The Lab Live

5 years of blogging

2012-01-29T12:08:00.004+02:00

It’s the 5th anniversary of this blog, and it’s one of those milestones where you look back at things to see what you have achieved. I can say that I am satisfied about the content of this blog, though dry and largely unpopular but it spoke and continues to speak about issues important to me, and in my personal opinion important in an absolute manner because they are priority issues affecting our lives, especially in Lebanon.

I am perfectly aware that this type of subjects is dry and unappealing and will not draw interest as much as blogs discussing lifestyles, reviewing movies and restaurants, or highlighting the latest fashion trends. Although, lifestyle, food, cinema, communication blogs are fun but these issues can’t be the center of our interest all the time, there are the more important issues shaping our future and our lives. So this blog is less about popularity and more about opinions regarding political, economic, and strategic issues that have a direct and severe impact on our lives and our future, that’s what this blog is striving to be.

Now moving to see how much this blog has been successful after 5 years, it’s been a total failure at drawing interest that’s for sure, but when it comes to content and the quality of content I am satisfied about it. It pointed the finger at vital issues, shed light on problems, tried to propose solutions and I can site many posts as an example, one of them is this post http://thelablive.blogspot.com/2010/03/untitled.html written two years ago and sounding the alarm on the deteriorating situation in the real estate sector, and warning from inflation and working class problems almost two years before buildings started to collapse and the wages crisis took place in Lebanon.

This blog has tried and will continue to try to shed light on the basic faults in the Lebanese system that are breeding an avalanche of continuous problems. It will also continue to tackle strategic issues concerning the region and the world.
Most similar blogs discuss things as they happen but over here it’s more about casting a vision for things, about establishing clarity to determine what is wrong and to determine the structural problems holding us back, because once you have identified where you need to improve you’ll be able to put effort and energy to make a change, otherwise we’ll continue to be lost and words will remain nothing more than ink on paper and pixels on screens.

So I’ll continue to look forward for your comments and ideas and I will try to improve the quality of the content on this blog, I'll be phasing out random personal writings to another blog and sticking to strategic political and economic issues on this blog.
So if you’re interested in such issues, keep coming back, things are about to get better.

Fragmentation

2011-12-24T03:39:00.003+02:00

The recent political and social situation in Lebanon is becoming more alarming day after day, Lebanon that was supposed to be a message about tolerance and common living is surfacing as a solid message about what to avoid and what to not become. We’ve grown to become a vertically fragmented society where communities have nothing in common other than the bad luck of existing together on the same piece of land. We ended up with xenophobic religious communities who elect and support xenophobic religious and political leaders who are in constant conflict over the share of power they can have, in order to control and loot whatever can be looted out of that ghost of state that is Lebanon.

The Lebanese society has proven in the last decade that it comprises a majority of zealots whose daily struggle in this country is about oppressing, controlling, and humiliating each other.

This situation is alarming because not only it’s killing the prospects of prosperity and growth in this country, it is dragging us down to levels that threaten the life and existence of the Lebanese people, it is suffocating them, but they stupidly continue their circus of bigotry and carelessness driven by a serious lack of ethics while judging things, and by brainwashed heads that cannot think outside the religious/ideological frame in which their minds are boxed since their infancy.

The whole recent wages problem is a direct result of this situation; we’re in a dilemma where without a wage increase even middle class people cannot meet their needs and a wage increase will force the companies employing them to go out of business. This is a direct result of a political class acting as a mafia that uses politics to serve its special and personal interests. Those politicians control the major economic sectors in the country and they run them in a way to serve their particular interests and to stay in control, and in parallel to that, they fight over how much each of them can control. And all that is happening while we are in a dire need for sound politics that build and develop the country and look into solving its flagrant structural problems that are all a threat to our national security.

I’ll give the example of the energy sector which should be at the top of the list, when a plant or a commercial company has a nano-gain margin because it pays an energy bill that is 4-5 times higher than the one paid by its competitors it’ll definitely go out of business if you force it to increase wages. And the problems in other types of basic infrastructure have similar effects, but where are we in politics from all these issues? We’re light years behind, no one is seriously working to solve them while we’re sitting on a serious threat that will grow exponentially out of control. With economic hardship comes increased misery, increased corruption and increased crime which all shoot back on the whole situation dragging it down furthermore, less growth, less attractiveness, less investments, and less jobs. Add to it lower quality of life, of education, of services etc.

My wish for the upcoming year is to see more fellow Lebanese getting out of the bigotry circle and expressing their refusal against this political class, starting by the ones they support before the ones they passionately hate, I wish to see a Lebanese youth feeling the urgency of the situation and working towards a healthy change, towards solutions for a brighter future on a national level and for a tolerant society that holds us together because the destiny of this country joins us together and the only other alternative is a black, dark one.
Happy holidays.

Political activism on the internet, why it's failing in Lebanon?

2011-09-04T23:50:00.004+03:00

After almost one year of revolutions in the Arab world, some of them are already half finished and the others still need a lot of efforts and sacrifice, however, all of them had the igniting spark and started the one way journey for change, freedom and a better future.

After all what is happening around us many of us are starting to ask about why the political cyber activism was fruitful in our neighboring countries but not in Lebanon, even when in fact we weren’t late in adopting new technologies and political activists’ blogs have existed in Lebanon since almost the beginnings of blogs on the web. So then why the status-quo in Lebanon is that strong? New technologies have been a powerful vector that helped in organizing and giving momentum to popular movements seeking justice and change, why not in Lebanon?

Well the answer is again in the structure of the Lebanese society and the Lebanese political system. In all neighboring countries, daring to speak was a threat to the regimes, the whole existence of the regimes was built on installing fear in the citizens, “whoever dares to defy will cease to exist “ and in installing in the consciousness of their citizens that actually no one dares to defy and Big Brother is always watching. The political blogs came to break this wall by defying, talking, exposing and helping people to wake up and see the truth that these regimes are just paper barriers that can be easily torn if they had to face the people’s will. So the name of the game for these activists was hitting on forbidden spots that actually are an inherent part of their civil rights, namely, the freedom of expression and speech. They defied the unjust regime and that’s how it worked.

In Lebanon, blogging and talking doesn’t have this effect, freedom of expression has been a tradition since the independence and the whole political system has grown an immunity against it, you can talk as much as you want it’s just your opinion and there are hundreds of other different opinions that would disagree, even on the obvious, and this situation is what makes the efforts of a serious political activist go in vain.

In terms of defying and breaking walls of control and fear, it’s not the case in Lebanon, almost everyone can talk, blogging and talking and exposing the reality doesn’t make a difference and in terms of spreading political awareness, what you say is just your insignificant opinion because there are hundreds of others that are claiming different things.

So the question is how can we use the technologies available on the internet to drive a change in Lebanon? The answer is to look for forbidden things that are part of our civil rights and concentrate on them. I’ll leave it to you to think about such things, one person is not enough to figure it out; the power lies in the crowds. But when it comes to me, I’m planning on going to vote in 2013 in a box that is not dedicated for my sect, just to make a fuss and raise the voice, because it’s my right to be considered as a Lebanese citizen and not as a citizen of my sect.

So, who’s in with me?

RNA10M

2011-06-18T16:27:00.006+03:00

في مكانٍ ما
فوق خدّكِ
تختبىء احلامي
وعند عينيكِ وثغركِ
وطيب ابتسامكِ

لا شمس لها
حول خصركِ تدور أرضي
ومن بين اناملكِ تولد ايامي

قد خبّأتُ لكِ ثوباً ابيضاً
واوراقَ وردٍ
واطفالاً
محياهم كمحياكِ
نبْضُ قلبي الذي كان سدىً
بات من اليوم لكِ
وايامي

RNA127001

2011-05-15T06:31:00.006+03:00

There’s a fire
that kept on burning my days
fed on every minute
while I watch the flame
dance and play

Seconds ticking
smelling
like gasoline.

I can’t tell time,
a thick carbon dust
on the clocks
is all what I can see.

And no don’t call
the fire brigade
let the orange glow, let it glow
let it come closer
burn in anger
as it watches me grow,
let it see how out of my hands
lights, colors and a scented breeze
like a drunk with love proposing on his knees;
will flow.

Startups in the middle east

2011-03-26T19:50:00.002+02:00

There’s a vibrant scene of startups that is starting to emerge in Lebanon and the Middle East in general, and this fact is naturally good news for the present and future of the region on both the economic and social levels. But one can’t help but noticing the fact that this entrepreneurial activity is still constrained to a large extent in one aspect: “online services”.

I wanted to talk about this issue after reading a tweet that mentioned the remark by which “Fadi Ghandour” has closed his keynote at the arabnet conference. (Fadi Ghandour is the founder of Aramex and a prominent figure in the Middle Eastern entrepreneurial scene). He was trying to stress the importance of the internet and how much essential it has become by saying: “instead of megawatts, you want megabytes!”

I totally understand how much essential internet has become and I guess we all agree on that, however I couldn’t understand this contrast between megawatts and megabytes, two quantities that belong to two worlds that are not in conflict with each other, and I don’t think that there are situations which necessitate a tradeoff between investments in electrical power and connectivity and internet, in reality the near future will further weave an interdependence between them with the advent of smart grids.

I didn’t have the chance to completely hear the keynote of Fadi Ghandour, so I can’t be sure about what he meant exactly by this comparison or what he exactly meant by megawatts and I’m not writing this post as a reply to what he said; this is just an attempt, to shed some light on “the startup” issue in the ME region and to give my personal opinion on it.

We have this habit in our region to follow the trend, and as a result we’re always behind the trend setters at least a couple of years, the time needed to figure out what is trending worldwide. And up till now that is how things are going in the Middle Eastern startup scene, we are trying to repeat success stories on the web that happened in the world by trying to tailor some solutions or services appropriate to our social and cultural environment. But I guess it’s about time that things move ahead, we need to start thinking in a more independent and creative way to create and deliver novel solutions that are not constrained to online services.

My disagreement about axing “megawatts” comes from my belief that the energy sector is where the next boom will be taking place. Renewable energies, energy storage and development of fuel cells, the electric X, whether X is a car or anything that depends today on fossil fuel, in addition to the developing mechanisms that aim to improve the low efficiency of energy conversion at the electrical power plants are very active fields that should not be ignored. And we have the smart grid, which will be rolling out in the future to provide a tighter and smarter grip on power generation, distribution and consumption.

So megawatts are a serious issue for the future, and people around the world are trying to bring in the next solutions to feed the hunger for power supply while in our region no one even thinks about it just because it’s not the trend yet. I would like to stress here on how much important it is to see the fertile ground for startups that this sector is, just Google “energy startup” to see how much effort is put in it, megawatts are very important and we want them too.

The second issue after the energy sector that I would like to talk about is the communications infrastructure, internet is not only about software products and online services it’s about the network and the infrastructure too, we see the bit rates growing from 56 kbps all the way up to 300 Mbps with FTTH, we see generations of cellular networks coming 2G, 3G, 4G and how much do we have to do with this development, nothing. To bring in the Megabytes, we need startups working in this field providing new technologies and services to improve the connectivity in the region and to lower its price. Startups have always played an important role in this field providing technologies that have driven this continuous available bit rate growth, we have world class experts and specialists in this field but they’re outside the Middle East for two simple reasons, lack of vision in the region (and the follow the trend mentality) and lack of funds. This brings me to the third issue I would like to talk about, technology investments in the Middle East and venture capitalism.

The third issue is funding and venture capitalism in our region, I believe that conferences such as the Arabnet should start to think about inviting important investors to be in direct touch with the technical and startup scene in the region. Funding is still scarce because investors are more interested in financial products and do not know about the existence of these investment opportunities. But it’s about time that they notice the importance of this field especially now that dictators have been toppled with social networks as the main tool of communication. Venture capitalists and angel investors exist around the world, searching to find the next investment opportunity while in the middle east which is one of the richest regions of the world, investors are more interested in western governments’ treasury bonds! This has to stop and it’s up to the young people and the digital sector community to approach them and lure them in.

