- 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 what he called “encouraging deviant behavior in Saudi society.” The court told him to contact the Ministry of Culture and Information’s media violations committee, but he said he won’t. Funny. As a lawyer he should be well aware of this. Citing the example of Mazen Abdul Jawad case doesn’t make much sense here. That case was against Abdul Jawad not LBC, although the channel later got punished for operating without a permission (which is also funny because none of the other non-Saudi channels working in the Kingdom have such permission).
- Lou K has another good post. This time about so-called Saudi tourism and its so-called summer festivals. “Basically, our summer festivals are nothing but shopping festivals.. There’s nothing more to it..” he says. There is a lot of truth in what he says, but there are also exceptions. The local summer festival here in Al-Ahsa, known as Hasana Falla, tries to mix culture (folklore, arts, traditional crafts, etc.) with entertainment and some shopping. I made a short visit last night to the event, ironically to meet some American visitors, and I thought it was okay. In the words of a Hassawi girl on Twitter, it’s “not half-bad, but nothing much to do.”
2 thoughts on “Pop culture, funny lawyer, summer festivals”
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Saudi Jeans 
concerning the tourism point. I was thinking the same thing. Really, what’s here that’s worth seeing except for the two holy mosques??
since I’m married to a cop, spending a vacation abroad is hard. yup, we have the money, but we don’t have the permission to leave. my husband’s superior who quit a few months ago thank god, said that those privates are a bunch of spoiled kids who have no sense of patriotism and that they have no right to leave the country because everything they want is here. they, out of all people, should support tourism in ksa.
the ironic thing is, he can’t handle the weather here himself and tends to travel a lot
I went to Abha last year, and even the malls which Lou K mentioned are almost non-existent. there’s only one or two family restaurants. the hotels are too expensive and I wish they deserved the amount of money people had to pay.
the so called green mountain resort or whatever cost a lot to enter, and there was nothing worth seeing there.
the price of everything is almost doubled. yup, the greenery and the rain were worth the trouble, but where should we go at night?
the famous habalah cable cars takes you to this small dining place which you’d finish checking in 10 minutes, and then, you get bored and you wanna go back.
Jeddah is loads and loads worse. what’s there to see? sea areas blocked by walls? or the famous musk lake? or maybe to know what sewage would smell like…
that’s all I have to say
I think to an extent we are very spoiled. We have the most beautiful coral aside from the great barrier reef. Historical artifacts preserved such as Maden Saleh. And as for the south, all you need is good company, and a some good tea.