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Serious satire
"Humor is a funny way of being serious"
-Thomas Edison
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To have your emails deleted please write to me at renatoobeid@hotmail.com
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Copyright© 2001-2010, Renato Obeid
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"Top blog/Renato Obeid's World/Today's pick: This rambling weblog is worth reading not so much for its satirical posts but more for its insight into the minutiae of life in Lebanon, including the etiquette of road accidents and how to hire a taxi.”
-Jane Perrone, The Guardian
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Sunday, December 26, 2004
RENATOOBIEDSWORLD IS BEST VIEWED WITH YOUR EYES
7:45 am
EARTHQUAKES AND TSUNAMIS WREAK HAVOC
- Indonesian government reconsiders its rejection of Aceh secession
- Venice flooded
- Renato Obeid condemns earthquakes and tsunamis
7:30 am
LET THEM EAT CAKE
Years ago at around this time of year, we received a Christmas well-wisher.
My mother served him some panettone and explained that it was Italian Christmas cake, then she served him some stollen and explained that it was German Christmas cake and, finally, she served him some fruitcake and explained that it was English Christmas cake.
Not the most worldly man, he was quite stunned by all of this and said (translating) “Praise be to the God of all creation, every country has its ‘cuto’” (gateaux – Lebanese is practically half French*).
I have since dubbed that “The Cake Prayer” and I recite it often.
*Even the fundamentalists in Lebanon speak French – Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station has French and English news bulletins.
6:00 am
REWIND THE CROWD
Ukrainians are going back to the polls today in a rerun of last month’s controversial presidential election, after which hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets to protest alleged electoral fraud.
3:30 am
Saturday, December 25, 2004
My mum's a Muslim, thus she's very depressed at this time of the year - she much prefers Easter.
Seriously though, Islam recognizes Christ as a prophet and many Muslims here in multi-confessional Lebanon commemorate Christmas.
4:43 am
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR BLING BLING
It is ironic and paradoxical that while the Establishment create the conventions, values, prejudices etc that bind the masses, they have no greater disseminators and enforcers of these than those very subjugated masses who adopt them hook, line and sinker as part of their false consciousness.
Example, the term “unemployed” is essentially a term created by the Establishment* to identify and mark and shame and coerce people who aren’t slaving for them but it has since been adopted, with gusto, by the masses who use it to label and shame their peers, thus achieving a sort of “self-rule” and “autonomy” of oppression and relieving the Establishment of this burden.
And make no mistake about it; the masses are the greatest snobs on the face of the Earth – although not usually associated with snobbery, the masses ape their masters and look down at each other and this snobbery is the worst of all as it is the most petty, delusional and illusory.
For example, a factory will look down on his “unemployed” neighbour because he doesn’t work in a factory!
There’s nothing wrong with working in a factory but what kind of world is it where a factory job is all that stands between you and opprobrium!?!
A sad symptom of modern egalitarianism is that a factory worker can look down on a gentleman because he has a ‘’job’’.
This role reversal is reverse discrimination.
Democracy gone feral.
One of the advantages of living in an allegedly unegalitarian society like Lebanon is that people still know their place (although this is changing) and, if they don’t know their place, they’re too polite to get too carried away.
Just because the capitalist has transubstantiated your pushing buttons and pulling levers at a plant for him into a modern religion so as to give his exploitation legitimacy and to sanctify it (the Protestant work ethic is a perfect example of this), it doesn’t mean that you should believe him and get carried away and ape the oppressor.
I believe that to criticise someone you need to be at least equal to them – you have to have at least one thing going for you, be it education, status, pedigree, success, even wealth, etc.
And that’s just to qualify – even then you can’t just criticize someone willy-nilly.
I would even extend that to voting because voting, after all, is a form of judging.
Judging is a privilege that has to be earned.Once again, I must stress that there is nothing wrong with working in a factory but there is something wrong with simpletons judging people because they don’t do the same work that they do or even don’t ‘’work’’ according to their narrow perception
Of course, the upper classes also exhibit snobbery but that is towards other, lower classes but amongst themselves they share a sort of class camaraderie, a sort of fascist Internationale, whereas amongst the lower classes, there is intra-class snobbery.
Example, here in Lebanon it is quite common amongst the lower classes to initially reject outright a daughter’s suitor, indeed it seems to be a sort of “mating ritual” whereby, say for example, the butcher will reject the baker’s son who courts his daughter and decry it as a mésaliance, the daughter will often elope with the young man and then a couple of months, years, whatever later her family will come around and “accept” him and the marriage (in truth, they’d accepted it all along but were just putting on a show).
It’s quite a shame because what they’re in fact doing is oppressing themselves – snobbery has been outsourced by the upper classes to the lower classes.
There’s also a strong element of unrealistic expectations in all of this – in a society where almost everybody is on the make and traditional values have been tipped on their head, people’s expectations and self perceptions have gone haywire.
Example, traditionally a girl working at a supermarket would marry a boy working at a supermarket but now she expects to marry the owner of the supermarket chain.
But of course the supermarket owner (who probably was a peasant a generation ago albeit a kulak) isn’t going to marry one of his checkout chicks because he’s also set his sights above his station.
*"With words we govern men" quoth Benjamin Disreali.
As a teenager on his first trip to Beirut, to sit the government-conducted Year 8 school exams, my father and his schoolmates witnessed a fight in the street between two prostitutes.
Amidst all the hullabaloo, one prostitute called the other prostitute a “prostitute!”(Another perfect example of intra-class snobbery).
The “prostitute!” rejoined with “yes, but I’ve always been primo*!” (Even more intra-class snobbery).
*Initially an Italian word, it was used around here to indicate grade A, premium etc.
Even in Western countries people subconsciously collaborate with their oppressors.For example, poor and working class people in Australia are often the most fervent supporters of conservative parties like the Liberal party which they’ve helped keep in power for nearly a decade now
The greatest enemies of revolution are those who need it the most.
Nobody hates the lower classes more than they hate themselves and each other.
The upper classes don’t hate the lower classes they are just indifferent to and disdainful of them
The lower classes hate their peers for a myriad of reasons, among those being that they see their meanness and the meanness of their lives reflected back at them in each other.
Poor people hate each other just for being poor: “don’t remind me!”
They’re like an unwanted mirror to each other.
Except for parvenus who hate the lower classes because they’ve just come from there and it’s still fresh in their minds and also because this is a good way for these class traitors to separate distinguish and demarcate themselves from what they were and, if it weren’t for the grace of God, still would be and fear returning to.
Never quite confident, comfortable or secure where they are and insecure about their place in the upper echelons and fearful of exposure, these class squatters see “you don’t belong here” (real or imagined) in the faces of their newfound peers and see “you belong here, who are you fooling?” (real or imagined) in the eyes of their erstwhile peers.
Disclaimer: A man whose main contact with the masses is with service drivers is bound to have a pessimistic view of the world.
Merry Christmas by the way and excuse the dogma on Christmas but the revolution will not pause for public holidays!
In fact, the revolution will probably be on a public holiday or else nobody will attend!
In fact, I’d like to schedule the revolution for the 26th December at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where tens of thousands of people usually attend the traditional Boxing Day (cricket) Test match that starts on that day.
I think that doing a quick switcheroo at this late stage and swapping an Australia versus whoever cricket match for worldwide revolution, without people knowing about this late change, will ensure good attendance for the revolution.
I know that it all sounds a bit underhanded but you have to initially trick the masses until they will eventually reach the stage where they will themselves want to swap cricket for revolution and Kerry packer will heed public demand and even stage one-day limited-overs revolutions.
Capitalism and consumerism keep you too busy to think.
They contrive all sorts of tasks for you to do to keep you from thinking because thought is the enemy of ideology and dogma.
1:00 am
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
FIRST DAY OF ELECTION CAMPAIGN IN IRAQ
- all eyes on January 32nd poll
4:32 am
Sunday, December 19, 2004
RENATO OBEID IS RENATOOBEIDSWORLD'S MAN OF THE YEAR
- unprecedented second year in a row
"I'm shocked and stunned!
This is just so unexpected - a total surprise!
When did this happen?"
- www.renatobeidsworld.blogspot.com's Man of the Year, Renato Obeid on learning of the honour.
8:29 am
Saturday, December 18, 2004
IT’S GETTING HOT IN HERE
As the 10th United Nations climate change conference winds down in Buenos Aires, I issue an urgent plea to all those delusional Flat-Earthers who deny the phenomena of global warming – look around you and face reality!
Global warming is real and immediate – e.g. three months ago it was really cold in Australia and now it’s really hot!
Something must be done! *
A balance must be struck* between, on the one hand, development and, on the other hand, the environmental preservation of our planet!
Governments and companies must put people before profit! *
*I’ve finally used them – the top three editorial clichés.
3:32 am
Friday, December 17, 2004
Tired but attempting a "correction" - staying up all night and all day to hopefully cure my insomnia.
So I’ve go the whole country to myself.
I know - why don't I attempt to go to sleep?
That’ll wake me up!
In fact, that’s probably the very definition of an insomniac-someone who's always tired except when trying to get to sleep
People always tell me "don't say 'I'm going to sleep’ and you’ll sleep".
I get part of that right - I say "I'm not going to sleep" and...I don't.
Still, no "organized sleep" for me today - if it happens it happens.
It's a good way of circumventing my insomnia - if I don't attempt to go to sleep, then my insomnia won't bother me (it's only insomnia if you're trying to sleep).
Just as your lap disappears when you’re standing up, so does your insomnia.
I've been told that I should be more positive.
Here goes - I'm not an insomniac, I'm just very good at staying awake!
When people ask me what I’m taking for my insomnia, I reply ‘’I’m taking hours’’ (to get to sleep).
3:15 am
Thursday, December 16, 2004
One of the drawbacks of an import-based economy is that consumers are subject to sudden and inexplicable shortages.
I can’t remember the last time I saw M&M’s in the shops here.
Do you remember what is was like before everything got turned into a chocolate bar overnight a la Charlie and the Chocolate factory (about ten years ago), when we only had the Big Three (Mars, Snickers and Bounty)?
