A revisionist autobiography

05:20 pm - I saw a bank that said '24-Hour Banking,' but I don't have that much time. - Stephen Wright

I visited Abu Dhabi over the weekend. I didn't get to walk around nearly as much as I had planned, but that means I have an excuse to go back. I can't wait; there is an awful lot I would like to explore.


A pedestrian crossing outside Marina Mall.
( The Father of the Gazelle )


Very few people in Dubai use (or even know) the official names for streets. One short stretch of Khalid bin al Waleed Road is almost universally known as Bank Street, owing to the number of financial institutions with offices there.
( Glass and concrete )

Current Mood: complacent

02:20 pm - It's not so unusual to run out of someone else's currency. - Jeffrey Sachs

Kuwait wants to delay the launch of the single Gulf currency, planned for 2010. I don't know if anyone really expected it to go ahead. I don't even need to describe political battles to explain why; it is enough to point out that the four states still nominally committed to the project have yet to agree upon a name for a currency they will ostensibly start circulating in a few months.


A stitched image of the skyline along a major arterial road in Al Barsha.


Another image, showing a different part of the neighborhood. I like the idea of Al Barsha far more than I do the actual neighborhood. Much of the area is taken up by tightly packed buildings, each approximately 10 stories high. These extend some distance away from Sheikh Zayed Road, the major highway running along one side. The density ought to encourage all sorts of urban life, especially given that there is a mix of residential and commercial space, with retail outlets below most buildings. Sadly, there are very few pedestrians. Most roads lack sidewalks, and arterial roads have insufficient numbers of crossings. Bus service is very poor, and the only metro stop opened thus far serves the area's largest mall. Throw in construction, a large number of empty sand lots, and a distinct paucity of restaurants, and you can see why almost everyone who has a choice drives. Still, the area at least has the potential to turn into an interesting place. Sadly, the same cannot be said of most other parts southern Dubai, where individual developers have created dull, single-use communities inspired by North American suburbs.


Sheikh Zayed Road, as seen here from the metro, is slowly acquiring depth. There are plenty of buildings to the right of the area pictured. Folks on the other side of the highway can now use pedestrian crossings built for the metro, allowing them to access more shops and restaurants without the use of an automobile.
( Five more pictures with skyscrapers )


A mosque in Bur Dubai. The green light on the right is shining down from a minaret.
( Four more pictures from the area )

05:24 pm - There is no sincerer love than the love of food. - George Bernard Shaw

Venezuela will fine television stations showing the American animated series, Family Guy. Was it because of the show's suggestive situations or violence? No, it is because is a talking dog is promoting marijuana legalization.

I suspect mrputter would love Japan's Ogori Cafe. So might you!

Are you familiar with the homosexual agenda? Via tomscud.

For an organization you hear so little about, China's Central Organisation Department sure is powerful.

Spot the invisible man.

I wish I could check out this example of urban renweal in New York.

A female government employee in Dubai is suing the organizers of an academic excellence award for publishing a photo of her in which she is not wearing a face cover, or niqab. She is claiming the picture ruined her reputation and status in the community. "My family and husband were shocked and devastated when they saw my picture & they even asked me to quit my job as a teacher and stay at home."

Football clubs in this country are selling so few tickets that they risk becoming ineligible for Asia-wide championships. I have no idea why these clubs haven't tried to market themselves to expatriates, a large number of whom are just as enthusiastic about the sport as the Emiratis who show up to support their sides. Clubs also face strict restrictions on the number of foreign players they can field, a factor which contributes to the low standard of play. It would be great to have a single Gulf-wide football league of a higher standard, with no restrictions on player movement within the six countries of Gulf Cooperation Council. Perhaps we'd then have fewer Gulf businessmen buying clubs in Europe, and fewer expatriates paying attention only to clubs on that continent.

Dubai has never had great street food along the lines of New York, Mumbai, or Cairo. It makes up, however, with its inexpensive sit-down restaurants, which are easy to find in the older parts of town. The rest of this post will show you some of the dishes my friends and I like to order when we eat out. All of them, save for the Ethiopian plate, cost AED 15 ($4) or less, and most items pictured are vegan.


It looks like chu_hi approves.
( Ethiopian food )


When sit down for a Levantine meal, you usually get some free salad and pickles. (Comments from mrputter are not welcome here.)
( More food from the Arab world )


This is a thali, which translates literally into 'plate.' You get unlimited refills of each dish, save for the dessert and yogurt, including the poori you see in the center. South Indian thalis are traditionally served on banana leaves. At AED 15 for 14 items making up a complete meal, it may be the best value for money of anything in this post.
( South Indian food )


A dhokla is a bit like a cake, but not nearly as sweet.
( Fast food from western India )

Current Mood: chipper

06:18 am - In the Soviet army it takes more courage to retreat than advance. - Joseph Stalin

Ronald Reagan tells jokes about the Soviet Union.

The United States ambassador in Kuwait seems to have gotten caught up in a tempest in a teacup. One member of parliament reportedly calling for her expulsion from the country, after she jokingly compared members of the chamber to dogs. In another incident involving animals and cross-cultural communication snafus, an Indian minister, himself a former diplomat, has gotten into trouble for comments he made on Twitter regarding 'cattle class' travel with 'holy cows.' Opposition calls for him to resign are likely to go nowhere. Opposition parties in India, whatever their political strength or ideology, ask for resignations over such petty issues (and to so little effect) that they remove any credibility from such statements when they might actually serve some purpose.

An Iraqi helped set up Norway's oil industry, keeping it from turning into a dysfunctional mess and/or dragging down the rest of the country, as was the case in so many other exporting states. I thought his story was fascinating. Hat tip: rfmcdpei.

You might remember how people in the Emirates pay large sums of money in order to derive prestige from license plates with certain numbers. Apparently, the new trend is to do the same with Blackberry pins.

In this post, chu_hi examines the concerns of prospective metro riders in Dubai.


Wafi is Dubai's most upscale mall.
( Look around )


Terminal 3, the newest and shiniest passenger terminal at Dubai's airport, is used exclusively by Emirates airline. Here is a view of a large sign outside the building, as seen from the metro.


I'm not sure why a tire showroom in an industrial neighborhood like Al Quoz has pseudo-Mughal architecture, but cities can be random like that.


Speaking of which.

Current Mood: tired

12:11 am - Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one. - A. J. Liebling

The view from the front of a train on Dubai's new metro.

Italy's prime minister claims that he sued newspapers that were politically at odds with him because he wanted to defend press freedom. I am reminded of Tom Lehrer's comment about Henry Kissinger winning the Nobel Peace Prize: "It was at that moment that satire died. There was nothing more to say after that."

Kuwait is following in Bahrain's footsteps by partially abolishing the sponsorship system used to regulate the employment of foreign workers.

Studies have shown most people in the UAE don't wear seat belts, something which has doubtless contributed to high road fatality rates. A new campaign aims to add designer labels in order to make seat belts more desirable.

Everything's Gone Green was sort of like Garden State except it didn't suck. Vancouver looked gorgeous on film, and I want to visit more than ever.

My final set of pictures from DC involves that city's mass transit system.

Metrorail!
( Stations )

I have a lot to say about Dubai's new system, but you will have to wait until I organize my thoughts (and pictures). The following is an initial glimpse.

Speeding away from a train headed in the opposite direction. I think this was at the Union Square station, but chu_hi can correct me if I have that wrong.
( Trains and stuff )

Current Mood: chipper

09:57 pm - Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant. - Mitchell Kapor

Not long ago, I mentioned a search engine for religious Jews. Now, Muslims have one too! The Humanist Society may soon have to deny rumors it is backing a site that says 'No results found' when you try to search for God.

A plane belonging to the UAE air force was detained in India after it was found to be carrying undeclared arms to China, an exporter of the same. There is a distinct paucity of detail in reports about this unusual incident, which is a pity.

During the economic boom, hotel prices in Dubai skyrocketed. As developers rushed to meet new demand, they came up with ever fancier ideas of what to build. Prices have since dropped, but the hotels under construction are now the largest in the world, overtaking Las Vegas. The average hotel being built will have 417 rooms. Despite project cancellations, some of which affected hotels already under construction, Dubai is currently slated to add over 47,000 rooms to its existing 58,147.

I can only imagine the developers of the Pentominium have already sold the vast majority of space therein to buyers facing minimal liquidity challenges. Awarding a contract to build a 124-story tower in Dubai in this economic climate would otherwise most likely be the economic equivalent of hara-kiri.


Sheikh Zayed Road by sunset. The buildings you saw last week all lie to the right of the sun in this stitched shot. Today, I'm going to look at Business Bay, which accounts for some of the towers to the left.
( First three stitched shots of that area )


The Executive Towers buildings are hard to miss.
( A look around Business Bay )


A view in the direction of Business Bay from the top of the Address. The buildings in the foreground lie in the Burj Dubai complex.


