I went to 3enab yesterday for the first time and I thought it was a very cool restaurant. I really liked the old-fashioned Lebanese architectural aspect of it. The food was good as well – after all, you can’t go terribly wrong with Lebanese food, which is the absolute best, and that is a fact.

As my friends and I settled down, a waiter came to us and asked if we wanted an arguile. I promptly asked him: isn’t smoking banned? He then replied: we’ll open this window:

Never mind that the window was tiny but apparently that’s enough to consider the room an “open space” – whatever that means. Soon enough, a couple coming for dinner ordered an arguile. The man was also smoking cigar.

As we finished having dinner and turned around to leave, we were surprised to find the entire restaurant filled with arguiles, even in sections of the restaurant without windows to open. A friend noted as we exited the door: it felt like shisha cafe for a moment there.

Ironically, this is the sign they had at their main door:

As soon as I left, I called 1735 and reported the place. They took my contact info and said they’ll look into it. But as I was made to realize: infringing the law this obviously in an area where tourism police is constantly on the prowl, seeing it was a Friday night, means 3enab probably has some under the table dealings with those making sure the law is carried out. Anything for that extra arguile revenue.

I’m pretty sure those against the smoking ban are elated right now.

It took Jennifer Lopez holding the Lebanese flag at her Dubai concert for some Lebanese to feel proud about their country’s independence day. They thought it was her way of wishing our country a happy independence day. And they ate it up.

Soon enough, everyone was talking about exactly how genuine a person Jennifer Lopez is and how honorable it was of her and how proud they are as Lebanese that their – our – country was recognized this way. Well, they thought wrong.

A friend of mine who went to the concert in Dubai told me that when she grabbed the Lebanese flag, Jennifer Lopez shouted “Dubai!” which meant that she thought our flag was that of the United Arab Emirates. I’m surprised no one bothered bringing that up till now actually.

It is always customary of artists going for concerts abroad to hold the flag of their hosting country. Jennifer Lopez didn’t bother with the UAE flag. Isn’t that an insult to the country that actually paid enough to bring her to sing on its grounds? And what makes Lebanon so important that she’d rather hold our flag at a concert not even held on our land?

Our sense of fake chauvinism knows no limit it seems.

Lebanon has its flaws. It’s a hopeless place to live in sometimes. It has a lot of shortcomings and I’ll be the first to point them out as I’ve done many times (here’s a sample). But I don’t need Jennifer Lopez holding my country’s flag for me to feel overwhelmingly happy about the country I live in. And frankly I find it sad that some Lebanese need this “validation” coming from a pop star of their country for them to feel some ounce of national pride which so ironically happened to be on a national day that they are too willing to dismiss as absolutely useless.

Jennifer Lopez doesn’t know what Lebanon’s flag looks like. She probably doesn’t even know we exist. The whole flag debacle is all mere irony. Now how’s that treating your silly national pride?

Last time I checked, fortunetelling was reserved for New Year’s Eve when people with some form of “sight” grace our airwaves to tell us what to expect over the coming year – although they give themselves a few years as a range to make sure what they say eventually happens.
It got to a point where all our TV stations would host anyone. Those who pay the most get prodigy Michel Hayek. Those who can’t get Michel Hayek but are high profile enough get Layla Abdul Latif. And if you’re miserable like NewTV, you get an Australian card reader and give her pictures of our political leaders for her to look at.

However, it seems that the dark times the region is witnessing have gotten Layla Abdul Latif to get her “sight” together and inundate the world with predictions that will eventually happen. It might be in a year, or two, or ten. One could never know. It seems she’s also hell-bent on overthrowing Michel Hayek as Lebanon’s most celebrated neo-prophet.

Did you know we are having elections next year? Did you also know it’s going to be based on the 2009 law which everyone “theoretically” hates but no one is willing to change? Did you know the Sunnis and the Shia of Lebanon will NOT kill each other more than they already are?
Did you also know that Lebanon will soon become an oil exporter? Yes, because the massive amounts of national gas and petrol we’re sitting on are not meant to stay there apparently. You can check out the rest of the “predictions” here.

So people tune in to LBC which gets all the audience numbers of a Sunday night and even though they ridicule Layla Abdul Latif for the “visions” she gets, they still listen. And even though what she says is an absolutely logical reading of what might happen, somehow the clout she has thrown around herself as someone with a “gift” makes people feel more secure somehow.

