My Neighbor Has It, So I Need It

I’m sure you are all familar with Lebanese enviness, my neighbor buys a new car and therefore I must have a newer car, well let’s take that a step forward:

A Lebanese-American living in Marlboro, Tony Jouki has run the LukOil service station at Tatnuck Square for two years. He bought the business from a Lebanese friend.
He estimated that 90 percent of service stations are run by Middle Easterners. He can’t pinpoint how it started, [...] Middle Easterners at some point saw a successful gas and service station being operated by a peer.
“In my country, one guy started making furniture,” Mr. Jouki said. “Then, everyone copied him and you had all these people making furniture.
“They say, ‘Hey, he’s doing well. I can do what he’s doing.’ "

Not really entrepreneurship, more like laziness. Hello, ingenuity and originality, I really do not need you. I’ll just copy my neighbor Elie, Mohammed and Ali.

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“Kinda of Like Bombed Out Beirut”

Ladies and gentlemen, another winner of my “Looks Like Beirut” award. This time, our winner is from the US state of Washington in the town of Ellensburg.

After almost eight years in downtown Ellensburg one of the city’s most popular restaurants, Pearl’s on Pearl, is getting gobbled up by the recession.

The recession has hit the town hard apparently and the restaurant is expected to shut down in the coming weeks. Gary Cox, a customer, described the situation beautifully:

“It’s gonna leave a big black hole this block has kinda been bombed out Beirut and this has been the mainstay.”

So Gary Cox, I bestow on you the “Looks Like Beirut” award. Enjoy your last meal.

Beirut City

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• Looks Like Downtown Beirut
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Looks Like Downtown Beirut

I come across this American phrase quite often. Usually after a catastrophe, officials always seem to compare their local destruction to downtown Beirut. So today, the award goes to Wayne County Sheriff Warren Evans who is currently running for the post of Mayor of Detroit. His campaign focus has been on policing and public safety.

When asked what his [Warren Evans] plans were for the city’s large blighted neighborhoods, Evans said he didn’t see blight as something the city was in a position to correct anytime soon. He said he would focus on demolishing abandoned houses in neighborhoods experiencing less decay.

And now for the award winning statement:

…I will try to work on the neighborhoods that are stable… he said. …And the one’s that aren’t, frankly I won’t spend a lot of money tearing down those houses. If that’s going to be Beirut, let it be Beirut, but don’t let Beirut grow…

And as part of your award, here is what you downtown Beirut looks like:

Downtown Beirut

Enjoy!

Check out these great posts:

• Its Not Beirut, There are Good People Here
• “Kinda of Like Bombed Out Beirut”
• Moving Out of “Beirut”