It’s fair to have sympathy for anyone, even Faust. But for Faust, it’s also fair to not…
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In the mid to late 90s, I was talking to a fellow CS student, and he was convinced that it would be brilliant to go to this specific oil-rich monarchy - I forget if it was the UAE or not. Money figured heavily in this plan.
We knew that no booze would be allowed, but he seemed to be okay with that. We were perhaps not completely clear on how else it would differ from Canada. He had some very. . . optimistic. . . ideas about hypothetical interactions with power. Like, he was convinced that in a really bad situation, you could petition the king directly, and that this would be a good idea and achieve something positive
So, yeah, the lure of money and the spectacular optimism of youth
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I went visited a friend in Dubai then drove up for a day to check out the Grand Zayed Sheik Mosque. It’s a beautiful building with amazing architecture. Does one need more of a reason than the desire to explore?
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Maybe you should be curious only about approved, injustice-free, corruption-free areas. Shame on you that you want to enjoy the wrong places. 
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Not a bad place as long as you keep yourself to yourself
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Anyone more curious about working in UAE, especially teaching, can probably glean a lot at this forum. The general site has job postings too:
Used to live there. Grew up there, as a matter of fact. It has its merits, and I’d definitely go back to see old friends and haunts. The vast majority of the world doesn’t live with freedom of speech. Hell, by some measures, the US doesn’t although it certainly beats out the UAE. I think it’s better to have people moving around and exposing themselves, and the people they visit, to new and dangerous ideas. Beats hiding in your own country and hoping that the luck you had to be born in it doesn’t run out.
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Thing is she didn’t go out in a bikini, or insult the Royal Family, or insult Islam. She whinged about someone double parking in the disabled spot. A very Australian thing to do, BTW, to get upset about misuse of disabled parking spots.
I guess the moral of the story is, relax, just let it go. Disabled parking spots are not worth the stress. Especially in oppressive dictatorships where the rich guys can do anything they want, including parking in friggin disabled parking spots.
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Oh, victim blaming. Sweet, sweet victim blaming. Good to see it’s still happening.
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Glad to be of assistance.
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Make lots of money.
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Exchange your values and ideas with those of another culture.
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Meet some of the very nice people whom actually live there and may not share the views of the government.
Sure you can get in trouble with the laws and culture there, but bad things of various kinds can happen to you anywhere.
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Boing Boing forum posts are a wonderful roulette of “what can you blame people for now”. I read these article snippets, then hesitantly click on the forum posts, convincing myself that this time, maybe, there won’t be some horribly personalised blame being thrown around.
Standing up for basic decency? No worries! Shouldn’t have been there. In fact, you’re probably a horrible exploiter who should have provided justification for your very existence in a country before complaining about being thrown in jail.
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My Cousin lived and worked in Saudi Arabia for some years. She reckons Arab clothing restricts peripheral vision so people tend to just turn when they can’t see if it is clear. Additionally the traffic signals have been built with only primary signals up against the stop line, not secondaries across the intersection, so drivers tend to wait for the guy behind him to start blowing his horn, then go for it.
My cousin told me that her friends got into the habit of approaching innocent drivers at read lights and blowing their horn…
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I read an article about this a few days ago. It said the had been working on art projects in the UAE for a couple of years and I do wonder if somebody in a position of authority had a little project running on her because they didn’t like a woman doing that sort of thing and the double parking thing was an excuse to put her on ice for a while.
I heard that the 3rd Ward in Houston is nice this time of year.
I love places like that. They make the U.S. look rational.
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