Too many staple holes? Bad driver!

The darak have really taken their new traffic law diligence to heart. Every single non-camouflage wearing darakeh that I've seen since Saturday has either been ticketing someone or at least holding a ticket book, looking for someone to bust.

Paying the fine associated with a traffic ticket in Lebanon has historically been a torturous process. It usually involves spending the better portion of a morning navigating the halls of one of our country's numerous administrative buildings, roaming from office to office for a signature here, a form filled there. At some point a visit to a nearby shop is required to buy a government stamp. The process usually ends with the offender feeling frustrated, disgusted, a little tired and somewhat violated. I can't imagine that paying a civil fine in medieval Europe would have been so arduous.

What is the reason for this? As far as I can tell, it is a combination of bad management and corruption. Bad management in the sense that the procedures required to ensure that everything is recorded properly and that the fine is ultimately paid are convoluted and extremely inefficient. Corruption in the sense that there are more government jobs than are strictly needed (our head administrators, for some reason or other, cannot or will not streamline the number of positions under their jurisdictions) so an inefficient system needs to be put in place to give all these people something to do.

This forces the rest of us to wade through a giant pile of red tape to get even the most basic government-related task done, including but not limited to paying traffic fines, passport issue/renewal, anything and everything to do with customs, anything and everything to do with the military, and the list goes on. These hurdles to getting things done must have an impact on the productivity of the country as a whole. In the case of traffic violations, however, they are a blessing in disguise.

I, for one, am not as annoyed at having to part with the L.L.50,000 fine required for a speeding ticket as I am at having to go through the ordeal required to make that payment and get my driver's license back. In the 'civilized' world, a traffic ticket can be paid in under a minute, usually at a drive-thru or online. Contact is only required with at most one government employee (the person sitting behind the window at the drive-thru), and the job is done. But in those countries, they have demerit points that get applied to your driving record that can affect your driving privileges and even your insurance premiums. Our equivalent to this second deterrent (the first being the actual fine) is the aforementioned ordeal.

One funny thing I've noticed: To keep their stacks of issued tickets and confiscated driver's licenses organized, the darak staple their copy of each offender's ticket to that offender's license. Once the offender gets his license back, it has a staple in it, which he/she has to remove. This is an ingenious replacement to the demerit system. All one has to do is count the staple holes in a driver's license to guage that driver's record.

I, being in many ways a typical Lebanese, never wear a seat belt. On Saturday, I got a ticket. So now I grudgingly strap in every time I'm in the car. There are far too many serious traffic accidents in the country, so although I am annoyed at having to wear my seat belt, I also feel that enforcing these laws are necessary, especially since most drivers here wouldn't pass a standard driving test in another country. One of these days my head will explode from an excess of cognitive dissonance.

Of course the current ticketing craze will pass, as does every other fad in the country, social or administrative. We are, after all, in Lebanon.

The ramblings of a crazy towelhead

“Why do they hate us?” they asked.

“Because you are free,” they were told.

Unfortunately, for many Americans, that answer was good enough to satisfy their curiosity on the subject. It was enough to convince them to allow their leaders to go on a rampage in central and West Asia, killing thousands of their own children in the process, not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the region. It was enough, ironically, to convince them to give up some of those freedoms in the interest of security.

After seven years of utter disaster in foreign policy the leaders can claim, despite all the crime, death, misery, and destruction they caused around the world, despite having polarized the entire planet, despite all the new hatred that they created, that they have kept the United States and her citizens safe from any further attacks. They can claim, with as much or as little honesty as they please, that under their leadership 5 or 10 or 1,000 attacks were thwarted, all thanks to their security measures and their foresight and their amber, magenta, and turquoise alerts.

“Who’s gonna know?” they may say to themselves. “We done good!” they say to everyone else.

Three years after it all started, the regime was re-elected. Apparently, the masses (or just over half of them) still hadn’t awakened from their terror-induced stupor. Two years after that, it seemed that enough of them had opened their eyes to make some changes in the mid-term elections. And now, seven years after that fateful day (fateful for all 6.5 billion of us), we still see the hateful, lying, murderous snake called fear rear its head and strike into the hearts of the American public. Its latest incarnation: a mass-produced, widely distributed, fear- and hatred-inspiring DVD that was delivered to newspaper readers all over the country, primarily in presidential election swing states.

Fear and hatred go hand in hand. And no Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il or Nasrallah can compete with the fear-inspiring hatred spewed forth by the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. For a real taste of good old fashioned down-home Confederate-style right-wing hatred, you need look no further than one of their daily radio shows. After listening to a snippet or two, you could be forgiven for thinking that these men, with their racist, narrow-minded, hate-filled, and sometimes downright evil message, cannot possibly have a substantial following in educated, liberal, freedom-loving America. But you’d be wrong. Their shows are syndicated across the country, from Maine to California, Washington to Florida, and Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They have huge fan bases (Limbaugh has over 20 million listeners daily!), to which they preach hatred and fear on a daily basis. We know the fans listen, because the advertising dollars keep coming and their contracts are extended with larger and larger sums of money. These are just two of the big ones. There are countless others on radio and TV, in churches and synagogues, in print and on the Internet.