Well that’s the time warp I’ve been thrown into now – it’s the mid-1990’s all over again!
Also, I’m suffering through another Listerine drought.
I’m using an inferior backup mouthwash - it doesn’t gargle well, I end up gargling bubbles and spilling it (good mouthwash stays in your mouth is my maxim!).
Original Listerine is still available but the Cool Mint Listerine that I use is nowhere to be found and hasn’t been for a couple of weeks.
Don’t get me started on Tartar Control Listerine! (New, now with more effective label!).
I saw it at the supermarket just once, bought it and never saw it again!
Fear not, help is on its way - I’m “importing” Cool Mint Listerine from Tripoli as we speak (as I do when this happens).
UPDATE
I’ve just taken receipt of some Listerine, “imported” from Tripoli, but my joy was short lived – the expiry date reads “02/02”.
Tripoli will never run out of Listerine - even after it’s expired.
UPDATE
10.45 PM, Saturday 18th December 2004
I’ve just finally taken receipt of two bottles of Cool Mint Listerine, imported from Tripoli – luxury standard (they haven’t expired yet).
Unsuccessfully tried to import Brut Deodorant/Anti-Perspirant Spray, also from Tripoli (which is also out of stock here) but it wasn’t available – although there was a buy-one-get-one-free offer on Brut Deodorant roll-on (I suppose they have to try everything to move stock like that in Tripoli – they can’t even give it away!).
10:45 pm
Sunday, December 12, 2004
My twelve-year-old cousin Omar* was trying to talk me into letting him have junk food, despite my having promised his mother that I wouldn’t.
He seemed to believe that “just once!” (as he kept imploring) was okay and would not be breaking a promise (maybe he’s right - statistically, if something happens just once, thus there’s no pattern yet, then it could just be an anomaly or an aberration and within the margin of error).
Finally, I said to him that it would be tantamount to me lying to his mother and would he like it if people went around lying to his mother?
That seemed to register with him – he looked all serious for a moment and then said “no, just relatives”.
*In their recently released report card on corrupt twelve-year-olds, the anti-corruption group Transparency International (aka Killjoy International) cites him as the world’s most corrupt twelve-year-old (followed by some kid in Nigeria).
When Omar was younger he once came over brandishing a straw from one of those tetra pack fruit juice drinks and told mum that he had the straw and now he just needed the drink.
After he finished the drink he asked mum to wash the straw – undoubtedly so he could pull the same trick somewhere else in the neighbourhood.
1:30 am
Thursday, December 09, 2004
A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME
Sometime last summer, a billboard depicting President Lahoud, against the background of a Lebanese flag, with an inscription in Arabic reading “the man of (the) resolution” (literally) appeared atop the Dog River tunnel.
Some months later, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1559 – principally in opposition to the extension of President Lahoud’s mandate.
The portentous billboards’ still there (unchanged), it just reads somewhat differently now.
Regarding flags and their protocol, I recently read some interesting information on commercial use of the Australian flag (on an Australian government website).
It’s allowed! (Which must be a great relief to the commercially jingoistic Australian business community); provided it’s used in a dignified manner, reproduced completely and accurately, not defaced by overprinting, not covered by other objects and provided that all symbolic parts of the flag are identifiable.
Which reminded me of posters I saw here years ago of an image of a martyred leader’s head “in” (so to speak) the cedar in the middle of the Lebanese flag.
From heads on billboards to billboards that stick in my head, in 1992 there were billboards on Lebanese highways advertising a brand of four-wheel-drive as “the most expensive four-wheel-drive on the market”.
Advertising something as expensive (let alone the most expensive) might not make immediate business sense but I suppose when you look at their demographic and the mentality of that type of person it makes perfect sense.
I’m surprised that One Thousand Dollar Shops haven’t sprung up to cater for the boulevardiers.
How about an “Everything’s a Thousand Dollars!” shop in upmarket Kaslik?
4:45 pm
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
INSANE IN THE UKRAINE
- I “urge restraint”* as the Ukraine enters its third week of Presidential election controversy
I could have told them that any election where both candidates were called Victor was going to be problematic (not just any old ordinary same name but Victor too!)
I hate to say this, but I think that things are going to get even worse – when the revote is held and a victor/Victor emerges victorious, I anticipate that a very confusing “who’s on first” type situation will ensue that could throw the country into further chaos and confusion.
Ukraine’s Central Election Commission: “The victor is Victor”.
“Ok, we know that the victor is the victor but who is the victor?”
“Victor is the victor!”…
*This stock US State Department phrase was my stock phrase last summer.
I also strongly condemn the media’s false and inaccurate reporting during the crisis in the Ukraine – they’re always referring to “outgoing President Leonid Kuchma “.
He doesn’t look outgoing at all to me, in fact he looks like a miserable git!
Have you ever noticed Mr. Kuchma on television?
Now there’s a Soviet demeanour!
“Outgoing” – no.
“President” – yes.
“Leonid” – yes.
“Kutchma” – yes.
But “outgoing”, no.
5:00 am
Saturday, December 04, 2004
INN GOD WE TRUST
A British hotel chain is offering couples called Mary and Joseph a free night’s stay over Christmas to “make up for the hotel industry not having any rooms left on Christmas Eve 2004 years ago” (you can hardly blame innkeepers – how were they to know that it was Christmas Eve?)
Sounds great but I shudder to think how they’re going to commemorate Easter.
Looking forward to my cousin’s wedding next week – the tradition around these parts is for the groom’s family to take/steal something from the bride’s house prior to the wedding (not just the bride – as if that wasn’t enough!).
I bags the DVD player!
I’ve got five days to find a truck.
Nobody seems to know how this tradition started but I suspect that some in-laws got caught stealing something from their future in-laws house and managed to convince them that it was a tradition and it just caught on from there.
It’s also tradition that the groom’s entire family go and get the bride on the day of the wedding.
My question is, how sure are things when it takes your entire family to persuade her?
Research shows that married people tend to live longer but what married person would want to live longer?
8:15 pm
Thursday, November 25, 2004
Storm’s in, cable’s out (the pirate cable man hides under the bed and turns off the transmitter at the first sign of bad weather –what kind of pirate is he!?!) so I’m watching a very politicised “children’s program” on a local fundamentalist television station (the only one available now).
The show’s puppet character, a sparrow, is, according to his signature tune, “smart, cute, likes cartoons and fasting” (it rhymes in Arabic - it's only saving grace) and receives drawings from kids depicting themselves and he “in a helicopter fighting the Zionist enemy”.
Today he was asking kiddies to identify an “occupied Arab country”.
I don’t think he’s cute at all – I think he’s a toady puppet!
There’s also a quiz show that involves veiled chador-clad adolescent girls answering questions entirely to do with the Koran and a cameo by a five-year-old girl, in mufti not wearing a veil or chador (slut!), reciting, by heart, a sura from the Koran.
Years ago, I watched a live broadcast on this very channel of some rabble-rousing pep rally – as the broadcast ended and the credits rolled, the incidental music playing in the background was none other than an instrumental version of the “Marines’ Hymn" (you know, "from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli"), the very same marines whose country (the USA) they had just condemned to death in their chants.
Nothing new here, I often see news footage of youths protesting against America whilst wearing t-shirts emblazoned with “USA” etc.
One of my all-time favourite programs used to be on this channel too (I don’t know if it’s still on), it took a Western, usually American, film and deconstructed it by running a very ironic and dry voiceover over it pointing out the so-called stereotypes, racial vilification, colonialist and chauvinistic mentality etc of the “imperialists”.
During the dramatic ending of one of those films, “Navy Seals”, where Charlie Sheen and a handful of his buddies have rescued an American hostage in Beirut and are escaping, the wry voiceover asks us “do you really believe that five Americans can take on all of Beirut?”
Another amusing program is one where historical figures played by actors in period costume (e.g. Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, gets a lot of attention) are put on trials for their alleged crimes.
My favourite foreign broadcaster is some Polish broadcaster (whose name I can’t recall) where foreign films are dubbed into Polish by one guy doing all the voices in the same monotone deadpan voice.
There is no religion in heaven.
Just as there isn’t, for example, an Australian Embassy in Australia.
Religion is merely the earthly often self-styled and alleged representation and manifestation of God.
Paradoxically, religion can often lead us away from God, distract us and wrap us up too much in the minutia of it all.
The essence of most religions can be summed up in a couple of words – Christianity can be summed up in “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” and Islam can be summed up in “God is great”.
Even a non-Muslim like myself can agree with this because it’s universal – God is great, we’re not so let’s just shut up and let God “speak” for himself.
God is indeed great, thus He doesn’t need the likes of you and I to speak for him.
Who am I, who are you to speak in the name of the Almighty?
Any mortal claming to speak for God is but an impertinent blaspheming impostor.
4:30 am
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
NOTHING HAPPENS, TWICE*
President Emile Lahoud begins his second term.
*As reviewer Vivian Mercer famously summed up Samuel Beckket’s two-act play “Waiting for Godot”.
12:00 am
Monday, November 22, 2004
LEBANESE INDEPENDENCE DAY
- live handshaking
Had breakfast whilst watching live handshaking coverage on Lebanese television – the President, Speaker and Prime Minister receiving congratulations on the occasion of Lebanese Independence Day at the Presidential Palace (it’s still going on as I write this hours later – on every channel!).
Who said the Lebanese aren’t a sporting people?
We were even treated to a magic show of sorts during the broadcast a couple of years ago - faced with a veiled chador-clad well-wisher, the then President, Elias Hrawi, produced a big white handkerchief, as if from nowhere, covered his hand with it and, voila presto, shook hers!
So, it’s a veritable who’s who in Lebanon at the handshaking tournament at the Presidential Palace today.
Speaking of which, I was leafing through a past edition of “Who’s Who in Lebanon” at someone’s house not too long ago and noticed that some of the entrants (apparently the not so accomplished ones) had a special category in their entries “credit cards” (and then a list of the credit cards they held).
I don’t know about you but I’m certainly impressed!
Strange customs!
