Category Archives: Blog

After the murders of a number of young women and men by suicide bombers over the past few weeks in Lebanon, it was just a matter of time before an app was created to make family and friends aware of one’s status in the wake of an attack.

This week, a new app, “I am Alive” (which tweets “I am still alive!” with the hashtags #Lebanon and #LatestBombing) was launched by Sandra Hassan, a 26-year-old Lebanese graduate student in Paris.

From the recent “Not a Martyr” Campaign to this new app, young people from Lebanon are pushing to have their voices heard. What else will they have to say?

We are victims, not martyrs. We refuse to become martyrs. We refuse to remain victims.
We refuse to die a collateral death.
We are angry, sad, and frustrated with the current situation in our country. But we are not hopeless.
And we have dreams for our country.
We know we are not alone.

— “Not a Martyr” Campaign

When I passed by this bench yesterday on the Corniche, it reminded me of all the good work being done by the Brave Heart Fund in Beirut. The Brave Heart Fund, a charitable, fundraising initiative established at the Children’s Heart Center at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), helps cover the cost of surgeries and hospitalization for any needy children suffering from Congenital Heart Disease (CHD). The Fund’s mission is that “no child should die of heart disease because of a lack of funds.” The Brave Heart Fund is staffed by volunteers whose lives have been personally touched by CHD. From fundraising adventures at home and abroad–from Mount Kilimanjaro to the Australian desert–there are many brave hearts in Beirut helping other brave hearts in need…

EMILY: Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?

STAGE MANAGER: No. Saints and poets maybe…they do some.

— Our Town

Last semester, I introduced my Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian students in Beirut to Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Though this classic American play takes place in a fictional New Hampshire town at the turn of the 20th century, my students had no problem relating to its main themes: love, impermanence, compassion, and social (in)justice. There’s a reason why Our Town is performed once every night somewhere in the world.

BELLIGERENT MAN: Is there no one in town aware of social injustice and industrial inequality?

MR. WEBB: Oh yes, everybody is–somethin’ terrible. Seems like they spend most of their time talking about who’s rich and who’s poor.

BELLIGERENT MAN: Then why don’t they do something about it?

— Our Town

Today marks the anniversary of the premiere of Our Town in 1938 at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey. Due to its radical structure and stinging social commentary, the play was revolutionary–especially because it dispensed with scenery and props. In its earliest performances, Our Town was a total flop. Later, however, the play landed a Broadway production and Pulitzer Prize…

Yes, now you know. Now you know! That’s what it was to be alive. To move about in a cloud of ignorance; to go up and down trampling on the feelings of those about you. To spend and waste time as though you had a million years. To be always at the mercy of one self-centered passion, or another. Now you know — that’s the happy existence you wanted to go back to. Ignorance and blindness.”

― Simon Stimson, Our Town

One of the reasons why Our Town has long been one of my favorite plays is because Thornton Wilder, who spent his formative years in Shanghai, borrowed heavily from the techniques, style, and staging of Chinese opera to create this brutal and unflinching drama. Our Town–far from its sentimental stereotype–was created as a radical and experimental hybrid of theatrical styles and philosophies from the “east” and from the “west.”

In the monologue that transitions from the second act to the tear-inducing third act in the cemetery (spoiler alert!), the Stage Manager (played by Paul Newman below) discusses what’s “eternal” in all of us–what people “have been telling us for 5,000 years.”

There must be something strangely sacred about salt.
It is in our tears and in the sea…

— Khalil Gibran

A new documentary short film from Yemen, Karama Has No Walls, has been nominated for an Academy Award. The film, as you can see in the trailer above, contains footage from the 2011 protests in Sana’a. Karama Has No Walls is just one of three Arab films nominated for an Oscar this year. You can watch trailers for the other two nominated films–The Square (streaming on Netflix) and Omar–below…

A new Lebanese film, Stable Unstable, opens this week in Lebanon. The film takes place on New Year’s Day at a psychiatrist’s office in Beirut. To read more about this cinematic (and comedic) portrayal of therapy in Beirut, please click here…

Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.

— Albert Einstein letter to his son Eduard, 1930

Last week, a brave group of cyclists hit the road in Africa to kick off the Tour d’Afrique, a 12,000 kilometer cycling trip from Khartoum, Sudan to Cape Town, South Africa. This adventurous road trip through nine countries is expected to take four months.