Al Ghubaiba Bus Station usually throngs with people and vehicles, but it is deserted this Ramadan evening.

Current Mood: indescribable

12:08 am - If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway. - Stanley Crouch

The UAE recently seized illegal North Korean arms bound for Iran. It says a fair deal about all three countries that it took weeks for this news to emerge.

Loins of Punjab Presents was lots of fun, even if it did traffic in stereotypes. I almost wish I knew more about Bollywood, so I would get more of the inside jokes.

Over the past few weeks, I have tried over and over again to stitch together a picture of the entire Sheikh Zayed Road skyline. So far this has been the least bad one:

( Four more attempts under the cut )

One of these days, I will get a shot I am happy with! For now, I will just have to accept that even single shots of the buildings on that road are not always going to come out as crisply as I would like.

The green lights lie on the roof of Dubai Mall, in case you were wondering.


So what can I show you of Sheikh Zayed Road?
( Let's start with the urban canyons )


So what does a massive wall of buildings look like anyway?
( Find out )


So what else can you see from the area besides these reflections of Emirates Towers?
( A lot )


Let us now examine individual buildings on the road.
( I've picked out some of my favorites )


Emirates Towers, as mentioned above.
( Two other night shots )

12:02 am - Of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, sitting amid their ruins. - Nathaniel Parker Willis

I saw a sign in Al Barsha the other day instructing me to drive slowly because I was entering a construction zone. In order to avoid redundancy, they should just put up big signs at the airport so that everyone coming into the country is aware of this.

Anyone who has seen Being John Malkovich is likely to remember the scene in which the eponymous actor journeys into his own head, seeing umpteen copies of himself dressed differently but saying the same thing. Burn After Reading reminded me a bit of this, not only because the same man had big roles in both movies, but because a number of the characters are variations of one another, albeit in a marginally more subtle way than placing Malkovich's head over dozens of bodies in the same frame.

India's largest communist party would still have us believe that socialism is inevitable, and the future lies with them, rather than the country's two biggest parties. Then again, listening to their rhetoric on imperialism is a little like stepping into a time machine.


Let's take a look at the ghost town at Jazira al Hamra, in the northern emirate of Ras al Khaimah.


This is chu_hi, whose gorgeous pictures of the day can be seen here and here.
( Abandoned buildings )


Ras al Khaimah's only block with more than two high-rise buildings was surrounded by smaller structures.
( More from the city )


The atrium inside the Holiday Inn in Al Barsha.

Current Mood: complacent

12:24 pm - If a politician isn't doing it to his wife, then he's doing it to his country. - Amy Grant

The Chinese trust their sex workers more than they do their politicans. I was surprised mostly that this made it to the pages of state-run papers in that country.

Have you heard about the Jeddah Casanova? More surprises for me, this time because I didn't think anyone could regularly pick up women using their phone's Bluetooth functionality.

Not long ago, I hoped to read a book about each country in the Middle East. I do most of my reading on a computer screen these days, and very little using dead trees. It was just as well The Birth of Modern Yemen is available as a free e-book. You can read my review on 'Aqoul.

The Wrestler slowly drew me in, although it still seemed like a movie where very little actually happened.


Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky...


Obligatory cranes.

Current Mood: quixotic

11:37 pm - Nature abhors a vacuum. And so do I. - Anne Gibbons

Saudi women have started working as housemaids. I rather doubt any Emiratis will follow suit anytime soon, no matter how bad the economic crisis gets.

Do you believe prayer is more powerful than modern medicine?


A colorful shop in Deira.


The top of Deira Tower looks like it should rotate, but I've never seen it do so.
( More from the neighborhood )


I think this building in Jebel Ali will one day become a hotel.

Current Mood: pleased

12:05 am - Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything. - Gregg Easterbrook

It disturbs me to read that Indians are twice as likely as not to be okay with some amount of torture. Sadly, I suspect there is also widespread support for extrajudicial killings. A number of Indian politicians seem as keen as their counterparts in this part of the world to ban television programming that offends them. I might not much care for trashy TV shows, but a mature democracy should not ban any sort of content without one hell of a good reason.

I am still figuring out my new camera, but I think my photographs have started to improve.


You may remember the Jumeirah Lakes Towers from my previous post.


I took these photographs in the marina, which lies across the Sheikh Zayed Road from the towers in the previous shot. This shot, like the one above, has been stitched together.


This is my favorite part of the marina to look at.
( Still, there is plenty more worth seeing )


Finally, apropos of nothing, a picture of a grown man riding a tricycle.

Current Mood: indifferent

07:05 am - We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us. - Winston Churchill

All sorts of projects in the UAE have used and misused water resources, but none has been quite so audacious as this.


You can see the flaws in this picture of the Jumeirah Lakes Towers if you zoom in, but it is probably the best shot I have stitched together to date. In case it isn't clear, the vehicles on the left and right sides of the picture are on the same road, and it is dead straight.


Many thanks to chu_hi, who talked antivert and yours truly up to the 33rd floor of the Bonnington, allowing me to put together this picture of the Almas Tower. (You can see chu_hi's shots of the evening here.) With a height of 363 meters, this is currently the second tallest building in Dubai, and 18th highest in the world. As with the previous image, click on the picture to see a larger version.
( More from the area )


Older housing stock in Karama.


A shop in the Karama souq selling merchandise geared towards tourists.

Current Mood: sleepy

01:08 am - A film is a petrified fountain of thought. - Jean Cocteau

The performing fountains at Dubai Mall.


I may only have used a camera with a wide angle lens for a single day, but I am already beginning to wonder if I can ever go back. Here is a panorama I stitched together from behind the fountains seen in this video above. Even with my fancy new equipment, I cannot quite capture everything to be seen from this location. That would require a helicopter and a special lens allowing for 360° views.
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Current Mood: tired

12:01 am - I do not wish them to have power over men, but over themselves. - Mary Wollstonecraft

This has been going around for a while. I suppose the timing could have been better.

Women in Saudi Arabia may not be allowed to drive, but they are still buying cars.

A new study suggests UAE nationals make up just 0.3 percent of heir country's private sector workforce. This is despite any number of government programs to boost the figure, including mandatory quotas at banks and insurance companies. The figure usually cited is many times this – two percent.

The UAE ranked fourth in the world for its road fatality rate. Road surfaces are generally excellent, but the driving culture is terrible, not least because of a lack of police on the streets penalizing poor drivers. The driving here is probably a bit better, if anything, than in most of the region, but car ownership is high here, and badly designed highways run through urban areas, leading to large numbers of high-speed crashes.

The UAE is considering an end to the current employment sponsorship system. I can't even begin to explain how big a deal this is. The opening shots in this debate seem to have remarkably little discussion of the expatriates any such move would most affect. However, if framing this purely in terms of Emirati national interests is what it takes to make this happen, then so be it.

The Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship.


The center of Ibn Battuta Mall's Persia court.
( More from the mall )


The Burj al Arab lies just outside the Madinat Jumeirah.
( Two more shots from the complex )

Current Mood: contemplative

10:29 pm - The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one. - Oscar Wilde

A rather good skater, via chu_hi.

Cancer can really mess up your life.

The BBC has been looking at piracy in the Somali region of Puntland:

Moored near [the captured pirate boats] was a broken speedboat with the words "Puntland coastguard" painted on the side. A harbour official refused to confirm reports that it represented the entire Puntland navy. "That is a military secret," said Colonel Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed stiffly.

06:59 pm - Without music, life would be an error. - Friedrich Nietzsche

A skilled musician Chris found.

Bahrain's banks are laying off citizens, who are rather unhappy that such a thing could happen to them. I wonder if the country's parliament will consider a UAE-style law making this illegal, or at least difficult.

There is now a search engine designed especially for religious Jews. I'm waiting for someone to put together one targeted at hipsters.

The BBC talked to the head of Somalia's navy. Not only does the man have no boats or equipment at his disposal, but he hasn't been to sea in 23 years.

This may mark the first time I've come across a proposal to curb music piracy online with a fighting chance of success.


A small fountain lies outside a market in Bur Dubai.
( More from the area )


The King Faisal Mosque.
( More from Sharjah )

01:27 am - Why join the navy if you can be a pirate? - Steve Jobs

In Sweden, the Pirate Party is running in the current EU elections.

Kuwait just set a pointless world record of the sort normally associated with Dubai.

How much did you know about the Arabic roots of Star Wars?

I'm feeling lazy, so I will not discuss in detail how much fun I had in Abu Dhabi, or how nice everyone there was to me. Instead, here are a bunch of pictures.


