"We all went out for lunch at the best seafood place in Dubai, and most of the conversation, between eight bearded clerics and a Jewish kid from Providence, was about when, not whether, I should convert to Islam. Zindani gave me the hard sell and was crushed, two hours later, that I hadn’t said the magic words: "I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger." (Not everyone was fully on board with the Islamist message, however: Throughout the meal, Zindani’s bodyguard was giving me a look I couldn’t quite place. He pulled me aside afterward. "I love you," he said, and gave me a ring off his finger. Somehow, it felt less awkward to refuse the terrorist’s call to God than to formulate a response to this overture. He scribbled something on a piece of paper: "It’s my hotel room. Please come." Alas, I passed.)"

Alas? That was a close call.

(I garbled the first version of this post, misattributing it. Sorry. Blogging on the fly in a Starbucks in NYC…)