I WOULD LOVE TO SEE A POLITICIAN RAPED, THEN, LET’S TALK RAPE LAWS!

Few days ago, U.S legislators amended the understanding of rape in North America to cover male abuse. They also redefined rape as basically any kind of sexual abuse.
In Lebanon, if there is no “real” penetration, it is not rape. Hum… Now I understand how politicians get away with raping the entire population…
Rape law? In Lebanon? For God’s sake!
What law? You steal a loaf of bread and you go to jail. AND laws are very clear about that and other stupid misdemeanors.
And we are still debating a law against rape?
Go debate how to preserve, no, “create” our independence.
Go debate how to sentence politicians who disgrace themselves on national television.
Go debate how to punish politicians who sell a whole country for individual purposes.
Go debate why electricity is still the slave of a few while the many bask in darkness.
But for heaven’s sake, stop debating rape!
Is rape now a peg in your political chess game?
We live in jungle where women are afraid of reporting rape, where women have to endure fear twice. Twice. Once by getting violated and then by living with it, alone.
How can politicians and legislators speak about preserving our interests? When they cannot even preserve our dignity?
What country is that where we still debate whether sexual abuse should be sanctioned and how?
But you know? I am not surprised in a country where spy agents of the enemy are let free.

After raping a whole nation, who would care about a couple of women? Right?
It is a sad day when the rulers of a country fail to protect their Maters, and forget that the womb being raped, is the same one that brought them to life…

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE A POLITICIAN RAPED, THEN, LET’S TALK RAPE LAWS! by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

© 2012 Ibrahim Lahoud

Shopping… for a Smile

Picture this…

She’s wearing more makeup than clothes… For real! Her lips are so swollen, you can’t tell if it’s the Botulinum Toxin (vulgarly known as Botox) or permanent surgery; but you surely could tell they did not come with the original package from her mother’s womb. She must have depleted a whole lipstick of dark blood-red to cover both lips, around which, an interrupted and uneven line of black liner painfully tries to trace a contour. Her mouth looks like stuck in an endless kiss rictus.

Bright green contact lenses hiding the irises and forbidding the pupils from dilating give her an eerie empty stare. She is looking at you but seems to be in a drug-induced trance. Look her in the eye and you will be in the presence of a Borg craving to “assimilate you”… Her eye lashes are stiffened with the excess of black Mascara and the rest of the eyelids displays a peacock-tail color palette that reminds you of a “Cirque du Soleil” performer… Minus the talent!

The eyebrows are reduced to a hair-thin line bestowing upon her a Frau Blucher look from Young Frankenstein. Poor thing, if she could at least smile…

Her hair makes you wonder how do the neck muscles cope with all the weight… Add to this the whole works, huge metal and colored crystals necklace and earrings. Thank God, she’s blessed with a pea-sized brain to counter-balance…

I won’t even indulge in describing the rest of the body. All I’ll say is this: When we called the coke bottle “sexy lady” we did not only talk about the shape, we also meant the proportions…

Tight white jeans, tight pink t-shirt through which transpires an even tighter bra squeezing her breasts like a baby buttocks and lifting them up all the way casting a late afternoon shadow over the wavy hills of her belly. Bracelets and rings cover her hands and wrists, producing a percussion cacophony every time she lifts her hand to take a puff of her Super-Extra-Wildly-Slim mint-flavored cigarette. To top it all, she’s wearing flip-flops that came straight from some bedroom. It seems that her feet hurt from all the standing outside the shop to smoke…

Of course, to subtly accessorize it all, the gum. Chewing and clicking sounds place her between a ruminating cow and an old ham radio plagued with interference noises.

She’s bored from the lack of shoppers on that hot spring mid-week day. She yawns every now and then, slowly opening her mouth so wide you could see her panties, so loud, whales do actually answer her song, ending it with a long “Aaaakh ya Allah”!

I step in looking for a pair of black jeans to try on. That was a mistake, a big mistake… Although bored, she was not happy to see me. She was actually finishing a cigarette just outside the shop, with a grumpy face, leaning against the wall, right next to a small poster that promoted anti-smoking.