It is the age of fortunetellers. And since fortunetelling seems to be in lately, I’ve decided to try my hand at it. *clears throat* these are my predictions for an unnamed period in time:

- People will continue dying in Syria until the revolution ends. Some people will die after that too.
- The Future movement will keep on hating Hezbollah. And vice versa.
- The animosity between the FPM and the LF will not decrease.
- Wi2am Wahhab will witness a markedly decreased spoken words per minute rate.
- Michel Aoun will become paranoid.
- Samir Geagea’s word-repeats will extend to new items in the vocabulary.
- Saad Hariri is enjoying his vacation in France. But he will return eventually.
- Hassan Nasrallah has a thing for underground bunkers and will not leave his anytime soon.
- The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no near ending in sight.
- The Lebanese people will vote for the same people in 2013 and they will then nag about the same people reaching power again.
- The 2013 elections will witness below the belt accusations thrown by the different camps at each other.
- The 2013 elections will feature an increased role for social media. Bloggers will be paid to support one candidate over another.
- Saudi Arabia will suppress its women even further.
- The Islamic revolution in Iran will come up with new interesting ridiculous fatwas.
- The Middle East’s Christians will remain panicky about their future.
- The United States will remain divided between Obama lovers and Obama haters.
- The United States will be hit by new hurricanes… Eventually.
- Sh*t will keep hitting the fan in Greece.
- Big quantities of rotten and expired food will be discovered somewhere within the 10452km2 of Lebanon.
- People will keep violating the smoking ban without any repercussions whatsoever.
- Lebanon will not see an improvement in abiding by traffic laws in the near future.
- There will be new anti-Islam material which cause outrage across the Muslim world.
- Lebanon’s Maronite patriarch will vote for the pope that will succeed Benedict XVI.
- Apple will release a new iPhone that keeps the iPhone 5′s form factor. And people will nag. Droids will hate. Everyone will buy anyway.
- Samsung will lose yet another lawsuit and be made to pay another billion.
- World peace will not happen.

I personally do not have the gift of “sight” and I came up with these while a physician was lecturing me about anemias. But if Michel Hayek and Layla Abdul Latif do it, why not me? Enno shou we2fet 3layon?
Now who wants to pay me thousands of dollars to host me on some TV show? I have stuff to buy and vacations to plan and people to fool.

There’s a hilarious Egyptian version already. I couldn’t understand a word of that – I guess Egyptian isn’t exactly my strong suit.

And now there’s a Lebanese version for the Southern city of Saida – of which I could understand the minimum required to call myself Lebanese. Is it very Saida oriented or am I very disoriented? I have no clue!

I don’t know about you but I’m sticking to the Korean version

Leave it to Lebanese movies to reveal inherent complexes among some strata in our society. I have yet to watch My Last Valentine in Beirut and seeing as it’s already been released, I figured it must have passed through the fangs of censorship and landed safely on our screens. But that was too good to last apparently.

No, the problem isn’t with the supposed sex in it. It’s not with the main character being a prostitute. It’s not with the use of “foul” language that might be offensive to some as if people don’t hear the word “sharmou*a” day in day out. The problem with My Last Valentine in Beirut seems to be more clothes-related.

The syndicate of nursing in Lebanon is filing a lawsuit against My Last Valentine in Beirut for using a nurse’s outfit seductively in the movie. The sultry portrayal of nurses in the movie is, according to the syndicate, a violation of the sanctity of their profession. I guess they haven’t played doctor before.

If the demands of the syndicate are met, the movie will be either withdrawn from cinemas or edited to remove these “offensive” scenes. Lebanese filmmakers, regardless of how horrible their movies might be, apparently need to bring in portions from every single part of society for early screenings. You never know what might be in their movies that might be offensive to someone whose mental capacities seem to be limited at best because it seems that lately anyone finds something offensive in absolutely anything and cannot get past it.

You’d think the Lebanese Nursing syndicate would be fighting for the rights of Lebanon’s nurses. You’d think they’d be demanding better wages, better working hours, more benefits. Instead they throw their efforts at My Last Valentine in Beirut because they know that if they make a big enough fuss, someone out there in Lebanon’s narrow-minded censorship bureau will respond. And it’s not like the “sexy nurse” attire in movies hasn’t been overly overdone but feeling empowered only happens when it comes to local productions.

