Guns and Buns and Old Glory

Besides being a bastion of Hizballah supporters, the densely packed, semi-bombed out Shia Muslim-dominated suburbs of Beirut are also one of the most entrepreneurial, business-oriented parts of Lebanon.

A couple weeks ago, my assistant Rami -- who lives in the suburbs -- told me about a new restaurant that had opened up near him. "Guns and Buns" read the glossy, camouflaged menu. "No way," I thought. "Hizballah is opening a Hooters!"

Sadly, it turns out Guns and Buns isn't a strip club or a Hooters knock-off, just a fast food joint. The aforementioned buns are merely hamburger rolls, and the guns are part of a Soldier of Fortune-esque marketing theme. The place is decorated with sandbags, and the happy meal platters are named after well-known firearms.

Yet more evidence of the violent nature of Lebanese, or their genius for advertising? I'm inclined to see this as another nail in coffin of the clash of civilization thesis. Most people in southern Beirut -- Hizballah supporters though they may be -- know our corn-fed, high caliber/low brow popular culture, and God help them, they love it. They love our buns. Heck, they love our guns. They just wish we weren't giving them to Israel.

Since the suburbs are also a good place to shop for bargains, I asked the overworked Rami to look around his neighborhood for fireworks and American flags for my Fourth of July cookout on Friday. Fireworks -- in fact explosives of many kinds -- are pretty easy to find in the suburbs, but American flags less so. Several shocked storekeepers later (responses ranged from "What are you joking?" to "But America wasn't playing in the European Cup!"), Rami finally found one party supply store that stocked paper and plastic American flags. Why? American flag-burning demonstrations, of course.

--Andrew Lee Butters/Beirut