Living in DC is in many ways a strange experience, that’s unlike any other in the U.S.

Many people can say that about their locales. Certainly there’s nothing like the Manhattan experience. But DC is different in its own way.

When you ride the metro, the ads you see aren’t predominantly for consumer products. They’re for jet fighters.

The most expensive subway ads are in the Pentagon station and inside Capital South. They’re targeting very expensive ads to very narrow audiences: Defense Department procurement officers, and Congressional staff on just the right committee.

My all-time favorite was for defense contractors who wanted duplicate contracts to produce parts for the Joint Strike Fighter, arguing that even though Lockheed Martin was selected to build it, the project is so important that you want to fund other companies to work on it too.

With that in mind, reader James R. sends me a photo he took of an ad at the Federal Center Southwest metro stop:

It’s not an ad to fly Emirates. It’s an Emirates ad not to take administrative action to limit the airlines’ flying to the U.S.

DC is so weird…