I walk in. She stays out for some time before she reluctantly decide to follow me in after a frowning grimace. Obviously, the aim was not to help me choose the jeans, but to make sure I don’t steal anything first, and second to insure she turns my experience into a living hell as quickly as possible for me to leave as swiftly as possible. She did have one last cigarette while sending a couple of text messages; one to her boyfriend reminding him to fit the dark fumé on his 1977 yellow BWW 2002 Tii windshields, and another to order a Rami Ayache song as ringtone…

She finally follows me in and starts sizing me up from a very short distance, so short I could smell the nauseating mixture of cheap perfume, sweat, and tobacco. She did not say a word, but I kept thinking she did… Until I noticed it was the chewing. So I said to myself, since she’s there pretending to help, let me pretend to need her. I turn and ask if she had black jeans. She points to the opposite shelf of the store and manages to mumble the word “there” between two chewing gum clicks. I smile oh so cynically and leap to the opposite shelf. There was no black jeans either… Damn! Now I have to ask her again. She was texting again with a smile. Should I interrupt such an “intimate” moment? Hell yeah!

“Excuse me, but I can’t see any black jeans there either”. “No?” She asks, “reverse-bursts” a bubble with her gum (Author note: You know, those bubbles blown inward inside your mouth and then popped?) and continues “look over there” pointing to the display at the end of the shop, right next to the fitting booth. I walk to the display. No black jeans… I walk back towards her like on a death-row and tell her. She sighs rolling her eyes upward (but subtly I have to note), continues texting for a few seconds and then looks at me, or so she seems with her zombie contact lenses, and says “Mmmmm, yeah, we must be out of black jeans!” And she leans against the shelf, chewing her gum louder and looking everywhere except at me.

Fine, fine. I understand. Time to go. I walk out, and while passing by her, she says “Ya ahla!”… It all simply looked like a movie played in reverse, which normally starts with welcome, and ends up… Well… with a cigarette…

Be afraid, this is what most of the sales people at shopping outlets in Lebanon look like and behave. I once asked a saleswoman, in a very reputed outlet, for the price in Dollars instead of Lebanese pounds, she went for few seconds and came back with the answer. When I asked her the second time, she went and came back with a calculator and… gave it to me…

Two lessons:
One: If you can’t handle this job, go and be the personal assistant of some cadaver in a remote cemetery.

Two: Shop owners, while you sit in your air-conditioned offices, behind Jean Nouvel desks surrounded by switched off laptops, mini-fridges and fake antiques, some employee is ruining your business and reputation trying to get a Rami Ayache ringtone to work on his $30 monochrome Nokia!!

And guess what? To hell with black jeans, I’ll stick to my worn out denim.

©2011 Ibrahim Lahoud

Shopping… For a smile by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at htt://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

SUKLEEN, MOVE OUT OF THE F*****G WAY!!

THE CASE
Long long time ago (No, I’m not Don McLean singing American Pie), the garbage guys used to pick the trash at 5 or 6 in the morning. Loudly enough to wake you up sure, but at least early enough to spare you the stops, traffic jams, stench and the sight of a turtle-lazy dude pushing trash bins like a geriatric.

Today, with the advancement of modern times, Sukleen chooses to clean the city at peak hours, ranging between 10:00 am and noon. And even better, they intentionally purchase trucks that don’t fit in our narrow streets. They leave the city clean of trash, and you of your sanity.

Why? you may ask. Humm Let’s see, we’ll try to explore the different plausible scenarios that force such a “clean-headed” organization to pollute our sanity.

SCENARIO 1
Communication is the pillar of modern days, and Sukleen, who has chosen to use its trucks as communication vehicle, was compelled to perform its task at peak hours. So, when most of us are already going insane over traffic jams generated by Lebanese whom vision of a road is a prostitute working by the hour that they have to “consume” swiftly, Sukleen fills our sight with beautiful ads that speak about a clean green environment.

Fine, but here’s the loophole morons: Your trucks run on polluting fuel. When you create traffic jams, you pollute the environment far more than stinking trash. And for God’s sake, what’s the use of a clean environment populated by drivers with nervous breakdowns?

