Kwtia

Because I find it super creeps..and because I've had too many of these on an empty stomach, I suddenly have the, normally depleted, energy to go through the news with the added (and decidedly strange) bonus of looking through the telephoto lens of a modern day Tunisian Cassandra...

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Hassan Charni predicted the deaths of Princess Diana, Yitzhak Rabin and a list of others...and he apparently predicted the Tsunami, hurricane Katrina, London's 7/7 and other disasters...all of which I thought... well, besides that 'it must be awful to be able to see tragedy before it happens as well as when it happens'...I thought, 'it's coincidence'...I mean how many things has he predicted that didn't happen..like this..and of course we all know the old and really overused phrase

كذب المنجمون ولو صدقوا

(overused in Kwt because so many people here are holed up with magic-dealers who read their coffee cups and concoct all sorts of potions they can stick in someone's panty drawer)..

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At this point, however, I would hate to be on Charni's tragic hit-list of visions...because when I heard the news in the wee hours of this morning that PM Ariel Sharon had suffered a major stroke and was paralysed...it reminded me of this:

"Israeli premier Ariel Sharon will withdraw from government next year and spend his remaining days in a wheelchair."

The Daily Star, 2004

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He also said that the person who replaces Sharon will be much worse.. Hanan Ashrawi on BBC News today said that there is likely to be a period of 'hard-line policies' in Israel now..

Charni also predicted a significant rise in bird flu this year, and the guardian says this today..

He has predictions for Syria, Iran, Europe and the US and you can take a look at them here and here...

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وقد اكون انا أو غيري من جمهوره في لحظات الراحة والبعد عن هموم الواقع الذي لايسر من الماء الى الماء في وطننا العربي الواسع، متى نقتنع نحن العرب بان حالتنا المتخلفة اسبابها الأولى المباشرة هي الاسباب الداخلية التي نحن وحدنا المسئولين عنها في مجالات السياسة وعلاقة الحاكم بالمحكوم وهشاشة اقتصادنا وهزال جامعاتنا ومؤسساتنا التربوية وعداواتنا العربية العربية وليست اسباب تردينا كامنة في دوران كوكب المريخ الذي تسبر اعماقه هذه الأيام مسابر بيجل الثاني الأميركية امام عيوننا المبهورة والمسحورة.
د. أحمد القديدي

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The above quote is an opinion piece from the Kwti paper Al-watan which is saying something

sort of like:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,

when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--

we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars:

as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;

knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance;

drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience ofplanetary influence;

and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on:

an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!

King Lear

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Finally, before I leave you..

From 'Soliloquy For Cassandra'

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It's me, Cassandra.

And this is my city covered with ashes.

And this is my rod, and the ribbons of a prophet.

And this is my head full of doubts.

...

Now I remember clearly-

how people, seeing me, broke off mid-sentence.

Their laughter died.

They moved away from each other.

Children ran to their mothers.

I didn't even know their vague names.

And that song about a green leaf--

nobody ever finished singing it in front of me.

I loved them.

But I loved them from a height.

from above life.

from the future.

Where it's always empty

and where it's easy to see death.

Wislawa Szymborska