You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
lujlp
at February 17, 2009 3:00 AM
OK- good hearted racial joke.
A black guy walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender walks up and says "Wow! That's beautiful! Where'd you get that?" The parrot looks down and says "Africa. They're all over the place!"
Eric
at February 17, 2009 10:07 AM
~or~
There was a young lass from Lexiter,
To whom all young men threw sex at her.
One day to be rude,
In town square she lay nude,
And let her parrot, a pervert, take pecks at her.
Eric
at February 17, 2009 10:09 AM
Offtopic, a bitterly fun read, plus a video. Good links and comments.
Crid [cridcridatgmail]
at February 17, 2009 1:48 PM
Note how out of place the smurf women in their hijabs look in a modern building.
Amy I shoulda put that that link into the comment of an appropriate post of yours. Certainly there were are more relevant ones, even today.
But the comments were especially illuminating. Trouble in Dubai is something I've been looking forward to clucking about! But as the commenters point out, Paris didn't get to be Paris overnight. And there's probably an infinitely greater historical aggregate of slavery and villainy in Paris over the last few hundred years than in the last two decades in Dubai. The Middle East isn't go to turn into Iowa overnight, no matter what.
Crid [cridcridatgmail]
at February 17, 2009 8:34 PM
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634576">comment from Crid [cridcridatgmail]
One big difference is that this country was created and built by building and producing things and creating new technology. Islam and science are at odds, and Arabs in the Middle East would be goatherds, but for the oil under the ground.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634578">comment from Amy Alkon
And then there's the Jewish matter. Dubai isn't cosmopolitan enough to let the Jews in. They barred an Israeli tennis player slated to play there in a tournament.
Well, you're not saying you want Arabs to be goatherds, do you? We want them to get with the program.
Dubai probably points the way to something, as Sun City once did. It was good that the hypocrisy of the place was made apparent... But maybe even during those years of hypocrisy, and certainly afterward, it was good to have a place where whites and blacks could hang out in the ways they wanted to.
If things improve in the Middle East as they did in South Africa after apartheid, then there's going to be a Dubai-like place that actually works. (Imagine water treatment plants, so that they didn't dump their sewage into the Gulf!)
One of the most fascinating parts for me was how people who are fleeing their contractual obligations by flying out of Dubai would just leave their keys in their (leased) cars at the airport. I mean, that's just nuts. It's crazy because it's so close to modern car rental scenarios. The owners didn't strip the cars, or wreck them and ditch them... They basically allowed them to be repo'd as gracefully as possible. I mean, this is a paperwork problem. They want out of their contracts, but they don't want to go to prison.
The modern American economy, present unpleasantness aside, is very good at dealing with things like this.
Crid [cridcridatgmail]
at February 17, 2009 9:29 PM
I actually had a discussion about this either on this site or Seipp's a few years ago, about whether or not you could have a drink with a Jewish woman in a low-cut blouse in the lobby of the al burj. Can't find it in my files (and apparently Cathy's site is gone nowadays), but at the time, People Who Knew said you could probably do it.
Nowadays we've heard other stories, and that was one of the original attractions of the link article: Who needs Vegas without the sins (or Jews, for that matter)?
But I maintain that if the future pans out correctly, we're going to want a Dubai in it.
Crid [cridcridatgmail]
at February 17, 2009 9:44 PM
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634624">comment from Crid [cridcridatgmail]
I don't know enough about the oil economy to say for sure, but it seems to me that Dubai's prosperity is a tenuous thing, and that the moment somebody discovers an alternative power for cars, the city is likely to take a nosedive into the sand. I can't say that with any certainty -- just an uneducated guess on my part. And I'm with you on the cars left at the airport thing. Amazing.
Ummm... I hear you. But there's not going to be a "moment somebody discovers an alternative power for cars", any more than there's going to be a moment where Shatner and Pointy Nimoy start zipping around the galaxy to have sex with green go-go dancers on distant planets. These things simply will not happen.
Oil is it. And by the time oil is not it, such a huge amount of history will have passed that comeuppance will not be on anybody's mind.
If, by that hour, Arab culture has progressed as it must, Dubai's prosperity will be no more tenuous than Vegas'.
Crid [cridcridatgmail]
at February 18, 2009 10:33 AM
You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
lujlp at February 17, 2009 3:00 AM
OK- good hearted racial joke.
