Soon playing in New York

There was a big beef neighborhood quarrel in Beirut today. A real toodoo.

From AFP Beirut:

Two people, including a Hezbollah official, were killed in clashes between supporters of the Shia Muslim movement and partisans of a small Sunni group in Beirut yesterday, an army spokesman said. 
Police said the fighters were using shoulder-launched rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns in the fighting, which continued for some four hours and in which another three people were wounded. 
“A personal fight between a supporter of Hezbollah and another of Al Ahbash erupted just after 7pm in Beirut’s Burj Abi Haidar neighbourhood and escalated into a firefight in which two men were killed, one of whom has been identified as a member of Hezbollah,” the army spokesman said. 
“The army has intervened and is trying to restore calm in the area,” he said. 
A correspondent at the site of the clashes said eyewitnesses had identified the victim as Hezbollah official Mohamed Fawaz. 
Witnesses said the clash began as an argument between Fawaz and supporters of the Sunni group over a parking space near a mosque frequented by Al Ahbash. 
Gunfire and explosions could be heard as the fighting continued late into the evening in Burj Abi Haidar, an area in west Beirut considered a stronghold of parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri’s Shia Amal movement, which is allied with Hezbollah. 
An Amal partisan said that Amal members briefly joined the fight on Hezbollah’s side, but the party later issued a statement denying that claim. 
Troops cordoned off the area and were firing warning shots into the air as several Red Cross ambulances arrived at the site of the clashes. 
The fighting took place as Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah addressed an all-women Iftar. Nasrallah made no mention of the incident. 


When I was a kid it was fists and sometimes dirt clods escalating into rocks. Occasionally dads got into it but very rarely. I can honestly say that we never had much use for shoulder launched rocket propelled grenades in the neighborhood. Or machine guns. Wham-o slingshots were always big.


Apparently these guys in Beirut were arguing over a choice parking space near the mosque and things got a little out of hand. Wait until they have to deal with stalled afternoon traffic in New York City. These guys will really blow their stacks.


I think that these people are batshit crazy. I think that the world gives them pretty much a free pass in regards to this behavior. Oh, it's the fucking arabs, everybody knows that they are insane...


The most ridiculous line of reasoning goes like this: Tell me if you heard it already. If nasty americans don't allow the nice moslems to build their mosque and community center next to the Twin Towers site, impressionable and at risk arab youth are going to become extremists, feeling like Islam is under attack. Hello! If a little societal ire is directed at you because your people are implicated in and responsible for the most despicable manner of crimes against the innocent in decades, is that reason enough for your children to become barbarians? Sounds like very suspect parenting to me. You think people should love you or respect you?


Life is a precious commodity for most of us. It is an affront to our senses to see how cheap it has become in some cultures. Where is the censure in the islamic world for events like today's shootout? Or the constant mosque bombings in Iraq?  Or the targeting of the walkers on the haj?  Three dead over a parking space. Makes a lot of sense.