SCENARIO 2
Sukleen is simply a sadistic organization owned by a sadist who enjoy the sight of a mile-long traffic jam halted behind a garbage truck in the narrow streets of Beirut. So, they hire foreign labor from countries where they sleep during the day and who do not speak one work of Arabic, purchase large trucks to make sure you don’t squeeze in between them and the side-walk and flee, and place more than 4 or 5 trash-collecting bins in strategically located over-crowded areas.

If this is the case, I wish they publicly admit it by changing the ads on their trucks to something like “Watch us clean your city” or “Build yourself a career, watch how we do it!”

SCENARIO 3
The garbage-collecting company is simply dumb! It happens. You may be a large organization ran by morons. I mean look at our government!! Someone must have thought that you really don’t need a PhD to run a garbage-collecting company… Sure you don’t… I rest my case.

SCENARIO 4
They simply want you to bask in the beauty of the nausea-inducing colored bins. Their super-duper marketing team philosophized that the money spent on repainting the bins using a vomit-inspired color palette should secure a return on investment. Solution: Make people slow down or stop for a time ranging between 10 and 20 minutes to appreciate the sight. It is probably the first multi-sensory advertising campaign in the country; the sight of trash, the smell of trash, the sound of trash… and the color of trash…

BOTTOM LINE
A week ago, I was driving down to Gemmayzeh coming from Tabaris. That road is already narrow enough, with cars parked on both sides leaving enough space to drive your car with your side mirrors folded. As I reach the entrance of that street, a Sukleen “large truck” makes it in front of me. As it starts to negotiate the street, it brushes two cars and comes to a complete halt when it hooks the third. And here we are, no way forward, and no way back because of cars that have already lined-up behind me. It took us half an hour to reverse all the cars back and take alternative roads.

Common sense says… Hehe. Look at me, speaking of common sense in Lebanon… Forget it. Probably the business of cleaning the streets is more important than my business in branding consultancy. I must have gotten my priorities wrong.
My one million dollar question is: Who’s going to clean the city of companies and people like that? But then again, what’s the rush?

© 2011 Ibrahim Lahoud

SUKLEEN, MOVE OUT OF THE F*****G WAY!! by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at htt://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

SIT DOWN BILL. STAND UP STEVE!

Apple is crowned Number one on the BrandZ top 100 of 2011.

Am I jubilant, well daaah! Am I bias? Hell yeah!

Let me straighten things up, I’m brand-bias. We live in a cheesy world by definition.

We live in a world were source codes are more highly regarded than sweet icons.

We live in a world where command prompts are more intellectual than a “genie-effect”.

We live in a world where Mac wannabes think that getting there is about aluminum-colored covers, lit-up logos on the lid, or epilepsy-inducing transparency and shadow effects.

Well people, it’s what goes under that lid. The world woke up only to find out that Apple did NOT do it again. It simply kept doing it. They invented the personal computer, they launched the first digital camera, the established the USB, FireWire, music and movies. They did not make phones, they made iPhones, they did not make tablet-PCs, they made iPads.

They did not make computers, they made history.

And you wonder why I am bias?!

You want to be a programming geek? Sure, why not? But at least be it on a personal computer that gives you a choice. Besides, I mean really, why do you want to be a programming geek at the first place?

I love my Mac… And my Mac loves me.

No, I am not blinded. Relationships that last for 24 years cannot be blind. And no, I am not a designer (for heavens’ sake!) Microsoft created Excel and Word for the Mac first! Did you know that? When PCs were still struggling with Lotus 123 and WordPerfect, Microsoft, yes Bill himself saw the potential in Macs.

If Apple opened its architecture, Bill would be doing windows now… literarily!!

And why didn’t they? You might ask. Well because its windows were clean! Sorry I had to crack the joke. No, seriously, Apple did not open its architecture to avoid inaugurating an Insults hall of fame!

Those of you who have to struggle with PCs’ and hardware and software incompatibilities, fans syncs, sound cards, video cards, know what I’m talking about.

Oh! Oh! And the best: Plug and Play!!

Plug, and then play at trying to make them work together!! What the hell?! When was the last time you plugged a piece of hardware without being intimidated by pop-up screens, drivers installation crap, and the best, confirmation of “your hardware is ready to use” without anything showing on your desktop?! Plug and play my a**!

