Bloomberg on Gun Control

Bloomberg pressures President Obama to 'lead from the front' on gun control

By Jonathan Easley - 12/18/12 09:50 AM ET

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday urged President Obama to "lead from the front" on gun control regardless of whether any White House proposal for more restrictive laws gets passed by Congress.

Speaking on MSNBC, Bloomberg said it's not enough for Obama just to say something needs to be done. Instead he offered blunt advice on the nature of being an executive. He said the president, even before gun legislation is proposed or approved, could act immediately to crack down on rogue gun dealers and people who lie on gun applications. “We always have an agreement that something needs to be done, that’s a cover for nothing,” Bloomberg said on "Morning Joe." “Number one, it’s the president’s job to promote a plan that satisfies the needs of the country. He is the Commander-in-Chief – he’s the Consoler-in-Chief – but he’s the Commander-in-Chief. Whether the legislation that he proposes gets passed or not, that shouldn’t be his first consideration.”

Bloomberg, the co-chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has emerged as one of the foremost advocates of stricter gun laws in the wake  of last week's rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. that left 20 children and six adults dead.

Bloomberg argued that regardless of whether a proposal from the president had a chance of becoming law, it was Obama’s duty to get something out there.

“I’m not unsympathetic to the realities of getting things through Congress, I’m not unsympathetic to the fact that the press calls an elected official a failure if their legislation doesn’t get passed,” he continued.
“But you have to stop and think — what’s the difference between a legislator and an executive? A legislator’s job is to sort of split the baby … make sure everybody gets something. That’s not an executive’s job. The executive says, ‘this is what we’re going to do’ and then convinces people to come along. Leads from the front and not from the back.”

Specifically, Bloomberg pointed to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has been without a director for six years, and said Obama should fill the slot in a recess appointment if Congress threatened to block a potential nominee. He also said the federal government should go after rogue gun dealers, and should prosecute those who lie on gun applications.

On Sunday, President Obama gave a personal and emotional speech in Newtown at an interfaith vigil for friends and families of the victims. The president didn’t specifically call for new gun-control legislation, but signaled he would support an effort pledged by Democratic lawmakers to restrict the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity clips of ammunition.

“In the coming weeks I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens from law enforcement, mental health professionals to parents and educators in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” Obama said.

On Monday, the White House looked to mobilize public support for the president’s efforts by using the Obama campaign’s email list, sending supporters a message directing them to a video of the president’s speech.

In the email, senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod called on supporters to “consider how each of us can play a part in making our country worthy of the memory of those little children.”

Also on Monday, the president directed Vice President Joe Biden to lead members of the Cabinet in proposing measures to help reduce gun violence.

Here is Don Lemon on guns and my letter to President Obama on gun control

Here is Don Lemon on guns:

I sent and e-mail to President Obama about Don Lemon.....

Dear President Obama:  I think you may know Don Lemon from CNN.  I admire him very much.  I am sending you a link about his thoughts on gun control.  I do not like guns and I do not want to ever carry a gun.  I think you are doing a very, very good job, particularly on health care which is a difficult problem--health care should be a right of everyone but then the problem is paying for it--not putting the cost to a business or raising taxes.  I have written about you in my blog, The Ronnie Republic, many times...Ronnie is my dog.   Good luck to you and keep up the good work.   chloe louise
http://theronnierepublic.blogspot.com/2012/12/hee-is-don-lemon-on-guns.html

e-mail to President Obama........this is the e-mail form on the White House website...it is very easy to use if you want to send a message to President Obama.

Monday, Oct 8, 2012 2:48 PM UTC

copied from SALON.......recommended from KNAPP'S NEWS listed on the COAST TO COAST website......cl

“Killing Kennedy”: Bill O’Reilly wimps out

Believe it or not: Bill O'Reilly once showed guts reporting on JFK. His new insta-history shows a bulldog gone weak

By David Talbot

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Topics: Books, Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, John F. Kennedy, Bill O'Reilly Killing Kennedy, Entertainment News

Commentator Bill O'Reilly checks himself out before an interview at the Republican National Convention. (Credit: Reuters/Lisa Miller)