This shot was stitched together using pictures of the city's corniche. Click on it to see a larger version.


I rather enjoyed walking through the urban canyons.
( More from my visit to the UAE's capital )


Finally, your bonus picture shows the chandelier in the lobby of Dubai's Grandeur Hotel.

04:45 pm - Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough. - Martin Amis

Egypt's grand mufti has said Muslims should not use weapons of mass destruction, but may possess them as a deterrent. So it's too bad they are only effective as a deterrent when one can credibly claim one will use them if attacked.

It's time for more pictures! Let's start off with two images I cobbled together using multiple shots of Sharjah by night. Click on either to see a larger version.

The Al Khan Lagoon.


The same, from another angle.


The ferris wheel you can see on the left of the first picture is called the Eye of the Emirates, and is part of the Qanat al Qasba complex you see in this shot.
( After dark in Sharjah )


Festival City was initially conceived as a permanent home for the Global Village, a sort of internationalized state fair.
( That's not how it turned out )


Finally, let us journey once again to the crowded streets of Deira.
( Signs! )

Current Mood: blank

03:31 pm - I always say shopping is cheaper than a psychiatrist. - Tammy Faye Bakker

This collection of satellite photos shows how much the south of Dubai has changed between 2000 and the present.

Now for some pictures of and from the Palm Jumeirah.

This is the marina, as seen from the larger island just south of the Palm's trunk. I've stitched this shot together from multiple photos. You can find a larger (2601 by 399 px) version here. As you can tell from the presentation above, this area was virtually uninhabited six years ago, and the island from which this shot was taken did not exist.


My other attempt at stitching together pictures was meant to show you the entirety of the Jumeirah Beach Residence complex, a hard thing to capture while on the mainland.


Now let's get to regular images.
( Tall buildings and construction )


I passed Business Bay on my way to the Palm.
( Three more pictures )


Worker housing in Al Quoz, as seen from the upper level of a double decker bus.

I tried, I really did, but I am giving up on the bus system here, at least for trips outside the center of the central business district. I want to ride for political, economic, and environmental reasons, but there is so much fail associated with the system, as it currently stands, that I can't rely on it. Frankly, I've gotten rather tired of standing in the sun and waiting for buses that do not arrive. I haven't completely given up on public transport though; I'm still looking forward to the metro.

Fill in the blank: Dubai's ruler, "Sheikh Mohammed has backed plans to set up a chain of 22 ________ throughout the emirate to reduce the burden of residents who had to travel far to visit" them. Did you guess community centers? Wrong! Single-window government offices to process paperwork, like the ones that have been so successful in Dubai's free zones? Well, I wish you were right. You get partial credit if you thought of facilities for health care or religious activities. The correct answer is shopping malls. But all new shopping centers in the city are now supposed to include mosques and clinics. In a further sign that these institutions have turned into public space, you can also now go to the mall to get marriage guidance.

For a secular country, India sure does some interesting things. In the state of Sikkim, one seat in the provincial assembly is reserved for Buddhist monks.

A gambler who lost $2 million in Las Vegas is suing his hotel, alleging it used Feng Shui to make him lose.

It's been a glorious season to be a supporter of FC Barcelona; they have won all three major competitions they have competed in, beating their traditional rivals in each, often in emphatic style, winning plaudits along the way for their style of play. I've had a lot of free time over the past few months, and so I've been able to watch a number of their games live. They will be playing in the UAE this December, in the World Club Championship, so I hope I can watch them in person for the first time.

Current Mood: hungry

01:15 am - A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel. - Mason Cooley

MTV clone Channel [V] was founded in the 1990s and played a mix of Hindi and English music. Its commercials used Indian English expressions and satirized Indian and Western culture for bilingual audiences. South Indian cowboy Quick Gun Murugan, who appears in the video above (as well as these two), got his own film last year.

A Saudi judge speaking in public told his audience husbands could slap their wives if they spent too much. The kicker? He made his remarks at a seminar on domestic violence.

The general consensus is right: Star Trek is loads of fun.

If I had to pick a symbol for Dubai as a town that boomed and then collapsed spectacularly under the weight of its own excesses, it would probably be Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building. But the rows of tall towers on Sheikh Zayed Road and around the marina would both make the shortlist.


First, Sheikh Zayed Road.
( Skyscrapers! )


The northern end of the marina.
( More skyscrapers! )

Current Mood: sleepy

12:21 am - Once the bear's hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps. - Harold Macmillan

Deluxe hugs are like regular hugs, but with more cowbell.

The Economist has designed a graph showing the world's five largest arms importers, and the countries from which they made purchases. The UAE ranks third, behind China and India, but differs from them in that its supplies are overwhelmingly Western in origin.

The BBC tells me 'Do you Realize?' by the Flaming Lips is now the official rock song of Oklahoma. The article failed to mention whether Khaled's 'Didi' would become the state's official rai song.

Meanwhile, the New York Times was busy exploring the fetish business in Pakistan.

Despite the current credit crunch, it looks like railways are likely to have a bright future in the Gulf.

Property is another story, however; one real estate consultancy says prices in Dubai fell 41 percent in the first three months of 2009 after an 8 percent decline in the previous quarter.

An Emirati driver weaved between lanes on a busy highway, nearly colliding with an Australian driver, who subsequently gestured towards the former with his middle finger. As punishment for his road rage, the Aussie was held in jail for 24 days and then deported.

Labor day has been covered quite actively in the local papers this year; the UAE's labor ministry has been keen to show it is taking steps to check abuses against workers. One new service will take wage complaints in 12 different languages. The ministry also says it will take steps to improve labor accommodation and monitor salary payments.

Now let us look at two very different parts of Dubai:


Bur Dubai is the best place in Dubai to look for textiles.
( Can I see more? )


Emirates Towers, as seen from under the Gate.
( Under the what, now? )

Current Mood: chipper

09:20 pm - Orange is the happiest color. - Frank Sinatra

You may have heard of all sorts of counterfeiting activity in China, but did you know oranges grown there have caused a controversy in Iran on account of their misleading labels?

Here are 10 things you probably didn't know about pirates, via the hilarious somalipirate. (Hey frandroid, thanks for the recommendation to add him.)

I was pointed towards a fascinating pictorial essay on urban decay on a small Japanese island by mrputter.

It seems to be inordinately hard to keep open a gym for women in Saudi Arabia. In the face of a crackdown, Saudi women have reportedly launched an online protest campaign entitled 'Let Her Get Fat.'

Will Lebanon make Dubai's mistakes?

Dubai has announced plans to boost the combined capacity at its existing and planned airports from 190 million people per year to a staggering 240 million. Allow me to remind you that the world's busiest passenger airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson, handled about 90 million people last year, while Dubai International was in 20th place with 37 million and change. The government has scaled down some of its plans at the $33 billion new airport though; instead of six parallel runways, Al Maktoum International Airport will now have a mere five.


Dubai Marina Mall is one of the city's newest shopping complexes. Many of the stores inside have yet to open.
( What does it look like? )

Frankly, I was a little underwhelmed by the mall.


The view outside, on the other hand, was unexpectedly nice.
( I can has skyscapers? )


I am ashamed to say that I hadn't been to Dubai's historic Bastakiya district until just two weeks ago.
( So what did you find inside? )


Next, let us journey to the markets of Karama.
( Why, what's in them? )


Looking towards the Bur Juman complex from the corner of Kuwait Street and Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Road.

Current Mood: moody

12:26 am - I'd rather go by bus. There is nothing nicer in the world than a bus. - Prince Charles

I've been taking close to 40 pictures a day here. Here are some of my favorite shots of skylines; full sets from a number of these locations will follow in the future.

This is the Marina. As you can see, this photo from three years ago contains fewer buildings.


Sheikh Zayed Road, as seen from Al Khail Road.
( Glass and concrete )

A front-page article in a UAE newspaper warned schools they face closure if their textbooks blaspheme, depict Israeli symbols, or discuss alcohol, drugs, or homosexuality. Towards the end, an official in the ministry of education said his institution did "not [object to] the teaching of modern history, but" only if isn't used "as a means or vehicle to change the mindset of society." Does that mean you can study, but not learn any lessons?

Saudi Arabia will never cease to amaze me.

An Indian politician managed to address a rally for the wrong political party before realizing where he was.

Delhi has built a Bus Rapid Transit corridor! How did I not hear about this earlier?