So at the end I believe that we need startups we need growth, but we need to open our eyes to all the opportunities beyond online services. Energy, digital infrastructure, and online services are all important fields for investment and development and we need to put an important amount of energy on drawing the region’s capitals to fund this nascent startup scene.

Sectarian regime operational chart

2011-03-18T19:38:00.004+02:00

Click on image for a larger view

-The sectarian structure of the lebanese administration and governing bodies not only is a catalyst for corruption, but it also creates corruption.
-It leads to social fragmentation and provides a fertile ground for civil wars and internal clashes.
-One of the results of this structure is that the governing bodies are totally dysfunctional.

It's heart breaking to see how much time is being wasted and how much talent and potential are lost while this structure is hindering Lebanon from being what it should be, a country with loyal citizen instead of a pseudo-conglomerate of heterogeneous sects that are in constant conflict.

That's why this hideous structure must go down.

RNA10B

2011-03-04T05:57:00.003+02:00

It’s been
an awful long while;
beautiful flower of the Nile
homesick for your eyes
without you
everywhere is a bitter exile;
your smile
is still living in my head
and I can’t forget
out of it
all the sweetness that spread
and then, the rush of my blood
and my veins that were almost burned
by all the words you said
and since I fell
for that spell
come back I want more
and I’m sure
it’s not too much to ask for
there must be something
that can be done
to end the echo of my voice;
it’s dreadful
when it’s coming back
from that closed door.

ارحلوا

2011-01-21T03:04:00.006+02:00

هو ذاك الطفل العالق بين حافتين، تمتصّان أيامه، وكلٌّ منها تبصقها دماً، في الاتجاه الذي يحلو لها، على حائطٍ مهترئ كروح مدينته.
تلك المدينة التي لم تملّ من لفظ انفاسها، تلفظها شباباً سبقوه الى الحياة وترميهم أحياءً أم أمواتاً في البحر.

ما زال صغيراً ليفهم ما يقال ولكن غداً، سيسلبون رائحة الصنوبر وزهور الليمون من جسده ولن يبقى فيه مكان إلا لفائض غبائهم وغضبهم. سيرث ذلك ويؤمن به دون ان يفقه شيئاً، سيتحوّل دميةً ويبقى كذلك. وان استفاق من هذا الهذيان سيصبح هائماً دون روح، دون وطن. بئس المصير، ارجعوا لي الصنوبر و زهور الليمون، يا من تعبقون برائحة الموت، اسمعوا، لكم غباؤكم وركام وطن، ولي ركنٌ مقدس يخبّئ ذكرى قبلة فارحلوا عنه.

Let's get involved

2011-01-16T17:06:00.004+02:00

We’ve all been happy to see the Tunisian people standing up for themselves against an oppressive corrupt regime, and we wished that we can catch this healthy virus in our country to get rid of the ridiculous political club of kids with gray hair ruling Lebanon. A 6 years transition period after the events of 2005 and still things didn’t crystallize into a clear form, 36 years after the start of the civil war and we’re still living parts of it and suffering from its consequences, and all those who caused our misery are still in their places, the same names since the 70s are still here and we’re wondering why things are still the same?

The situation in Lebanon is different than in Tunisia. Our problem is not of a centralized nature like in Tunisia and thus is harder; we don’t have an oppressive regime with its president to topple in order to make a change. Our problem unfortunately is of a distributed nature, there’s one hell of an element of diversity in the way the problem exists in Lebanon and fighting one side of it won’t lead to any important results. We need to find a solution against sectarianism, the political club of war lords and corrupts, the element of fear inside the Lebanese themselves from each other, the racist way through which kids are brought up to see others, threats from outside the borders, the political mafia and their network of corruption, etc.

There’s no solution other than getting involved in everything, the problem is of distributed nature we have to go to all the places where it is. Activists roll up your sleeves and go into action; we’re fed up from nagging on the social media. The Lebanese youth should work collectively to straighten things up, stand up for yourselves not against each other, unemployment in Lebanon is higher than any acceptable percentage and the country is being drained from its youth population what are you waiting for to go down on the streets and shout?! How many laws did the parliament pass the last year? They’re taking tax payers money to wear suits and appear on TV to tell us bullshit, why do we accept this?
The mentality of he’s “our chief” has to end, they’re nothing but a bunch of employees and we’re the Boss, we’re paying them to assume responsibilities in running this country and they fail, time to send them at least home if not to the exile am I right or not?

And how on earth do you accept such a group of mercenaries to run the country? How does a Lebanese politician dare to talk openly without being embarrassed about something like the “seen-seen” initiative so that the cabinet holds a meeting, how on earth did this become acceptable for a Lebanese citizen to see Syrians and Saudis negotiating so that their mercenaries in the Lebanese government hold a meeting, refuse this bullshit, say NO.

Say NO to all the daily lies they pour on us, we’re sick and tired of them so let’s make it heard loud and clear, I think we should get involved in refusing this by doing things that can go as far as organizing sit-ins outside TV stations that are having them for their talk shows.

We need to follow the details of how employment in the public administration is performed and expose that it’s not competence but loyalty to the political mafia that gets one in, we have to scream against that, we need to involve ourselves in deciding how our country is run.

The list of things that can be done is very long, and many ideas can be formulated to fight against this unacceptable situation, but the most important element here is that we need to work collectively, make that poke which will drive the domino effect, gain momentum and continue till the end to get a mafia free, prosperous, correct country. I have a dream, I love that dream and I would love to see it become a reality.

RNA13K

2010-12-26T03:40:00.005+02:00

I want to know you
to take a peek inside your heart
and be able
to recognize the scent of your hair 
even when we’re a hundred miles apart

I want to feel 
ripples of heaven
traveling
inside my chest
out of points touched by your lips 
and that’s just the start

Beautiful thing
I’m falling for you
my inside is crumbling apart
being near you is insatiable
can’t get enough of that
and all my senses
are your captives
shackles are sounding, aloud;
I’m being tortured
 and you master it
so naturally
like an art

All that shines

2010-11-14T02:56:00.006+02:00

Yes it's the same old cliche subject, but I'm still wondering when are we going to really start to look beyond the form? Most of us are caught up in our daily lives, and everything is done in such a rush that we forget to take a breath, and take a minute to examine what the substance of the things in front of us is all about.

We end up being carried with the wave, clapping hands just same as the others are doing, well it's what everyone else is doing but what's wrong in stopping for a minute to actually look at things and cast a real opinion, a well thought opinion and appreciate things that really shouldn't pass unappreciated, what's wrong in that? Why to limit ourselves to being dazzled from a quick look by all what seems to shine and deprive ourselves from savoring what's real and what's really amazing? Just a thought.

RNA12K

2010-11-08T01:41:00.003+02:00

Lights were sparkling
the last time you were around me
your smile, your warm voice
smoothly slid inside me
and the chills reached my fingertips,
my heart was galloping
galloping,
and galloping
beat after beat
wanting to go out of me
to go sleep and wake up
where you are now

And what’s with that pride
and you trying to hide away
thinking
you’re not at your best,
don’t let it drive you away
forget everything
you’re sort of living inside my chest
and yes
I adore you that much
I adore you that much

So drop that insecure look
in the corner of your eye
what you feel is beautiful
what you are
is beautiful
and when I come to you
please don’t talk
and then stand like a rock
that is about to fall
just put your arms around me
and give me
that very kissable smile….
lights will sparkle
yes I’ll see sparks

RNA11K

2010-11-04T04:52:00.009+02:00

Wind of love
you’ve uprooted my trees
you’ve messed up my ground
and I can barely see
you’re everywhere around
but there’s no room to breathe

Wind of love
where have you come from?
How I wish if you would tell me
where have you come from

Lift me up
I want to be the answer to the prayers
of that beautiful girl
that got you blowing
and I don’t know where from
how I wish if you would tell me
where have you come from

Wind of love
on the feet of hope I’m waiting
I’m enchanted
through my lungs you’re flowing
I can’t choose where to go
I’m just carried
Lift me up, make me better
I want to be an answer
there's a sweet girl praying

An open letter to Middle East's business men and investors

2010-11-01T03:33:00.005+02:00

I don’t understand till when the gap will be allowed to continue on growing and becoming harder and harder to close. Thanks to its deposits of natural resources the middle east region is one of the richest regions in the world, some might say it’s just luck, some others will say it’s a blessing from God but that’s not the point here, this valuable asset will not last forever and NOW is the time to do something about it before it’s too late.
The region is lagging behind in all sorts of forms and ways, the west is obviously by far ahead since centuries, and the east is by far ahead well since as of now, except for Japan.
Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, India are on the rise, economical powers that will set new rules in the international scene for the upcoming century.
The middle east is not better than the worst African countries, except in its ability to buy and import because it has natural resources to get money and buy, so I guess it’s time to stop investing any further in silicon enhanced girls for video clips, it was fun but what’s been done is enough and there’s no need to expand it any further. It’s time to invest in sectors that can put the region on the international map, that can create and contribute to the advancement of humanity, and that can characterize a civilization.
Briefly, here are the sectors that need immediate attention, and lots of money injection:
- Renewable energy production and energy storage, it’s the future of human kind. The Middle East region can export the sun it has if it works hard on developing the technology for it, green energy solutions will be the next big thing, Middle Easterns have to put a foot in this field before it’s too late.
We still don’t have a reliable mean to store energy, fuel cells are still an immature technology, a lot of work is still needed, it’s about time that someone in the middle east starts working on getting involved in this technology. The middle east rules the energy sector today, and it’s a strategic interest for everyone in it to remain so in 50 years from now.
- Robotics, electronics, artificial intelligence. Korea, Malaysia, India, China, they were not better than the middle east 30 years ago, now they’re by far ahead. So it’s about time that someone starts having an interest in those fields in order to start a proper industrialization and a proper viable and sustainable economy in the region.
- Telecommunications and informatics, the region is home to the biggest and richest operators but does anyone of them get an interest in establishing a research center? The answer is an emphatic NO! And I fail to understand why. Such centers can be of great economical interest to these companies too, if they had their eyes opened in the last 5 years they could’ve ridden the 4G wave imposing their own technology and breaking new grounds with it; unfortunately everyone in the region is happy to be an ignorant stupid consumer who pays a lot to import and to stupidly implement what’s been created in the east and west.
Same thing applies to information technology, so we use twitter and facebook and that makes us technologically advanced? What did the region contribute to this sector? Merely nothing, no serious activity is being done. This should be changed.
It’s very important that all the investors and business men in the Middle East understand that the time when we felt technology and creativity were out of our hands dates back to the colonial era, because now we are able to do, we are able to create and we are able to blaze trails in grounds where no one has been before. We have world class researchers working around the world, we have the knowledge, the expertise, but what lacks is the vision, the strategic decision, the intention to make this shift to the future. So enough with the investments in video clips, and enough with the western financial markets, enough with the empty skyscrapers that are home for no one but ghosts, it’s time for you to stop being a bunch of cowards, put your money where the serious stuff is. And hey, you won’t regret it.

RNA10K

2010-10-30T22:10:00.008+03:00

Hey you
Beautiful girl
you’ve got gravity fields
around those unearthly subtle curves
You got me feeling like a ghost
and you walk as if you don’t know
what your lines are capable of

Keep on pretending
I want to believe you
that you have no clue
about the sweetest charm
you fill the air with
but my vision is not blurred
this female specie
was extinct
in a blink of an eye
after the creation of the universe

You were so close
to make me believe
that my existence
is nothing but that ink
on my certificate of birth
but that glitter in your eyes
betrayed you
you can't hide
what’s revealed
through those adorable eyes of yours

Keep on pretending
keep on torturing me
I’m inside your cage
like a little helpless bird
but soon enough
you'll see
that revenge is a meal
best eaten cold.

...

2010-09-20T03:04:00.006+03:00

Take me up to the highest cliff you know
and push me
to the sea below,
I wouldn’t mind
I wouldn’t say no
if the touch of your hands
is the last thing I will feel
it’ll be a pleasure to go.