And how about that horrible XXL ad? Doesn’t it have “sexy nurses” for them to sue?

I don’t know if My Last Valentine in Beirut is a good enough movie or not. But I find a request to censor a movie based on what a character wore in it is ridiculous. How silly is it for anyone to find what a character wears in a movie offensive enough to call for the banning or the censoring of said movie? I’m sure even less open countries of the region haven’t had such problems with their productions. And when will people learn that asking to ban anything only brings attention to the thing you want to ban? It happened recently with Tannoura Maxi, which seems to be winning well at international film festivals.

There’s a fine line between fighting for your rights and being absolutely obnoxious. Lebanon’s nursing syndicate is sitting firmly in the nauseating camp. And some wonder where some nurses get their attitude!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The above picture is worth a few thousand more than that – but don’t worry, I won’t write them.

Antoine Zahra, LF MP of the Batroun Caza, sporting a Palestine solidarity scarf… on his trip to Gaza. Who knew there would come a day when such a sentence would actually be written?

As they say “3ish ktir, betchouf ktir.” I personally don’t know what to make from March 14th visit to Gaza. On one hand, some see it as an act of solidarity, on another hand others see it as absolutely useless act of propaganda.
I’m leaning more to the latter but people already think I’m overly negative lately so good on March 14th for going there.

However, Antoine Zahra, it seems, is sticking it to whoever is saying the LF hate all Palestinians. Now cue in those reminding the world of the “atrocities” the LF have done during the civil war because that is entirely the point here.

In short, for so many reasons, I guess it’s fair to assume the above picture cannot but be Lebanon’s 2012 picture of the year – by far.

“This movie is for serious and smart people only” said the marketing tagline. Then by all accounts, I’m a stupid person who knows nothing of seriousness.

My Last Valentine in Beirut is not a movie. I have no idea what to make of it actually. It’s a horrid mess. It’s a nauseating spectacle. It’s a disgustingly bad atrocity. It’s a jumble of scenes with no apparent link between them except a quest to build up into a running time of approximately 80 minutes. Meet Juliette, a whore in Beirut. Meet a movie director and his assistant wanting to make a movie about Juliette. That’s basically the entirety of My Last Valentine in Beirut for you.

There’s no depth in the movie. Not one bit. The characters are as flat as a board. The storyline – or lack thereof – is so void that you shouldn’t even attempt searching for anything in it. The jabs at Lebanese society are delivered by the characters turning to face the camera – there’s not even one hint of subtlety anywhere. The movie takes cheap shots at other Lebanese movies such as Caramel, Bosta and W Halla2 la Wein which by all accounts are much, much better than this mess. Juliette’s attitude, obviously hyperbolic, becomes more than grating at points. The point of this being a critique of Lebanon today becomes entirely detached from what’s happening on screen that any message the movie tries to pass feels forced especially as the last scene rolls around and you start wondering how the movie got to the conclusion it tries to bring forth with its obvious lack of build up towards anything mentally stimulating.

The absolutely useless 3D is only here for the extra revenue and it’s so distracting at times that it visually hurts. Some camera angles, which are supposedly “artistic,” don’t make sense – even to someone like yours truly whose expertise when it comes to movies is restricted to being an enthusiastic viewer.  Even the only sex scene in the movie is of such catastrophic execution that it becomes one of the movie’s funniest moments. Those are not many.

You’d think that struggling Lebanese cinema would actually bother to come up with good enough movies especially with production being so scarce. But no, you get movies like My Last Valentine in Beirut which keep throwing one crappy scene after another at you in order to break the worst movie in history record, which is a shame really because the premise of a movie discussing prostitution in Lebanon is so dense that this movie, if actually done like a proper movie with a decent script, could have turned out well. Maybe. Who am I kidding. At some point during My Last Valentine in Beirut‘s rather short running time, I wished I was watching Breaking Dawn again. This was one of the worst movie experiences of my life. And that’s not an easy feat at all. My Last Valentine in Beirut has shattered my faith in Lebanese cinema into so many little pieces that next time a non-Nadine Labaki Lebanese movie is released, I’ll rely on other people going on a martyrdom viewing mission before I venture out.

