It wasn’t long after Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel made those famous remarks rejecting, nay criminalizing homosexuality in Lebanon that the online community reacted fiercely.

While the many of you are taking a well-deserved day off, and rightfully so, the select few (such as myself) have gone off to work since news never takes a holiday.

It was almost 2 years ago when I really began to understand the power of social media and its worldwide effects.

As tweeps, facebookers, bloggers, politicians countrywide celebrate (or curse) the day the Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon on the 26th of April, 2005, please allow me this short rant to burst your bubble.

More than 20 countries have recognized the event that took place from 1915 to 1923 as a genocide committed against the Armenian people, save for Turkey, the US and Israel.

Every summer, thousands of people fly over to Lebanon to experience the vibrant nightlife consisting of both Arabic and English entertainment. With the world’s biggest artists and DJ’s, the country’s reputation booms as one of the entertainment hotspots of the world.

Have you ever notice how Hollywood seems to always set the Lebanese civil war at the center of several blockbuster movies? It just so happened that I was reminded of this fact, or overly occurring coincidence last night as I was winding down in front of the TV.

  View the story “Meanwhile, on the 38th parallel” on Storify

Just as we thought it was long behind us, it seems the drums of civil war are beating once again.
Kidnappings, a rise in the crime rate, feuding warlords…I mean politicians…All fall in the line of the very “familiar” events that lead to Lebanon’s infamous 15 civil conflict.