Yet, they’re still refusing to open themselves to western culture and ideas. They want our money (though, admittedly, they already have plenty of their own), but they certainly don’t want the people who have that money. It’s a cut-and-dried case of biting the hands that feed you. Of course, that tends to happen with religious people, so I’m not at all surprised.

Please do not travel to these countries. Many will KILL you if you are caught haveing sex in your own hotel room with your spouse! This along side royalty that routinely pick up young street men to do their thing without fear of reprisal.

there are so many reasons not to support the islamic “culture”. Yes, the author claims she was respectful. Of what? A “culture” that advocates beating women, stoning rape victims to death, multiple wives, childhood homosexuality that you must grow out of or else..etc.

Ok, say it, I’m a bigot. i don’t understand the cultural differences. Bullshit. We should not accept “cultural differences” that constitute crimes against humanity.

Pakistan just gave up a huge swath to the Taliban who is closing schools for girls. We let this happen at our peril. If we continue to let religious idealogs ruin our freedoms here and abroad, we will have nobody to blame but ourselves.

It starts at home..illegal prayer at the secular (not!) inauguration. Where were the boos! EVERY American, religious or not, should have been booing them. It is a secular event. Even the Chief Justice added “so help me god” in defiance of our secular constitution which has no mention of god anywhere and certainly not in the president’s oath..which is in there to protect it from changes just like this.

Outrage agains religious ideology is what is needed here and those writers and publishers that go to Dubai should be ashamed of themselves. Don’t go.

Tom in Long Beach

To the corporate mindset, the unrestrained, and often unethical, persuit of wealth is the founding principle. It’s not that we as a culture have forgotten our principles, it is that we as a culture have deluded ourselves for so long into believing that those “principles” we hold so dear in theory, yet rarely the same “principles” we value and follow in actual practice, are one in the same. We are a culture of smoke & mirrors and hypocrisy. We proclaim freedom yet many of our biggest trading partners use slave/wage slave/forced labor to produce their goods. We champion equality yet have state-enforced laws and amendments that perpetuates a class system in which some minorities are less equal than others. We claim to honor and respect life, yet our soldiers kill & die for oil and material wealth while corporate opportunists rape and exploit our natural environment for the benefit of a privileged few.

We are living according to our priciples.