Do not watch this. Even if your life depended on it. Even if your mother’s life depended on it. You could use the $10 admission price in so many better ways, not to mention the time of your life you wouldn’t have wasted trying to watch this cinematic massacre.

1/10 – and I’m being generous. 

This is awesome and they actually did the dance well! Congrats to the newlywed and thank you for the wedding reception entertainment. I’m sure your guests were more than pleased.

Now if all weddings could be this creative, perhaps I’d like to attend them more often. W 3a2bel l 3eyzin

The Lebanese Medical Students International Committee – LeMSIC in short – will be holding a fundraiser concert by Tania Saleh on December 15th, as part of its World AIDS Day awareness campaign.

The concert’s revenue will go to the HIV/AIDS fund of one of LeMSIC’s committees that’s involved in reproductive health which will then help HIV positive Lebanese patients get CD4 counts, which is not covered by the ministry of health or by Lebanese insurance companies.

A CD4 count determines the stage of the disease. The lower it is, the worse a person’s status is. It’s a mark of how far HIV has gone in destroying a person’s immunity and it is one of the criteria used to determine whether a patient has reached a state of AIDS or not, which would in turn affect the patient’s treatment options. The test itself is not cheap at all and many patients cannot afford one on their own.

Tickets prices are as follows: $20 if you are a medical student who’s a member of LeMSIC. $25 if you’re a non-member medical student and $35 for non-medical students.

And in case you’re worried, the concert will not comprise any medical lectures.

The Facebook link for the event in case you’re interested: click here.

MTV has just unveiled the participants of Lebanon’s version of Dancing With the Stars. Here’s the list:

• Nada Bou Farhat (actress)
• Wissam Hanna (former Mr. Lebanon)
• May Harriri (singer)
• Naya (singer)
• Rosarita Tawil (former Miss Lebanon)
• Mirva Kadi (Model & singer)
• Nicolas Mouawad (actor/TV anchor)
• Rabih Baroud (Singer)
• Haifa Haddad (Trainer)
• Michel Bou Sleiman (comedian)
• Walid Alayli (actor)

Each of these famous people will be paired with a professional dancer. The couple will be judged by a panel as well as audience votes. The winning team has to garner the highest combination of audience votes and panel grades. I don’t know how well this show would do with non-Lebanese audiences though seeing as all of the participants are Lebanese. But I’m not complaining.

I was sent this report, saying that the Maronite League is bringing an economic zone to Batroun, which will help in creating over 3000 jobs for the region.

The Maronite League will announce next week a plan to establish a new special economic district in Batroun. A primary feasibility study has been performed for the project.

The location of the new district will be defined through a draft law already sent to Parliament, said a senior member of the Maronite League. The project will include businesses involved in soft industries, including ICT firms.

Businesses located within the zone will benefit from special services, facilities, and incentives, such as tax exemptions and discounts on NSSF subscriptions for employees.

“We aim at creating incentives for local and foreign companies to come and invest here, instead of taking their investments to other countries, such as Dubai or Qatar,” the Maronite League member said.

The district is expected to generate some 3,000 job opportunities. According to the source, businessmen involved in the Maronite League have expressed their willingness to move their offices into Batroun. “Over 100 companies are expected to have offices in the Batroun special economic district.”

A similar special economic zone has been announced earlier this year for Tripoli.

If this news turns out true, it would drive one of Lebanon’s more needy areas lightyears forward and would help its citizens stay home instead of moving to other Lebanese areas or even abroad in order to find jobs. This might signal a hidden demographic motive for the Maronite League in one of Lebanon’s biggest Maronite regions. Personally, I don’t really care seeing as this is such a positive sign for the region and they should be commended for doing something that very few, including the Lebanese state, have even considered before.

I’m pleased that this project won’t have a political stamp on it. We won’t get MPs or MP wannabes telling us how we should be eternally grateful for them bringing 3000 jobs to the district when they ask for our votes next year.

Another positive attribute is the fact that this is the first time such a massive project has been undertaken outside Beirut and its suburbs, which might help shift the way things are done in this country away from the deep conviction of: “Beirut & neighbors first and foremost. Almost everywhere else in Lebanon doesn’t matter.”  And with relatively short commute times for the regions around Batroun, the project’s reach will extend beyond Batroun.

