Women scare us… and I love it!

This is to men who “wear” manhood instead of living it.

So, we give visas to every nationality; we harbor every terrorist group you can imagine; we open our border to foreign workers who flock by the thousands; we sell 100% ownership of land and property to every citizen in the world (including aliens from outer space)…

But hey! If the Lebanese woman gives nationality to her children, our social fabric equilibrium is screwed.

We elect deputies based on how much money they have, which religion they represent, how corrupt they are, how much “donations” they can make, who they follow (including which “foreign regime”), how low they can bend over…

But hey! If we bring women to the parliament, the country is screwed.

She gives birth, she raises, she cooks, she cleans, she works, she runs, she follows, she manages, she represents, she satisfies, she beautifies, she smiles, she endures… so much.

We watch her give birth, raise, cook, clean, work, run… and endure… so much.

And yet, we have the guts (no, no balls… at all), to deny her the very basic rights that were equally given to mankind.

We brag about freedom, of expression, of religion, of choice, of marriage, of political affiliation, as if we are the gods of freedom, as if we have grasped the breadth of the word… And yet, we deny her the very basic rights that were equally given to mankind.

Yes, this is manhood. We are the proud Lebanese men, those who are in the know. We are the ones who know how to harness the best of the world’s laws and jurisdictions to erect a nation.

We picked women treatment from Afghanistan, women civil rights from Saudi Arabia, women human rights from Iran.

We forgot to look at India, Great Britain, Iceland, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Argentina, Bolivia, Switzerland, Philippines, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Finland, Lithuania… where women were not elected to parliament, they were presidents, heads of state.

I pity a nation with double-standards.
I pity a country built on prejudice.
I dread the men of Lebanon, and you know why?

Because they are afraid of the Woman. They are afraid of loosing their clout and hegemony. They are afraid of being stripped naked, revealing their ignorance, short-sight, lack of tact. They are afraid of facing a peer they consider a foe; someone who might for a change use a brain instead of balls to induce change; someone who would negotiate instead of argue.

Can man do better? I don’t mind, but then again, if he could, he would have accepted the woman as equal centuries ago.

©2013 – Ibrahim N. Lahoud

Women scare us… and I love it! by Ibrahim N. Lahoud is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://ilahoud.wordpress.com/.

I HATE TO WRITE. I HAD TO WRITE.

I once tweeted asking if the kidnapping and counter-kidnapping thing works with mosquitoes… I had to make use of the learnings from the latest happenings in Lebanon.

We are beyond pathetic. We are beyond pitiful. We are beyond acting, let alone thinking. We are way beyond solving.

Did the Lebanese-Syrian trade treaties stipulate anything about importing and exporting revolutions? I will most certainly not get into analysis and speculations. I will leave that to the poor souls who think they are in the know, and those who have teleported their personalities straight onto the tip of their tongues.

I am not eloquent when it comes to politics, but defense strategy? Seriously? What strategy? To defend who, what?

The best defense strategy, tested and proven, is education and civic sense. Deprive people from both, and that’s you get: Lebanon. Speaking of education, teachers are one of the most under-payed categories. To make things worse, students are now a bargaining chip. If we get this far, no wonder families have their own armies!

So, I just wonder…

I wonder why since the new government came into being, theft and crime rate shot up.

I wonder why bank robberies suddenly skyrocketed to new heights.

I wonder why the electricity became inversely proportional to the pledge the government made to fix it.

I wonder why gas prices go up when worldwide oil prices go down.

I wonder why only the mentally challenged earn a place in the government.

I wonder how they could devise a long-term planning strategy when they can’t even implement a simple traffic law.

I wonder why can’t they defend the country with the same fervor they defend the “neighbors”

I wonder how they dare to speak and give lessons in patriotism when their allegiance is invested everywhere but in their nation.

I wonder where do the inter-religious feuds fit If Israel is the common enemy.

I wonder if Syrians fought amongst themselves during the Civil war in Lebanon.

I wonder where did the 10452 Km2 go if the North is an Emirate, the South is off-limits, the Bekaa is an enclave, and most of Beirut is a military barrack…

I wonder how can they lie so bluntly to themselves before lying to us.

I wonder how do they still believe that they are actually lying to us.

I wonder what they tell their children when asked about what they do.

I wonder what to say to my own children when asked why are we still here.

I wonder why I am still here.

But beware, we all can wonder this much. We soon will ponder, and when we do, your lies, schemes and petty strategies will rule our leftovers. Our leftovers.

The thing is, we live in a rat hole where every family can have one army instead of having one army for all the families…

History Repeating

My father passed away when I was 12 years old, and he was only 42. He succumbed to a brain stroke. He was having an afternoon nap. I was alone at home with him.

40 years later to the year, my mother almost died of the very same illness and in the same circumstances. I was alone at home with her, and she was sleeping. This time, I noticed and managed to call an ambulance on time and save her life. My Red Cross days training helped diagnose the symptoms and act swiftly.

She spent 12 days in hospital and ultimately recovered. God offered me a closure.

How?
Three miracles happened in less than 20 minutes:
One, I was sleeping at her place, something I very rarely do.
Two, I woke at 06:00am, with no apparent reason. She had the stroke at 06:15am
Three, she fell next to her bed and I noticed. Had she had the stroke in bed, I would have not noticed at all and she would have died in one hour.

Everyone tells you that the day you become a parent, is the day when you realize the importance of parenthood, and understand why your own parents behaved the way they did with you.

I disagree.

