- Maureen Dowd visited the Kingdom earlier this year. Few weeks ago I was contacted by her assistant. I was told that Dowd was writing a travel piece about Saudi Arabia for Vanity Fair and she has some questions for me. I answered her questions, but I don’t know if any of what said made it to print. The article is published in their August issue, and to go with it they put together a slideshow on the magazine website under the title “Sex and the Saudis.” Lame linkbait. Don’t wast your time on that. Instead, go to Qusay blog where he offers the same slideshow with much better captions. The pictures are bad because MoDo did not bother to bring a professional photographer with her, and these pics were taken by her assistance Ashley Parker who actually appears in one of them.
- Speaking of slideshows, back in 2007 I put together this one in which I collected images of the many megaprojects that were announced at the time: economic cities, financial districts, new universities, skyscrapers, etc. Three years later, where are they now? Hadi Fakihi takes a moment to check on the development of these projects, and the picture is pretty dim. There were way too many huge promises that are yet to be delivered. Construction in some of the projects has begun, but none of them is anywhere near completion. Boom? What boom?
2 thoughts on “MoDo does KSA, Boom?”
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Saudi Jeans 
I’m not actually surprised at these. Their estimated completion time was much too optimistic.
It kind of reminds me of how projects in the UK always go over time and over budget, like the New Wembley Stadium. We don’t have a monopoly on this mind you.
Also, was the light rail system in Riyadh ever had a completetion date? I seem to remember critical remarks by you on this blog on how they never announced a completion date so they can keep delaying it forever?