Nicole Saba – Tab’i Keda

"Violence against women in Egypt continues to be a major issue with 35 percent of women in Egypt reported as being beaten by their husbands."
(Source: Arab American News article through Ha Ana Za post).

Personally I think that the unreported cases present a higher percentage and the situation in the other parts of the Arab world are not any better and Bashir's post just proves my thinking.

"Women's groups say they receive daily reports of domestic violence from women from all sectors of society, across religious and economic divides.
It is estimated that there is approximately one honor killing a week in Lebanon..." (Source: Daily Star article through UrShalim).

Back to the art news...
Nicole Saba (نيكول سابا) has released a new song called “Tab3i Kida” which means “This is the way I am”. I will quote a part of the song:

أنا طبعي كده وبحب كده
وبحب أعيش ومعنديش الا كده
دي حياتي أنا دي ملكي أنا
وأنا مهما يكون بردو حكون زي ما أنا

عايزة أفرح وأرقص وأضحك يا ناس
هيه دنيا وبنعشها مرة وخلاص
ياما قالوا وعادوا ولاموا كتير
بس بنسى وبكبّر دماغي وخلاص

This roughly translates to:

This is the way I am and that’s what I love,
And I like to live this way and I don’t have anything else (to worry about)!
This is my life, my own life,
And no matter what happened, I will be myself.
…
I want to be happy and dance and laugh,
We only live life once before it is over,
People have always gossiped and hated and blamed,
But I tend to forget with a big heart.

Well, if you listen to the song alone (without the video clip), it is more like a woman screaming for the freedom she deserves; freedom to live the life she has always desired. She wants to be happy and cheerful without worrying about the gossip of others.

The message is beautiful because everyone has the right to live the life he/she desires. This is the fair thing to do; moreover, it is important as we pursue our dreams not to let other people discourage us and lead us away from our desired path.

Well, that’s how I would understand the song if I hear it without the video clip! However, watching the video clip, I discovered that I got it all wrong. I mean, either I am wrong, or the producer who assumingly worked closely with the singer is wrong!


The video clip is about an erotic dancer that likes to crawl all the time especially behind behinds.


Or maybe I should describe her as a pole dancer. (I always thought that pole dancing is about more than just hugging a metal pole till I watched this clip!)


So, it turned out that this woman is fulfilling her dreams by living her life as a strip-tease/erotic/pole dancer. I am trying to imagine the effect of such video clip being repeated during day hours to children. I won’t find it hard to believe if a teacher told me about such a conversation taking place in a class.

Teacher: “What do you want to become when you grow up?”
Little girl: “I want to become a strip-tease dancer like that pretty woman I saw on TV.”

Well, just when I understood that the song and video clip are about a woman pursuing her dream in the “entertainment” industry, I discovered that I was partially wrong. She loves something else; she likes to be beaten up. How did I conclude that? The very first image that accompanies the words, “that’s what I love” (بحب كده) shows a beaten up woman.


What message are they trying to convey? I don’t know; maybe they are trying to tell us that women, at least in the Arab world, like to be beaten up and bruised to get natural makeup!

Please, don’t misunderstand me that I am demeaning the efforts of the dedicated erotic dancer; after all, they are selling a service that someone else wants. I am actually annoyed by linking sexual imagery with violence; and who is exerting the violence against the innocent dancers? The police who supposedly protects civil liberties!


The images of torture are even more explicit although we are still talking about a music video clip!


The video clip doesn't leave a place for your imagination and goes further to remind you that if someone is beaten up enough, he/she will spit some red fluid (commonly known as blood).


No wonder why we have such high rates of violence against women especially in the Arab world.

Anyway, I will go back to my work as it is more relieving than the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, if you feel like watching the video clip on YouTube, click here.

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking website (that is spreading like fire to help you and those you know waste your precious time even further.)

Facebook has proved to be a very useful tool in finding old friends that you have not only lost contact with, but also lost interest in!

