I miss The Daily Show so much

Here's a great article about it.

The Gulf

I was teaching my English class the other day, and I made a comment about the "Persian Gulf." Then I remembered that over here, they call it the "Arabian Gulf." So I said, "uhh... I mean, the 'Arabian Gulf'."

But it turns out only the Emirati locals call it the "Arabian Gulf." In that moment before I corrected myself, I failed to realize that three kids in my class are actually Persian and several more are Egyptian/Lebanese/assorted other. This group begged to differ.

"What do you mean, 'Arabian Gulf?'" they said, practically in unison. "It's 'Persian Gulf'." Eyes instantly widened beneath headscarves on the Arab side of the room. "Arabian Gulf!" one shouted.

This situation was so obviously fraught that even I could feel it going off the rails. I did what I always do in this sort of jam: I started drawing stupid pictures on the board.

It was a picture of England and France, represented by two blobs. In between them I drew little waves and a fish that looked slightly less real than the fish bumper sticker on the back of cars. "Do you know what the English call this water?" I said.

They didn't.

"The English Channel! And guess what the French call it?"

Actually, they call it "The Sleeve," but lying suited my purposes better, so I lied. "They call it the French Channel! Ha, ha!"

The class loved it. They're exuberant kids; that's what I love best about them. If you tell an even mildly funny joke, they roar in a way that American high schoolers wouldn't be caught dead doing. All together they laughed and pointed their fingers and said, "That's so stupid, England and France!" The Gulf was forgotten.

I think only one quiet kid saw the irony.

Wafi City

Behold! The beautiful mysteries of the ancients!

And coming soon, at the foot of this ancient goddess…

A Calvin Klein outlet, for your retailing convenience.

Welcome to Wafi City, Dubai's most shi-shi mall, where the distant past and the modern day collide in a way that makes you want to cry. The entire mall is based on this Egyptian style. It's really quite wonderful – where else can you get a relaxing avocado face treatment at Cleopatra's Spa, followed by a cool drink at the Pharaoh's Club, followed by a chicken fingers platter beneath Sylvester Stallone's sweaty leather jacket at Planet Hollywood?

Fierce dogs guard the entrance. The Grand Hyatt – a 700-room behemoth that spells out "Dubai" in Arabic when viewed from above – is seen in the background.

Imagine the quality of the merchandise guarded by these fellas!

These would be lovely, shrunken down and sitting on my desk. As the roof of a mall, they're harder to define. I don't know whether to be inspired or appalled.

This is actually the pyramid-and-eye depicted on the back of the dollar bill. The Founding Fathers anticipated this mall as the eventual pinnacle of capitalism. Dollars travel thousands of miles here to spawn, like fish in the ocean.

A brief rest between spending sprees.