http://www.stepsdubai.com/

This is where I am now.

Don't know if it is banned or if Vox servers are so very slow or what, but I can not post to Vox from home.

Therefore, you wont be seeing any more updates from here.

look for new posts/updates at http://www.stepsdubai.com/ eventually. I have had no time--too much playtime on the weekends and too much work during the week.

But once school starts in September, I'll have plenty of time--especially during Ramadan when we only come to work from 9-3 every day.

The Burj Dubai is now officially the tallest building in the world. Link to Gulfnews.

"Dubai: Dubai's newest iconic tower, the Burj Dubai, has become the tallest building in the world at 512.1 metres, Emaar Properties announced on Saturday.

Burj Dubai, currently with 141 storeys, is now taller than Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which at 508 metres held the title as world's tallest building since it opened in 2004.

When it is completed in 2008, Burj Dubai will also be the tallest structure in the world in all four criteria listed by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

The council measures height to the structural top, the highest occupied floor, to the top of the roof, and to the tip of the antenna, mast or flag pole.

Burj Dubai became the tallest building in the world in just 1,276 days. Excavation work started in January, 2004."

After working at Yale Law for 5 years, I developed a profound appreciation for living in a country that values the law and supports a 'litigious' society. I hope that when I return, I wont find myself complaining much about the nature of, say, tort reform. Letter of the law or not, there is a principle of justice behind US laws and when they are found to be unjust or immoral or unfit for contemporary society, there is a public debate about the subject and there is an understanding that the law can be changed. Given due time, of course.

Here in Dubai, that is not the case. There are a few laws. They are treated as though they are sacrosanct. Judges can not discern anything beyond yes or no as to how to interpret the law. You had drugs on you or in your body. Drugs are illegal. You get 4 years and then are deported. The judge is tied to the law. He can't decide that, well, in this case, a man was exposed to drugs because he was helping to burn down fields of poppies and handled poppy seeds and such while doing his job. He worked for the UN. He is a known anti-drug campaigner. Doesn't matter. He had drugs. He goes to jail.

"The United Arab Emirates is essentially a civil law jurisdiction heavily influenced by French, Roman, Egyptian and Islamic law. Common law principles, such as adopting previous court judgments as legal precedents, are generally not recognized (although judgments delivered by higher courts are usually applied by lower courts)."
http://dubai.usconsulate.gov/dubai/The_UAE_Court_System.html

So when I read stories like this one, where a Canadian citizen who has spent the last 12 months working with the UN to eradicate drug trade in Afganistan is found with drugs during is 1-hour stopover in Dubai and was CONVICTED and sentenced to 4 years in prison (and who will then be deported afterwards, of course), I have to say: I love the American legal system. All hail litigation and tort inanity. At least we understand, most of the time, some of the time, that variation exists in human behavior and we enable our judges to discern what is right in a given case. Not only that, we expect that our judges will be reasonable as well as logical. We do everything in our power to embarass and kick them out of the judicial system when they are not. Perhaps this burden is more on our prosecutors...I don't have a JD and didn't study this formally. But it works. Most of the time. Or the idea is that it should.

Bert Tatham has lost his first appeal. He was convicted for about half a teaspoon worth of substances. Mr. Tatham's next appeal is to the local 'supreme court'. They will probably uphold the conviction, too. Which means that unless our Sheik Mo says enough, the guy is not going to get to go home and marry is fiance any time soon.

The above is a terrible story.

But. The funny thing is that everyone laughs (out loud even) about what Dubai has coming through its borders. I mean even Osama Bin Laden can come and go as he pleases. He was here in Dubai, rumors have it, in July 2001 getting his health looked after at the American Hospital (my hospital). We bring in women and girls from all over the world, 'underaged preferred' for the fun times to be had here if you want to spend your money that way. Pay the right people and you don't have to be punished. Be part of the Russian, Indian, or Chinese mafia and you make lots of money on the bodies of women and boys. Everybody knows this is going on. Human beings and plenty of drugs coming through the back door. I repeat: everybody knows this is going on. Fine. But come through the front door (DXB airport) with half a teaspoon of naturally grown substances like seeds and flower heads parts? 4 years. OK. It was dumb. May or may not have been a mistake. But.

For comparison: You only get months here for rape, so that might be a reasonable risk for someone seeking release. Plus--in court, you get to look at the victim and smirk and say it was her fault your raped her. You know, cause she was all uncovered and pretty and all. Or just say she was Indian. Or that she was Filipina. And you might find that gets your sentence reduced.

Summary: You will not find poppy seeds in the spice aisle here in Dubai. But I can show your where to go to find skin. Living, breathing, people to do with what you will as long as you pay.

A side note: If you are a victim of child abuse, you get a good whipping on top of it! 

Sigh. I really do like living in Dubai. But I am glad that I don't pull my hair. I'd be bald by now.

