Posts Tagged ‘Reine Azzi’

Playing hunger game all over: Pseudo-State of Lebanon political system

Posted by: adonis49 on: March 17, 2021

I left the supermarket and cried my heart out

Today I left the supermarket, got into my car, and cried my eyes out.

I worked hard for everything I have. Nothing was given to me. I spent years on scholarships, supported by generous benefactors so I could finish my schooling.

I went to the Lebanese university because it was the only higher education I could afford.

All of this so I could finally begin to feel comfortable… a comfortable middle class. That’s all I ever wanted.

But today, and thanks to the hyperinflation and the economic/political situation, I had to choose which cornflakes to buy for my family because I had selected two different kinds. This was the last straw.

A stranger had to step in and tell them she would add one packet to her ‘cornflakes allotment’. This is a country where people are playing hunger games over cooking oil…

So it was the kindness that threw me off.

I didn’t expect anyone to be kind. Tomorrow morning, I have to tell my son that I couldn’t get his favorite breakfast cereal… and he’s beginning to expect every disappointment.

That’s the sad part. But I managed to find an item that could make things feel a bit better: When all else fails, just add sprinkles.

PS 1. I know for a fact that some people will still vote for these idiots who have ruined our country. I’ll need a lot of sprinkles to swallow that pill. Hopefully we could still find them by then.

PS 2: One of the supermarket reps said something on the news the other day: We don’t want our shelves to become a museum, where people come in, stare at the goods, and then leave. (Kind of Not looking as supermarkets in Soviet Union…)?

Mira Samaha commented: Reine, yesterday I cried in the supermarket because an elegant classy woman, dignified, who was almost hiding when putting back a pack of spaghetti( 7000LL) because she was counting how much she can pay…. I curse them all and their families

Note 1: The pseudo-citizens in Lebanon have grown, generations after generations in the last century, experiencing preemptive wars by Israel, civil wars, mandated nations (including Syria and Arafat “resistance Palestinian organization” PLO).

The Lebanese lived in blood, indignation, public widespread corruptions, private exploitation with the backing of sectarian the political system, and outright highway robbery that bankrupted the State at all levels: State budget, Central Bank, private banks, financial depletion of “hard currencies”, and No sustainable economy…

The Lebanese ended up emigrating to greener pastures to all continents and a few to support the families who remained behind. Actually, Lebanon finances were mainly relying on immigrant money that were Not “wisely” invested in productive enterprises

Note 2: After each civil war, those “leaders” that devastated the country and ruined the social fabric and prevented daily trade and communication among the communities, always returned to control and rule this pseudo-State. And they are still in power and controlling every public institution, (including the justice system, the internal forces, sections of the army… and hoarding monopolies in every sector of the economy))

Tags: adonis49, hyperinflation, lebanon, Mira Samaha, playing hunger game, pseudo-citizens, pseudo-State, Reine Azzi

Public invasion of private female space: In women’s literature

Posted by: adonis49 on: March 31, 2017

In: Book Review | engineering/research/experiments | Essays | Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts | social articles | women
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War in white sheets: The public invasion of the private female space in women’s literature

Reine Azzi posted her thesis in Journal of Arts and Humanities

Abstract

The dichotomy between the “angel in the house’ and the “devil in the flesh” used to symbolize the restrictions facing women in 19^th century literature.

With the advance of the different stages of feminism, this (dichotomy) began to slowly dissipate as more female heroines began to be depicted as a major part of both the private and public spheres.

Does a more prolific female presence eliminate this opposition?

This research paper will focus on whether such a distinction continues to preside over the works of female novelists, and the works under study are Hanan Al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra and Women of Sand and Myrrh in addition to Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.

Full Text:

PDF

References

ACCAD, EVELYNE, Sexuality and War: Literary Masks of the Middle East, New York: New York UP, 1990.

AL-SHAYKH, HANAN, The Story of Zahra: A Novel, 1986, Trans. Peter Ford, New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

Women of Sand and Myrrh, 1989, trans. Catherine Cobham, London: Quartet Books, 1993.

COOKE, MIRIAM, War’s Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988.

