The world’s fastest-growing airline and one of the most extravagant began nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Dubai this week, and tonight it will throw one of the more lavish Hollywood parties of the season. Despite global economic turmoil, Emirates Airline, based in the hyper-developing Persian Gulf city of Dubai, is expected to spend more than $3 million for the bash at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, hosted by Hilary Swank and featuring an hourlong concert by Ricky Martin. A four-course dinner is being prepared by Wolfgang Puck. The start of flights to Los Angeles International Airport is the latest link in a growing Dubai connection that has included an investment fund controlled by Dubai’s ruling family taking a 45% stake in Eli Broad’s multibillion-dollar Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles.
Archive for October, 2008
What Theodore Roosevelt said was not “walk softly but carry a big stick” as is often mis-quoted. He gave his famous quote during a speech in 1903:
There is a homely old adage which runs: “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.



