Beiruti Pop Cultural Icon of the month

Ibrahim Omar, "expert at fixing hair color".

Congratulations, Mr. Ibrahim. Priceless ad.

The Ultimate Guide to Enjoy Beirut

AKA The white Western Man/Neo-orientalist's guide to Beirut

After watching all the violence on television and feeling bad for the Middle East (most probably colonial guilt), after seeing the democratic protests that made you tear up and proclaim what a free people the Lebanese are (or just not caring), and after reading numerous articles about the parties, you finally decide to go to Beirut.
Congratulations for being brave and facing your friends and family's questions and concerns (Isn't there a war there? Why do you want to visit a terrorist hub? Don't they hate us [if you're American]?), you've got your ticket in hand and your bag packed.
Note: backpacking the Middle East is cooler than just 'traveling' there.

Well, traveler, we've got the ultimate guide to make your trip to Beirut unique and unforgettable (just like everyone else's)!

First things first :land or air?

You can book a flight to Beirut International Airport, renamed Rafik Hariri International Airport after the assassinated prime minister whose murder triggered the Cedar Revolution, and take a taxi to the city center (only a 20 minute drive).
Or, if you want to be cooler, take a bus from Syria and arrive at the Charles Helou bus station.

Staying for a short period of time? If you're a loaded westerner, go for the countless five-star hotels. If you're a poor westerner or a westerner who is pretending to be poor (for various reasons) staying at a hostel is the best option. There are three of them in Beirut.

Staying for long? Rent a room or an apartment in Hamra or Gemmayze.

What to do?
- Now that you've settled down in Beirut, it's time to experience it. Meet local 'hipsters' and join them for an authentic experience at Sky Bar or Gemmayze.

- Party. Party. Party. But first, try to break in a Lebanese social circle.

- Are you a smart westerner? Then you're probably working on an MA thesis. What better place than Lebanon to do some research!
You most probably even have your topic, something about Hezbolla's weapons or its legitimacy as a political party versus its 'terrorist' activities.
But, we must warn you, you might bump into another foreigner (or 53) who are 'researching' the same thing.

Out and about (when not partying or sleeping off hangovers)
- On your second day, you decide to go to Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburb or the Hezbolla stronghold. What an exciting place to visit!

Look at the destroyed buildings during the 2006 war (and condemn Israeli aggression, either because you are a westerner who believes in 'a peaceful solution to the Israeli/Palestinian issue' or because you are too scared to justify Israel's actions, you are in Dahiyeh after all).

Compulsively take photos. Of every possible thing. A cat by the dumpster (you even know the caption you will add on Facebook: Dahiyeh persian cat), or a flower growing from the concrete bridge. And of course, take a picture of the destruction and the 'fascinating' people.

Now, you might do that for two reasons:
A. You are an idiot.
B. You know that you will most probably get arrested by Hezbolla's security forces. But that would be an awesome story to tell on your Middle East blog.
Note: 100 extra points if you can Tweet as soon as you're arrested.

- After the intense Dahieyh experience, roam any street in the city and get excited by the army vehicles parked on corners. 100 extra points if you take a photo with a soldier.

- Take an Arabic course.

- Blog about your experience. Tags: Paris of the Middle East, Switzerland of the Middle East, sectarianism, party, alcohol, drugs, politics.

- Combine your blog posts (if you are blogging) or write an article about Beirut. Interesting things to write about are definitely the parties, [a superficial view on] politics, and parties.
Don't forget to mention that the city that has been torn by civil strife is slowly being reborn yet still on the verge of civil strife.

Budgeting
Beirut can be an expensive city. Especially if you want that steady alcohol flow. But you can still survive as an indie traveler.
Note: you can join your state's secret service to make some money.

Gay and lesbian travelers
By that we mean gay. And by gay, we mean bears.
The gay scene in Beirut is flourishing (for further reference: The New York Times), so you better pack that lube and get your ass over here. Attend the exotic bear parties and the annual bear pageant.
If you are not into bears, there are still places for you. And rentboys.