Once upon a time, Bill O’Reilly had balls when it came to investigating the Kennedy assassination. Back in 1991 — as a reporter for the tabloid TV news show, “Inside Edition” – O’Reilly had the guts to track the epic crime all the way into the dark labyrinth of the CIA. Following up on the important work done by investigators for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late ‘70s, O’Reilly boldly told his “Inside Edition” audience that there were “crucial” links between alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and the CIA. O’Reilly also reported that the CIA had infiltrated the office of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who brought the only criminal case in the JFK assassination to trial, in an effort to sabotage Garrison’s investigation.
That was then – when O’Reilly was a scrappy reporter for low-budget syndicated TV. But now, of course, he’s BILL O’REILLY – Fox News icon, a lavishly paid centerpiece of the Murdoch empire. Everything he says   – every windy pontification and dyspeptic remark – is writ LARGE. He can no longer afford to have the courage of his suspicions. In O’Reilly’s new ideological mold, the CIA is not the incubator of an unspeakable crime against American democracy – it’s the defender of the greatest nation in the world.
And so we have the Fox News star’s latest instant bestseller, “Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot,” co-written by Martin Dugard, who collaborated with O’Reilly on his earlier runaway success, “Killing Lincoln.” There is almost nothing in this Kennedy for Beginners book that indicates O’Reilly once did some original research on this murky and still deeply haunting subject. Most of this surprisingly dumbed-down book is a biographical rehash of the Kennedy story that will contain nothing new for even casual readers of People magazine and viewers of Kennedy soap opera biopics over the years. Once again, we get the story of JFK’s PT-109 heroics in the South Pacific; the lurid tales of Jack’s womanizing and Jackie’s anguish; the requisite cameos of Sinatra, Marilyn and the Mob; the familiar snapshots of a deeply disgruntled Lyndon Johnson, continually humiliated by the Kennedy brothers and their elite Harvard crowd. None of this is worth the book’s $28 price of admission.

When it comes to the assassination of President Kennedy, these days Bill O’Reilly embraces the lone nut theory, pinning sole blame on Lee Harvey Oswald. But his case against Oswald is feeble, and he’s obviously still haunted by the suspicions of the younger, freer Bill O’Reilly. In “Killing Kennedy,” he can’t help returning to those earlier suspicions, in fleeting moments of the book, as if darting a tongue at a nagging tooth.
O’Reilly floats the name Allen Dulles, the CIA spymaster who became deeply embittered toward Kennedy when the president fired him in the wake of the spy agency’s disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. He also throws out the name Curtis LeMay, the Strangelovian Air Force chief who was willing to risk doomsday by launching preemptive nuclear attacks on Cuba and the Soviet Union – and who considered JFK weak for putting the brakes on the military. And he considers the Mafia, whose godfathers expected lenient treatment from the Kennedy administration, after their cozy relationship with family patriarch Joe Kennedy, but instead came under relentless pressure from the morally fervent young attorney general, Robert F. Kennedy.
But, in the end, O’Reilly returns to the safe path, following the hapless young ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald on his trail toward infamy. O’Reilly cuts back and forth between the JFK story line and Oswald’s. If his portrayal of Kennedy is at least reassuringly conventional, his portrait of the accused assassin is hopelessly muddled and confusing. O’Reilly tries to make a case for Oswald as a “crack shot,” a man supposedly capable of pulling off the magical act of marksmanship in Dealey Plaza. But then he acknowledges that Oswald couldn’t even hit an easy sitting target, when he allegedly took an errant shot at former Army general Edwin Walker, while the reactionary military man was huddled over his taxes in his Dallas home.