I decided to go a week without driving. I walked more than usually do, but also made extensive use of Dubai's bus system to see what had become of it. Now this city was well ahead of the rest of the UAE in setting up a meaningful bus network, but its rapid geographic expansion meant that coverage was poor to non-existent outside the downtown core. Unfortunately, bus use has traditionally indicated low status, much as is the case in other cities around the world. The overwhelming majority of riders who aren't students are either working or lower middle class, and cannot afford a car. As Dubai expanded, the growth in automoble traffic outpaced population growth until congestion seriously threatened residents' quality of life. The government has promoted urban development patterns that have contributed to the mess. To its credit, however, it has also been willing to make major investments to tackle these problems, most notably by building two metro lines. To connect these lines to the rest of the city, the government has tried to the inadequacies of the bus network.

First, the government ordered over a thousand buses. While the old ones were generally adequate, the new ones are uniformly shiny. While I have yet to see the onboard information screens work as designed, they will one day give travelers route information. A large number of them are either double-decker or articulated. This will be important in September, when the metro disgorges large numbers of people on to the streets at once. If commuters can't trust buses to get them near their houses and workplaces reliable and in comfort, they will not use them. The metro will then be of very limited use outside the central business district, and will not do much to alleviate traffic congestion on the city's main north-south corridor. New bus routes now serve the vast majority of the city, at least as it stands today. In an effort to make sure commuters have no excuse to avoid the buses, the city has built air conditioned stops, put up route maps at each of them, and started running buses through the night, with varying levels of success. Punctuality has been a serious problem in the past, not least due to congestion. The sheer number of new buses will probably serve as a brute-force solution to this problem. In other words, the schedules may still mean little, and a given bus might still be 45 minutes late, but if you can expect a bus every 10 minutes instead of every hour, it does not matter all that much. Currently, bus transfers and day passes do not exist at all. The only reform in that department in the past few years has been the institution of a flat AED 2 (55¢) fare for all buses in the city. Luckily, the electronic payment machines already visible on newer buses will be linked to the fare card system for the upcoming metro in order to allow for various discount schemes.

Still, there is a long way to go before the bus network here can rival its more efficient counterparts elsewhere. In DC, many buses were given similar numbers and followed the same route in and near the center of the city, leading to frequent connections between crowded areas. Here, the bus numbering system is largely arbitrary, and routes are difficult to understand unless you are a native of the city who is good with maps. These maps are not on display in the buses, and may be hard to obtain even at major bus terminals. The transit agency's website is terribly designed; the only way you can find a map of the entire system is to use google to search for PDFs on its website. (Had it not been for antivert, I would not have known such a map was available online at all.) If you look at the agency's home page, you will see that the top third is taken up not by transit alerts (non-existent) or a journey planner (a link says it is under construction) but by a banner for the organization proclaiming its 'Customer Centricity.' Which, like the mission and vision statements immediately below it, is obviously not useful to customers at all. If you do eventually locate the page with bus information, you will notice that you have to open separate PDF files to view fares, schedules, and maps for a given route. The latter are in fact outdated tourist maps that have been scanned in, and painted over to reflect routes. Stop locations are not provided. Each map has a customized view of the city depicting only the area around the bus route in question, making it harder for newcomers to stitch together journey plans involving multiple buses.

Another major series of problems relates to the way Dubai has been built. Instead of a street grid, the city has a number of major arterial roads, usually about a half kilometer apart, with disjointed local roads running between them. Major roads need not run in straight lines. Buses are not set up to encourage transfers, and therefore try to serve heavily populated or underserved areas, rather than go from point to point along the shortest possible route. This system is loopy in more ways than one; buses are forced to take circuitous paths along small local roads, and therefore do not get people across town in a hurry. Take a look at these route maps for example:

 

The transit agency has been tinkering around the edges. On local roads in congested areas, buses now stop in the street, and cars wait behind while passengers board. Previously, Dubai drivers would not yield to buses that had stopped in lay-bys, slowing down them down. The new approach will not work on arterial roads, because speed limits in the city can be as high as 100 km/h (60 mph), and coming to a dead stop could easily lead to an accident. On the other hand, if buses did not go down local roads at all, potential passengers with a choice would likely decide not to brave the summer heat for 10 minutes in order to get to the nearest bus stop.

The best solution I can think of would be to run buses as straight as possible and simplify transfers so that east-west passengers could take one north-south bus, or vice versa. Free and frequent local buses could then handle the first and last leg of the journey, bringing people to (or at any rate, near) their doorsteps from relatively distant and infrequent bus stops. However, two serious problems would arise. First, this would require most passengers to switch buses a couple of times, leading to inefficiencies on short journeys, not to mention some serious inconvenience. Second, Dubai's major intersections usually allow at least the one lane of traffic to make a free right at a reasonable speed. The huge curve in the lane and the space needed to allow cars to turn in and out make it impossible to place a bus stop near a corner. Right now, this means someone on a north-south bus has to walk extra to get to the nearest east-west street, limiting the range of places that are a five-minute walk of the bus stop. But asking someone to walk for half a kilometer in the 50°C (120°F) summer heat in order to transfer buses? You may as well just give up and just write off bus transfers off as impossible due to structural problems.

A final set of problems is political in nature. In the United States, the federal government can and does push state and local governments in a given metropolitan area to cooperate. In metropolitan Washington, for instance, the bus and rail network extends across not only the District of Columbia, but also Maryland and Virginia. Those two states, and the counties and cities therein, operate their own bus networks on certain routes, but connect to the Metro and accept its fare cards. In the UAE, the federal government is relatively weak, and political power there is wielded by the rulers of individual emirates. As a consequence, it cannot force Dubai to cooperate with the four emirates from which commuters could reasonably travel to the city every day. This matters relatively little in the case of faraway Ras Al Khaimah or tiny Umm al Quwain, but a third of a million people live in the bedroom community that is Ajman, and something like two hundred thousand people drive from Sharjah to Dubai every working day. Dubai would prefer that they all pay rent inside its own city limits, and has not made it particularly easy for them to get into the city. Road connections across the border are few and far between, and the metro will not extend to Sharjah and Ajman. Sharjah operates an entirely independent (but rather inadequate) bus system, and Ajman lacks any form of public transport. Dubai now operates a bus line to Ajman as well as 11 bus routes to Sharjah, a huge improvement over the solitary line to the latter that existed when I left the city three years ago. Nevertheless, it is telling that 10 of these 11 routes from different parts of Dubai arrive at a single destination in Sharjah. Were it politically feasible to set up a single transit agency encompassing the entire metropolitan area, the seams in the region's public transport network would be far less visible.

In short, until the metro is working well (and most likely, even then), Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority is going to remain the one part of government that anyone, even the docile local newspapers, can safely attack.
( Show me Dubai's bus system! )

Current Mood: tired

01:27 am - Culture is to know the best that has been said and thought in the world. - Matthew Arnold

Would you suffer from culture shock in Taiwan? Probably.

Ever wonder about regional variations in McDonalds menus? Now you can see dishes from everywhere!

A production of Animal Farm staged in the West Bank has proven rather controversial.

Is politeness lost in translation?

I saw three movies this week. I didn't expect Quantum of Solace to blow my mind, and with good reason. I was hoping Vicky Cristina Barcelona would be better, but it was only a slight improvement. I thought One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest would be spectacular, but it was just decent. Still, it was amusing to see Jack Nicholson with nearly a full head of hair.


One balmy February day, I decided I was going to see some of the museums the Smithsonian Institution runs in DC.
( Which ones? )

The number of comments here has tapered off drastically in recent weeks. Perhaps it is time for me to go back to the basics. So here are more photos of big things being built.


The Deathspire has reached its full height of 818 meters, or just over half a mile.
( Shots from across Al Khail Road )

Current Mood: tired

09:04 pm - Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. - Blaise Pascal

Poll #1370109 TV preferences
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 11

Seinfeld:

Current Mood: anxious

12:08 am - Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!" - Robin Williams

I was showing an old friend around the area and enjoying the unusually good weather when we stumbled across a drum circle. Here are but some of the photographs I plan to put up from a fun weekend.


This picture was taken specially for hsifyppah; it includes my customary glass and steel, but also a giant squid.
( More from in and around the Smithsonians )


Why does this sequence of pictures begin with a picture of a church?
( More vaguely public buildings )


I will admit I still prefer glass and concrete to these things.
( More scenes from residential neighborhoods )

Finally, the Vader Project involves surrealists painting Darth Vader masks. You can find pictures here. I was reminded of the same Star Wars character when I saw a propaganda poster from the Second World War at the National Museum of American History.

Current Mood: restless

10:37 pm - Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. - Oscar Wilde

A note on facebook, via mhalachai.

Would you build a road to get married?

Now you, too, can speak directly to God.

You probably know to associate '$', '€', '£', and '¥' with the dollar, euro, pound, and yen respectively. In what I can only guess is a bid for greater international prestige, India's government has established a competition for a rupee symbol.

