As you may know, I’ve developed something of a borderline-pathetic obsession with a certain so-called journalist. He recently disabled comments on his blog, coinciding with the fact that they were fast becoming loaded with various criticisms, chiefly of things like his advocation of sending pizzas to the Israeli army.
Today he published an article entitled Old School Terrorism in Lebanon on Tech Central Station. My sickness is not so advanced that I will criticize the piece line-by-line (though this is certainly possible), but I will hit the highlights. He includes relatively unimportant details that aren’t true (George Hawi was killed by a bomb placed under the passenger seat, not the driver’s seat, as he claims in the 2nd paragraph) or are matters of opinon (Monot is the “hottest nightclub strip in the Middle East”). His one quoted source for the economic downturn is actually someone I know personally, the owner of a restaurant that wasn’t even open during the last high season. Also, he then claims Gemmayze is “booming” 2 paragraphs after quoting business being down 25 percent (by the way, his “legitimate” source gives a number of about half that). (Not for the first time in Totten’s writings) Assad’s “burn Lebanon” quote is used out of context in a later paragraph. And then in the last paragraph…
Ok, ok, I’ll admit it: I have a problem and I need help.
Speaking of obsessions, Amy and I rented Gaslight, the Charles Boyer/Ingrid Bergman film, last night. It was fun and who really ever gets tired of Ingrid Bergman?