Anne Barnard on Beirut: Front-page in the New York Times

So there is a long, front-page, article on Beirut in the New York Times.  I never saw such a treatment of a city that is devoid of class analysis or political foresight since Jeffrey Feltman famously said, in the wake of the flight of Zayn Al-`Abidin Bin `Ali, that "Egypt is not Tunisia".  There is nothing in the article about the striking class disparities in the city.  Not a word. 2) Nothing about the cost (to the people and environment of the city) of the Hariri reconstruction plan; 3) Nothing about the corruption that characterized reconstruction and the expansion of the Beirut coast into the sea; 4) Typical of writers who write on the Middle East without knowing Arabic, she cites one Arabic sentence and manages to butcher the Arabic of that sentence.  Why cite it, Anne really?  I would never cite a sentence in a language that I don't know.  It would be embarrassing.  5) She does not talk about the class fissures of the people, and does not talk about the class features of the visitors and tourists.  The city is welcoming to people with money only.  6) She does not mention what the city has to offer in terms of brothels, money laundering, drugs, and gambling.  Nothing about that.  7) The city for people like Anne and for most Westerners in the city is a very small section of the city that extends from Ras Beirut to Jumayzah and ends there.  Lastly, did she skype with the people she talked to in the article?  Just wondering.