Einmal ist Keinmal

As someone involved in LGBTQ activism in a homophobic environment such as the Middle East, the issue of "International intervention" is always... well, an issue.

It is not that we don't cooperate with International organizations, or that we don't want to cooperate with others. Now some activists on controversial topics are often afraid to shake hands with internationals. It's always safer not to, just pretend that you don't know them.

And really it is the safest thing to do. After all, International LGBT organizations will not take a bullet for you. They will just wait for you to die and then lament your death or wave their american fingers in the face of your government. And then your beloved government will go giggle with your murderers (if it didn't kill you in the first place). And no, I am not exaggerating.

I always was the devil's advocate and thus, in my Lebanese LGBT community I was the one that would defend the "international aid efforts" after all we do need to cooperate with them so why not give them credit for it?

Until one day, I was cornered. I was indirectly involved with a case of un-official assylum. Lebanon does not provide political assylum to anyone (it usually usually exports war criminals to enjoy a nice asylum life in Europe). But an Arab LGBT activist was threatened with death among other things. So we, as individuals helped her leave her home to come to Lebanon and then to go somewhere else.

Of course she asked for help from "International organizations", be it organizations that specialize in LGBT rights, emergency cases, or both. They didn't move a finger. Not only did they not attempt to garantee an asylum case to some place where thugs didn't run after her to kill her. They also "ignored" our calls for financial aid to help her leave the country and get settled anywhere else.

Nothing I tell you!

That is what I know of "international help". It's more like "please die so we feast on your corpse" kind of thing. This woman's story will be forgotten, she doesn't want to be remembered though she was a pioneer in her own country and region. She will be forgotten, because she did not give "internationals" the media attention that they wanted. She preffered to save her own life instead.

A similar thing happened with the case of gays in Iraq. Reporters have been covering "heart breaking" stories about the poor effeminate iraqis that are just waiting to get kiled by virtually anyone on the streets of Iraq. And then what? Yes, of course the Human Rights Watch sent a commission their and published a report. Thank you very much, we will glue that to their corpses, right next the famous hate messages that the murderers carved on their skin.

Which brings me to the latest invention, of IGLHR's outrage that was expressed over the transphobic attacks on LGBT individuals in Honduras. Oh wow, thanks, I bet that was so painful to write, and oh so dangerous! I salute your courage, looking for people struggling for their existence in order to write reports about them that not many people read and don't inspire the few who read them to move a finger.

Wait there's more. IGLHRC even allowed themselves to preach about democracy. Of course they know who has been elected fairly and who wasn't. Ah, the label of democracy, it can justify anything. Of course, IGLHRC knows what's best, they live in a democratic world after all. We the LGBTs of third world countries wouldn't know shit about it. Even if we invented "democracy" as it is applied today a few thousand years ago, but still we are not as democratic as people writing their outrage in NYC.

Thank you very much, when we published Bareed Mistajil, you were on our minds, when we ran from one hospital to another to get treatment for those who tried to kill themselves, you were on our minds, when we organize parties to pay for someone's ticket, we'll be thinking of you, when our mothers cry their eyeballs out when we make our glorious coming outs, we'll be thinking of you. Really you make our miserable lives worth living :)

Well, as you may have noticed, I changed the Theme of my Blog. Of course this is not the first time I change a theme. I have been blogging on blogger for four years now. I started off with the good old fashion simple black minima template, almost a year later I started planning for the first major template change.


I didn't have any experience whatsoever in programming (I was a Biology student for god's sake!), so I did the only thing I was good at, run after my adorable brother for help, and he did everything humanly possible to help me. But it's not easy to work with the fake ADD, autist wannabe, that I am. I had a very clear idea of what I wanted, but I couldn't communicate it.

Another problem was that I got infested with the Meem virus.

But then somehow in my personal history I became this blogging expert in my own community. And I was setting up blogs and giving trainings on the subject. Kind of ironic, isn't it? I started off by managing the old Meem blog which was on wordpress. Then this year I moved it to Blogger (MeemBlog) then I started the Feminist Colective Blog. And shortly after I started working at the Social Media Exchange. Wow how did the biologist turn into a Blogist?