Some religious citizens of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, are upset that a bar there makes use of symbols of their faith. In case you were wondering, the folks in question aren't Muslims.


You can fault New York for a lot of things. (Well, you can. I won't.) A lack of architectural ambition isn't one of them.


Even the madmen plonking down skyscraper after skyscraper in Dubai don't have the chutzpah to put one tower on top of another.
( Here be buildings )

Current Mood: tired

11:46 am - Poetry is what gets lost in translation. - Robert Frost

Sesame Street opera, via mhalachai.

Are you glad that with the liberation of Afghanistan from fundamentalist Taliban forces, no one is getting life sentences for things like mistranslating the Quran? Well, you shouldnt be.

On the other hand, Abu Dhabi is paying to translate Hindu religious texts into Arabic. To put into context just how surprising I find this, my understanding there are precisely zero officially sanctioned Hindu temples in that emirate, despite a six-figure number of Hindus there.

My favorite sports team, FC Barcelona, has a new sponsor. The bad news is that it is my least favorite company in the UAE, telecommunications giant Etisalat. The silver lining is that phone users in the Emirates may perhaps one day have a chance to win front row tickets at Europe's largest stadium as a part of some Etisalat sales promotion.

Police in Ireland have finally tracked down the elusive Prawo Jazdy, whose 50 identities confused them.

In other good news, most new mobile phones may be able to use a universal charger by 2012.

Austerity now! The new president of the Maldives is giving up most of the luxuries his predecessor acquired during his three-decade stint in power, including a yacht and private island. This may be a first for South Asia.

It's good to see Washington, DC set a record number for something not involving taxpayer dollars.

Some 70-75 percent of senior Bush Administration staffers are still unemployed, as unbleachedbrun noted. Bush himself has been setting a bad example by turning down a job offer in Dallas.


A suburban ice rink.


I got free tickets to see the Washington Wizards last month. This is their home, the Verizon Center.

10:10 pm - Artificial intelligence is whatever hasn't been done yet. - Larry Tesler

Poll #1346113 Robots
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Someone just gave you three years and half a billion dollars to design a robot. What will it do?

Current Mood: groggy

01:17 am - Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography. - Paul Rodriguez

A portrait of Stephen Colbert attracted hordes of visitors to a downtown art museum in DC last year. I wonder if the National Portrait Gallery will be able to pull off a repeat by displaying an iconic poster of Barack Obama.

Divorce can get ugly.

Test your knowledge of the world with these five questions. Post your scores in the comments.

1) This island nation is known for its tea ceremonies. It might not be especially large, but its empire stretched over much of Asia during World War 2. The people aren't especially religious, but a number of them still have a certain reverence for their monarch. The elaborate subway system in the capital serves an impressive 268 stations.

2) A part of this former Soviet state's territory has been under the control of separatist forces for a long time now. The people of that region would generally like to join Russia, which has troops stationed there. However, their government lacks diplomatic recognition from any established state.

3) The smallest country in the German-speaking world, this state's neutrality was respected during both world wars. Its people have become prosperous with help from the financial sector, which has catered extensively to overseas clients. Taxes are low, and banks have provided clients with numbered accounts.

4) This country was unified at the end of the Cold War after spending the preceding decades in two different states. The People's Democratic Republic to the east had only about a third of the population of the western entity, whose leader stuck around to head the new country.

5) Oil and gas account for most of the wealth of this conservative sultanate, whose empire has shrunk greatly over the past few centuries. A prosperous country, it imports large numbers of foreign workers. Few people look at their maps closely enough to realize it is split into two major non-contiguous parts. The country's current ruler assumed office in 1967.

( Answers )




Even Metro ads now reference the upcoming presidential inauguration.

Current Mood: pensive

11:46 pm - Ninety-nine percent of requested deaths go unrecorded. It's a secret crime. - Derek Humphry

The number of homicides committed in my county of residence went up 50 percent last year. But a rise from two to three isn't especially troubling when put into perspective; neighboring DC has over 20 times as many deaths per capita. In the wards across the Potomac from me, the multiple is probably well over 50. I would not be surprised if the inequality in this metropolitan area rivaled any country in the developing world.

It looks like facial hair is going out of style in India. I wonder what other traditions will change in the future.

This was my first new year's day outside the UAE since I was seven. I suspect I would have enjoyed watching fireworks in a semi-crowded public space, jaded as I am about them. Georgetown was almost unreasonably quiet at midnight. Indeed, the only natural place in DC for large crowds to gather is the National Mall. Sadly, it is far enough away from most homes and offices that people don't collect there spontaneously.

I suspect more women than men shop at supermarkets. But why are the magazines at checkout counters geared towards them so overwhelmingly? Are men not even a significant niche market?

I have gotten hooked on House. When I saw my first episode or two, I thought it resembled a bad science fiction show. The kind where something breaks in a spaceship, and the crew spend the episode spouting deliberately incomprehensible polysyllabic verbiage before miraculously saving the day with some combination of hard work, grit, ingenuity, and luck. But while this show has traces of that, the writing is pretty good, and the story arcs flow naturally from elements visible in early episodes. It seldom soars to the heights of the best stuff on HBO, but it is consistently good.


Ever wonder what a kayaker looked like from overhead?

Current Mood: anxious

01:20 am - You always admire what you really don't understand. - Blaise Pascal

Despite the worst approval ratings in at least a generation, President Bush is the second most admired man in the United States. He spent seven years on top before falling behind Barack Obama, but stays ahead of John McCain and Bill Clinton. (Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin top the women's list, with Condoleezza Rice and Michelle Obama trailing behind Oprah Winfrey.) It all seems a bit strange for a country where 'politician' is a dirty word. I imagine leading sheikhs from Dubai and Abu Dhabi would head a list of men in the UAE, and expect there would be very little consensus on women. But I am more curious about another country. Although I imagine Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee each had a decent run, I doubt if any male politician since Jawaharlal Nehru has commanded so much admiration from the Indian public for so long. So I wonder who would top a men's poll in India today. Sachin Tendulkar? Amitabh Bachchan? Sai Baba, even?

Are you an American taxpaeyer who is unhappy about the bailout for automakers? One blogger has a simpler solution to Detroit's woes than spending billions of dollars. The US strategy for Afghanistan might be flawed, but we should at least give commanders credit for being resourceful and innovative. You know who else has earned my respect lately? Finnish police officers.

An Egyptian teacher struck his student for indiscipline several weeks ago, causing injuries that led to the boy's death. The case attracted a lot of media attention and led to public debate about failings in the educational system. The teacher's lawyer then said in court, "Hitting [a child] is not banned in schools and my client did not break the law." I don't know what Egypt's legal system has to say regarding assault, battery, and child abuse. But surely, the defense lawyer in so prominent a case ought to be choosing his words more carefully if he does not want to provoke vigilante attacks against his client. Or, you know, hopes to find work in the future.

A limerick database. I have yet to stumble across anything of comparable quality for haikus.

When Borat first came out, I promised myself I wouldn't pay money to see the title character insult various cultures. But when HBO screened it on TV, I decided I would see what all the fuss was about. Most scenes seemed to be edited to show only brief exchanges taken out context, much as in a Michael Moore movie. Nevertheless, I have to admit the overall effect was surprisingly good.


Does Santa Claus ever get lonely?

Current Mood: discontent

12:07 am - The shortest distance between two points is under construction. - Leo Aikman

Remember the Muppets? I didn't, until they came up in a conversation with mrputter.

If you are sufficiently wealthy, a financial crisis isn't going to stop you from taking a holiday in a luxury resort. I can think of no other reason Dubai developers want to refrigerate a beach (hat tip pappubahry) at a hotel that has yet to be built, even as construction projects around the city are being abandoned. Monaco has dropped its own bid to imitate Dubai by reclaiming a vast tract of land for development. Bangladesh, on the other hand, seems to share Dubai's lack of architectural originality, albeit on a smaller scale. Meanwhile, my old hometown is introducing indoor skydiving.

Most towns build upwards as they grow, but the Chinese city of Hangzhou actually plans to lop the top off its buildings.

It's hard to take seriously any of the claims put out by Zimbabwe's floundering government as it struggles to avoid blame for its failures. But blaming British biological warfare attacks for a cholera outbreak must surely be a new low, even for Robert Mugabe's beleaguered regime.


I guess nobody wants to shop anymore.


I checked again, and yes, suburbia is still bland.

Current Mood: sleepy

02:59 pm - Buy land, they're not making it anymore. - Mark Twain

This is the video for Daft Punk's 1997 release Around the world. I stopped watching MTV clones as I grew older, but this one became an Internet sensation, and with good reason too. What music videos do you remember liking?

