program without any real love for the work or the course involved.