Author: Bambi

Well, it is this time of the year, when Bambi’s larger family is blessed to come together again to celebrate, after the Christmas and New Year festivities; twice not just once, that is in two consecutive evenings meant to honour two oldest family members called Antoine and Tanios, respectively. Of course, this along with all those from the second generation of the family who happen to also be called Tony or Antoine, etc. Indeed, Bambi has several cousins, with a similar first name, most in Beirut and one in Montreal. They are all uniquely adorable :). Happy “name day” to each one of them and to Bambi’s friends, Antoinette and Tony!

Of course, in Bambi’s eyes, the most significant Antoine OR Tony in this time of the year is her dad, especially that his birthday is celebrated also on his name day. May God keep protecting you, dear “Antonio”. Many thanks for giving Bambi and her sisters values, roots, and wings; this in addition to being a living example of an inspiring self-made entrepreneur, as per an older post honouring you and your business (shown below). Bambi loves you a lot, dad. She is saying so now while sending her deep affection to our all our dear ones across the miles ❤️!

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Azar Electric: An inspiring story of a store in Beirut…

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that Bambi loves “Zaatar” or thyme, as you can see from an older post below.

This being said, many thanks to Zeina for sharing with us all Chef Alia’s delicious Lebanese-style mixed thyme recipe! It is Bambi’s hope the embedded video will work well :). Regardless, she can assure you that Nova Scotia-based Chef Alia is MUCH talented! Mmm!

 
 @zaynah.habibti Chef Alia is back with a Zaatar Manoushe recipe! #tiktokarab #arabtiktok #recipe #mediterranean #food #foodtiktok #lebanese #chefalia #middleeastern ♬ original sound - Zaynah Mohamad 
 
 

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Mazeej [blend]: “For the Love of Lebanese Zaatar” [wild thyme]

Bambi was 13 years old when French songwriter/singer and musician Daniel Balavoine suddenly lost his life, on January 14, 1986 at age 33 only. He died in a helicopter accident in Mali, along with four other people on board, including the following: Mr. Thierry Sabine, founder and director of the Paris-Dakkar Rally, a reporter, a cameraman, and the pilot. The latter was the Mr. Albert II, Prince of Monaco’s cousin (https://bit.ly/3ZFl1mP). May everyone’s memory be eternal…

It is not only France that plunged into deep grief following the death of Mr. Balavoine, but also all those who love French music around the world, including the people of Lebanon. Bambi recalls having been touched by his loss, which added to the many losses in her own life due to the ongoing bloody civil war.

To honour the memory of Mr. Balavoine, this post will share some of his most famous songs, which are all sub-titled in English for your convenience. The first song does not need any introduction for those who, like Bambi, love French and French-speaking songs. The second melody is entitled “Mon fils, ma bataille” [My son, my fight]. It focuses on a painful divorce by telling the story of a father’s legal fight to keep the custody of his son. This moving song, which became a big hit in France and abroad, was inspired by the story of Mr. Balavoine’s own parents in addition to the one of his guitarist, who also went through a divorce, and to the story described in the Kramer vs. Kramer‘s movie. Last but not least, the fourth song presented below, entitled “Je ne suis pas un héros” [I am Not a Hero], was supposed to be written to the late and great, Mr. Johny Hallyday (https://bit.ly/3ZFl1mP).

To conclude this post, Bambi would like to thank Mr. Balavoine for his short yet fully lived life; the latter has not only entertained, but also inspired so many people. May his memory be as eternal as the genuine emotions he knew how to put into beautiful songs.

Bambi does not want to go to bed before sharing a talent she just discovered, thanks to an article by Ms. Carla Henoud in Orient Today (https://bit.ly/3H5Beui):

“His name is Savio Haykal, he is 18 years old and he has been living in Paris for five months. The young man has made his mark on social media through a video that went viral for a few days. We see him playing a song by Feyrouz on a piano at the Monoprix on the Champs-Élysées, a song that seduced foreigners and obviously moved the expatriates, Lebanese and Arabs, who were passing by. This was not Savio’s first performance in this and other public places in the capital.

He was born in Tripoli, and after completing his studies at the Greek Orthodox National School for Girls in Zahriyeh, he was admitted to L1 MIASHS (Mathematics and computer science applied to human and social sciences) at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

“Since my arrival in France,” he told L’Orient-Le Jour, “I have been living with my uncle’s family, who does not have a piano. This pushed me to look for places where I could play and especially practice. After a little research, I discovered that many public places in France have pianos available to play, including train stations and Monoprix stores.”

That’s how it all started, with the idea of playing in public, filming and sharing these moments on TikTok and Instagram.

Last week, the young man accumulated over 43,000 followers and hundreds of thousands of views” [with 26,114 Likes as of January 13, 2022].

From the above article, Bambi learned more about Mr. Haikal. He began learning piano at age 8 and, at age 14, he was enrolled at the Lebanese National Higher Conservatory of Music. Of note, he participated in the Voice Kids in 2015. He was only 11 years old then. Bambi found his excellent performance of “Rien n’arrête le bonheur” [Nothing Can Stop Happiness]. What a moving tribute to Ms. Linda De Souza who recently sadly left our world, as per an earlier post shown at the end of this one.