Dubai apparently had more office space under construction in June than Shanghai, which has over 10 times as many people. I knew Washington, DC had a fair amount of construction, but I did not expect it to make it to sixth place on that list. It will be interesting to see how the massive real estate crash affects Dubai. Some low- and middle-income neighborhoods were to be demolished, with luxury apartments slated to take their place. But with a huge glut in that segment of the market, and still more expensive towers due to come online, residents of modest means may perhaps win a reprieve. Regulations capping housing costs mean they would have to pay several times their current rents if they had moved, so they are likely to be thrilled by any move to keep them from being evicted on short notice. I wonder how residents of the more exclusive residential devleopments will react if space there is sold to the hoi polloi, for want of other buyers. The paucity of speculative investors with liquid assets has led to a sharp decline in the price of houses for sale, but it remains to be seen how far rental costs will fall. Dubai relied heavily on financial markets and construction for its growth, and so the city's economy has already been hit. If tourism and retail sales also go into a tailspin, things will get pretty bad. Dubai likes to talk about how oil accounts for under 5 percent of GDP, but I am waiting to find out how it does when investment flows from other oil-rich states dry up.

Most of the economic news we come across these days is negative. As in any depression, some people are thriving. But who knew one of them would be a Siberian ice cream maker, selling its wares with black pepper and fish?

Zack and Miri was decent, except of course when it was indecent.


This art installation by the Mall reminded me of this one in Chicago.


The Madison Building is the most important structure in the complex housing the headquarters of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
( It is located in Alexandria, Virginia )

Current Mood: contemplative

11:02 pm - Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde

Raise your hand if you like old school video games.

The folks running the Washington Metro now play a single note of music on the public announcment system before saying anything in order to attract the attention of people on the platforms. Sadly, it closely resembles ding.wav, which is what Windows' default sound scheme plays upon generating an error message.

Food in India is generally inexpensive. But it is apparently possible to pay over $50 for a single samosa.

Nepal just legalized same-sex marriage. I didn't see that coming.

A senior Malaysian cleric would like his Muslim countrymen to give up yoga, as he believes it will weaken their faith in Islam.

Ever wonder what a modern-day depression would be like for society? Here's one prediction.

How to write a Thomas Friedman column.

Dubai recently put on a fireworks display that might have outdone the one at the Beijing Olympics. You can watch video here and here.

Dedicated bus lanes are being planned to help speed commutes between Dubai and Sharjah for users of public transport. In theory, this is a great idea. But I am very cynical about the prospects of a system whose success requires the overwhelming majority of UAE drivers to obey laws that slow down their own progress. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi's bus shelters are to get not only air conditioning, but also reading lights and Internet access.

Functioning democracies generally require citizens be consulted about major decisions. Authoritarian governments can often act quickly by bypassing this step. Shanghai is said to have conceived of and built an Pudong Airport in less time than it took London to conduct a public inquiry on a new terminal for Heathrow. Needless to say, this is a double-edged sword. If you don't ask people how their interests might suffer, or worse yet, don't care, you may find yourself facing unintended consequences, or even pitchforks and torches. The UAE just announced that cars built over 20 years ago would no longer be permitted on its roads, while vehicles half that age could not be resold within the country. The two decisions will affect over one in five cars in the country, and will go into effect next week. I expect a lot of residents will be very unhappy about the new law, if it is enforced, not least because they didn't see this coming.

Slumdog Millionaire was pretty good.

And now for some scenes from suburbia.


Below.


Above.

Current Mood: tired

01:12 am - I do not believe in God because I do not believe in Mother Goose. - Clarence Darrow

chu_hi alerted me to the existence of Tim Minchin, a man with a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Following in the footsteps of their counterparts in London, non-theists in DC are advertising on the bus system.

Isn't it a little strange to be called 'Renegade' by a government you will head before you have so much as revised one policy?

This city is not famous for its Indian food, but tonight I had the best aloo gobhi I have ever tasted. However, the restaurant served its thali on a silver platter instead of an undecorated steel tray. That was an unexpected authenticity trade-off.

India's navy fended off attempts by pirates to board two ships in the Gulf of Aden this week, sending commandos by helicopter to defend them. I expect New Delhi to give this incident a lot more publicity in the future. India would love to extend its naval presence to the pirate-infested Strait of Malacca, a vital international sea lane, in order to gain greater regional influence.

Very few women teach science at top American universities. How much of the gender imbalance is the result of social pressures, and how much can be attributed to innate biological characteristics? Two experts debate (at length).

North Korea is about as isolated from the rest of the world as it is possible to be in this day and age. How are outsiders trying to get their message in? Balloons!

I finally saw Casino Royale. I am more convinced than ever that Pierce Brosnan was the best James Bond. I also saw Mystery Men, almost 10 years after its release. I remember being very excited by the trailers when the movie first came out, but either they were very misleading, or my tastes have evolved considerably in the interim.


Part of the roof of the Ronald Reagan Building.


A reception was being held in the atrium.

Current Mood: good

02:19 am - I am not a Marxist. - Karl Marx

Readers of this blog in the Washington area have doubtless already heard about how the current economic crisis has affected the presidential campaign. But how many of you knew about its effect on our transit system? Meanwhile, more people are reading Marx.

I have very little text for you this week, but I am told that a picture may be converted to words on the black market at a rate of one to a thousand. I don't know if these images will convince soshesays to move here, but I suppose anything is worth a shot.


George Washington's estate is located just outside the city named for him.
( Mount Vernon )


The sun sets over Rosslyn, which lies upriver.
( What else is along this stretch of the Potomac? )


Alexandria is home to the George Washington Memorial Masonic Temple.
( But what about the House of the Temple in DC? )


This space lies at the center of the top floor of one of the buildings making up the National Gallery of Art.
( What else is inside? )


And finally, this garlanded statue of Mahatma Gandhi can be found outside the Indian embassy in Washington, DC.

Current Mood: discontent

01:13 am - Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral. - Frank L. Wright

You know Dubai has finally made it when it starts appearing in XKCD strips.

Out here, I sometimes get the impression that the government has exaggerated the risk of terrorism in order to secure more power for itself. In the UAE, the government already exercises sweeping powers, and tourism and foreign investment are more important concerns. So it is not surprising when the police make statements for public consumption about how there is no risk of terrorism. It is still remarkable, however, when they mention they have arrested a star of the national football team for suspected involvement in black magic and witchcraft.

In many parts of the world, you will find men professing outrage over the amount of skin women in their society choose to show. A Saudi cleric has taken things to their logical extreme (or pretty darn close, at any rate) by going on television to say he believes women should wear a veil that covers one eye. Showing both, he claims, would encourage the use of eye make-up, which women could use to be seductive.

Normal situation: As campaign manager for someone who would like to be mayor of Bangkok, you complain about the poor state of the city at present.
Unremarkable tactic: You choose a specific example, and mention that a canal running through the city is not suitable for swimming.
Mention on this journal: While attempting to demonstrate this, you drown in said canal.

India just banned smoking in public places. The smoking rate is very low by global standards, and I imagine enforcement will be patchy at best, but this is still very much a good thing.

I think it is safe to say this presidential campaign has thus far been cleaner than the last two, with only one truly nasty attack ad. Look for that to change over the next month, as John McCain attempts to roll the dice one last time by questioning Barack Obama's character in a bid to cut into his comfortable lead. And if he does, expect to hear a lot more about his own past, and that of his running mate. My personal prediction is that the polls will close a bit, as McCain spends all the cash he has hoarded. But with the combination of a lead in cash, good poll numbers in every swing state (plus some traditionally Republican ones), and a strong ground presence, I am very optimistic about Obama's chances. The economic crisis should amount to a coffin nail.


The National Cathedral took longer to build than any other building in the District of Columbia.
( When was it built? )

Current Mood: excited

03:15 am - Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature. - Kin Hubbard

The BBC has an interesting article on its website about the process of interviewing a Japanese prime minister. I wonder how different this country would be if it was run by career bureaucrats who gave their ostensible political masters detailed instructions about what they could say and do.

Why is one of this country's most popular communication devices nicknamed the Crackberry? Well, one survey claims 35 percent of users would rather live without their spouse than their PDA if they had to choose. Over four in five users check it just before they go to bed and as soon as they get up, and similar numbers sneak peeks in the middle of the night.

It's no secret that the security situation in Pakistan is troubling. With international cricket teams refusing to tour the country, the country has decided to play its home matches abroad in a bid to ensure a continued stream of revenue. And where better to get a friendly audience than the UAE?

Dubai has installed a 10-million liter aquarium in a shopping mall that will soon open. Unfortunately, over 10 percent of the sharks therein have already killed one another, perhaps due to the limited space. The mall itself is large enough to be connected to no fewer than eight separate hotels.


