I wanted to share these: The first is from the nightclub White, the second from Chilli’s Restaurant in Achrafiyeh, and the third are from the Sea Club Sporting (they call it a beach club but there’s no beach so I refuse to honor that title, even though it’s an awesome place.

First, White – didn’t expect to be back so soon but I had a great night out there and managed to get some reasonable pictures with the phone.

Next, a frightening and bizzarre experience at Chilli’s Restaurant in Achrafiyeh, which might as well have been somewhere in the Mid West or Boston or something. A truly strange experience to walk out of Beirut and into Chilli’s!

Finally, the wonderful club Sporting – I took a 360-Degree set of shots from where we (Me, Catherine and Nick) were sitting – you can see Rouche, the Sea, South Beirut, and the Ferris Wheel at the Amusement Park.

I also had lunch at the restaurant at the Club, which sits above the main pool areas – we were sitting to the far right:

That’s all for now – Hope all is well with everyone

Under a program called Project Match, IBM will help workers laid off from domestic sites obtain travel and visa assistance for countries in which Big Blue has openings. Mostly that’s developing markets like India, China, and Brazil.

The climate is warm, there’s no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That’s IBM’s pitch to the laid-off American workers it’s offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.

“IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand,” IBM says in an internal notice on the initiative. “Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move.”

The document states that the program is limited to “satisfactory performers who have been notified of separation from IBM U.S. or Canada and are willing to work on local terms and conditions.” The latter indicates that workers will be paid according to prevailing norms in the countries to which they relocate. In many cases, that could be substantially less than what they earned in North America.

IBM has laid off more than 4,000 workers in the United States since the beginning of January, according to an employee group. The company has confirmed layoffs but won’t comment on specific numbers.

A spokesman for Alliance@IBM, a workers’ group that’s affiliated with the Communications Workers of America but which does not have official union status at IBM, slammed the program. “IBM is not only offshoring IBM U.S. jobs but they want employees to offshore themselves through Project Match,” said the spokesman.

An IBM spokesman said the program shouldn’t be seen in that light. “It’s more of a vehicle for people who want to expand their life experience by working somewhere else,” said the spokesman. “A lot of people want to work in India.”

In addition to India, China, and Brazil, IBM is offering to relocate redundant U.S. workers to a number of other developing markets, including Mexico, the Czech Republic, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates, according to the notice, which was obtained Monday by InformationWeek.

The vast majority of Americans (and citizens of the West in general) will awake soon, if they haven’t already, to staggering debt. Let’s assume that the average American’s debt load is similar to the average Public Debt per Capita, roughly $30,000. That seems about right, given that average credit card debt, when you check around the web, is reportedly between $8,000 and $9,000.

So, let’s assume likewise that that debt is relatively sustainable – That the average American makes enough money to service this debt but that it is crushing. That the average consumer probably spends between 5% and 20% of his or her yearly income on servicing their debt – No matter what, that is a debilitating effect.

But even in current economic conditions, it is sustainable. Then again, we’re talking about averages.

What about the folks who are up to their ear drums in debt, $80,000, $90,000, in debt, much of which is in high interest credit cards? Does anybody believe they’re in much of a position to pay it down without winning the lottery?

Well, it seems to me there is a fairly simple solution: Communal Debt Repayment. Consider:

Let’s say that a person makes, after taxes, $1,500 a month. Not a lot at all – In a year, that person makes $18,000 after taxes – so we’re talking about someone who lives below the poverty line and makes minimum wage in America. This person is poor – But then again, in the brave new world of the past two decades, this person was likely eligible for many predatory credit cards with outrageously huge limits. Let’s say this person now owes $60,000 to a variety of credit institutions.

Let’s also assume, for the moment, that our deeply in-debt minimum wage worker, we’ll call her Jane, spends $500 a month on her rent, and $250 a month on food. She has a cell phone bill of $40, pays a car loan of $200, has other various expenses, and then sends a check for $200 to the credit card companies. Thanks to a number of factors, namely her monthly food budget and her rent budget, along with her “other various expenses” and her car, Jane will pay off her credit card company sometime in the next millennium. She will never accumulate enough to get out of the hole, and she will never have enough to retire. The debt will stay with her forever.