O’Reilly seems intent on building a profile of Oswald as a bitter loser who resented JFK for everything from his sex appeal to his war on Castro’s Cuba. But, in the end, O’Reilly – who employs a weird use of the present tense that is more corny than dramatic — concedes that “Oswald does not hate the president … in fact, Oswald would very much like to emulate JFK.” O’Reilly observes that Oswald was so smitten by Kennedy that he checked out JFK biographies and the president’s bestseller, “Profiles in Courage,” from the New Orleans Public Library.
Predictably, O’Reilly then makes a stab at tying Oswald into a vague communist plot. “Castro definitely wants [Kennedy] dead,” he flatly asserts, without offering a shred of evidence. In fact, in the months before the president’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, Kennedy was sending out peace feelers to the Cuban leader, to the great alarm of Washington national security hard-liners when they found out. As news of JFK’s violent death reached Havana, a deeply unnerved Castro blurted out, “Everything is changed,” according to a French journalist who was interviewing him at the time. Castro predicted that the post-Kennedy U.S. government would make life much tougher for him.
In the end, O’Reilly is at a loss to explain Lee Harvey Oswald. The Fox News anchor is clearly unsettled by the fact that Oswald never proudly took credit for the assassination, as do most slayers of kings and presidents, including John Wilkes Booth (“Sic semper tyrannis!”), the villain of his last book. In contrast, Oswald proclaimed his innocence to the end, shouting out to reporters in the Dallas police station, “I’m just a patsy!” O’Reilly finds the remark “tantalizing,” but does nothing to follow it up.
O’Reilly continues to be intrigued by a key player in the Oswald story, an elegant, White Russian, globetrotting oilman named George de Mohrenschildt.  In his new book, O’Reilly writes that de Mohrenschildt “may have CIA connections.” But back in his “Inside Edition” days, the TV newsman was more definitive, calling him “a crucial link between the CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald.” In fact, de Mohrenschildt was a CIA contract agent with long family ties to Allen Dulles – the man who perhaps looms largest in the Kennedy assassination drama. Even after he was fired by JFK as CIA director in 1961, Dulles continued to play a subterranean role in U.S. intelligence that was unknown by Kennedy. And following the assassination, Dulles took the dominating role in the Warren Commission investigation, carefully guiding the panel away from CIA-related areas he found too sensitive.
Many Kennedy assassination researchers have concluded that de Mohrenschildt acted as Oswald’s CIA “baby sitter,” when the young man returned to Texas from the Soviet Union, after a “defection” that observers in the U.S. embassy in Moscow found oddly “staged.” Later, de Mohrenschildt introduced Oswald and his Russian wife, Marina, to another young Dallas couple, Michael and Ruth Paine, whose family also had deep personal and business connections to Dulles. It was Ruth Paine who would find Oswald his job in the Texas Book Depository a month before the gunfire erupted in Dealey Plaza.
O’Reilly waits until the end of the book to break his only bit of news. In the afterword, he reveals that in March 1977, as a young TV reporter, he tracked de Mohrenschildt to a home in swanky Palm Beach, Fla., and was knocking on the door to interview him when a shotgun blast exploded inside. Authorities later declared that the mysterious de Mohrennschildt, who had been subpoenaed to testify by the House Assassinations Committee and was a figure of growing interest in the JFK case, had taken his own life. But some assassination researchers who looked into de Mohrenschildt’s death, like attorney Mark Lane, insisted that the former CIA asset had been silenced because he knew too much. Again, Bill O’Reilly – the tough guy who prides himself on his bulldog news instincts – leaves this story dangling. He has nothing new to add to this perplexing Kennedy footnote.
In a reader’s note that prefaces “Killing Kennedy,” O’Reilly comments that the tragedy of John F. Kennedy is “somewhat personal for me … my Irish-Catholic family had deep emotional ties to the young president and his family.” But there is nothing to indicate the tribal toughness of the Irish in this weak and limp effort. O’Reilly’s book simply exploits the public’s powerful curiosity about the assassination without offering any fresh insights into the monumental crime. With friends of the Kennedy family like Bill O’Reilly, who needs enemies?

