Well, here's a bit of news that may affect yours truly. It appears that the Ministry of Interior intends to try to regulate all online publishing via "licensing."
Hmmm... You know, I'm squirrelly enough about getting "found out" that this is just the thing to put me into hiding.
Never fear, dear reader, I'll soldier on and post post POST!
This bit of news does open a door into another discussion. There is NO free press here. In fact, it's kind of funny, coming from the United States where, basically, the press can say ANYTHING they want to. Here, it's not so much. A lot of what I read in the local English language press, aside from grammatical and translation errors, is full of unsubstantiated facts, opinion of the author (or editor) presented as fact and a clear sense of "talking around" an issue.
I'm not media-savvy enough to discuss the issue at length but when I read the local press, I'm always left with a sense that there's an actual story looming behind the print and somehow it isn't allowed to come though. I wonder if readers here take the news for fact or if they have developed a refined ability to read between the lines. There's much that has been said about the Bedouin ability to perceive much more than what is on the surface. Does that apply to reading the news as well? I wonder. I don't have the answers. It's yet another thing to ask my hosts, colleagues and Arab friends.
For my own sake, I'll have to carefully navigate the next few months of my blogging. I know other bloggers here in the Kingdom who do not blog under a nom de plume. I wonder what it'll be like for them.
Strange times in a strange land.
--maddog
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