Cedar News USA Oct 2004

Contents Of This Issue:

The Quote

"Stand with anybody that stands right.  Stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he is wrong."  -Abraham Lincoln

Website Update

Events

New Links

National Geographic Article - Oct 2004

Who are the Phoenicians:  We know they dominated sea trade in the Mediterranean for 3,000 years. Now DNA testing and recent archaeological finds are revealing just what the Phoenician legacy meant to the ancient world—and to our own. Buy this issue to read the full article.  Here is a link to the introduction:

Featured Club - House of Lebanon Young Professional Group

The mission of this group is to establish a network of young professionals in the American Lebanese Community to share information, learn, and exchange advice to further advance their careers, education and experience.  Participants include individuals ages 21 and over, late college, post graduate and those starting new careers.

The goal is to create a group of young professionals to network, meet people with similar interest and fields of work.  Another goal is to attend/sponsor seminars, educational events, and social events.

Do any of these career categories include you or one of your Lebanese-American associates:

Educator, Advocate, Physician, Public Sector, Non Profit, PhD, Business, Finance, Engineers, Attorney, Artist, PR, Media, IT, Designer, Programmer, Musician, Performer, Executive, Entertainer, Writers, Architect, Dancer, Policy Maker, Real Estate, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur, etc.?  If so join The House of Lebanon Young Professional group and invite your friends to join as well.  You can contact the group at info@houseoflebanon.com.

The group is a part of "The House Of Lebanon" organization which was featured in our August 2003 newsletter.  Please visit their site and read about them and what they have accomplished.  www.houseoflebanon.com.

Featured Club - The Lebanese Club @ MIT

The Lebanese Club @ MIT was established in 1996 with the aim of fostering a sense of community among the Lebanese students at MIT through social and cultural activities and promoting Lebanese culture and concerns at the Institute and the Boston area at large.

The club holds a number of cultural, social, political, and entertainment events throughout the year. The events range from special movie screenings to cultural parties to talks and debates by prominent figures. During the month of March, the club holds the Lebanese Cultural Week ('03 | '04) at the main MIT lobby.

Music, sweets, pastries, promotional flyers, projections, presentations, running videos, and navigational booths from/about Lebanon are setup to better introduce the country, its culture and concerns, to the MIT community at large. The week is capped with the annual Libanissimo (III | IV) party, which has now become a legacy at MIT anticipated every year. The Institute recognized the club with the 'Best Student Program of the Year 2003' (clip 1 | clip 2) award for Libanissimo III, with an estimated turnout of over 500 people.

To bring together fellow students and their professors in an amicable environment outside the classroom, the club hosts its annual Student-Faculty Dinner towards the end of every Fall semester. Club members invite their professors to a feasting of Lebanese delicacies catered by some of the best Lebanese restaurants in the area.  The club has also helped provide a forum for constructive debate and the continuous dissemination of news and information about Lebanon.

Please  visit their website for more information about the club and don't hesitate to contact the members for more questions.  http://web.mit.edu/lebanon. 

Please read below the most recent function sponsored by the club.

MIT Sponsored Event

On September 18th, 2004 the club hosted artist/dramatist Michel El-Ashkar in his internationally acclaimed monodrama, “A Child of Life”, a theatrical dramatic interpretation (in English) in two acts that chronicles many of the highlights of Lebanese-American poet and artist Kahlil Gibran’s life.

The play has been performed to standing ovations around the US and in major world capitals; most recently in Jordan’s annual Jerash Festival this summer under the personal auspices of her Majesty Queen Nour. It has received very positive reviews and official “Kahlil Gibran Day” proclamations from the mayors of nine cities in the US, all of which are featured on a website that has been dedicated to this event: http://web.mit.edu/lebanon/www/events/previous/AChildOfLife/
 

Guest of honor at the event was Mr. Kahlil Gibran, godson, cousin, and namesake of the famous Gibran himself. Internationally recognized as a "Renaissance Man", he is a remarkably talented sculptor, painter, poet, writer, and inventor. He has won numerous international gold medals and honors including the George Wiedner Medal, two Guggenheim fellowships, the Boston Popular Award and Grand Prize at the Boston Arts Festival, the Gold Medal in Italy for Sculpture, and much more. Mr. Gibran is also a founding member of the Copley Society, Boston's oldest cooperative gallery, and has donated an annual scholarship for artists affiliated with the Society.