The beauty of Facebook is that you can add friends to your list who don’t have the least interest in staying in touch with you either! So, it is now your chance to take revenge and impose yourself. Remember to re-request their friendship every time they delete you. :)

But the beautiful thing is that you can start spamming them with invitations for everything from request to join a Cause, such as a ‘Play $1 to plant a cactus in Antarctica’, to invitation to join a Group, ‘When this group reaches a zillion, then Laptopless Female Dog will join’. So, yes, that’s a very fun sadistic way to spam your friends. I personally have invited my friends tens of times to join “Fight Club” application because the programmers of that application claimed that this would increase my chance of winning in fights!

Then the zombie plague; I swear I don’t want to become a zombie or a vampire or a werewolf! After living the long years of the Israeli war on Lebanon + the not-to-be-mentioned Lebanese civil war, I am not sure how much I preserved of my “human side” if any. So, thank you, but no, the last thing I need is to label myself!

Then comes the “mood application”; X is feeling happy/ sad/ nostalgic/ hungry/ excited… etc. So everyone knows about X’s “mood swings” every time they browse to Facebook. I personally was doing that till I finally decided to stop leaking confidential information about my mood!

Movies and books, my favorite part… Can you imagine the mass of information you are providing about yourself to potential abusers by jotting down your favorite movies and/or books? If someone favorites “American Psycho” then most likely he is living an inner struggle between a violent id and a timid ego (or something like that); such a piece of information can allow a bad guy to use in order to manipulate you. The possibilities are limitless.

Do you still want to expose your life details to everyone through your Facebook profile? Or the more accurate question would be, what kind of information have you decided to reveal to the www? I am not sure anymore; but we'd better have a rigid list for our own peace of mind.

Together we protect - معا نحمي

A new advertisement is starting to fill the streets today. It shows two combination caps; the left one is for the army officers and the other is for the internal security officers. Beneath that, it says “Together we protect” or “معا نحمي” and signed by “internal security forces.”

That’s a glamorous fragment; it is a fragment because there is no way it can be truthful if we assume that this is a complete sentence. To be accurate it should be changed to “together we protect this and/or that” otherwise there is no way for our so-called armed forces to protect in this claimed absolute sense.

So, I think they want us to fill in the blanks from our media brainwashed minds so I started to think of possible ways to continue this “fragment” to make it a complete useful sentence. I thought of:

Together we protect the Lebanese citizens? No way, israel practices the sport of hunting civilians during war and occasionally at non-war times. And what do the armed forces do? Ah, yes, “tea ceremony” but not the Japanese way, it is the Fatfat way.

Together we protect the Lebanon lands? But no, the lands occupied by israel were never freed by the Lebanese army but rather by the national resistance. And the so-called Shibaa farms, still occupied by israel, are screaming to be freed; but no one to listen.

Together we protect free speech? These are the same guys used force excessively to face civililan protests. And yes, excessive use of force includes, but not limited to, using live ammunition against Lebanese civilians.

Together we protect the press? No, not really, from Samir Kassir to Gebran Tueni... someone found a way to silence them.

Together we protect the members of the parliament? That’s ridiculous; every now and then another “voting candidate” loses his voice!

I thought I ran out of thoughts but I suddenly remembered the infamous Lebanese hospitality (other than the aforementioned Fatfat tea). Together we protect foreign embassies. Yes, that’s it. That’s what our army excels at! Every single embassy street has been turned into a military camp, literally!

And gladly I also found the sole cause for the existence of the internal security forces. Hint: Remember how most Lebanese tend to disregard the traffic lights! Now the puzzle is finished; together we protect and reinforce traffic lights!

But let the keep repeating their propaganda; after all, if you repeat something long enough, it becomes a fact!

Becoming a Politician in Lebanon - HOWTO #1

Well, Lebanon is the land of opportunities, for those who can spot them, and most especially the land of “political opportunities.” I will dissect some political prototypes (because I have nothing better to do).

In this prototype, there is a single prerequisite; you need to be the son of a political leader. This political leader should have a very strong public base who would follow him blindly. Please note that they follow the person and not his ideology (which is a weird word to the leader himself!)

If this great leader, who happens to be your dad, disappears, God forbids, his herd will search for another shepherd to replace him. According to the “human mentality” the best successor is someone who shares the most genes with him.