1:35 pm
Thursday, November 11, 2004
A REMEMBRANCE DAY WE'LL NEVER FORGET
Yaser Arafat, the man widely blamed for starting the 1975 to 1990 Lebanese Civil War, died in Paris today – “thirty years too late” according to a friend of mine but one day too early as far as I’m concerned (my birthday’s tomorrow).
6:00 am
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
BELGIUM* BANS POPULAR RACIST PARTY
*With a landmass of 30,278 sq km, this Western European nation is about the size of Belgium (the usual unit of comparative measurement).
6:53 pm
Monday, November 08, 2004
Today I conquered the mountain.
I didn’t climb it like Hilary but walked down it – I walked down to Jounieh.
It took me an hour.
Not exactly Mount Everest but the symbolism and significance of my “feat” is important to me - I’d always considered Mount Harisa as some sort of Alcatraz Island, i.e. inescapable on foot, and had demarcated the Manazar Restaurant (about ten minutes walk down the mountain – as far as I go on my walks) as the end of the On Foot World.
Today I went beyond.
Here’s the blow-by-blow breakdown.
-Half an hour to get to the petrol station.
-Forty-five minutes to get to the manouchie place in Ghadir.
-Fifty minutes to get to the pharmacy in Ghadir.
-And the final leg of the marathon – through the city streets to the finish line at Fahed Supermarket (just like the Sydney to Melbourne Marathon ends at the Westifeld shopping centre).
I’d always though that it would take longer, two hours at least, but it didn’t, so there you go.
When you walk in the mountains you feel like a giant and the trees are your stilts.
I caught a taxi back home (there’s no way I’m ever going to walk up the mountain).
The taxi driver tried on the usual "by God it’s far'' and the money’s not enough routine when we got here.
My reply to that old chestnut used to be something like “it’s still the same distance away as it was five minutes ago when I told you where I was going and we both agreed on a price – it’s still where it’s always been and where it always will be, they haven’t moved it further away in the past five minutes just to rip you off”, but I didn’t say all that this time but tried something I’ve been using to great effect recently – namely “It’s a matter of principle (I’ve always used that but here comes the clincher…), are we not men? Did we not agree on something? Should we not abide by what we agreed on like men?”
I haven’t used that one that often yet but the times that I have used it it’s worked perfectly – the killer application for Arab taxi drivers, appeal to their honour as men.
I recommend it to everyone, except to women.
Despite what the taxi driver thinks, Mount Harisa is a little bit smaller tonight.
7:30 pm
Saturday, November 06, 2004
The man the late Edward Said likened to the title-character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “The Autumn of the Patriarch”*, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, lies in a coma in a Paris military hospital.
Although Mr. Arafat is on a life- support machine, I think that it’s too early to write off one of the few men to ever survive a plane crash (just one of many close escapes).
Reports of his death (President Bush even went as far as saying “may God rest his soul”) may indeed be greatly exaggerated; we’ve heard it all before.
In 1992, when I was attending a Christian university here in Lebanon, the not sadly received news that Arafat’s plane had crashed in the Libyan dessert spread across the campus – it was all over for one of Lebanon’s most unpopular ex-residents.
Except that it wasn’t, he emerged alive but bruised and shaken**, picked himself up and dusted himself off as he’d so often done before and was to so often do again.
Whilst the man who launched a million civil wars (including our own) wasn’t greatly mourned by my classmates when he “died” that time and won’t be greatly mourned in this country in general when and if he dies this time, celebration would be premature, not to mention inappropriate – we should all mourn the eventual passing (when and if it happens – you can never be sure with Abu Ammar) of the last secular Palestinian leader (that is the last secular Palestinian leader with a modicum of popular support) if only because what might ensue might be infinitely worse.
*This comparing of the phoenix-like Arafat to the novel’s archetypal isolated eternal dictator, who lived for over two hundred years, was caustically true when Said made it in the 1990’s and became even truer in this decade when Arafat had used up a couple more of his lives and when even his surroundings (his almost destroyed Ramallah compound) came to look like Marquez’s protagonist’s rundown and abandoned presidential palace.
**The two pilots and his bodyguard died in the crash so it must have been serious – how often do pilots not survive the plane crashes they usually cause (particularly smart alec fighter pilots who crash their planes into crowds of people at air shows and emerge without a scratch)?
3:00 am
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
LIVE
America Decides 2004
- Dude, where's my Karzai?
The pro-American Afghan interim President Hamid Karzai has been declared the winner of last month's Presidential "election".
That concludes our live coverage of
America Decides 2004
- Dude, where's my Karzai?
10:06 am
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
DOCTORS CALLED INTO YASER ARAFAT'S RAMALLAH COMPOUND
- advise him to "get out more"
5:32 pm
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
KITCHEN CABINET
The new Lebanese Cabinet, announced today, includes, for the first time ever, female ministers.
10:32 am
Sunday, October 24, 2004
Another occasional feature of the pub quiz are the bimbo girls who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
One such group of three were at the quiz tonight – they’d accidentally found themselves at a quiz and left not long after they realized what was happening (I think they're going to sue).
11:30 pm
Friday, October 22, 2004
American atlas
Page one: Iraq.
THE END
10:56 am
The United Nations has called the situation in northern Uganda the most neglected humanitarian catastrophe in the world.
What situation in northern Uganda?
12:30 am
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
BEHIND YOU!
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono being sworn in today.
(photo:ap)
3:53 am
LEBANESE PRESIDENTIAL INAUGURATION TO BE SHORTER
- part about "swearing to uphold the Constitution" to be excised, no longer applicable or necessary
2:37 am
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, is in danger of assasination at the hands of Jewish extremists, claims Shimon Peres, leader of the opposition Labour party.
God Lord!
If Ariel Sharon is'nt right-wing enough for them and is in in danger, then what hope is there for the rest of us - where do the Arabs stand, what hope is there for them?
9:46 am
RUSSIAN REGION BANS F***ING SWEARING
- police in western Belgorod region to issue fifty dollar on the spot fines
8:05 am
LIVE
AMERICA VOTES 2004
- live coverage of the US Presidential campaign
The latest opinion poll indicates that if the election were held today, it would be two weeks early.
7:47 am
Monday, October 18, 2004
LIVE
AMERICA VOTES 2004
- live coverage of the US Presidential campaign
Britain has agreed to an American request to send "targets" to Baghdad, British Defence Secretary Geoff hoon announced today.
The troops will be redeployed from Basra as soon as logistics are determined and no later than Election Day (November 2nd).
The ostensible reason, given by the Americans, for the request is that it would "free up more American troops to fight insurgents" (CNN)…insurgents like Democratic challenger John Kerry who questioned why America was paying ninety percent of the costs of the Iraq war and sustaining ninety percent of the casualties.
11:29 am
ANGLICAN CLERGY TO MEET TO HEAL RIFT OVER ORDINATION OF GAY BISHOP
- meeting scheduled for midnight in public toilets
7:55 am
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Amidst all the controversy over United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 (and most of the 1558 other Irresolutions passed over the years), no mention has been made of the fact that the UN can't' even enforce its very own United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)!
After thorough academic study of the Declaration, I am now able to reveal a shockingly unobserved "law",
"Article 16.
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution."
For those of you not as versed in diplomatic speak and international law as I am, "the right to marry" is euphemistic for the right to get laid (just substitute "the right to marry" for "the right to get laid" - that's what they really mean).
On the strength of that, women who refuse us can be tried by the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity.
It's going to get really busy at The Hague!Thus, I hereby call on the member nations of the United Nations to not pay their dues until I get…there, to sort this mess out
10:30 pm
Friday, October 15, 2004
Fallujah's chief negotiator in peace talks with the government, Khaled Al-Jumaili has been arrested by US forces.
I'm guessing that the negotiations aren’t going too well.
How bad are things going when the negotiator is arrested?
He mustn't be very good.
Go on negotiator; negotiate your way out of that one.
7:59 am
Monday, October 11, 2004
As Lebanon experiences its worst power outages in twenty two years, the privatization debate that takes place here every now and then is a moot point –it's already happened.
It's also impossible – how can you privatize something intangible, something that doesn’t exist? (It's like privatizing ghosts).
What's there to privatize anyway? Privatizing "electricity" in this country is privatizing candle manufacturing and that's allready private.
Essential services such as water, electricity etc are already de facto privatized – by failing to provide these services adequately, the government has effectively privatized them; driving citizens into the hands of thousands of profiteering suppliers that have popped up to fill this void.
E.g. the going rate for a load of water (2000 liters) from a tank jockey residents around here have been using nonstop for about a month now (and intermittently throughout the summer) is 25,000LL.
And I write this to the accompaniment of the whir of private electricity generators – the unofficial, yet true, Lebanese national anthem ("The Night of a Thousand Generators").
When the generator is eventually turned off, I will continue typing this onto my state-of-the-art laptop computer* and upload it onto my site, via the technology of the internet, by candlelight! (As I have so often done before)
This juxtaposition is the very definition of Lebanon and the Third World.
*It was when it was new.
3:15 am
Saturday, October 09, 2004
America Decides 2004
- "Dude, where's my indelible ink?"
Afghans are going to the polls today in that country's first Presidential "election".
The vote has been boycotted by sixteen candidates after it emerged that "indelible" ink used to mark the hands of voters to prevent multiple voting was easily removed.
10:48 am
Rupert Murdoch Decides 2004
- "The media was clearly anti-Labor with the Murdoch press leading the way and not a single major daily paper endorsing Mark Latham"
(crikey.com.au)
Australians have re-elected Prime Minister John Howard to a historic fourth term, making him the most successful John Howard in Australian history.
Doesn’t the Labor Party have any good lawyers?
Surely they can challenge the vote on the grounds that voter's thumbs weren't marked with ink, indelible or otherwise, a la the equally hapless Afghan opposition.
Does that sound crazy?No crazier than expecting a bloke who beats people (aka voters) up (archives 12/2/2003) to win an election for you.
WE REGRET THE ERROR
In a previous post, I predicted that the Liberals would lose the election, which may have been construed by some as my predicting that the Liberals would lose the election.
I meant no such thing and apologize for the misunderstanding.