Post Scriptum
We hope you enjoy your visit as much as we hope you find this guide helpful. For a better travel experience we recommend you expect a lot and come with preconceptions.

how to detect Lebanese scrobblers

The Other Side's guide to becoming a lesbian, pt. 2

Remember our previous, priceless guide to becoming a dyke?
Well, ever since then our people never really did stop their research. We have spent days observing, weeks without shaving, and months eating nothing but nkha'at (sheep brain) sandwiches with extra garlic.
People of gender and no gender, here is our follow-up guide to becoming a lesbian:

1. By now, you should have slept with everyone in your lesbian social circle. Next step: drama. Oh, yeah.

2. Have you been engaging in discussions and arguments that get you nowhere? Good. Now it's time to move away from academia and focus on media. If there are any articles, books or films that make you angry (and let's face it, it does not take a lot to get you angry), lash out!!

3. Play Mafia Wars on Facebook.

4. Giggle some more.

5. Play more Mafia Wars (spend days playing it. our researchers have found that it is a crucial prerequisite, but they are still trying to find explanations).

6. Protest against anything and add it to your 'feminist' causes.

7. Join the world conference-jet-set: attend conferences on sexuality, gender and class equality, feminism, queer media forums etc... that take place in the coolest cities around the world. You might learn nothing from them, but it's a good opportunity to meet girls and fill up your chart.

8. If you are against 'white' dominance, capitalism, governments, gender 'binaries', religious indoctrination, and any kind of other dominance, then you are still in your teenage rebellious phase and got issues (that was our psychoanalytical team's conclusion). Our conclusion: don't call yourself a feminist for fear of a lawsuit from the zeitgeist 'movement' supporters, anti-globalizationists, anarchists or hippies who have embraced these causes before you.

9. If you find it all too difficult, escape. There is nothing like Mafia Wars.

Good luck.

Istanbul seagulls pay tribute to Michael Jackson

Something strange has been happening to avian species in Istanbul. Latest witnesses claim to have seen seagulls practice moonwalks on the roofs of apartment buildings.

The latest sighting has been reported from Tarlabasi, a notorious area neighborhood that houses junkies, hookers, Kurds and other social rejects.

The seagull apparently danced the moonwalk on a metal roof before turning his neck around, copying Michael Jackson's signature dance.

"I really saw it with my own eyes. I even think it winked at me. But that's not for sure," told us Jamal, a foreigner living in the area whose nationality we could not comprehend.

Mehmet Marti, an amateur bird watcher and retired seagull breeder, told us that these occurrences are of no surprise.

"Apart from being already Istanbulized," he said, "certain species, especially seagulls, have been greatly affected by the news of the passing away of pop legend Michael Jackson."

"I think it all started at his tribute celebrations, where the seagulls carefully watched humans doing his dance routine to his music. Some scientists are saying that the learning process might have been Pavlovian. But there are no definite conclusions until now," he added.

We also received information that what might have increased the seagulls' strange behavior was the blasting MJ music from certain windows in the area.

"People were playing his music on loop for 24 hours, " Mehmet said. "I think this might have affected their evolution process, more fun-seeking seagulls with wicked dance moves."

Mehmet was joking of course. It was definitely not evolution, he noted, because he does not believe in conspiracy theories.

Bread crumbs and dance moves? Pavlovian learning or evolution? Scientists, bird watchers and local residents are trying to answer all those questions while reports of more strange bird behavior keep coming in. One thing we know for sure: Michael Jackson's legacy will live on forever.

Bond needs rehab, but stops cronies from getting Bolivia's water

I just came back from the new bond movie. I really don't know what to think of it. I'm not big on American movies anyways, but I think I liked Casino Royale more.

In Quantum of Solace, Bond (Daniel Craig) can't get over the 21st Bond girl, Vesper (Eva Green). This ultimately leads him to shoot random people and then drink everything off. This also affects M (Judi Dench), who throughout the movie is just paranoid-delusional and schizophrenic. The bad guy, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Almaric) is just ugly and fucked up, so is his Jewish-mommy's-boy cousin, Elvis (with a hairpiece that looks really wrong). The best part, for me, was my sexy compatriot Olga Kurylenko, who plays Camille (the 22nd Bond girl).

