A former colleague at The National, here in the UAE, posted a somewhat curious freelance item for the English-language Express Tribune of Pakistan. Entitled “10 things I hate about expatriates in the Gulf.” I guess the author is talking about me. And some (many? most?) of her former coworkers. How does a Gulf expat react […]

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An old Three Stooges shtick: The stooges are standing there, about to do something they shouldn’t, and some stuffed shirt comes through and says, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” And Moe, Larry and Joe would all say, “Where? Who?” and turn this way and that looking for these exotic creatures. See, because they couldn’t possible be mistaken for […]

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Now that the U.S. is on daylight savings time, we here in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, are eight hours ahead of EDT, 11 hours ahead of PDT. So, late afternoon/early evening sports events in the U.S. are right in the middle of the night, here, and those that I will get up to see […]

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Wow. What do we call him? The “president ‘n’ chief prognosticator?” No matter your political orientation, we have to concede that Barack Obama apparently knows something about college basketball. The president went 15-1 today to run his two-day record in the NCAA basketball playoffs to 29-3. Yes. 29-3. Where does that put his bracket among […]

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I assume this happens to everyone. A tune gets into your brain and it doesn’t come out. Maybe for a week. A month even. (Random thought: Does this phenomena apply to tone-deaf people, too? Imagine how difficult it would be to hum the same tuneless song for weeks … but if you’re tone deaf you […]

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I looked this up the other day. Athletes who died young, during what should have been their playing careers, but who did not die violently or in an accident. I thought I might have to research this sport by sport, but someone is even more morbid than I am, and they compiled a list and […]

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One of the most interesting sports personalities in the history of the Inland Empire, football coach Don Markham, has found another job: At Compton High School, in the Moore League. My former colleague John Murphy alerted me to this. John is the source of a large fraction of all high school news that comes out […]

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To go grocery shopping in Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, is to enter a strange and exotic world. In the prepared foods area, where tikka this that or the other can be had, as well as Arabic rice, pulao rice, biryani rice, various sorts of grilled lamb … In the deli area, there are other […]

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In another of our continued observations of “the world is getting smaller by the moment” … people here have been extremely interested in the enormous earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that followed. Even Al Jazeera Arabic’s news network broke away its 24/7 coverage of unrest in the region to do hours and hours on […]

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In what other sport can you stumble across a club that is spending money like a sailor on shore leave, and is owned by a billionaire … and you’ve never heard of the club? Or the billionaire? Soccer is the only sport that can send you into paroxysms of the “five W’s” — Who? What? […]

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