Jessica Ghawi, One of the Aurora – Colorado Theatre Shooting Victims, is not Lebanese

She narrowly escaped a shooting at Toronto a few months ago. But Jessica Ghawi’s fortunes were not as good this time when she was shot dead at one midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora Colorado. She is one of 14 who were killed by neuroscience PhD student James Holmes.

Jessica Ghawi, who goes by the name Jessica Redfield, is a 24 year old known sports anchor, a blogger and an active Twitter user. She was sending tweets up until the moment she sat down in the movie theatre. It was then that the room got filled with smoke, causing many of those inside to duck for cover as rounds were fired into the room.

Jessica’s friend, who was with her in the theatre, heard her scream as her lower limb received a round of bullets. He pressed on her thigh to control the bleeding but he was hit as well. He kept trying to control her bleeding until he didn’t hear her scream anymore. Jessica was gone. So he crawled out of the movie theatre and called her mother.

On the Toronto shooting that she escaped, Jessica Ghawi wrote:

“I was shown how fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe our last breath.”

Her words resonate true today. It seems the Lebanese diaspora never manages to miss a tragedy. May she rest in peace.

Update: It seems Al Jadeed was mistaken. Jessica Ghawi is of Palestinian origins according to the Lebanese Consulate in the United States. 

Gebran Bassil is an Awesome Stand Up Comedian!

Poor Gebran Bassil!

Didn’t you hear? He hasn’t had electricity in his house for FOUR days! FOUR! Even his generator is busted. How unlucky can one get? You would think the other few million Lebanese have a worse electricity situation.

But no. Gebran has it worse than all of us.

In fact, he has it so bad that his wife had to go out with her friends because they couldn’t do a surprise birthday party for her at their house. He had to take care of the kids.

Such a great dad too!

And you know what’s worse?

He’s also a victim of the Summer wedding season. And he attended a wedding where the bride and groom, as well as those attending, were melting from the heat because the Church didn’t have electricity to turn on the AC.

Poor, poor Gebran Bassil. My heart is breaking. How can someone not sympathize with such candid awesomeness by the minister of energy?

And he’s got news, fellow Lebanese. The electricity situation is about to get worse. How many hours do you get it per day? 2? Make those 30 minutes. That should be enough, no?

Don’t blame Bassil for the electricity crisis. He’s providing much needed comic relief! Who needs A/C again?

And he’s got a request for you…. You need to take it down to the streets. Because he – and you – can’t tolerate this anymore.

7ayet l wazir se3be ya jame3a. 

Happy birthday to his wife! Alla ywaffe2 l 3ersein.

Click here and jump to 26:45.

Now in all seriousness, how can a minister fathom sharing such stories in a press conference about one of the most serious matters in the country and still be taken seriously?

There’s a limit to what you can say and, regardless of what you think about Gebran Bassil politically, sharing stories about his wife and weddings he’s invited to is not something you talk about. Never. Not even to illustrate a point.

He’s not the reason behind the electricity crisis? Sure. But his handling of it is so laughable that Gebran Bassil turns out to be quite awesome… at being a stand up comedian that is.

Nemr Abou Nassar who?

 

A Song for the Lebanese Army by Nancy Ajram, Assi el Hellani, Wael Kfoury, Nawal El Zoghbi and Samir Sfeir: Jeish Lebnan

Because the only thing our singers and artists do when it comes to them being “active” is to, well, sing about it, we have a brand new song for the Lebanese Army.

Written by Nizar Francis and composed by Samir Sfeir, who also sings on it, the song is what you’d expect a song like it to be: dabke-ready with overly patriotic lyrics along with copious use of tebyid tnajer.

“Kan sa3b l 3eish wel nas khifanin. Sar 3enna jeish wel jeish lebnani.”

Life was hard and people were scared. And then we had an army, the Lebanese Army.

I’m not sure if it’s the collective of these five artists having millions of dollars among them but life is still hard for almost everyone else and people are still scared. But yes, let’s sing about it. Because that is the best way to support the army.

“Majd Lebnan houwi jeish Lebnan.”

The glory of Lebanon is the Lebanese Army.

I won’t even comment on that sentence.

You can listen to that song, which I think is absolutely useless, here:

If these artists wanted to support the army, how about they stop singing about it to make money and open up their credit cards and start donating?

I’m sure our army would appreciate their cash more than their song.

Oh wait. That’s what the Lebanese are good at. We’re all talk (or singing) and no show. Yalla 3al dabké fida l jeish!