DARRAJ, SUSAN, “We All Want the Same Things Basically’: Feminism in Arab Women’s Literature”, Women and Language 26.1, (Spring 2003), pp. 79 – 82.

GELBLUM, AMIRA, “Ideological Crossroads: Feminism, Pacifism, and Socialism”, Borderlines: Genders and Identities in War and Peace 1870 – 1930, Ed. Billie Melman, New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 307 – 327.

GRIFFITHS, MORWENNA, Feminisms and the Self: The Web of Identity, London: Routledge, 1995.

LESSING, DORIS, The Golden Notebook, 2nd ed. London: Flamingo, 1972.

MOKHTAR, KHAOULA, “Becoming Liberated in Beirut”, Women of the Mediterranean, ed. Monique Gadant, trans. A. M. Berret, New Jersey: Zed Books, 1986, pp 5 – 11.

SALIBA, THERESE, “Arab Feminism at the Millennium”, Signs, Vol. 25, No. 4, Feminisms at a Millennium, (Summer, 2000), pp. 1087-1092.

SEGAL, LYNNE, Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism, London: Virago, 1987

New Funny Words to Add in a Dictionary

Posted by: adonis49 on: April 16, 2015

In: education methods/programs | humor | social articles
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New Words to Add in a Dictionary

We shouldn’t be explaining and describing complicated feeling and activities when a single world defines the entire meaning.

Reine Azzi shared an article on Bored Panda.

Some of these words are over-complicated but I’ll be using the ‘chairdrobe’ for sure!

24+ Brilliant New Words We Should Add To A Dictionary

When languages evolve, it’s important that scholars and dictionaries keep up.

Bored Panda

The internet has spawned a new crop of words for stuff, and while you may not like all of them, some of them are really clever combos that seem like they might actually be useful!

Many of these words come from urbandictionary.com, which is basically a dictionary of modern slang.

Their site is probably the most complete dictionary of modern slang, but it’s also full chock-full of nonsense.

Most of these words are portmanteaus, which are what you get when you mash both the sounds and meanings of two words together to get a new one.

Did you know, for example, that the word ‘smog’ is a portmanteau (smoke and fog)?

‘Brunch’ (breakfast and lunch) is another one that is becoming more and more popular, although it’s been around for a while.

And if you’re eating your brunch with a spork, then that’s a portmanteau double-whammy.

Can you think of any fun new words that real modern dictionaries should adopt? If so, add them to this list!

#1 Masturdating (n) going alone to a movie or a restaurant

#2 Askhole Asking obnoxious questions

#3 Bedgasm Euphoric experience when climbing in bed after a long day

#4 Chairdrobe or floordrobe: Piling up clothes on a chair

#5 Textpectation an anticvipation feeling when waiting for response to a texting

#6 Destinesia Forgeting why you intended to go where you arrived

#7 Nonversation a smart ass word for small talk

#8 Cellfish On purpose talking on the cellphone to annoy people

#9 Errorist A frequent error maker

#10 Carcolepsy Falling asleep as the car gets moving (must exist a medical term for that ailment.)

#11 Hiberdating Ignoring close friends as we find a girlfriend

#12 Youniverse The universe revolves around their only person

#13 Internesting surrounding yourself with pillows while using internet

#14 Columbusing A white person claiming to have discovered what already existed

#15 Ambitchous surpassing the normal bitch

#16 Dudevorce Two brothers severing their friendship

#17 Unkeyboardinated Frequent typing error making

#18 Unlightening Becoming more dumb in what you’re learning

#19 Nerdjacking Filling details to an uninterested and uninitiated person

#20 Afterclap Last one to clap after everybody stopped. (The first one to clap when the music didn’t end?)

#21 Nomonym Tasting the same for otherwise two different food

#22 Beerboarding Extracting secrtets by getting someone drunk

#23 Doppelbanger Having intercourse with someone looking like you

#24 Eglaf A word that has no meaning to be substituted to a meaningless word

Tags: adonis49, Bored Panda, dictionary, modern slang, new words, portmanteaus, Reine Azzi, urbandictionary.com

Boom of female-led TEDx events in Lebanon?