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Salon founder David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years,” and most recently, “Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love.”

• By Tom Bryant

Stone ageless: 20,000 fans go wild as Mick, Keith, Ronnie and Charlie mark 50 years

26 Nov 2012 00:00

The sprightly legends – who average 68 year of age – kicked off with I Wanna Be Your Man in a blistering set

50 not out: Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones

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The Rolling Stones strode on stage to celebrate 50 years as a band last night and got 20,000 fans rocking.
The sprightly legends – who average 68 year of age – kicked off with I Wanna Be Your Man in a blistering set including Paint It Black, Wild Horses and Gimme Shelter with R&B’s Mary J Blige.
Strutting Mick Jagger, wearing black skinny trousers and a fedora at London’s O2 Arena, said: “What a year it’s been for British celebration. The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. We didn’t do that.
“The Olympics. We didn’t do that either. James Bond – we didn’t do the song for that. But we’re glad we here tonight.”
Mick also joked about controversy over ticket prices, which ranged from £95 to £950. “Everyone all right in the cheap seats?” he asked. “But they are not really cheap are they, that’s the trouble.”

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The Rolling Stones: First night at the 02 Arena

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 The foursome of Mick on vocals, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood on guitar and Charlie Watts on drums were joined by ex members Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor.
The legends are due to play another show at the venue on Thursday and three more in the US. But a source said: “Given the demand is sky-high and last night’s fireworks, extra dates are looking more likely by the minute.”
And Keith said recently: “My experience is that once the juggernaut starts rolling, it ain’t gonna stop.”
The band, who have this year produced photo book The Rolling Stones 50 in collaboration with the Mirror and written two new singles, are reportedly getting £15.7million for the five shows.
It’s been five years since their last tour. Last week Ronnie revealed they were still trying to decide which songs to play.
He said: “We’ve been thinking long and hard about the setlist but still haven’t finalised it. You forget how hard it is.”
There are still tickets on sale to see The Rolling Stones on Thursday night here.
- To order your copy of The Rolling Stones 50 book, call the Mirror Bookshop on 0871 8036772.


copied from THE MIRROR

MIck Taylor back with the Stones--Mick Taylor Predicts More Rolling Stones Rocking Ahead

Mick Taylor Predicts More Rolling Stones Rocking Ahead

by Gary Graff, Detroit  |   December 14, 2012 5:30 EST

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copied from Billboard.......

As the Rolling Stones prepare to wrap their 50 And Counting "tour" with Saturday night's pay-per-view show in Newark, N.J., former guitarist Mick Taylor -- a guest at four of the five concerts -- predicts we'll be seeing more of the group in the probably near future.

"I think the Stones have always done things their own way, and they will always continue to do things their own way," Taylor, who was with the Stones from 1969-74, tells Billboard. "I think everybody is having a good time on stage. It's more than just nostalgia. I think they just feel re-energized and possibly very enthusiastic about doing things in the future. I just have an intuitive feeling that if they want to do some more shows, they can. There's no reason why they shouldn't be able to."

ROLL WITH IT: More Stones • Bklyn Gets What It Wants • Review of London Concert • Q&A With Mick, Keith • Rare Clip of Stones Riot

Taylor -- who recorded some new guitar parts for the 2010 expanded re-release of "Exile on Main Street" -- acknowledges that he "had my doubts" about how the Stones would hold up on stage these days, and how he'd fit in with them. But he says that any concerns were dispelled after rehearsing for the two shows at London's O2 Arena in November. "It's been really amazing, thrilling and exciting," he notes. "It's been great to play with the band again. I still get the same feeling that I used to get when we played on stage before. I'm a lot more outgoing and not quite as shy as I used to be, so in that respect it's different. I feel re-energized by the experience, too."

Taylor joined the group for "Midnight Rambler" on the shows he's played so far, recalling that "it was always one of the highlights of the shows during my tenure with the Stones in the 70s." And he's enjoying its current incarnation with three guitarists (himself, Keith Richards and Ron Wood). "We didn't even think about it; in a strange way all three guitars kind of blend seamlessly into each other, especially if the sound is really good on stage," Taylor says. "It's one of the longest songs we play at the moment, and it gives Mick (Jagger) the opportunity to play some blues harmonica, which he's very good at."

Taylor says the Stones began working on "Can You Hear Me Knocking" before Thursday's show in New Jersey, but he wasn't sure if it would be performed at Saturday's show. The "One More Shot" pay-per-view concert begins at 9 p.m., with Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga and the Black Keys also scheduled to make guest appearances.

On his own, Taylor has been working on "a stack of songs I'd like to record," which he plans to get back to after wrapping up with the Stones. But while he's not sure what his old band will be doing next year, he's "absolutely" will to play more shows if the call comes. "I'm up for 150 percent, yes," he says. "We weren't thinking about 50 years back when I was (in the band). We were living in the moment...and I'm really enjoying the moment right now."

Jimmy Miller/ Judy Miller...who is Mr. Jimmy?

Who is Mr. Jimmy?

 

Judith Miller

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For other people named Judith Miller, see Judith Miller (disambiguation).

Judith Miller
Judith Miller
Born	January 2, 1948 (age 64) New York City, New York, U.S.
Residence	United States
Occupation	Journalist, columnist, author

Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948) is an American journalist, formerly of the New York Times Washington bureau. Her coverage of Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion generated much controversy.^[1] A number of stories she wrote while working for The New York Times later turned out to be inaccurate or simply false.^[2][3][4][5]
Miller was later involved in disclosing Valerie Plame's identity as CIA personnel. When asked to name her sources, Miller invoked reporter's privilege and refused to reveal her sources in the CIA leak. Miller retired from her job at the New York Times in November 2005. Later she was a contributor to the Fox News Channel and a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute. She is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.^[6] On December 29, 2010, numerous media outlets reported that she had signed on as a contributing writer to the conservative magazine Newsmax.^[4][7]

Contents 1 Early life and education 1.1 Anthrax hoax victim 1.2 Islamic charities search leak 2 New York Times career: 2002–2005 3 Failure to report source controversy 4 After The New York Times 5 Contempt of court 6 Media commentary 7 Books by Miller 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Early life and education