I don't know, I don't care. I love it. I love working at SMEX and I loved the blogs I managed. One the most challenging tasks when it comes to webdesign for dummies that I excel in was to the MeemBlog. I used a ready made theme and adapted it. The challenge is to get a neat, nice template that would remain very customizable. It was more challenging that I thought it would be (eh, I know, that's what all unprofessionals say).

On the other hand, changing the template for this blog was ultra-easy, thanks to the previous ordeal. One thing you should always remember, if you want to design websites then you should get into the designers' skin. If you didn't study wedesign at university, that is not an excuse to wait until you need a theme to look for one. Get a social bookmarking account (be it Delicious, Diigo or whatever other tool you prefer) and stay tuned to the latest resources. Yes you will spend hours looking for details that you are not going to use very often. But then when you do need that dream theme, you will just have to look through your bookmarked links.

Now that this step is over (I've been fantisizing about changing the theme for months now) I have so many other things I need to cater for.

Yalla, wish me luck

I always thought ultra religious were freaky, even when I was a religious person. Back then, I felt I was freaky too. Anyway, let's not go there, just check out this series of photos taken by Activetills of a bunch of (freaky) ultra-orthodox Jews protesting the opening of a parking lot in Jerusalem.

It's insane how all religious bigots are the same. In fact, religious bigots are just like any other breed if intolerant, insecure, phallocentric individuals. They are childish (that is why they always like to brainwash their kids and take them to protests), they love to throw rocks and make weird grimace in front of photographers, they make a point out of dressing in a very very very specific way that resists change as decades pass by and they never have a tan (well if their skin is tannable of course) and they are almost always men (sometimes they remember the amazing advantage of having vaginas with them but they always make sure to discipline those things first).

And oh! I forgot something, they are always right! I mean look at these people they are protesting the opening of a parking lot on a shabat...

Euh, isn't protesting on a shabat wrong?
   No, it is not, because they protested on a saturday and they are always right.
Euh, aren't they imposing their own beliefs on others?
   No, it is their will and therefore it is righteous, now stop arguing and demonstrate.

It's amusing to see it happen in another country of course, but I think of some example closer to home and I am suddenly scared, you know what i mean?

The rules are simple, you know the 10 commandments that God gave to Moses? You know, like a "Believing for Dummies" Kinda guide...

So if you were God (after all you are the god of your twitter) what 11th commandment would you add? It can be lame like this one:

TheAvenged RT @RubyGold: thou shalt not tweet everything #11thcommandment

Or funny, like this one:

scarletlips #11thcommandment ~ thou shall never nude run to get a towel when the balcony door's wide open.

It can be relevant to the first 10 commandments:

JeanineHowton RT @joewhite89 #11thCommandment : Thou shalt ignore the first ten.

Or totally irrelevant:

#11thcommandment Thou shalt never use swiss cheese to make nachos.

Let's play :D

From Einmal ist Keinmal

Ah the stupid things you can do with Vista!
Even though I keep the largest taskbar in my own circle of acquaintances, I can't think of any use of a taskbar that huge, two or three rows are more than enough. If you need more, then you certainly have a problem :D

Wordle is not a very recent invention, but it's the first time I ever try it.

Quoting the authors:

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

It's very fun, you just enter a certain text, a webpage that provides a feed, or even a delicious account and it will visualize the most recurrent words. So I wanted to test it, and testing it I did. I used all the blogs/websites/delicious accounts that I know about, then I was like: Wait a minute! Let's see some webpage that has been around for a while and see what are the word that is most used.

And naturally, I used SandMonkey's website and here's the result:


So SandMonkey talks alot about "people". Cute, non?