Scared of losing all the time
you locked love inside you
aching and torturing you
from unknown corners
in your soul,
let it go lovely girl
let it go
it has a destination that is yearning for,
you wait a lifetime to be found
no need to be scared anymore.
Take a look at me
and let it go to where it wants to go
you can take me
up to the highest cliff you know
and push me
to the sea below

Bloggers and activism

2010-08-25T06:03:00.002+03:00

I have been following recently many of the bloggers that label themselves as activists, and relate themselves to different types of nouns and adjectives that end with suffixes like -ist -ism and so on. And honestly I was disappointed; my personal opinion is that most of them are not up to the description they give about themselves.

Activism, in the lebanese blogosphere is not very much more than an image and a social status, they get a bit of recognition from here and there, the traditional media is curious about this phenomena that is, nonetheless, vibrant and promising. However, changing avatars and profile pictures each time something we don't like happens, and writing posts with, "attitude", and giving interviews to famous arab and western channels, well, is far from activism. What has been achieved is very little from a community that has been active in "activism" for a few years now, the only positive outcome that I've noticed was the campaign against the lebanese ICT law which was effective, but when it comes to other issues, things remained very limited.

I'll give examples, there was this march for secularism, I forgot what they called it, it was a very nice idea, but then what? nothing happened and we forgot about it.
There was this campaign about arabic language, okay we all wrote a couple of lines in arabic and then what? it died.
There was this campaign about racism in Lebanon, we've seen a couple of videos and then what? it died.
The whole blogosphere was criticizing when a blogger was questioned and 4 facebookers were arrested for insulting the president and then what? nothing happened.

I mean when it comes to secularism, why no other events where organized, why nothing was continued to use the momentum that was gained during that event?
Concerning the arabic language promotion, a follow up on it in a different form would be nice too, or else, why to raise this topic in the first place?
About racism, and the twisted laws in Lebanon, all tweeters and bloggers meet constantly, is it hard to agree on trying to contact deputies and law makers? just to try to get appointments to meet them raise these topics with them and push them to change these laws or create new laws. You voted for them, so it's about time to be active and hold them responsible for what they are doing and follow up closely on it on your blogs.
Many other things can be done so that activism can have a sense and some results on the ground. My wish today and through this post is that activist bloggers apply more perseverance, and work through effective steps to make a significant change happen. Talking to a community of hundreds of your blog readers or even thousands doesn't make a difference if you're not actually making a difference.

أرق

2010-06-25T04:15:00.009+03:00

جلست في سريرها بعدما سئمت من محاولاتها العديدة للنوم. لا ليست المشكلة في السرير ولا حتى في الغطاء التي خاطته يدا جدّتها خصيصاً لها بمناسبة زيارتها الصيفية المعتادة، الأرق الذي يصارع جفنيها و يمنعها من النوم له اسبابٌ اخرى.

تهبُّ نسمة، تتلاعب بستائر النافذة ثم تدخل لتداعب بشرتها الناعمة التي لم تتمكن ثياب نومها الصيفية ان تخبئ إلا القليل منها، وغطاء جدتها مرميٌّ على الأرض منذ زمن بعد تقلباتها العديدة، لم تكترث لأن تلتقطه. تُشعرها النسمة بقليلٍ من الإنتعاش، الليل جميلٌ يزهو بذاك السكون الممتع ولا يكسر ذاك السكون إلا عطر ورودِ اواخر حزيران، ورائحة الصنوبر التي حملَها الندى الى اقدام نافذتها.

تقف، تنظر قليلاً الى شاشة هاتفها ثم تتوجه نحو النافذة، لم تأتِ تلك المكالمة التي تنتطرها منذ ساعات ولا حتى رسالة قصيرة لتعوض عنها. تلوم نفسها قليلاً لقد اخطأت، لكنها هي وهو يعلمان تماماً أنه هو ايضاُ قد أخطأ؛ ويعلمان أيضاً ان ما يجمعهما ليس بشيءٍ عادي ابداً، سئمت التفكير وملّت من الواقع وظروف الحياة التي تبدو لها وكأنها تتأمر ضدّها وتحرمها ممّا تريده اكثر من اي شيءٍ أخر، ثم تتذكر ابيات المتنبي ... تجري الرياح بما لا تشتهي السفن ... تمقته ذاك المتعجرف وتقنع نفسها بأنّه على خطأ، إن لم يكن لشيء فلأنّ سفن اليوم سيدة نفسها بمحركاتها وتذهب حيثما تريد فليقبع المتنبي في غياهب التاريخ ليس له ما يقوله عن عالم اليوم، تتذكر نفسها عندما كانت طفلة صغيرة تنام في هذه الغرفة بهناء ولا يشغل تفكيرها إلا ان يمضي الليل بسرعة لتذهب وتلعب في الصباح، تشعر بأنها على وشك البكاء، تغرق عيناها بقليلٍ من الدموع وها هي النسمة تأتي لتنقذها من جديد.
تمسح عينيها بهدوء، وتلتقط انفاسها ثم يدّق الباب، تدخل جدتها وقد بدأ ظهرها بالإنحناء من ثِقَلِ العمر، تنظر الى عينيها، تحاول حفيدتها ان تخبّئهما عنها لكنها لا تنجح. للنساء قدرة غريبة على الشعور بالأشياء، كانت على حق عندما شعرت بأن حفيدتها ليست بأفضل حالاتها، تبتسم لها ابتسامتها الدافئة التي توحي لها بأنّ الأشياءَ ستكون على ما يرام. تمسكها من يدِها وتقول لها، تعالِ سأعدّ لكِ الشاي وأريد ان نتكلم قليلاً انا وأنتِ في كلّ الأحوال، ثم تخرجان وتغلقان باب الغرفة.

Name the politician

2010-06-10T16:03:00.002+03:00

Probably most of us do not think highly of the politicians present on the lebanese political scene, however I would like to know if any of you can name three lebanese politicians who gained your respect. So go ahead people and shoot!

The break

2010-05-09T06:03:00.002+03:00

What am I supposed to do now?
close my eyes and tomorrow is another day?
the day light is breaking  
against your skin,
dying 
and fading away
there’s no way for it to go inside
and light up your way

You have  that lethal skill
to kill,
things,
that were meant to live endlessly
every single day

You strip words from meanings.
When around you,
they’re just sounds that resonate,
for a fraction of time
before they disappear and fall into dismay
trying to translate
hopes, dreams
 passion, anger, and wounds bleeding
and all the beautiful things
that you transformed into a game to play

Your promises
are ill fated creatures
that cannot live one second
after an hour away
What am I supposed to do now?
there’s nothing left to say
I’ll close my eyes, breathe deeply
 and let what you’ve broken
break.

Yann Tiersen - La valse d'Amelie

2010-03-30T06:05:00.002+03:00

Piano version

Orchestral version

The lettuce theory

2010-03-27T03:43:00.008+02:00

The news are (and I'm not sure if they're correct or not) that a fellow Lebanese blogger was asked by the Lebanese authorities to change a post by which he criticized president Sleiman, well that's new! And that's totally inacceptable. Although I actually disagree with the blogger, this way of dealing with him or any other blogger is totally refused and totally useless, and to whoever decided to investigate with the blogger about what he mentioned I would like to say come on grow up, he's just a guy writing on his blog why are you making a fuss out of it? Lots of people agree with him and lots of others disagree that's the reality of Lebanon and you can't change that by making him change his tone.

And whoever was annoyed by the article can simply reply in a brief and logical manner to prove the blogger wrong.
However, I disagree with most of the bloggers who spoke in reaction to what happened about what they named "the Lebanese system". This is not the case in Lebanon, simply due to the extremely different geopolitical structure in Lebanon compared to other countries where the name "system" might apply. So adopting worn out ideologies and coming to fight the wind mills "a la Don Quichote" is useless too, I hate it how people are so enthusiastic to fight for their freedom of speech (which is something nice) but they don't care about the freedom of their minds and they leave their brains preys and prisoners of predefined, constrained and limited ideologies. There's no single good recipe to things in this world, everything is relative; that's how nature and the nature of things are and each and every problem requires a tailored solution that replies to its nature. There's no single ideology that "passe partout" and the quest for solutions is an open one that might or might not end in time, that quest is where progress comes from not from worn out ideologies.

Anyway, there's a Lebanese saying: "ma khasso bel deneh, 3ayesh bel khasseh" I like it a lot because ironically it's very Lebanese; since in a simple way that's the problem of Lebanon. For the majority of us, each one of us 3ayesh bi khasseh of his own and this lettuce is unique and differs slightly or largely from one Lebanese to the other, because its leafs consist of the common stuff like, among others, sectarian fanaticism inside a certain community and they consist too of unique leafs that are related to, I don't know, some random stochastic processes in the Lebanese person's brains that are intrinsically unrelated to logical thinking, noise in the neurons. Well I have nothing against noise in the neurons everyone has the right to speak out and should speak out but at the end noise is noise.

I know the situation in Lebanon is annoying and it pisses off each and every one of us, but to a very wide extent and instead of looking to see the problem and try to deal/cope with it, people deal and cope with their anger and dissatisfaction not with the problem itself; and how do they do that? By harshly criticizing someone they don't like and by blaming them for the bad situation, yeah and it's not new the Lebanese invented something called "el 7a2 3al telian" right?

So everyone seeks to blame unlawfully the side to which he/she is the least attached emotionally. Unlawfully because he/she is blaming that side for what it should be blamed and for what the other side should be blamed and the other side remains in its angelic status, that's the typical mentality and we're stuck; who's right? And who's wrong? These questions in the way they are treated are like: who invented the hot water?

Furthermore, for those who were criticizing the Fouad chehab era and “el maktab el teneh" I would like to tell them ya reit byerja3 el maktab el teneh. The chehab era was the brightest in the Lebanese modern history and the freedom levels weren't so bad, they were pretty high. For sure, I'm not asking for things same as what happened with our fellow blogger, it's totally ridiculous to limit the freedom of speech for bloggers or the traditional media, but it's so important to fight corruption in tandem with the judiciary system, and to create a national security. And again this wouldn't mean to fabricate files against whoever is disliked; it is routine, pure and simple police work to fight with a good judiciary system all sorts of crime and all sorts of corruption. Each country requires such a device and it's there even in the most democratic countries. It's just something to maintain order according to the constitution and the civil laws otherwise there's no way, for example, of putting an end to corruption in Lebanon.
Yes we do have a freedom of speech and we want it to stay as it is regardless of any type of considerations, but I've been following the Lebanese blogosphere for almost 5 years now and except for the beautiful publications on it of literary, social or artistic nature what is published is just an insult for the freedom of speech concept, because all what the political bloggers did was to b**ch out on each other. Freedom of speech is essential and important but it has no value if it's not used to say something that has a meaning and a value.

Thanks for reading my useless "fazlakeh", that's just my simple opinion and I guess that this post was worse than the previous; I know I promised the opposite so I apologize for that.

Untitled

2010-03-19T01:31:00.012+02:00

It's been a long time since I've written something on this blog, I was lazy I admit it but I was busy too. I mean by busy that, for example, the security guy had to come at midnight to kick me and my colleagues out of the lab; yeah it's true, welcome to the engineering grad. school.

Anyway, now I have a bit of time to post something but I don't know where to start; so many things have happened and I'm interested in blogging about various subjects but I guess I will stick to my habit on this blog, which is nagging about Lebanon... I missed it. :)

That place is a hopeless case, we're already so late on very important issues and no one is even trying to take an action except Ziad Baroud maybe, he tried to try but that's how far he can go in our happy country. Chaos rules in the cedar land, corruption and recklessness they rule too, it seems that those things have made a pact of national unity and they will definitely last and live more than the so called national unity government.
To cut into the major points that are specifically annoying me these days, first I want to talk about the real estate sector. The situation is becoming disgusting, where are the rules? where are the regulations? where is the urban planning? The other day I was talking to an old civil engineer and he said that 200 years ago when the ottomans were ruling there was more efficient urban planning than today. What is happening today is catastrophic, buildings are being erected in the poorest ways just for fast profits without any consideration for the required infrastructure of roads, water, sewage, electricity(it's so hard to install a good distribution system for this concrete jungle)and even air! And let's hope that an earthquake won't hit us because lots of those new buildings will crumble in no time. And the prices, don't ask about them, sky rocketing just like that because the market is left for the greed of those who can take advantage of it. This crazy real estate bubble, and I hope that it will turn out to be a bubble, is driving a huge overall inflation and I believe that from here till the end of next summer people will start to scream.

