Habib is here, reporting from the southern suburbs of Beirut, where something a little out of character happened.
Here’s the scoop:
Handbag Loaded With Feminine Underwear Blocks Traffic
A handbag loaded with feminine underwear blocked traffic in south Beirut’s Chiyah district for 30 minutes after sparking panic that it could be booby trapped.
The black and red handbag was found deserted on the main Chiyah highway, a stronghold for Hizbullah and allied AMAL movement on Beirut’s southern edge.
A police official said the department received “a flood of calls reporting a suspicious object. Army units sealed off the area as a sapper opened the bag and found feminine underwear.”
The highway was reopened to normal traffic, he added.
Have you heard what happened yesterday in Saudi Arabia?
KSA & Lebanon were squaring off in a football match (soccer for those of you who live in the stoneage era of futbol, otherwise known as North America). As is the habit in international encounters, the national anthem of each country is played before the match.
KSA got the KSA national anthem.
Lebanon? We got the Syrian national anthem.
Man, of all the anthems on hand in KSA, they mistaked Syria’s for Lebanon’s.
Ouch! OUCH!
It must have been funny? Could it be the Saudi version of Punk’d!, with Ashtalon Bin Kouchtar running out in his Abaya halfway thru the anthem, along with his camera crew, all shouting Dagbashnakom, haha, dagbashnakom (Yeah, I just made that up).
I would have loved to see the reaction of the players when the PA announced the Lebanese anthem but something different started playing. Do they laugh? Do they get pissed and walk off the field?
If you’ve ever watched any Lebanese sport, basketball, football, tennis, judo, akeljara, volleyball, etc.. If you’ve ever watched any of those leagues and tournements, you’d know it is very frequent that players and coaches and owners and fans get offended easily.
Lebanese sports training, it seems, causes sportsmen to have very short tempers. “Oh yeah? So, I fouled Him!!? Well, you know what? F!@# you, k— ikht li b—— akhu ma—— a— b d—— w r—– kello sawa kellak ma bteswa a— men fo2 la ta7et ya ebn l sh——-, k— ikht li n—– 3a z— e— !@#!@#$@#$%#$^$%*#%$^$*$%^! Nfokho, we’re not playing anymore, Samir, grab the game ball.. SCREW YOU GUYS, WE’RE GOING HOME!”
Whew, that was mildly disturbing.
And realistic.
RIYADH, 9 June 2008 — The Saudi Vs. Lebanon match held at the King Fahd International Stadium here on Saturday had an unusual start after officials mistakenly played the wrong national anthem. Fans were left shocked and Lebanese players were visibly angry when the Syrian national anthem began blaring from the stadium’s speakers, the Arriyadiyah sports daily reported yesterday. Officials quickly realized their mistake, and eventually played the correct national anthem. However, the error, which was committed by the organizing officials of the tournament, prompted the President of the Saudi Football Federation, Prince Sultan ibn Fahd, to order an official investigation into the incident.
So it looks the Saudis will be launching an investigation to single out the culprit.
I wonder, what would constiture a fair punishment?
A group of young Lebanese in Montreal started this idea in hopes of promoting peace and dialog between all Lebanese.
They have a newly launched website
www.TheCedarWalk.com
It says: “La Marche du Cèdre est une marche pacifique à travers Montréal pour promouvoir la paix et le dialogue au Liban, ainsi que pour dire aux Canadiens que le Liban doit devenir un message de coexistence et de diversité pour tous.”
The Cedar Walk is a pacifist march throughout Montreal aimed at promoting peace and dialog in Lebanon, as well as show Canadians that Lebanon has to become a message of coexistence and diversity for all.
Check out their website for more information, or if you facebook (of course you do), find their group hereand see if you can maybe help propagate the same message in your own city.
For those who live in Montreal & its surroundings, be there, 30LL will be!
As we witness our country regress into previously unimaginable lows, I wonder, what does the future hold for us.
Specifically, what’s in store for the proverbial human sponges of this era, the little ones absorbing every single drop of edited history in the making.
I say edited to avoid saying words like engineered, falsified, fabricated, well you get the idea.
So what’s gonna happen with all those kids carefully listening & watching?
I’d bet the mortgage and a whole lot of possessions they’ll grow to become very much like us. And if you’re one to read into the recent scary spike of sectarian-based dislike, disdain, hatred, execration, loathing, abhorrence, abomination, contempt, odium -Google is my friend too-, if you’re one to read into those recent occurrences, you’d probably come to the conclusion that today’s castaway children will be worse off than we are today.
Growing up, I didn’t recall people around me ever caring about religions or sects. I’ve been around people who sang for Hakeem, honked for el General (and sexy babes in tiny bikinis offering cheap car washes for Charity), people who clapped for Berri, some that coined catchphrases for the eyes of Hariri, and others that baked killer brownies and invited Walid Jumblatt over.
But there were very little references of direct sectarian hate.
It’s different today.
I’ve seen people calling for boycotting certain businesses because they belong to someone from a certain sect/religion, and as an auto-assumption, belonging to a certain political current that represents that sect/religion.
Here’s a quick Lebanon 101 for those who need it. Our system of governance says we have to share power according to certain criteria.
I thought to myself, would an outsider know these criteria, I bet they won’t!
So I asked strangers about it and sure enough, they did not know. I got answers ranging from abilities to qualifications to experience to popular representation.
All worthy components of a selection process in a normal country.
Of course, and you saw that coming, we the Lebanese do not have a normal country. Not because it’s abnormal -and it is abnormal- but because it’s only vaguely a country.
We, the Lebanese, have COLLECTIVELY agreed that as a form of governance, there is a lot more weight to your sect than you abilities, qualifications, experience, or popular representation.
Let’s revisit what belonging to a certain sect means: Being accidentally born into that sect.
I stress born into because under the same system of governance, switching sects or religions means infiltration to some and treason to others, and either of those outcomes effectively makes the person upgrading his or her religion unelectable (in post-modern lingo: less like Hillary and more like Obama).
This also means, being stupid BUT Maronite Christian outweighs being smart BUT Shiaa when it comes to the presidency, being stupid BUT shiaa outweighs being smart BUT sunni for the speaker of the parliament position, and being stupid BUT sunni outweighs being smart BUT Maronite when talking about the prime minister slot.
Religions and sects in Lebanon can be advantageous privileges or good-for-nothing handicaps.
Today’s young ones were not only born into the same sectarian system we inherited.
They’re now living the sectarian-based hate.
They’re absorbing the accusations of treachery from all sides to all sides.
They are today’s sponges and the liquids they’re absorbing are tenfolds more venomous than the water we drank as kids.
Last era’s sponges are being squeezed today and we’re all witnessing the results.
I’m very reluctant to imagine what’s going to come out when this era’s little ones are squeezed 20 years from today.
