The bright side (no pun intended) of the Beirut explosion is that it compelled the tv/radio/online media to stop at last talking exclusively about that stupid virus (stupid it might be, but not as stupid as the aforementioned journalists anyway). Yes, there’s much life (and death) beyond this flu on steroids – yes, just a flu – that turned the world into a global prison.

And that’s enough reason to love this city twice as much. I fell in love with it the moment I started walking its streets a few years ago. Now it hurts me to see how a place that really has all the prerequisites to be a (or the) pearl of the Middle East received yet another blow, as if the decades of war and turmoil were not enough. Beautifully unique as it is, it deserves a better fate.