Born in 1922, he is the godson, cousin, and namesake of the famous Lebanese poet and painter Kahlil Gibran, and has been entrusted with a formidable body of artwork and manuscripts left by the poet, including that of The Prophet. He has published with his wife, Jean, the most authoritative study and biography of Gibran titled “Kahlil Gibran: His Life and World”. In tribute to Mr. Gibran’s special presence amongst the crowd on Saturday night, his generous artistic contributions to the city of Boston and the scholarly world of Gibran were acknowledged before the start of Act I.

The event was co-sponsored by the American Lebanese Engineering Society, Middle East Airlines and the World Lebanese Cultural Union. It attracted hundreds of students, professors, and intellectuals from Harvard and MIT, and many members of the Lebanese and Middle Eastern community in greater Boston. 

Two surprise announcements preceded the event on Saturday night. The mayors of both Boston and Cambridge were thoughtful enough to officially proclaim the night of the event, September 18^th, as Kahlil Gibran Day in their respective cities! The text of the Boston proclamation read as follows:

PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS: Greater Boston has been a cradle for over a century to a vibrant American-Lebanese Community, and the sons and daughters of Lebanese immigrants have made and continue to make a great contribution to our American civilization; and

WHEREAS: Kahlil Gibran, the Lebanese immigrant who came to the United States of America and lived in the City of Boston, liberty and freedom being his inspiration, his writings continue to inspire generations around the world; and

WHEREAS: Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The Prophet has become an American classic; and

WHEREAS: “A Child of Life”, the dramatic interpretation of Kahlil Gibran’s life, written and performed by Michel El-Ashkar, a local artist and immigrant from Lebanon, is being presented at Kresge Theatre at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and

WHEREAS: This play has forged a spiritual bridge highlighting Gibran’s message of love and peace to humanity and seeking to bring a closer understanding amongst people and cultures.

THEREFORE, I, THOMAS M. MENINO, Mayor of the City of Boston, do hereby declare Saturday, September 18^th, 2004.

Mr. Ashkar, Mr. Gibran and the MIT Student Club (More Photos)

American Lebanese Profiles

Oussama Halim Barbar

Born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1962.  He came to the United States in 1983 where he attended Northeastern University in Boston and graduated with a degree in Civil/Environmental Engineering in 1988. He is the Co-owner/Co-founder of Environmental Consulting Services, Inc., an environmental and geotechnical engineering firm based in Houston, Texas.  In 1997 he was selected and honored as the "Entrepreneur Of The Year" by the International Who's Who Of Entrepreneurs.  He led the company to receive the Houston 100 award, as one of the fastest growing companies in Houston.   Mr. Barbar belongs to many environmental and engineering organizations and is very involved in the community.  He is also the co-founder of the International Orphans Foundation (IOF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping orphans in Lebanon and the United States.

Robert A. Chahine, M.D.

Dr. Chahine obtained his Medical Doctor degree from the American University of Beirut and had post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Miami, Harvard Medical School, and UCLA.  Subsequently he has held academic teaching appointments at the UCLA School of Medicine in Los Angeles, California, and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas culminating in Adjunct Professorship at Baylor and tenured full Professorship at the University of Miami in Miami,Florida. He has also served as Chief of Cardiology at the VAMC in Houston and  the University of Miami VAMC.  Dr. Chahine is a member of many prestigious medical and cardiovascular organizations.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Physicians.  He has also qualified for Fellowship at the American Association for the Advancement of Science as well as the Council on Circulation and the Council on Clinical Cardiology of the American Heart Association.  He also has held elected and/or appointed leadership posts in various professional organizations and recently served as President of the Metro-Miami Chapter of the American Heart Association.

