Around the pool, the increasingly frustrated, mostly Lebanese Americans exchange rumors and information gleaned from never-ending cellphone conversations with we don’t know who: relatives in the south, friends back in America, people who’ve already made it out. Friends who’ve spoken to their congressman. Guys who work at CNN. The list goes on. The news maddening, incomplete, incorrect—alternately hopeful, terrifying and dismaying. * What is clear—as far as we’re concerned—from all sources is that there is no official, announced plan. No real advice, or information, or public exit strategy or timetable.

In June 1989, I and about 15 other American students where in Dalian, China (stuck you could say—indeed I was on that last plane for Americans out to Hong Kong about a week after) as the TianAnMen massacre happened. Clueless and cutoff (although one of our own was actually in Beijing at the time and kept us updated via fax as to the situation as best he knew it) we were at times anxious, calm, confused (Tibet had declared independence—-the PLA mounted a coup d’etat—-Zhao Ziyang had gained control) but always interested. This very intense article by FoodNetwork staple Anthony Bourdain…mirrors our exact feeling at that time…a time and experience that has and continues to influence me to this day.

Watching Beirut die