What was particulary interesting about the plot, which sometimes takes useless twists, is the similarity with something that actually took place. In the movie, Bond uncovers Greene's plot to control and monopolise Bolivia's water resources.

In the 90's, the World Bank forced Bolivia (as usual, through blackmail and threats to withhold debt relief and aid) to privatise the water resources of its third largest city, Cochabamba. In a miraculous single bid, US corporation Bechtel (who was benevolent enough to donate my university's Engineering building, which is obviously named after it) got the contract: a 40 year lease to completely control the water resources of Cochambaba. That also included rainwater. Water rates, in some cases, went up by 100 to 200 percent. People who lived on less than $100 per month had to pay around 25% of their monthly income just on water.

I don't know if Bechtel actually believed that it could get away with that. In January 2000, there was a four day general strike against the price hikes. Protests continued, until in February the Bolivian government deployed its army, declared a state martial law and banned the protests. This did not stop the people from going out to the street and protesting. The clashes left 175 people injured, two blinded and one killed. In April 2000, the company finally abandoned the project.

Bechtel demanded $50 million from the Bolivian government, but dropped the charges in 2006.

So. Barack won.

I'm blogging from a boring communications class. I feel like such a rebel.

Obama got elected as the Usians' next president. Racism is over. And yes, they could. Don't get me wrong, I'm really happy for people who feel happy that Barack will be their next president. But most of them just seem to be taken over by this craze. Time to wake up.



This obviously satirical campaign button is from a post on KABOBfest, they had a great collection of them throughout the campaign.

I don't want to be negative and pessimisstic, but I'm very unsure about Obama. I don't think much would change. His leanings toward Israel are alarming, just hearing is AIPAC speech is enough. And his choice of staff also raises doubts. I guess only time will tell.

Here's a great article by Ishmael Reed on the Usians' Obamamania (also check out Marcy Newman's blog, it's where I got most of my alternative campaign updates from):

Morning in Obamerica: Change, Change, Change?

by Ishmael Reed

"The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them."

The great American satirist George Schuyler's prescient and comic work, Black No More, is about a scientist named Dr. Crookmore who comes up with a formula that turns blacks to white (I wonder how Schuyler would treat the current profitable back-to-Africa DNA hokum). As a result of a country that is totally white, The Civil Rights organizations go out of business, and even the last hold out, the character, based upon the black nationalist Marcus Garvey, in the end, tries some of Dr. Crookmore's solution. Would something like this happen were Barack Obama to become president? A country where there exists no social divisions and the issue of race has become defused.

The leader of the NAACP says that the work of the organization will continue even with an Obama victory. Why? Wouldn't it be better that the NAACP shut its doors as cable's leading conservative intellectual, Tucker Carlson has suggested? Auction off its assets and join the post race fever? In his "The New Black Aesthetic, " (1989,) author Trey Ellis announced the arrival of a generation of African Americans who would place the issue of race in the background unlike we "curmudgeons" and "cranks, " who came of age in the 1960s and who are still carrying on like those Japanese soldiers who weren't aware that the war was over. "The New Black Intellectuals" were even praised by Robert Boynton in an essay that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly (March, 1995:53-69.)

"Shortly after Obama is sworn in, the police, instead of subjecting blacks and Hispanics to capricious traffic stops, will only stop them to offer free tickets to the policeman's ball."

To many, Martin Luther King's dream has been realized. He said, " I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." Obviously me and my over sixty pals are still lingering in those crooked places and refusing to process the sunlight that is available to everybody else. (Tavis Smiley is our leader). People like us are going to have to adjust to this post race America which resembles a painting by Edward Hicks. A place where Blacks have reached the Promised Land?

What does this promise land look like? This Obamerica? Shortly after Obama is sworn in, the police, instead of subjecting blacks and Hispanics to capricious traffic stops, will only stop them to offer free tickets to the policeman's ball. Throughout the country, they will address blacks and Hispanics as sir and ma'm. The overcrowding prison problem will end, because all of the blacks and Hispanics who've been sent there as a result of prosecutorial and police misconduct - probably half - will be set free. And all of those police who have murdered unarmed blacks only to be acquitted by all-white juries will be retried. Blacks will have the freedom to shop in department stores without being watched.

