Prozac nationalism?

in the snowpark at ski dubai in the mall

Recently the Vice President of the UAE, Sheik Mohammed, launched a campaign to thank and honor the President, Sheik Khalifa. The veep called on citizens and residents to blog, tweet, email, stand on a street corner and shout... as part of the whole "Thank you Khalifa!" project.  Now, just a few days later, we're moving on to crowd sourcing a Twitter auto-biography of Dubai. Again, Sheik Mohammed goes to the people and asks them to use social media technology to share their joy and enthusiasm for this town. And, if the free newspaper at my apartment hotel is to be believed, people respond, in the tens or even hundreds of thousands- filling cyberspace with good wishes, photos and stories. The letters to the editor today were congratulating the city on the fabulous fireworks on New Year's Eve and admonishing us to resolve, in the new year, to make the world a better place. There's no vitriol, no complaints, no preaching about how wrong/ sinful/ uninformed the other side is about issue x or y or z... it feels a little like living in a big puffy cloud of self congratulations and enthusiasm. Weird, but actually, not unpleasant. It feels like this whole happy happy thing is really kinda sincere or at least not totally a made up facade. Is there a smiley face slapped over some grim financial inequalities? Are the people so blissed out on huge discounts on mattresses that they don't notice that their ability to self govern is at the pleasure of a benevolent but all powerful ruler? I think so, but I also think a lot of people really are largely content with their reality. I may learn otherwise, given time, but for now, I'm going to check out the Serta king-sizes that are rumored to be 30-50% off for the Dubai Shopping Festival and I'm going to post some lovely pictures of Dubai's charms from my week exploring with Andrea. Qnd the fireworks were out of this world.

from the 124th floor of khalifa tower looking at the fountain

beach on christmas morn

at the camel races