Dabke dance in Beirut airport promotes Lebanon

After watching the Ministry of Tourism’s controversial ads, the footage of Beirut Airport’s Hip Hop/Dabke flash mob made my day.

On March 13, 2011, Lebanon's March 14 Forces plan to hold a mass demonstration in Beirut to mark the sixth anniversary of the movement's establishment. In anticipation of the demonstration, Lebanon's two rival camps, the March 14 Forces and the March 8 Forces, have scaled up their attacks

Could the Japan experience be simulated in the Middle East: I get the jitters about all after affects post explosion, meltdown etc. in case the earth moves at the magnitude (8.9 on the Richter) similar to the current Japanese earthquake.

"But.. for me.. i will use this day to express the need and urgency to educate the Jordanian people.. what is the meaning of Democracy.. because obviously the latest events.. with the Arab revolutions in our neighborhood have literally given away a very wrong idea of what democracy is!

Suddenly, students in Schools are protesting demanding to change the director..!"

More hard-hitting home truths.

"I am proud, yet still anguished by my own country. I am profoundly furious that we still need to ask for political reform over and over again while we get fed bullshit. We change PMs like we change underwear and we still get nowhere. His majesty King Abdullah II, in his 12 year reign, has done this 8 times. Today we stand, a pressured bystander to the ongoing changing regiemes and wonder, will we be next? Dozens have marched vowing loyalty to our beloved King. It is not the kindgom we want overthrown, we’re just fighting for our constitutional right.

"With respect to the Jordanian social media sphere, we’ve witnessed the hashtags #ReformJo and #WhatJoWants trending locally as people express what it is we want out of this reform, but is anybody listening?"

"I will try not to be pessimistic, but I shall be nothing but honest. Let’s take a few desired reforms into consideration..."

Concluding:
"I blog for Jordan, because I love Jordan. I blog for Jordan, because I want to see a better Jordan. I blog for Jordan, because I aspire to be that change. We’re taught to be the change we want to see in the world and we’re blabbering about reform when we’re not reformed ourselves. It all starts with us."

Celebrating the blog-artists in Jordan:

"I’m gonna blog about something I only discovered last year in Jordan, its bloggers!"

Rand navigates us through the Jordan blogosphere for those new to the scene: from Hareega to And far away, to Cinnamon Zone and lots more that have become household names in Jordan and for Al Bawaba for that matter.