Posted by: adonis49 on: November 11, 2014

In: biographies/books | cities/geography | education methods/programs | Essays | Events/Cultural/Educational/Arts | social articles | women
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Boom of female-led TEDx events in Lebanon?

In 2008, Patricia Zougheib was at work in Beirut, Lebanon, when she came across a video of Jill Bolte Taylor describing her own stroke. She was awed, and Googled the three red letters she noticed in the background—T-E-D. “I started watching one talk after the other,” she says, “and I got hooked, big-time.”

Jessica Gross posted on May 19, 2014

For a while, Zougheib kept her TED habit her own special secret, watching talks alone at her advertising job. “But then I thought, after one year, ‘No, this is too good not to be shared.’”

She introduced her husband to TED, and the two decided to invite some friends over to their house to watch and discuss talks.

TEDxSKE, the first TEDx event in Lebanon, started as a gathering of 6 friends — but it has led to a boom of TEDx events in the country, most of them helmed by women.

No one can explain why women are drawn to TEDx organizing here—but regardless of the reason, they are spreading ideas to attendees of both genders.

Zougheib knew TEDxSKE had reached a turning point when strangers started asking to join in. “It became an open house,” she says. “Of course, a limited open house, because our house can only fit 20 to 25 persons max.”

Two years later, the weekly salon was still thriving.

“I started saying, this salon is kind of changing our lives. Everyone is being affected by this,” Zougheib says. “I thought, if this small salon was having this much effect, we should do the big event with our speakers.”

She gathered a team of regular TEDxSKE attendees to lead another, bigger salon and to launch the main event TEDxBeirut.

At the same time, Reine Azzi, a teacher at Lebanese American University (LAU), was having her own TED moment. Scrolling through her Facebook feed, she came across one of Sir Ken Robinson’s talks, which an American friend had posted. “Because I’m a teacher, the title intrigued me, so I clicked,” she says. “And I fell in love with what he had to say.”

She watched all of Robinson’s talks and, the next day, approached her boss to ask about screening one of them as a lecture on campus. The event was small, but shortly after, someone introduced Azzi and Zougheib, who was still scouting locations for the inaugural TEDxBeirut salon. Azzi offered up the LAU campus, and the event drew 150 people. (I attended this event)

Things snowballed. Azzi held the first TEDxLAU salon in 2012.

Six salons and two main events later, “TEDxLAU events are always sold out. Always. It’s amazing,” Azzi says; the last salon, on mental health, sold out within 24 hours. “It’s as if students on campus were thirsty for events like these—events that are intellectual but at the same time humane … You don’t have a speaker who is just standing behind a table reading from a manuscript. You have a speaker who is sharing heart and soul with you.”

TEDxBeirut, meanwhile, has held eight salons and two main events, which featured local speakers and drew 700, then 1,200, attendees.

In fact, the organization grew so quickly that Zougheib quit her job and took 16 months to work solely on TEDxBeirut.

“I loved it—it was the best 16 months of my life,” she says. Not sustainable, though (“neither for me nor my husband”), so she’s back at work and has passed TEDxBeirut off to a team of four co-leaders. But she is still actively spreading TEDx.

“Everyone started asking us, ‘Please come do your event at our university!’” Zougheib says. Instead of taking the event on the road, she encouraged people to get their own licenses. TEDx salons mushroomed across Lebanon; there are now about 10.

Natalia Geha, for one, attended TEDxBeirut a few years ago, and just held her first TEDxNDULouaize salon at Notre Dame University-Louaize in January, with musical performances in addition to talk screenings and discussions. “I think it’s interesting that TED is becoming so popular in Lebanon, because we really lack cultural events,” she says.

It’s a sentiment echoed by Zougheib almost verbatim. “The movement is spreading like no other movement I’ve seen, ever,” she says. “We didn’t have many cultural events happening here. There was a lack.”

Zougheib also points out that media—internationally, but within Lebanon, too—tend to focus on turmoil, to the exclusion of achievement.