Last but not least, bravo to Mr. Haikal’s mother who also has a beautiful voice as he reported and who encouraged him to play the piano (https://bit.ly/3H5Beu): “We have two pianos, one at home and the other at my grandmother’s. My mother has a beautiful voice… Although separated from my father, she insisted on enrolling me in weekly piano, singing and dancing lessons, and music competitions. She always sends me songs to learn to play or sing. She never stopped encouraging me”.

To conclude this post, thank you and bravo Mr. Savio Haikal for your talent, perseverance, and for your natural skill in making random people happy! Please keep practising and sharing your talent online; good luck also in your studies and adaptation to life in France!

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
View this post on Instagram
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A post shared by Savio Haykal (@saviohaykal)
 

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Good-bye Ms. Linda De Suza: Merci; Obrigada, and Gracias too!

Did you know that today, January 13, is meant to celebrate several national or International days? In this post, two of them will be discussed by Bambi in relation to the surrealistic Beirut port double explosion of August 4, 2020 .

The first national day is called Make Your Dream Come True. The second one is the National Blame Someone Else Day. To begin with, even after taking the time to read about them (https://bit.ly/3XrHLV), Bambi still does not know the exact meaning or purpose of these days. As she already asked on this blog: who assigns those events to each day of the calendar?

Regardless, and if she may, she would like to pause for a few minutes today to try to integrate both of these January 13’s celebrations using the example of a tiny yet complicated country of the Middle East, called Lebanon.

While doing this mental exercise, Bambi will specifically think of all those affected by the surrealistic Beirut port double explosion. She will contrast the latter with the careless-criminal attitude of the Lebanese political class… and the frustrating silence of the international community. To do so, she will go back in time, using her own memory, with the assistance of “the archived memory” of her blog, to that doomed day of August 4, 2020… and to its following 891 days. She will not re-post any of these earlier posts because the list is TOO long.

Mind you, she does not have to go that far back in time. Just the last couple of days are enough when a few impatient families of the victims may have stormed the Justice Palace in Beirut. They did so to demand the continuation of the investigation by Judge Tarak Bitar. In other terms, they wanted to ask the Lebanese political class to stop interfering in the judicial system.

Look what happened to them? On the next day, they were called by the Lebanese security authorities for investigation. In contrast, those who either remained silent or were directly responsible for the stored ammonium nitrate, which exploded in August 2020, are still free like birds. Yes, like the latter, but not any birds. Rather ugly ones because they fly with total impunity for their criminal negligence. Is this fair?

Of course, it is not good to throw stones on any building, including and especially a country’s Justice Palace. Let’s be clear here: Bambi is against any form of violence, including the one coming out of tiny stones. In her mind, someone may have been too upset to do something like that. If you have seen your own city decimated or if you are a parent of a victim or the friend of a person who is still in the coma or is disabled for life, wouldn’t you loose your mind too? Or what was left of it after the corrupt political and banking system of your country stole your savings?

Bambi would like to thank her sister Roula for making her discover this talented Iraqi singer called Rahma Riad. From the English translation fully shown below (https://bit.ly/3vWotf1), you can learn that her song is about love, precisely about longing to live on another planet… The song starts with these beautiful lyrics: “Let’s be you and I, like stars and clouds in the sky, we travel to the top and never return back. We abandon this planet and its darkness… and it continues like this: ” We spend it with love and longing. We teach those people the meaning of love. We never mention parting, and we colour this world in happiness pink. The life we live without love doesn’t deserve to be lived“.

This being said, Ms. Riad’s first name is Rahma. It means “Mercy” in Arabic. May her song bring both mercy and love to our entire planet, which may have seemed at times like inhabited by humans with masks, not around their faces and noses to protect others, but around their hearts, blinding the latter to the point of being unable to love others.

On this serious note, Bambi cannot conclude this post without thinking of a deep yet funny chat with her childhood friend Hala who, about a year ago, expressed a similar wish like in this song, for both of them, as a solution to get away from the world’s problems :).

Hope you will enjoy the song. Long live love!

Oui, vive l’amour… et merci encore Roula!

Planet

“Let’s be you and I

Like stars and clouds in the sky

We travel to the top and never return back

We abandon this planet and its darkness

Alone we fly and soar

We put a little star in the sky

And we paint our love in air

We spend it with love and longing

We teach those people the meaning of love

We never mention parting

And we colour this world in happiness pink

The life we live without love

It doesn’t deserve to be lived

Let me tell you about my longing

To see what your love has done to me

The more time extend between us

I feel like it has just begun

Put your hand in mine until the day we die

You won’t lose and you know

You’re my magnificent dream

You’re the happiest coincidence in my life

You make me live the best days,

Make me forget all my sorrows,

Your name is the map of my life,

Your eyes are my address,

Without you, my life has no taste,

Empty and has no meaning“.

Through this post, Bambi would like to send positive vibes to Dr. Frances Widdowson ahead of her arbitration in less than a week from today!

