Ch Ch Ch Changes

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I have seen the climate changing here in the UAE and the effects of climate change since I first came here in the late '80s. I've watched the wadi tracks being turned into blacktop and wadis such as the East Coast's Warryah and the great Hatta Wadi turned into graffiti-splashed rubbish tips and I've watched as the many natural pools that dotted the Hajar mountains were drained by farmers using stinking pumps that leak oil and benzine into the waterways.

I've seen the desert becoming increasingly dotted with clumps of vegetation further and further out from the towns so that now you have to strike deep into the dunes before you see unbroken sand and I've watched the mountains being torn down to build megaprojects while villagers complain of disease, dust and unpredictable water flows. I've witnessed the water table plummet as natural underground waterways of the UAE have been depleted.

I've seen dead coral and coastal spills, turtle beaches in danger and helped to clear rich mangrove creeks clotted with reeking rubbish. I've stood on long strands as fishermen leave hundreds of sand sharks to gasp their last, dotting the long shore with their white-bellied bodies. I've watched in horror as huge, ecologically disruptive, building projects promote the proximity of migratory, and protected, flamingos.

I do recommend taking part in this survey, linked here. It's part of Richard Wagner's Doctoral Thesis, at the Vrije University in Amsterdam and is being supported by EDA, the Emirates Diving Association. It's a short, well-structured survey that should take no longer than ten minutes of your time.

Blockheads Reprised

It would appear that the UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Or TRA to you an' me) has blocked YouTube's age verification screen.

The problem was highlighted on Twitter yesterday when a link to the now infamous 'Sheikh Zayed Road Madness' video was shared - the link came back with the blocked splash screen on both Etisalat and Du networks. A good link is, BTW, here.

Although the first assumption is that the block was because of the nature of the content, which is a group of nutters endangering the lives of motorists on Dubai's busiest road by pulling doughnuts and the like, this was not in fact the case

(Dubai's police website still allows you, rather charmingly, to key in number plates and get a record of fines and the like without requiring any corroborating evidence that it is, in fact, your own plate you're looking up. So you can look up these chaps' driving history if you want.)

What had happened was the video had been flagged for age restriction (you can't actually tag a video with an age limit on YouTube when you post it, it has to be 'flagged' and a YouTube staffer will review and age restrict the video) and therefore viewers were sent to the YouTube Age Verification Page.

And THAT is the bit that had been blocked. One can only assume that 'if you need to be asked, the answer's no' is the policy in place here.

Helpfully, Etisalat's Twitter Twit suggested to me that YouTube itself was responsible for the block, which is patently not the case, and then referred me to YouTube's Terms of Service which, of course, are totally irrelevant to the point in question.

Have you read YouTube's TOS? Here. Fill yer boots. Bet you can't finish it without going mad.

In the meantime, we await the results of the investigation that is being conducted, I am sincerely advised, into whether it is morally or culturally reprehensible to answer the question: "Are you over 21?"

Geek Outbreak!

GeekFests - they're like buses: nothing happens for ages and then they all come together.

GeekFest Beirut takes place next Saturday the 29th May 2010 at the uber-funky Art Lounge in Beirut - with the  Maniachi in charge it's going to be a blast - and all the details are here on the justasfunkyasthevenue GeekFest Beirut website. You can also, of course, follow @GeekFestBeirut on Twitter (or just do a search for the #GeekFest hashtag).

ArtStuf in Beirut is going to include showcases displays and things from, Abir Ghattas, Moshumi Nandy, Elyse Tabet and Dreamchaser while TechnoCases come from GeekFest early adopter Nokia and Telephone.com.

GeekFest Beirut's going to be televised thanks to Amer Tabsh from FTV Social, photographed by  Fady Nammour and live tweeted by LAU Social. Gotta say a thank you to moodeef.com for hosting the website!


CAIRO HERE WE COME!

On the very same night, over in Cairo's Zamalek, GeekFest Cairo 1.0 will be taking place! UNorganised by Mohammad Mansour (@TripleM) with a little help from GeekFest's designer-in-chief, Naeema Zarif (@Naeema), GeekFest Cairo will be taking place at El Sawy Culture Wheel thanks to the generous involvement and participation of Ziad W. Aly (@ZiadAly).

