----------------------------------------------
Serious satire
"Humor is a funny way of being serious"
-Thomas Edison
--------------------
To have your emails deleted please write to me at renatoobeid@hotmail.com
--------------------
Copyright© 2001-2010, Renato Obeid
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
"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
audio
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Monday, March 21, 2005
Pulling another correction (staying up all night and all day to hopefully cure my insomnia) – the third in nine days.
I think it’s starting to lose its efficacy, like sleeping tablets (its polar opposite) eventually do and that I’m getting immune to its benefits.
Time was when such a correction would set me right for at least two weeks to a month.
So, it’s become more of a respite and holiday from insomnia more than a cure.
That’s fine by me – one night of insomnia is worse than a hundred nights of wakefulness.
Anyway, it gives me more time to read, write and listen to BBC World Service radio to see what disease they’re advertising this month.
Although they drove me up the well with their pointless “AIDS Season” (as they called it) of programming last year, it was very successful – successfully telling Anglophone elites around the world what they already knew and successful in having them shake their heads at how terrible such a disease was, feel very concerned and contact the BBC urging that something should be done! (And then proceed to do nothing about it themselves).
Speaking of useless so-called activism, I’m relieved to hear that U2 lead singer Bono isn’t going to be the next President of the World Bank (as some in the media have speculated).
He’s certainly no banker (rhymes with?) and I think that he should stop “banking” and stick to his genius (his music).
Notice the airliner that takes off over their heads in the “Beautiful Day” video clip?
It’s none other than a Middle East Airlines plane – with the distinctive cedar tree that adorns our flag.
We didn’t use the red, green and black flag template that most of the rest of the region used.
How they tell their flags apart at Arab League Summits is a mystery to me.
Although at one stage, during the French Mandate, we used the tricolor template - our flag was the French tricolor with a cedar stuck in the middle (just like the flags of Australia, New Zealand etc incorporate the British Union Jack).
It looked quite nice and I don’t think that there was anything terribly wrong with it but we eventually opted for the Austrian template – our current flag was inspired by the Austrian flag (with a cedar stuck in the middle).
We stuck a cedar in the middle of it and then proceeded to chop down all the cedar trees, knowing that we’d saved them for posterity on the flag (a la “They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum”).
Heck, the way we’re going with our quasi-military government, we might as well take the cedar tree off and put a banana tree up there and embrace what is fast becoming a banana republic.
The army should be the guardians of the republic and not the republic.
10:00 pm
|
|
| |
|
|
|
