This update is about a fundamental and a very basic characteristic of human nature, the ability to be charitable and benevolent and to share with you a message from one of my best friends and the story of a stranger who helped us during one of our darkest moments.  I will try to explain some of the fundamental aspects of this captivating human characteristic, for example why is someone ready to give and help more than someone else, and is it genetically inherited or is it acquired?  I was inspired to write about this subject after attending few days ago a gathering in a nearby public library to hear a young very smart writer who talking about a book she has written in memory of her dead father and the feelings and understandings she experienced after losing him.  The book is called 1,000 MITZVAHS.  Mitzvah is a Hebrew word which means a moral deed performed as a religious duty, it also came to express an act of human kindness.

On the 26^th of November 2007, I updated this blog by a piece which was called my journey in which I talked about my life which began in 1934 up to November 2007 when we arrived in MI/USA.  The four years in Iraq and in Jordan when we were there were very difficult, the care for my son required so much in time and effort.  All of which encouraged us to apply for the American plan for resettlement, which we did and we were accepted after 8 months, we arrived in Michigan on the 14th of November 2007.  The more than four years we spent in this country since arriving were an improvement compared to what we had before, but they were not ideal but we didn’t complain, we had more pressing worries, my son was in a very serious condition which forced us to remain at his bedside because the medical crises to which he was very prone to and necessitated taking him to the nearby Beaumont Hospital when they happened.  At Beaumont Hospital, we received a great deal of help and support from a wonderful number of people whose moral and psychological support was a great help during the years of our son’s suffering.  Today, I am going to talk about two of these wonderful people from the hospital and another one from the media.  I have selected these three not only because of our great friendships but because their lives provided a source of a tremendous moral and psychological help during our years of suffering during my unfortunate son’s tragedy. The three are a nurse, a social worker and a radio journalist.

During the early hours of the 19th of March 2003, president Bush was broadcasting to the world the news that he has ordered the American military to start executing operation Iraqi freedom which was to remove Saddam Hussein from power because of his possible links to the Sept. 11 perpetrators  and to Osama bin laden and  the huge threats his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction was posing to the world and the US in particular and to free the Iraqi people from his tyranny  which has lasted 3 decades and to help the Iraqi people start on the greatly needed reconstruction of their country and the rejuvenation of its moribund infrastructure and institution. The military operation lasted 19 days at the end of it Saddam was toppled, his regime in tatters and the Americans sitting in his presidential palace and within few more days to be in control of the whole country.

Loosing the late Ted Kennedy’s safe senate seat to the Republicans was an astounding shock to the Democrats, it suddenly torpedoed their supermajority in the upper house which allowed them until then to pass their bills and their other legislative initiatives relatively easily, it reflected very negatively on their fortunes.  During the upcoming mid term congressional election, it was also looked upon by many people as a kind of vote of confidence in the president himself, the way he was handling his job and his ability to cope with the glut of foreign and domestic problems he is facing, and one of the earliest casualties of the Democrat’s misfortune was the two health care reform bills the one in the House and the one in the Senate. Which had by that time and after a lot of efforts reached a stage when they had to be reconciled into one final version which would then go to the President for his signature.  But for the time being it had to go to the shelf only to emerge few weeks later as the main topic of the discussions in a meeting which was suggested by thePpresident, to be presided by him in the presence of the Democratic and Republican leaderships of congress plus few high officials from certain government departments which are concerned with health care reform, the President called the meeting he was convening, a summit.