GeekTalks in Cairo will include:

Mohamad Mansour
Social Media for Social Change

Naeema Zarif
Creative Commons

Mohamed Gaber
Visual Political Aggregation: The modern Propaganda

Ziad Aly
Improvised Inspirational Speech

There's more planned as well. So now we've got GeekFest Dubai, Beirut, Amman and Cairo! Whoever thought that a cup of coffee with @saadia would lead to this?

The Devil's In The Comments

Image via Wikipedia

An interesting thought (well, to me at least) to end the week. We've got this little phrase, 'the devil's in the detail', a version of 'never look a gift horse in the mouth' and many other similar wee pieces of wisdom that boil down to 'that looks like a great deal, why don't you take a good, long, hard look at it and make sure you know precisely what you're getting into here.'

When we're looking at information and opinion posted online, the devil's actually not so much lurking in the detail as in the comments - whatever you've got to say, it's how people, the 'community', reacts that's perhaps more telling. Take this example, the article that sparked my thinking about this. It's a really, really nice piece that tries to take a reasoned, moderate tone about the whole controversy revolving around the infamous South Park/Prophet Mohammed debate (and, by inference, the original Danish Cartoon Saga and the recent 'Let's All Draw The Prophet' saga). It basically asks Muslims to consider what the Prophet himself would do and counsels them to, effectively, turn the other cheek. I liked it.

But read the comments. Read how quickly that feedback descends into vituperation, unreason, hatred and bigotry.

What amazed me is how much stronger it all made the original post and how much the howling of the 'haters', directed at a moderate and well-argued voice, made that voice seem more reasoned and even more powerful.

The devil, these days, is certainly in the comments. But sometimes devilment doesn't half backfire!

GeekFest Beirut 2.0

As some may already know, GeekFest Beirut has been taken over by that most feared group of online types, Beirut's anarchistically inclined honchos, the Maniachis. There are GeekTalks aplenty and TechnoCases from Nokia and Telephone.com - more details on the website at www.geekfestbeirut.com! There's a whole load of other stuff going to be taking place, too - it's going to be a packed night, for sure.

For an update you can see this interview featuring the Maniachis on Future TV's MEGA with Chadi Abou Nohra,  explaining GeekFest Beirut,  which will be taking place from 8.00pm on the 29th May at Beirut's very funky Art Lounge.

A million thanks are due to Alex Tohme, who started the whole GeekFest Beirut ball rolling. It looks like it may well now be set as an ongoing treat in Lebanon's online/offline scene. Which is nice, isn't it?

Observer - Sex Shock or Crap Shlock?

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This article in today's Observer (the Sunday newspaper of The Guardian) did rather strike a chord. I'm not much of a Dubai apologist but have to confess that having lived here for the past 17 years (I've been travelling around the Middle East for the past 24 and yes, thank you, I do feel old) the old place must be doing something right to keep me here.

I'm not about to set myself up ready to leap to Dubai's defence as everyone points out how crap it is. I spend enough time pontificating in various media already without adding 'official apologist' to my job title. But the Observer piece by 'William Butler', apparently recently returned after four years in Dubai, really does take the digestive.

There is a thriving sex trade in Dubai and I have seen it with my own two eyes. A great deal more could be done to address said trade, without a doubt. But if you really clamped down on that trade, along with many other trades in the city's margins and hideaways, you'd start to peck away at the principles that make Dubai a pleasant place to be in - that we're all pretty much left alone to do whatever we want as long as we're reasonably discreet and don't take it too far. That has always been at the very core of the Dubai I have been travelling to and living in since the eighties. They like to call it 'laissez faire'. I'm not arguing that this is perfection, but it's a damn sight better than an across-the-board 'No, you can't'.

So it's not that the piece is wholly inaccurate, it's just that it's peppered with silly errors, sweeping statements of fact that are unsustainable and unfounded assertions. So a piece that could have been a well-argued, explosive investigation into the trade and its many victims is, instead, a badly cobbled together and sloppy tissue of baseless assertion. What a wasted opportunity.