The second issue is the telecom sector, and I would like to say PRIVATIZE NOW! it's pathetic that the government relies on it for revenues and believe me it'll get more revenues on the long term if it is privatized, it is an extremely essential infrastructure that will drive economic growth and we're still in the telecom dark ages.

The energy sector, something has to be done so very soon because the oil prices will be on the rise again, no more time to lose on that subject and it is an issue of national security! Without affordable energy no one can live and no economic activity can be sustained.

And I hope that someday something will happen to eradicate the whole political club that is controlling Lebanon, the so called politicians and their sick supporters inside Lebanon and abroad. It's really painful to discover more and more how much potential, how much talent we have and it's outside the country. It's amazing how much there are successful Lebanese writing success stories that are making significant differences to where they are and none of them wants to go back to Lebanon because it is a hopeless case and because the only thing they can do in it is, well to waste their time.
I hope you're not too much bored if you continued reading till here, probably next post will be better.

Public speaking is an art

2009-11-17T12:00:00.003+02:00

.....

2009-08-04T04:58:00.012+03:00

كم من الأيامِ مرَّ؟

بتُّ أكره كيف تمرُّ

هذه الأيام.

قد اخترنا الصمتَ

انا وانتِ

لكن

ما زالت لكِ

أشياءٌ في داخلي

تتمزقُ

وأنتِ بعيدةً عنها

وتمزقني

معها تلك الأشياء

وإن آثرْتُ الصمتَ

علّ المُكِ ينتهي

ويموتُ ليلقاكِ الهناء

لا تصدّقي

فللروحِ

حنينٌ وصوتٌ وصراخٌ ونداء

Ortet 3alam

2009-05-08T22:13:00.006+03:00

..................................................ولعل المفارقة اللافتة الأخرى في هذا السياق هي ان المناسبتين ابرزتا ايضاً البُعد الخطير الذي يعكسه تزامن اطلاق الضباط الاربعة وهذه المرحلة المتوهجة من الزمن اللبناني الداخلي. فانتقادات الجهة "أ" واتهامات الجهة "ب" بدت في مجملها اقرب من المشي بملاصقة الخطوط الحمر تماماً، اذ ان كلاهما لم يخفيا اي تفصيل ينم عن جدية "نظامية" صارمة لدى كل من فريقي النزاع في اعتبار الانتخابات المقبلة واقعة فصل حاسمة بين المشروعين المتصادمين للدولة والسياسة، وكلاهما اكدا المؤكد وثبتا القاعدة التي لا تحتاج الى اثبات وهي ان "الدولة" في لبنان هي صنيعة ميزان القوى المتقلب لا أكثر ولا أقل...............................

بتصرّف عن ن ب م

Joseph Sakr and Ziad al Rahbani....Oum fout nam

Untitled

2009-04-21T00:48:00.002+03:00

This is not one of my silly posts that are written in a silly writing style, nor one of my silly comments; in as much as they can be fun for me and for me alone maybe :) I don't have time for all that now so that's pretty much it for this post. I need to exercise a bit of perseverance on another level.
Over and out.

Blood test

2009-04-12T02:00:00.002+03:00

Sugarcane juice, poison, some flower petals, and gasoline, all tinted in red, that’s what makes my blood, is there someone who wants to taste a bit of it? Maybe if someone will taste someone will understand…….. me and someone will taste the little world inside…….. me and the molecules of which my body is made out are clear to see clear to figure out in the light in the dark for a blind man or a hawk in the sky yes but, their nature and the ability of others to look and see is not important, some other things everywhere block them out and why do I blame myself and ask am I hard to figure out? The sun rises every morning and the apple doesn’t fly it falls down to earth, I got used to a lot of things and why not add one more thing to them? I guess it wouldn’t hurt.

You look at the mirror everyday many times, does it show you a different face every time? Do you notice the difference or you’re distracted by all things that weigh heavy in life and it just becomes the same face that you see every time? The mirror doesn’t lie, but my human eyes sometimes they tell lies, they tell epic tales that can blow the mind and they manipulate inside even though it’s well known it’s all lies…. It’s really weird how eyes show us the truth and tell lies and we blind ourselves in the stage that processes light.

Blurry around me

2009-04-12T00:01:00.004+03:00

Painting: by Sheldon GREENBERG

Song: Smells like teen spirit.....Nirvana

...

2009-04-10T17:57:00.002+03:00

Fighting low morality with an even lower one... 2bad menno sawwet doddo and it's promoted on TV too! with all due respect but some people never outgrow their teenage years, and this shows that all sides in Lebanon are corrupt till bones in every possible way.

decaf

2009-03-28T15:29:00.005+02:00

As my short stay in Lebanon has come to an end the strongest feeling that remains in me is emptiness, or being surrounded by emptiness more precisely. All my friends, those with whom I usually set the flame of the daily life alive in Lebanon are not here. The boys and girls are scattered, let me count, Sweden, Germany, UK, France, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Oman. Well it’s been fun, I’ve roamed around Lebanon day and night, enjoyed the semi-winter semi-spring weather but I guess the timing was not perfect in particular, except for being able to see a cousin that I haven’t seen in a very long time, she’s here for a short period before going back for her PHD studies in New York; anyway it’s sad how this place is deprived from its young blood, those who are able to make a difference and to make it a better place….. But no one really cares, so why should I? Everyone is so proud of being Lebanese and satisfied with it. I’ve always wondered where this national pride that exists in all sects come from, everyone says proud to be lebanese; but where does it go when the Lebanese deal with each other? I mean if they’re all proud to be lebanese why they are backstabbing sons of bitches when they deal with each other? And more, where does this pride come from? What did the lebanese nation achieve so that they feel all this immeasurable pride? I really don’t know, but I think it’s nothing but racism, they feel superior when they compare themselves to the surrounding countries, and add to that the fact that they convert every single silly stuff to be a miracle; an example is how the Lebanese look at the fact that their financial sector didn’t fall with the latest crisis, we are extremely smart people no one in the whole world has seen it coming except for us and they forget that we buy the cheapest candy bar in HUNDREDS of our local currency and that our financial system has sustained major blows one after the other because we were idiots enough to kill each other and to destroy our country when others were building and developing, and that its through a lot of trial and error that our system has learned to avoid even the minimally risky investments over the past years, because even the minimally risky would be fatal. And honestly I think that the crisis not reaching Lebanon is a bad sign, a sign that the Lebanese economy is so underdeveloped, we didn’t catch the crisis because we have no foreign investments and no strong foreign economic relations, so there’s nothing to link us to this economic heat ball that suffered the crisis, we’re on the margin of the world; the Lebanese economic mass is smaller than that of a single medium Japanese car manufacturer, and its living on charity from the east and the west……….. Ok, I’ve talked a lot but seriously that’s how things are in Lebanon, a protracted growing sociopolitical crisis and no one cares, all they care about is politics, the Lebanese style of politics, the question I’ve been asked the most was: you will not be here during the elections? And I say no and I don’t want to vote… Why? We need your vote plus even if you don’t want you should put a white paper that’s your civil right… Well I’m not going to be fooled by the civil right’s white paper, as a Lebanese citizen I don’t have any civil rights, I’m not worth anything and I can’t do anything unless I belong to a party and I have strong connections by selling my soul to my sect’s leader; well I will not do that and I will not vote because it’s my way to say that I refuse the whole electoral and political system and it would be a hypocrite thing in this case to vote. And I won’t be fooled by the civil rights white paper, keep it where it is it’s better for the environment that way.

Enough nagging I guess, I was hoping for a livelier couple of weeks but I can’t complain it’s been really nice with some moments to remember, and a good relief after several months of continuous pressure and overworking, it gave me the time to look for a capacity of self criticism in me and to see where I actually stand from some stuff.
Ok, what else is left to say… I don’t know, thank you for reading, this was one of my rare direct personal posts, I’m not that much good when it comes to talking in a simple way about personal stuff, and I guess I’ve bored you enough with the “emotional dimensions” (ouf shu 2awiyye...........Ma heik :P) of my visit to Lebanon so let’s go back to the serious stuff: Liliane baddek traj3ili el Lamborghini elli harabti fia walla shu?????? :P

Vote earth

2009-03-27T15:07:00.001+02:00

www.earthhour.org

The Lamborghini next to me

2009-02-04T01:08:00.004+02:00

So I came back from a work trip to where I am based to find out that the new guy who works in the same building where I work was given the parking spot which is right next to mine, and guess what he drives a Lamborghini.

Now as you can see this is a totally unacceptable situation for me, so I guess we have to confiscate his car, and to do so I need the help of you guys.

Ella will have to take care of observation and surveillance.

I will take care of planning, disengaging the alarm system and breaking into the car.

Liliane will be our getaway driver.

P will be waiting for us with her painting skills inside a big truck where she will rebaptize this Lamborghini in silver.

Wondassista will have to use her international connections to get a new registration plate ( an" RNY 333" plate would be perfect)

And then we will take it somewhere safe, it will be mine and you guys can go back home. :P :)

So to cut it short, who's in with me?

Music

2009-01-09T01:41:00.004+02:00

Lara Fabian--Bambina

I hope you wont be bored by this song, but I like it a lot. It's very simple a guitar and vocals, yet it's very rich. The composition for the guitar is very beautifully crafted, I liked a lot the harmonics at the beginning. And Lara Fabian just sings so very beautifully, personally I think she's one of the best vocal performers that I've ever listened to.

And I like what she is singing about, I'm not sure if I got it right but I guess she's feeling sad and she remembers the little girl she used to be and looks at what is left of that little girl in her, she misses her and talks to her to escape her sadness; very feminine, I like girls who know how to express themsleves in a touching way.

....

2009-01-04T17:10:00.002+02:00

Lebanese Green Party

2008-12-19T14:40:00.005+02:00

Not bad, a new party in Lebanon. Let's hope that they will not end up being useless like all other parties. Check them out here.

Better than nothing

2008-12-18T18:00:00.007+02:00

Two MIG29 planes of the German Luftwaffe

10 MIG 29 FULCRUM for Lebanon, who would've thought that the lebanese air force will ever have planes. But the funny thing is that this donation comes right after that the russian air force has decided to ground all its MIG29s on october 18th after a crash in siberia, and you can add to that that the planes will reach us downgraded, so hopefully they will arrive with good engines and a doppler radar and a couple of missiles otherwise they're completely useless. And I highly doubt, for technical reasons, that they will be able to pose a threat for Israel or at least be able to stop Israeli planes from having their daily trips above Lebanon. But they remain better than nothing, they can help in nahr el bared like scenarios and any support to the Lebanese army is good, it's been keeping Lebanon pieced together for a while now.

Why I love IBM

2008-12-13T03:12:00.003+02:00

They've been working and showcasing their work lately in an innovative way.

Static

2008-12-06T02:54:00.002+02:00

Like the wind
dancing in circles
with those fallen leaves
but not taking them anywhere
Turning and turning
but not going in any way
Currently I have nothing left
to say

Random thoughts
mixing, fragile like clay
It’s hard to explain
and I’m bored
from my monotonic days

A little bird
with his sad eyes
has come to stay
there’s a ransom for winter
that he should pay
soon enough
we have to break
the chains
so that he goes out to play
without waiting
for the spring to come
in the month of may

...

2008-11-30T23:12:00.000+02:00

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray.

Oscar Wild

Some afternoon.