She wanted TEDxBeirut to be a platform for showing the inventiveness and creativity of her compatriots. “We all need non-political platforms where we can express our ideas, talk about our inventions, say that young people are as lively as they are elsewhere,” she says. “We do have ideas, believe it or not. Even if we come from Lebanon.”

Note: I attended many of TEDx events in Lebanon and joined the open-house several times: I took every opportunity when I could get a ride, particularly with my nephew William Choukeir who was co-sponsor of Tedx in its beginning and later headed the set-up of TEDxBeirut.

Riad Houeiss, Patsy hubby, took the trouble a couple of times to fetch me from home.

And got used to removing my shoes outside in order not to ruin the floor.

I posted countless reviews and reports on the events.

Tags: adonis49, female-led TEDx events, Jessica Gross, Jill Bolte Taylor, Ken Robinson, Patricia Zougheib, Reine Azzi, TEDx events Lebanon, William Choukeir

Danger of having NO story, or a single story to stereotype an entire culture

Posted by: adonis49 on: October 18, 2014

Literature Activity: The danger of having NO story

Reine Azzi Posted on October 14, 2014

In my literature class this semester, I had a theme relating to “The Danger of a Single Story”.

This was inspired by Chimamanda Adichie’s TED Talk, in which she discusses the nature of literature and cultural misconceptions.

Why do we feel we know a culture, when all we know is a single story, a single stereotype, a single format within which we lump everyone?

And what if we don’t even have a single story? What if we know nothing about another country, another culture?

This was the question I posed in my literature class.

I asked my students: Is there any country or area you wish you knew more about? They all wrote down their answers, mentioning places in Asia, Africa, and Australia and Antarctica.

Students later picked these out randomly and were asked to quickly get facts and information about each area.

Their next, and more difficult task, was to write a poem or a short story set in these locations or inspired by them.

Judging from the results, these poems do depict one perspective of each location, which is quite natural. We are influenced by the stories we’ve gathered…but the way I see it: one story is better than none.

In the hope that there will be more where this came from!

I’m sharing some of my students’ writings below (I got their permission of course… and let me quote one of them: “Yeeeey, I’m now a published poet!”).

Would I do this again? Most Definitely!

These works (in my biased opinion as proud teacher) were gems of social and cultural awareness. Even though these students are basing their writing on one event or a few facts, they had to leave their current milieu to inhabit another world and stand in different shoes even for a little while, and that’s worth reliving, over and over again.

Are we really that different
When the thing we export most is our freshly-graduates, able-bodied youth?
A diaspora in over forty countries and we still can’t see that the blame is with our
own
From Daniel Ganama’s “Are We Really That Different”. Read full poem here.

A land of twenty-something soils – natural and man-made masterpieces;
India’s Teardrop dressed in green,
The Hermit Kingdom with all its flashing screens,
And The Red Dragon which falls in between.
From Mazen Sleiman’s “Asia”. Read full poem here.

Picking you by chance
You, eastern land
You, hosting 49 countries
You, divided into 6 cultures
You, curry, spice, sushi, hummus, vodka, and rice
From Michele Matta’s “Asia”. Read full poem here.

I read about magic,
in glittering eyes.
Hope,
in a sanctuary of light.
I read about forgotten wars and unsung heroes.
From Mia Melki’s “Chinese Lantern Festival”. Read full poem here.

Far East Asia is viewed to be exotic
To the rest of the world that is
Some stereotypes are quite moronic
To those who know that is
I shall pour me some tonic
And elaborate, list some facts that is
From Mira Sheaib’s “Far East Asia”. Read full poem here.

Those looking for serenity and magic often find Nepal as a refuge for their quest. The 15-year-old knows this; he plans to mediate for a long time.
From Nour Zouya’s “Nepal”. Read full freewriting piece here.

I see worker ants scurrying about the colony roads,
Poor, dirty, and full,
Carrying tea leaves, bamboo shoot trunks, and hickory nuts to be processed for the glory of the State.
From Jade Doumani’s “Revolutions”. Read full poem here.

Plastic dolls,
Squeaky treat
Thousands of people
To compete
From Natasha Tabet’s “Russia”. Read full poem here.