Hence, being an ambitious Lebanese with politics running in your blood, you wait for your father, the leader, to be assassinated so that you can use his glory to climb the glorious ladder of political power. Of course, for ethical reasons, you should not have anything to do with the assassination of this “great man;” however, it is viable and even wise to be the ally of the same assassins who killed your “biological” father. Of course, this all depends on what the “greater good” or “greater evil” dictates; it is all relative to your point of view.

Since the herd follows the shepherd and not an ideology, it won’t really matter what you know or what you believe. Practically, you might have obtained all your education from Playboy magazines and still be the perfect heir (as an English word). Whatever you say will be the “ultimate truth” to your dedicated followers; after all, you’re the son of a great man! There is no way that you would utter nonsense and as far as they are concerned, you were chosen by a god.



It is important to note that it is very useful for your public image if you reverse your political agenda every few years or even months so that the brains of the followers does not get rusty or bored. Although it not necessary, it would be useful if you resemble a movie star such as Sméagol.

Japanese Film Festival in Lebanon

This week, starting today, I will enjoy Japanese Films on a big screen. :)

The Embassy of Japan in Lebanon in collaboration with the YWCA Beirut will present the Japanese Film Festival from Wednesday, October 24, to Saturday, October 27, 2007, at Cultural Center of YWCA Beirut, Rustum Pasha Street, Ain-Muraisseh.

Six films will be screened to introduce many Japanese cultural aspects and how Japanese daily life has been from the past up to the present. All the films have had a great success both in Japan and abroad and some of them have been awarded or nominated at many international film festivals.

The YWCA Beirut Cultural Center was refurbished by Japanese Cultural Grassroots Grant Program in 2006 and inaugurated this February. The Cultural Center was equipped with high quality sound systems and huge screen.

- All the Film have Japanese original sound with ARABIC SUBTITLES

For further information and list of the films, please visit the announcement at the Embassy of Japan in Lebanon website.

Hummer for the City

Although it might first appear that big 4 wheel drives were designed for mountains and challenging roads, people are increasingly buying them for the “city.” I will put myself in those “big people’s” shoes to better understand the reasoning behind it.



There is a Lebanese proverb that says,
استكبرها ولو كانت عجرة
which translates to, “Go for the bigger one even if it is unripe!” So try to apply this when buying your personal transportation means!

Bigger translates to the “average person” as more important, more powerful, more successful… I am sure that such an image can help make up for all the failures and rejections that you went through in your life.

It helps boost your ego as you drive one of the most expensive cars. You don’t need to wait for those “enlarge your…” spam emails as now, you can f*** with confidence! Plus, people will envy you for your (apparent) finical security and they will all start to wonder how to be like you.

Parking is more fun and challenging, with a car double the size of the average one, you need to be a better driver to park your beauty without scratching it. You see, this will help push your parking skills to the limit; aka self improvement.

Something as expensive and shiny can be a real “magnet” to the opposite sex and even to the same sex (this depends on your sexual preference whether you are a hetero, homo, bi, etc.).

With a wheel as high as a standard car, you can literally step over people’s cars. When you “step over” someone’s car, you can’t apologize, even if you want to, because most likely they are too “low” to hear you!

With such vehicles, the gas consumption is so high that the demand for “oil” will stay high. High demand on oil means:

• You will be supporting the countries rich in oil, such as KSA, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc. and help keep their “democratic kings” in authority!


• This in turn would push for further democratization of the Middle East. Third world countries can always use a little more democracy, no? Look at Iraq, it is now democratic, safe, secure, and living the American dream. Who could ask for more?


• In order to better spread democracy to countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, the arms industry will become more prosperous. You know, it is the 21st century, the only way to spread democracy and civilization is through killing machines.


• And even after the whole world is democratized, we still need to keep funds flowing to the arms factories to help develop new kinds of weapons in order to protect us against any potential extraterrestrial invasion.

… Now I am convinced to keep my old car!

Broken Laptop

My IBM T42 laptop broke its hinge. :(

I was expecting the hard disk to fail or the main board or maybe one of the fans... but I never expected a metal hinge to break during normal usage!