I’m interested in knowing where the project will be built and I hope it’ll take environmental factors into consideration in keeping the pristine aspect of the region relatively intact or at least let it not turn into another disaster like Chekka. But pristine doesn’t bring food to the table.

Some other non-Maronite League projects involving the area include turning the Tobacco control headquarters into a branch for the Lebanese University as well as building a centralized Official High School for the entire caza in Ebrine, which seems to have been buried in a bureaucratic mess, the Batroun-Tannourine highway which seems to have stalled in its final stretch, not to mention the sewage and water networks project which has basically made our driving a living a hell with the serious lack of efficiency in the contractor the Lebanese government hired.

Add to all of this studies indicating that some of the highest amounts of oil and petrol may be found off of Batroun’s shores, the area will witness a lot of development in a short period of time. Well, it’s about time.

LebanonFiles is reporting (here) that Solidere is actively and seriously considering closing down Lebanon’s new “it” project Zaitunay Bay, which has been discussed in the New York Times earlier this year.

The reason for Zaitunay Bay potentially closing is the same reason Fuddruckers and Buddha Bar have closed down while Movenpick got offered up for sale: the terrible state of business.

The shops and restaurants in Zaitunay bay are witnessing such a big fiscal drought that they can’t pay their rent, which is about $500,000 per year for their property. Looks like such a well-visited location hasn’t been resilient to the economic woes of the country.

Meanwhile, as all major business in the country close down or consider closing down, our politicians are either making propaganda visits to Gaza, still on a “forced vacation” abroad, threatening everyone whenever they feel threatened (which is basically every waking moment of every day) or getting people to freak out about a potential “ekhwen rule” in Syria.

The 2013 elections are in a few months and the rhetoric that will be used in the coming days and weeks won’t be that of an economic plan to save the country’s miserable state but that of mentally terrorizing people into voting for one side over the other, whatever that side is.

Despite not being the biggest fan of Zaitunay Bay, I really hope the place pulls through these though times. Lebanon doesn’t need such a thing right now.

She calls herself QMK which I guess translates to Queen Myriam Klink so I may be doing her a disservice by omitting the first word.. This is Myriam Klink’s new “song” about the current state of things in Lebanon. You know, el en2isam, el ta2ifiye w heik.

Unless Nemr Abou Nassar is so bored he wants to expand his fanbase again, I’m willing to bet no one will be having a field day with this.

Interestingly, it was “debuted” on Joe Maalouf’s radio show. It seems he doesn’t mind this type of “music” being played on his airwaves if it brings in audiences.

I thought she was just messing around with Antar. But this shows that she’s actually taking herself seriously. Lord have mercy.

Proceed with caution. The path ahead is extremely risky for your eardrums and there’s no accompanying dance video to please your eyes.

After posting news that Zaitunay Bay might be closing down because the shops and restaurants in it can’t pay their rent anymore, I was tweeted by Zaitunay Bay’s account to let me know the news is entirely false.

Moreover, it seems that Solidere is not allowed to make such statements as it’s not the owning company of Zaitunay Bay. The company in question is BWD, Beirut Waterfront Development.

Here are the tweets in question:

However, I believe that the closing news may not be coming out of nowhere. As they say, there’s no smoke without fire. So perhaps Zaitunay Bay should really anticipate repercussions from the dismal state of the economy and lower the rent on its tenants, at least until these tough times blow through. Making less money transiently is better than not making money at all.

Leave it to some dim-witted Lebanese religious man to turn a parody into a controversy. Obba Saida Style, the ChiNN cover that many found funny, is being challenged by some men in Saida as offensive and demeaning and an insult to the values of the city.

As a result, they are calling on Saida’s MPs to take disciplinary actions against Abou Talal, the character that did the parody because the song calls for “rebellion on the values of the city of Saida and calls for immorality.” (link)

Te3tir? You bet.

We’re reaching a point in this country where people’s threshold for offenses has become way too low causing them to get worked up at the most useless of things. I’m not against anyone expressing their concerns but there comes a time when those concerns are so ridiculous they should just be bottled in and repressed in some deep part of that person’s subconscious.