2008-11-21T02:13:00.004+02:00

Rain drops are falling on me; and I’m walking; pictures passing through my head; names passing through my head; people; events things that happened this week; names; places; one name; places again; the streets are getting wet; the afternoon daylight is dimmed by gray clouds; I remember a tune; I sing it in my head; 4 years since the last time I heard it; the first rain makes the beautiful smell of earth; names; events; places; one name; the small clash I had at work earlier; I enjoyed it; it’s good to put arrogant people back into their appropriate place when they try to mess with you; some cars lit their head lights; beautiful reflections from the wet tarmac; I take a deep breath; Venus the roman goddess I have things to tell to her; Two little kids playing; their laughter; names; places; one name; events; plans; time is my new friend; it can uncover and reveal; whoa he almost hit him; it would’ve been a terrible accident; stupid driver; I silently sing the tune again; no I don’t regret; but different would’ve been better; well different I knew about it and it wasn’t feasible; a nice guy buys a flower and takes it to his wife in the car; how nice; that’s something rare to see; the word nice; I discovered lately that each one has a different definition for “nice”; a total philosophy can be built on one single adjective; my definition is very simple and nice; whatever; few rays of light break the clouds siege in the sky; they’re quickly blocked; better; gray is more suitable for this afternoon; I’m a bit confused; I don’t know the impact of my words and I never thought about it too much never calculated it; I talked with spontaneous honesty; the street lights are turned on; I’m reminded I’m not in Lebanon; some things are better kept inside until their appropriate time comes; what if it doesn’t come; is it good to leave some thoughts and words unspoken?; I open the shop door get some water; got to get back quickly because I'm busy; I wonder what some people think; I get out of the shop; busy a long night ahead of me.

humanity..does anyone care???

2008-11-13T22:51:00.008+02:00

A couple of months ago I got out of a shop and I was walking on the sidewalk heading to my car. It was really crowded; people were on my left and right and behind me. A young woman was walking in the opposite direction approaches me:
- 3afwan ya akhi momken atlob mennak talab.
- tfaddali (surprised…what is it that she wants, never thought that a stranger woman over here will talk to me just like that)

And then she talked, she had a problem. She explained it to me and asked for help. I’m usually not that much responsive to beggars, but she didn’t look like one of them. She was veiled of course and she was wearing the usual black abaya not a fancy one for sure but she was neatly dressed. Her story sounded reasonable, but yet again it can be fake. However, I decided to help her, not because I was that much convinced of her story but because of the tone of her voice. She didn’t talk in a fake way; she talked to me normally and at the end politely and very simply she asked for help. And although she talked normally the tone of her voice really pointed out that she was in distress, and for me there was two possibilities: either she is an excellent actress, or she really needed help. I decided to believe that she needed help and gave her what I can give, it wasn’t that much she was in need for a lot more, but I felt like I did what I had to do.

Another time, I’m standing in a small queue in a bakery. A little girl approaches me, and then she stands like 5 cm away from my left leg. 5 years old not older than 6 for sure, her hair looked as if it wasn’t ever brushed, her clothes were dirty. Her head a little bit above my knee, she bends it backwards, the wound on her forehead didn’t heal completely, and then she looks at me with her big black eyes. Too much of sadness in those eyes for a 5 years old girl, and she didn’t say a word not even one word, she just looked at me with those sad eyes. I couldn’t resist, I gave her more than I usually give. I knew that someone will take it, but it made her happy, and that's what was important for me.

I can’t believe how much humanity doesn’t have a value in the Middle East, starting from Lebanon passing by the poorest country and ending by the richest one. Why did that woman had to go to the street and undergo the humiliation of asking strangers for help. Why no one cares about kids in the streets, why they are left just like that to face the monsters of the life they’re living?

Music video

2008-11-09T02:48:00.003+02:00

November nights bring the desert biting chill, but it's nothing that a little bit of latin sensuality can't warm :)

Alejandro Sanz and Shakira: TE LO AGRADEZCO PERO NO.

Change we need...

2008-11-05T18:50:00.011+02:00

"To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn: I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President, too."---Barack Obama

That's what real men, civilized men, men who deserve being alive in the 21st century say about their political opponents and their supporters. We haven't seen too much from Obama, we will need to wait 4 years to be able to see what he really is, but those words he said deserve nothing less than utter respect.

"Ya ashraf annas". That's how a Lebanese politician addresses his supporters, they are the people of honor, yeah and other lebanese are sons of bitches.

"Enta meen?". Yeah who are you? that's how a Lebanese politician addressed his political opponents, and yes he can say it why not. He is the glorious, he has a glory with an epic dimension that not even the caesars of Rome have witnessed and achieved, others are nothing, they are an inferior specie compared to his might and glory.

"What is important is quality not quantity" That's how a Lebanese politician looks at the supporters of his opponent, they lack quality, once again it's the supremacy feeling that the politician gets when he compares himself to others. Others are an inferior specie that comes in big numbers.

"Meshyin metel el ghanam"... Yeah, for him his opponents' supporters are like animals, idiot animals.

50 years ago, americans of african origins were subject to racist segregation everywhere in the US, and on all sorts of levels. Now, few decades later an american of african origins takes the top job and by the votes of the american people. People have changed, they have learned lessons and drawn conclusions, they have opened their eyes, refused what was wrong and made the change.

In Lebanon, nothing has changed. It's the same hatred the same racist mentality that is passed from one generation to the other. And no one comes out to say stop, stop this bullshit, change because we have to change, no one tries to put some motion in the wheel of civilization to take the lebanese society out of its stagnation, out of the mentality that prevailed since hundreds of years ago.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed, offended by how things in Lebanon are. And I have a problem, I can't relate to the lebanese mentality and the lebanese brain. I'm not saying I am better, but I can't relate to many things that cast the lebanese identity, I only relate to the land.

So it is a change that we need, will someone ever make it happen?

Turbulence

2008-10-30T16:24:00.017+02:00

Another fall arrived, one month is down two more to go……….Fall seasons, they always held a change or a new start but things always went in a smooth way, getting back to routine or starting a new routine but it never brought agitation or anything similar whatsoever.

But this year, fall was very different for me. Many things to handle on different levels, many emotions experienced in a small period of time, life is happening with a strong momentum, and it’s continuing on the same pace.
Pressure, lots of pressure that’s how things at work are….I was waiting for the end of summer to finish with the tasks requiring a huge amount of time and effort, and a lot of traveling and mobility. But I landed on working on multidisciplinary tasks, juggling with three or four types of work at one time each requiring a different set of skills and a different type of technical background, deadlines to meet, phones ringing all the time, too many people to follow up with….it’s crazy.

Anyway, I always managed to cope with this type of pressure, a little bit of concentration added to a good sense of time management and it’ll pass as needed and expected; but I don’t know how while too many things are happening at work in a way to make me forget having lunch, there was space for too many things to happen inside me, I've always been distracted by what I do but this time I'm not.

It’s was an email: “we want you to be among us next year”…tempting, very tempting. It means a move to another country on another continent. And I can’t help thinking about it, trying to weigh it right; it’s something that I need for sure, but it means putting an end to a career path that I started beautifully the last couple of years and moving to the unknown and it comes at a cost too…. Although this unknown is promising, and I’m sure that I can make it very promising but who knows what the future might hold; but then I say to myself I’ll take the risk, it’s the only way to keep moving forward, soon enough it will be boring to stay in a place that lacks excitement, I need the joy of innovation on a larger scale…but no one can possibly know only time will reveal what lies ahead.

Moving to another level….Home sick? Not exactly, I get over it two days after leaving Lebanon. It’s more about things you want to do and require you to be physically present at a different place. It's about distances that you feel adding up millimeter by millimeter to keep you away, yes away from where you want to be at this exact time; away from where you should be to have a chance on making things happen the way you want. It’s that annoying sense of losing control on life or of not having control on life in the first place, and it’s not life in general that I’m talking about but it’s those tiny things that make a difference for you only and if you can’t control them what can you control then?

Sometimes when things start to build up inside you they make you feel your blood rush through your veins, and the more you feel this rush the more it reminds you of what caused it in the first place…. Having a passion is something nice but not for something that appears just like a mirage and is totally out of reach……the world is becoming too little but we remain too little in this world that keeps playing its distances and timing games on us, taking us physically to one place, and taking what’s inside us away to another place.....but it’s ok let it be as it is, I believe there’s a way to win any game and I’ll find a way to win this game even though currently I remain away.

3 Doors Down- Away from the sun(Acoustic version)

Music

2008-10-25T09:44:00.008+03:00

Taking it a little bit up to a heavier level on this blog, a good song by Daughtry in which he speaks about his own experience of self motivation and success.

Daughtry delivers a beautiful and intense vocal performance, and the music is great.

Make sure to have good external speakers or decent ear/head phones and enjoy.

Daughtry- There and back again

A political post

2008-10-23T03:45:00.009+03:00

A long time has passed since the last time I spoke about Lebanese politics on this blog. I got bored, and if you don’t want to say that it’s disgusting, it pisses off, the least thing you can say to describe it is: “boring”.

And I really don’t know how political bloggers continue to post year after year and on a regular basis about Lebanese politics. But basically as it appears, it’s not something that hard to do, the way by which most of those posts are written is a faithful imitation of Lebanese newspapers’ analysis style. Gather some information from here and there; add on top of them a couple of events that happened and extrapolate on the whole mix with your “infallible imagination” and you’ll surely reach the smart conclusion about what happened and what will happen. Pure nonsense.

That’s what most of Lebanese political blogging is all about, at least that’s how I see it, nothing new other than lame proofs to support any of the many Lebanese-style socio-political sectarian dogmas.
Only few don’t follow this ill pattern, they try to talk and point out problems in the whole political system or on the political scene. But even with those guys they never say anything more than “maybe something is burning somewhere” while what is really needed is to yell “FIRE!!!”, but no one does that and the flames continue to grow.

Analyzing the patient:

I don’t want to talk too much, I’m already bored and I don’t want to bore you. All I want to say is that recognizing and understanding a problem is 75% of its solution, so instead of rambling about what is said and done by Lebanese parties and politicians, people should shed more light about actual problems at the root of the chronic Lebanese political crisis.
And it’s not hard to find a motive to do so because our national house is on FIRE. We are severely bleeding through immigration; our economy is something that doesn’t deserve being called economy; the Lebanese republic is a model of perfect failure when it comes to both political institutions and public administrations. The Lebanese people are excelling in hatred, discrimination, hypocrisy, and genetic stupidity. When it comes to national defense, our army even though it has brave hearted men ready to sacrifice blood for Lebanon, always failed to assume its natural role whether on the internal scene or on the borders, just because of sectarian considerations. Yeah and corruption, everyone is corrupt, everyone without exception is corrupt till bones. Not to mention politics by itself; a couple of weeks ago Obama rebuked Mccain for using politics of anger and division in his campaign, and ordinary americans didn’t fall for this kind of low politics, states that are traditionally known to be republican are shifting more and more in favor of Obama. But in Lebanon not only they use politics of anger and division, politics is all about anger and division. That’s what it’s all about and nothing more, things like plans for growth, or plans to combat recession, solutions to unemployment, energy security, education, etc.. improvements, evolution on all sorts of levels are never heard of. The painful truth for me is that Lebanese politics are not achievement oriented; they’re nothing but a low, gangs’ style, struggle over power, and the lebanese people do not have a problem with that!

I know that the problem is complicated and has many roots and ramifications; it has strong social grounds, and grows through the power of politics. But things can be changed, why no one talks about things that can be done to change? No one has the right to say that it’s of no use, if it’s impossible you have to try, all it takes is a breath of determinism, when strategy is adjusted to fit circumstances results can be achieved.

On the planning board:

So what kind of change do we need? No need to complicate the answer right now and fall into the swamps of details. The simple answer is a better Lebanon. And how can that be achieved? The other simple answer is better performance in everything. We have to strive for a better performance on all sorts of levels. Shock therapy must be applied to achieve the required change.

