Monthly Archives: February 2013

Lebanon’s 134 MPs

Because 128 MPs was a strange number. Because minorities need to be represented. Because a country of slightly south of 4 million must have a tiny voter to MP ratio. Because there’s no need for common sense. We now have 134 MPs.

And what a beautiful proposition that is. I read somewhere that Samy Gemayel is the mastermind behind such a proposal. He must be so proud of himself, I bet. And for good reasons too! I’m more than sure that Mr. Gemayel didn’t think of the brilliantly smart repercussions that his proposal has. So let me illustrate them for him:

  1. Less unemployment! 6 more people will now enter the parliament. That’s 6 more people with a job – or not, perhaps, since parliament does nothing over here except bicker like high school drama queens.
  2. More millionaires! Constant paychecks till the day they die? Sign them up! The queue is already stretching till Timbuktu.
  3. Minorities ❤ ❤
  4. Did I mention minorities?

What a shame though that the extra seats won’t have any for us Maronites. This is totally unacceptable. But I’m willing to let it slide seeing as for the first time in a long, long time our country’s politicians agreed on something. This is an unbelievable feat in itself seeing as they won’t agree on a way to vote for these extra people. They agreed to increase the numbers of their kind. How far-fetched. How honorable. How selfless, how holy, how riveting, how *insert sublime adjective of choice.* Instead of voting for 126 empty chairs, we are now voting for 134.

Because minorities that’s why. That’s the only reason why anyone would want to commit to this step. And if you speak against this, then you are targeting all those Lebanese minorities whose future is in jeopardy in the country of minorities.

You can go on and on and analyze this step that our governing bodies decided upon in a “serious” tone. You can tear the fact that this is maybe the only part of the “Orthodox Gathering” law which will actually pass. But when it comes to a country of unparalleled absurdity, the only way to address things is through silliness.

The American congress has 435 members for a country of more than 300 million. But Lebanon is a case of special needs. So because 128 geniuses were not enough, we now have 134.

 

Beautiful Creatures [2013] – Movie Review

Beautiful Creatures Movie Poster

You know things are odd when you’ve read the book upon which a movie is based and the movie still manages to surprise you. I don’t mean this in a good way.

Having nothing better to do a few weeks back, and knowing this would be released, I decided to read the novel Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, the first in the Caster series. I thought the book was decent enough but figured the movie would be much better as the content is made to be translated to the big screen.

To say I was mistaken would be an understatement and I’m not sure if it’s only because the movie has absolutely nothing to do with the book, except for about 20 minutes which are spread out here and there over a two hour running time.

Lena Duchannes is a newcomer to the town of Gatlin, in the deep American South. She lives in Ravenwood manor, a place that the townspeople don’t look favorably upon nor upon its inhabitant, a man they hadn’t seen in years. When you’re that deep in the Bible Belt, the only thing people accept is Jesus and Republicans. If you deviate from that, then you’re the devil. Trying to fit in high school is some tough business for Lena who finds comfort in Ethan Wate, a boy whom she intrigues. He discovers that Lena is a caster (a fancy word for witch) and that female casters in her family are claimed to either the dark of the light when they turn 16 – and Lena doesn’t have much time left until her birthday.

The movie features an interesting cast that comprises of Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis. Frankly, I have no idea what they were thinking in signing up to this. Not only is Beautiful Creatures not entertaining, it is an atrocity of monstrous proportions. Nothing in the movie works. The three aforementioned actors come off as amateurs who had never done a movie before. The special effects are cheap. The few moments of snarky dialogue at the beginning are nowhere near enough to make you look favorably at the hours that followed.

If you have read and liked the book, steer clear from this. If you have nothing to do during two hours of your life, steer clear from this. My guess is Beautiful Creatures did such a bad job at turning the book upon which it’s based into a movie that the upcoming parts in the series will never see the light of the day. Good.

1/10

Warm Bodies [2013] – Movie Review

Warm Bodies movie poster

Vampires had their movies. Witches had their movies. Warm Bodies is the attempt to get zombies not to feel left out. It is a post apocalyptic world, as usual, and most of the Earth’s population of humans has died and risen again as zombies. The exact mechanism of this is never fully illustrated but you get the picture: pale faced, veined people roam around, searching for their next victim with a beating heart to eat.

R (Nicholas Hoult) is one of those zombies – but with a twist. He calls himself weird. And compared to his fellow undead, he might as well be. He likes to collect items that humans find of value. He often wonders about his days pre-transformation and is absolutely smitten by Julie (Theresa Palmer), a human whom he encounters on one of his feeding trips. R takes Julie back to his zombie camp and takes care of her – his relationship with Julie gets his heart to beat again and commences a transformation that could prove pivotal to changing the course of things.

You’re not watching Warm Bodies for the acting. You’re not watching it for the story, which is comical at times. You’re watching it because it is a movie that entertains you for about 90 minutes and that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing badass about this. The zombies are nowhere near scary – even the bad kind which eventually become the movie’s main villains. The sense of threat that the humans are supposedly always faced with is never communicated. The movie’s main point is to get the love story between its zombie and human main characters across and the two lead’s chemistry definitely helps with this.

Warm Bodies‘ main forte is that it is a refreshing take on the genre it plays in. It has a sufficient dose of charm to keep you going through the short running time and enough funny moments to make it memorable. I am not entirely sure how fans of the book upon which this is based will react but if you have nothing better to do and decide to grab a movie at your local theatre, odds are you won’t find something much better currently playing.

6/10

Fairuz on The Voice Israel

Lina Makhoul is a candidate on the Israeli version of The Voice who sang Fairuz’s song “Les Feuilles Mortes” and got the judges’ approval in return. You can check out her performance here:

Judging by her last name, odds are Lina Makhoul is an Arab Israeli. She could also be of Lebanese origins. Her pronunciation is odd at times but otherwise I think this isn’t bad at all. At least she knows the song exists and went on a limb and sang it to an audience which most probably doesn’t understand a word being sung.

I won’t go into the cliche rhetoric how music transcends war boundaries. I really hope that some BDS activists don’t panic because of this and simply take it as it is: a nice performance of a song we all like on a TV show we can’t even watch on YouTube as its videos are not made available in our country.

I wonder though if Fairuz and the Rahbani family would approve of this. Honestly, I highly doubt.

 

Is Lebanon Exporting Explosives to Syria?

The following document shows an agreement between a Lebanese company for explosives, whatever that is, and a geological company in Syria for the export of 50 tons of dynamite and 51,000 meters of wire. The export happened a few days ago on February 14th.

Lebanon explosives Syria export

 

I think we can all agree that a geological company in Syria is definitely not doing research on the type of rocks their country has in the midst of what Syria is going through. The export itself was also approved by the ministry of interior affairs via two agreements which were signed back in May. They obviously don’t pertain to this specific deal but extend to other deals with Syria.

The above document also shows a request for security forces to accompany the shipment inside Lebanese territory from its point of origin in Koura to its point of delivery at the Northern border. Where is this neutrality policy we keep hearing about? It’s deader than Tutankhamun.

As I said before, the only person in our government who is truly in favor of such a policy is our prime minister Najib Mikati and who, with each “export” that happens from Lebanon towards Syria of material that might be used to perpetuate the conflict there, loses credibility and traction among those that view or viewed him favorably. The sad realization, which I’m sure Mikati also shares, is that we – including our PM – can’t do anything regarding this but watch.

Diesel wasn’t good enough. So we are now sending dynamite to Syria too. Because sedimentation research using 50 tons of dynamite is of utmost important these days.