Nurses, clergy, basically every section in our society is finding something – anything – for them to get worked up on. As a result, the leeway in dealing with any event is becoming so restricted that we might as well not do anything at all anymore. Clergy should take care of prayers to those who care and leave parodies out of their business. Same thing applies to all other sections in our becomingly narrow-minded society.

Until then, here’s Obba Saida Style for anyone who doesn’t get offended at the stupidest things:

The ISF have issued a request for minister of telecommunication Nicolas Sehnaoui to hand out the much coveted and talked about data that has been sought for months and months now. He has refused their request.

The data in question contains the text messages you’ve sent, some of your email correspondences as well as BBM chats (didn’t know that was accessible) and social media information that’s available to them. As a result, the entire Twitter community is in an uproar over this as they tweet against ISF measures using the hashtag #ProtectPrivacy, after a request from minister Sehnaoui.

I don’t know how the ministry of telecommunication actually has my Facebook or Twitter passwords. I don’t know how they have access to my emails or how they can actually read my iMessages. Last time I checked, those happened over an encrypted connection that makes access to them very difficult. But I digress.

When it comes to all of this, my stance is that of the devil’s advocate. Why not let them have access?

Of course this access has to be controlled. I’m against open access for them to everything because that’s just absurd. If I’m not a person of interest, then my data should be off limit until a time when I become a person of interest and that’s proven via evidence that shows my possible connection with a crime. For the record, I am innocent! (Although that’s what a criminal would also say). But to say that data should be off limit in absolute terms and for everyone doesn’t really make me feel safe in a country where safety has become a fleeting sentiment that you get occasionally… when someone’s not getting blown up on a busy intersection at rush hour.

My privacy is important to me and I surely wouldn’t want everything I do be broadcast in some dark room somewhere in Lebanon’s Intelligence HQ. However, that’s the same thing criminals who are assassinating politicians and blowing up people would also say and are absolutely loving at the moment.

Eventually, the ISF doesn’t really care who you slept with or if you sexted someone other than your girlfriend/boyfriend. They don’t care where you went out for dinner yesterday or who you’re meeting up for lunch tomorrow. What they should care about is catching criminals and contributing to the safety of citizens in this country. An ulterior motive may exist. Perhaps all those Turkish soap operas are not enough. So that’s why we should have functioning courts that determine whether an ISF request for a person’s private data information is valid or not.

As a Lebanese citizen, I don’t care about someone getting controlled access to my privacy if it meant I don’t have to die for finishing work at 3 p.m on a Friday. #ProtectPrivacy? Honestly, I’d rather #ProtectSafety first and foremost.

This should be interesting. Apple has launched iTunes’ Music Store in over 56 countries yesterday, one of those being Lebanon. In addition to the AppStore which Lebanese customers had for a while now, they’ll be able to – yes you guessed it – buy songs and albums online, however far-fetched that happening might be.

In addition to Lebanon, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has launched in other countries of the region such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain as well as Israel. This means it’s the first time the region gets a legal alternative for websites such as Nogomi which allow free downloads of music.

I personally buy most of the music I listen to off the American iTunes Store. Some Lebanese have called me crazy for doing so. So I wonder how many Lebanese are actually willing to leave their music piracy ways behind and start paying for the music they listen to? I’m sure it won’t be many.

Back in April of 2012, the ISF requested some data from the ministry of telecommunication. Their request was refused. People freaked out. Bloggers blogged. Tweeps tweeted. The following day, all was well.

Flash forward a few months and it’s early December 2012. The ISF requested the same data from the ministry of telecommunication. The request was refused. People freaked out. Bloggers blogged – and I took part this time. Tweeps tweeted. The following day, all was well.

The Lebanese fight for “privacy” is seemingly a one-day affair that needs to be instigated by some politician on twitter with obvious aspirations. Rally the masses. Get them to be afraid. And you’ve hit the jackpot. So when the big prize ends up being cashed, the fueling stops and people relax because things turn out all well as if nothing happened. I’ve made my stance from this whole debaccle clear. I refuse to be carried away by political rhetoric and I refuse to be bullied into believing that this matter is a notion of freedom versus security. It’s not. Your freedom and security do not negate each other. Criminals are not free to have an umbrella of safety over their heads just because of some person’s melodramatic understanding of freedom. So as some theatrical Lebanese threaten to leave the country to better ones such as the US, the land of the free and the brave, they forget about such things such as the Patriot Act and the mere fact that many of them will be wire-tapped and monitored just because they’re Lebanese. But ignorance is bliss. So let’s for a moment pretend as if our data is actually private and examine what this data is all about.

