February 11, 2007

Good skiing

The shia-sunni divide story has been written and sent out; I'll link it when it gets published. Probably Wednesday. Wednesday another big demonstration is planned. I wonder when people will tire of it all. Last Friday I went to the ‘resolve it.solve it’ demo. The plan was to form a human chain all around the Damascus Rd, but they were lucky to gather enough people to make it to Sodeco Square. It’s a nice enough initiative, but quite naïve. All the people that showed up are your upper class leftists. A mixture of English, French and Arabic was spoken. This is not the Lebanon that is going to decide on the issues.
My paper now wants a story on the four ladies in the red cabriolet, you know, the one that won the World Press Photo. If anyone can enlighten me there, please do so. I read on one blog that (s)he knew the lady in white, it was a maronite lady living in Dahiye. I’ll believe that story when I see her ID card. (Do they still mention religion on the ID? I didn’t think so.)

Skiing was sensationally good today. Excellent snow, gorgeous weather, very few people on the slope, no line ups at the lifts. It doesn't get that good that often. For a Sunday, it was downright quiet. How come people aren’t skiing anymore?
Yesterday I went to Sodeco, to get a book. But the bookstore was gone, and so were many other stores at the Sodeco Square. That shopping center is obviously not working very well these days. I crossed over to Monot, and noticed many empty store fronts where there had been shops before. Business is not going so well these days. Everybody is downsizing, or closing up. Downtown hasn’t been working since Hezbollah moved in last December. Some people are complaining that the country is slowly bleeding to death. Something’s got to give, but nobody wants to be the one to compromise.

Back to Beirut

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