"Feras’s home, which he shares with his wife and nine children, comprises four connected 2,400-year-old caves and an adjoining tent."

"Just a 10-minute walk away are the remains of Petra’s grand temple and its colonnaded main street.... The caves occupied by the Bdoul were originally an integral part of a wealthy trading city – the thriving capital of the Nabateans for 500 years before it was annexed by the Romans in around AD100 and eventually abandoned three centuries later.... Officials charged with the management and development of Petra say the Bdoul who still live on the site are there illegally. They contend... that their use of the caves as homes, animal shelters, shops and storerooms risks causing irreparable harm. 'If we want to preserve the integrity of the site for future generations then we have to stop the use of the caves for damaging activities,' said Dr Fares Braizat, the chief commissioner of the Petra Development and Tourism Region Authority. '... it is illegal for anyone to live in or use the archaeological monuments within the [site of Petra] for whatever purposes.'..."

From "'I can’t survive in a house': Petra’s Bedouin resist moves to evict them from ancient cave homes/Plans to improve the world heritage site for tourists put its living culture at risk, say locals and campaigners" (The Guardian).

There's a great "Fall of Civilizations" episode about Petra, here:

"King Abdullah cannot go along with it. He cannot survive the idea that he’s colluding on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It’s existential for him and his government."

Said Paul Salem, vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute, quoted in "Jordan’s King Faces a Bind as He Meets With Trump/King Abdullah II, a close U.S. ally dependent on aid from Washington, is confronting the president’s demands that he take in Palestinians from Gaza, a step the king’s domestic politics will not allow" (NYT).

Mr. Trump has reiterated his intention to expel Palestinians from the Gaza Strip as part of his plan for the United States to “own” the territory, and on Monday he suggested he could consider slashing aid to Jordan and Egypt if their governments refused to take in an estimated 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza.

"How's everything going? Good? Everybody happy? You're getting a little bit more access to your President than you did the last time. Slightly. Like by about 5,000 percent."

Our tireless President, on Air Force One last night:

 

It's hard to listen through the plane noise, but let me pick out a few things. Responding to a comment that he'd been "so nice" to Governor Newsom ("you know, 'Governor Newscum,'" he said:

I decided to be nice. It was nice that he came to the plane, honestly... and in the end you know we have the same goal. We want to take that catastrophe and make it as good as possible. We disagree on some things I guess he's not so set on water. I like water for putting out fires. I find it to be extremely good. A little old fashioned, but about the best thing that God has ever created for putting out fires....

Asked about the First Lady, who "seems to be taking a more public facing role," he said:

She felt badly about North Carolina. She felt very badly about California. Los Angeles. Got a lot of friends. I have a lot of friends in North Carolina and both, and she has a lot of friends in California, so she wanted to be with me.

 About TikTok:

As you know, I have the right to sell it or close it depending on what I think is best for the country....

Pushed on "a report... that you are putting together a deal with Oracle and outside investors to help them buy TikTok," he said:

"Destruction begins with small details. What is happening is not just a matter of food, but a way of mocking the people’s heritage."

"And when you mock the heritage of a people in this way, it is a prelude to trivializing what is most important and diluting or dissolving identity."

Wrote Abdul-Hadi al-Majali, quoted in "An Innovator Sold Jordan’s National Dish in a To-Go Cup. Controversy Ensued. Is 'mansaf in a cup' a novel way to enjoy the country’s most treasured delicacy, or an affront to its most hallowed traditions?" (NYT). 

Mansaf is a rice-and-mutton dish traditionally eaten from a large, shared platter using one's bare hand. We're told "Often, the sheep’s head is placed at the center of the platter. Its cheeks, eyes, brain and tongue are highly prized and intended for the table’s most important guest."

Perhaps the traditional style of eating is more important than the food itself, but does that mean you shouldn't eat the food without the traditional behavior, that it's a mockery to eat it in some other way? I can see why you might want to deprive people of the food unless they follow the tradition, because that would cause people who crave the food to slow down, gather together, and interact with each other. But it's hard to understand that eating the food — with a spoon — from a paper cup is mockery.

The only thing I could think of is if someone were to sell communion wafers for people to snack on like a roll of Necco wafers.

Jordan's King Abdullah — standing on a little box — does a press conference with Donald Trump.

You can see the whole thing here. There's much worth watching, including attention to the chemical attack in Syria. And the King speaks English — some might say better than Trump. I thought the long view, showing the radical difference in height, was interesting and don't mean to disparage short people or to trivialize the many serious topics under discussion.

ADDED: Made me think of the old comic strip, "The Little King":



Here's The Little King with Betty Boop:

Jordan's King Abdullah, speaking to the House Armed Services Committee, quoted something Clint Eastwood said in "Unforgiven."

Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. reported from what was a private meeting:

"He said there is going to be retribution like ISIS hasn't seen," said Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., a Marine Corps veteran of two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, who was in the meeting with the king. "He mentioned 'Unforgiven' and he mentioned Clint Eastwood, and he actually quoted a part of the movie."

Hunter would not say which part of "Unforgiven" the king quoted, but noted it was where Eastwood's character describes how he is going to deliver his retribution. There is a scene in the picture in which Eastwood's character, William Munny, says, "Any man I see out there, I'm gonna kill him. Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I'm not only going to kill him, I'm going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down."