Born in New York City to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother, Judith Miller grew up in Miami and Los Angeles, where she graduated from Hollywood High School. Her father, Bill Miller, was the owner of a night club in New Jersey and later in Las Vegas.^[8] Her sister Susan has a degree in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her half-brother Jimmy Miller^[8] was a record producer during the late 1960s and early 1970s, working in support of the Rolling Stones, Traffic, the Spencer Davis Group and Delaney and Bonnie, among others.
Judith Miller attended Ohio State University where she was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. She graduated from Barnard College in 1969 and received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 1971, while at Princeton, Miller traveled to Jerusalem to research a paper. She became fascinated with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and spent the rest of the summer traveling for the first time to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. As a correspondent for The Progressive and National Public Radio, Miller turned her academic interest into a professional one, traveling to the region and cultivating a network of sources.^{[citation needed]} In 1993, she married Jason Epstein, an editor and publisher.

copied from wiki.......

Pomegranates and Roses recognised by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

The National > Lifestyle > Blogs > Bites > Pomegranates and Roses recognised by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

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Pomegranates and Roses recognised by Gourmand World Cookbook Awards

Emily Shardlow   |  December 12, 2012

Congratulations to Dubai based chef and author Ariana Bundy, whose cookbook Pomegranates and Roses, My Persian Family Recipes recently won the Best Asian Cookbook Award in the UK section of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2012.
Pomegranates and Roses will now qualify for the Gourmand Best in the World Competition, the results of which will be announced on the 23rd February 2013 at the annual awards ceremony in Paris.
I have a copy at home and am convinced that this is a book to savour and pore over, as well as cook from. It’s filled with whimsical illustrations, elegantly styled photographs, tales of Bundy’s family history and life in Iran and also provides a wealth of information about traditional Persian food.
The recipes meanwhile are generous, thoughtful and although relatively simple, require the cook to add spices with a delicate hand and be aware of unani, which is the balancing of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ ingredients. The results meanwhile are great – I have had particular success with shirin polo (sweet rice with orange peel, carrots, almonds and saffron).
Pomegranates and Roses is widely available in bookshops across the UAE and would make a really lovely present for a keen cook.

how I made my really cute PIGGY PILLOWCASES--my sewing obsession

Well, first I went to the quilting class of Kathy Green---one of my sewing heroes...

then I saw the barnyard pig fabric...one of the other students was making a pillowcase...

I felt as if I would expire if I could not have that fabric....so I immediately went to Rosie's Calico Cupboard and bought it...It was about 8 dollars a yard...100% cotton.

I used the pillowcase pattern Kathy gave us in class...it is all over you tube...it is basically the burrito technique with french seams...it is very simple.,,,(after I cut it incorrectly and had to re-cut it so the pigs would be right side up on the bed.)

I had the lace from a purchased table runner....and now I am trying to sell them....or use them for a wall hanging....anything to just keep talking about them because they are soooooo cute.

to purchase the cute pigs go to.........www.chloetoo.com......


or purchase right here with paypal....it's the same thing.


one barnyard pillowcase..........19.00

two barnyard pillowcases.........35.00

tax and shipping are included



cl

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---

This is copied from THE NATIONAL

An Iraqi in Paris: a lifetime of movement, forced and long-dreamt

Nick March

Jul 15, 2011 

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Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/an-iraqi-in-paris-a-lifetime-of-movement-forced-and-long-dreamt#ixzz2F2rV8k4O
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Iraq in the early months of 1979. Saddam Hussein is circling endlessly around Baghdad, building his influence, tightening his grip on the mechanisms of power, ready to seize complete control of the country within a matter of months. Indeed, tomorrow (July 16), marks the 32nd unhappy anniversary of the occasion when he became the nation's leader.

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• Book reviews
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• Books essays