But imagine an entirely different story line: Jane enters a “get out of debt” commune. Jane surrenders her entire paycheck each month to said commune. Jane eats breakfast and dinner at the commune, and is given a packed lunch to take to work. At this commune, everything is bought and prepared in bulk – This isn’t some hippy commune where there are full-fledged farms, but some essentials are produced on sight – There’s a garden, for example. By and large, however, the commune harnesses the power of bulk buying and bulk living – Jane signs a contract with the commune – She sells her car, cancels her cell phone, etc. For a year, she will live at the commune, carrying out her day to day and working as usual. At the end of the day, when she returns home, she has a guarantee of a room, all the food she wants, and shared entertainment resources. The commune also employs a fleet of energy efficient vehicles to drop her off at work and take her home at the end of the day.

At the end of every month, the commune pays her credit card company her entire paycheck, minus the expense of hosting her. Not only does she benefit from food and housing costs dropping dramatically thanks to shared resources, but by seeding her financial life to the commune, as part of her contract, she has, essentially, no cash on hand, ever, which means she is incapable of frivolous spending. The commune has arrangements for bulk purchasing of clothing, basic medicine, etc. should she need it – again, this keeps costs down considerably, and lessens her identity as a single-buyer.

At the end of the year, Jane assesses her financial position – Whereas she might have paid the credit card companies $2400 ($200 x 12) in her old life, this year she was able to pay them $1150 per month, a grand total of $13,800. In one year she has managed to level 23% in immediate debt, plus sidestepping mountains of future interest payments. In return, she has sacrificed her American consumer identity, and an extraordinary amount of privacy (communal living guarantees both), for one year. At the same time, the community that she has lived in for a year has radically improved her awareness of the importance of fiscal responsibility, as well as the inherent value of communal purchasing power versus individual purchasing power.

The communal aspect is not radical – what is radical is the pragmatic capitalism inherent in this scheme. There is no “communism” per se here – this is more like intensive financial rehab – “Spenders Anonymous.” It is not communism for communism’s sake, but instead a realistic remedy for Jane to get out of what would otherwise be life-crushing high-interest debt in under five years without declaring bankruptcy while sustaining a life at minimum wage.

The primary assumption here is that the commune could drop Jane’s overall life expenses from $1300 a month to $350 a month. The inherent problem with this assumption is that though this is a fair assumption when you factor in that Jane will no longer own a car, a cell phone, will have all her entertainment at “home,” and will pay her rent and food in conjunction with dozens of other people, that doesn’t leave a lot left over for profit. Hense such a commune would have to opperate as a no-fee not-for-profit, which means the only benefits it would provide to its management would be cheap housing and food.

At the end of the day, there are several important elements to this idea:

1. Jane has to work, but she does not have to focus on getting raises to pay her debts. She need only continue to work.
2. #1 does not only apply to Jane but to everyone else participating in the commune, including its management – no one is getting a free ride
3. The agenda of such an organization is inherently capitalistic, not communistic – Jane has performed poorly in a capitalistic world, and therefore is essentially going to “capitalist limbo” where for a time she will surrender her rights as a free consumer in order to pay off all or a at least a manageable portion of her debts. In the meantime she will learn valuable lessons in frugality and savings.
4. This is a win-win solution for everyone involved, except perhaps the credit card industry which had hoped it would take Jane years to pay her debts, and for Jane’s identity as a consumer

Imagine then, if Jane had made $40,000 a year, banking therefore approximately $2,600 a month after taxes. Under the same operational conditions by which Jane’s monthly expenses drop to $350 a month, her monthly payment to her debtors is $2,250. At $27,000, Jane is capable of being debt-free in just over two years, eliminating years of crushing interest payments.

There is no other solution to America’s high-interest debt problem. Even if Jane got a second job, her monthly payments would only increase by a few hundred dollars a month at the very most, not by over a thousand. A second job would also increase her transportation expenses, and if she regularly consumes “entertainment products” to cope with the increased work load, i.e. cigarettes, candy, alcohol, etc., the second job creates new costs as well.

In the scheme I’ve laid out above, Jane might not have a personal life in the standard way of thinking about a personal life, but then again if she got a second job she wouldn’t have much of one either. The difference is ultimately that Jane is able to get plenty of sleep and not degrade the quality of her work at her first job, making promotion more difficult. Jane’s sanity is intact and she knows exactly when she will be debt free. The people running the commune are able to tell her every month how much longer she has to go, and she can quit at any time.

I am not an advocate in giving up personal freedoms, and I believe that buying is an important personal freedom. However, people like Jane all over America and Europe have been shackled by a terrifying Chimera, large amounts of high-interest debt. Only by giving up the personal freedom of consumption for a short while will Jane regain her opportunity to be a free-agent in the market system.