'I asked her what she did for a living. "You know what I do," she replied. "I'm a whore."
I know this is one man's word, but I wouldn't write that line into one of my books.

"It was obvious that every woman in the place was a prostitute. And the men were all potential punters, or at least window-shoppers."
Every woman a prostitute and all the men punters? In a five star hotel bar? Must be a different bar to all the ones I've gone to over the years... How is a prostitute 'obvious' in this way? The burden of proof here is met by some bloke's idea of what a prostitute looks like? What next from the Observer? "It was clear they were all gay"?

"Dubai is a heaving maelstrom of sexual activity that would make the hair stand up on even the most worldly westerner's head."
I'm really, really sorry but I must have been living an unusually cloistered life, a 'heaving maelstrom'? What have I been missing out on all these years?

"It is known by some residents as "Sodom-sur-Mer".
No it's not. Certainly not by anyone I know. Maybe to William Butler and his best friend Yeats. It's a daft epithet and too wooden to be popular.

"Western girls fall for handsome, flash Lebanese men"
This is simply awful. Is the Observer telling us that Dubai, the place where young people from all around the world come to seek opportunity,  is responsible for inter-cultural relationships? Pity the poor ugly, boring Lebanese men, too...

"most of the "romance" in Dubai is paid-for sex, accepted by expatriates as the norm"
This is absolute rubbish. Quantify 'most of the romance'. Nobody I know of accepts paid-for-sex as the norm. Why is this man allowed to assert such complete tosh in a national newspaper?

"Virtually every five-star hotel has a bar where "working girls" are tolerated, even encouraged, to help pull in the punters"
More baseless assertion. We aren't told how hotels encourage prostitutes to help pull in the punters. Most hotels are more than happy to give incentives to FaceCard holders, Emirates staff. But encouraging prostitutes? How, precisely?

"it would be hard to take into account the "casual" or "part-time" sex trade. One recent estimate put the figure at about 30,000 out of a population of about 1.5 million"
Whose estimate? I've got no problem with the number, crumbs, double it if you want - fill your boots. But prove it - at least have a source or a credible figure quoted. Again, we wouldn't let a press release out with that kind of fact standing up a story and I wouldn't expect it to last ten minutes out there if we did. Why the hell is a respected paper running this sort of thing?

"Although strictly illegal under United Arab Emirates' and Islamic law, it is virtually a national pastime"
Virtually a national pastime? WTF? We are, surely, losing the plot here...

"A few drinks with the lads on a Thursday night, maybe a curry, some semi-intoxicated ribaldry, and then off to a bar where you know "that" kind of girl will be waiting. In the west, peer group morality might frown on such leisure activities, but in Dubai it's as normal as watching the late-night movie."
No it's not. This is rubbish. And, again, it's uninformed opinion.

"Middle-aged men in responsible jobs – accountants, marketeers, bankers – who for 10 months of the year are devoted husbands, transform in July and August into priapic stallions roaming the bars of Sheikh Zayed Road."
This is amazing. I am quite sure that some of the 'summer bachelors' do indeed go astray, but this image of a city filled with 'Priapic stallions roaming the bars' every summer is bunkum. Lonely drunks, maybe.

"In my experience, many men will be unfaithful if they have the opportunity and a reasonable expectation that they will not be found out."
Why superimpose your experience of morality on everyone around you, particularly when it is quite so egregious? This 'experience' says more about the author than we perhaps need to know...

"Above all, there is opportunity. There is the Indonesian maid who makes it apparent that she has no objection to extending her duties, for a price; the central Asian shop assistant in one of the glittering malls who writes her mobile number on the back of your credit card receipt "in case you need anything else"; the Filipina manicurist at the hairdresser's who suggests you might also want a pedicure in the private room."
Singling out the nationalities like this is also telling. I have never heard of an Indonesian maid who extends her duties - certainly not willingly. I know one Sri Lankan maid who'd probably give you a good smack for even suggesting anything of the sort. And as far as manicurists (does she have to be Filipina, Observer?) go, those I know would be hurt and offended at the very idea.

