Zcom_simple

Hello,

Blogs are a familiar feature on the internet - where users post content in an accumulating manner, with comments, and search options, etc. They facilitate expression and exploration, and via attached comments, also debate and synthesis.


Reading and
Navigating Blogs

Our blogs are quite powerful. Each writer can post, as is typically the case. Sustainers who have the option can also post, however. All Blogs appear in the blog system, and sometimes also in content boxes the top page of ZNet - and always via the left menu of the top page - and can be found via searches, etc.

Commenting on blogs follows the blogs, attached at the bottom, and blog comments, like all others, are also visible in many places that show comments including in the forum system. In addition, the entire blog system gathers content for everyone - but one can look at the accumulating content in many ways.

  • For example one can look at one writer's efforts - so one is seeing what is effectively a blog system for that one writer, or Sustainer.
  • One can also look at the content by topic, seeing blogs that are tagged as being about a certain topic - or place, as well. Thus, when doing that, it is a blog system about a topic, or a place, with many contributors.
  • One can look at only writer blogs, or only sustainer blogs, as well.
  • One can look at blogs for particular Groups, too.

All this is easily done using the left menu. Searches allow even more variables and refinements.


Creating Blog Posts

If you are a Sustainer with permission, and are logged in, you will see a link in the left menu for you to post a blog - and you can use that to post one, and then tag it various ways (such as with a topic or place, or a group tag), and once you do, it is in the system with you as the author.

You can also use the console button to the left to post a blog - anytime and from anywhere in the site, as long as you are logged in.

Meanwhile, enjoy the blogs - and, by the way, if you are a Free Member or a Sustainer with a ZSpace page, of course you can put one or more content boxes on it, pulling blog links of any sort you may want to filter for, for example, by you or by your friends or by others - and by topic, about places, for groups, etc.

Blogs

The_final_me_

Michelle Peterson's Blog

Web Address: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/beggiani
Bio: (More)

All Peterson Blogs

Prospects for a New Government for Lebanon

By Michelle Peterson at Jan 25, 2011


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Prospects for a New Government in Lebanon


Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim resistance group, political party, and military force, took down the Lebanese government under Saad Hariri on Wednesday, January 12, 2011, in protest of possible indictments of Hezbollah members for the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, Saad’s father. This Monday, Lebanon’s parliament voted on the election of the next prime minister. Hezbollah had 68 votes out of 128 votes, therefore winning the election. The other 60 votes went to Hariri. To understand the complicated nature of such an election, I will give a little background.

There is an established arrangement for the set-up of the Lebanese government: the prime minister should be Sunni Muslim, the president should be Maronite Christian, the parliamentary speaker should be Shia Muslim. If you look at the former government under prime minister Saad Hariri, he is Sunni Muslim, the standing president, Michel Suleiman, is Maronite Christian, and the standing parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri, is Shia Muslim. Now, with Hezbollah’s prime minister elect, Najib Miqati, being Shia Muslim, the illusion of balance that existed will be gone. When the election process is complete, Hezbollah will have control of the Lebanese government. Hariri has already stated that he will play no role in a government ruled by Hezbollah.

The Sunni Muslim population is enraged. Many took to the streets in violent protests and demonstrations in support of Hariri, and out of anger towards Hezbollah.  The protestors burned what they could, including vehicles owned by the press. They were mostly in the northern city of Tripoli, which has the largest population of Sunni Muslims. The protestors are calling it the “Day of Rage”. Hariri has been asking his followers to stop the violent protests and demonstrations.

One of the most significant reasons Hezbollah wants control of the government is to have a government that will go against the Special Lebanese Tribunal (SLT) investigating Rafiq Hariri’s assassination. They want to take down the SLT in order to protect their members from any indictments. They have not been indicted yet, but they are not naive enough to think they won’t be. If Hezbollah members are indicted, many fear an outbreak of violence. Considering Lebanon’s history of violence, it is by no means far-fetched. If it does happen, however, who will intervene to bring peace back to Lebanon? Probably no one.
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