I know there is so much here, barefooted Melissa. That I will likely have to return with a better response. Like Stilli's.

But here's what comes to mind. And perhaps it will bear a cautionary tale as well:

Many years ago, when we very poor (I was teaching children to help put Mr. TheraP through grad school), friends of ours entrusted their daughter to us while they went to New Haven to find lodging for a job change. The children had known each other since they were babes in arms (literally). And one afternoon they were out playing wherever in the countryside they decided to go. Turned out it was the nearby creek. They came home covered in mud! We hosed them off outdoors - reveling in the fun they had obviously had.

Many years passed. It turned out their child had been sexually abused. Many years of therapy and college later, she was hit by a drunk driver and suddenly killed.

You never know what 2 children, covered in mud, might have underneath that mud. You can't tell if they are Jewish (yes, she was!) or not (our son was not, unless Mr. TheraP is of Marano blood, which indeed he might be). You can't tell if some tragedy has occurred in childhood, which never should have happened. You can't tell if they'll grow up or not, die young or not.

You simply have two children. Delighted to play (safely) in the mud. Not being reprimanded for that, but hosed off. Children who did not need to fear rockets or minefields or cluster bombs - but only homegrown abuse.

It's such a shame to stereotype!

I remember how easy it was to make friends in elementary school. A little harder in junior high.
Tougher in High School.

I just had a nice fellow drop a few light hearted comments on my post and somebody came and castigated him. Said to shoot his keyboard or some such.

Why? There was no racism or rancor in his comments.

A lot of the new friends I just made at this site as a newbie, have childish qualities. Not naivete, not ignorance, just more of a child in their writings.

Others think they are more sophisticated, more intelligent, more educated, more knowledgeable.
I have run into people in my life that I labeled as idiots but found out later, much to my embarrassment that they knew some things. Some things I did not know.

I see comments and replies that bother me from time to time:

What do you know anyway?

You are just another gd conservative, you hate everybody.

You are just another gd liberal with starry eyes and no real grasp of the realities around you.

Only an idiot would come to a conclusion like that.

Only a racist would think this way.

Only an uneducated person would proffer such an opinion.

Get some Pepto Bismol and your intestinal problems will away.

Some radio announcer would say, take that bone out of your nose, hang up and call me back when you have considered some things.

When we find racism, sexism, anti-gay comments, we must reply.

But I will jump the gun sometimes. I will make judgments about people based on one paragraph.
I will explode. I have gotten better since I arrived here some 2 or 3 three months ago.

We must treat people as we would like them to treat us. Not treat people as we deem they would treat us. There is a difference.

Missy. I like this post a lot. I would like to come back and rethink some things.

This is stream of consciousness, but I was trying to get out some feelings here.

Not to politicise such a well spoken (typed?) post but this brings to mind the line in Obama's Innagural about how the notions of tribe will one day dissappear. Would that it were so sooner not later ya know?

Great post! Rec'd

Nice post. Sooner or later those kids are going to have a spat. Have you ever noticed that parents don't necessarily get the whole picture?

When my kids were young, we would go on a family trip. My daughter, who was 10 years older than my son, would tease and pick at her brother just to get a rise out of him. Eventually it would work and, since he was less mature, he would come back scratching and picking at her more ferociously.

My wife would be oblivious to all this until, suddenly my daughter was not feeling so good about the little battle she had unleashed and was calling, "MOM!" Then my wife would turn around and call down my son.

Happened every road trip.

Folks who aren't paying attention to the whole process often get it wrong.

Reading the threads tonight, over and over I'm breaking into laughter. As I ponder the issue of the resolution of conflicts, I had a moment of shattering clarity: What if humor could stop wars? I somehow think it would be hard to fight if people were laughing.

[full disclosure: I first posted this thought at ClosetLuddite's blog - but I can't attest to where I was when I first had the thought. Too bad... When you come up with the method to stop wars, you should recall that moment in every particular.]

I think the OP basically has it right. If you're an American (of any stripe) you're pretty much obligated to buy into the post-civil rights antitribal ideal.

Heck, you can't let yourself be seen in public in this country otherwise. Which is fine. I actually DO buy into that ideal, rather than faking it, so I don't mind at all.

However, what the OP doesn't realize is that the inhabitants of the middle East, of all religions, just aren't like that.

They are tribal. And proud of it. It's possible to read the Old Testament and come away with a powerful sense of Us against Them (it's probably a more honest reading than the one most evangelical Christians give it). Not only that, but Us means Our People and Their Descendants. Them is Everybody Else.

I'm not blaming Israel; they were dealt the hand they were dealt. Everyone was.

But until you get beyond the paradigm implicit in the original post, the idea that this is "just like America", and we can all get along if we just get the kids to play together, you'll never understand the mideast.

when they bury a loved one in that very sand.

http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/sufi/video/x6ab1b_yunus-emre-tasavvufi-sufi-music_lifestyle]http://www.dailymotion.com/relevance/search/sufi/video/x6ab1b_yunus-emre-tasavvufi-sufi-music_lifestyle

Dedicated to you, barefooted.