Meanwhile, in Al-Habbaniyah, a short distance west of Baghdad, Samuel Shimon is dreaming of Hollywood. Shimon is in his early twenties, a frustrated filmmaker desperate to escape the prospect of life under Saddam. To do so, he has a breathtakingly simple plan. He will make his way to the US, where he will carve out his fortune as a movie director.
Three decades later, he has yet to make good on that plan.
Instead, his flight from Iraq took him first to Damascus, then onwards to Amman, Beirut, Nicosia, Cairo and Tunis before, in 1985, he found himself as a refugee in Paris. He would stay there for more than a decade, before upping sticks once again, this time to London in 1996, where he has since settled.
What he experienced in the French capital would provide all the material Shimon needed to write and later publish An Iraqi in Paris, his somewhat autobiographical novel.
It is a work that was almost overwhelmingly well-received when first published six years ago in both Arabic and English and was later nominated for the Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Literary Reportage in 2006 and longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award the following year. It is also a funny, charming, episodic work that has recently been repackaged and republished in English by Bloomsbury Qatar.
Shimon, who I meet in an Abu Dhabi hotel, says this new edition is far more faithful to the Arabic original than the previous English-language version, which had been the handiwork of six different translators.
"It is only one now and I am very happy," he says, referring to the collaborative efforts of Piers Amodia and Christina Phillips, who share translation credits on the Bloomsbury Qatar version.
"I used to write chapters for the book and then would publish them periodically in newspapers. These were printed over a period of 10 years and, consequently, there were many different translators. This new translation is exactly like the Arabic. It is more consistent."
He is an engaging and charismatic figure, a natural if rapid-fire raconteur. A conversation with Shimon moves quickly from place to place, zigzagging in an instant from Iraq to Beirut to London to Hollywood. His mind brimming with ideas, his speech ready to break off at a tangent, as another thought springs up almost magically in front of him. You struggle to keep up with him, but regardless, you have fun trying to hang onto his coat-tails.
He is many things then, but not remotely sentimental - at least not for the country he left behind all those years ago.
When I ask him if he would like to go back to Iraq, he says, without pause, that "I've never been back. I don't have nostalgia. I don't feel like I need to go back. Many people want to go home, but I don't. The Iraq I left is not the same country that it is today." This is the romantic turned realist.
But where is home? He does not answer. In a sense he doesn't need to, home is London and has been since the mid-Nineties. Instead, his imagination is moving again, his words heading west to the land of opportunity.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/an-iraqi-in-paris-a-lifetime-of-movement-forced-and-long-dreamt#ixzz2F2qlLPtt
Follow us: @TheNationalUAE on Twitter | thenational.ae on Facebook

Page 2 of 2"I was telling my wife I would like to go to Los Angeles. I said to her the other day: 'I am 55 now, I really want to live in LA for a few months.' I am dying for movies. I have to go. I learnt at six years old how to tell stories. When you are that young and you watch American films, you become a dreamer." This is the realist reverting to the romantic once more.
His wife is Margaret Obank, the publisher of Banipal, an independent magazine devoted to modern Arab literature, on which Shimon serves as editor. He jokes that working with his partner is a "big problem", before opening up his heart. "She is a wonderful person. I always like to show her I love her more and more," he says. "We are very good friends. She works too much. In that way we are similar."
First published in 1998, Banipal marked its 40th edition this year with an extremely topical issue entirely devoted to Libyan fiction. The edition, which had been in preparation for months, arrived just as crisis deepened in the North African country, demonstrating Banipal's knack for being a relevant and timely voice on the Arabic literary scene.
But it has not been without a struggle to make that voice heard. Shimon wrote of this in his revealing introduction to the Libyan fiction issue: "I remember some mean Arab intellectuals spreading a few rumours here and there, saying that publishing a second issue would not be possible. When the second issue was published, they said the third issue would not be. But the magazine continued on its journey." He is nothing if not determined.
He enlarges on this during our interview. "I came from the street. When we started Banipal they said I was a dreamer. They said: 'How are you going to make money from it?' People said we cannot continue. But we have been doing it for 14 years non-stop."
They won't be stopping anytime soon, either. Next up, in October, is an issue on Emirati literature, supported by the Emirates Foundation, which explains his presence in the capital in the heat of the summer. "I tell you the truth," he says, "I like the Emirates; I feel happy here, I feel quiet."
Quiet maybe, but always alive to possibility. By his own admission he works 24 hours a day. He does so, because "I don't have anything else. Only making magazines, reading in Arabic. When I am doing these things I am very happy. I feel I am mixing literature with cinema in my mind. I like that and I cannot separate it anymore. I have many stories you see, I can tell you hundreds of stories."
His next story will be his next book, The Militant Lingerie. "It will be funny, interesting and dangerous," he says, another autobiographical novel that, this time, will lean heavily on the period the author spent in Lebanon.
"It is about this young Iraqi guy who comes to Beirut during the civil war. He meets this young lady and he falls in love. It is a beautiful story about relationships and revolution," and with that, Shimon the film director, the dreamer, the author starts to map out another scene in his mind.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/an-iraqi-in-paris-a-lifetime-of-movement-forced-and-long-dreamt#ixzz2F2rFkun0
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