How can we reach better performance well that’s one hell of a topic to be discussed by bloggers instead of what they’re writing about now. Topics that can be tackled, include but not limited to: restructuring public administrations for better performance- A secular political system respecting religious diversity that actually works without a continuous crisis and political stagnation – Lebanon’s energy needs, better performance in terms of cost and security taking into consideration projected growth – Socio- political awareness, better performance of the voter and the citizen – Change in Lebanese political parties in terms of regulation of their work and power and access to money and media (personally I think all these parties should be banned and terminated, to hell with all of them a total annihilation of every single one of them would be nice; they’re all nothing but imported ideologies from east and west that were encapsulated in sectarian frames) – Economic growth, better performance in all economic sectors, search for fields that have added value, more job opportunities, less immigration, less social problems, less acceptance for political slavery as a solution to put food on the table for one’s family – Stronger army, better performance when it comes to national defense, without an arm that has the potential to make a painful strike, no strong foreign policy can be devised and Lebanon will remain humiliated and used to settle accounts and send messages….etc. Really there are plenty of things to discuss other than Lebanese politicians’ talks and actions.

And if you tell me: it’s all words, it’s nothing but more and more talking, my reply is that it would be a start for a new culture, a new perspective, a more correct view to things and that’s how a change must start, in the mentalities so that it can later reach the ground.

A random evening

2008-10-10T23:34:00.001+03:00

I decided a couple of days ago to go with a friend to check out a music instruments shop that has recently opened in a big mall. He wanted to buy an electric pedal, and I’ve been away from guitars for a while and I felt a need to see some musical instruments and maybe buy a new guitar. Anyway we arrived there and it was a delight to be surrounded by so many instruments with each having its own features and own story, like being hand crafted or being made out of a special wood etc… And to add to my joy we grabbed a couple of acoustic guitars and we played together for twenty minutes, Guns n’ Roses, Nirvana, Staind, Radiohead, and I played Feirouz too…. So it was a beautiful half an hour.

Now jumping to another issue, there’s something about the opposite sex in this country, you hardly notice that they actually exist! they’re always dressed in black and veiled, sometimes totally veiled even the eyes, but this time I couldn’t but to notice that they exist, as I reached one of the exit/entrance gates she entered, wearing a body shaped 3abaya, with a pretty semi veiled face and stunning wide arab black eyes…She looked at me and she kept staring, what a pair of eyes, I smiled, and continued my way, she was actually with a man.....

I reached my car, turned it on, the weather was mild for the first time in months…So I thought why not, let’s go see how the desert will be at night. It was this need to break the imprisonment in air conditioned spaces that was imposed by the hot weather, and the nice breeze was tempting.
I went outside the city and took the desert access road, the night was beautiful; it was dark, no moon but it was beautiful. I reached the desert few tens of kilometers away from the highway, turned off my car, and went out. There’s something magical about the desert at night, it makes you feel that you’re a couple of meters away from the sky... and the stars surround you from all directions, you see the sky as a hemisphere enclosing you. And that silence that reigned, not the cruel one but the serene calm one, things were going easily, few breezes blew now and then and that was it, so it was a pleasure to take a deep easy breath of warm air.
But such settings make you revert to yourself and pay attention to things that the daily life occupations distract you from…I noticed those recently nascent feelings in me that I didn’t want. I felt a certain unbalance inside…There was various questions that should be answered to restore that balance, questions that tackle important issues that can determine and shape things that I’ll be working to achieve in the near future, however I just stopped thinking, continued to enjoy the view and the night……..And, it was a pleasant night.

...

2008-10-04T21:45:00.004+03:00

Hide and seek(strings remix version) by Imogen Heap.

Fruitful conversation

2008-10-01T06:16:00.004+03:00

Environmental activist: Pollution, there's too much pollution, and it's bad to the earth, and everything is too dirty, and there is too much of plastic bags it takes them million of years to decompose in earth!!! and the sea turtles are suffocating and there's a hole in the ozone layer, and the fish are dying poisoned in the sea...and...

careless dude: Hey man.... Cool off, I think pollution can be good too......like imagine, soon enough and because of pollution bees will be making apricot jam for us instead of honey, that would be cool!

Environmental activist: hahaha, there you go, you said it yourself...they will be making apricot jam and no one will be making honey for us, do you think it's something good?

careless dude: well duuude, who told you that no one will be making honey for us? honey will be made by apricot trees.... it's very simple....lots of honey pots on trees...and it's nice there will be no newton like guys to ramble about gravitation and shit like that, pots will fall on their heads and maybe they will make formulas about emergency rooms....hahahaha

And you know what, the way you just talk without stopping about environment will not do you any good, neither being on a small boat with a bunch of geeky punks following a whaler somewhere in the sea.... why don't you just simply spread the message that pollution is changing our habitat in a way faster than our bodies can adapt to it, so we're fabricating our extinction with our own hands.....that would make people think a bit..

Environmental activist: hmm, we'll take it into consideration...

careless dude: yeah you should, did you know that cows will be making vegetarian meat? hahaha too bad that no vegetarians will survive to eat that meat, they will disappear long time before, you know because the vegetation will already long be gone it'll be burned by acid rain....And you know if I was the Maalox company, to make more money I will quit pharmaceuticals and move to the umbrellas business...because there will be too much acid rain....did u get it? hahaha look at the horror in your eyes hahahaha...you believed me didn't you?

Environmental activist: No I didn't!!

careless dude: yes you did hahaha.

Environmental activist: you're crazy.

careless dude: not more than you are, you freaky obsessed ship follower ...hahaha.

Bottle of perfume

2008-09-28T17:27:00.006+03:00

It’s a smell of Blackcurrants, Freesia, Citrus, Jasmine, Orange blossoms, Amber and Vanilla; and a profound deeply enchanting feminine scent. They’re all mixing filling the air and loading on a virgin morning breeze and no they’re not coming out of a bottle of glass, who said that glass is the only way to contain perfume; it might be many things, things that we never imagined with a beautiful smell, like a neutral black canvas gently soaked with words and feelings.

The moment will come

2008-09-27T04:26:00.005+03:00

I’m not afraid of time
it can’t stop, it’ll either walk or run
And I’ll be dreaming
of when the morning comes
I’ll be waiting
to see the sun
that will light
a hidden moon that I haven’t seen
but I adore and feel its stun

So, seconds
I’m not afraid of you
but you’d better run
you’d better fly
at the speed of light
there’s no time for having fun
I’m a creature of yearning
so go fight your war
and don’t come back
until it’s won
Don’t tell me
what’s right or wrong
try to spare me
your lessons of patience
it’s a wisdom

that suicided
with a modern time gun

I’ll wait for the earth
to finish the days
that should be spun
but you’d better run
you’d better run
you’d better fast forward
that “on hold”……song.
I’m a creature of longing
so you’d better,
you’d better run….

Music

2008-09-16T21:02:00.007+03:00

I'm not too much into House/electronic music but I like some of Daft Punk's work, and in this clip I like the animation made by the japanese 松本零士(Leiji Matsumoto), its quality, the small details and the story in it, it's not bad!

Consensus...........or not?

2008-09-05T16:53:00.003+03:00

This idea – that no step can be taken without unanimous agreement – was, in any case, largely a myth. ---Carlos Ghosn

But the myth is always alive in Lebanon, nothing should be made without unanimous agreement. The most important thing is al 3aysh al moshtarak, wel sharake bel watan; as if they were cats and mice put in a small place called Lebanon and they can’t live without the agreement of al 3aysh al moshtarak; such as the one usually brokered by the bull dog between tom and jerry, and by the way it always fails. :)

For sure Carlos Ghosn was not talking about the Lebanese socio-political scene, he was talking about how he managed his board of directors at NISSAN which is by the way a company that has an economic mass larger than that of Lebanon, and before Ghosn came to rescue it, it had debts that amounted to over $20 billion. So can anyone tell those who are talking about unanimous consensus to go to hell. Because such thing doesn’t exist and not only has it held us from moving forward, it is dragging us down.

The way to do it is active consensus, when two persons have different approaches they discuss the issue until one of them recognizes the superiority of the other’s approach. But yet again this will never work in Lebanon because the two persons should be striving to achieve one same goal, which is not the case in Lebanon everyone is greedily guarding his socio-political and sectarian territory and wants to take control as much as possible and weaken his evil shoraka2 fil watan as much as he can.

My opinion is that Lebanon is just a patchwork of religious sects, hatred distrust and racism will always govern how they deal with each other till the end of time, we are nothing but an archaic society who made it to the 21st century and thinks that it is civilized because people wear Dior dresses and Armani suits. And I love fashion by the way. :)

...

2008-08-06T23:43:00.002+03:00

It’s been a while since the last time I’ve checked this blog. Honestly I forgot about it, I was caught up with work most of the time and the little time that remained was to catch a breath. Many times I had to work for 24 consecutive hours, once for 26 hours, and once for 36 hours nonstop. So it’s been quite a hectic couple of months through which I marked personal records in things like consecutive hours without sleep, driving speeds which reached 200km/h, time period to finish investigation on severe problems popping up without anyone having the slightest idea about what the hell might’ve caused them. So it was a race against the clock. And I’ve been relying on whatever is left of my sense of adventure so as to enjoy what I’m doing instead of cursing 24/7.
And in the meanwhile I’ve been working to put the finishing touches on something that I’ve planned for since like 8 months ago, but at the end all what I planned for is wrecked just because of a stupid typing mistake that I have nothing to do with, it’s destiny or fate or whatever I don’t know and I don’t care. It wasn’t my mistake and that’s why I’m not upset about it, next year it’ll be done.
So basically too many things to do and this blog was sort of hibernating, I came back to the blogosphere ( does anyone know why it’s spherical???!!!!!! ) and I found that I have a huge amount of reading to do, everyone has been so active and I’m going to talk about people who comment in my blog: ( in alphabetical order :P )
- Ella has opened up her arsenal of amazing poems and made a post every one day or two, I have plenty of reading to do in her blog and it’ll take time since I enjoy reading slowly what she writes.
-PL has revealed something new, very very beautiful, and hard to comment on, I don’t know how to describe it something very colorful even though it’s black.
- Wondassista added a couple of nice posts too; it’s always dreamy, kind, and easygoing at her blog.
So I’ll catch up with what I’ve missed and I’ll try to get this blog up and running again.

...

2008-07-25T01:26:00.001+03:00

exhausted..worn out

...

2008-07-04T01:04:00.006+03:00

Evanescence-Good Enough

.....

2008-06-21T00:28:00.003+03:00

I don't understand why some people always tend to complicate things in their daily lives and make a big deal out of nothing. Simple is smart!

Steps to cook a chicken over here.

2008-06-15T00:23:00.007+03:00

1- Take the chicken

2- Throw all over it, pepper, spices, a mix of lemon juice, virgin olive oil and garlic or I don't know, whatever you like!

3- Stick it out of the window and count.. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5..

4- Bring it back in and voilà ze specialty of ze chef is ready to be served.

5- Bon appetit

6- W sa7tein 3a 2albkon, hayda eza ba3dkon ma metto mnel shob.

7- Bye ana raye7 dawwer kell el ACyet bel beit.

euro 2008

2008-06-14T00:29:00.006+03:00

Donadoni is an amature in football tactics and Domenech is an arrogant idiot... Van Basten out performs them.

...

2008-06-12T00:42:00.005+03:00

Staind, Everything changes (Acoustic version)

Staind, Everything changes

A good song, I like the lyrics (and there's nothing explicit in this song). And as always, I prefer the acoustic version.

.....

2008-06-11T00:12:00.001+03:00

Don't believe in it....It's only propaganda!

...

2008-05-24T01:37:00.002+03:00

Please don’t
use that sweet tone
when you say your words
to me
and when you pass near me
try to hide
that glitter in your eyes
try to fake your smile
try to conceal that it is coming
straight out of your heart..
I can’t
no I can’t
go through this
for another time
the one before you
left me
one thousand
and twenty four stitches
inside of my heart
let go of me
stop creating
beautiful feelings
inside of me..
stop casting
your spells on me
you’re already wonderful
just for the way you are
But I can’t
no I can’t
go through this
for another time

...

