I join the ranks of Twain, Hemingway and Steinbeck

When I try to access my own website, this is the message I get:

Now that elktown has officially been censored by the UAE powers-that-be, I think it is indisputable that my work joins the pantheon that includes To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Sawyer and The Grapes of Wrath. I am truly humbled. Now I must join Salman Rushdie in hiding away from the Islamic world, living forever on the run, with nothing to console me but my fame, my beautiful western women and my millions of dollars.

But back in the real world for a second, before any family members of mine fly into a panic, the truth is a little more mundane. My best guess is that automatic Internet filters in this country censor ALL websites that aren't pre-approved by the government. Since at least I can still read my own words, if not see the pictures, I'll phrase the next part delicately to avoid the censor-bots: This culture is so terrified of SECKS-SHOO-ALITY that it defies belief. I think that NO Internet images are allowed unless from registered websites. Censorship is the default setting here. It simply took the censor-bots a week to catch up to elktown.

I went to see the Jude Law movie "Alfie" last night in a huge Dubai theater. Jude Law plays a loverboy, so there were some scenes of, ah, let's use the phrase adult situations. At least, I presume there were -- but in this version, every time Jude leaned in for a smooch with a lady, the movie awkwardly jumped to the next scene.

You might think I would have felt cheated -- I mean, I payed D.C. ticket prices and yet what I can only assume were long stretches of the movie were just chopped out. But not to worry: The theater more than made up for the lost time by padding the beginning with a full 30 minutes of commercials, not including previews.