Tags: adonis49, Chimamanda Adichie, Danger of a Single Story, literature class, Red Dragon, Reine Azzi

Grandma Weddo: In Reine’s Organized Chaos

Posted by: adonis49 on: March 21, 2014

Grandma Weddo: In Reine’s Organized Chaos

Why don’t we have eulogies in our culture?

For someone like me, who expresses herself through words, I need that sense of closure. So…

Reine Azzi posted this March 20, 2014

To Grandma Weddo

To grandma,
Who had the imagination to write a love story about the time when Charles de Gaulle saw her in her yellow dress in the town of Damour and fell in love with her.

But that she refused him and picked by grandpa instead. (And never let him forget this for the rest of his life)!

To grandma,
Who lived a life quiet. About the things she most wanted to talk about.

Oh she nagged about all sorts of crap. But kept silent when she saw the stupid bickering all around. Hoping each of her 10 kids and their spouses and 4-5 grandkids (on average) would resolve it on their own. Oh grandma, you should have spoken. You had so much to say!

To grandma,
Who was so rebellious in spirit that you’d have done wonders if you had been born at a different time. I sit and write this while unconsciously shaking hands with passersby who are here to pay their respect. And I wonder if any of us really knew you.

To grandma,
Who reminds me so much of myself. With her anxieties, her worries, her endless desire to be present. To be seen.

And yet she lived her whole life on the sidelines. Someone’s mother. Someone’s wife. Someone’s grandmother. Never her.

Even in death, one can’t be the center of attention.

So this one’s for you grandma.

Wish I could say this out loud. For now, this blog will have to do.

p.s. To answer the question you would definitely have asked: yes, we’ve eaten. We’ve had coffee. We’ve had a banana. No. We’re not going to starve.

Tags: adonis49, Charles de Gaulle, eulogies in culture, grandma, Grandma Weddo, Organized Chaos, Reine Azzi, town of Damour

Have you lately used Darwin’s name in Vain? It is survival of the Gene stupid, not your own life…

Posted by: adonis49 on: July 27, 2013

In: Essays | Human Factors/Ergonomics | philosophy | professional articles | social articles
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Have you lately used Darwin’s name in Vain?

It is survival of the Gene stupid, not your own life…

There are growing number of research pointing to the qualitative altering of genes as people change their daily behaviors. Sort of nurturing changes the default genes of acquired habits and customs.

These results bring to the forefront deductive ideas:

1. Genes are but structured system of acquired customs and habits that we use in our daily transactions and behaviors, acquired over generations…

2. If a group of people assemble and get organized to change their habits and customs, this gathering of people will basically tend to alter their genes, creating a new species of mankind

3. The species of mankind that is resuming the current consumption civilization, which defies the sustainability of earth and nature, is ultimately doomed, and replaced by

4. The new breed who takes the attitude of never challenging nature, of consuming what nature is able to produce, of maintaining a healthy environment… this new species of mankind could survive…

These ideas and deductions were inspired by this short post in Reine Organized Chaos.

Reine Azzi posted this July 24, 2013:

“When you ask some people why they act in ‘selfish’ ways, why they are out to fulfill their own self-interest, many might attribute it to a ‘survival of the fittest’ strategy.

I’ve been reading a book on evolutionary biology, an extension of Darwin’s theories, and the biggest insight so far is the following:

– It isn’t about the survival of the fittest individual but survival of the fittest GENE.

What does this imply?

That maybe a few selfless acts on the individual level might be just what you need for that particular gene to survive!

Selfless animals that act upon the gene causing them to scream out might suffer on an individual level when a predator finds them, but that gene called out a warning to other animals in the vicinity, inevitably creating a proliferation of that particular gene through saving all those lives.

We, the human species should start wondering whether the way we’ve misunderstood ‘survival of the fittest’ might be causing us to act in contrast to actual evolutionary biology.

And whether we’re slowly decreasing the number of genes that can allow us to actually survive”.