"Cyclone, a notorious whorehouse near the airport, was closed down a few years back, but then it really did go too far – a special area of the vast sex supermarket was dedicated to in-house oral sex."
This is clearly crap. Cyclone was a nightclub, albeit one increasingly notorious for the 'working girls' to be found there. But it was not a whorehouse - and it was closed before 'William Butler' came to the UAE. So he is just (as he does much of the time) reporting overheard tittle-tattle rather than researched or sustainable fact. In the latter days I avoided Cyclone, it was never really my kind of place (being a middle aged Priapus every summer, you understand), but I'd love to see the evidence for an area of 'the vast sex supermarket' (whaat?) being dedicated to anything of the sort. And let us not forget, Cyclone. was. shut. down.

It's simply not good enough. This is not great journalism, this is not investigative reporting. It's a poorly hacked together, ill-informed job from a freelance former expat that a lazy editor has just unquestioningly jacked into the system to fill a page or two and it is the sort of thing that people here will point to when arguing that media freedom is a bad thing.

It's interesting that comments are not enabled on the online version. The Observer not willing to countenance another wave of clarification of the sort that expats have helpfully contributed to previous Dubai bunkum pieces?

I'd love to see this shameful rubbish referred to the PCC...

Sharjah Parks Get Reprieve Shock Horror

Image by kevin (iapetus) via Flickr

We have the inevitable 'clarification' on the Sharjah Parks Debacle. This will delight SeaBee as he loves clarifications like fat kids love cake.

The opening hours of Sharjah parks, cruelly truncated last week in a potty gambit designed to ensure gardeners don't cop an eyeful of jogger (and instead ensuring that every man in the street copped an eyeful), have now been 'extended' to 8am-1pm and 4pm-10pm according to a story in yesterday's Khaleej Times. Rivals for the big story of the day Gulf News and The National failed to get the scoop and so they miss the Pulitzer yet again.

This time the clarification comes in the shape of an 'extension' due to 'public demand'. What a laugh. Announcing the damn things, previously open all day, are to be limited to 4pm-10pm and then climb down by pretending it's an extension - and the newspaper slavishly reports it verbatim. Grief.


Earlier stories in Gulf News regarding an ID card requirement to enter Sharjah's parks (not a National ID card, silly, that would make it useful. No, a special 'I live in Sharjah' ID card issued by the Municipality) appear to have been incorrect, BTW, as there is no evidence of this being implemented (it was announced for May 1st implementation).

There would appear to be a great deal of confusion around Sharjah's parks right now. And nobody in our media is asking quite what the hell they think they're doing with these conflicting 'make it up as you go along' announcements...

(PS: I'd have missed this 'extension' story if it hadn't been for an eagle eyed Rupert Bumfrey)

Citizen Journalism. Bah.

Image by bunky's pickle via Flickr

Another Arab Media Forum already! It hardly seems a year since the last one. It's now become traditional for me to celebrate the birth of this little bloggy thing (with this post) during the 2007 forum, as it is that very event wot was taking place as I first hit the 'Publish Post' key.

This year's forum features more social media stuff than ever before, but that's not really terribly difficult as it has previously had the token panel or two, last year there was even a blogger. I have to confess I didn't bother going this year. It didn't really seem terribly relevant - many of the discussions are taking place in an environment where change is driving a huge movement away from traditional media sources - even here in the Middle East where we are, as all agree, lagging. Broadcast is less challenged than print, but the low quality of regional printed news media will just exacerbate the speed of movement.


I was interested to see that 'a participant in a session on citizen journalism' (Gulf News didn't bother naming him/her) talked about the National Paints fire, the news of which was broken by our very own Albert Dias (@albertdias), quickly followed up by a Twitpic (Twitpic or it didn't happen is increasingly the standard).  We managed to get Albert on the 'phone for the opening of the Dubai Today Radio Show which made for a brilliant and dramatic opening to the show as Albert provided us with a cogent and intelligent commentary from the scene, 200 metres away from the holocaust that was devouring the huge paint store, his voice surprisingly calm against the background of explosions and sirens. And yes, BTW, I'm delighted we scooped GN online by at least 45 minutes.