I'm not anti-vox, but I'm moving my site soon. August 1 is the launch date. I'll post here about the new address.

And yes. Dubai is very hot right now. Very. Not quite extremely. Just very hot. And I'm ok!

What was June for me is now a blur. Travels (2 trips) to the USA. Northeast, Block Island, NYC, Dallas, Back to Dubai, Back to NYC, Washington DC, Back to NYC, Back to Dubai.

How I spent my summer vacation has never sounded so fun. But alas, it really wasn't. Delta has turned into a mess of an airline. Which the rest of you probably already know. I so rarely flew them, that my expectations had not dropped off the face of the Earth. Anyhoo. Cancellations due to weather are a-ok. The norm. Status Quo these days, eh? But when they actively choose not to honor your rebooked ticket because they don't think that the other carrier by which you missed your return might not pay because now you are in competition just, well, stinks.

The shuttle flight from DC to NYC was cancelled due to weather. I was missing my connecting flight on Emirates. The system rebooked me on a rerouted flight via Atlanta to Dubai. The chose to cancel the automatically rerouted flight from DC via Atlanta to Dubai because they said that Emirates would not pay them back. I was standing in line and the teller woman was on the phone with the 'international ticketing' folks and they canceled the opportunity right then and there. Just voided the whole deal. Their 'only obligation' was to get me to NYC. And they would not help me reticket with Emirates (I had to do that myself and Emirates doesn't fly to DC, so I wasn't sure everything worked out until I would get to NYC). Plus they didn't have enough staff to deal with everyone who missed their dang, tiny shuttle to NYC. And I come to find out that Emirates was completely booked for the next three days anyways.

So I extended my stay in DC by two nights waiting for a rebooked flight to NYC (the next day got canceled due to weather, too). Then stayed with a friend for 1 night in NYC to catch a Saturday night flight to Dubai via Hamburg.

So now that Delta has a direct flight to Dubai, they no longer do business with Emirates? My ticket was purchased with that collaborative assumption.

Regardless. I will do my best to avoid Delta from this point on. They avoided me. Too bad.

Why am I 'upset'? Well, I'm not actually. Just amazed about how customer service is so outside of the norm these days. Back in 1982 when my father and I were backpacking all through Britain, the carrier that we flew over on, Braniff went belly up. We arrived at the airport after a month to find that Braniff was no where to be found. We were saved by the other carriers who found our flight home. I believe that it was British Airways. Anyhoo. Long time passed, but things are no longer the same.

Travelers in distress have to be accounted for. It is not a bottom line issue. It should a basic function of a transportation provider. I accommodated myself by paying for two night more in a hotel in DC. Fine. The least you can do is to allow me a seat on your flight that is not overbooked. Delta, you failed.

I got delayed due to the FAA system crash or whatever that was late Thursday/Friday. I'm fixin' to be in route via London in about 3 hours from now.

Ready to return. All rested and familied. This was a rather short trip to Dallas, but I'll be back for 2 weeks in October. Things that I learned while home:

1) Nephews are growing up very fast
2) My red truck, which I turned over to my Dad is on its last legs. Completely rusted out. Got a leak in the gas tank. Must be sold to the lowest bidder. Oh well. That's 9 years in New England for ya! Poor little southern truck.
3) Grandma is doing fine, though good help is hard to find.
4) TexMex doesn't treat me very well anymore. I haven't decided to let it go, but am realizing that greasy cheesy food is hard on me now.
5) Dr. Pepper is as great as ever. I lived on it while home.
6) Mariano's still makes the best frozen margaritas. They were the first and may they forever be!
7) Babysitting nephews is a tiring job!
8) Family members are very generous. Extremely so.
9) I have a lot of crap. Threw away a ton. Shipped out 4 boxes of books in an M-Bag
10) The US Postal Service still struggles with a few simple things like keeping stock of supplies.

and finally: Life is very good.

While I am in the States, my cat, Frigga is enjoying herself at Dubai Kennels and Cattery. Here are some photos to prove it: http://www.dkc.ae/petpics/2007/pages/2007-05_Schmitt--Frigga.html

Just spent the last couple of days in Mystic, CT and on Block Island (staying in Newport). Lovely perfect. Tomorrow we take the train to NYC.

I'm tired of Vox. It's too helpful-friendly and all I want is Wordpress. 

Plus, I can't get to it through Etisalat. I can't read it and I can't post. So I've given up a good deal of the ease of posting just to be in this Vox world. If Etisalat doesn't like social software, then so be it. I already have my own site.

But I don't know when as I want to set things up. Maybe I'll just set a date: July 1.

Here in Dubai, you can go to jail for a lot of things. You can spend a month in jail if you give the police the finger. And after that you will be deported.

http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Police_and_The_Courts/10125892.html

"