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Serious satire
"Humor is a funny way of being serious"
-Thomas Edison
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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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Saturday, March 17, 2007
Most Lebanese Christians have a Southern Mediterranean- type attitude towards alcohol – alcohol is demystified and young people get used to it at the family dinner table from an early age. It’s seen not as some sort of illicit substance to abuse and get drunk on when you turn eighteen (or earlier if you can get it) but to enjoy in moderation. A Lebanese/Australian I know was pulled over by police for a breathalyzer test in Sydney years ago. He blew into it and sure enough it proved positive – he was over the legal limit. He protested that there must be something wrong with the machine and suggested they test it on his seven year old son who was in the car with him to prove that it was faulty. They did and it registered a similar positive reading so the police were convinced that there was something wrong with it and let him go.
Lebanese drink as much as anybody else but they do it responsibly. Having drinks before dinner at a neighbour’s house, I declined his offer of a second glass of champagne because I didn’t want to ‘’drink too much on an empty stomach’’ My bounteous host replied ‘’the first one was on an empty stomach but the second one isn’t’’. He was half joking but still it was logic I couldn’t resist. Cheers!
2:00 pm
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