Do Us a Favor and Keep Them There

Can you imagine three teenagers charged with 200 sexual assault offenses in a span of two months? Wondering why am I bring this issue up?

You guessed it, there’s a Lebanese connection:

Eric Mumbler, 19, and his workmates at a demolition business, Nabil Merhi, 18, and Ahmed Yehia, 19 [...are...] charged with raping and threatening to kill two men [and] are at risk of fleeing to Lebanon.

Senior Constable Chris Walsh of the sexual crimes squad told the court Merhi and Yehia had family connections in Lebanon and had travelled there following the alleged offences. Mumbler, who is not of Lebanese descent, had a girlfriend in Lebanon, and intended to move there to live.

Charged with raping men after having a girlfriend? Well we can safely assume things didn’t go well in the relationship department. It might have screwed with his head so much that he voluntarily wants to move to Lebanon! Why would you want to do something like that! I ask the Australian courts to keep the three confined Down Under and if found guilty, please DO DEPORT THEM TO LEBANON.  Clearly they cannot comprehend their actions.

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Dearborn is Beirut

This time I’ll be handing myself a "Looks Like Beirut" Certificate:

Sabastian Restum, 40, appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit today charged with witness tampering. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mona Majzoub ordered Restum jailed until a detention hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Details about a "hit" Restum allegedly put out on Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Abed Hammoud are contained in an FBI affidavit that backs up the witness tampering complaint.

I know Dearborn was the Arab capital of the US but I had no idea how integrated they were into society; you’ve got a judge, a prosecutor and the alleged criminal. And not only that, the article also has the Lebanese village spirit intertwined:

"The ‘hit’ was to be executed when Hammoud next traveled to Lebanon, where he was born and where some of his family resides," the affidavit says. Restum told the man that he and Hammoud were from the same village in Lebanon, and "Hammoud would be killed even if he had only a day left to live."

You’re never far away from home, I guess.

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Loco for Lebanon

Just something I happen to stumble upon. No comment!

The Question:

Dear Mexican: First of all, please don’t think that I’m a self-loathing Mexican; I was born in the U.S. to northern Mexican parents. As far as I know, my ancestry is just Indian, Spanish and a little French. For some strange reason, I have developed an intense fascination, and you might say, love, for Arab culture, language, cuisine, etc., especially Lebanese, Syrian, Jordanian, Palestinian and Iraqi, and I don’t even have a drop of Arab blood in me. I hope to visit Lebanon someday, and Palestine (notice I said “Palestine” and not Israel), Syria, Jordan and Iraq. I love the dabka, kibbe, kaffiyehs, qahwa, falafel, hummos bi tahini, baqlawa, Lebanese singer Fairuz, the ruins at Baalbek, the city of Beirut, and hell, too many other things too numerous to mention. Do you think I could be of Lebanese ancestry and not know it? I mean, there ARE descendants of Lebanese immigrants in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. Would a D.N.A. test tell me what my ancestry is, and could it turn up libaneses in my family tree? Let me know.
Wannabe Arab, a.k.a. El Libanés

The Response:

Dear Wab: You’re not one of those idiot Chicanos who ridiculously, insultingly compares the plight of Mexicans in the United States to that of the Palestinians in their homeland, are you? I can’t tell for certain if you have Middle Eastern genes without a D.N.A. sample, and I’m not interested in obtaining one from tu unless you’re a chica with bouncy double-Ds. But your chances that the sangre of the Levant courses through you veins is more likely than gabachos may think. As you noted, Lebanese did migrate to Mexico throughout the twentieh century and contributed to the patria in ways both positive (tacos al pastor, Salma Hayek) and negative (billionaire Carlos Slim Helu), having the biggest presence in Mexico City and the states of Puebla, Veracruz and the Yucatan. I recommend you buy Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp’s excellent 2007 study, So Far from Allah, So Close to Mexico: Middle Eastern Immigrants in Modern Mexico, in which she examined thousands of genealogical records of Lebanese and Syrians who moved to Mexico. Also, don’t forget that most Mexican uncles have enough Moorish blood in them to pass as Saddam Hussein in a pinch.

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Family Swap

Imaging growing up in a Lebanese family of 13 children when you were supposed to grow up with a Scottish family of five. That’s what happened to poor Frederick George:

Frederick George of Pembroke was raised as a Roman Catholic in a Lebanese family of 13 children in New Zealand. He should have been raised in a Scottish Presbyterian family of five. “I was accidentally placed in the wrong bassinet at the hospital the night I was born and did not discover this until I was 57 years old,” says George.

The poor guy had to live on labneh and zaatar for his entire life. And let’s not forget the loving Lebanese father:

Growing up, George said, his father often said he did not believe Fred George was his.

Maybe John McCain’s right, we Arabs don’t come from good families.

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