Facebook and Twitter passwords:

Our Twitter and Facebook passwords were supposedly not part of this “data request” as the minister said. But them being part of the request is besides the main point. The main question here is does the ministry of telecommunication have our passwords and log-in data? Do they have our emails and log-in information? And if so, how did they get them? I’m pretty sure Twitter and Facebook, both companies being above governments, won’t crack down and hand them over. I’m also sure that gmail and hotmail and yahoo or whichever mail client you use employs the highest standard of encrypting. Cracking https connections is not impossible but it’s also a very tedious operation, from what I gathered. I am not an expert but apparently the government getting the passwords of all Lebanese citizens to all their different accounts is a very difficult operation. So which is it? Is the Lebanese ministry of telecommunication using illegal equipment to crack our data, the likes of which were used transiently last year by the Iranian government, which was eventually forced to stop when its actions were uncovered? And if the ministry has these devices, shouldn’t we panic about them tapping into our privacy first before we panic about them handing it over? In other words, shouldn’t #ProtectPrivacy be more like #StopSpyingOnUs?

SMS, BBM, iMessage, etc…:

SMS is trackable and getting access to them should be, as I’ve said, only based upon judicial subpoenas. Those who believe their SMS messages are off-limits regardless of circumstance are delusional and simply ignorant. Moreover, last time I checked, BBM and iMessage were very well-encrypted. I also highly doubt that companies like Apple (which can basically buy Lebanon at this point) and RIM need to schmooze up to the Lebanese government by giving them access to your iMessages or BBM messages. Should you worry about outsiders reading the content of your text messages? You have every right to. But you also need to know that even if the ISF got their hands on your data, they won’t have neither the manpower nor the time to go through all your gossiping because, at the end of the day, we as the mass collective of the Lebanese population are irrelevant. However, in case you still believe that this request with its tentative obvious breach of privacy is very Lebanese-like and doesn’t happen in more developed countries, which some of you cannot but wait to go to, this article (link) is for your reading pleasure. And that’s the land of the freeeee and the home of the brave. I guess enticing rhetoric about freedom and security is only appealing until a certain point where you realize that other “better” countries have these types of requests as well. The only difference is their requests don’t get milked politically as is the case here, which brings me to point #3.

Twitter Political Play:

The mess on Twitter yesterday was nothing more than a pure political game by a politician who played you like pawns. He made you all believe that the ISF wanted unlimited access to your data when in fact they were only requesting access to data for the two months leading up to Wissam Al Hassan’s assassination. Forgive my French but politicians wouldn’t give a shit about your privacy if it meant it could help them reach political gains. If your “protected privacy” was of benefit to the politician who’s supposedly protecting it, rest assured he would have been the first one demanding it be released. There are no principles here. There are just interests. And people were gullible enough to actually believe a Lebanese politician – no matter who he is – would actually stand up for their privacy. Politicians wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about your privacy if blocking it meant they can get their peace of mind by not allowing others access to something they already have. You’re worried about your private information falling into the hands of the ISF? Well, I’ve got news for you. Your information is already in the hands of people who are worse than the ISF. I guess you’re smart enough to know who. So now said politician can flaunt around what took place on Twitter yesterday for some political gains in a game of chess that’s only leading to elections next year where this politician hopes to get a parliamentary seat. And if that’s not clear enough, perhaps the leaking of “top secret” information from within the government – the first time this happens in recent memory – pertaining to the ISF request is proof enough.

It’s sad when we, as Lebanese, can’t trust our security forces to protect us. They can’t even protect themselves and somehow we hold that against them. The situation in the country is akin to a blind man driving a wretched car on a slippery road in a snowstorm and we’re sitting around freaking out about our “privacy” which is already being accessed hourly by people who should never have access to it. But ignorance is bliss. Keep believing that some politician has kept your privacy intact. Keep believing that you have privacy. And you worry about it for one day because that’s definitely more than enough.

