Oman: Ramadan Unusual · Global Voices
Riyadh Al Balushi

You might think that the recent activity at the Omani blogosphere is mostly about the religious atmosphere of the holy month of Ramadan, but strangely the majority of the posts are anything but Ramadanic.
The notorious Muscat Confidential blogger recently posted a blog post about how to have sex in Muscat. His blog seems to get hits through searches for sex-related keywords, and I quote:
You know, I get a lot of hits from guys (I'm assuming here) in Oman searching for Filipino girls, Muscat girls, how to get girls in muscat, muscat sex, sex omani girls, prostitutes muscat, gay sex muscat, etc etc etc. Sex is clearly, like the rest of the world, on the mind of a lot of people in Muscat. Oh yes.
Expat wife Angry in Oman does not like her colleagues at work, does not like the people on the road, and surely is not happy about staying Oman. Some tell her it is a transition period and she will eventually like it here, but until that happens, the suffering continues. Here is the starting paragraph of her latest misadventures:
It always happens that when I think things can't get any worse, they of course do.
I now have a toothache to the point the whole right side of my face hurts and my bosses wife's driver came round to the office last night and took the keys away.
I told #3 yesterday that I NEED to get my check cashed today and that I will be late coming into the office. He was fine about it and when I got here I told him that I made a dentist appointment for Thursday.
Leo Americanus thinks that there is something seriously wrong with the perception of women in the Arab culture. He is surprised by the statements made by the family of the recently murdered Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim:
While female singers have been taken advantage of by rich men the world 'round, I cannot help but feel that there is a special misogyny that surrounds men of power in the Middle East. Alaa al-Aswani's novel “The Yacoubian Building” paints a pretty damning picture of this kind of man in Egypt. The sad thing is that there is a line of thinking that perpetuates such acts.
Popular female blogger Suburban observes the state of hypermarket Lulu (she prefers to call it ‘Zoo-Lu’) during the Ramadan. She generally likes it because it is very cheap, but there are a few things that are starting to drive her crazy, here is one of them:
Wonky shopping carts. I am telling you, I have never had a shopping cart there that rolled straight. I am a small girl, and by the time the thing is full, I look like some sort of comic superhero in blue jeans, feet sliding on the lino floors, body inclined to 45 degrees, frantically attempting to navigate the corner of the dairy isle.