One of the biggest challenges of the tour is pedaling through the sandstorms of northern Sudan–near where I excavated a Nubian temple in December. Though the desert of Sudan is one of my favorite places in the world to be, I can’t imagine riding a bike through it. To learn more about this strenuous trek, please click here…

Everyone has the best of feelings towards mankind in general, but not towards the individual man. We’ll kill men, but we want to save mankind. And that isn’t right, your Reverence. The world will be an evil place as long as people don’t believe in other people.

― Karel Čapek, The Absolute at Large

One of my favorite authors to read–in both Czech and English–is Karel Čapek. If you’re interested in science fiction, surrealism, satire, and/or literary critiques of fascism, corporatization, and greed, then you might like to czech out some of his work. And if you’d like to learn how to read him in the original, and happen to live in New York (it also helps if you’re a masochist), then sign up for the introductory Czech class which begins this week at the Czech Center. The teacher is as good as it gets, if you want to learn Czech…

The Rubin Museum in NYC offers Art in Context courses to explore the religious, cultural, and historical dimensions of their Himalayan art collection. Their new course on “Enlightened Iconography” which starts in February looks particularly enticing…

Enlightened Iconography

with Michael Obremski

Wednesdays: February 5-26
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Participants will explore the rich world of Tibetan Buddhist sacred art as an expression of enlightened energy through a lively discussion of paintings, sculpture, and textiles in the Rubin Museum collection. The class will provide opportunities to reflect on the symbolism and ritual function of these sacred artifacts as well as their relevance to contemporary life. No experience necessary. All materials included. Registration is required, as space is limited. Course Fee: $125; 10% off for members.

One year ago this month, the young Internet freedom activist and groundbreaking programmer Aaron Swartz took his own life. Swartz died shortly before he was set to go to trial for downloading millions of academic articles from servers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology based on the belief that the articles should be freely available online. At the time he committed suicide, Swartz was facing 35 years in prison, a penalty supporters called excessively harsh…

— Democracy Now

A new documentary, “The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz,” was screened this week at the Sundance Film Festival. The video above, from a program on Democracy Now, includes excerpts from the film, along with interviews conducted with his lawyer and members of his family…

Barriers Everywhere: Lack of Accessibility for People with Disabilities in Russia

PLACE: Columbia University
1512 International Affairs Building, 420 West 118th Street
DATE: Thursday, January 23, 2014
TIME: 4:00pm – 5:15pm

On Thursday, the Harriman Institute will be hosting this discussion with Andrea Mazzarino on the rights of the disabled in Russia…

Russia ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012 and will host the Winter Paralympics in March 2014. Despite the government’s stated commitment to an accessible environment, people living with disabilities in Russia encounter challenges to participating in their communities. This report highlights obstacles such as the inability of people with physical disabilities to leave their homes due to lack of ramps and elevators, employers’ unwillingness to hire people with disabilities, and inadequate visual and auditory announcements on buses for people with sensory disabilities. Human Rights Watch is urging Russia to make meaningful reforms to transportation, housing, and workplaces, among other facets of society. This presentation reviews our findings on accessibility in Russia and discusses HRW’s ongoing advocacy efforts with Russian policymakers and the International Paralympic Committee. At a time when international human rights NGOs face heightened challenges engaging with Russian policymakers on issues such as the government’s crackdown on civil society, LGBT rights, and discrimination against ethnic minorities, disability rights is an area where sustained and constructive dialogue with Russian policymakers offers hope for meaningful reforms.

The car company KIA is not getting good press these days in Lebanon. Why? Well, the car which was used in today’s suicide bombing in Beirut was identified after the blast as a Kia–as was the car used in the devastating explosion in Hermel on January 16th. Security forces are claiming to have detained the men who stole both of the cars before the cars were booby-trapped with explosives. One of them, Nabil Ahmed al-Moussawi, has confessed to stealing several Kia vehicles–including the one used in today’s deadly blast. With everyone on high alert after today’s bombing, Kia is definitely getting a bad rap from all the negative PR. Even today, while I was running errands in Beirut, I found myself keeping an eye out for any Kia vehicles that looked suspicious. It doesn’t help that Kia’s official slogan is: “The Power to Surprise.”

After buying groceries this afternoon in Beirut in the wake of today’s suicide bombing, I hopped in a taxi with all my grocery bags to get myself and my goodies quickly back home. When we turned a corner and ended up in an endless traffic jam, my taxi driver started to strike up a conversation–only, it was more like a monologue. “We are tired. We are tired. No joke. What can we do? I think it is better to leave Lebanon,” he said. As he continued his lament, and shared with me his dream of moving to America, I looked out the window, and saw the graffiti above…