That was the question my elementary school teacher asked the class a half-century ago. “What day is this?”

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I am loath to admit this, because I would love to say I’m a really observant guy, a person who notices the small things around him. It would fit perfectly well with my chosen profession, where “seeing and remembering as events unfold” is a particularly useful job skill. But it also seems as if “knowing […]

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A British colleague of mine in the newsroom at The National made an interesting observation the other day. “What is happening in the World Series,” he said, “could never happen in English football.” He was referring to the San Francisco Giants vs. the Texas Rangers. An out-of-left-field matchup that just wouldn’t fly in the English […]

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It always is an exciting time in Abu Dhabi when you decide — or at least hope — that the season is changing. From summer to … what I think of as not summer. And a sign of that shift? No, not leaves falling. (We would have to have trees other than palms.) Not the […]

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We had just come out of the customs area at the airport when we were directed to one of the usual silver taxis that are ubiquitous in this town. We got our luggage in the trunk, with the aid of the driver, and settled in the back seat, in that semi-hypnotized state common to those […]

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Time for a list. We all love lists. Especially if they have a level of, oh, difficulty involved. Ten ways in which a reasonable person would prefer being in Abu Dhabi of the United Arab Emirates over The City of Light, Gay Paree … blah blah blah. Let’s count them down. Here we go.

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The planet has gotten more tribal, over the past century. Where once you could have covered the world in a United Nations-style organization with, maybe, 50 political entities, the actual UN of 2010 has 192 members. Empires have been broken up or voluntarily disbanded, larger countries have been partitioned into more ethnically unified states. Et […]

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One of the simplest charms of Paris is the baguette. The ubiquitous pain Francaise. (Don’t you dare call it a bread stick!) And it is one of the little things I will miss most. As always. Ah, the baguette! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

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I love this World Series! San Francisco Giants vs. Texas Rangers. Somebody is going to do something spectacularly memorable.

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Three weeks in Paris, and I hardly mentioned food. Showing some discipline here. But we will backslide a bit here in the interests of a potential chuckle — my dinner tonight at the Claud Sainlouis bistro on Rue du Dragon in the 6th arrondisement.

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