30 LL: A Lebanese Podcast for Hommos-Sapiens

A few more 30LL cartoons, to help put us all at ease.

Feel better yet?

You can contribute your own cartoons, just send the designs and your name as you would like it to appear to our email.

In response to Podcast#18, the arrests of Ain Alaq suspects specifically, MeG recorded the first 30LL Monologue. Also included is a depiction of a phone conversation between Nayla Mouawad & Samir Geagea.

Here’s what MeG had to say:
[Length: 07 mins 20 s]

* Background music: Relax by Mika

In podcast#19, the 30LL Crew* Jad, Joe, Souss, and Coco team up to discuss the recent developments on the Lebanese and regional scenes.
The podcast deals with the Hariri-Berri saga and the fallout of their once promising relationship. We also touch on Samir Geagea as a potential presidential candidate.
Regionally, we discuss the recent event of English marines being held by Iranian authorities for crossing into domestic waters.

For the final and lighter topic, we discuss the Iranian/Persian backlash to the recent movie 300.

* Ali was unable to attend this podcast.

Jad visits a Souk el Tayyeb event in Saifi village, Beirut, and gets a couple of informative interviews with an organizer and a sales merchant.

First is the interview with Kamal, an organizer at the event.

In this second interview, Jad catches up to Imm Ali and gets her 30LL on how fair trade is helping small producers.

Click to enlarge

The usual crew gathers for Podcast #18.

For our first topic we will discuss the recurring meetings between Nabih Berri & Saad Hariri, seeking a solution to the current deadlock. We also talk about the recent arrests of multiple suspects in the Ain Alak bombings.

For our third and final topic, we discuss the modifications the Lebanese apply to non-Lebanese food. Kafta Burger and Shish Taouk Kung Paw.

In Podcast #17, Ali, Joe, Souss, & our guest Jamal (from Jamal’s Propaganda) get together to discuss the latest Lebanese & regional developments.

For the first topic we discuss the recent meetings between Nabih Berri & Saad Hariri and the many predictions of an end to the crisis.
Next, we talk about the Israeli Winograd commission investigating the July war on Lebanon, and the possibilities of the war being pre-planned.

For our third and lighter topic, we deal with the newly released car, co-produced by Syria & Iran and creatively named “SHAM”.
We analyze the car’s features and how those features will make it a top seller in our region.

I was listening to an old recording from Ziad that Joe managed to dig out from his terrabyte big archives.
Ziad on Zaims:

And it inspired me to rewrite the American national anthem, bitassarof, Lebanese style.

Sing along with the above.

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight’s last gleaming

Whose broad red stripes & green cedar, everyday we for fight
We are born for a reason, some bickering & some fighting

And the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night that our flag was never there

Oh, say, can that green cedared banner yet burn
O’er the land of the Zaims, and the home, no, the, graaaave.

–
Ali // 30LL.org

You’ve all seen the billboards campaigning for Intico Insurance.
It’s now time to know what exactly is meant by “Certaines Conditions S’appliquent”.

Souss places a call to Mr. Intico himself to remove all ambiguity.
It wasn’t pretty.

Here’s what Intico had to say

Jad is out on the streets again. This time attending an event titled ‘Ou3a: Watch Out, Wake Up!’.
He came back with 4 very interesting interviews with some of the people who were present there.
Listen as they explain why they’ve organized/attended this event, what are their objectives and expectations, and what are their plans for the future.

Interview #1:

Interview #2:

Interview #3:

Interview #4:

In this episode, we start off by discussing the alleged Syrian acceptance of the Hariri International tribunal, what Syria got in return of that acceptance and how that affects the region.

Next, we discuss the upcoming summit in Iraq, gathering Iraqis, Saudis, Iranians, Syrians, & Americans and its potential repercussions.

For our third and lighter topic, we discuss the diversified Lebanese priorities.

* Starting next week, the access password to The Vault will be given during the podcast.
The password is a giveaway this week, use ‘ R ‘ to login to The Vault - New video added

An activist from the “Watch Out and Wake Up” organisation makes a hand print to demand “civil peace” in Beirut March 3, 2007. The organisation aims to send a message to politicians and citizens to watch out and wake up amidst fears of a potential renewal of civil war in Lebanon.

Jad was at the gathering on Saturday March 3rd & collected some opinions from attendees.
Stay tuned for the interviews.

Ziad Rahbani provides a candid description (quite accurate too) of the Lebanese people. A date does not seem to be needed for this one, it has stood the test of time and seems primed to continue doing so.

I recently read Jamal Ghosn’s article in Wiretap Magazine, Blogging from Beirut. I very much enjoy Jamal’s writings, most of which are found on Jamal’s Propaganda. Anyway, aside from the very well-written article, his description of living in Beirut as an “overwhelming experience of living in a dysfunctional yet exciting environment” struck me as a bullseye assessment. Don’t you feel the excitement each time another sad chapter in the never-ending Lebanese soap-opera is written? Beirut goes from regular whorehouse to whorehouse in beehive mode. Everyone suddenly has ADD, gets into some kind of trance, and having someone listen to you is even harder than usual. You can almost smell the adrenalin.

“They killed […]”, “there was an explosion in […]”, “it looks like they are gonna escalate on […]”, “this time, we won’t stay silent”, etc. No need to elaborate. Excitingly dysfunctional, dysfunctionally exciting, dysfunctionally excitingly feverishly fucked up. If you’re Lebanese, you know what I’m talking about. We get off drama, maybe because in our heads, our dysfunctional and artificially stimulated heads, it’s synonymous with change materializing. But in the vast majority of cases, it’s just an illusion of change, just like a junkie’s illusion of happiness.

I have a hard time accepting how we have come to judge our leadership on anything else than results. Why do we still accept these cheap gifts of false hope that they keep throwing at us? There are so many examples of credibility destroyers that should spell the end of political careers. You can’t deliver 24h a day electricity? You can’t not blatantly contradict yourself from one week to another? You can’t build an organization efficient enough to make the difference between a fake picture and a real one? You can’t not have killed? Get out of the way then, you suck.

Bottom line is, what do we want, other than security and a decent standard of living? We got lost somewhere on the way to that and got stuck in petty details that have little or no importance. Our fears and egoes are labyrinths we created for ourselves. They make us junkies for the hope and illusion of change that are dangled in front of us every other week. It feels good, but you know it’s not true. It’s time to rise above these labyrinths instead of trying to get out the usual way. Cheesy metaphors are cool, by the way. Like the one about aspirin vs antibiotics; you must have heard it from a fellow Lebanese at least once: “Our problem in Lebanon is that we are trying to cure a virouss with aspirin. To cure the virouss, it needs antibioutik”. The guy’s a freaking genius.

In light of our leadership’s complete failure to build a decent country, with no exception, and our failure in replacing that leadership, the web presents an opportunity to connect at the citizens’ level. Internet tools such as blogs, forums or podcasts provide a buffer in that they are an interactive and indirect means of communication. They give you time to think, reflect, formulate: a right balance between proximity and distance. People give feedback on podcasts, Forumers reply to each other at hours or even days’ intervals. You choose what to read/listen to/watch whenever you want. Rehab, yours and mine. And preventive treatment for this generation and the next. So forget the party leaders, MPs, presidents, zaims, all of them, and get your dad a computer, tell your teenage sister that there is more to the internet than collecting emoticons, introduce your friend who downloads all that porn to a new interesting blog. Like 30LL.

Souss // 30LL.org