Dr. Chahine has done extensive research on various aspects of cardiovascular disease and has earned millions of dollars in grants and contracts from government and industry in support of his research.   He has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications in leading national and international medical journals and books.  He had major contributions on the topics of coronary artery spasm, unstable angina, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and exercise testing. He also published the first comprehensive book on Coronary Artery Spasm.  He has lectured and made presentations in all six continents. Dr. Chahine has served on the editorial board of several important cardiovascular journals as well as editorial consultant and reviewer for most of the leading journals that specialize in internal medicine and/or cardiovascular disease.  In 1996, Dr. Chahine took leave from his position at the University of Miami and was appointed as Professor and Dean of the Lebanese University Medical School in Beirut, Lebanon, and held that job for several years. He was also offered a Visiting Professorship at AUB at that time.

In order to secure access to U.S. politicians and promote better understanding and support for Lebanon, Dr. Chahine has gotten successfully involved with fund raising in national and local political campaigns.  He was also appointed to US Senate Advisory Committees on Health and on Foreign Relations by Senator Connie Mack in the early 90s. He was awarded the RS Medal of Freedom. In addition he has had leadership roles with various Lebanese American Organizations. He has also served as President of the South Florida Chapter of the American University of Beirut, Alumni Association of North America, and has been significantly involved with various benevolent and charitable activities in Lebanon and the USA.  In recognition of the time and effort dedicated to community service and leadership in Miami, in 1991 Mayor Stephen P. Clark proclaimed March 27 as Dr. Robert A. Chahine Day in Metropolitan Dade County.

Despite a busy medical career, Dr. Chahine has remained very close to the problems of Lebanon, his birth country, and has worked in various capacities to bring attention and seek solutions for those problems.  His efforts have always been in support of a united, free, democratic and sovereign Lebanon.  His hope is to see his old country become an effective catalyst towards a real and just peace in the region. He is the current president and one of the founders of the American Lebanese Foundation www.alfusa.org.
 

H. John Shammas, MD

Dr. Hanna Shammas is a specialist in cataract and laser surgery who practices at the Shammas Medical Eye Center with several locations in California.  Born in Lebanon.  Obtained his education from St. Joseph University and American University of Beirut.  He came to the U.S. in 1975. He was on the staff at the University of Iowa and now he is a clinical professor of at the University of Southern California in Las Angeles.  He donates time and teaches medical students at the Los Angeles County Medical Center and Children's Hospital.

He is recognized nationally and internationally for his publications on eye surgery.  He published more than 100 scientific articles, has written multiple chapters in medical books and published books on eye surgery.  He was honored by the American Academy of Ophthalmology.  Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), and associated with the International College of Surgeons.

Despite his busy schedule Dr. Shammas has been very involved in American Lebanese Organizations to promote and preserve the Lebanese culture.  Recently he was recognized by the president of Lebanon and was awarded the decoration of the National Cedar Order for his major efforts to establish the Lebanese American Foundation that is  sponsoring the creation of the "House of Lebanon" in Southern California.  Please visit www.houseoflebanon.com to learn more about this great project.

We would like to wish the above individuals continued success and we thank all those who have supported them.

Inspirational

A list to live by:
 
The most destructive habit...............................Worry
The greatest joy.............................................Giving
The greatest loss..........................Loss of self-respect

The most satisfying work.......................Helping others
The ugliest personality trait........................Selfishness
The most endangered species............Dedicated leaders

Our greatest natural resource........................Our youth
The greatest "shot in the arm"................Encouragement
The greatest problem to overcome..........................Fear
 
The most effective sleeping pill................Peace of mind
The most crippling failure disease......................Excuses
The most powerful force in life...............................Love

The most dangerous pariah............................A gossiper
The world's most incredible computer................The brain
The worst thing to be without.... .......................... Hope
 
The deadliest weapon..................................The tongue
The two most power-filled words........................."I Can"
The greatest asset..............................................Faith
 
The most worthless emotion.............................Self-pity
The most beautiful attire....................................SMILE!
The most prized possession............................. Integrity
The most powerful channel of communication.........Prayer
The most contagious spirit............................Enthusiasm

Everyone needs this list to live by... pass it along!

 

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