I am now on a temporary laptop till I get my laptop's hinge "operated". :p


The comment section is open if anyone wants to express his condolences. :p

The Story of a Martyr

Back during my university days, the Lebanese Army started recruiting officers. They will test the applicants on several bases: educational level, psychological stability, physical fitness, etc. And of course, there is a hidden basis which is the “whom do you know?” or as we call it in Lebanese, “wasta” (which literally translate as “way”).

Although we were at the second year engineering, and we still need three more years to go, one quarter of my “colleagues” at the university applied to join the Military School. They thought about it this way:
We need three years in the “Military School” to graduate as lieutenants.
Once we re lieutenants, we will have a fixed salary with a solid social security and even complete coverage of the educational fees for our future children.
And we will also get free gas!
Once we are lieutenants, we will enjoy a high level of prestige as most of the army and all the civilians will see us as “lucky” men with authority.

The could go on and on for hours convincing the rest of us how applying to become a lieutenant is better than graduating from university and then searching for a job and all this sh!t.

One of them, which I will refer to as Mr. A, applied and was accepted. By the time I graduated, he had become a Lieutenant (you know he wears a suit with a star on each shoulder with an extra large emblem on his beret, and all the lower ranks will address him as “sir” just like we see in the movies, bla bla bla and lots of shiny stuff!).

Mr. A started “serving” his country, while I was serving my company. Serving our country usually doesn’t require you to leave your office, and when you do, you are in a 4x4 military vehicle with at least one guard.

Serving a private company entailed… err, may I postpone that till I resign? Please? After all, I’d rather resign than get fired. :P

Then, the army’s worst nightmare occurred; war! No, it is not the Israeli July war you silly!! It is the war against a mysteriously funded and secretively trained militia in Northern Lebanon who called themselves “Fath El-Islam.” This militia was so misguided and so extremist that even the extremists of Al-Qaida refused to support them!! So the more accurate name for them should be “Shaker Al-Abssi’s Gang” especially that they enjoyed robbing banks!

Again, mysteriously, there were orders to eradicate this gang completely. The Lebanese Army got military support from USA (I wonder why this didn’t happen during Israeli War on Lebanon… anyway). After months and weeks, the gang was supposedly eradicated except for their leader (Shaker Al-Abssi) who vanished in thin air. And by the way, till now, despite all the interrogations that took place, we still don’t know for sure who funded and trained them. There are speculations, but nothing certain.

Anyway, [no] thanks to facebook, I learned from another colleague that Mr. A died in the battle against that extremist gang. So, this makes him a martyr, no?

Ramadan in Lebanon

As Ramadan is in the process of being over (I will explain that in the next post), let’s see what we learn about Ramadan in Lebanon:

Among other things, Ramadan includes fasting from dawn (around 5:00 AM at this part of the world) till sunset (around 6:30 PM). Along with the assumed spiritual experience, I think this would help us remember the poor people who cannot afford a decent meal; unfortunately, in the age of consumerism and entertainment, Ramadan is given a brand new meaning.

How would a day in Ramadan pass for the common person here?

If possible, people will try to sleep till noon during Ramadan to help avoid the hunger while being awake. So, I shall directly jump to the afternoon period.

Throughout the afternoon, all TV stations abuse the expected hunger of the viewers to dedicate a couple of hours daily for cooking programs and to teach people to cook new fatty dishes. The other trick is to spend all the last few hours before sunset shopping for food, sweets and drinks. It is a vital practice to over-eat on this main meal till the person not only fills his stomach, but also his lungs and other parts of his body! It seems to be a common (mis)conception that fasting is unacceptable if the person eats lightly.

After the person fills his stomach with all kinds of delicious foods and drinks and cannot eat anymore, he can take a break, have a cigarette and resume the task of “over-eating”. Within an hour or two, the greediest of men will definitely be full!

With a full stomach, the person has nothing to do other than… oh yes, it is TV time. On the local channels you can find all kinds of TV series that were created specifically for the “Holy Month of Ramadan” and hence most of them are made of 30 “episodes”! I mean there is really a wide variety and I do really mean a wide variety. Well if you still don’t get it, one of shows is starred by a cross dresser, who is considered by at least one Lebanese “international” TV station to be a genuine Lebanese talent; a gem!

