But He Called Me Stupid

You’d think after you’ve crossed the threshold of age 8, you shouldn’t experience such childish behavior:

 A Lebanese man recounted in court on Tuesday how his ex-boss libelled him on Facebook and claimed he incurred “enormous damages” on what he described as the UAE’s primary e-social networking tool…”The suspect, who posted the comments, called me bad names such as thief and stupid,” the Lebanese claimant, A.R., told Presiding Judge Ebrahim Khalil Abu Shamma yesterday.

You think that’s bad, here’s what his Syrian ex-boss had to say:

“Your Honour, please let me explain what happened. I had a partnership with his brother in a restaurant … later I discovered that he was stealing the money from the cashier. He also used to inform customers that the restaurant had been sold and that I had nothing to do with the restaurant anymore. His behaviour provoked me and that’s why I posted the comments on Facebook.”

If you have kids, you’re all probably familiar with the “He Called Me Stipud…Well, He Started It” song and dance. I guess you never really grow out of it.

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EDL All Charged Up

It appears that Electricite du Liban (EDL) will finally take action against customers that fail to pay their bills:

EDL has a launched a web site which lists the names and addresses of all those who have failed to pay their dues to the company. The area covers Beirut, Sheyah and Antelias regions. According to a statement recently released by the company, EDL will be compelled to cut off power as of next month on all those who failed to pay their bills on time.

Oh, and EDL will also be filing lawsuits against the parties involved. Will that change anything? Probably not. Plus, the large amounts of defaulters will ensure that the Lebanese judicial system will grind to a halt. But my favorite thing of all has to be EDL’s “website“.

If you haven’t seen it, you must take a look at it. It seems to have been designed by a first-year web design student. Its horrible and you really can’t get any useful information from it. Even their “name and shame” list is impossible to get to; requiring such specific knowledge of someone’s electricity bill that it really questions the whole point of posting the information online. I mean, if I am not paying my bills, I will probably know that and wouldn’t need a website to confirm my status.

The EDL Website: Hopeless, Just Like the Company (www.edl.gov.lb)

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14 Days and No Star

Lebanon’s only English-language newspaper, The Daily Star, is still MIA. But, at last there has been official reaction from the management there:

“How does the decrepit Lebanese justice system suddenly act less than two hours after a court ruling to shut our doors and seize everything?” he said. “We could have resolved this without this surge by the courts.”

Mr Mroueh said an order from the judge on his appeal is expected by Thursday and that will give him an idea of how the problem can be resolved.

“Until I know the story from the judge, we will keep all avenues open: selling, new investors or even a shut down. We will explore all avenues but we need the judge to rule.”

I must agree – what is our judicial system on to have reacted so quickly! Court cases in Lebanon, on average, take years to clear and even then, decisions taken are slow to implement.

Does anyone else smell an acrid taste of political corruption? Mroueh seems to be downplaying the issue (probably trying to tick people off for the time being).

The fast action by the normally languid Lebanese legal system was initially seen as a political vendetta against the paper but Mr Mroueh said he did not think that was the case.

“We will not engage in what we would describe at the paper as corrupt behaviour, so we will just have to wait and see,” Mr Mroueh said.

I really do hope The Daily Star finds a way out of this mess and my thoughts go out to all their employees who will not receiving a paycheck at the end of the month.

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