Tag Archives: death

The Lebanese Hypocrisy Towards Those Terrorist Children

A friend posted a picture of a dead child yesterday on his preferred social networking website, along with a slur of swear words at the Zionist regime that he figured had taken the life in question. Soon enough, that friend found out that the child in the picture was not an inhabitant of our neighbor to the South but our neighbor to the East. He then deleted the picture. I’m sure he had a good night’s sleep too.

That child, regardless of his nationality, was still dead.

Read the rest of my second NowLebanon post here.

Innocent lives are innocent lives, regardless of nationality. And this applies to those Israeli children too.

Two Black Cadillacs (Single Review) – Carrie Underwood

 

Carrie Underwood’s new single, off her platinum selling album Blown Away and as a follow up to one of 2012’s biggest country hits Blown Away, is Two Black Cadillacs, a song which sets an ominous tone the moment the first note strikes.

Two black Cadillacs driving in a slow parade. Headlights shining bright in the middle of the day. One’s for his wife, the other for the woman who loved him at night, Underwood sings as a dramatic melody plays in the background. She immediately throws us into the setting of a funeral where a preacher man is saying the man being buried was a good man and his brother says he was a good friend.

But the two women in the black veils have a secret to hide. The story could very well serve to make a movie drama and Underwood delivers it effortlessly in a few minutes.

Two months ago his wife found the number on his phone, turns out he’d been lying to both of them for far too long. They decided then he’d never get away with doing this to them, Underwood lets the plot thicken. The women, taking turns in lying a rose down on the coffin and throwing dirt into the deep ground, also have a secret to hide. So they share a crimson smile and leave their secret with the man they killed, at the grave, to die with them.

Two Black Cadillacs is a hauntingly dark song by Underwood that serves as a one-two punch by the country star as she delivers her album’s most critically acclaimed tracks as back to back singles. The darkness with which her tone delivers this song would make you think she’s lived these events herself but it’s only telling of the caliber that Underwood has turned into as a performer. As she sings “bye bye” to signal the women biding farewell to the man who betrayed them both, you can feel her voice pierce through.

Two Black Cadillacs is a song where the musicians playing couldn’t stop after it was done so they kept playing and playing. Part of them jamming is found on the album track and will probably be cut with the radio edit. The song goes fifty shades deep and is Underwood’s darkest and most thought-provoking single release to date. From the haunting thumping melody that is reminiscent of a funeral march to the rich and multi-layered storytelling lyrics, Carrie Underwood delivers. Releasing a “softer” song may have been a safer bet. But Underwood is here to let her detractors know that Blown Away was just a storm warning. Bye bye, bye bye. 

A.

A Collection of Timeless Pictures

Following my post about some of the best pictures ever taken, a reader started sending me her collection of pictures that she’s amassed over the years.

Some of them were part of the previous post in question while others were totally new. All of them are still striking, amazing and haunting.

So without further ado, I commence.

1957 – The first day of Dorothy Counts at the Harry Harding High School in the United States. Counts was one of the first black students admitted in the school, and she was no longer able to stand the harassments after only 4 days.

1963 – Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist priest in Southern Vietnam, burns himself to death protesting the government’s torture policy against priests. Thich Quang Duc never made a sound or moved while he was burning.

1965 – A mom and her children try to cross the river in South Vietnam in an attempt to run away from the American bombs.

1966 – U.S. troops in South Vietnam are dragging a dead Vietcong soldier.

1975 – A woman and a girl falling down after the fire escape collapses.

February 1, 1968 – South Vietnam police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan shoots a young man, whom he suspects to be a Viet Cong soldier.

1980 – A kid in Uganda about to die of hunger, and a missionary.

1987 – A mother in South Korea apologizes and asks for forgiveness for her son who was arrested after attending a protest against the alleged manipulations in the general elections.

1992 – A mother in Somalia holds the body of her child who died of hunger.

1994 – A Rwandan man who was tortured by the soldiers after being suspected to have spoken with the Tutsi rebels.

1996 –  Kids who have been affected by the civil war in Angola.

2001 – An Afghani refugee kid’s body is being prepared for the funeral in Pakistan.

2003 – An Iraqi prisoner of war tries to calm down his child.

Congo: A father stares at the hands of his five year-old daughter, which were severed as a punishment for having harvested too little caoutchouc/rubber.

1902 – location in the United States not specified.

July 7, 1865 – Washington, Lincoln assassination conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Payne, David Herold and George Atzerodt shortly after their execution at Fort McNair.

July 1913 – Gettysburg reunion, Veterans of the G.A.R. and of the Confederacy, at the Encampment.

March 1941 – Planting corn on a plantation near Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

May 18, 1914, Washington, D.C. – Washington Post records the passing of one John A. Eaglen, 3 years.

Facebook, “Social” Media & Stupid People….

Imagine this real-life scenario.

You come back home and check Facebook. It’s late at night so the timeline is slow. Someone has shared a picture from an album they titled “:D:D.” The title they gave their post is: R.I.P, I will miss you. You look at the picture and at the album’s name. It’s a while before the idea connects in your head.

You look at the picture and you know the person in the picture. It’s someone from your family. Yes, you just found out they died from Facebook not a few hours later via a phone call like your parents intended to tell you.

Now imagine this other real-life scenario.

You get news that your grandma is sick so you book an airplane ticket to Lebanon to see her. The moment you land, you check your phone. The messaging service of choice, in this case BBM, is full of people who have changed their statuses to the typical “R.I.P” stuff.

The former scenario happened to me a few hours ago. The second one happened to a friend. I had heard of similar incidents happening to other people as well.

It seems that even when it comes to death, people are quickly losing their head. Why in the name of everything that is holy would anyone want to make a Facebook “scoop” out of the death of a loved one? Shouldn’t they be grieving instead?

Shouldn’t people have that common-sense fuse that perhaps not everyone has been told about the death in question and they should refrain from updating their Facebook status thirty minutes after the person passes away, while their body is still warm?

I have the answer as to why people like that do what they do: stupidity, lack of class, lack of consideration…

Will they care? Absolutely not. All they care about is getting those coveted Facebook likes and comments. The post in question in the scenario that happened with me now has 23 likes and 19 comments. Mission accomplished? I think so.

R.I.P Warda Al Jazairia

Whenever I think of Warda, I think of my mother singing her songs as I hovered around her. The legendary Algerian singer passed away a few hours ago, at the age of 71, in the Egyptian capital Cairo.

My favorite Warda song is not the go-to Batwannes Bik. It’s one from the only Egyptian movie I’ve watched, back when I was much younger, upon my mother’s request. It’s probably my favorite because of the number of times I’ve heard my mother sing it.

The song is “Hikayti Ma3 l Zaman.” You can’t but be delighted by her voice, her performance, the lyrics and the tune.

I find it horrifying that as the news of Warda’s passing spread around, one of the newer “singers” was busy stripping and “singing” on MTV. The contrast is eye-opening. The giants of Arabic music are fast going away. It’s sad that we only cherish them when they pass away.

Warda’s body will be sent to Algeria tomorrow. She was born in France in 1940 to an Algerian father and a Lebanese mother. She has said on numerous occasions that her talent comes from her mother so with her passing, Lebanon has lost one of its giants as well.

Warda’s repertoire is non-ending. Her highlight songs are many. These are some of them:

And last but not least:

May she rest in peace.