{"id":498,"date":"2005-08-26T13:55:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T13:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=498"},"modified":"2005-08-26T13:55:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T13:55:00","slug":"498","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=498","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

He’s ba-ack<\/strong><\/p>\n

After almost a year’s absence, The Religious Policeman<\/a>, the best blog to come out of Saudi Arabia, is back. (No, that is not his real photo.) I thought maybe he was in a prison cell, seriously. In fact, he has left the happy kingdom and moved to England. <\/p>\n

A writing sample:<\/p>\n

There are those people in Jeddah. They have a Corniche, so they think they’re living on the Mediterranean. They tend to smile and laugh. You occasionally see couples furtively holding hands. What libertines.<\/p>\n

Then there are people like me who live in Riyadh. We’re more proper. No holding hands. Not a lot of smiling either – what is there to smile about in Riyadh?<\/p>\n

Then there are the people from Qassim, pronounced Gass-eem. A district centered round Burayda, 200 miles north of Riyadh. Where Wahabbi (who invented our really fun version of Islam) originally came from. Burayda is described in Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide as the “most unfriendly place in Saudi Arabia”. And then some. Remember those old movies about creepy New England towns called Spookyburg or Witchville, where some innocent guy wanders in by mistake, it’s all knee deep in mist and the silent locals just stare and don’t say anything, the guy ends up next morning as a puddle of ectoplasm on the ground? Well Burayda makes those places look like New Orleans. In Mardi Gras. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He’s ba-ack After almost a year’s absence, The Religious Policeman, the best blog to come out of Saudi Arabia, is back. (No, that is not his real photo.) I thought maybe he was in a prison cell, seriously. In fact, he has left the happy kingdom and moved to England. A writing sample: There are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-498","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7522,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7522","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":0},"title":"An Icon from an Alternate Universe","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We arrived in Corfu late in the evening of the 12th of September and had about fifteen minutes of worry when the agent of the apartment's owner was not present to meet us at the airport, as promised. And I had neglected to get his number! But I did have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"sasha & julian 2-sm","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/sasha-julian-2-sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1277,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1277","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":1},"title":"What You Know about Christmas Might Be Wrong","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The idea that Christmas celebrations are largely lifted from earlier Paganisms is pretty well embedded in the culture, even among people who don't have a dog in that fight.So let Biblical Archaeology Review stir things up a little with the idea that the Dec. 25 (or Jan. 6 for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":115,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=115","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":2},"title":"Teen Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 14, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Some people are saying that the \"teen witch\" craze, symbolized by the 1996 movie The Craft, has peaked. I don't think so. My latest Llewellyn Publications reviewer's catalog recently arrived, and I saw that Silver Ravenwolf's Teen Witch had been redesigned. Whereas the former cover art had something in common\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/02\/teenwitch.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3718,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3718","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":3},"title":"Survey on Pagan Attitudes toward Elders","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"If you might be considered a Pagan elder, have opinions on who should be considered an elder \u2014 not specific people, but people holding what qualities \u2014 or think that there should or should not be councils of elders, help a researcher by taking this survey.","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3485,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3485","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":4},"title":"Extra Esotericism at the AAR","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is where I will be in a week, if all goes well: the Phoenix Rising Academy's \"additional meeting \" on esotericism in the academy at the AAR meeting in San Francisco. Seven or eight years ago, it was the Pagan Studies people holding our own meeting because we did\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1331,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1331","url_meta":{"origin":498,"position":5},"title":"I Have Been Waiting for this News Story","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 5, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever since I heard that Saddam Hussein was draining these wetlands, I had enough reason to hate the guy. And ever since the invasion of Iraq last spring, I have been wondering if someone?American troops, British troops, local contractors--I don't care who--would show up with some earthmoving equipment and start\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}