I admit I had never heard this song before but I think it’s great. And she delivers a pretty good cover of it as well.
This was part of a string of Australian concerts. She had covered Coldplay’s “Fix You” at her Royal Albert Hall concert in London.
Underwood did the song justice and proved yet again exactly how versatile a singer she is.
To say this cover by Ben Howard of that song is brilliant would be an understatement.
As the Euro 2012 tournament draws close to an end, the second and last semi-final game is here between football rivals Germany and Italy.
Germany haven’t beaten Italy since 1995 and they’ve never beaten them in competitive games. Ever. On the other hand, the Italians should be extremely tired after their 120 minute game against England in the quarter finals. The game is up in the air. As an Italy fan, it saddens me to predict a Germany win.
But a streak has got to end sometime, no?
Either way, here’s a link to watch the game online (here).
And FORZA ITALIA! Always.
Wickerpark is an annual festival that takes place in Batroun and which I, as a Batrouni, feel especially proud about. This year will be the second time it’s held after a successful first run last year where over 1500 people attended the two-day festival.
The funds collected were donated in their entirety to the Ministry of the Environment for the replanting of trees in areas ravaged by recent fires, after a campaign centered around “Give Nature a Chance.”
Lebanese mainstream media, however, didn’t care much about Wickerpark. Why’s that? It could be due to the environment ranking so low on our concern radar.
This year’s Wickerpark is about a different issue entirely. Being the coastal city that it is, Batroun has many active fishermen that collect sea urchins in order to sell them. Many people also have a hobby of hunting these sea urchins. As a result of extensive exploitation, their level has declined on a yearly basis until our sea has very few urchins left.
Wickerpark wants to help change that by fundraising efforts to repopulate the sea. In order to do so, they’ve enlisted the help of students at the Marine Biology Center in Batroun. (You can see a picture of one of its unfinished buildings here). So in a way, supporting Wickerpark will not only be helping the Lebanese environment but you’d also be helping fellow Lebanese students in their research and that is always very needed.
The two-day event will take place at an open air venue in Batroun, right by the sea.
The tickets are sold at Librairie Antoine for $30. One ticket will allow you access for the festival’s two days on June 29th and 30th.
On the first day, you’ll be able to attend short-film screenings, ecological fairs, artist exhibitions as well as a series of small acoustic sets.
The second day will be the music festival, featuring different Lebanese bands (No, Meen is not one of them unfortunately):
Last year’s music festival
The ads for Wickerpark 2012 are quite fun as well. The campaign this year is called “When Nature Pokes Back.” You can watch the ads here:
Come on people. Think about it this way: Batroun is a beautiful city (proof). A weekend in Batroun will definitely be an awesome time. And you’d also be supporting a great cause while also having fun. All of you are also on summer breaks as well. You simply have no excuse not to attend.
Back in March, I told you about two ancient landmarks in Lebanon that were facing an impeding threat by the fangs of real estate contractors, vying to destroy them in order to build fancy high-rises in their location.
Back in March as well, we marched in support for these landmarks. Many blogs spoke against their destruction. Many media outlets highlighted the government’s attempts at destroying these valuable parts of our heritage. We thought we had gotten somewhere.
Today has proven that we did not. Nowhere near that in fact.
This picture shows bulldozers working their way around a 4000 year old Phoenician port earlier yesterday, tearing it down stone per stone.
An agreement was supposedly reached with minister of culture Gabriel Layoun so the destruction of the port came as a shock for many – a bulldozer hitting them in the fact, out of the blue. The government had been talking about a mitigation approach, which I had previously explained to be a way to preserve ancient sites while making way for new development.
Even that did not happen with the Phoenician port. It was simply destroyed in its entirety.
Minister Layoun said that the site had been removed from the list of protected sites in Lebanon and as such this act is in no way backing the law. Previous ministers of cultures, such as Salim Wardeh, Tamam Salam and Tarek Metri, had worked relentlessly on protecting these sites.
It all came crumbling down with Layoun.
What Layoun doesn’t understand is that for someone who supposedly calls for “change and reform,” this reeks of corruption beyond anything we’ve been exposed to before. How can a minister of culture rationalize a real estate company destroying an ancient site and pass it as another thing that happens? Is it every day that countries discover 4000 year old ancient landmarks on their soil?
How can Mr. Layoun expect us to be so gullible as to believe that this happened in a very innocent manner, not because the real estate company in question, in a country as corrupt as Lebanon in that regards, had substantial political backing, the type of which doesn’t care about identity but cares more about its bottom line?
I’d call for Layoun’s resignation and possibly that of the whole government with the incredibly atrocious job it’s doing at every single level possible. But where would that lead? Nowhere. A minister of culture who can’t see the importance of, well, culture is doing his job how exactly?
Out of all of the things we have problems with in Lebanon, this is perhaps the most troubling.
Electricity? It can be fixed.
Water? It can be provided.
Internet? It can be upgraded.
An ancient site demolished? It can never be replaced.
The land of the Phoenicians has one less Phoenician site to boast about.
Let’s hope we can save the Roman Hippodrome next to the Maghen Abraham Synagogue in Wadi Bou Jmil.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 