In the media, all of the black Hispanic and Native American and Asian American journalists, who, according to the Maynard Institute's media watcher, Richard Prince, are being "shown the door," will be rehired. The progressive media will spend as much time on the torture of black suspects in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles as they do torture at Gitmo. Blacks will be liberated from the crime, entertainment and sports pages exclusively and appear in other sections. More cerebral sections as scientists, engineers, astronomers. Jonathan Klein and other cable producers will stop managing black opinion so that it doesn't alienate its white audience and voices other than those of black correspondents from Rev. Moon's church will be awarded air time. Global warming denier Michelle Bernard will be replaced by Jill Nelson.

"John McWhorter, Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele will admit that they have been tools of the Eugenics movement."

Jesse Jackson will be appointed lead editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal. and Al Sharpton will assume duties at The National Review. Rush Limbaugh will inaugurate a series called "Great African American Inventors." Spike Lee will be invited to run Columbia Pictures and Amy Goodman will take over at NBC. The Newspaper Society of America will apologize for the lynchings and civil disturbances caused by an inflammatory media over the last one hundred or so years. A choked up Rupert Murdoch will read the statement on behalf of his colleagues.

In an emotional press conference, John McWhorter, Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele will admit that they have been tools of the Eugenics movement and donate all of the millions they have received from far right organizations to scholarships for black and Hispanic students. Blacks will have as much access to a good education as those members of Al-Qaeda and Saddam' s government who studied in the United States. This will end the policy of you educate them, we fight them.

Gertrude Himmlefarb and Lynne Cheney will insist that the works by Hispanic, black and Native Americans be added to the cannon. Cornel West will co-host a show with Dr. Phil. The New York Review of Books will end its white only policy and begin to resemble America. Phillip Roth will admit that all of his novels are autobiographical. Several prominent abstract expressionists will confess that they can't draw.

All of the blacks and Hispanics who have been driven out of New York, Oakland, and San Francisco, as a result of the policies of ethnic cleansing, advocated by Jerry Brown, Giuliani and Newsom, will be invited to return. The banks that aimed toxic mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics, who would have qualified for conventional loans had they been white, will halt the foreclosure process and renegotiate these loans. CEOs on Wall Street will forego bonuses and golden parachutes. Sales conferences will be held at Day's Inn. For rent signs will go up on K street. The American Enterprise Institute will close its doors.

"Obama will call for an end to warfare by air so that these forces will at least look their victims in the eye before murdering them."

The right will stop using worn out phrases like "political correctness," and "victimization" and hire Sean "Puffy" Combs to provide them with some hip language.

An Obama administration will launch the Obama doctrine, which will advocate friendly aggression and soft diplomacy in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other global spots where American forces are killing people. These trouble spots will be inundated with artists, writers, dancers and musicians, engineers, doctors and people who speak their languages.

American students will be required to lean an Asian and African languageas well as a western one. He will call for an end to warfare by air so that these forces will at least look their victims in the eye before murdering them. No more drones. Missiles. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will address him as Mr, President, both in private and in public. The white house, haunted by the ghosts of the Indian fighters and slave owners and KKK sympathizers like Woodrow Wilson, who once ruled from there, will be demolished and the first family will reside in a St. Louis condo as the country seeks a fresh start. Cindy McCain will sell her wardrobe and donate the proceeds to rebuilding New Orleans' 9th ward. Any one outfit that she wears on a given day would help to rebuild a block. John McCain will acknowledge the black members of his family whom he has snubbed up to now. Obama critic Governor Schwarzenegger will be among the new president's well wishers. He will offer to improve president Obama's physique by sending him some steroids from his private stash. And, by the way, doesn't an effort to put some meat on somebody's bones begin at home?

A big step toward a green America would be to return the land that was stolen from Native Americans. (The southwest will be returned to Mexico).

And as a gesture to this new Era of Good Feeling, George Bush, Condi Rice, Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Judith Miller, Osama Bin Laden and Jonathan Klein will turn themselves in at the Hague.