It's hard to stay in a town called Moab without waxing biblical. "Moab is my washpot" is after all a phrase from Psalm 60. A phrase that sounds enigmatic enough to have tickled the fancy of British actor and language buff Stephen Fry, who used it as the title of his autobiography.
Moab was a desert kingdom vanquished by the Israelites, and for 'washpot' read 'toilet paper'...which I guess hadn't been invented. In other words: "Moab is my washpot" is a prime example of the Supreme Being lording it over a bunch of poor pagan camel shaggers and then having the poor taste to brag about it. Now what kind of people would name their town after something like that?
Moab lies in Utah. And I'm utterly fascinated by the history of how a religious sect that makes the ideas of al-Qaeda look positively rational still managed to obtain statehood for their patch of desert and then continued to flourish as part of the United States.
Multiple wives
The key, of course, was compromise. When the US Congress wouldn't grant Utah statehood without the Mormons first abolishing polygamy, they went ahead and abolished it...well sorta. Even though Mormon doctrine specifically says you can't enter the highest heaven without multiple wives.
Now compare that with this week's headlines in the Netherlands about Mohammed Enait, a muslim activist and lawyer whose first claim to fame was that he wouldn't shake hands with women, and who's made the news again because he refuses to stand up in court, saying that according to the Qur'an everyone is created equal including judges. Except, obviously, if they're female.
Compromise is a key part of why Moab is high up on my list of favourite places on the planet. Although that has little to do with Mormons and everything with an equally colourful but slightly more contemporary species: Hippies.
Peace, man
At the Lazy Lizard Hostel, half the regulars look like extras from Easy Rider. The local bookshops all have an impressive stock of tomes on the crimes of George Bush and the era of peace and love that will start if Obama wins. Even the surgeon at the local hospital is called Doctor Love and sports a tattoo.
At the same time, all of Moab seems to work like a well-oiled machine where everybody gets what he needs when he needs it. The Lazy Lizard may pride itself on its relaxed atmosphere, but if there's one thing the owner and his staff are not, it's lazy.
The good folks of Moab seem to have found a recipe for preserving their ideals no matter how embattled those ideals are in the rest of the world. That recipe is called hard work. Oh, and unlike certain divine beings they don't brag about their successes. Protective colouring is of the essence.
Muddling through
Like at the restaurant where chef Tim Buckingham serves up creative, refined food - and Tricia the waitress serves up scathing wit and irony - all in the unassuming guise of "Buck's Grill", a name that brings to mind John Wayne rather than Auguste Escoffier. But who cares as long as it works?
I hope writing about Moab doesn't break its cover. In my worst nightmares, I see a gun-toting Sarah Palin barging into the Arches Book Company to hunt for copies of books she considers 'inappropriate' - a sore point when she was mayor of Wasilla - while shouting "Moab is my washpot".
And speaking about Ms Palin: as my colleague Charles Groenhuysen remarked, it's interesting that after months of saying Obama was certain of victory, the Dutch now seem collectively convinced that McCain and Palin will win the day. Although that probably says more about how confused most Dutch voters are these days.
Moab will muddle through as it always has, and I trust that whoever wins the elections, there's enough biblical knowledge left in the town to realize just one thing. That as of now, the seven lean years are officially over.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Radio Netherlands.
Tags: Barack Obama, Bible, Charles Groenhuysen, hippies, John McCain, Moab, Mormons, Sarah Palin