A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Qifa Nabki on Miss USA

Whenever something rather absurd involving Lebanon transpires (which is to say, fairly often), blogger Qifa Nabki — who most of the time is a fairly serious analyst — puts on his satirical cap, and he's usually quite good. While my own take on the right-wing alarm over the new Miss USA being labeled a Hizbullah mole was, I hope, suitably tongue-in-cheek, he tops me quite easily with a wonderful play on Rimah Fakih's name. Her surname — Fakih, but properly Faqih — means a religious jurist, and the principle Imam Khomeini imposed for the governance of the Islamic Republic is called velayet-e faqih (Arabic, wilayat al-faqih), and she's a Lebanese Shi‘ite. So Qifa spins it as "Heterodox Feminist Millenarian Group Pins Hopes for Armageddon on Miss USA Win." [Sorry. Had wrong link for some days. Now fixed.] It's absurd, but funnier than I was. And I think many male Mideast bloggers are probably paying so much attention because we so rarely have a valid excuse to link to cheesecake swimsuit pictures on Middle East blogs.

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