Standing in the Muqata, Yasser Arafat\’s compound in Ramallah, on his funeral day made me believe that we Palestinians must overcome a hurdle if we are to move forward.
Our youth face uncertainty, our people feel lost and beaten and our elders are sad to think that their children and grandchildren will share their same destiny — never to live in peace in an independent Palestinian state.
Before he was the Buddha, or Enlightened One, Prince Siddhartha lived a luxurious life behind the walls of his family castle. But each time he ventured out, the legend goes, he discovered the lame, the halt, the dying. His squire, Chandara, convinced him to ignore such things, as the world was full of suffering. Then his wife gave birth, and Siddhartha, at 29, was struck by the inexplicable mysteries of life and death. Late one night, he kissed his sleeping wife and newborn son goodbye and wandered out of the palace with Chandara to find the answer to how one overcomes sufferin
In \”Finding Ben: A Mother\’s Journey Through the Maze of Asperger\’s,\” (McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books, 2003) author Barbara LaSalle writes about her family\’s struggle to help her young son overcome a baffling neurological disorder and have a \”regular\” existence. Misdiagnosed and maladjusted, Ben Levinson was labeled as everything from learning disabled to emotionally disturbed and was even committed to a psychiatric ward before LaSalle, a marriage and family counselor, was able to correctly diagnose him with Asperger\’s Syndrome (AS).
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