Buzz Feed has recently published a set of 45 pictures that they’ve called 2012′s Most Powerful Pictures. And the least that can be said about these pictures is that they’re chilling. Some of them are haunting, others will bring tears to your eyes. And they are all supremely striking.

A Greek woman’s suicide attempt as she’s told she would be laid off work

A woman from Bangladesh defies the police

A little Palestinian girl tries to punch an Israeli soldier

A Syrian father trying to save his daughter’s life after his city, Aleppo, was shelled by regime forces.

A father from Myanmar begs a border control officer from Bangladesh not to deport his family back to Myanmar

An American woman mourns her son on Memorial Day

Check out the rest of the brilliant pictures here.

Filed under: Photography Tagged: American, Bangladesh, death, Greece, Israel, Most Powerful 2012 Pictures, Oppression, Palestine, Photography, police, Powerful, Syria, USA

For all matters and purposes, Silver Linings Playbook is a movie that shouldn’t technically work. It struts the line of a cliche romantic comedy so dangerously close that it could wander into those realms very easily. The premise isn’t groundbreaking. Very little about it is out of the box enough for it to be as brilliantly exhilarating as it turns out to be.

Pat (Bradley Cooper) is a former history teacher who found out his wife was cheating on him and ends up in a mental institute to treat his bipolar disorder, as part of a court deal. Eight months later, his mother (Jacki Weaver) goes on a limb and gets him out. His father (Robert De Niro) is an undiagnosed obsessive compulsive Philadelphia Eagles fan. Set on getting back with his wife who issued a restraining order against him, Pat decides to get his life in order. But the disorder proves harder to control at times. It is then that he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a widow with her fair share of problems. The odd couple strikes a friendship where they feed off each other’s woes and troubles in a brutally honest manner, be it by enumerating the drugs they take without one stutter, by going for jogs around their neighborhoods, by making scenes on Halloween outside a local diner, by Tiffany proposing sex to which Pat objects, by Pat believing Tiffany, the self-proclaimed slut is crazier than him, or by rehearsing to a dance competition that Tiffany wants to participate in.

I was surprised by Bradley Cooper who gives a terrific performance. He portrays the disorder his character is having perfectly. The transfers between episodes of mania and depression is subtle and striking. He delivers his dialogue at a breakneck pace and never falters. His performance is energetic, never subdued, is a true revelation.

On the other hand, Jennifer Lawrence, the movie’s acting highlight, gives a tour de force performance as the deeply troubled widow with layers upon layers of concealed rage to her character. The dysfunctional chemistry she brings to the table is absolutely brilliant to watch. You forget for the entirety of the movie that the woman you’re seeing on screen is only 22. She plays a character way above her age perfectly. She portrays her character’s angst, sadness, grieving and resiliency to perfection. She delivers the movie’s funniest moments in moments that shouldn’t even be funny. In Silver Linings Playbook, Lawrence is simply spectacular and has proven herself to be, yet again, our generation’s most promising new actresses.

The movie’s supporting cast also does well. While Jacki Weaver’s role doesn’t have much character development and is more important in its subtlety as the mother who had to deal with her son’s illness for years and the wife who had to cope with her husband’s obsessive compulsiveness, Robert De Niro gives his best performance in years as the father who cluelessly believes in his son. All in all, the people of Silver Linings Playbook can act and there’s no reason three of them should not see Oscar nominations for what they accomplished here.

David O. Russell, who gave us The Fighter a couple of years ago, has to be commended for maintaing the balance that Silver Linings Playbook shows. His knack for having dialogue-driven movies works well here. However, Silver Linings Playbook is not perfect. The supremely strong first half gives way to a less stellar second half in which the movie loses focus at times as it starts juggling way too many things at once, instead of focusing solely on what was making the movie work in the first place: Pat and Tiffany.

So much could have gone wrong with Silver Linings Playbook. The portrayal of mental illness could have easily turned into a PSA. The romantic part of it could have easily become dreary. The dysfunctional family could have easily turned grating. But all of those don’t happen. Instead, the movie has a sense of rawness mixed with like-ability that makes it oddly refreshing. Silver Linings Playbook is one of my favorite movies of 2012 so far simply because it’s not a color-by-number movie. It is untidy. It’s random. It’s all over the place sometimes. But you still watch it. And you go out of it feeling happy and smiling because Silver Linings Playbook is brilliant.

9/10