Persiflage & Paroxysm

God save us from the propagandists lest they infect the minds of our youth. So according to some we are not to have a single unified history text book but several, each party, each defacto 'confederal unit' is to have its own book, written no doubt to cover up its own crimes, its own bloody foot prints and ugly role in the civil war. Can you imagine such a book written in the South, or one written in the North, then imagine one written in Beirut, then one written in the Bekaa. We will have a new kind of war, one which starts with a school debate and ends with mortars and rocket propelled grenades. Have we as a nation lost our collective minds to even entertain such a notion? Do we really want to solidify the foundations of a unified nation or do we want to plant the seeds of division all over again? The young MP Sami Gemayel had this to say (excerpt from NOW Lebanon): "Gemayel then stressed that each party should be given its share in school history books, “so that...

For all those searching for answers, or for someone to blame for all those harmful pesticides we have been told taint our freshest and best produce, look no further than our industrial food production system. The wide spread use of man made chemical insect killers following the second world war, which was aimed at feeding a growing global population, comes back time and again to haunt us. Whether you eat fresh produce or not makes little difference. These carcinogenic, birth defect causing chemicals are in our ecological system, in the soil, in our water table, in the animals of the fields, and they are affecting and changing our living environment in ways we can only guess at. True, not everyone will develop cancer, but the risk is still there and it is still high. If you haven't done so already then read "Silent Spring", a book by Rachel Carson published in the 1960s. While many of the pesticides Carson wrote about are no longer in use today, like the DDT family of ...

From one crisis to the next, it seems to be our destiny as Lebanese to never let our guard down. If it’s not a crisis of government, it’s a crime spree and pesticide laced fruits and vegetables! We leave one crisis behind only to find ourselves knee deep in the next one. It's time government shifts gear from managing a total and utter institutional collapse to being more proactive in its approach. For me, topping the list of pet peeves are people who keep saying “this is the country, it will never change, we have to cope as best we can and make the best of a bad situation.” We have to take responsibility for fixing our own country or nothing gets fixed. So, to our Hukumeh el Attideh, here’s a list of many lists, some suggestions of many suggestions, of what really can’t wait another five months for a consensus to be reached to get fixed: The power sector: I know there has been a lot of complaining and belly aching on this matter, but here’s a novel idea: for public safety’s s...