9:26 am
Thursday, October 07, 2004
Renatoobeidsworld is best viewed with 3D glasses – if you want to look really silly
8:55 am
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
INDONESIANS ELECT ANOTHER PRESIDENT WITH A FUNNY SOUNDING NAME
Just as Indonesian's began to see the light at the end of the tunnel after four years under the rule of the funnily named Megawati Sukarnoputri, along comes a bloke with the even funnier name of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono whom the electoral commission has just declared the winner of last month's Presidential elections!
What are these people thinking!?!
3:20 am
Monday, October 04, 2004
REBELIOUS TEEN ROOSTER'S FAN BLAMES PARENTS FOR TEAM'S GRAND FINAL LOSS
4:45 am
Got home a couple of hours ago from the quiz at Paddy's (it's back).
We lost by one point – somebody talked us out of three of my correct answers.
The Talkoutofer is quite common at pub quizzes – somebody who repeatedly talks his teammates out of correct answers.
All pubquizers, including myself, have been talkoutofers at one stage or another, but a talkoutofer (small t) is what you temporarily are when you occasionally slip into this whereas a Talkeoutofer (capital T) is somebody who habitually does this.
4:30 am
Sunday, October 03, 2004
CANTERBURY- BANKSTOWN BULLDOGS WIN AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE GRAND FINAL
- Bulldogs 16/Roosters 13
- It's two Premierships in three seasons as Doggies stage counter-coup and restore democracy*
- Bill Harrigan on suicide watch
*Who kicked the dogs out?!?
Topping the league table towards the end of a record-breaking season in 2002, the NRL junta stripped them of their points and effectively the Grand Final they were poised to win in a media instigated coup (just like the FIS was poised to win the elections in Algeria in 1991 when the military junta suspended the elections)
3:25 pm
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Part of a CNN focus group meant to gauge public reaction to Thursday's US Presidential debate was a thirty something year old yuppie who described himself as "a social liberal and fiscal conservative".
What does this paradoxical contradiction in terms really mean?
It means that he's a liberal as far as it concerns his, his friends' and his boyfriend's lifestyles (the so-called "social liberal" aspect) but doesn’t want to pay for this by extending it to the traditional beneficiaries of liberal largesse (hence "fiscal conservatism").
There seems to be a lot of this strange hybrid fruit around – high earning selfish, self-absorbed, hypocritical Buddhist latte liberals sitting around in cafes speaking nonsense.
But when it comes to expanding the circle a bit, beyond them and their coterie, NO, STOP, no more Mr. Liberal!
The late Danish politician Pim Fortuyn* was a prime example of this – left-wing liberal when it suited him (his homosexuality) but a flaming right-wing fascist when it came to others, immigrants, Muslims, etc.
There's no such thing as a selective expedient sometime liberal – you're either in or out.
*I'm not speaking ill of the dead, Mr. Fortuyn was an inteligent cultured man tragically cut down in his prime, I'm just highlighting a contradiction.
9:00 pm
My cousin assures me that it's business as usual at the local manouchie kiosk – apparently the proprietor turned councillor had been busy receiving congratulations from well-wishers at home this week(as is the custom in the Middle East).
Nonetheless, there are still lessons to be learnt from the Great Manouchie Famine of 2004 – I call on the government to bake and freeze an emergency Manouchie stockpile and to establish a Ministry for Manouchie Security.
All marriage proposals I made during the height of the Famine should now be considered null and void.
4:00 am
Friday, October 01, 2004
RENATOOBEIDSWORLD EXCLUSIVE!
MY COUSIN'S FIRST BLOG ENTRY
my day, my world
Friday, October 01, 2004
My first blog entry
Hi, it's Omar - I'm 12 years old and I love playing basketball, swimming and English.
I love women and their boobies and jugs and there's a woman her name is Haifa Wehbe and she's so beautiful and she has two boobies and one beautiful booby trap.
I am going tell you about my family tomorrow.
Yours sincerely
Omar
from www.omarsexyday.blogspot.com
Disclaimer : I take no responsibility for Omar's blog (I exercised no censorship or influence over him) but I do think that it's quite funny.
3:50 pm
Note : This free site contains only my unfunny material
To get to the funny stuff, you need to upgrade to Renatoobeidsworld Premium*.
It couldn’t be any easier – just mail your credit card to the Renatoobeidsworld embassy in any capital city!
*Why should I be any different than every other site that scams you by hooking you in for free (to view a couple of mediocre soft porn pics - just a totally random example that doesn't concern me) and then charges you to upgrade if you want anything decent or functional (aka "Premium").
The word "Premium" has become a byword for "scam".
3:26 pm
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
AFRICANS CELEBRATE LAUNCH OF FIRST PRIVATELY FUNDED SPACECRAFT
- "food schmood" is the acclaim on the continent as space tourism edges a step closer in the Californian desert
In a live cross to the studio, CNN's Miles O'Brien gushed "it connects with ordinary people in a way government backed flights don't".
Yeah right – it's the "people's spaceship"!
Move over Ibiza, Majorca and Cyprus!
All you need is a Lonely Planets guidebook and a couple of million dollars and you're there!
This guy's already in space, what planet is he on!?!
Hands up who's sick of boring bored billionaires and corporations and their media publicists co-opting us!?!
The only practical potential benefit from all of this is that Richard Branson (who's behind this*) now has the ability to emigrate to the moon – that's if he's through bombarding us with his self-publicizing mincing around in (pilot powered) hot air balloons , trains, planes, spaceships etc.
Headlines we won't ever see: "RICHARD BRANSON DRIVES A FUCKING CAR /CATCHES A FUCKING BUS LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE"
I have two unread copies of his autobiography given to me as presents (by two different people – nobody hates me that much) "Losing My Virginity By 'Fucking' Everyone!" (my addition), written in the "I Made A Billion Dollars Now I’m Writing A Book About It For People Who Think That They Too Can Make A Billion Dollars If They Read Really Carefully A Book Written By Somebody Who Made A Billion Dollars" genre, which I'll give away to the first alien who'll sponsor Branson's emigration to outer space (they can read them both at the same time with their two heads).
*He hopes to roll out $200,000 a pop commercial space flights within three years - not much more expensive than current fares on his so-called low-cost Virgin Air once all the hidden costs are factored in
6:45 pm
OFFICIAL NOTICES
TENDER APPLICATIONS INVITED
Renatoobeidsworld is accepting tender applications for a new Official Manouchie Purveyor after the incumbent won a seat on the local municipal council in Sunday's revote and hasn’t opened since.
The successful applicant will be issued with a royal warrant entitling him to display my coat of arms and the right to represent himself as being "by appointment to renatoobeidsworld".
Applicants are invited to email a CV, sample of their manakish and a sworn declaration that they will never run for political office to be received by no later than lunchtime tomorrow.
URGENT APEAL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
F--- Darfur – send me emergency manouchie aid!
Day Eleven* of the Great Manouchie Famine of 2004
- worse than the Irish Potato Famine ( a couple of years without "fries with that" never killed anyone!)
My erstwhile manouchie purveyor is a good intelligent bloke, very popular in the community and certainly deserves to be a councilor.
I don’t know that much about his policies but nowhere in his manifesto does it mention anything about starvation!
The situation is desperate – if it doesn't improve I may have to get married (I couldn't make a manouchie if my life depended on it)!
The good news is that he's pro-Sandy – he used to feed her and look after her.
Is it a coincidence that the ticket backed by Sandy's tormentors failed to win one single seat?
The pro-Sandy ticket had a clean sweep, wining all twelve seats.
Despite that, you can't eat dogs (unless you're Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian…) – so next time I'm going to back a pro-manouchie candidate.
Who say's I don't address the real political issues?
I'm going to lodge an appeal with the electoral commission and force a third vote – this is wrong, it's national politicians who are starving us not local politicians!
*He was busy campaigning for a week before Sunday's election
4:00 pm
Sunday, September 26, 2004
VODKA SHOTS
Not content with being indirectly responsible for millions of deaths, General Mikhail T Kalashnikov, the inventor of the Kalashnikov rifle, is now to expand the circle of death with the release of Kalashnikov Vodka*.
What next for Mr. Kalashnikov, cigarettes, air shows?
*Liquid Stalin – it's killed more Russians then Uncle Joe ever managed.
3:47 pm
Thursday, September 23, 2004
UNGUARDED MOMENTS
Went for my customary emergency walk this evening (with my young cousins this time) – a half hour walk down the mountain until I'm parallel to the Paradise Buildings and then back up which I do only when I absolutely have to.
We detoured at one of the roadside restaurants that dot this area and had pizza for dinner.
On the way back we stopped outside another of those restaurants to visit our friend the (now) friendly guard dog (she used to be real bitch though) – a German sheperd bitch who lives in a humpy next to the restaurant she guards.
Either she's sick of us or is losing her edge – I had grown accustomed to her ferocious barking rattling me as I went on my 6.00am emergency walk (couldn't sleep so I was "sleepwalking” – walking so that I can sleep, escaping the insomnia and trying to outwalk it or lose it) but that is no more.
These days she barely even notices us – sometimes she doesn’t even dignify us with a bark or, if she does, she just performs a perfunctory bark, as if just to prove to us that she's doing her job but doesn’t want to waste her time on people she considers insignificant and not a threat, and goes back into her humpy.
Or maybe childbirth has slowed her down – there are now two cute little pups (not chained up like their mother) who used to just wag their tails and look at me as their mother let loose a tirade of abuse.
They'd look back at her with quizzical expressions that seemed to say "he looks alright, he seems pretty friendly, why don’t we try and befriend him instead?"
She's not the first guard dog I've seen gone soft – years ago there was a ferocious guard dog called Duke at my uncle's house in the north.
Well he started off ferocious but eventually he must have been corrupted by the lackadaisical staff there and ended up quite tame to the extent that, towards the end of his life, my aunty even disclosed the attack word to me.
I'd always wanted this canine code and had even considered reading out the entire dictionary to him until I fluked upon that one word that his trainer had programmed him to attack on*.
"Aardvark?"…
I've since forgotten what the actual word was but I'll never forget Duke, the apathetic aristocratic guard dog.
Don’t ask me how a guard dog can be popular with children, but Duke was very popular with the kids.
