Straight From The Hart

A TERRORIST GLOSSARY Watching the news has become an educational challenge for me lately.  Even though I am a word and language person, I find myself constantly confronted with  a new word or phrase I have not encountered before, so I thought I would use this column to share some of my language research with you if you are having the same problem.  I guess we can call it a glossary for the times in which we are living. Let’s start with ISIS or ISIL.   They are both used as an acronym to describe the terrorist organizations we are currently facing.    You may also see IS or DAISH. As best I can determine, IS stands for Islamic State.   ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.  ISIL stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.  The Levant is a word for a region including but not necessarily limited to modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, parts of Cyprus, Turkey, Iraq and the historic area of Greater Syria. There are those who

It is September 11, 2014. I’ve listened to the roll call of names. I’ve heard the bell being rung. I’ve seen the wreath being laid. I’ve sat through several moments of silence. I’m sitting right now where I was sitting on that fateful morning 13 years ago - working at my computer with my favorite news channel streaming live news in the background. Little did I know that I would never use a news channel as just background noise again. My entire world changed that day, as did yours, and coverage of current news events became a part of the fabric of my life. But it is not just September 11, 2001 that I’m remembering today. I am also thinking about September 11, 2012. The contrasts are chilling. In 2001, the skies were blue with beautiful clouds in New York City. People were going about their regular daily routines, never dreaming what would happen at 8:46 that morning. In 2012, it had been a beautiful quiet day in Benghazi. Ambassador Stevens had been in meetings most of the day. The

It was just a normal school day in Lebanon.  I don’t remember the exact date but it would have been sometime in the late 1950’s.  An office aide entered the classroom and I heard the teacher call my name, asking me to come to her desk.  She had a strange look on her face as she told me to go to the principal’s office with the aide. Never in all my years of school had I ever been sent to the principal’s office.   I was too scared to even wonder what I had done wrong as the office girl walked me down the hall. Once inside Mr. Rainey’s office, I saw a couple of people standing there including a strange man dressed in a dark suit.  I remember he looked rather ominous. He asked me my name and when I told him, he handed me a post card, asking me if I had ever seen it before.  I recognized it as a card I had sent a week or so before to The Daily Worker, the newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, asking them to send me a couple of issues of their paper. I

As I write this, I am up against my deadline, trying to think what to write this week.  I don’t know which came first - my tendency to procrastinate until the last minute, or the fact that I’ve always worked best under pressure, but it is a combination of both that have defined my working life over the years. This has been a week of extremes in so many ways, and the television images of  violence, tragedy and human suffering beyond comprehension have overwhelmed me, both physically and mentally.   So when I opened this morning’s paper and read about the start of a new school year, I decided to take a completely different route this week and meander down memory lane with you, sharing stories with which many of you will probably identify. It was 1949 when I headed off to school.  I don’t remember the first day although I have a cute picture of me holding my little metal lunch  box, which I am sure would be worth a fortune today if I still had it. But I do remember the follow