Mind Soup

“The JCI Academy is the best JCI experience that you will ever have” is a statement that I frequently heard from past national presidents. “It will probably be in the top experiences of your life.” And indeed, it was, without a doubt, as memorable as they described it. I could not have thought that one can create as many memories, learn as many lessons or make as many friends in the span of 10 days. Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the 2017 JCI Academy in Kumamoto, Japan. The JCI Academy is an annual event that is hosted in a different Japanese city every year where upcoming JCI national presidents and leaders are invited to an empowerment academy to prepare them to be future leaders. This year, we were celebrating the 30th edition of the academy, three decades of evolution and experience had culminated in a wonderful experience for everyone involved. Under the slogan “Who Changes The World? It’s Us!”, JCI Japan had prepared an intensive program with JCI Past Presiden...

Twitter users and the media are amazed and impressed by the amount of followers that celebrities and some influencers have acquired since they started using twitter. To avoid any sampling bias from myself, I chose to use the " 20 Most Powerful People on Twitter in Lebanon " list by 2famous.tv . I then used a service by Status People that allows you to figure out the percentage of fake followers a user has in addition to the percentage of inactive and good followers. I obtained the following results: So what do we take from the above figures? Most celebrities (singers, actors, presenters, etc...) have a big percentage of fake and inactive followers. This is mostly due to them (or their agencies) buying followers for bulk. Notice that most celebrities have 40% or less good followers. Notice how evident this is with Zaven's follower analysis: 69% are fake (which is a whopping majority) and only 11% are real followers. If we do the math, he would easily be ...

Save the date: May 17th - The International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) Lebanon might not have a flashy gay parade with rainbow flags waving above our heads just yet. But many of us Lebanese, gay, straight or anywhere in between, are already actively engaged in a collective effort trying to raise awareness and fight homophobia. More often than not, homophobia is just another by-product of ignorance. People remaining stuck with their pre-conceived ideas, their limited knowledge about how homosexuality plays out in real life. That's where your stories, your personal experiences and your opinions can help a great deal. Sharing some of your thoughts with the rest of us will help spread awareness within, as well as outside the community. So here's the deal: As Lebanon's LGBT blogosphere, we are asking everyone, gay or straight, to take a minute to think: How does homophobia affect you or someone you love? Write 150 words or less and email to raynbow.org@gmail.com You will be ...

MIND SOUP : Everyone knows that blogging has exploded recently in Lebanon. There's even a Blogging Convention in a mere couple of weeks where our very own Moudz will be in attendance! With that said, as blogging in general is becoming more and more popular in Lebanon, so are Lebanese LGBT blogs. The blogs are very new, less than a year old and two new ones popped up just this month. The themes of the blog are as diverse as the Lebanese LGBT community itself. Posts include favorite music, coming out stories, bad dates, and complaining about Lebanon (the hallmark of a Lebanese blog). Most of the blogs are anonymous (due to privacy concerns and the rampant homophobia still present in Lebanon). Beirut Boy : The author is a young, Lebanese businessman in his 20s. He posts about dating, music, fashion, and is an activist for gay rights in Lebanon. He (as well as many other bloggers) has joined the Save Aya campaign. Gay in Beirut : This blog mainly has humorous and light-hearted pos...