I was once teasing my little cousin Foad about him - “Duke’s a dog!” (universal insult).
“No, he’s a ‘oow oow’” (the Arabic “translation” of “woof woof”) he defended.
*IMPORTANT ADVICE: To avoid accidental sooling, this shouldn’t be a commonly used term such as "ahlan" (welcome – very commonly used in Arab societies) or your bitten guests will be left feeling less than welcome.
"Ahlan Mr. Prime Minister!... Down Duke!... Bad Duke!...Let me get you a bandage for that Your Excellency."
In fact, I recommend that you scour ancient manuscripts for hapax legomenon to use as an attack word or even use the term "hapax legomenon" itself.
UPDATE
10.00PM SATURDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER
Umm...make that one little puppy...I'm sad to announce that this morning when I went for a walk I saw one of the puppies dead on the highway.
UPDATE
FEROCIOUS “GUARD DOG” REALLY A RUNNING DOG PAPER TIGER REACTIONARY ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE*
On Another walk, I encountered, for the first time ever, the so-called “guard dog” “unplugged” (unchained).
What do she do?
N OT H I N G!
She even shrank away from me!
It’s all been a big lie!
*Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the Maoisms.
11:30 pm
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
Stills from the Zapruder Tapestry showing the assassination of King Harold II - where exactly did the fatal arrow come from, was there a second archer, was there a cover-up?
(Photo courtesy of the Warren Commission Report, 1068)
Watched a television documentary on what I call the Zapruder Tapestry - the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the assassination in battle of King Harold II during the 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror.
Was that artist quick or what? - capturing that entire elaborate scene not with a camera (a la his twentieth century counterpart Abe Zapruder's video camera footage of the Kennedy assassination) but with a needle and thread as it was occurring!
Did they have to stop for him to rethread?
Speaking of documentaries, the "history always repeats itself" maxim couldn't be truer" - the History Channel always repeats itself.
Cable television doesn't mean more programming, it means the same programs more often.
renato
1:32 pm
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Terrorist groups have continued their Jihad on locals who live or work next to or just happen to be passing by a Western Embassy with an attack outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
The suspected car bomb failed to penetrate the embassy premises but killed passers by (eight Indonesians to date), as per usual in these cases.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has issued a travel advisory advising Australians to avoid the vicinity of the embassy – the first time that I know of that a government has advised its citizens to avoid it.
Not the worst idea I've ever heard!
This is not the time for scoring political points (which this piece is by no means attempting to do) but I think that while Australia has had to go to war alongside the US for some sixty years now (and before that the UK), the current government has shown too much enthusiasm when what is essentially required if (it shouldn’t be a fait accompli) we chose to go to other people's wars is that we just do our obligation* quietly and hope that nobody notices us (it worked in Gulf War I).
I think that that advisory should be extended to Indonesians also – the poor innocent unfortunates who always bear the brunt of these attacks and the terrorists.
Australians have fought other people's wars with distinction and courage (almost bordering on enthusiasm) for over a hundred years and continue to do so, so they would be even more formidable if they had to fight to defend their own country (the men are just as tough).
Indonesia is no slouch either with their very tough stance against terrorists – imprisoning them for several months, often years until a court finds them innocent and releases them.
*The ANZUS Treaty with the US and New Zealand (sometimes, when they feel like it) can be read in a way that requires us to "defend" America even if it isn’t on American soil (if it's read without reading glasses, in poor light and whilst squinting).
11:18 am
SAND DISCOVERED ON THE SUN
Scientists analyzing atomic specimens gathered by the NASA Genesis sun probe which crash landed in the Utah desert on Wednesday have announced that they believe the sun to be covered in a type of sand identical to that of the Utah desert.
NASA is still to determine whether the samples were contaminated (i.e. with sand) after the casing of the capsule cracked open on impact in the sandy desert.
Scientists were also startled to learn that the sun's sunglasses (often depicted in joke pictures*) were missing and that German tourists to the sun get up at sunset to lay their towels on beach lounges and claim them for the day.
*Like this one  - I've just downloaded ten thousand of these, so brace yourself as renatoobeidsworld becomes the first news outlet to use Smileys!
renatoobeidsoworld – your most trusted name in Smileys!
1:58 am
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Franz Ferdinand has won the Mercury Music Prize.
It's the first time in its seven year history that the prize has been awarded posthumously – Hapsburg Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Belgrade by a crazed fan in 1914.
4:31 am
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
ADVERTISEMENT
Order your copy of the Lebanese Constitution, on Microsoft Word for extra easy amending, now!
Amend the constitution "once exceptionally" twice without realizing a contradiction in terms (Presidential mandate extension 1995 and 2004); amend eligibility provision (Presidential election 1998) and much, much more!
Put the dumb into addendumb now!
Lebanese Constitution - all's well that amends well ®
5:45 am
Monday, September 06, 2004
Got home a couple of hours ago from a pleasant evening at Paddy's with my pub quiz teammates and a visiting friend of mine from the British Foreign Office, aka The State Department*
*That's the joke in case you missed it).
3:45 am
Friday, September 03, 2004
LIVE
Lebanon Doesn’t Decide 2004
- Dude, where's my election?
The Lebanese parliament has voted to amend the constitution to allow for an extension of the incumbent President's mandate, forestalling a constitutionally mandated election.
That concludes our live coverage of
Lebanon Doesn’t Decide 2004
- Dude, where's my election?
5:00 pm
foresteal: verb, to steal an election by amending a constitution to forestall that election (Modern Lebanese, FORE+STEAL)
4:59 pm
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
There's a taxi driver who insists on calling me William despite the fact that I have revealed my actual name to him (once I think and quite a while ago).
When he first got into this William habit (it must have been early summer), I just ignored it because I didn’t want to contradict him - it wasn’t as if I was going to ask him for his daughter's hand in marriage or anything like that that would require him to know my actual name.
But it's now entered the public domain somewhat – previously, I'd get into the cab, he'd call me William and we'd drive off, but, the other day, he screamed it out from across the road!
The longer I leave this the harder it will be to actually resolve.
He must be stopped!
This little parallel universe of his - where I'm William - has got to be destroyed!
What kind of person goes around calling people William when their name isn’t William!?!
But I can hardly turn around and tell him that my name isn’t William after I've acquiesced to this moniker mix up all this time!
So I urge civic minded citizens to converge on the Ghadir Bridge and confront this madman and set the record straight!
He can be found opposite the pharmacy, usually during the day, in an old blue Mercedes and his name is William.
Possible other scenarios I'm currently considering for resolving the William Crisis
-Moving (me).
-Moving (him).
-Changing my name to William.
Although I haven't gone that far, the other day I did ask a friend of mine, who was with me in the taxi, to not call me by my name - abandoning one's name, albeit briefly, is just one step away from changing one's name to William or something.
-Getting everybody else within earshot to call me William.
Another taxi driver calls me a David.
And this one’s even worse because he’s always asking me ‘’you’re name’s David isn’t it?’’ and I’m always correcting him to no avail.I’m all things to all taxi drivers
8:10 pm
(photo:jadwafa/exploitz.com)
OUR LADY OF LEBANON - HARISSA
"On that day, the Virgin was proclaimed Sovereign of the mountains and seas, and Queen of Lebanon."
"...and the queen of the sky rose above Harissa like the cedars of Lebanon"
-Descriptions of the inauguration in 1908 of Our Lady of Lebanon
(harissa.info and opuslibani.org respectively)
Visitors to Lebanon literally can't avoid her - some six hundred meters above the crescent-shaped Jounieh harbor (twenty kilometers north of Beirut), perched atop the highpoint of a mountainous forest, is the two hundred feet high twenty-ton bronze statue of Our Lady Of Lebanon, the centerpiece of the Maronite Catholic* "Vatican".
Harissa** is a busy tourist and pilgrimage destination (especially during the Catholic Month of Mary when thousands of the faithful perform the pilgrimage on foot, often from as far afield as Beirut), the shrine compound includes a restaurant, souvenir shop and the most recent major addition - the distinctive modernist concrete and glass Maronite cathedral whose ribbed concrete roof is reminiscent of the Sydney Opera House.
Inaugurated in 1991, the giant one hundred and fifteen meter high, 3500 person capacity cathedral was designed in the style of a Phoenician ship and a cedar tree (the national symbol that adorns the Lebanese flag) and the interior built in a way that attracts one's attention towards the massive windows - through which the whitewashed statue of the Virgin Mary can be seen above, as if suspended in the heavens.
Unfortunately, there don't appear to be set opening hours for the cathedral but rather it is open or closed according to the events or services being held there.
Not the end of the world - it's better viewed from the outside as its minimalist interior, in such a large almost cavernous space, gives it a somewhat barren empty aspect on the inside as if all the emphasis had been concentrated on creating that unrivalled view though the windows.
Much cozier and more convenient (open all day and night like the rest of the place) is the Em el Nour (Mother of Light) Chapel in the twenty meter high base of the statue.
Look out for the biblical inscription at the entrance that reads (in Latin and Arabic) "I elevated like the Cedars of Lebanon" - a reference to the cedars of Lebanon so abundant and famous in antiquity (commonly called "The Cedars of God" by the Lebanese, they were used to build King Solomon's Temple) yet now so dangerously depleted that the cedar across from the chapel is the only one you'll see unless you trek out to the patchy reserves to the north and south.
Once you've done the inside, climb the one hundred and four steps up the winding spiral staircase to the statue where you can light a candle or simply take in the magnificent panoramic view - as far south as the southern suburbs of Beirut and as far north as northern Lebanon.
With an area of only 10,452 square kilometers, Lebanon is a compact patchwork of layers of coast, city and mountain all seemingly stuck together seamlessly and this is by far the most comprehensive and spectacular view of that.
Religiously minded visitors will liken the trek up the statue, amidst these surroundings, to ascending to heaven, I liken it to the ideal location for chasing a villain up to his last refuge in a James Bond movie (in fact, the whole place has a dramatic Bond movie scene kind of feel about it).
It's certainly a view to die for.