Note 1: Low and high altitude mankind species https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/two-species-of-mankind-sorted-out-not-long-ago/

Note2: Reine Azzi is an instructor who teaches at a Lebanese university! Best way to remain passionately challenged! She has the licensee, curator, and host of TEDxLAU which adds so much excitement to my life! View all posts by Reine Azzi →

Tags: adonis49, ‘survival of the fittest’, Darwin, default genes, defies sustainability of earth and nature, evolutionary biology, Low and high altitude mankind species, nurturing, Reine Azzi, selfish ways, selfless acts, species of mankind, survival of the Gene, TEDxLAU

Any Art in Public Speaking? Two Essential Ingredients for a successful orator?

Posted by: adonis49 on: May 16, 2013

In: Essays | Human Factors/Ergonomics | professional articles | social articles
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Any Art in Public Speaking?

How can you manage to care about the message more than your own personal anxieties?

Are there ways to control your unlimited kinds of anxieties and phobias?

How can you care for the audience varied anxieties, listening to you?

I will develop on these two essential ingredients in public speaking: the message and the audience anxieties. But first:

Reine Azzi posted this May 14, 2013 “The Art of Public Speaking: One Essential Ingredient“

“I’ve taught so many public speaking courses, worked with numerous speakers and speech-writers, and I don’t know why this has only fully dawned on me today.

Regardless of the amount of work you put into your speech, there is only one ingredient:

Care about the message more than your own personal anxieties.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnygoldstein/3877740779/

While speaking, the internal monologue is usually as follows:

– what should I say next?

– will they like me?

– Am I looking ok?

– Will I forget my next point?

– Will the video work?

– Will people leave during my speech?…

And it is only when you can get out of your own head that you can truly connect with the audience.

How can you do that??

Simple. Learn to CARE about your example!

Care about your main point!

Understand why your audience NEEDS to hear what you have to say.

Realize that the speech isn’t about you (though it is your time in the spotlight!).

Once you get it that the speech is about the idea, then you will shine even more…and the spotlight will adore you for it!” End of Azzi post.

I am not an orator by any stretch of the imagination, and I never have taken courses or practiced oration.

I do know from teaching difficult university students that “caring for the audience anxieties” is the second essential ingredient.

The audience, who came willingly, voluntarily or pressured to attend to your speech and talk, require your full attention.

The audience is not here to confront you or fail you: They do want you to feel confident, relaxed, knowledgeable, and concerned for their presence.

The audience means to empathize with your natural anxieties: They feel how it is to be facing an audience.

The audience at talks is not sitting in a dark enclosure, and you are not an opera singer, an actor in a theater scene, or a fashion model… trying hard to look at a far away faked horizon

You have got to learn to detect concern, to select people in the audience, and engage frank eye contacts, with as many people as your speech last… as if the talk was meant for them…

You are trying to find out the level of interest, understanding, and how to tackle the message from different perspectives…

You have got to alter your tactics within the general prepared talk in order to unite with the audience.

The audience is not your enemy.

The audience is your ally and wants you to feel at home, after you have done your due diligence and your homework…

Tags: adonis49, Art in Public Speaking, audience anxieties, Reine Azzi

Homeless by the American Univ. of Beirut: Ali, Georgette…on Bliss Street

Posted by: adonis49 on: January 8, 2013

Homeless by the American Univ. of Beirut: Ali, Georgette…on Bliss Street

Three posts on my FB today, talking of the homeless living close to the students of the American Univ. of Beirut (AUB) on Bliss Street.

Reine Azzi posted this Jan. 8, 2013 under “Humans of Beirut. Save Georgette of Bliss Street.”

“After yesterday’s heartbreaking news of the death of Ali of Bliss Street, hundreds of concerned facebookers banded together to form an initiative to help the homeless in Lebanon.

Statuses have been posted, blogs written, and tweets announced, in memory of Ali Abdullah, and all in hopes that he did not die in vain.
Many peopleand students are asking about others like-Ali—”What about the homeless woman on Bliss St.? What will happen to her?”

Georgette has no means to afford basic necessities. And the humanitarians of Lebanon have taken action, creating campaigns to spread awareness and assist the needy in anyway possible.

Fighting Homelessness in Beirut, a FB group formed by Michel Khoury, was created only today—and already has over 700 members.