Annapolis is the capital of Maryland.
( It is a small town )

Current Mood: bored

02:46 am - The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. - G. K. Chesterton

Alphabet singing, via mhalachai.

Here in the United States, the Republicans like to take credit for economic success under President Clinton. They argue that the tax cuts made by President Reagan made growth possible later. In India, the BJP seems to have learned from this. They are now claiming that the strong growth under the present Congress government is the result of momentum they built up. They are likely to win the next general election, due in a few months. However, it remains to be seen what economic reforms, if any, they will put into place. During the last elections, they suffered a terrible defeat after claiming their economic management had led to prosperity.

Via _53: WANT!

I've traveled a fair deal over the past few days. I was surprised by the extent to which the centers of Baltimore and Philadelphia feel similar. Annapolis is pretty, but it is ridiculously small, and I doubt I will visit again. Even the nicer New Jersey suburbs are, well, suburban, and thus automatically evil. West Philadelphia has some neat smaller buildings that I was not previously aware of. My brief incursion into Wilmington on a Sunday evening left me with the impression that it was a ghost town, albeit one with medium rise shiny buildings, and thus potentially worthy of future investigation. Finally, I made a visit to Mt. Vernon to observe Great Leader's personality cult look around the grounds. Turns out I find it way more fun to wander around cities than to poke historic estates. Why yes, the Pope is Catholic, however did you guess?


Fans of The Wire should have no trouble figuring out why I went out of my way to get a picture of City Hall in Baltimore.
( The largest city in Maryland )

Current Mood: tired

12:25 am - I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to. - Elvis Presley

Does anyone else think music sounded better in the 1990s?

As an honorary white person, I feel obliged to ask you for the name of your favorite composer of classical music. I am sufficiently unrefined and unpretentious as to openly admit to loving Pachelbel's Canon, and so you should not feel embarrassed about voting for Mozart, should you enjoy his work.
Poll #1259253 Classical music
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14

My favorite composer is:

fugney

12:43 am - Get a bicycle. You will not regret it. If you live. - Mark Twain

Apparently, a few recent robberies in Dubai were committed by men on bicycles. The police response has been to impound 1,000 bicycles without explaining their reasoning to the people riding them. I'm scared of what the authorities will do when they realize some robbers flee on the power of their own two feet.

MTV Arabia's manager says his station will mark the solemnity of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan by not playing music videos. I am rather curious as to what MTV could play in order to please both their target audience and the more conservative members of society.

Someone in Dubai tried to organize a flash mob last week, years after they went out of fashion elsewhere. A good 150 people had signed up on facebook to say that they would or at least might be there. Only five showed up, meaning participants were outnumbered about five to one by the media. The organizer had to seek permission from the management of the mall in which he planned his stunt, but when he tried to freeze in place for five minutes, security guards who hadn't heard about the event ended up trying to shake him to see if he was okay. EPIC FAIL!

Another week, another outlandish building project in Dubai. This one promises to fit a million people into a gigantic ziggurat. Much as I like the idea of very high density housing as part of a city that extends as far vertically as it does horizontally, I am afraid this project has virtually no chance of seeing the light of day. If we're lucky though, we might see some drama after the deisgners throw in five of the world's largest hotels and add the word 'City' to the end of the name in a bid to secure funding.

For mrputter and anyone else who plans to take photographs through September, qatar has put up posting instructions.


When we develop artificial intelligence sufficiently, most programming will happen this way.
( Other things I have found amusing )

Current Mood: chipper

01:15 am - I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. - Winston Churchill

Poll #1234275 Music
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17

When you listen to a song, do you generally focus on:

sabotabby

Current Mood: tired

12:36 pm - If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera. - Lewis Hine

A new twist on the Imperial March from Star Wars.

Poll #1230495 Neighbors
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

Do you know your neighbors?

frandroid

hsifyppah

Current Mood: complacent

11:01 pm - Manhattan is a narrow island off ... New Jersey devoted to the pursuit of lunch. - Raymond Sokolov

Avenge yourself on telemarketers!

New Orleans has its own take on Pamplona's famous running of the bulls.


I am quite fond of Google News, but every once in a while, it screws up, and this error message is hilarious.

By now, many of you must be sick of me singing the praises of New York. So under the cut is a list of things I can't stand about the city. ( Curious? )

I successfully made it to the MoMA, and then found myself with several unexpected free hours. There is nowhere in the world I would rather have free time to wander around than midtown Manhattan, and so I've got enough pictures for two posts. On the other hand, while I did get to eat Malaysian and Turkish meals, my hopes of visiting Franchia and Chinese Mirch were dashed. There is so much food worth sampling in the New York that my next visit to the city may have to revolve around eating.

Does any of you have a clue as to why the section of the I-95 that goes through Delaware is by far the most likely to have traffic jams? There aren't that many people living in the area, and yet the tailbacks there are usually longer than the ones behind the toll booths outside New York City.

I had a very comfortable journey to New York, in any case. I paid a few dollars more than the bare minimum to get a luxury bus, and ended up on a clean vehicle with WiFi and movies. Admittedly, the connection was less than spectacular and the choice of movies (The Italian Job, Rush Hour 3, and 27 Dresses) left something to be desired, but I was never once bored during either ride. The spread of technology is truly a wondrous thing.


Although it quieter than I would like, Park Avenue is one of my favorite bits of Manhattan.
( Show me more shiny things! )

Current Mood: tired

12:36 am - Marriage is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. - Oscar Wilde

British tabloids are infamous for what they put on page three. Gulf News has its own distinctive brand of articles for that page, but the accompanying photos feature less than one woman. I am, of course, referring to its coverage of marriages among prominent Emirati families. This article is a great example. As is customary, the bride is not named, but is mentioned only as being the daughter of someone prominent. She is not photographed because there generally aren't any women at the ceremony. And the majority of the article's length is taken up by the long names of VIPs in attendance.

More nuptial news comes from Iran, where workers at one major state-owned firm have been told to get hitched or lose their jobs. And finally, from California, here is an argument for gay marriage I hadn't previously come across.

Dubai seem to be prosecuting jaywalkers in a crowded downtown commercial district. Unless the city is only aiming to deter the most egregiously unsafe practices, I predict this will be a total waste of time. The city's authorities also seem to be pressuring a Pakistani television broadcaster based in Media City to drop two talk shows that have annoyed important figures in that country, claiming that relations with a friendly country would be damaged. It's amazing that they even bother to pretend there is any freedom of the press.

Saudi Arabia has, in many ways, been more Catholic than the Pope in opposing Syria's ambitions in Lebanon. So for them to play Syria's national anthem when the Lebanese football team visited was rather amusing. (Or probably scary, if you are Lebanese and worried about Syria trying to absorb your country.)

Andhra Pradesh, a large state in India, has decided to start teaching most schoolchildren in English, rather than the state language of Telugu. Such a move could prove to be instrumental in building up a middle class. I wonder if other Indian states with booming economies will follow suit.


Chicago's skyline, as seen from Navy Pier.


And from the corner of Michigan Ave. and Illinois St.
( I'm not nearly done yet )

Current Mood: rejuvenated

09:13 pm - All the legislation in the world will not abolish kissing. - Elinor Glyn

Among my readers, cat lovers outnumber dog people two to one. Clearly, a majority can be wrong.

Having to go to an office every morning has really shaken up my routine. Or lack thereof. It's literally been years since the last time I shaved on five consecutive days. The view outside my window every morning seems slightly unfamiliar because the sunlight hits buildings at angles I'm not used to seeing. Not getting a seat on the Metro when I head out towards the District is also a novel experience. I suppose my time in graduate school was a little more relaxing than it should have been.

DC's summer humidity is bothering me more than it should. I had no serious trouble walking around outdoors yesterday when the heat index was at 40°C/104°F, but I actually had to turn on the air conditioner at home the previous day when it was a mere 26°C/79°F, and that is weather I should be outright enjoying. Clearly, I have spent too much time away from Dubai.

India's religious minorities have long distrusted the Bharatiya Janata Party. They might claim to support equal rights for all Indians, but they are certainly doing not going to win over Muslim or Christian voters by describing Nepal's transition to secularism as a negative development. Staying in India, the government of the state of Maharashtra wants to build a statue of a seventeenth century Hindu king on a man-made island off the coast of Mumbai. The statue will be comparable to the Statue of Liberty in size. I must confess to being more than a little surprised. The king in question is generally a favorite of the Shiv Sena, a far more nationalist party that currently sits in the opposition. The Sena recently tried to name a popular Indian fast food item after him. I leave it to my readers to decide whether building this statue is the best use of taxpayer money in a city where nearly 10 million people live in slums. Finally, Iran is threatening to sue countries that have pushed for action to be taken against it in the UN Security Council. I'm sure foreign ministers everywhere are trembling in their dress shoes.