BEIRUT: A strategic partnership between Lebanese technology companies EDM and eSharing is breaking the “go-it-alone” status quo of the Middle East IT sector. eSharing will develop enterprise resource software that interfaces directly with EDM’s new Global Positioning System (GPS) and mobile cellular communications (GPRS and GSM) hardware platform for corporate-fleet vehicle management.

In separate interviews with The Daily Star, EDM managing partner Imad Kozem and eSharing CEO Joe Hage agreed that the partnership bucked a trend in the information-technology (IT) sector in Lebanon and, more generally, throughout the Middle East.

“Lebanese and Middle Eastern companies almost always believe that, [only] by themselves, can they, and should, do anything. Very rarely do they see the value in saying, ‘I need you to be my partner …’ [but by partnering] we obviously benefit,” Kozem told The Daily Star.

Hage echoed Kozem when discussing the value of strategic business partnerships: “In fact, we view it as a recipe for success,” he said.

Hage told The Daily Star that he believed his company’s partnership with EDM represented an American attitude toward cross-company resource sharing. The focus of eSharing is on software development, as well as on IT and localization services, but their expertise is not in building IT hardware.

When considering their core competency, Hage says of eSharing: “We have a mindset that is typical of the United States: Do we build, buy or partner? Let’s make sure we are investing in the right things.”

On the other hand, EDM’s TRAX Locator, a GPS, GPRS and GSM device, highlights its hardware expertise. It allows firms to track the movement and status of their entire fleet of vehicles in real time, combining location and communication services such as tracking, geofencing, mapping and messaging, as well as engine immobilization and service reports.

While such fleet-management platforms are available from Western firms, cost, language, and culture are usually significant barriers for business development in markets outside of Europe and the US. It is these areas that are the target markets for the TRAX hardware and accompanying software.

The firms’ partnership underlines the advantages of competency specialization and draws a clean line between the hardware manufacturer and software developer, potentially limiting both initial and total costs.

In so doing, the partnership is also testing Lebanon’s potential as a technology-outsourcing and off-shoring hub with specific advantages, including an educated population, a centralized geographic location, and multi-lingual capabilities.

EDM and eSharing initially met at the Termium technology exhibition, and Kozem believed that the annual event is a good opportunity for meeting potential partners. However, he told The Daily Star that, though those events that are effective networking arenas in Lebanon, they are rare and often expensive to attend.

This is likely both a symptom of, and a reason for, the ingrained aversion to similar business partnerships in Lebanon, whether or not they are in the IT sector. That the most entrepreneurial of Lebanon’s population leave the country in droves clearly reinforces roadblocks to corporate-openness to resource sharing and dynamic strategies.

Whether this collaboration will stand as an example of the benefits of cross-company resource sharing in the Middle East remains to be seen. The global financial crisis will certainly test the standard “go-it-alone” business model in the region. Partnerships that allow companies to focus on economies of scale and core-competency, while reducing cost of ownership, will increase their competitiveness even as budgets tighten.

Kozem believes that, “2009 will be tough … Obviously a company shouldn’t partner for partnership’s sake, but the right partnership is one that takes advantage of specific expertise.”

Construction cranes dot Beirut’s Mediterranean skyline. Planes are full of expatriate Lebanese coming home for Christmas and New Year’s, as well as foreign tourists. The number of arrivals at Beirut’s international airport is expected to reach 1.3 million at year’s end – a figure not achieved since 2004.

Downtown Beirut is choked with traffic jams, and shops and boutiques are full of customers. Tourists pack restaurants and street cafes to enjoy Lebanon’s famed cuisine and smoke fragrant waterpipes. Central Martyr’s Square now has a giant Christmas tree next to the city’s biggest mosque, and luxury hotels are planning New Year’s parties at New York and Paris prices – up to $1,500 a plate.

Even the global economic crisis has bypassed the nation for now – thanks to conservative bank regulations long in place that prevented the sort of risky transactions that have undone other countries’ institutions, Lebanese financial officials say. Banks have been flooded with cash from depositors looking for a safe haven.

via Lebanon festive for now, but tough issues ahead – Forbes.com.

Interestingly, the article quotes “Engineer Bashir Khoury, 34, visiting from abroad, says he’s happy to enjoy Lebanon but wouldn’t risk coming home for good.”

It says he’s from Haiti. HAITI? Haiti must be a MILLION times more risky than Lebanon.