You only realize the importance of parents the moment you loose one of them, or come too close to do so. Age does not matter, you might be 12 or 50, the feeling is the same, the trauma is the same, the fear is the same.

I know we all love and cherish our folks, but moms and dads are far more than people to love and cherish. When you think that you say the same thing about your dog or favorite pair of shoes, you understand how meaningless and clichés the words love and cherish are.

When I lost my father, I was a little too young to grasp the breadth of the damage. Life continued. I missed him and still do, but life continued.

Today is different. Today is about maturity and the way we look at our parents. Today is about looking at yourself in the mirror.

Today is about understanding the true meaning of a mother and father. Today I understood that it is not about need or protection, feeding or clothing, schooling or safety.

Today is simply about the tremendous amount of emotions and feelings behind the fact that you can still say a simple word: Mom… Without having to ask anything after you say it.

This post is dedicated to the moms and dads with children as old as I, where all can live in the simple bliss of calling each other “Mom”, “Dad”, “Son” and “daughter” without having to say anything else.

All I Want for Christmas – The Last Post of 2011

For this Christmas, I want the driver of that modified Subaru Evolution with a loud exhaust as wide as his empty brain cavity, to beat him till he begs for mercy.

I want the driver of the tinted-glass Picanto, to humiliate him till he decides to spend the rest of his days walking, and I want his car to set on fire.

I want that woman in the black Range Rover with a four digits plate number, to tie her hands behind the wheel, put a brick on the accelerator and watch her fly and hit a wall, and I want her cell phone to dial a long distance number and leave it on for a week, and her lipstick to… you know what!

I want that policeman playing G.I Joe on the intersection under my office with a finger up his nostril and a beer belly down his pants, to glue him in the middle of the road, hands shackled behind his back, and watch him scream like a baby girl watching the Subaru Evolution guy rushing straight at him.

I want the electric generator guy to teach him manners, the hard way and make him understand that his generator has more power that all his neurons combined.

I want the bank teller… To tell him who the client really is, hold him by the necktie and hang him from the top of his ego.

I want a gum-chewing clothing shop saleswoman to be sentenced to chew the same gum for a year while smiling and saying “how can I help you”.

I want that disgusting ugly castrated macho with mustaches like a floor mop to stick his lit shisha up his… you pick a hole!

I want the owner of the double parked Mercedes in the hospital parking to stand on the white line divider of the parking lanes, take the space of two cars, and get a first-row show of the insults he usually gets but doesn’t hear.

I want that Neanderthal bastard who pushes through the line at the ticketing counter of the movie theater to be squeezed between two gays till he feels something hurting his throat!

I want that bunch of botox-filled women talking loudly in the restaurant to have their ears stuffed with hearing aids with the volume pumped to the max till violent noises and squeaks melt what’s left of their brain.

I want the group of nouveau-riches, talking politics, drinking expensive Scotch and smoking fake cigars they never knew they are fake, to put each and every theory of theirs to work, and make “only” them live through it.

I want every Facebook user who presses the “Like” button on a group to swear they really like it. I want them to prove to me that their 1432 friends are really friends.

I want a restaurant owner to eat from his own restaurant kitchen.

I want a Muslim to read the Holy Quran and a Christian to read the Holy Bible, and then dare to talk about true tolerance.

I want an illiterate politician, any politician, to make him listen for a whole day to his own speeches on loud speakers.

I want every “Patriotic” Lebanese who lives in abroad to come back to Lebanon, stay there, and then tell me they’re patriotic.

But I’m easy… So I will just settle for a pair of ear-plugs, and one of those blindfolds they provide for free on long flights. That’ll do.

Happy Holidays!

p.s. I don’t really hate this country. I just hate it’s geographical coordinates, and the fact that unlike a zoo, the animals are on the loose and the visitors in the cage.

All I want for Christmas, the last post of 2011 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/.

©2011 – Ibrahim Lahoud

Shame…

Shame on the country where religion is politics and politics are religion.

Shame on the country that doesn’t protect those who protect it.

Shame on the country that doesn’t advertise from what it creates.

Shame on the country that doesn’t say what “it” thinks.

Shame on the country that doesn’t believe in what it preaches.

Shame on the country that doesn’t respect what it forces others to respect.

Shame on the country that doesn’t aim as high as those who carry it far up.

Shame on the country that doesn’t breed from within.

Shame on the country that doesn’t put rights above privileges.

Shame on the country that doesn’t punish those who punish for the fun of it.

Shame on the country that doesn’t force respect instead of respecting force.

Shame on the country that doesn’t dare look me in the eyes when speaking to me.

Shame on the country that exports what it should retain and retains what it should expel.

Shame on the country that brags about it’s grottos instead of its flag.

Shame on the country that puts civil servants above their employers.

Shame on the country that uses the illiterate to educate its intelligentsia.

Shame on the country that uses inertia as its way forward.

Shame on the country that buys its dignity instead of earning it.

Shame on the country that yields to threats and cheers its oppressors.

Shame on the country where I am me on if I am someone else.

Shame on the country where politicians are hired, creeds are slogans and “I” is “Him”.

Shame on the country where you’re as important as your plate number says you are.

Shame on the country that still debates the rights of women to full equality.

Shame on the country where civil marriage is a political bargaining tool.

Shame on the country where schooling fees are a hundred fold the salary of teachers.

Shame on the country where criminals are free and the free are criminals.

Shame on the country where your opinion is owned… but not by you…

Shame 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/.

© 2011 Ibrahim Lahoud