As a reminder about her outrageously unfair case, which should worry all faculty members in Canada because they could literally be “next”, to re-cite the wise words of Dr. Jordan Peterson, you may wish to read the following link: https://bit.ly/3vY16la. Make sure you educate yourself on how her university administrators treated her on her final exam day. Disgusting, to say the least.

Although Dr. Widdowson tried hard to make her arbitration public, this is not happening because both her union and CAUT (Canadian Association of University Teachers) are opposed to it. Closed-door arbitrations are a major problem in academic freedom cases. Nevertheless, a lot of information related to her case has been made public over the past year. If more updates come out later on, perhaps Dr. Widdowson’s wish of helping people become more aware of what is happening in our universities will come true.

As they say knowledge is power… but knowledge needs action to truly be powerful.

Good luck, Dr. Widdowson for next week: Bambi wishes not only justice, but more importantly all the happiness that you deserve! Thank you for doing this for all of us!

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Thank you Mr. Adam Soos and Dr. Gad Saad for having interviewed Dr. Frances Widdowson!

Thank you, Dr. Frances Widdowson for having interviewed Bambi (Rima Azar) on your “Rational Space Disputations” platform!

Le Devoir: French CBC suggests to hosts and journalists to offer their apologies live in the event of unexpected mention of the “n-word” while programs’ reruns will be purged from offensive language that has no “editorial rationale”

To what extent are our unions still relevant?

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. Bearing the latter in mind, this post will only consist of the following: (1) three pictures, taken from the Lebanese media; and (2) Mr. Fady Bazzi’s French song about Beirut’s tragedy of August 4, 2020. The video is sub-titled in English and it starts with a couple of the shocking images that were all over the international news on this doomed day. For a reminder about the impact of the Beirut port surrealistic double blast, you may wish to read Bambi’s most recent post on this topic. For your convenience, it is shown at the end of the current post.

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Beirut 884 days after its double blast: Is there anything more cruel than total impunity?

What a deep and lovely song. Thank you, Mr. Kendji Girac!

For your convenience, an English translation follows the song (https://bit.ly/3X1F9gX).

The school of life

“I’ve lived everything that I know

I’ve shouted out my dreams to the stars

I’ve been given an unrivalled voice

Just for a few smiles in the street

I’ve told myself stories, I’ve performed songs for you

Songs that say the heart is right

To hold on to nothing but hope

Where school has no hallways

I haven’t had other professors

But this is where I’ve learned everything

I got my morals at the school of life

Maybe I’m a bit of a dreamer

I’ve done some stupid things

But I was always on time at the school of life

I flew to rejoin my class at the first ray of light

Right in the middle of a class that went until the night without any sleep

We had homework for class, to never believe in love

And the beautiful part of the story is that what we learn every day, I keep learning it every day

I haven’t had other professors

But this is where I’ve learned everything

I got my morals at the school of life

Maybe I’m a bit of a dreamer

I’ve done some stupid things

But I was always on time at the school of life

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

It’s life that taught me everything

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

My life is beautiful

It’s beautiful, it’s beautiful

It’s life that taught me everything

My kids will read what I fail at sometimes in books

Then I’ll tell them that, to be truly free

You have to start all over again

You have to start all over again

I haven’t had other professors

But this is where I’ve learned everything

I got my morals at the school of life

Maybe I’m a bit of a dreamer

I’ve done some stupid things

But I was always on time at the school of life

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful

It, it’s beautiful“.

Bambi would like to thank the relative and the friend who shared with her a story from out of an American university called the Minnesota Hamline University (https://nyti.ms/3XeURVO).

From the article above and others online, we learn that a small group of so-called triggered students filed complaints to their university; after an art course ended, if Bambi understands well. One of the latter was a Black AND Muslim student; two hot identities at once. This was enough for the administrators of this university to fire Professor Erika López Prater for showing her students a piece of historic Islamic Art.

The explanation reported in the media is that in Islam you do not show any representation of the Prophet Mohamed. Everyone knows it, especially the victims of Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan in France. All those who know Islam very well and have the utmost respect for it, like Bambi, also know that the extremism of Islamism is harmful to Islam before having a negative impact on all the society.

Bearing the above in mind, Bambi could be perceived to be from a so-called deer-of-colour group and she has relatives who are Muslims, not just friends. Yet, she strongly denounces the insanity of firing of Professor Erika López Prater for simply doing her educational job. This includes teaching her students about pieces of historic Islamic arts. What happened to this professor smells like bullying by some individuals with a thin skin and like cowardice by those managing her institution.

Why are university administrators allowing this collective insanity to happen? From what are they afraid of, more precisely? The extreme left (i.e., wokeism) or the extreme Islamism or the meeting of the abusive and bullying forces of both? And how can you teach students without concrete examples? How can teachers keep doing their job while walking on eggshells out of fear of being cancelled… for just being educators? If this is not obscurantism, what is it then?

To conclude this post, Bambi would like to express her full solidarity with Professor Erika López Prater. She hopes she has a good legal representation to defend our right to academic freedom and to keep earning a living!