So Bernard Madoff has admitted that the Financial Services and Management division of his company is essentially an enormous Ponzi Scheme

FoxNews reports that,

Many charities have been devastated by Madoff’s unparalleled investment failure, which paid off false returns to investors and went unnoticed by many observers for more than a decade. Billionaire Mort Zuckerman, CEO of Boston Properties and owner of the New York Daily News, told FOX News that his charitable trust lost $30 million because of Madoff’s mishandling.

In the context of reality, however, I’m curious how this particular scheme of Madoff’s differs in any real way from the Wall Street of the last 15 years.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good example of a Ponzi Scheme:

Suppose an advertisement is placed promising extraordinary returns on an investment—for example 20% for a 30 day contract. The golden key is to bamboozle ordinary people who have no in-depth knowledge of finance or financial terms. High flown terms that sound impressive but are essentially meaningless will be used to dazzle investors. Terms such as “global currency arbitrage”, “hedge futures trading”, “high-yield investment programs”, “offshore investment”. Taking advantage of the lack of investor financial sophistication, the promoter will then proceed to sell them a stake in his pot of gold.

With no proven track record for the investors, only a few investors are tempted, usually for smaller sums. Sure enough, 30 days later the investor receives the original capital plus the 20% return. At this point, the investor will have more incentive to put in additional money and, as word begins to spread, other investors grab the “opportunity” to participate. More and more people invest, and see their investments return the promised large returns.

The reality of the scheme is that the “return” to the initial investors is being paid out of the new, incoming investment money, not out of profits. No “global currency arbitrage”, “hedge futures trading” or “high yield investment program” is actually taking place. Instead, when investor D puts in money, that money becomes available to pay out “profits” to investors A, B, and C. When investors X, Y, and Z put in money, that money is available to pay “profits” to investors A through W.

One reason that the scheme initially works so well is that early investors—those who actually got paid the large returns—quite commonly reinvest their money in the scheme (it does, after all, pay out much better than any alternative investment). Thus those running the scheme do not actually have to pay out very much (net)—they simply have to send statements to investors that show how much the investors have earned by keeping the money in what looks like a great place to get a high return. They also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors, often where money is frozen for a longer period of time, for example 50% return per month for one year. They then get new cash flows as investors are told they could not transfer money from the first plan to the second.

The catch is that at some point one of three things will happen:

1. The promoters will vanish, taking all the investment money (less payouts) with them;
2. problems paying out the promised returns. When the promoters start having problems, the word spreads and more people start asking for their money, similar to a bank run; The scheme will collapse under its own weight, as investment slows and the promoters start having
3. The scheme is exposed, because when legal authorities begin examining accounting records of the so-called enterprise they find that many of the “assets” that should exist do not.

Bernard Madoff, indicted by the SEC for securities fraud, bragging to Congress about profits

Pretty nifty right? Well the question in my mind is, when the vast majority of Wall Streets profits are hedged essentially on the belief that land and property values will continue to increase forever, the belief itself hedged largely on suspension of disbelief and on charismatic individuals, what is the real difference between this and a Ponzi scheme?

Consider Wikipedia’s definition of a “Bubble”:

A bubble relies on suspension of disbelief and an expectation of large profits, but it is not the same as a Ponzi scheme. A bubble involves ever-rising (and unsustainable) prices in an open market (be that shares of a stock, housing prices, the price of tulip bulbs, or anything else). As long as buyers are willing to pay ever-increasing prices, sellers can get out with a profit. And there doesn’t need to be a schemer behind a bubble. (In fact, a bubble can arise without any fraud at all – for example, housing prices in a local market that rise sharply but eventually drop sharply because of overbuilding.) Bubbles are often said to be based on “greater fool” theory. Although, according to the Austrian Business Cycle Theory, bubbles are caused by expanding the money supply beyond what genuine capital investment supports, and in this case would qualify as a Ponzi scheme, with expanded credit taking the place of an expanded pool of investors.

If this is true, when the modern financial market and its relationships to speculative real estate lending, both at prime and sub-prime rates, is taken into account, one has to wonder about the true complicity in this most recent scandal on Madoff’s part, and the entire sub-prime lending crises itself. Because in my mind, whoever wrote the Wikipedia entry about a bubble is incorrect about whether the financial markets in the past 15 years have become anything but a vast Ponzi Scheme – one far bigger than Madoff’s triffel $50 Billion, but instead involving trillions of dollars that have woven their way around the entirety of the American capitalist model, and we have all been taken for a ride.

