This just in from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Our 'White Line' producer, a female, was going out to the balcony of the Marriot to set up our satellite phone feed for the common line the radio networks use.
Being a BBC producer working out of Cairo, she knows the drill for women: head scarf, long sleeves, loose fitting clothes.
Still... hotel personnel rushed out to bring her back in... saying the snipers on neighboring roofs WILL shoot her.
A woman thing, a security thing, a technology thing... a freakin' SCARY thing.
Welcome to Saudi Arabia.
(also, our United Airlines female flight attendents were told to stay in their hotel rooms for the next two days)

(also, our United Airlines female flight attendents were told to stay in their hotel rooms for the next two days)

Rich: What's happening in the next two days, that females have to stay inside?

Nothing. Just SOP with unaccompanied foreign women, I believe. That said, Anne the fearless ARD German Radio reporter took a cab to a mall and did MOS. It took 30 minutes of convincing to be let in, but she ended up talking to several people at the Mcdonad's in the food court.
Saudi Arabia has big malls, and the Persian Gulf counties have ridiculous monster lavish malls. And for the ultimate ridulousnes, check this link for the Emerites Palace, the joint in Abu Dhabi where Bush stayed Sunday night.

http://www.emiratespalace.com/en/home/index.htm

Very nice digs!

Rich-
My brother and sister in law lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for four years as teachers. They were there during the first Gulf war. They used to have scud drills in the American compound where they lived with other American workers.

One of the more interesting stories they told me was when Saudi Arabia officials sought out America's help for the many deaths that were occurring because of car accidents.

Evidently, when the American and Saudi officials got into a car for the first time the US official said something like "Okay time to put on your seat belts." The Saudi's refused. He urged them several times and they continued to refuse. The US official gave up and came home.

Unless you have lived in the Middle East at sometime you really can't appreciate that culture. It is so radically different from our own.

Enjoy the visit Rich there are some incredible things to see.

I bet little King George felt right at home there!

Priceline discounts; 40,000/night as long as the price of a barrel of oil stays above $95.

Rich, What happened on todays 6am Eastern Fox top of the hour news cast? Bill came on obviously unprepared and apologizing for 15 seconds then went straight to you!

wierdest news cast I've ever heard! It was as if his computer screen before him had died or he forgot his copy!

Bill literally dropped his copy onto the floor as he was doing the intro. I was dying for him, silently pleading for him to just ad-lib his way to me (I wasn't supposed to be the lead) and recover while I stretched. But in the penultimate newscast of a very long shift, nobody's all that quick.
Bill lived the nightmare we all have.

Wow! I felt bad for him just listening!!

Thanks for the details.

> Evidently, when the American and Saudi officials
> got into a car for the first time the US official
> said something like "Okay time to put on your seat
> belts." The Saudi's refused.

Why do Saudis have a hangup about wearing seat belts in a car? Do they wear seat belts when riding in an airplane?

I have friends from Jordan and they say that the habit of using seat belts was not instilled in them until they came here. Apparently there's no law requiring the use of seat belts, or if there is, it's diregarded. It's been such a focus here, with steep penalties for disobeying the law, that it's become second nature for most of us.

Or it's quicker to stop and run when not strapped into the car.

When I was a kid, my dad made a big deal about how important it was to wear seat belts. I think that this would have been the case even if New York hadn't passed its seat belt law around that time.

"Enjoy the visit Rich there are some incredible things to see."


I understand the highways are littered with anicent to recent auto wrecks just pushed off the roads onto the medians/shoulders. I'm assuming the unbelted bodies have been removed.

Rich Johnson:
That place isn't just "ultimate ridiculousness," it looks more like "filthy stinking ridiculous!"

It seems rather disgusting that you do as much as stare at a woman for too long here in the U.S. and you get called on it for being a womanizer or a sexist; but in of the places the U.S. is slowly being bought out by, if you're a woman you have to fear for your life.

Sadly Newflyer women in many parts of the world have been fighting uphill battles for centuries.

You really have to go back to pre-history to find a time where women were the leaders and decision makers and the men were the workers.

Just got back from look around Riyadh. There are certainly lavish parts, but the downtown area where most of the foreign workers do commerce is very similar to Canal Street in NYC - lots of 'grassroots capitalism' like the guy selling socks from a card table on the sidewalk. He gets the stuff from the same plants in China and Vietnam, but his marketing and distribution costs are well below The Gap or Nordstrom.
The real ridiculous money these days is in the Persian Gulf. Abu Dhabi and Dubai are just nuts. The leaders of both have looked beyond oil and turned their tiny countries into free market banking centers and tourist Meccas (pun intended).
And many worry they're the next big targets of Muslim extremists.
Can you imagine a plane hitting the world's tallest building... again?

I know a guy who is a TV Transmitter Engineer. Back about 25 years ago he was in Saudi Arabia working for a Contractor. His job was maintaining several Saudi Terrestrial TV transmitters. He likes to drink. The only way he could get a nip in that country was to hide a bottle or two in the High Voltage plenum of the RCA Transmitters and when it was midnight he could turn it off for maintenance and go up on the hill and have a nightcap.

He told me that those Arabs were , at that time anyway, spooked beyond reason over High Voltage and TV transmitters in general and would NEVER consider even getting close to the building let alone the transmitter itself. Good place to hide some Jack Daniels.

Bring me back a used license plate for my collection. Thanks.

> He told me that those Arabs were , at that time
> anyway, spooked beyond reason over High Voltage
> and TV transmitters in general and would NEVER
> consider even getting close to the building let
> alone the transmitter itself.

This sounds goofy until you consider that there were people who were worried about RF exposure from WiFi devices when MetroFI put its wireless network on the air here in Portland.

People are often afraid of what they don't understand.

Re: seat belts - when I visited Moscow (yes, Russia, not Idaho!) and rode in a car, I would reflexively try to put on the seatbelt. Usually they were broken or missing, but the first time I managed to actually buckle one, the natives in the car just laughed and laughed... and that is a place with the most unbelievably insane traffic I've ever seen or even heard about. We seriously considered making dash-cam videos and selling them on the internet.

By the way, Bill Plante of CBS News and his folks put together a great little Web piece on the White House press corps. Go to cbsnews.com, find the 'other videos' link and scroll down until you see Bill.
If you look fast, you'll see my back and the bald spot on my head!