2008-05-23T23:59:00.003+03:00

Click to enlarge

Now...

2008-05-21T20:32:00.016+03:00

Feeling alive...

So they agreed??

2008-05-21T18:22:00.009+03:00

But can anyone tell me what has changed? what is the new thing that they came up with? they named the same person for presidency that was named a year before, and all the other issues, government, hizbollah weapons etc.... are the same, so how come now they agreed?

I'll tell you why they agreed, things were always active under the table but it seems that there's a breakthrough no matter how minor it is on this front (click here) and we the lebanese are nothing more than a stupid barbaric people.

The evil alternative

2008-05-20T22:21:00.007+03:00

Land prices soaring, farmers deserting alimentary agriculture, food stocks getting lower and lower, food prices sky rocketing that's the impact that biofuels have made. It was a beautiful alternative to be considered and applied in a wise strategic manner, but once again the human greed steps in to destroy everything.

Biofuels would've offered a nice complementary alternative providing an additional energy source that recycles carbon, but transforming farms that used to produce wheat or rice or whatever, to the more profiting biofuel industry is a disaster, not to mention the systematic destruction of the flora and fauna.

I believe that we're heading to an age full of crisis, we've depleted everything around us, resources are getting scarce, food, water, energy, the basic things for life. Humanity is heading to a dead end, and humans are not an intelligent specie, their collective intelligence is subzero.

!!!

2008-05-17T01:56:00.008+03:00

I’ve been having a fierce battle with viruses on my computer the last couple of days. Two days ago, and in a sudden way I started to have detections that were not removed successfully; Trojan horses that were behaving like viruses and exploiting the backup system of windows to remain alive. They opened backdoors to download other viruses and God knows what kind of data they were stealing; and my laptop was running so slowly in an unbearable way. So I decided to hit back even though I didn’t have too much time to do it, I installed two antivirus programs and worked with both of them, I looked for suspicious files and uploaded them for virus analysts. I have contributed to the discovery of two new Trojan horses through my submissions. It took me two days to clean my laptop and bring it back to normal operation!!
I don't know if you've been experiencing the same thing as me but anyway keep your antivirus programs updated on a daily basis, be careful while surfing the web, and don’t input sensitive data on unencrypted sessions.

A rush of blood to the head...

2008-05-10T00:06:00.002+03:00

I wanted to post "Politik" but it wasn't available so my second choice was A rush of blood to the head.
A rush of blood to the head

....

2008-05-04T20:25:00.001+03:00

Determinism and inflexibility are two different things....Carlos Ghosn

...

2008-04-24T19:52:00.004+03:00

I saw today a few camels on the side of the road so I stopped by to watch them and take a picture, and to my surprise one camel approached and stared at me; and then he kept staring at me..... and then he dabbed the sweat off his forehead, and then he stared at me and said: ..... Oufffff.......Walla shob.....shou jebak la hone!
It's a real story believe me, 42 degrees and we're still in April :P

...

2008-04-21T00:09:00.003+03:00

Si seulement
Tu avais
La gaîté d’un papillon
Si seulement
Tu n’avais pas pris
Une décision
Sans raison
Si seulement
Ton couteau
N’avait pas cette lame
N’était pas si sanglant
Si seulement
Tu n’étais pas conne
Et je n’étais pas con
Si seulement
Quelqu’un pouvait arrêter
Le temps
Pour un moment
Si
Seulement

.....

...

2008-03-29T01:48:00.001+02:00

So he decides to have a walk outside, he collects the small little pieces that used to be a heart, he removes them from his chest and kicks them far away, they still have the smell of pain. What caused all that; it could be destiny or a twist of fate, and eventually a girl to blame. He just rethinks about things in which he had too much of faith, he realizes he was never wrong and he still has faith.
Nothing more than a blood pump that’s what is enough for him now, troubles all fall behind, the sun is bright and it’s a beautiful day.

And help came from mars

2008-03-27T23:41:00.003+02:00

Those of you who have been following my blog probably do know that Armand Homsi is my favorite caricaturist. And it seems that we're on the same frequency too. Remember when i talked about the little guy from Mars who will bring the ultimate solution, well now you know how he looks like :)

Pictures from the desert

2008-02-11T21:54:00.000+02:00

The non Lebanese way

2008-01-20T20:11:00.000+02:00

" True leadership is the one that makes more leaders, not the one that makes more followers" ... Ralph Nader

And for sure "leader" here is synonymous to "pioneer" and not to "egocentric arrogant stupid politico-sectarian chief"
Ironically Ralph Nader is an american of lebanese origins.

الآن

2007-12-14T20:14:00.000+02:00

. Nostalgic....

00961

2007-12-06T21:15:00.000+02:00

So do you think that they can agree on the little green fellow from mars?!!!

...

2007-11-29T18:44:00.000+02:00

Nagging time:

- I'm bored of making more than 400km in car each day.
- The stupid beeper that doesn't shut up when the speed of 120km/hr is bypassed is irritating me.
- The only thing I like around me is the desert outside the city and stray wild camels on the side of the road.
- I miss rain and foggy windows.
- I don't have time to write anything other than this silly post.

End of nagging bi kaffi hal 2ad.

الآن

2007-11-15T20:08:00.000+02:00

I want to have 7 versions of me, 5 for work and the other two will go on special missions.

Music

2007-10-30T21:31:00.000+02:00

Johannes Brahms, Third movement from symphony N0.3 in F major (2:26)

I don’t know why this symphony came on my mind today but I just felt a need to listen to it, so that’s why I’m posting it here.
It’s the third symphony of Brahms in F major; this symphony is renowned for the exceptional expressive intensity of its orchestration.

Brahms is one my favorite composers and out of his four symphonies this symphony is my favorite. The style of Brahms is marked by his supple and masterful control of rhythm and movement that distinguishes him from all his contemporaries from the romantic period in the second half of the 19th century. He was always able to vary the pace of his musical thought in a startling manner, often tightening and speeding it without a change of tempo.

And unlike many of his criticizers like composer Richard Wagner, Brahms kept himself away from the exploitation of new harmonic effects and tone colors (which were the main styles that marked music in the romantic period) for their own sake, that’s why he was accused of formalism, of being old fashioned and of being too much influenced by the classicism of the past.
However, he utilized new and unusual effects in a way to enhance the structural nuance and not for their own sake, which allowed him to let the fiery emotional range of the romantic spirit strongly appear in all of his works. And critics nowadays agree that no 19th century composer is able to surpass him in his command of harmony, tonality and rhythm.

The lebanese way

2007-10-17T22:34:00.000+03:00

" The partisan, when he is engaged in a dispute, cares nothing about the rights of the question but is anxious only to convince his hearers of his own assertions"
Plato

الآن

2007-10-15T22:37:00.000+03:00

Gaia

2007-10-14T21:27:00.000+03:00

I’m publishing this post as part of the "Blog action day". When I was thinking about what to write I was a bit confused, I mean we’ve all heard about being environment friendly, things like minimize usage of plastic bags, consider the environment while printing a word document or an email, use recycled paper, don’t litter, plant trees, don't buy fuel hungry cars unless you need them and so on. We’ve all seen Lillian Nemri in the funny campaign “f2esa 2abel ma tefe2sak” which aims to reduce unnecessary electricity consumption, and we’ve all seen Lillian Nemri again in another funny campaign to promote usage of solar power for domestic water heating, so all these subjects are already exhausted. That’s why I thought it’ll be a good thing to talk about the “Gaia hypothesis or theory” which in my opinion helps creating a sort of an environmental conscience once we know about it.

The Gaia hypothesis, named after the Greek goddess of earth Gaia, was created by Dr. James Lovelock in the 60s and was further developed with the help of Dr. Lynn Margulis. It states that the earth is alive, a giant organism that is alive, of course this is a very simplistic explanation but it’s enough for me here to make my point.

Because of cycles of water and carbon and the interaction of the elements of the biosphere, the surface of the earth can be considered as a living organism (once again this is a simplistic view of the theory). Through these cycles the surface of the earth maintains a certain balance and responds to perturbations in order to reestablish a certain equilibrium making the surface of the earth a hospitable place.
This hypothesis was strongly criticized and accused of being metaphorical and not based on scientific elements, but Lovelock developed scientific models to back his propositions and now it is gaining ground of being a theory not only a hypothesis and it is more commonly referred to as earth system science.
I will not annoy you with more details, those who want to probe further on the subject and want to go through details can visit the page provided by the link at the end of this post. The idea of the possibility of a broader existence of life is what interests me here; even if we have too many questions and ambiguities the good thing about the Gaia theory is that it gives a certain intuition for a broader perspective of life on our planet, which brings me to my goal; This intuition of the living earth even if it remains an intuition and not a rigid knowledge might have an impact on our daily activities and can make us avoid doing harmful things to earth. I’m not sure how much I’m right about that, things vary from one person to another but at the end knowing about it will change something no matter how small it is.

What we humans have been doing for the last century is braking those active or living cycles that I spoke about earlier. Let’s take a look at the carbon cycle for example: we are releasing huge amounts of carbon to the atmosphere and forbidding the biosphere, by acts of deforestation and pollution, from adjusting to absorb this carbon; which is leading to global warming and an extreme yoyo like weather. All of that is happening because of our greed and our irresponsible actions. So let’s stop acting like pathogenic elements, let's keep the earth in a good health.
Wikipedia has a good article about Gaia theory you can see it here.

Contrast

2007-10-11T22:57:00.000+03:00

It stood before me creepy, huge and tall; I heard many stories about ghosts, and they remained for me nothing more than stories told but this time the ghost was real, it wasn’t an invisible shadow it was real 7 to 8 meters tall and carbonized from ground till its highest branch.
A beautiful pine tree, that’s how once it was but now it’s just a lifeless black ghost. The wind passes through it and nothing happens; there’s no movement in its needle leaves, no friction, no smooth sound, no beautiful pine scent to overwhelm the air and make it so adorable to breath. What remains is the black corpse with the ugly nauseous burning smell.

It is weird how that same smell used to be very nice; it was the inseparable companion of a lot of laughs and too many unforgettable moments around camp fire. Now that nice smell is nauseous and ugly, a fingerprint of the hideous destructive force that took a whole pine forest away. Anyway it’s not the first time, I've seen similar kinds of metamorphosis happening in other things before; ~~beautiful things can suddenly become ugly, it seems that it’s a hidden character in them.~~

50 years ago

2007-10-10T22:25:00.000+03:00

Click on image to enlarge

.....

2007-10-04T14:04:00.000+03:00

Ken ba3ed na2esna!

الآن

2007-09-30T22:03:00.000+03:00

Gaston LaGaffe is always funny :) and:

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

I love those guys

2007-09-26T22:11:00.000+03:00

You can visit their site here Pixar

...

2007-09-16T16:37:00.000+03:00

Like shattered glass
Words are in vain,
Time ticks with confusion
While being drunk by pain

The beauty of things
Gives beautiful feelings
But when it’s gone
It takes more than what it gave

And no matter how tempting
The fresh air can be
Bitterness can make a breath
Unworthy to take

Music

2007-09-12T21:43:00.000+03:00

Blue sunlight.

I was just passing time by recording few stuff, it is short 45 sec and very very simple. Sorry for the lousy recording.

Metapolitics*

2007-09-06T19:38:00.000+03:00

*The term “politics” in the title is not used in its universal or global sense, it only designates what is described as politics taking place in the Lebanese political scene.

Energy security is a fundamental element of the national security of any nation. Wars were fought and are currently being fought by many countries to secure energy sources and ensure their abundance in a sustainable manner at least for the foreseen future. The corner stone of any viable (before being competitive) economy is having a clear and rigid policy concerning energy security; because it affects everything from the industrial sector of the country, to tourism, to the transportation sector and trade, to satisfying energetic needs for households etc. Briefly it is the oxygenated blood that puts a country in motion and keeps it alive.

