I never liked the Boston Red Sox, but it has been only the past decade that I have come to loathe them. For most of my life, they were just the American League version of the Chicago Cubs. Not as loveable, but a similar history of failure, and a turning-point moment. For the Cubs, it’s […]

[Read more →]

*-Update:  Arte Moreno apparently noticed the season Mike Napoli had. On September 30, the Angels dismissed general manager Tony Reagins. While in Baltimore and Tampa and Atlanta and Houston some astonishingly riveting last-day-of-the-season stuff was going down, involving the Red Sox and Rays, Braves and Cardinals … the 2011 Angels went quietly, meekly into history. […]

[Read more →]

Two days ago on this blog we noted the death of Theyab Awana, a UAE soccer player killed in a car crash here in Abu Dhabi. He was best known for scoring a backheel penalty shot in a game versus Lebanon. One of our news reporters tracked down the 21-year-old player’s father, and in this […]

[Read more →]

An awful story out of Dubai. A 5-year-old boy fell out of an eighth-story window, and his disconsolate mother then jumped out of the same window moments later. Both died, and a 14-year-old girl, the sister and daughter of the deceased, saw it all happen from the pavement. An awful story. What turned it into […]

[Read more →]

Theyab Awana became probably the most famous UAE soccer player in history after he scored against Lebanon in July on a backheel penalty. The goal became an internet sensation. As of tonight, his audacious shot appears to have been viewed more than 10 million times on various YouTube entries, such as this one. Theyab Awana […]

[Read more →]

This story has been prominent on our website for a couple of weeks now. Something about the idea of a maid snatching up a razor bade and cutting off her employer’s penis while she was being (she said) raped … Well, that’s what we call in journalism a “talker.”

[Read more →]

Back in August, while driving over the streets of San Francisco, we were astonished to see a completely naked adult male walking along on the sidewalk. Here is an account of that incident. Now, a month later, a story comes along that explains to us this astonishing fact:

[Read more →]

I was aware of this, a bit. I clearly remember, X number of years ago (during that short period when the proudly clueless Dutchman Ruud Gullit was coaching the Galaxy), having this pointed out to me. Gullit was talking to a few of us after a practice session, and he just launched into a Jeremiad […]

[Read more →]

I lived for a long time believing that the four seasons of winter, spring, summer and fall (as James Taylor would arrange them) began on the same days every year. To wit: December 21 for winter, March 21 for spring, June 21 for summer, September 21 for fall. But now it seems that this year […]

[Read more →]

I may have mentioned that the biggest single population group in the UAE is Indians. They make up about 2 million of the 8 million permanent residents of the country and certainly influence the culture across a wide range of activity. That means lots and lots of Indian restaurants in the country, and in Abu […]

[Read more →]