Amsterdam on the Mediterranean

Alexis Haase sends along this Michael Totten piece on Suicide Girls (confused yet?) about Beirut, the city that was once the Arab world's answer to the South Bronx but has been something entirely else for years now:

Beirut has been called the Paris of the Middle East. But that isn't right. Beirut is the Amsterdam of the Middle East.

Here is where the taboos in the region–against alcohol, sex, scandalous clothing, dating, homosexuality, body modification, free speech, and religion–break down. Its culture is liberal and tolerant, even anarchic and libertarian. The state barely exists. Its pleasures are physical and decadent. It is where Saudis and other Gulf Arabs like to vacation because they can do, think, wear, and say whatever they want while they're there.

Whole thing here. Read it while thinking of Jamie Farr, Casey Kasem, anyone other than Spence Abraham, and raise a glass of arak in honor of Danny Thomas (God surely made room for him in heaven). A shout-out to Lebanese-Americans, big and small, worthy and unworthy, here.