Persiflage & Paroxysm

All human endeavor is destructive, even building is preceded by destruction, the gouging of earth, the tearing of tree and root limb from limb, the crushing of stone, the mixing of cement and turning it into concrete, even sex is a violent and destructive act: Like two celestial bodies they hurtle towards one another at great speed, clumsily, uncontrollably, drawn by the mutual gravitational attraction they exert on one another, then they crash into one another. We live to destroy whatever we touch and whatever we interact with, or else we corrupt it, twist it, deform it and then we complain about it. We are parasites, destroyers of beauty. People are fixated on the success of failure, determining that lies and deceit and trickery and fooling the innocent, obedient and hard working are virtuous skills to be valued and that a fat bank balance is the only measure of a man’s success or failure. We are all held hostage to the whims of the corrupt and the fearful though we barel...

The public debt, any public debt anywhere in the world, is a way governments can bypass democratic controls on spending and pass on the burden of funding government imperceptibly on to generations as yet unborn (when I say 'bypass democratic controls' what I mean by that is that instead of being honest with the electorate on how much we need to take in in taxes in order to spend, politicians balk at the prospect of raising taxes and instead raise debt, debt that will have to be paid at some point by those either unborn or those too young to have voted on whether to allow government to raise debt or not). It’s fucking underhanded is what it is. Usually in democratic countries, a king, a president or a prime minister, born, elected or appointed, raise money through the elected legislature (taxes) which represents us and which must approve the budget, i.e. how much money we collectively spend based on how much money we collectively take in (in taxes usually) to pay for all the s...

Every day we interact with others, sometimes unwillingly, undeservedly and reluctantly, not realizing that others’ demeanor, their dismissive arrogance, passive aggression and deep-seated but well camouflaged resentments, that their well-spring of inner anger emanating from their damaged and abused inner child, actually affects us all and turns us all as a society into a closed circuit of sorts pumping electrifying vitriol with every utterance, every body movement, every inflection in speech. What a sad state to be in. A friend of mine recently returned from  Dubai  after his first visit their. He was smitten by the place, the shinning tall buildings, the wide streets, the plethora of entertainment options, but most of all he was struck by how respectfully people interacted with one another. For a man born and raised in  Lebanon  this was a revelation of sorts. While his first exposure to the sauna-like atmosphere of 'planet Dubai' as he stepped off the plane m...

The state of advertising on television has degenerated to a level previously unknown in Lebanon and the Arab World in general. It seems that advertising strategy has shifted from highbrow witty ads that make one smile and put across a marketing message, to one focused entirely on sex, gutter culture, cheap humor and a clumsy attempt at satire.  The Daily Star made a good start in their recent article about advertising using sex to sell products in the most salacious and uncouth way possible or allowable under law. But stopping there is a mistake. What the local news media needs to focus on is the arrogance and patronizing attitude of ad agencies which clearly hold consumers at the receiving end of their ads in very little regard and must view this mass, presumably captive audience (if we discount facebook, twitter and Whatsup), as generally uncultured, simple minded and undiscerning. It is not the job of ad agencies or marketers to make such sweeping judgement. Their phil...

As someone who was privileged enough to write about the art scene for the first six years of his now all-but-defunct journalistic career, I have developed an immense respect and appreciation for not only the art, but the artists behind it all, the creative process in living breathing color as it were. Artists never seem to age, if you discount wrinkled skin and white hair that is; their spirits are ever young, ever sprouting new sprigs of green, new ideas, new ways of looking at mundane objects. For them, life is an eternal wellspring not a finite four-walled waiting room for eternity. For them it is not a decaying world, not a depressing place, even while they capture decay and the sad inevitability of the decline and death of all things they capture its movement, its metamorphoses from one state into another. To an artist there is nothing uninteresting about the process of life and he/she continues to marvel wide eyed at all that surrounds us all the time, as such they f...

Art, education and health care are too important for a functional society to be left unaided, for artists and educators and scientists to be left to eek out a living according to the rules of a free market economy. State support and subsidy are vital. Think of musicians today who can't make an honest buck because all their stuff is on YouTube, the free market didn't help them, the very people who enjoy their music, their fans, fucked them. Health care costs are skyrocketing and an honest insurance company or HMO is about as rare as an honest politician. Education equals national security, it’s that simple. The ignorant are easy prey for anyone marketing a violent ideology, and lack of marketable skills leads to poverty which leads to desperation and leads to the spontaneous emergence of gangs and violent mobs. Its not rocket science, societies have to protect themselves not by excluding and excising undesirable parts of themselves but by making sure that everyone shares...