But what the Lebanese are doing in this regard? The answer is nothing. They are keeping themselves under the mercy of the volatile price of the oil barrel and never think of anything else to overcome this problem. The national electricity company is losing more than one billion dollars per year although the price of one kwh is the highest in the world and the service provided to the customers is the worse. This industry makes profits in all other countries but it loses billions here. Nothing is done and energy is a crucial issue that must be a priority; they insist on having fossil fuel energy plants and no one ever thinks of other alternatives that are suitable for our situation even though they exist. Other solutions are out of question because politicians benefit from the profits that oil importers make, corruption once again rules and we all pay the price. I also put a huge responsibility on professional bodies and specialists in the sector who just sit without doing anything as if they are not concerned by the subject.

I can’t pretend to be an expert in the field but I have studied a couple of courses related to energy systems and I know that there are many alternatives that can bring a solution to this problem. And renewable energy is one of them, the state of the art of the technology is effective and promising and is making success stories world wide, Germany has plans of gradually getting rid of its nuclear power plants in favor of renewable energy sources including Wind turbines and solar plants, UK has a promising plan for relying on wind energy, Denmark is too and it’s a leader in the industry, and Norway, Canada and the United states. Brazil has its own way for renewable and sustainable energy, they are planting thousands of hectares of sugar canes that are transformed into ethanol a bio fuel that is cheaper and pollutes less than other fossil fuels, and India has similar plans too.

The whole world is thinking and working to become self dependant and to find solutions to its problems while here all what they think about is how to take an extra chair in the council of ministers or how to prevent others from taking that extra chair.
There are many solutions that can be taken into consideration and can be realized to ensure that we will not be under the mercy of fossil fuel prices, those solutions include off shore wind farms, solar plants (we have around 300 days of sun per year), hydroelectric power plants can be expanded too, and the existing plants running on fossil fuel can be improved to raise their efficiency from around 40% to 80% using combined cycles where the steam coming out of the turbine and holding 60% of the energy of the fossil fuel is reheated by solar energy and used to drive the turbine once again instead of going to total waist. Feasibility studies should be done and solutions should be investigated but for sure it won’t happen in Lebanon, maybe we don’t need to have a competitive industry that can bring quality at a competitive price which will be a major boost to the Lebanese economy. Or maybe we don’t need to decrease the cost of the energy bill per capita in order to increase the buying power of the Lebanese individual which will mean a boost to the economy wheel as a whole, and will mean a significant improvement of the life of all Lebanese especially poor people who pay same as rich people concerning this matter. All those things that I’ve mentioned previously are not important, what is important here is greed, political power and authority and the stupid Lebanese people blindly follows although they are agonizing to make a living in their own country.

I chose to talk about energy security to illustrate with facts but there are many other issues that are urgent and must be tackled immediately however politicians here are nothing but children fighting over biscuits and candy bars, they are not policy makers and that’s why I made a difference between politics and Lebanese politics, because true politics create points of strength and combine them to make a nation stand on its feet and walk, while politics here is far away from that despite the fact that we so much need it after coming out of 15 years of civil war and multiple invasions from the outside. I wonder when the Lebanese people and their politicians will start thinking beyond Lebanese politics and perceive politics as management to find solutions and advance instead of authority, power and the ecstasy of being in power.

يلا عالرمّااااااااااااااان

2007-08-25T17:37:00.000+03:00

El 3ashra b2alef ;)

سكّر يا.....نادين

2007-08-23T23:21:00.000+03:00

The events beautifully flow in a simple way, but the movie is not simplistic at all. A very well crafted scenario that is taken from life and thus full of it. And while the trend among movie makers is to shock to leave an impression this movie approaches problematic issues, talks about them and displays them in a very smooth way and it leaves its deep mark in the viewer without shocking.
By displaying some faces of the feminine life taking place in the Lebanese society (but actually taking place in any other society not only in Lebanon) this movie opens a window on the feminine world and shows us some parts of it and while doing so it sometimes gives a laughter and some other times makes us touch the human pain.

The picture is exquisite and very colorful. Even though it doesn’t show the cliché themes that are used to show how much Lebanon is beautiful it shows some kind of beauty, the beauty of the daily life in the small streets that we dislike and hate sometimes in Beirut, but at the end they make Beirut special and make life in it intimate and warm.

I so much liked the music in this movie, it’s smartly composed, speaks out and conveys the feelings of the events taking place. In some places it was enough to change the instruments (alternation between strings and piano) and to make a small change in the tempo to take us from one mood to a totally different mood while playing the same melody. And the vocalist did a wonderful job in the songs of the movie.

"Caramel" or "سكّر بنات" is a very beautiful movie that combines a deep artistic sense and a good amount of entertainment. I recommend it to those who didn’t see it yet.

الآن

2007-08-19T00:06:00.000+03:00

A turning point, few things are clearer.

.....

2007-08-17T21:15:00.000+03:00

لم يقرأ كثيراً من صفحات الكتاب الذي بين يديه قبل أن يسأم منه. لم يكن يوماً يهوى القراءة
بشدّة، أقلّه الأدبية منها وكانت قد مرّت فترة أكثر من سنة دون ان يقرأ فيها كتاباً جديداً. لكنه سئم ضوضاء السياسة العقيمة والسمجة، فقرر ان يلجأ للقراءة علّها تنسيه اياها وتنقله الى عالمٍ جديد يعيش في طيّات صفحات كتاب، ويحمل اليه أوجه أخرى من الحياة بات يفتقدها إذ لم يبقَ له سوى منحىً واحداً فرضته عليه الأجواء والأوضاع المحيطة به. لكنه تأثّر بالضوضاء الترويجية وأخطأ باختيار الكتاب.
يلقيه من يديه، ويتوجّه ليضع واحدة من أغانيه الصاخبة المفضلة علَّ صخبها يكسر صخبَ النهار، الذي ما زال صداه يتردّد في رأسه، ويحلّ مكانه. لا يحقق نجاحاً كاملاً فيقرر الإسترخاء ويذهب الى نافذته، يفتحها ويطلّ منها وينظر الى سماء الليل. لطالما عشق هدوء الليل وسماءه، ليست كسماء النهار تملأها الشمس ونورها الذي يبهره ويجبره ان ينظر فقط الى الأمام، الليل يعرّي السماء ويبسطها بجمالها وغموضها ونجومها ووسعها الذي يريح الناظر اليها. يتأمّل النجوم ويتوه بينها وتأخذه الأفكار الى أشخاصٍ يحبّهم وأشياءٍ يحبّها، تراوده أحلام وأفكار جديدة يشعر برغبة للعمل لها وتحقيقها، ثم ينتبه الى أنه يعيش واحدة من تلك اللحظات، اللحظات الصغيرة التي يرى فيها الأشياء بوضوح ويقرر ان يفعل. يفكر خلالها بأشياءٍ، احياناً كبيرة وأخرى صغيرة. تبدأ من الأشياء الشخصية كالخطة التي رسمها لمفاجأة حبيبته يوم عيد ميلادها الى الأشياء العامة او تلك المتعلقة بالعمل. لحظات ليست بطويلة، عندما يكون بصحبة المرآة وشفرة الحلاقة في الصباح، او خلال لحظة صمت في السيارة أو عندما يكون لوحده في المصعد او عندما ينظر الى فنجان القهوة بعد ان ينتهي منه ويضعه، وما شابهها من لحظات يستمتع بها قبل ان يعود التكرار اليومي ليسرقه من ذاته ويحتل الحصة الأكبر من وقته لا بل معظم وقته. واقع الأشياء دائماً بعكس ما يتمناه، يتمنّى لو كانت مساحة التكرار اليومي هي الأصغر، يأخذ نفساً عميقاً ثم....... يغلق نافذته.

Lebanon and democracy

2007-08-13T16:02:00.000+03:00

Democracy is an essential part of a political system that respects the will of its people, it is a mechanism that injects life into the political system and gives it the chance for renewal and periodic reconstitution based on accountability, in order to reward what is good by keeping it and to replace the bad, or to put who is best in a place where he/she can make a difference. And the goal of all that is to put the wheel of the civilization in motion and to advance while time passes by.

But it’s not true that democracy can be applied everywhere, there are too many cases where democracy cannot be applied, imagine three wolves and two lambs voting for what to eat for dinner, how much democratic is that? Democracy cannot be applied on enemies; it should be applied in a place where members of a same nation are honestly competing for doing what’s best for that particular nation as a whole not what’s best for any of the competing members.

Democracy cannot be applied in Lebanon if it remains the way it is today, not only enemies are competing with each other so that each one achieves its own interests, but the Lebanese people who is the key for democracy, the side that operates the democratic system through voting is not eligible of operating the democratic machine.

The constitutive element of the Lebanese society is not the individual who is free and mature to evaluate, to choose and to vote, it is the religious sect. Masses of people are mobilized by sectarian fanaticism, each mass acts as a single block and tries to do whatever is best to serve its sectarian pride and to acquire and gain as a mass as much as possible. And that’s the only criterion that governs the voting procedure for members of those masses; it is not the concern about the nation as a whole or the concern that if the nation falls down every single individual will fall down with it.

So in this case democracy fails as a mechanism to reconstitute, correct and restore the political system, it is only another mean with which brainwashed sectarian masses fight each other, leading to no result other than more conflicts and a total halt of the advancement of the nation.

Sectarian democracy, even though they try to mask it by the beautiful name of consensual democracy doesn’t have anything to do with democracy. And the name “consensual democracy” by itself is a big mockery because democracy and voting are applied when it is impossible to reach a consensus.

We’ve been applying a so called democracy for more than 60 years now, but my personal opinion is that democracy and voting shouldn’t be applied in Lebanon before the Lebanese as individuals know how to make a difference between what’s right and wrong and before they are mature enough so that they can be given the responsibility of voting to elect. I’m not asking for a dictatorship, but for anything that can educate the Lebanese people and make them wake up from their emotions and sectarian pride, anything that can teach them to stop acting and behaving like sectarian or political herds. They must learn how to break the organic link they have with politico-sectarian leaders, and how to stop reflecting their own image in that kind of leaders and gain back some of their own self confidence and individual national pride, so that when they go to elect they choose what’s best for Lebanon not anything else.

Why?

2007-08-04T18:27:00.000+03:00

Lebanese people support till death other countries' national teams like Brazil Germany Italy France and so on, but can anyone tell me why they don't support their national team? They're just happy when Brazil or Germany or Italy etc is playing they overcrowd any place that has a giant screen, and when their favorite team wins they call each other, go out cruise in their cars screaming and shouting, but when it comes to Lebanon they don't care no one sets a giant screen no one cares about watching no one screams happiness when Lebanon wins. Last year we were playing in the Basketball world cup and even though we had a team lacking a lot of budget, preparation and moral, a team that was coming out of a country ravaged by war, we managed to beat France that held the title of the European championship but no one cared, this year Lebanon has made a wonderful journey in Asia championship and today we reached the final after beating South Korea and we have a chance of going to the Olympic games if we win the title but no one cares, they barely make a small report on it at the end of the news. So where's the true patriotism? Why is it that the Lebanese people don’t feel a little bit of pride when our national team beats all Asian teams? Why no one raises the flag just the way they do for Brazil Germany France and Italy?? There's only the cheap patriotism that makes them bark back whatever Aoun, Berri, Geagea, Hariri, Jounblat and Nasrallah say, maybe it would’ve meant for them if a team of the political party that they support was playing, but when a national icon for Lebanon, all Lebanon, such as the Lebanese team is playing it doesn’t mean anything for them.
So for the Lebanese team good luck guys in the final game I believe in you…and I'm raising the flag for you.

Music

2007-07-31T19:49:00.000+03:00

Ever The Same... Rob Thomas

I like some of his songs and I don't like some others but what I like a lot about him is his unique way in singing, there's a lot of drama in his voice tonality and at the same time there's some sort of anger, frustration and energy in the way he sings.