Some one hundred meters from the back entrance of the cathedral is the Greek Catholic*** St Paul's Basilica - built in 1947 in the classical Byzantine style it is as traditional as the Maronite cathedral is modern and provides excellent juxtaposition.
It is open to the public but, once again, doesn't appear to have set hours but monastic daytime hours are a general rule of thumb.
Bordering the Cathedral grounds (also towards the back entrance) is the Apostolic Nunciature and some four kilometers down the mountain is the 17th Century Patriarchate of the Maronite Church.
Both are generally accessible to the public but, due to their tight security, not the easiest of places to gain access to.
The Holy Mountain, as it's understandably often called, is also home to a myriad of churches, convents, monasteries etc.
Despite its obviously Christian character, Harissa's appeal is by no means restricted to people of that faith - at least half the visitors appear to be Lebanese and other Arab Muslims.
Attending a mass there recently, I saw a Gulf Arab tourist (in his full national costume) walk in and out a couple of times as if pondering whether to actually attend the mass but then, as if he'd thought the better of it and decided not to get too carried away, leave.
The most spectacular approach to the "queen of the sky" is the sky route - the cable car (telepherique), caught from its terminus one hundred meters north of Jounieh along the old coastal road, is said to be the world's only urban variety. Delivering passengers through the city, forest and clouds that often shroud the mountain in only ten minutes and for 7, 5000 Lebanese Lira (5 USD) from10.00 am to 11.00pm seven days a week.
Just as spectacular is the winding mountain road, a service (shared taxi - usually an old Mercedes) can be caught from the Ghadir turnoff (ma'fra' Ghadir, just before Jounieh when coming from Beirut) or the Foad Chehab Municipal Stadium turnoff (ma'fra' Foad Chehab, just after Jounieh) for 2,000 LL.
10,000LL to have the taxi all to yourself - a taxi fare is usual five times (for the five passengers they cram in) the service price.
THIS LADY IS NOT FOR TURNING
When inter-factional fighting tore apart the until then united Christian community during the latter stages of the Lebanese civil war, it is said that the statue of the Virgin Mary (already built with her arms outstretched by her sides as if in supplication) turned towards Beirut, where the brunt of the fratricidal fighting was occurring, as if beseeching her wayward flock, and stayed in that position to this very day.
It's a nice story but analysis of before and after pictures does not give credence to this and indicate that she has always been where she is now.
THE LADY AND THE DUKE
Visiting Lebanon on a US State Department sponsored regional goodwill tour in 1963, the late jazz legend Duke Ellington was so inspired by Our Lady Of Lebanon and the Holy Mountain that he recorded a composition called "Mount Harissa".
On the "Far East Suite" album (1966), it is described by reviewers as being "an elegant little six-eight number" and "haunting".
Prior to Lebanon, the Duke was in Baghdad where his visit happened to coincide with a military coup (his hotel was just across the road from the attacked presidential palace).
Asked for his assessment of the coup by newsmen in Beirut a few days later he said "those cats were swinging man!"
*Living mainly in Lebanon and relatively autonomous due to their historical isolation (initially in a proto-Orthodox and now Muslim region) the Maronites are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church and are the majority Lebanese sect according to the last census (conducted in 1932).
**Meaning "protector" in Arabic, Harissa, the name of the host village, has become synonymous with the shrine.
***Another of Lebanon's nineteen officially state-recognized sects - Pope John Paul II, who visited Lebanon and Harissa in 1997, called Lebanon "a message (of coexistence, tolerance etc) not a country".
renato
1:29 am
PROGRESS?
I used to spend most of my time reading great literature, now I spend most of my time writing nonsense.
12:25 am
A Lebanese friend of mine who had been working in Iraq has recently returned home due to the deteriorating security situation there.
That's as good an indication as any as to how bad things are getting in Iraq – you know that things are really getting bad when the Lebanese leave!
The Lebanese are always the always the last to go, whereas, according to my unscientific table, the Australians are the first to go (in terms of governments advising their citizens to leave), followed by the Brits, the Germans, the Americans and finally (as far as developed Western countries go) the French.
So, as an Australian Lebanese, I often don't know whether I'm coming or going.
Mum and dad recently attended the wedding of a young Lebanese man from the north who had recently been kidnapped briefly and released while working in Iraq.
Poor bastard – out of the fire and into the flame.
12:20 am
Monday, August 30, 2004
"No more years! No more years!"
The Republican National Convention begins in New York City today.
10:51 am
Sunday, August 29, 2004
The 28th Olympiad wound down in Athens today
A ten medal tally has made Athens 2004 the most succesful games for the Arabs since the 1972 Munich games.
6:08 am
Friday, August 27, 2004
SINCE WHEN DO TIM TAMS COME IN FINGERS?!?
- Vladivostok was fine! Thanks for asking!*
Reading the Australian newspapers on the internet, I notice that we now have a (shadow) Minister for Homeland Security.
Since when did we ever have a Minister for Homeland Security?!?
Since when did we ever have a "Homeland"?!?
Since when did Australia become a "Homeland"?!?
This is as American as you can get.
Australians are as patriotic as the next country (which is, alphabetically speaking, Austria) but I have never in my entire life heard Australians refer to Australia as a "Homeland" – " 'Stralia" is about the extent of it.
Is not a rose a rose by any other name?
It's just not in our nature, our patriotism is understated – it's not grandiose and egomaniacal like the Americans.
*There was a very amusing ad on Australian TV a couple of years ago, where a not very intelligent man has just returned from Vladivostok, still dressed in his furs, to find his girlfriend and another man feeding each other Tim Tam Fingers in a very friendly way.
Rather than noticing and being upset about his girlfriend cheating on him the silly man seems only to notice and be upset about the fact that Tim Tams now come in fingers.
1:15 am
Thursday, August 26, 2004
GET ON THE LOVE TRAIN
A peace procession some twelve kilometers long and growing is now en route to the Iraqi city of Najaf, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani who called on Iraqi's to converge on the central Iraq city to try and end the siege in the Imam Ali Mosque.
Is this the Iraqi Woodstock?
9:00 am
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
The International Olympic committee has weighed into the controversy over the George W Bush campaign using the games in their election advertising.
They don't want any political exploitation of the games because they're too busy financially exploiting them.
Apparently even the term "Olympics" or "Olympic" is copyrighted and jealously protected by the IOC so I have to be really careful how I use it.
Let's just say that the International Opilmyc Committee sucks.
The Bush bunch aired television ads featuring images of Iraqi and Afghan Olympians to campaign for another four years of their Oilympics – their mad sprint to monopolize the world's oil resources thru neocolonialization.
9:00 pm
ANNOUNCMENT
The renatoobeidsworld editorial board has announced that we will not be calling the result of the US Presidential election ahead of the actual official announcement of the result.
This brings us in line with other media outlets that were chastened by the 2000 debacle that saw American television networks declare both candidates winners respectively before some polling stations had even closed.
Whilst renatoobeidsworld wasn’t around then, we made a similar blunder in calling the 2001 Iraqi plebiscite on President Saddam Hussein's rule.
In a thrillingly close contest, we called that the no vote had prevailed whereas the yes vote ultimately won with one hundred percent support.
5:45 pm
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
The Scream, Edvard Munch (1893)
Copyright: Whoever Stole It.
SCREAMSAVER: MY COPY OF THE SCREAM (ABOVE), SAFELY SAVED ON MY COMPUTER, HAS SOARED IN VALUE SINCE THE THEFT OF THE ORIGINAL - I WON'T PART WITH IT FOR LESS THAN A MILLION DOLLARS.
SCREAM 2
Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream and other works were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo Norway (Sunday) by armed men - the second time a version of one of art's most iconic paintings has been stolen in a decade
Another version was stolen and recovered in 1994.
DISCLAIMER:I am not an art expert - I don't know a lot about art but I know wot I like (especially them old paintings wots got birds with big bristols* in them).
*Bristol cities in full - cockney rhyming slang for a woman's jugs (to give them their proper anatomical name)
1:50 pm
"A few days ago, residents of Corniche Mazraa, a hot canyon of traffic in west Beirut, were astonished to see thousands of sheets of paper descending on them from a light aircraft, carpeting the road and pavements and apartment blocks in a snow of pictures of a green forest.
They were even more surprised to read the text on the back. Supported by the Lebanese Environment Ministry, each sheet of paper urged the people "not to throw litter on the ground"."
- Robert Fisk, The Independant, 07 July 2002
10:44 am
Monday, August 23, 2004
APOLOGY
I apologize for the infrequent postings but it's not my fault that there's so much porn on the internet.
P.S:I didn't ask to be born,you're not the boss of me!
There ought to be less porn on the internet!
I can’t keep up with it all!
5:36 pm
Friday, August 20, 2004
THE QUITE ATHENIAN
- the quietest games ever
Trust the Greeks to host an apathetic Olympics.
Or "apatheia" I should say!
Unmask the word "apathy", a la Scooby Doo, and what do you have?
"Apatheia" – the Greek root of the word – the Greeks invented it!
As a member of the NSA (Non-Sporting Australian) minority I'm not complaining though.
Why is it that the only patriotic Greeks are found outside of Greece?
Or, for that matter that the only patriotic anybody are found outside of their country.
I can't' remember the last time I meet a genuinely patriotic Lebanese and I'm in Lebanon!
6:54 am
Sunday, August 15, 2004
Here comes the story of the Hurricane
FLORIDA WOMAN GLAD SHE DIDN'T PUT THE WASHING OUT
- 145mph winds leave thirteen dead and billions of dollars damage
- Hurricane Charley worst to hit US East Coast in twelve years
10:24 am
Friday, August 13, 2004
The opening ceremony of the 28th Olympiad is now underway.
I've never seen so many tablecloths in all my life! - why can't they wear normal clothes like everybody else?(How do you think you're ever going to get a job looking like that Benin?).
1:36 pm
(I know what you're thinking, but it's not Friday 13th in the Orthodox calendar, it's actually 26th August*)
The Olympic Games return home today as the 28th Olympiad begins in Athens Greece (Melbourne on the Mediterranean).
The Games began when naked men (Nike hadn't been invented yet) competed in a tournament dedicated to the Ancient Greek god Zeus in 776 BC (Before Clothes).