Bernard Madoff might be the “bad guy” and everyone else he did business with “poor stooges,” but in age of far-too-cheap credit, a Federal Bank with a policy that has stealthily increased the money supply by leaps and bounds for far too long, and the essential Americanization of global financial markets that have led to exposure throughout the world, I seriously wonder: Just who is the Ponzi, who is the stooge, and what in the world are we going to do next?

Thanks for destroying capitalism jerks.

BEIRUT: Lebanon is well-positioned to offer web development, digital marketing, and information technology services to local, regional and international clients, according to several owners and partners of companies in and around Beirut. These experts agreed that Lebanon’s global position for IT services, outsourcing and off-shoring capabilities is unique, due to its geographical location, its multilingual talents, its cultural convergences between East and West, and its excellent technical education opportunities.

Marcel Farjallah, partner and chief programmer at Fluid Design & Media, said that “as a Lebanese business, for the rest of the world, we can usually provide the same or more expertise for lower prices when compared by with Western businesses.”

Multilingual web-platforms are a hallmark of Lebanese quality, and an obvious advantage of contracting with a Lebanese firm. Joe Hage, CEO of eSharing, told The Daily Star that “almost every customer asks for translation services, and we have an entire team devoted to this.”

“Quality is the advantage in Lebanon,” said Nassib Haddad, managing director of nhgraphics. “It is quite impressive for a country that is so small and has such limited resources … but look at what’s coming out of Lebanon, and look at the many satisfied clients.”

Lebanon’s web sector is currently benefiting from the global financial crises in two ways. On the matter of the global slowdown, Hage said, “In order to edge the competition, in the hard times, even in the United States, corporate decision makers believe [a downturn] to be a good time to optimize their business … A downturn is a positive for us.”

At the same time, the local Lebanese market has remained fairly insulated from the global problems, and in fact has prospered as foreign Lebanese nationals have transferred an enormous amount of capital to Lebanese banks. The pace of this new influx of money has quickened in tandem to an increase in political stability, and Haddad acknowledged that due to “good times in Lebanon,” there are “bigger budgets for innovation and investment.”

This combination of local stability, international recession, and Lebanese prosperity creates a favorable business environment for marketing professionals in general, and web development agencies in particular.

On the matter of local projects, Haddad, Hage and Farjallah were in agreement that the Lebanese market is both very competitive and open.

All griped about local “developers” with limited expertise who are a problem for “more capable, professional developers,” as Farjallah put it. “As a result, for small web-design projects, there is a lot of competition and the client rarely know the difference between good and bad … agencies.”

Haddad seconded this, saying that, “people who take a couple courses … call themselves experts!”

This has increased a sense among the larger and more accomplished agencies that strong referral networks are the key to business development in the Mideast region. Reputation, portfolio, word of mouth and referral remain far more important than advertising for small-to-medium projects.

However, for larger, foreign projects, aggressive business development practices are still needed to guarantee a strong lead pipeline.

“Being a Lebanese company is a big plus when dealing with the Gulf, and a plus when dealing with the world,” said Farjallah. “In the region, Lebanese are usually well regarded, as engineers and people with skills. We have also been more exposed to Western culture which can be argued to be the origin of the regional activities today.”

On this, all were in agreement that an understanding of how to leverage Western business, marketing and cultural practices was important.

Though each company, eSharing, Fluid and nhgraphics, began differently in terms of whether their initial client base was Lebanese or Western, all agreed that their company’s expertise and technical philosophies converged in Lebanon between Middle Eastern and American/European.

Above all else, all saw this as a tactical advantage.

BEIRUT: The American University of Beirut (AUB) on Monday welcomed esteemed Harvard Business School professor John Quelch for a discussion on the ramifications and theories of his most recent book, “Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy.”

Quelch, the senior associate dean and Lincoln Filene professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, co-authored the book with Katherine E. Jocz, who was not in attendance.

Quelch’s lecture did not veer considerably off track from the structure of theory that his book presents, and specifically did not address realities of Middle Eastern or Lebanese marketing practices and their effect upon democracy in the region.

However, his schema for addressing the concerns and tactical importance of marketing in the 21st century raised intriguing questions, even if they were confined to the US, where the body of his research is based.

Quelch’s work focuses principally on whether modern marketing practices operate in a back-and-forth transference with consumers that are “more democratic” than American republican democracy. It also considers whether modern marketing practices are in-effect “undermining” democracy, and whether marketing operates within democratic nations to strengthen “social glue” and civic institutions.

