Last Post on the Smokin' Hot Babes of Beirut

Several bloggers have noted the prominence of smokin' hot young babes in the Lebanese democracy protests and wondered why. In an earlier post I ran through the possibilities (selective bias by the photographers, by editors, by news organizations, etc.) and concluded that it reflected the media-savvy nature of the protest leaders who knew that attractive young women are..., well, attractive to readers and viewers. I did, however, allow for the possibility that there are just a lot of smokin' hot babes in Beirut.

It turns out that my throwaway line had an element of truth in it. Lee Smith is traveling in Beirut and his reports are being printed in Slate. Here's what he has to say about the Babes of Beirut:

The war and the Syrian occupation continue to take a toll on Lebanese women in particular. Beirut nightlife is famous largely thanks to them, but this is a hard town on women. Because the economy is so bad, and so many younger people, mostly men, are forced to emigrate to find work, the ratio of marriageable women to men, my friend Rouba explains, is something like 4-to-1. "That must make the women totally crazy!" I venture. "Of course," she says. "And it must make the men act like total jerks," I add. "Oh, do you think so?" Rouba asks—sarcastically, I think.

So, it turns out I was right after all..., by accident.