Contribute to a Warm Lebanon, a fundraiser at Nasawiya Café in Mar Mikhael, also pledges to donate clothes, food, sleeping bags and anything else that might warm up people who can’t afford basic neccesities.

Food Blessed, another initiative aiming to feed the hungry, also revolves around a humanitarian cause that including helping the homeless.
So if you want to help out and don’t know how, check out the three links above and give money, food, clothes—even time. It’s really the least we can do.

A picture of Ali, described as Hamra Street’s Bukowski.

Michelle Ghoussoub wrote:

In light of what has happened, I feel like I should say more. This man was truly a legend, and one of the pillars of what made Hamra so special.

For generations, he was the subject of much intrigue to the students of the American University of Beirut. Some said he was a physics professor who was so smart, he’d gone mad.

Others added that he could speak 6 languages. Everyone had their own quirky story.

What always intrigued me is that he never begged or asked anyone for anything. Good people just seemed to give him a helping hand from time to time.

Last night though, while I was sitting comfortably in my home wondering why cold air was seeping through small cracks in my window, the storm left him dead in a Hamra that he helped give life to.

Rest in peace, Ali. If any of you have any stories to share, please do.”

Sherif Maktabi posted:

“Yesterday a man called Ali, died in the street where I grew up. A street where hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, and I, walked to school

Please have the patience to read through, a person’s life depends on this.

Students of AUB and International College, I am talking to you.

Download this gallery (ZIP, null KB). Download full size (86 KB)

Nobody knows Ali’s story. He was homeless, and lived on Bliss street in Beirut for years. I remember him since I was a kid.

Some say he was mentally disturbed. But he never harmed anyone.

He survived on donations from the restaurants and shops of bliss.

He used to get, coffee, a sandwitch and a cigarette everyday. As for us the students, we never did anything.

He is dead. But many are still alive and shape the soul of Beirut.

And they don’t have people to help them.

This is why I want to tell you the story of Georgette.

Download this gallery (ZIP, null KB). Download full size (39 KB)

Everyday, Georgette brings her chair and sits in front of Books and Pens to sells chewing gum. She can’t walk and can’t see very well.

Karim Badra and I know Georgette very well. She was angry with us because we turned the wall behind her into a Lebanon Would Be Better If. But now we are friends.

She is very sick. And because it’s winter she can’t sell chewing gum.

And hence, she can’t get money to pay the rent of a small bed. Her landlord wants to kick her out. She doesn’t have enough money to pay for her medicin.

The last time I saw her, she colapsed in front of me and I called the Red Cross. All that she asks from me is 2 types of tissue paper and a bottle of water.

But I know she needs money.

Georgette usually sits in front of Books and Pens. Take the first left after AUB main gate and walk up 10 meters. She sits in between Moustache and Alex’s store.

I cannot save Georgette. But we can.

You can help through 3 easy steps:

1) If you see her, be nice to her,

2) Ask her if she wants water, tissues or food

3) Send Karim Badra a message if you want to contact Georgette for more serious help.

(Click this link and send Karim a message).

Humans of Beirut. Save a human. In memory of Ali.

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Posts Tagged ‘Reine Azzi’

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War in white sheets: The public invasion of the private female space in women’s literature

Abstract

The dichotomy between the “angel in the house’ and the “devil in the flesh” used to symbolize the restrictions facing women in 19th century literature.

With the advance of the different stages of feminism, this (dichotomy) began to slowly dissipate as more female heroines began to be depicted as a major part of both the private and public spheres.

Does a more prolific female presence eliminate this opposition?

This research paper will focus on whether such a distinction continues to preside over the works of female novelists, and the works under study are Hanan Al-Shaykh’s The Story of Zahra and Women of Sand and Myrrh in addition to Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook.

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Reine Azzi posted this March 20, 2014

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Have you lately used Darwin’s name in Vain?

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Any Art in Public Speaking?

How can you manage to care about the message more than your own personal anxieties?

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Homeless by the American Univ. of Beirut: Ali, Georgette…on Bliss Street

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The dichotomy between the “angel in the house’ and the “devil in the flesh” used to symbolize the restrictions facing women in 19^th century literature.