You know jbello,"being there" is what really matters. It's spice in the stew of life!
It's taking in the sights,sounds,smells,temperature,breeze,etc that leave deep memories. Nothing can match it.
We are all so deep into the techno-age,'online life at a distance',that people are forgetting how to look each other in the eye,WITHOUT THREAT,or listen patiently to friendly conversation OR REALLY LAUGH WITH PEOPLE. We spend so much time 'tuned' into machines that we forget what real peace and quiet is,or how wondefully LOUD silence can be.When the power goes off,and the lights go off,that's when you find out HOW attention-deficit you really ARE,when you start going into techno-withdrawal symptoms, LOL!
For sure jbello,there's nothing to match "being there",amongst different people and cultures! And it's the only way to REALLY KNOW 'others',undestand them and realise that when the sun goes down,we are ALL THE SAME,warts and all! LOL!
Peace,Salaam, Shalom.
Cheers!
p.s. I will check out your blog!

Looks to me like the Arab States are seeing the handwriting on the wall (he, he, if you've ever been in Iran, it's not Grafiti, it's mainstream). Notice that Egypt not only opened the borders for the desperate residents of Gaza, but they are enthusiastically embracing a reinstatement of diplomatic relations with Iran. The Saudis wined and dined Ahmadinejad at Mecca this year. Iran and the Saudis are starting to involve themselves in Sub-Saharan African affairs where they are supporting local solutions.

Now we have the EU, someday we might see the IU (Islamic Union), or perhaps the UC (Islamic Crescent) as a united block of nations. Once Iran's Bourse is open, Dubai and Bahrain and Qatar will not be far behind. Maybe Iran will get become a permanent member of the SCO.

I have to laugh when you talk about Iran not suffering when the computers went down. I was recently there and the computers in the hotels were running Windows ME with spotty dialup internet connections. The good news was that I had to give up on-the-spot blogging and spend my time 'being there'. Plenty of time to process my notes when I got home, and I'm still working on it.
Anyone interested in a day to day account of being in Iran can find it at:
http://www.papillonweb.net/blog.

Wasn't that what Saddam was also on the point of doing before Bush went on his 'crusade',with his modern day 'Knights Templar'(Blackwater etc) into Iraq?
Saddam was about to switch FROM the dollar,TO the Euro for all his oil/business transactions? I seem to remember the ? book(I'll find it)saying that Monsieur Saddam had had enough of Bush and his ARBUSTO 'buck'and was turning to trade in the Euro?
I found that,at the time,a very illuminating point,similar to the undersea cables getting 'snipped',and NOW Iran increasing it's 'astro' science projects,JUST as Poland has agreed to host the U.S. Missile-Defense Shield 'party'.LOL!
I hope they don't have the bad taste to build it where the WW11 concentration camps used to be.
Depending on which point of view one has,that could be seen as a insult OR an honour to the dead.
Loch,when you say "denominations OTHER than the dollar",do you mean they'll accept sheckels too?

Iran plans to open their oil Bourse sometime this week, which is the week of the celebration of the 1979 Revolution. The Bourse will sell oil ONLY in denominations OTHER than the US Dollar.

The rest of the oil-producing nations in the Middle East have smelled the smoke in the theater of the Dollar Peg, and have mobbed the exits, only to find them locked.

Why did Bush visit all the oil-producing nations in the Gulf region? Peace has never been Mr. Bush's strong point. A little strong-arm tactics, perhaps? Something along the lines of, "Want an Islamic revolution here, buddy? Well, keep making trouble, and you'll get one!" Yep, an Islamic revolution would be a bad thing. no more Russian prostitutes and single-malt scotch for all the Shiekies...

It turns out that some of the countries hardest hit by the broken fiber-optic cables were the Gulf Countries. Iran , contrary to rumor, wasn't that badly affected. This was a clear warning to them. Whose economy doesn't run on computers these days? Imagine the UAE's computer system SHUT DOWN...it would ruin them! And anyone else as well! What about satellites, you ask? Why do you think Iran is sprinting to put one of their own up in space? But everyone else without a space program can't do that. They have to buy a subscription form someone to use the satellite, which makes that even more vulnerable than a an undersea cable. It just turns out that the US has a special team, equipped with a special submarine, whose sole job is to cut undersea communications cables.

Of course, such behavior by the US is desperate, back-to-the-wall stuff. It is just a matter of time before the Dollar is abandoned like the worthless toilet paper it really is... (What will Israel do then?????) when the exit doors are breached by even one nation, the rest will stampede out in a split second.