riyadh
During the day in Saudi Arabia I worked out in the fitness center and went to shopping malls. That's pretty much all that a non-Muslim, Western visitor can do in Riyadh, so that's what I did.
Not only did no one throw shoes at Obama, the crowd of 3,000 in Cairo gave him a standing ovation. Watching the speech, I had the feeling that the world might be changing again.
WHAT'S HAPPENING
That the government would not use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as a symbolic gesture to counter OPEC's and the oil industry's rapaciousness borders on the incredulous, or perhaps more accurately, the malign.