So was this the 'citizen journalism' that the Forum was, yet again, debating? Well, not really. Albert wasn't a journalist, he was an eyewitness. It's just that he has access to much more efficient sharing networks: breaking the story on Twitter doesn't mean reporting it. It's just that we get access to the cold, hard facts that are the stuff of journalism. The journalism came when we decided to broadcast his voice, questioning him with a listenership, and principles of reporting, in mind.

That role, the role of taking the evidence and collecting it to give as rounded and objective a picture as possible, will never change. More of the responsibility for it is being put in our hands as we sift through sources of hard news and data, shared sources of fact and opinion. But we'll always need people to bring it together for us. It's just that we're going to want them to be online and, ideally, to be independent and have a sound reputation. Mendacity, in this environment, is not really an option- and trust networks, reputational networks, will become the cornerstone to popularity, and therefore revenue, into the future.

Journalism doesn't actually need huge publishing houses and hundreds of makeup artists and printing presses and all the rest of it. It doesn't even need massive recording studios, satellites and specialised receivers. The networks in place today, even with the lack of lower prices and higher bandwidth in our tragically under-served region, provide journalists all the access they need to inform and serve their audiences. But they will never again be the only source of information available to consumers.

A debate they might just get around to having next year. Or maybe not until the presses finally grind to a halt and they realise that nobody cares anymore.

Dubai Vehicle Registration And The National ID Card. A Farce

Image via Wikipedia

Popped off to get the car registered, a tad late admittedly. Was just girding the old loins to do it when I was amazed to get a text from the RTA telling me I was in danger of blowing it and to get my butt online to register or go to a Shamil Centre. It's wrong of me to be so delighted when stuff like this happens, I know.

The Emarat Shamil station was amazingly fast, efficient and even friendly (up to a point) and the whole thing took just over 20 minutes.  How things have been transformed since the days of yore, when vehicle registration was at least a half day marathon often involving having to travel to other emirates to pay fines, multiple procedures, inexplicable counters with grunting staff and constant, shuffling queues!

It was almost all done, when the grumpy bloke behind the counter (the only grumpy bloke around, I have to say) says "Bassbort."

A passport is not, of course, a requirement that is outlined in the RTA's online vehicle registration guidelines. But I'm old enough to know that you need your passport for anything official, semi-official, quasi-official or where a bureaucrat is involved (for instance, the bank) or where you can see no conceivable need for a passport.

I thought I'd try my luck. "I have my ID card. Here."

Incredibly, the response was "Not this. Not need this. Want bassbort."

"But this is the National ID card. It has all of my information. My biometrics. It confirms me."

"Need bassbort."

"Why?"

"It has information. Visa expiry and sponsor name."

And so I had to get my bassbort out for him and pocket my, now confirmed as totally useless, national ID card, the document that, as you'll recall, was the most critical thing that you absolutely, certainly needed for vehicle registration as of last week.

I wonder if you can play tiddleywinks with them?

PS: There's a new rule whereby you have to have a little triangular warning thingy in your car. The Emarat stations sell 'em for Dhs30. 

Xero Error

This is the trailer for Xero Error, a 7-minute GCI science fiction film that was made by a guy called Ashraf Ghori and a group of people that volunteered their time, expertise and talent to make the film a reality. As many are aware, Ashraf and a number of his team came to the last GeekFest Dubai and talked  about the experience of making the film and Ashraf's desire to take it 'to another level' and get some serious funding behind making a full length film around the concepts and characters he starts to explore in 'Levity'

This is the YouTube link. And this is the film's IMDB entry (up 922% in popularity this week!)

I am constantly stunned by how this film was made in Dubai - Xero Error features an amazing soundtrack, great voice talent and really, really good CGI graphics - as good as anything I've seen on screen.

They're taking it to Cannes this week, where it'll be entered for the Short Film Palme d'Or (Palme d'Or du court métrage, actually, dahlings). The film festival starts Wednesday, volcano permitting.


It's great that a GCI movie was made in Dubai in the first place (in the year that gave us City of Life, a home-produced world-quality film made in, and about, the UAE). But wouldn't it be glorious if it took a Palme d'Or?