This is the third time the Greeks have had the Olympics in the modern era - Athens 1896, Melbourne 1956 and Athens 2004.
*The Greeks, like the rest of their Orthodox brethren, are Still Thinking About The Fall Of Rome - the schism that began with the fall of Rome and the subsequent division of the Roman Empire into Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) parts is still an issue for them.
E.g. compare the cold press ganged reception given to the Pope when he visited Greece (a Christian country) in 2001 compared to the warm reception he received in Muslim Syria just before that.
10:43 am
SURPRISE SURPRISE!
When you hear press or police reports of somebody "surprising an intruder in their home", you get to thinking – who's really "surprised" here, the intruder (who has planned to break into somebody's home and is cognizant of the fact that they may turn up) or the person who has discovered a stranger in their home? ("I'm so surprised, an intruder in my home but, hey, I'm not as surprised as you must be!").
10:41 am
BEWARE OF IMITATIONS
- counterfeit canines
My cousin Omar, like his brother and sister, quite frequently gets ten out of ten on English tests but he's also doing well in "Australian" too – he's picked up (via osmosis – I don’t actually set out to teach him) a couple of Australian words from me.
Most recently, he surprised me with the word "mongrel".
Seeing he knows the word already, I thought I'd properly define it for him.
Starting with the primary meaning of the word, I told him that a mongrel was a dog of mixed breed, not of pure-bred pedigree.
"A fake dog?" he asked.
I explained to him that there's no such thing as a fake dog – all dogs are real (except Scooby Doo) but some are pure-bred whilst others are mixed breed.I also gave him the secondary (pertinent definition) – in Australian slang, a mongrel is a mean detestable person.
Not all Omar’s slang is perfect though – he says ‘’dig’’ instead of ‘’dick’’ (I didn’t teach him either of them).
My brother Guy also did his bit to propagate Australian slang.
When my cousin Hala was visiting him in Melbourne in 1997 he jokingly told her that his friend Justin was a ‘’c**t’’ (insults are often a term of endearment in Australia).
When she met Justin she said ‘’hello Justin, pleased to meet you. I hear that you’re a ‘’c**t’’ (not knowing what it meant).
Not surprisingly Justin the c**t was gobsmacked.
Serves him right for being a c**t.
10:37 am
Thursday, August 12, 2004
IT'S ENOUGH TO KEEP YOU AWAKE AT NIGHT!
''For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong''
- H.L. Mencken
My suggestion to countries that have a shortage of doctors (e.g. the Philippines) is that the best way to create doctors instantly is to tell people that you're an insomniac – people will become instant doctors and give you all sorts of useless advice*.
The most useless advice would have to be "try not to think about anything".
This I usually (BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY) associate with people who don't think a lot but are occasionally ambushed by thought when they're off guard and they can't fight and resist it as they usually do during the day, i.e. when they're lying down in bed.
It's not that I can't' sleep because I think - I'm not some plebe unable to sleep at night because I'm thinking of petty personal matters - it's just that it's hard to shut down any working machinery (an active mind) instantly, particularly something that's been working all day.
This type of person wants to banish thought, that's probably why, when they occasionally think, they're kept awake because they're so disturbed and upset by this new, scary and unfamiliar phenomenon.
And this type of person have all got their own stories of so-called insomnia – the richest I've heard is some plebe who recently empathized with me, saying that he had it the other day and it was terrible!
He usually goes to sleep at 2.00am and he couldn’t get to sleep until 4.00am!
That's two whole hours of "insomnia"!
Usurping imposter!
That's not insomnia!
Keep you're filthy hands of my insomnia!
I pray for that kind of "insomnia"!
My record, at least that I remember, is thirteen unlucky hours spent trying to get to sleep!
Real insomniacs don't talk about it (lest it might hear them).
Real insomniacs respect it and keep quite about it - the other day somebody asked me how my insomnia was going and all I said was "it's going great" (which it is, I now classify myself as a professional insomniac and am going to start putting it on my business cards).
If anything, I can't sleep because I'm too busy worrying about the fact that there are stupid people like him in this world!
The most clichéd, boring and specious advice is the old stay-awake-for-twenty-four-hours advice.
It sounds good in theory but amongst its many drawbacks is that you risk becoming overtired and not being able to sleep because you’re overtired.
Besides, sometimes it takes me twelve hours to get to sleep which means that I often pass the twenty four hour mark anyway.
And if you’re going to have an insomnia episode you certainly don’t want to start it at the twenty four hour mark but prefer to end it at the twenty four hour mark.
I used to try this method sometimes but more as a break from the insomnia and trying to sleep not as some magic cure.
And, even if it does work sometimes, it’s only for a limited time and is not a permanent cure.
It might set you right for a while only because you’re so tired and have a sleep deficit but it’s not going to last for ever.
*I am in no way referring to the useful scientifically founded advice that concerned family and friends offer, which I am very grateful for, but advice like that I recently got from a materialistic bourgeois neighbor who said that I should have more things in my bedroom because, according to him, the dearth of "stuff" in my minimalist bedroom was what was keeping me awake at night.
8:30 pm
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
The Summer Of The Patriarch
7:44 pm
THE BUTLER DID IT
The latest act in the Richard Milhous Butler one-man show has ended with his resignation as Governor of Tasmania (thirty years to the very day after Richard Milhous Nixon resigned).
As UNSCOM head, Richard Butler took what was meant to be a neutral diplomatic job and made it personal - operating outside his remit and engaging in petty indulgent personal vendettas to the extent that it ended up being Butler versus Saddam.
He appears to of done the same thing in Tasmania, sans Saddam off course.
Batten down the hatches in Hobart - the last time this undiplomatic diplomat left a city in a huff* (Baghdad 1999) bombs were the inevitable consequence of his inability to stick to the script.
*More like half then huff - a half million dollar (the equivalent in AUD of 453,000USD to be exact but I'm rounding off) termination payment.
CONGRATULATIONS - YOU'VE JUST SAVED 100,000 AUD!
Mr Butler is trying to flog his story to the media for one hundred thousand Australian dollars but you've just read it here for free.
3:11 pm
Monday, August 09, 2004
THE DOVES OF WAR
- hawkish Secretary of State wanted
I don’t get it.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is still referred to as a dove even though he was the advance man and is now the maintenance man for two wars (Afghanistan and Iraq)!
Hello! McFly!
Two wars! (Correct at time of publication, check current news sources for updates).
That's a dove?
How many wars do you have to be involved in before you lose your dove classification?
One hundred?
What's with the misnomer Homer?
Why do the media still insist on calling him a dove?
Is it because he's such a genuinely nice guy?, which he appears to be - though he might appear a lot nicer on the podium at the State Department, when seen from the press section, then in (so to speak) a fighter jet seen from the ground of some destroyed village.
Or is it because of positive discrimination? – The press can't reconcile "Republican" let alone "hawkish Republican" with "African-American" and insist on miscasting him according to their stereotypes.
Or is it all relative? – That even Genghis Khan as Secretary of State would look like a dove when compared to the right-of-Genghis Khan Bush cabinet.
Well, Colin POW! (Batman graphics please) ain't no Prince, but this is what it sounds like when doves cry (war).
Secretary Powell is a decent, accomplished man and, like all men, shouldn’t be defined according to his race, religion etc (which I'm certainly not doing) but he shouldn’t be categorized according to it either (which is just as discriminatory).
9:59 am
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
PRESIDENT BUSH RAISES SECURITY LEVEL
- reveals new intelligence has been discovered that indicates terrorists plan to attack the World Trade Centre
- denies opponent's allegations that new alert is politically motivated manipulation of old intelligence
1:29 pm
OFF THE RACK
- chiropractor wanted
To those of us who are always on the computer, this miracle of modern technology is merely a contemporary form of the medieval torture rack – the effect on ones body is practically the same.
1:28 pm
BYO FENCE
With the announcement that the Greek authorities are to build a fence around the Israeli athlete's accommodation (at their request) at the Athens Olympic village, the Israeli quarters are set to look more like a national pavilion at a world fair then a place for athletes to doss down in.
Just like the Chinese build a version of their Great Wall at their pavilions, the Israeli's will come to Athens with a version of their infamous fence/Grating Wall.
Regards the fence in Israel, I'm all in favor of it – I think that it should be pulled back a bit though, until it encompasses the whole of Israel and the Palestinian territories, whereby the two sides should be left to sort it out amongst themselves (sparing the rest of the world).
1:23 pm
Monday, August 02, 2004
I WENT TO THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID SONG*
- day five of the "you can feel it all over" crisis
Four days after the end of the very conventional Democratic National Convention in Boston, I still can't get Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke (of "you can feel it all over" fame) out of my head.
Is this a world record?
*I didn’t actually went to the convention per se but neither did man went to the moon, so now we're even.
1:48 pm
As the countdown to the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics begins (only eleven days away), my sources in Beijing inform me that the countdown to Beijing 2008 has already begun.
Military and police personal stormed the houses of scores of political dissidents in the Chinese capital in the early hours of the morning, administering them cautionary warning Chinese burns* ("next time it's death by Chinese burn!").
China regularly cracks down on known dissidents ahead of its hosting of international events or visits in an attempt to stifle and suppress embarrassing protests under the international spotlight.
The 1983 UN Playground Convention, which China doesnt recognize, banned Chinese burns but the practice is still widespread there as well as in Chinese restaurants all over the world.
Chinese authorities have denied the crackdown and denied Amnesty International allegations that confessions are tickled out of prisoners in Chinese jails.
I don't recognize the convention either – I'm trying to import Chinese burns to Lebanon by administering them to my little cousins who will, hopefully, administer them to other children, who will hopefully administer them to other children ad infinitum.
*To those who didn’t have the benefit of attending an Australian primary school, a Chinese burn is when both hands are placed, side by side, on the victim's forearm and are then twisted in opposing directions in a wringing motion (don't try this at home!)
Note : Chinese burns are not to be confused with Scotish Burns - Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns, who, most famously, wrote the words of the song that has become synonymous with New Year's Eve ( Abba's Happy New Year ).
