Persiflage & Paroxysm

So Lebanon is 61st in the world in press freedoms out of 175 countries, according to the press freedom index. That’s not bad I suppose. PR-wise it’s a coup because we are “32 places ahead of Israel” as The Daily Star has reminded us, but why can’t we be in the top 20? Is that not a goal worth aiming for? As long as the Church can ban books and films at will, and as long as we tear out displeasing pages from history books, we may as well reconcile ourselves to 61st place. Reporters Without Borders was actually being generous; I would have been less generous. For a country like ours, with a proud and rich media history, having the first printing press in the Middle East, and having sacrificed so many of our best and brightest on the alter of media freedom, we owe it to ourselves to be number one. Not only to say that we are, but to actually earn that rank. I would like to place this challenge before the nation and its leaders, this should be a national goal, we should aim to be number

As I was driving home today I saw a taxi cab in front of me slow down as he spied a dead cat in the middle of the road. He turned his wheel ever so slightly, took aim and drove his left front wheel over the carcass, as if deriving some kind of obscene thrill from mangling an already dead animal. I knew exactly what I wanted to do; stop my car, walk up to him and give him a piece of my mind. Chances are he would have a gun or a baseball bat and would have no qualms shooting me or beating me senseless. So, I thought maybe not. I did not mention this episode to disgust readers only to illustrate a point and that point being: the Lebanese defy all attempts to define, analyse or classify them into a neat stereotype. You have your cat killers and cat manglers, and then you have Khalil Gebran, most Lebanese fall somewhere in the middle. We are constant disappointments to each other and yet we also continue to exceed each other's expectations, in both our capacity for inhuman cruelty and o

Why can't the weather men of our Lebenese television channels be honest with us, why is it that temperatures never go over 34 degrees celcius "officially" whereas the peak today was closer to 37 in the shade. At night, if you believe the TV weather fiction, its 25 degrees on the coast. Well I can tell you that at 400 meters above sea level the temperature is closer to 28 degrees. It was the same in the Gulf, where I grew up, officially temperatures never rose above 45 degrees celcius, but in reality they got up to 47 and even 48 at times. Is it that officials are affraid of causing a panic if they tell people the truth about weather, do they really think we are children incapable of handling the facts as worrying as they may be? I wonder.

Pet Peeve No. 000001: This has happened to me a lot, I try to pull a single tissue out of the tissue box and three or four come out all at once, each one attached to the other. Why can't the manufacturer devise a packaging technique that prevents this needless waste, after all once a tissue is out of the box and exposed to the external environment its no longer sterile (I can't stuff it back in). Or is this done on purpose to make us use up more tissue paper than we need and therefore buy more tissue boxes? I wonder, its something to think about.

By recognizing Israel we are rewarding it for creating the world's longest lasting refugee crisis, terrorizing the whole region for over half a century and causing all the misfortunes that have befallen Lebanon. Its simple: If Israel did not exist, Palestinians would be our trading partners rather than unwanted guests in our country (which they are if we were to be honest with ourselves). The Lebanese expats that so depend on the UAE's generosity would be home with their families and loved ones running an economy that would be the envy of the whole region if Israel did not exist. Arabs have failed at war, they have failed at diplomacy and now can hardly contain themselves from making friends with Israel, they are pathetic. Here is a novel idea, why not have all Arab states present a united front, not in war, just is saying no to the United States for a change.

The mother's unflinching stare follows me as I hover barely two meters from her brood and take pictures with my camera of the slumbering kittens on a lazy Sunday afternoon. The family of five have turned a small patch of untended garden into home. Nelly, as I have named the big black, white and beige striped tabby, gave birth towards the end of a very mild summer. She made her home in our garden thanks to our cat-loving neighbour who feeds her fish fillet and bits of chicken every now and then. Its a welcome sight indeed, cats are and should rightly be part of domestic rural life. Their presence puts off rodents and they are faithful and loving companions around the home. No home is a lonely home with a cat in it. They are smart, cunning and clean, at least when compared to other domestic species of animal, including some humans! Watching life's routine struggle is awe inspiring: from a kitten's fight for equal attention from mother, to their playful battles that will upon

So the other day Lebanese Armenians protested Armenia's warming relations with Turkey. The protest blocked roads and resulted in thousands of tired, hard working commuters spending hours on the road. Ordinary people suffered and Armenia's government felt nothing and the protest changed nothing. Physician heel thyself, and guardians of the law ENFORCE THE LAW! Just the other day in the middle of traffic a driver turns into a busy highway, struggling with the cumbersome steering wheel, her other hand otherwise employed holding a mobile phone to her rattling head. On the sidelines, literally, a cop stands nonchalantly. How can we expect people to abide by the traffic laws if law breakers get away with such behaviour. Yet another Lebanese driver the other day tried in vain to insert his steel chariot in front of mine as the road was narrowing. I had right of way, I was in my lane, so I safely denied him entry. The irate driver then cuts me off further up the road and almost brush

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to him. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." Samuel Butler The Lebanese are the meanest, most hateful, spiteful, awful people. Love thy neighbor indeed! These people actually enjoy inflicting pain on each other and on any one else in their path. Inflicting pain can truly be called the national pastime of the Lebanese, after gambling, over charging tourists and road racing that is. So here I am, suffering the pain of breathing the same polluted air they do, driving on the same roads, living in the same concrete jungle, suffering their foul manners. One would ask why I tolerate all these petty annoyances. The simple answer is I would gladly suffer the inept, smug and foolish Lebanese, I actually prefer them to any other tribe on the planet. I simply don’t like people that much, I don’t even like myself, so Lebanon seemed to me the perfect place to pitch my te