SO yes the world of twitter is unusual, that's what I always say. Today was no exceptions with two interesting twitter encounters.
Through Fulla's twitter, I come across Amin Gemayel's twitter.
If you don't know Fulla, she's the veiled barbie, yes not the most honoring of objects, but a bunch of Lebanese (and Lebanese residents) reclaimed this toy by launching a campaign to make full our next president (or MP or whatever).
If you don't know Amine Gemayel then you've probably never heard Lebanese politics. He is an ex-president and an extreme right-wing adept.
Anyway, point is that I wanted to check this Gemayel twitter. And the post by the Syria News Wire titled: Exclusive interview with Amin Gemayel. It is very amusing, but then on closer inspection, you would notice that Syria News wants to taunt readers and tease them: Is it Amine? Or is it not Amine? That is the question.
It is true, as Syria wire pointed out, the twitterer did not give any incriminating evidence by the way s/he spoke.
But let's be serious. I find it close to impossible for this twitter user to be Amine Gemayel. Not because I don't take twitter seriously I make my living out of social media. And not because politicians never use twitter... Obama?
But here are my clues:

1. Notice the profile picture, even I can get my hands on a picture with a better resolution.
   


2. Notice the background, the pixelated background is painful. All political parties, including the Kataeb which is headed by Gemayel, are putting outrageous amounts of money in the campaigns.
   


3. And finally for the least reliable arguments but that I find most compelling. The language. Amine Gemayel is a hardcore French-educated, bourgeois. He can speak professional English, but would not use English on a regular, day-to-day basis. The twitterer on the other hands is a chatter English person...
   

So I don't see how can this twitterer be Gemayel himself. Unless Syria News knows this but is just messing with readers' heads. Though reading this article was a great pleasure I couldn't help but to feel disgusted by the reference to Gemayel being gay... I would be very happy to know Gemayel is gay but this use of the term "gay" as synonymous to insult (mainly in the first comment made) is just sad.

One of the things that bother me the most when I am reading about paleoanthropolgy is the fact that there aren't many human remains that were found in the Middle-East (ME). It is not that ancient humans did not live in the ME, this area was, and remains, one of the most prosperous in the world. But it is just that we don't value our heritage enough.
Two Neandertalensis remains have been found in Israel for example, that's like one third of all the remains that were found throughout the region! I am sure that Israel was not more populated ten thousand years ago than Lebanon or Syria were.
One thing I remember from my childhood is a story about some human remains that were dated at approximately 10 000 years. They were said to be found in a cave in the region of Jbeil.
According to my dad, when the remains were found the entrepreneur realized that the Ministry of Tourism would force him to halt the work. So he ordered the whole cave to be destroyed during the night. When the Ministry's inspector arrived the next morning, they found nothing to examine. The remains were forgotten and that was that.
How true this story is, I can never know. It has been so long since it happened and no body cared enough to document it. But I wouldn't be surprised, it sounds very plausible.
Another example, that is far more tangible and documented is DownTown Beirut. Yes tourists are very pleased, especially those coming from other Middle Eastern countries, the nightlife is great and everything. But at closer inspection you'll notice that DownTown Beirut is built around the old remains.
Get even closer and you will see something like this:
Roman ruins downtown Beirut by Rinatuch

Yes, there are TREES growing amidst the Romain ruins, this picture doesn't exactly show it but there is also a disgusting amount of touristic garbage everywhere.
People here tend to see ancient ruins like great dumping spaces. Seeing this makes me understand a bit more why we still haven't found any stone age human forms in Lebanon for example. We just don't appreciate their value!

Today was quite an exceptional day for me on different levels. But then again the highest peek of my day is always when I leave the office and work from somewhere else. Not only do I become more efficient and productive but I also find the weirdest shit.
The most interesting "weird shit" that I found today was not that weird, it's just this video shot at 1000 frames per second, which means that it captures more frames than what the human eye would when you are watching something (it's actually more than the frames you would need). It's kinda cool, it looks so out of time and out of gravity.

I-Movix SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

Things I like about my new job:
1- it pays my bills
2- it involves working on ICT which means that I get to research all of these awesome tools such as ScribeFire and twitter and google earth...
3- my colleagues are nice and the office is quite

Things I don't like about my job:
1- I want to finish the goddamn packet and I have something like a writing block or something
2- I look-up at my boss too much, I can't hate her!

And in case you have no idea what my "new job" is all about: www.socialmediaexchange.org <- this is it

If this works out I will be removing this entry and replacing it with another one that actually talks about ScribeFire ;)