Quelch asserted that marketing academia does a “bad job marketing marketing,” preferring to focus on the “marketing tool kit” and not on the broader social implications of wide-spread marketing throughout a civic and democratic society.

He seemed convinced that marketing, as it works with and for consumers to advertise buying choice, selection, and freedom on a day-by-day and minute-by-minute basis, is inherently more “freely democratic” in the traditional sense than modern democracy in America and the United Kingdom – places where politicians are required to prove their worth only once every two, four, or six years.

Quelch also said the same marketing practices that he believed were inherently more democratic than modern politics are also undermining traditional realities of democracy itself.

He gave the example of Starbucks’ mission statement to be the “third place in our customers’ lives,” after home and work. Quelch said this demonstrates how business is replacing state and citizenship with brand and consumer, respectively, in importance.

But the lecture did not connect the theory’s potential implications with Middle Eastern political realities. The only remedy Quelch offered for the region was that governments should use marketing tactics similar to those of corporate entities to advertise the roles of citizens and civic institutions in everyday life.

Speaking with The Daily Star after the lecture, Quelch noted that this was his third visit to Lebanon in the past 30 years, the first in 1983 when he was invited by a consulting firm for a seminar aptly titled, “Marketing Warfare.”

Quelch was clearly moved by the experience of Beirut amid the strife of the early 1980s. He returned to Beirut in 2003, and noted the vast “improvement in morale, stability and reconstruction.” He also mentioned that he had dinner with then-Finance Minister Fouad Siniora.

“It is fascinating to see the political situation evolve,” he said of his most recent trip. He also praised the leadership of President Michel Sleiman.

Discussing the rising status of AUB, he said he was excited to “find someone in the audience from Berkeley,” and was happy to see AUB move to take a global standing.

Asked by The Daily Star about how his theories on modern marketing might have a role within Lebanon, Quelch replied: “I think that in a country that’s had more than its fair share of strife, persuading citizens and especially young people to invest in civic institutions is hugely important … You have to be a citizen first before you can enjoy … being a consumer.”

Doug Mills/The New York Times

And so it did. Surrounded by expats, Lebanese Americans, and Lebanese of all religious and ethnic shades, I drank profusely and watched CNN as my country seemingly came to its senses and pulled itself from the brink of self-destruction. Indeed, for my generation, this is the first time in our modern lives that we can be proud of our executive leadership, and of the voters who selected it. I was in awe as the cynicism of the Americans with me in Beirut this evening washed away. Trust me, no American is more cynical than a young American in Beirut. Here we see first hand the disaster that is American foreign policy, and many moved clear across the world to escape the America represented by the only Executive they truly knew: That of George W. Bush.

It was said on BBC World tonight that President Bush told President-Elect Obama that the election day was “awesome,” in his congratulatory call. Such are the times and the years and trials we have lived through, and God Willing, somehow survived, since 2000.

My new boss Marc remarked to me today, with excitement, trepidation, and the cynicism of a westerner towards the United States of this past decade, of the irony of my arrival the day before  the most important American election of the modern era, and that I would begin to work on the day after. He dared not even suggest that Obama could pull it off.

This morning, Nick, myself, and Nick’s flat-mate made our guesses for what the electoral votes would look like in the evening, when the dust settled. I am amazed at how far our cynicism had taken us, and how beaten and deflated a generation we belong to.  For though we all agreed that Obama would win, even in the face of  every poll declaring Obama the likely winner, even in the face of 100,000 person crowds and an enormous financial advantage, we mustered only the slightest confidence in an Obama victory:

I believed that Obama would receive 283 points. Nick believed that Obama would receive 336 points. Andrew went with 325.

So now, I am a believer, and feel perhaps that “Yes We Can” is a striking motto for my time here in Beirut. I have to believe that if we have come this far, if the American people, so complicit as we are in the re-election (and clear mandate) of President Bush in 2004, so complicit as we are in our acceptance of a horrendous war and unprecedented Republican cronyism on Wall Street, so complicit even in the many declarations that Obama surrounded himself with terrorists and was a Communist and everything else, if WE of all people, we as a nation, can elect a man of such stature, so dissimilar from the politics of the past 8 years, the first African American President-Elect in our country’s history, than I believe we can do anything.

Congratulations, America, you didn’t blow it, even without me there to supervise. I thank you for that, more than I can say.

If you cannot see the video, (like if you’re receiving this in an e-mail), please click here: http://williamcurtisdonovan.com/2008/10/actually-this-is-more-important