Ramdan Kareem everyone. PS. I’m in New York. I will tell you more soon.
Category Archives: Saudi Arabia
Illusive reform, Swedish TV interview
Saturday, July 31, 2010 – 11:37
Neil Patrick says, “All in all, substantive Saudi reform is largely illusive.” That’s debatable. What is not debatable is that many of the changes made since 2005 lack an institutional basis and have not captured our imagination, mine at least. I was interviewed by Swedish television a while I ago. I said things. Jameel al-Theyabi, [...]
CPA and their PR puff, MFA and their tracking system
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 – 5:15
The Saudi Consumer Protection Association (CPA) would like to inform you that they have joined Consumer International (CI), a global federation of consumer groups. The head of CPA said this membership will help them do a better job. I would really like to believe it, but this sounds to me more like a PR puff [...]
Robbery in skies, Routes of Arabia, Weddady’s response to Khouri
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 – 13:14
Have you heard of the Air France flight attendant who was arrested for robbing passengers? Muhammed al-Ahidib provides four reasons why this woman would not have been able to steal if she were working for Saudi Arabian Airline. Here is another good review for Routes d’Arabie, this time from Bloomberg. Nasser Weddady offers another fine [...]
Blocked in UAE?
Sunday, July 25, 2010 – 14:08
There have been some conflicting reports yesterday over the blocking of Saudi Jeans in the UAE. The blog Emirates in Style reported the block and provided this screenshot: When I asked people on Twitter to confirm this, some of them said the blog was indeed blocked, while others said they can still access it. I’m [...]
Routes d’Arabie, Rami Khouri, Reverse culture shock
Saturday, July 24, 2010 – 20:57
The Saudi Routes of Arabia exhibition in Paris has been receiving some pretty good reviews. Hundreds of artifacts never before seen outside Saudi Arabia are currently on view at the Louvre. I have seen most of these pieces at the National Museum, and I’m glad the whole world is getting a chance to see this [...]
Identity and social change, women’s rights movements, US diplomat in henna
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 – 14:34
Qusay ponders the questions of identity and social change: “I am a product of that change, along with many others, just take a look at the Saudi’s writing in English. English is almost our first language, we grew up watching American shows and we dressed like the cool people we saw on TV. When we [...]
Pop culture, funny lawyer, summer festivals
Tuesday, July 20, 2010 – 2:57
Saudi Dawn aka the Eternal Philosopher thinks Saudis are brainwashed with a certain pop culture that “is filled with half-truths and out of context religious information that is promoted to control the masses.” I agree. Lawyer Ahmad Al-Rashid said he will sue Riyadh’s summary court after it refused to consider his lawsuit against MBC for [...]
Welcome to Earth
Saturday, July 17, 2010 – 0:01
So today I had to dig into my family’s archive to look for the immunization documents from my early years (long story). While flipping through the papers I found this thing: It is not a birth certificate. It is a gift from the hospital where I was born. It has my picture, date of birth, [...]
Abdullah al-Eyaf, Ahmed Bin Baz
Friday, July 16, 2010 – 0:06
If you enjoyed reading about Abdulmohsen al Mutairi and young Saudi filmmakers, you probably want to read this interview with director Abdullah Al-Eyaf. His latest film, “Ayesh,” has been well received and won the first award of the Gulf Film Festival that was recently held in Dubai. In the second part of a series on [...]