Now it is 10 PM and the best investment of time now would be “Sohour”. For those unfamiliar with the concept of “Sohour” this is theoretically a light meal the person can have before dawn to help him throughout the whole day. I think such a meal was made of few dates and a glass of water in the old days, but now it is a complete new fashion. First, it starts as early as 10 PM (or even earlier), the “devoted fasters” and “un-fasters” as well can go to one of the old-fashioned cafes that offer all kinds of foods, especially, foul, hommos, cheese, labne, etc. with a diversity of drinks starting from tea and coffee to jallab and tamar hindi… Of course, the hubble bubble is a proven tradition. Some people stay till the last minute before dawn enjoying the foods and the hubble bubble. Others who have work the next day will sadly leave earlier.

The next day, the person would wake up the next day really sleepy and tired from the previous “feast” and he realizes that God gave him the chance to live this one more time!

Oral Stage?

Question: If a female friend keeps searching so desperately for a macho to dominate her and she might not realize it consciously, should I “enlighten” her or not?

There was this girl who found me on Hi5 in the old days when I had a Hi5 account three years ago. So she added me to her MSN and she started chatting with me; her third question was like, “What kind of car do you drive?” Well, a person can be superficial and shallow, but not to the extent to ask me about the kind of car I drive! Although we didn’t get along, we kept each other on MSN.

She disappeared on MSN for several months. Then she appeared again. We had a short conversation and I learned that she lived a love story for the past months. It was her neighbor the pharmacist; they fell in love with each other when she was buying some medicine for her grandfather. (Since then, she kept praying that her grandfather would get ill more frequently.)

She told me that her “boy friend” does not allow her to use MSN to chat with her friends because he gets jealous. Etc. But their relationship was about to end as they reached the stage where he should propose and he didn’t want to. Anyway, their relationship ended.

Again, she started searching for a new boy friend; someone who would again dominate her and prevent her from using MSN. It didn’t take long before she found some retarded macho who would appreciate her submissiveness. He, of course, prevented her from using MSN (as she had always desired her “man of dreams” to do).

This time, she disappeared from MSN for about a year to an extent that I forgot her name. Then, as their relationship deteriorated, she started to appear online again. This time, she was feeling so desperate. Her second boy friend, out of a sudden, told her that he “lost interest”. She continuously shared her agony with me on MSN although till the moment I don’t understand what gave her the impression that I am a shrink! And if I am truly her friend, then I deserve that she shares with me her happy moments, not only her sad ones!!

So, as you can conclude, my friendship with her is keeps passing in three stages:
Stage 1: Hi, how are you? Bye. Seriously, things cannot be shallower.
Stage 2: She blocks all means of contact, when she is happy in her love relationship.
Stage 3: She suffers breaking up and she wants someone to listen to her lamenting and she finds me online!

Anyway, as a “good friend” I did my best to support her in order to deal more efficiently with his sudden solid rejection. Then, she did everything she can possibly think of to attract him, but he was too fed up.

Then, she was free again and I was happy for her. She got a new job, and I was happy for her. She was having fun eating chocolate and working out and I was happy for her.

Till… oh no! She found another macho! I knew she was going to disappear on MSN again and that’s what she did. Her boy friend even made her change her mobile number; this way he made sure that none of her old friends can contact her again. He declared his triumph as his girlfriend won’t hear a “masculine” voice anymore. (Well, he is right… I mean, what if she heard some masculine voice and got pregnant?)

As she blocked me for the third time if I am not mistaken, so I played dumb and emailed her asking why she blocked me. She replied, with utter pride that her fiancé does not let her talk with other men. I got really disgusted of such a “friendship” and told her that I will delete her and wished her a happy life.

Although I am happy that she got engaged, I started to wonder about her character. She keeps searching for someone to dominate her. She feels proud being someone’s tool. Does this categorize her as an “oral character”?

The question is, shall I email her the link to the Wikipedia article about the “oral stage”? Or maybe it is none of my business!

Back (or is it Front?)

Yes, you are right, I am going to revive my blog! ;)

I will create new links to my friend's blogs by end of this week and hopefully I will upload few posts.

Miss you all. :)