Among the melancholy — yet not actually dire — events that can befall a person, as the decades pass: 1. Your high school closes. Or, in my case, all but disappears. Los Angeles Lutheran first moved from the edge of Inglewood to Burbank, and then to Sylmar, where it nearly disappeared and now apparently has […]

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In the spring of 2010, the sports section at The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi was a shambles. Several staffers were solid and energetic, but the section was not well led and had become an afterthought. Three sports editors had cycled through in the two years of the newspaper’s existence, and the section had ridiculous […]

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It’s one of those nightmare scenarios that flit through your mind before pressing the “on” button to engage a certain bit of technology. What if the machine — remember Hal? — turns against me? So it was for the driver of a 4×4 Toyota Land Cruiser in the north of the UAE. He set the […]

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In a package The National did about the enormous strides in literacy made in the UAE since the formation of the country, in 1971, one of our reporters sought out one of the illiterate elders. And, in his 70s, the operator of a pearling fleet says he sees no reason to learn how to read.

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I love the idea of journalism start-ups. It means another batch of exciting jobs, perhaps good jobs, and exposure for writers both well-known and on the rise. One of those launched today: SportsonEarth.com And a former colleague here in Abu Dhabi, Chuck Culpepper, is one of the main writers for the venture. A first-day verdict?

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Last week, we brought you the taxi driver from India who won the drawing for a Lamborghini Gallardo 550 sports car worth about $200,000. And the Abu Dhabi resident made so little money he seemed unlikely to be able to afford the insurance on the car. I am pleased to report — via my colleagues […]

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A nine-player deal, the Dodgers taking on hundreds of millions in salary commitments, including those of Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett. And the takeaway? Los Angeles has just rediscovered it is a major sports market.

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The Lance Armstrong surrender/punishment happened Thursday night, just as I was preparing to make the 25-hour journey back to the UAE, so I didn’t exactly rush into “print.” I would say I am disappointed, but then I realized that my disappointment in Lance Armstrong happened years ago, a very gradual process that had been completed […]

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The long journey back to the Gulf begins at 12:15 p.m. tomorrow. So, what does a person do on the final day of a once-a-year visit to Southern California?

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When they create drawings for prizes, in the UAE, they rarely cut corners. It is not a country where small prizes attract much attention. However, it is a car-loving culture, and a fairly certain way of catching eyes is to give away a high-end sports car. Like, say, a Lamborghini Gallardo 550 — which goes […]

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