Macs are beautiful machines! Raymond Loewy said “beauty sells”. And boy! Was he right!

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he created the iMac… in 6 flavors! Not hardware flavors, but sweet tasty colorful and fruity flavors. In less than a couple of months, the iMac was in the Guinness book of World Records. Every year, Apple tops the industrial design awards. Apple is about beauty because we want to live and work in a beautiful world. YES, you can build a beautiful computer, load it with an amazing system and Graphical User Interface, and still make it work miracles.

Although the signature is not used anymore, Macs are still and will always be “The computer for the rest of us”!

Ok debunkers, give it to me! Speed? Price? Flexibility? What? Name it!

Not anymore, Steve knew how to pack all of those benefits in one amazingly looking piece of art.

That’s why Apple is a top brand. That’s why Microsoft is down to Number 5 and Apple up to Number 1 in the top 100 brands. Numbers and the people have spoken.

Apple never talked Megabytes and resolution. Apple talked about more time to create and less time to execute. Apple never talks about RAM and ports. It talks about enjoying the experience. Apple never talked about plug and play… It simply applied it… for real.

Why? Because you never brag about a car having tires! You never brag about a house having a door! Plug and play IS what computers are all about… At least in the 21st century. It’s like still claiming today that you have a color TV!!

Apple is a top brand not because people mention it most, or buy it most. It is a top brand because people love it most.

This was published on Mashable: “Not only did Apple surpass Microsoft in market capitalization to become the second most valuable U.S. company in 2010, it also superseded Google to become the most valuable consumer-facing brand in the world, according to a study published by global research agency Millward Brown.” Its brand value jumped up by 84%. That must be worth something! It’s simple. The ratio of Mac users who shift to PCs versus PC users to swing to Mac is infinitesimal.

For those of you using PCs and are happy doing so, good for you. For those using a Mac, I say, please, be nice and stop picking at PC users

P.S. No hard feelings. I told you I’m bias.

© 2011 Ibrahim Lahoud

 

 

Sit down Bill. Stand up Steve by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at ilahoud.wordpress.com.

THE JOBS AND WOZNIAK OF MACARONS

A Macaron is about vision believe it or not. It is about strategy. It is about branding. And victory tastes so sweet.

© sneakernews.com

I met Khaled and Nour a couple of times and tasted their masterpieces. Le Gustav is not a pastry shop, it is not a cake factory, and it surely is not your average pâtisserie.

Le Gustav is about perfectly mixing the two most essential ingredients of a heavenly pastry, passion and art.

It is not a coincidence that I keep mentioning passion in all my writings. I will never stop.

My momentum is driven by folks like Khaled and Nour. They do to pastry what I do in branding, top everything with passion… The cherry on the cake.

A brand is not about big and flashy. It is mostly about passion and passion. Yes, twice the passion.

There’s the passion you inject in your brand, a breath of your soul. Then there’s the passion your market acquires for your brand. When the two passions collide, the explosion of emotions and feelings triggers the Big Bang of the brand’s universe.

Khaled and Nour did just that.

A brand is undeniably about innovation. The most sophisticated type of innovation is the variation on a theme. Take an existing industry or concept, add a dash of creativity, explore the possibilities, inject courage and vision. What do you get? A discovery with every bite.

A brand is also about sustainability and best practice, the power to replicate success over time. This is the key to magnify the brand’s power. If you start right, look at it as a Damocles dagger over your head. The challenge is to keep doing it right, and then, do it better.

Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak did just that with Apple. And even in its darkest moments, Apple earned more support from its loyal adept users than from its board members. Apple is not a computer. Apple is an innovation factory.

Le Gustav is not pastry either…

When you look at the right idea as the springboard to innovation, and when you grasp how the power of innovation can become the podium of your brand, you never fail.

© media.squarespace.com

Le Gustav is not a name or logo or location or sales… It’s not about a dozen pastries in a box. Le Gustav is the smile of Nour, the eloquence of Khaled, the passion they display when describing what they do. That, is what you taste with every Le Gustav Macaron.

That’s what you feel when you use a Mac.

Apple says “Think Different”… Khaled and Nour heard well, and did it right

Rarely a local brand tasted so good.

©Ibrahim Lahoud – 2011