One more reason to become a shut-in

Our camera is on loan to some friends with a new baby, so here's a picture I took one day at the mall near our house. Judging by the wreaths, this must have been sometime around December, when the siren song of Christmas was wailing out of the shops here. Normally, wailing is left to the Muezzin, who's call to prayer excites the ether several times a day. Dubai is, if anything, a place of many contradictions. For instance, aside from certain designated free zones, which are typically several km outside the city itself, all businesses here are established in partnership with an Emarati local. If, for instance, I were to open my dream business; The Haiku Hut, purveyor of mercifully brief poetry, I would have to find a local business partner. Fine right? No reason that local businesses shouldn't benefit local people. Actually, local business is a bit of a stretch when you're talking about Ikea, or The Dubai Hilton, as all companies, large and small must play by this rule. It gets interesting in the case of hotels, as they have long been the locus of exception, which is to say, the places where people go to drink.

Recently, I met a coworker of Vanessa's for the first time, on one of her office's weekly after hours offsite meetings which, subject to UK rules, involve more than a few pints. Alcohol is currently a distant third to coffee and claritin, in my party regimen, and I had one unpronounceable beer before the two of us felt the call of the pillow. This coworker, who's name wouldn't mean anything to you anyway, thoroughly enjoyed himself until grabbing a cab home in the wee hours. He then spent the next fourteen or so hours sleeping off the night's excess, and then cabbed back to his car at the hotel where we'd been encamped. Somewhere between the hotel and his apartment he got into a minor scrape with a stationary object and, wanting to avoid the incredible hassle of an undocumented ding in his car, he called the police right then and there to settle the matter. This turned out to be a huge mistake, as the first thing the police did was give him a breathalyzer, which he failed. Now, failing a breathalyzer test is bad anywhere, but it's especially bad here and, conversely, much easier to do as the legal blood alcohol level in Dubai is zero. Additionally, he was charged with drinking without a license, as all Dubai residents are required to obtain a license to purchase alcohol. 

As I recall from my last visit to online traffic school, the legal limit in the US is .08 BAC. So, as the DMV hand book goes, you need to wait at least an hour per drink (and one Pint is two cups and therefore two drinks by this reckoning) before you get behind the wheel, although this varies considerably by body weight etc. Now, that rule of thumb is designed to keep your BAC below .08. After hearing about this person's arrest, I started to wonder how long it would take for the average person to metabolize, excrete, and evaporate one beer completely out of their system, to the point where they'd be in compliance with the zero tolerance laws. Morning after DUIs are apparently quite common all over the world, and it would seem to be a pretty serious peril in the UAE, where it's illegal to drive with any alcohol in your system.

Yesterday we had news that our acquaintance was out of jail. He'd been in a holding cell, one that is currently operating at about five times capacity, for nine days. The holding cell, unlike your typical drunk tank, was one huge general population cell filled with hundreds of criminals of all ilk, including the really bad kind of ilk: murderous ilk. He's now facing deportation, which I suppose could mean the loss of his job, and a hefty fine. His employer had retained an attorney the first day that he was incarcerated, and for whatever reason, it took around nine days for him to be released.

Dubai has long maintained a tension between conservative islamic values and a growing expatriate culture that makes very little concession to local tradition. This tacitly accepting coexistence has been challenged lately, not just by dwindling economic prospects, ostentatious wealth is the one thing 90% of Dubai residents agree on-- they really like it, but also by a tightening of rules governing public behavior. Because new laws in Dubai are announced via press release, and this particular release was only sent to one paper, it appears that no one really knows what the hell is going on. We heard recently that undercover cops, sometimes referred to colloquially as  pigs in a blanket, have been questioning and arresting pub crawlers on foot for lacking the proper alcohol license. The bars here will card you if you look under age, but they never check you alcohol license, as it's really only needed at the actual liquor store. Liquor stores are so low profile, and obliquely named here, that it took me months to notice that there's one on either side of our grocery store. I think one of them is called Marine Mercantile, or something like that, and all the windows are painted out-- no Cap'n Cork in Dubai.

It bothers me that local business interests profit significantly from the sale of alcohol, while at the same time local laws create a jackpot (in the Cormac McCarthy sense) in which consuming alcohol can very easily draw a sober driver or a drunk pedestrian into serious legal and financial trouble. I understand that in each case, theoretical or otherwise, the person in question broke the law, what galls me though, is that they did so in an effort to behave responsibly, and fell victim to laws that are not enforced equally, or consistently with international measures of sobriety. I take exception to a great many driving behaviors that place other people's lives in jeopardy, of which driving drunk is the undeniable apex. I would add that, if you sell liquor out of one side of your mouth, and then throw your customers in jail, with the assumption of guilt rather than innocence, for what is at least sometimes responsible behavior, leaving them in confinement for seemingly random lengths of time; well, then you may resemble Vonnegut's famous asterisk.