A black guy walks into a bar with a parrot on his shoulder. The bartender walks up and says "Wow! That's beautiful! Where'd you get that?" The parrot looks down and says "Africa. They're all over the place!"
Eric at February 17, 2009 10:07 AM
~or~
There was a young lass from Lexiter,
To whom all young men threw sex at her.
One day to be rude,
In town square she lay nude,
And let her parrot, a pervert, take pecks at her.
Eric at February 17, 2009 10:09 AM
Offtopic, a bitterly fun read, plus a video. Good links and comments.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at February 17, 2009 1:48 PM
Note how out of place the smurf women in their hijabs look in a modern building.
Amy Alkon at February 17, 2009 8:21 PM
Amy I shoulda put that that link into the comment of an appropriate post of yours. Certainly there were are more relevant ones, even today.
But the comments were especially illuminating. Trouble in Dubai is something I've been looking forward to clucking about! But as the commenters point out, Paris didn't get to be Paris overnight. And there's probably an infinitely greater historical aggregate of slavery and villainy in Paris over the last few hundred years than in the last two decades in Dubai. The Middle East isn't go to turn into Iowa overnight, no matter what.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at February 17, 2009 8:34 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634576">comment from Crid [cridcridatgmail]One big difference is that this country was created and built by building and producing things and creating new technology. Islam and science are at odds, and Arabs in the Middle East would be goatherds, but for the oil under the ground.
Amy Alkon at February 17, 2009 8:46 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634578">comment from Amy AlkonAnd then there's the Jewish matter. Dubai isn't cosmopolitan enough to let the Jews in. They barred an Israeli tennis player slated to play there in a tournament.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123491859021104743.html
Amy Alkon at February 17, 2009 9:15 PM
Well, you're not saying you want Arabs to be goatherds, do you? We want them to get with the program.
Dubai probably points the way to something, as Sun City once did. It was good that the hypocrisy of the place was made apparent... But maybe even during those years of hypocrisy, and certainly afterward, it was good to have a place where whites and blacks could hang out in the ways they wanted to.
If things improve in the Middle East as they did in South Africa after apartheid, then there's going to be a Dubai-like place that actually works. (Imagine water treatment plants, so that they didn't dump their sewage into the Gulf!)
One of the most fascinating parts for me was how people who are fleeing their contractual obligations by flying out of Dubai would just leave their keys in their (leased) cars at the airport. I mean, that's just nuts. It's crazy because it's so close to modern car rental scenarios. The owners didn't strip the cars, or wreck them and ditch them... They basically allowed them to be repo'd as gracefully as possible. I mean, this is a paperwork problem. They want out of their contracts, but they don't want to go to prison.
The modern American economy, present unpleasantness aside, is very good at dealing with things like this.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at February 17, 2009 9:29 PM
I actually had a discussion about this either on this site or Seipp's a few years ago, about whether or not you could have a drink with a Jewish woman in a low-cut blouse in the lobby of the al burj. Can't find it in my files (and apparently Cathy's site is gone nowadays), but at the time, People Who Knew said you could probably do it.
Nowadays we've heard other stories, and that was one of the original attractions of the link article: Who needs Vegas without the sins (or Jews, for that matter)?
But I maintain that if the future pans out correctly, we're going to want a Dubai in it.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at February 17, 2009 9:44 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/02/17/tastes_like_chi.html#comment-1634624">comment from Crid [cridcridatgmail]I don't know enough about the oil economy to say for sure, but it seems to me that Dubai's prosperity is a tenuous thing, and that the moment somebody discovers an alternative power for cars, the city is likely to take a nosedive into the sand. I can't say that with any certainty -- just an uneducated guess on my part. And I'm with you on the cars left at the airport thing. Amazing.
Amy Alkon at February 18, 2009 2:23 AM
Ummm... I hear you. But there's not going to be a "moment somebody discovers an alternative power for cars", any more than there's going to be a moment where Shatner and Pointy Nimoy start zipping around the galaxy to have sex with green go-go dancers on distant planets. These things simply will not happen.
Oil is it. And by the time oil is not it, such a huge amount of history will have passed that comeuppance will not be on anybody's mind.
If, by that hour, Arab culture has progressed as it must, Dubai's prosperity will be no more tenuous than Vegas'.
Crid [cridcridatgmail] at February 18, 2009 10:33 AM
Leave a comment