This link is for the geeks in the crowd who follow pop culture.


I don't know how effective the government of Virginia's anti-smoking campaign is, but at least the music is more catchy than the stuff played in federal anti-drug commercials. Also, it amuses me that a government body is actively promoting kissing, something that still gets people arrested in Dubai.

optimussven pointed me to a New York Times article that mentions the way Dubai is being built. Although collounsbury had a few choice words for the authors over on Aqoul (where he has previously described it as a future Petra), I am inclined to disagree. I believe Dubai has now reached a sort of critical mass. Cities start off by doing one or two things well, but must do more in order to avoid stagnation and decline. Dubai only became significant as a result of oil exports, and its hydrocarbon resources are already depleted. But the city has diversified its economy with some success. It has become vital to trade in the region and beyond, and has been further integrating itself into the world economy through the financial markets. Government figures showing that oil only accounts for a single-digit percentage of GDP are not meaningful because of implicit guarantees from neighboring Abu Dhabi as well as capital flows from other Gulf states, including Iran. Even so, Dubai now has a network of profitable and competently run businesses that do not depend on government support for their survival. Not that they really need to worry about an economic downturn just yet, what with oil prices regularly hitting new highs.

That having been said, Dubai does faces serious threats, the most important of which stems from the city's rapid expansion. The city has faced double-digit inflation rates for a couple of years now. The UAE dirham is pegged to the US dollar, which has has caused it to depreciate against the currencies of major trading partners, rather than bringing about the corrective cycle of appreciation that should have resulted from increased oil revenues. Dubai has also traditionally been able to keep costs down by importing labor. However, rents have made this harder to accomplish, and wages have risen sharply, hurting competitiveness. Furthermore, new jobs are being created in the south of the city, far away from the middle and working class housing required by the employees of firms in the area. Renting a simple two-bedroom apartment anywhere within a half hour's drive of booming Internet City and Media City will set you back at least $45,000 a year. And with a million cars a day on the roads of a city with just 1.5 million inhabitants, traffic is has become nightmarish. With crime and pollution also on the rise, many residents feel living standards are on the decline. A number of them are leaving the city, although thus far, they have been vastly outnumbered by the hordes of people waiting to take their place. Dubai isn't on the brink of a precipice just yet, but it could potentially become a victim of its own success. I should point out that this does not mean that Dubai will wither away and die overnight. However, a loss of competitiveness could cap the city's size at some future point if it no longer becomes viable to move businesses there, or start new ones.

Another thing that will be interesting to follow in the future is planning. The street network Dubai built up until 2000 wasn't scalable, which is part of why traffic has increased so dramatically since then. While the government has been investing heavily in public transport, it has yet to learn that the highways in the middle of the city are a part of the problem, rather than the solution. It's also become far harder for people to find their way around unintuitively planned streets using local landmarks, which may explain why the government is talking about introducing a street address system that people can actually understand. (Although I'd be surprised if they can pull it off. This isn't the first time they've talked about putting in place a system that would allow people to receive mail at their doorsteps.) The unprecedented pace of development has also put pressure on other facilities, including power plants and the airport. Greed has been a major factor, with the government eager to make a quick buck from property sales, consequences be damned. Although they've shown few signs of changing course thus far, they will have to take corrective action relatively soon if they don't want to stunt the growth of the city.

The other element of planning that interests me has to do with culture. The government's rhetoric about preserving local traditions is largely eyewash. Its big plans involve importing culture from the West. Which makes sense from a commercial point of view, at least given whatever little anecdotal evidence I am familiar with regarding the behavior of Arab and Western tourists on holiday. But the few expatriate artists based in the UAE aren't really going to benefit from the billions of dollars of planned state spending. Indeed, the musicians or actors who get top billing at local concerts or plays are already almost always short-term visitors who leave after a performance or two. After all, the government is not interested in free expression; it just wants to make money. Nonetheless, Dubai (like Abu Dhabi) recognizes that some space for the arts would be useful in attracting tourists and building up a reputation as a prestigious city. So it has decided to splurge on a theater and arts center, an opera house, and a number of mueseums and art galleries. These facilities will largely house state-directed culture, all of it presumably sanitized to ensure that indigenous members of UAE society are not offended by the decadent ways of the West. So it will be interesting to observe the extent to which implicit regulations shape whatever develops there, and whether art can, in fact, flourish in such an environment. While history is full of governments that have commissioned works of art, I can't think of any state that has tried quite so hard to develop some high culture by focusing on the way things are done in another civilization.


Millennium Park is right in the middle of Chicago.
( No bridal gowns under the cut )

Current Mood: hungry

02:24 pm - Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff. - Frank Zappa

There is more awesomeness in my life right now than I have the time to describe.

Michelangelo is the least popular Ninja Turtle? I always thought it was Raphael that no one could cared for.
Poll #1186150 Pets
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

The pets I most enjoy interacting with are

Current Mood: excited

01:15 pm - A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself. - Arthur Miller

Poll #1155106 TMNT
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 18

My favorite Ninja Turtle is/was:

Current Mood: complacent

01:26 am - Endless money forms the sinews of war. - Cicero

In musical terms, the 90s were my favorite decade. But they also produced this.

I saw two movies last week. I liked Atonement, but didn't think it outstanding. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the minimalistic approach to animation employed by Persepolis.

Abu Dhabi's government has been having a good time with the numbers game. It just sold license plate number 1 to an Emirati businessman for over $14 million, a world record. He broke the previous record, just under $7 million, which was held by his cousin. The world's seven most expensive plates have all been auctioned off in the UAE. The country requires numeric plates, effectively precluding the customized alphanumeric ones seen elsewhere, and plates with lower numbers confer prestige upon their owners.

Neighboring Dubai has been in the news for its plans to construct what it says will be the world's largest arch bridge. The main arch alone will be 205 meters high and 607 meters long. The entire project seems aimed mostly at creating an architectural monument, which is why we will be getting a 1.6-kilometer long crossing of a creek that is under 100 meters wide at its narrowest point.

Once again, however, Saudi Arabia has outdone the Emirates in terms of garnering headlines for the wrong reasons. This time, they've arrested 57 men "accused of wearing indecent clothes, playing loud music and dancing in order to attract the attention of girls," which is to say the country is unhappy with flirting.

Not to be outdone in the race to the bottom, an Israeli MP has blamed earthquakes on his country's tolerance of gays.

Marginal Revolution has a great post about an abandoned book depository for Detroit's public school system. More sad- but impressive- pictures can be found on flickr.

While the organizers of cricket's world cup claim it is the planet's third largest sporting event, after the football world cup and the Olympics, the game has a lot of catching up to do before it can compete with other major sports. Football (or soccer, as it is known in some of the less civilized parts of the world) has some structural advantages over cricket on account of being simple to understand as well as easy to adapt to small spaces and limited equipment. But other major factors have contributed towards its preeminence among sports. For one thing, it has a well-respected governing body that can credibly threaten countries where political interference is a problem and actually obtain results. Cricket cannot hope to do this just yet because India accounts for more than twice as much of the game's revenues as the rest of the world put together. The latter's cricket board, which has often been run by politicians, is happy to throw its weight around in order to get its way.

Still, the game is making strides in two other areas. First, India is setting up a prominent eight-team league. For the first time, there will be large-scale international participation in a domestic competition, allowing the world's best players to play together on a regular basis at a club level, much like in European football. Second, the participants will finally be making a significant cut of the money generated, with some players taking home seven-figure salaries. I'm rather hoping the rules on the composition of teams wither away and the league eventually get expanded to take in other South Asian cities like Colombo, Dhaka, Lahore, and Karachi, but this is a decent start. Many fans take international matches too seriously, and while similar problems have occurred at the club level in some parts of the world, new teams should be too young to command such intense loyalty. Besides, the game's administrators are unlikely to be significantly biased in one direction.

Two other things about the league's recent player auction interested me. First, Indian players commanded a huge premium, presumably on account of their ability to draw audiences in their own country. By pappubahry's rough calculations (which excluded 5 of India's biggest stars), this averaged about $265,000 per player, or half the average salary of the 78 cricketers whose services were up for grabs. Second, the highest valued non-Indian player was Andrew Symonds, an Australian player of aboriginal origin. On his last tour of India, crowds twice subjected him to racial taunts. The money bid on his abilities speaks volumes about how misplaced public prejudice is. And shows Indian club owners might just have learned from the mistakes of their counterparts in European football.


I'm almost done posting pictures of construction from Dubai.
( Almost every shot in this set was taken from behind tinted glass )

Current Mood: thoughtful