Category Archives: Life

Glee Mistakes Lebanese For Lesbian

Dear Glee, this might be your idea of a joke but it’s not really funny.

As part of their “Born This Way” episode, the cast of Glee was asked to make T-shirts with a quality they hate about themselves but wouldn’t change because they were “born this way” and one character saw it fit to confuse – yet again – Lebanese with Lesbian.

The same character, Brittany, goes on in the conversation about how Santana is “Lebanese” and she, Brittany, is “bicurious”.

The joke is seriously getting old. And as a Lebanese, having my nationality mixed up with a sexual orientation isn’t really flattering. So dear Glee, get a grip.

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Jesus Christ’s “Last Supper” Was On A Wednesday?

It apparently looks like it.

According to Cambridge professor Colin Humphreys, the Last Supper took place on April 1st, 33AD, a Wednesday, not a Thursday as is widely celebrated in Christianity.

The event where Jesus passed on the Eucharist is one of the key events of Holy Week.

Professor Humphrey’s study suggests that the events of Good Friday did not actually take place in one day as previously thought but were spread out over both Thursday and Friday. In his book, The Mystery Of The Last Supper, Humphrey uses Biblical, historical and astronomical research to address the inconsistency of the issue at hand.

It seemed to many that the Gospels do not agree on when exactly the event took place. Matthew, Mark and Luke say it took place with the start of Passover, whilst John said it was before Passover.

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Driving in Lebanon

It’s no wonder Lebanon has the highest amount of “credible” psychics in the world. It’s a simple manifestation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. How so? Let me elaborate.

When you drive in Lebanon, you need to have a sixth sense in order to survive – a sense that lets you anticipate what the other drivers around you decide to do so you react accordingly.

What’s the point of using blinkers to signal going left or right? just swerve out of the left lane to go into an alley that branches out of the right lane, which happens to be three lanes away. And you know other drivers aren’t bothered by this because, well, they probably knew you were going to do it.

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One Month Phoneless

On March 12th, my iPhone’s power button decided to sink in and become unusable. After asking around, it seemed that any attempt to fix it in Lebanon would render the warranty void, so my friend Ali agreed to do me a favor and I sent him the phone on March 14th to Canada so Apple could check it out.

Ali postponed his flight to Lebanon due to unforeseen complications and Apple eventually replaced my phone with a new one. How awesome is that?

But I’ve been without phone for a month.

Many people asked why I didn’t just use any other phone. Apart from the unavailability of any other phone (I’m not going to buy a phone just to use it for a few weeks), I also have to get my simcard replaced since my iPhone uses a microsim, which I decided not to do.

Instead, I convinced myself that I’d be sort of giving up my iPhone for lent.

So what did I learn from a month of being phoneless?

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The Lebanese Civil War Synthesis

April 13th marks the anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War.

On this day, most Lebanese repeat the phrase: “let it be remembered but not repeated”.

As part of my understanding of that phrase, I decided to write up one one of the civil war incidents that touched my family deeply. My uncle was shot and his cousin killed on the same day, April 2nd.

I wrote the story in three parts. And I hoped that they would show what one Lebanese family went through on one one day of the war that lasted for over 15 years. I did not mention extra details about the political parties involved in my story: who was bombing, who was defending… because I wanted to show the Civil War as not a period where some people were right and others were wrong. It’s a period where the Lebanese person, as a whole, got hurt, deeply. It’s a period where Lebanese families were torn and the country was ruined – regardless of religion and sect and political affiliation. You can read the story here: part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Today marks the 36th anniversary for the civil war, which started on April 13th 1975 with the Ain Remmaneh Bus incident. Some people actually believe the bus incident was the main cause for the war. But that is not true. If anything that incident was only the face of a much deeper divide on a country that praises itself for its richness and diversity.

I have not lived through the civil war. So my personal understanding of whatever took place is rather limited. Nor do I want to know too much because well, it is time that we, as a society, move forward from the wounds caused by that era.

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