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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Lebanon, not Turkey is the democracy model

Turkey is not a model democracy, it has a crushing majority and a dismal understanding of religious diversity. It has yet to acknowledge its ethnic cleansing of Armenians, or its brutalities towards Greek-Cyprus. Armenians and many oppressed minorities fled to Lebanon over the century. It's the only truly diverse country in the region, and it's shaping up to be the only true model of democracy. If Turkey and the west bond, it will simply be a meeting of colonizers.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

pap smear could be replaced by DNA tests, and yet....

Dr. Debbie Saslow, director of Breast and Gynecologic Cancer at the American Cancer Society, pap smears are not only intrusive and painful, but they're also an obsolete way of detecting cervical cancer. This test could be replaced by a DNA test, but American doctors refuse this new method. Saslow says the reason is that North American medicine is plagued with paternalism.
Doctors in Mumbai, India have already demonstrated the reasons to use DNA test in this diagnosis.
Where will Lebanon stand from all this? Will it keep following suit in American medicine-paternalism?

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Baabda 1989, Budrus 2003, what else did western media censor?

Julia Bacha, Media Director at Just Vision directed and produced "Budrus", a documentary about a West Bank village that peacefully resisted a barrier across their land.  Here's her documentary site, and a TED talk about it. The west has equally boycotted the first cedar revolution in 1989 in Lebanon, documented in Daniel Rondeau's "Chroniques d'un Liban Rebelle". This was the emergence of Lebanese nationalism, triggered by the General Michel Aoun, and which became an antidote to internal divides.

To us these boycotts are a form of colonization, refusing to acknowledge that the natives can think.

PS: there apparently are several pacifist Palestinian-Israeli initiatives, and I suppose some if them are politically aware.

wikileaks: the best thing that happened to patriots in Lebanon!

Wikileaks keeps demonstrating the self-serving nature of Saudi loyalists in Lebanon, and the constructive plans of Lebanese Patriots:

Sept 8, 2011: a leak of a Frangieh - US ambassador meeting describes the Hezbollah - FPM alliance as a way t undo inequalities caused by the old sectarian system

Sounds to me like Syria is missing a Lebanese - type Patroitic Party

Judging from the divides in Syria's opposition, it's startling that the western media failed to contrast this with the string sense of Lebanese national identity, and clear national goals around which the Lebanese Patriotic Party has galvanized the Lebanese public. They were the opposition that toppled Saudi loyalists from the Lebanese government and are now the majority reshaping the country, or trying to as the remaining loyalists in the government attempt to sabotage them.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

reactions to energy bill and STL in Lebanon

Aug 23, 2011: Gen Aoun accuses March 14 of sectarian provocation
Aug 28, 2011: Gharios says it is transparent
Aug 29, 2011: Mitaki criticized
Sept 2, 2011: Abboud agrees over cabinet control of spending
Sept 6, 2011: Karam believes that electricity issue will be solved by Sept 7th
Sept 7, 2011: Safadi announces that electricity bill was approved 
Sept 8, 2011: Cabinet approves Gen. Aoun's electricity plan
Sept 8, 2011: Lebanese Forces bloc MP Antoine Zahra criticized Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun’s electricity bill
Sept 8, 2011: Kanaan, MP in the BCR, said that the STL was backed by countries with political interest, and was therefore politicized. 
Sept 9, 2011: Traditional ministers who never served Lebanese interests attempt to control new ministers as they revamp Lebanon.