1:34 pm
Saturday, July 31, 2004
DILETTANTE WRITER'S DILEMMA
You get your ideas and inspiration at night.
Whoever heard of an eclaircissement at 11.37 am? – That kind of lightning only strikes at 3.00am (notice how the diurnal time unit is the minute whereas the nocturnal time unit is the hour – there are no minutes after midnight).
But you're too tired then to actually type them – nighttime is dictaphone time and daytime is the only time for the drudgery of editing and typing all that.
But, if you're up all night in a lightning storm and repair to bed at dawn when the weather breaks you're hardly fit for or able to do the dayshift at the typing factory.
So you end up infrequently chipping away at an ever growing mountain of microcassettes - the night's illicit moonshine harvest.
Still, I try not to be intimidated by them and progress through them gradually because panic and creative pursuits are incompatible.
7:36 am
Friday, July 30, 2004
YOU CAN FEEL IT'S ALL OVER
The Democratic National Convention wrapped up yesterday.
As the smoke clears, the mirrors are packed, the sawdust swept up,the rabbits put back in to their cages and the minstrels rub the shoe polish off their faces, my feeling is that Boston 2004 merely confirmed that it's all over for the Democrats this time (as if an unconvincing ticket wasn't enough).
The only thing that sticks in my head from the entire musical is the song that I still cant get out of my head - Stevie Wonders "Sir Duke" (of the "you can feel it all over" chorus) which was played incessantly.
3:19 pm
LETTER OF THE DAY/CELEBRITY ENDORSMENT
Ladies and gentleman, Hotline's Anthony Mir
(see Comments)
Thanks Anth, knowing that I have readers of your caliber compels me to improve the quality of my writing (starting tomorrow though – inshallah).
10:31 am
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
BROTHER LOVE'S TRAVELING SALVATION SHOW*
- pack up the babies, grab the old ladies
The Democratic National Convention/Southern Baptist (Harlem Chapter) Revival Meeting/Hip Hop Summit is underway in Boston Massachusetts (or however it's bloody pronounced).
Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee John Ritter is today's star attraction (my sources tell me that he will be spruiking a miraculous snake oil tonic!).
The circus will be in Boston until tomorrow night.
The Republican Convention/ Military Trade Fair/Haliburton Annual General Meeting will commence in New York on 30th August - clearing the way for the US Supreme Court to vote for a president in November(ish).
*Television coverage of the convention and campaigning in general is best viewed with the TV volume muted and Neil Diamond's best song playing on the stereo as an accompanying soundtrack (as I do).
7:04 pm
Monday, July 26, 2004
GHOST GROUNDS PLANE
- Yesiree BOB, we're serious about security
A United Airlines flight en route to Los Angeles returned to Sydney ninety minutes after departure after a refuse bag with BOB written on it was discovered in the lavatory.
The pilot (obviously a fan of word games) interpreted that as meaning "bomb on board", whereas it is now thought to of meant "best on board" – crew "code" for a particularly attractive passenger.
Is this what the world's coming to – somebody writes BOB on an airline refuse bag and, Bob's your uncle, a major security incident ensues.
Ironically, the phrase "Bob's your uncle" has its roots in Lord (Robert) Sainsbury's preferment of his nephew Arthur Balfour.
Who was Arthur Balfour?
The man who got us into this mess in the first place!
As British Foreign Secretary, Balfour wrote what is now known as the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – a letter to the Zionist Federation stating the decision, agreed at a cabinet meeting, that the United Kingdom supported Zionist plans for a Jewish national home in Palestine.
There was indeed a Bob on that plane, and on every plane, but it wasn't a bomb but the ghost of Lord Bob and his nephew.
That ghost will continue to haunt us until one of the main root causes of terrorism today, the Palestinian issue, is resolved.
I am not in anyway condoning terrorism nor am I taking sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in fact I think that the wall that the Israeli's are building should be pulled back a bit until it encompasses the whole of Israel and the Palestinian Territories – whereby the two sides should be left to sort it out amongst themselves, sparing the rest of the world.
Speaking of ghosts, have you seen the Scooby Doo episode where, in the pro forma dénouement at the end, the gang have caught the ghost of Arthur Balfour and take off his mask to reveal Theodor Herzel (the founder of the Zionist movement)?
Fred explains, "It was Mr. Herzel all along – he dressed up as Mr. Balfour and tried to scare the Palestinians away so that Mr. Herzel and his friends could have the whole of the Holy Land".
Herzel replies "despite you meddling kids, United Nations Resolutions and world opinion I did get away with it".
Scooby says something funny, everybody laughs and it's all over.
What, you haven’t seen it?
Know why you haven’t seen it?
You haven’t seen it because Scooby Doo is obviously fictional whereas the above scenario is allegoric fact.
Does anybody remember what the start of this piece was about (we've come a long way) and what my initial point was (if I indeed had one)?
I don't.
If you do, please email me and enlighten me.
"Monoliterate" is my term for people who are technically literate but effectively illiterate because they only read the one book, their holy book (we've got a lot of that type of person in the Middle East).
I don’t claim to speak for God, but I just think that God would want us to read other people too (to learn about His world)
Ignorance is the real sin.After all, every worthy artistic creation, regardless of its subject, is only but a testimony to the glory of the ultimate Creator and can thus only bring us closer to Him.
11:58 am
Sunday, July 25, 2004
FORGIVE AND FORGET
What a forgetful lot radio listeners are ,it seems as if there's always someone on the radio reminding us not to forget this, not to forget that etc - e.g. (said in a silly radio voice) "coming up after the break, the time*...don’t forget to log on to our website @...in the meantime keep your dial locked on to Time FM - the Time of Your Life, All Time All the Time…"
(Play jingle of announcer asking listener "What's your favorite radio station?" and listener answering that it is indeed this very radio station!**)
This is mainly a phenomenon on Western and or Western-style radio stations – ironically and paradoxically, one's always being told what to do in those freer societies.
Apart from those aforementioned radio stations desperately trying to improve our memories, there are signs all over the place telling you to do and, more commonly, not to do various things – don’t speed, don’t spit, don't walk, don't litter, don’t kill people etc.
Only in Australia do you get a government advertising campaign telling you "Drink.Drive.Bloody Idiot".
Note: not just any old idiot but a bloody idiot at that!
The decline of Western civilization has begun when the government resorts to calling its citizens names***.
*Commercial radio stations these days are little more than talking clocks - surely that wasn't Marconi's intention.
**In my former life as a radio presenter, I soon got out of the habit of asking that old chestnut when I asked a listener, live on-air on a Lebanese radio station, what his favorite radio station was and he answered (quite innocently) with the name of a competitor.
***It's a good way of getting a title from the government though – if you can't get a Knighthood or an OBE, just drink drive and you'll be certified a Bloody Idiot.
John Smith BI (Bloody Idiot).
The "Drink Drive Bloody Idiot" campaign could be misleading perhaps – does it mean that if you drink drive you'll get off with just being called a bloody idiot and you won't be fined or prosecuted?
Mandatory sentencing?
How about extending that mandatory sentencing to other traffic offences? – If you speed, you're a fuckwit. If you don't wear a seatbelt, you're a dickhead, etc.
1:00 pm
Saturday, July 24, 2004
HAMAS NOMINATES MUNICH FOR 2012 OLYMPICS
- declares Munich 1972 "best games ever"
5:35 pm
HOWARDS END
The looming Australian federal election will be the end of the Howard government
Howard's end will not be due as much as to something he has done or not done but because Australia is essentially a one-party state (voluntarily and willingly so) – in love with and married to the Liberal Party.
Every now and then, when the Liberals get too complacent and take the electorate too much for granted, they will be made to sleep on the couch for a while and the Labor Party mistress will be brought up to the master bedroom for a fling.
Just such a lover's tiff is brewing at the moment.
It's Time!
But this It's Time, the mistress has turned in to a prostitute garishly aping the Australian electorate's lawfully elected spouse.
Disclaimer: If my prediction that Labor will win doesn’t happen, then my prediction is that the Liberals will be reelected.
12:43 pm
Monday, July 12, 2004
AUTOSTRADE EN FÈTE
On the way to the pub yesterday I got caught in the summer Sunday early evening traffic jam.
I had to wait a while for a service on the Jounieh autostrade as most of the public transport around was buses which I never catch – too crowded, too many stops (anywhere anyone wants it to stop) and too dangerous (the smaller minivans may as well be registered as suicide bombs).
It seemed as if every Southerner was coming back from the Northern beaches - ending their weekly pleasure exodus to the Promised Land and squeezing out the last remaining pleasures of the day on the autostrade.
Kids carrying-on, adults singing and gawping – there was even, I kid you not, a vanload of derbaki* drummers, dressed in the traditional Ottoman era garb, banging away on their drums.
This screaming, singing and staring motley crew spilling out of their garish and overloaded vehicles looked to me like participants in an inverted modern day equivalent of the exodus described in Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath".
*Arabic bongo drum – a small but LOUD long-bodied drum usually held between the knees and played with the hands.
MANILA FOLDER
The Philippine government has folded to the demands of fundamentalists holding a Phillipino hostage and begun an early withdrawal of their some fifty strong contingent from Iraq.
11:48 am
IT'S THE ELEPHANT STUPID!
An elephant working as a tourist attraction at the AIDS conference in Bangkok has trampled to death a fifty-five year-old man.
Typical of these left-wing do-gooders, peddling their abstract trendy disease celebre whilst, outside and under their noses, there's a very real elephant raging around f---ing people!
I'm not minimizing the horrible threat of AIDS but I just believe that all the fancy conferences, designed to assuage the consciences of rich white people, aren’t going to help unless and until the First World put their money where their mouth is and really help the Third World* that's bearing the full brunt of AIDS and a million other diseases that are more prevalent and more of a threat but not as trendy or as Hollywood patronized as AIDS.
In the meantime, practice safe sex, don’t share needles and don’t' f—k with elephants!
*The Third World should also learn some common sense and shed off the ignorance and superstion that is more of a barrier to them then anything else - no amount of aid money is going to buy common sense, it's free!
10:02 am
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