“Kabul is the new Beirut”

Well, its not really a “Looks Like Beirut” as characterized by destruction but rather the literal meaning of “looks like Beirut” in an article from The Guardian titled Getting drunk in Kabul bars? Pass the sick bag:

“Kabul is the new Beirut.” This frivolous drivel fell from the mouth of a journalist in Afghanistan. She was effervescent with excitement about the prospect of Kabul’s expatriate bars being even more hip than those in Beirut. Beirut – where they dance to the beat of the bombs, where alcohol flows freely and women are freer still. Yay! Kabul has finally left the dark ages and now offers expat bars for journalists and diplomats alike, where alcohol serves as the lubricant for self-congratulatory war stories and chest-beating.

The rest of the article by Seema Jilani is an extended rant of how Western culture is overtaking Afghanistan’s lifestyle.

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Kardashian’s DASH Store Plagiarized in Beirut

What first began as a twitpic from CHRBL of a billboard in Dora has made its way to Kim Kardashian, founder of DASH shops in the US:

Starcasm.net: PHOTO Are the Kardashians opening a DASH store in Beirut?

This photo taken in the Beirut suburb of Dora, Lebanon was originally tweeted by @CHRBL and eventually found its way to Kim Kardashian via @Zoozel with the following question: “@KimKardashian me and my friends need to settle this. Do you have a DASH branch in Beirut or not?”

And Kim responded through her blog:

One of my Twitter followers, Zoozel, sent me this pic asking whether there is a DASH store in Beirut. No, there is no DASH boutique in Beirut!
It looks like someone has just used the same font we use for the boutique to advertise their company. We have no idea what this is, lol.

A complete FAIL to Naji Saleh & Sons.

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Beirut – The On-Stage Performance

Beirut, the play, will be hitting the performance halls of California with an apocalyptic story of sex, nudity and STDs:

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and no one feels fine. Instead, the people who have contracted—or merely tested positive—for an AIDS-like plague are quarantined in a prison camp set up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, while those who have tested negative are watched relentlessly by “sex cams” to make sure that they don’t engage in any “risky” behavior. That means sex, and by extension, love.

So where does Beirut fit into this? Well other than the title of the performance, Manhattan’s Lower East Side where the infected people are piled into is called Beirut. So not only is our city considered a battlefield the world over, we now need to take on the director, Bill Voorhees’, view of Beirut as what, a sex-crazed, STD infested dump? Or was Beirut chosen as an appropriate name as, to the director, it signifies hopelessness, despair and destruction? I’m only speculating. However, as Kel Munger, the drama critic put it:

The real plague in Beirut is dishonesty, fear and silence.

I’m thinking “Looks Like Beirut certificates” all around – though I might need to change the text slightly to match the circumstance.

Scene from Beirut: Torch has tested positive and is confined to a graffiti-strewn room in the quarantine area called “Beirut.” He longs for Blue, the not-quite lover he left on the outside, who remains negative.

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Spinneys CEO Saves Beirut Store from Watery Grave

There is no time frame mentioned for this anecdote but Spinneys Group CEO, Michael Wright,  brought it up in an interview with Arabian Business:

It’s three o’clock in the morning, and a freak rainstorm is in danger of washing a Beirut supermarket — and its contents — down the street and into the Mediterranean. Flood water is overwhelming the pumps, and in a matter of minutes the basement level of the store will be more akin to a reservoir than a retail outlet. Panicked staff and watchmen agree on one thing: it’s time to call the boss.

“I got a call and rushed down; it was chaos,” recalls Michael Wright, smiling at the memory. “The whole store was in danger of floating down the street if we didn’t get another pump working. I took a jackhammer, and smashed straight though the floor in the middle of the store, to make a hole so we could put an extra pump in. I guess you could call it micromanaging, but then who else but the boss would be prepared to jackhammer through the middle of a $12m shop?”

Who knew? Thankfully, that has not discouraged Spinneys from further investments in the country:

…further down the line, the retailer is examining the feasibility of offering online shopping in Lebanon.

“So many have tried around the world, and so many have failed,” Wright cautions. “You have to be very specific and you can only manage it in small communities where it can be really worthwhile.

“We believe we can do it when we have a few more stores in certain areas — Beirut, for example – but it’s probably two years down the road,” he continues. “It will be very localised, and taken store by store.”

But of course, there is the well-known and publicized problem in Lebanon:

According to Wright the relatively slow speed of the internet in Lebanon, coupled with the fact that “trying to find a house in the first place can be a nightmare in this part of the world”, means online shopping will never form a significant component of the Spinneys Group business model.

Nice to see a CEO that is willing to get his hands dirty with a little DIY work, though.

Arabian Business: The market forces behind Spinneys Group

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Maghen Abraham Synagogue to Open in 2011

Work on Beirut’s only synagogue will finish this October and it will officially open its doors to the public in 2011 according to Isaac Arazi, the head of the Lebanon’s Jewish community:

The synagogue’s restoration has so far cost $700,000 and the final bill is expected to reach $1.2 million, Arazi said. Most of the financing has come from Lebanese Jews outside the country, while Christians and Muslims have also contributed.

[...]

When it opens again early next year, the synagogue will have seating for 600 men and 300 women. Religious artifacts such as the Torah and other books and items required for services will be brought from Turkey and Syria, and the synagogue will seek to appoint a rabbi familiar with Middle Eastern and North African Sephardic Jewish rituals from the region, possibly from Yemen, Egypt or Turkey, Arazi said.

With the synagogue almost complete, work can begin on other areas:

The community has also begun to repair the Jewish cemetery in Beirut, where about 4,500 Jews are buried, at a cost of about $200,000, and there are also plans to restore defunct synagogues elsewhere in the country, including one in Bhamdoun, a town 23 kilometers (14 miles) from the capital.

View from the side of the Maghen Abraham Synagogue | August 2004

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