Ramadan Kareem. Now Help the Syrian Refugees

Ramadan Kareem to all my Muslim leaders. I hope it will be a blessed month for you and your families and may your fasting be accepted and hopefully accompanied by good deeds.

A devout Muslim friend of mine told me yesterday that the month of Ramadan is all about being as good a person as you can: to do well upon others. It’s not only about not eating from sunrise to sundown. And it that’s the only thing you do during Ramadan, then you’re not doing it right.

And if there’s one good deed that Muslims and Christians alike should do these days, regardless of whether they’re Ramadan or July for you, is to help out the 20,000 or so Syrian refugees that have come into our land, escaping the fights in Damascus and Syria. The numbers are not exact and there’s no way to truly make sure of them.

But regardless of the number, those are the same people that helped out some of our people back in the July 2006 war when they escaped the Lebanese South and the Bekaa into Syria. It’s probably high-time to repay them, regardless of their political stance from the revolution (pro or against the regime.) Our government has forbade hospitals from providing emergency healthcare for all Syrian refugees.

So for the Muslims of the Bekaa, let your fasting be accompanied by this good deed and help out those refugees who are homeless and fasting underneath the insufferable sun. For the Christians in the Bekaa, open up your homes because that is what a good Christian is all about: helping others.

For once, I hope so-called religious people don’t stop at the crust of their corresponding religion and actually delve a little deeper.

For my Muslim readers and friends, I hope your fasting goes smoothly in this heat.

Ramadan Kareem again.

A Girl’s Walk Around Gemmayzé, Beirut

My best friend was having dinner at the newly opened Nasawiya Cafe last Saturday. They had a Ghana-music night and it was for a good cause, she thought. When the event ended, she got up to leave.

Her friend walked with her. His car was parked a little before hers. He offered to drive her to her car. She refused.

This is Gemmayzé. I have walked this street all my life. What’s the worse that can happen?

So she tucked her hands in her pockets and walked on the sidewalk. Like a ma’am. She looked around the bustling bars and the intoxicated people. She saw the fancy cars trying to find a place to park.

As she walked and walked, she felt safe. Gemmayzé and Achrafieh were home.

It was then that she spotted something in the well-lit corner of the street. She stopped right in her tracks. She was paralyzed with shock. She was petrified.

It couldn’t be. Not here. Not like this. Not on this street.

In that well-lit corner was sitting a man. This man didn’t care about passerbies who looked at him in disgust but did nothing about what he was doing. He just kept at it.

She looked at his hand. Down there. She couldn’t move. The man in front of her was mastrubating in public. In front of her.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Suddenly, the man stood up and walked briskly towards her.

He had a steady pace. He was not intoxicated. He was not drunk. He was not high. He was fully aware of what he was doing. And in that moment it took him to get to her from the corner he was sitting in, she felt the most afraid in her 22 years of existence so far.

The man stood in front of her. He looked down at her and said: “Do you want me to cum on your breasts?”

Her reflex response was to grab her phone. Speed dial her friend and start shouting for him to come to her.
It took the friend less than a minute to be there. It took her more than a minute to catch her breath.

Never did she believe she would be this threatened this close to home. Never did she think she would see this level of decadence on a street that she always considered as beyond safe.

That night she felt the least empowered of her life. She felt so weak that she felt she couldn’t have done anything. And what’s worse, she knew that if anything had happened further, she wouldn’t have a safety net to fall back on.

That disgusting man would win. And what’s worse, his win would have been fair and square by all accounts.

When she got home, she needed to vent. She had already read my article about losing hope in Lebanon. So she wrote an addendum centered around the night that seared her decision to leave the country for her PhD in 6 months.

“From a Lebanese ovaries point of view, it is impossible to spend your life in semi peace without a pair of testicles guarding your back. From your dad watching your every move to your boyfriend being over jealous, to your husband being overprotective. Testicles are handling the situations.

This is the most annoying thing to young ovaries. But sexual assault is not a far fetched situation. It lurks around your brain every second of your waking time. Whoever tells you otherwise is in oblivion or still didn’t hear the stories everyone is so busy hiding.

If you walk around a carefree neighborhood, it is only because you know the alpha male there. No matter how loud you are online about your independence, you will never be ready to punch a guy once confronted.

Bottom line is we should either grow a pair or embrace our inherited dependence.”

What’s ironic, she later told me, is the place she was having dinner in.