As the 2008 presidential election approaches, I, along with the rest of the world, wait with baited breath to see who will be the victor. It is sad that all of us non-Americans care so much about who their president will be. It is sad that we, all of humankind, will be profoundly affected by the outcome of this election, and yet we are powerless to influence it.

If Obama wins, they will say that the terrorists have won. That term is so overused, so mishandled, so abused.

The League of Nations, in 1937, defined terrorism as:

All criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public.

In keeping with the trend of using the word in any and all possible situations to further one's agenda, if McCain wins, I will say that the terrorists have won. To avoid ambiguity and be as clear as possible, I do not mean that I think the American people are terrorists. The terrorists I'm referring to are those within the American socio-political sphere that, to use the definition above, commit "acts directed against a State [the United States]...intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public [the American people]." You may have noticed that I left the word 'criminal' out. These acts, by virtue of their own definition, are criminal.

(Side note: Maybe I give Obama too much credit. He may end up being a big flop. But I hope he wins and I hope he puts his words into action. A big flop is preferable to 4 or 8 more years of insanity any day of the week. If McCain wins, I foresee a war with Iran that will have disastrous global repercussions.)

What the American public needs to ask itself is: Do we prefer that the terrorists (real or imagined) conduct their business (real or imagined) in a far-off mystical land called Asia, or do we prefer that they conduct their business right here at home in the halls and offices of our executive, legislative, and judicial buildings?

Terrorism on its own is not an end. It is a means to an end. Americans have for years been force-fed the end (real or imagined) that the terrorists (real or imagined) are striving towards. But what 'end' are their local terrorists striving towards? The answer to that, I think, is far more terrifying, both for America and the world at large.

Falesfeh (faylasoofs) unite!

It seems that the creator of this blog was unaware that this blog existed when he created this blog. It is quite coincidental, however, that this blog's title and description are quite similar to those of this blog. And, this blog and this blog were created within a month or two of each other. What are the chances?

Confused yet?

I think the falesfeh at blogspot and the falesfeh at wordpress should join forces and rule the world! The stars are aligned, and it appears that this is our destiny.

Falesfeh (faylasoofs) unite! The rest of humankind: Beware!

I will begin work on our manifesto tonight.

There's no gnus like good gnus...

Disputes abound behind closed doors as our new council of ministers argues over everything from electricity rationing to the Higher Relief Council's choices of roads that require paving in Jbeil.

Is this really news? What is the definition of 'news' anyway? According to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

News\, n [From New; cf. F. nounelles. News ?s plural in form, but is commonly used with a singular verb.]

1. A report of recent occurences; information of something that has lately taken place, or of something before unknown; fresh tindings; recent intelligence.

2. Something strange or newly happened.

3. A bearer of news; a courier; a newspaper. [Obs.]

- dictionary.com

The word derives from NEW, meaning NOT OLD, and as it pertains to local, regional, or global happenings that are reported, the term cannot (or at least should not) be used to refer to information that is already known or expected.

For an example of a story that is newsworthy, see:

Tests find chemical also in liquid milk in China

This is definitely news. I did not expect that the chemical would also be found in liquid milk when I heard the original story a few days ago about the chemical being found in powdered milk (which, incidentally, was also news). Did you?

It can be argued that NOTHING that occurs in the Lebanese political sphere is news. Here's a summary of all the strictly political news that has occurred in the past 3 and a half years:

-Foreign powers meddle in our internal politics

-Politicians are unwilling or unable to agree

-Public figures get assassinated
-Short bursts of violence occur from time to time

That about sums it up.

I, for one, am bored of the 'news' being spewed forth from our media outlets. Maybe we need another war with Israel to spice things up. Or, if you can possibly imagine, something really unexpected like a move towards an end to sectarianism, corruption, and lawlessness and a new era of patriotism, reconciliation, advancement, peace...

I'd buy tickets to see that.

The trouble with sheep

There are so many things wrong on so many levels with what happened in the Koura and the aftermath that I get nauseated just thinking about it.

At a time when the various leaders and political factions are (seemingly) trying to iron out their differences, an incident like this clearly shows that it's all an act. All it has done is confirm (once again) that crazy homicidal shepherds are leading crazy homicidal sheep, none of whom care one whit about their country.

Imagine a New York City or Chicago that has been overrun by organized crime to the point where the crime bosses become leaders in the local government and somehow manage to gain independence from the rest of the state and the US as a whole. Now imagine that those crime bosses manage to hire a genius physicist and mechanical engineer who devises a machine that can move the city halfway across the world to the eastern end of the Mediterranean…

Wait. I’m getting carried away. (Note to self: new idea for a sci-fi/mafia novel)

Will the government conduct a proper investigation? Not a chance.

Imitation is...

the sincerest form of flattery?