Sometimes someone says something that makes so much sense, you have to share it. So it was with Queen Rania of Jordan, who at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit this week said Arab and Muslim extremists are using social media to drown out the peaceful majority. “A minority … is using social media to rewrite […]

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I had forgotten the date. A former colleague sent me an email about it, and yes, he was right. It was 25 years ago today that the U.S. national soccer team recorded the most important victory in the history of American soccer. We can say that without reservation, actually, because soccer was languishing in the […]

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Apparently, it is Dubai’s great good fortune to have vacuous celebrities drop by fairly regularly. Last month, it was Paris Hilton. In this case, it is Kim Kardashian, who may rank No. 1 in world history in the dubious category of “famous for being famous”. Which, apparently, qualifies her as the “world’s hottest dinner date”. […]

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We have known from early in our stay, here in the UAE, that the U.S. Air Force has a base not far from Abu Dhabi. It is the Al Dhafra base, on the mainland. Maybe a half-hour drive from Abu Dhabi Island. The name is easy to remember because a soccer team in the Arabian […]

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It often turns out this way, in the news biz. Weeks of making something out of nothing. And then a stretch of time where you have big events colliding on the calendar. This is one of those “colliding big events” weeks, here in the UAE. Four events that pretty safely fall into our top 10 […]

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I am not an economist. Nor do I play one on TV. But I have a sense that we are in a bit of a boom time, here in the UAE. Certainly, in Abu Dhabi. We arrived in 2009, which was pretty much the bottom of the global economic crisis. And things were going on […]

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The more I think about this … The most important soccer competition in the region is not really the World Cup. It is not the European Championship (which is followed closely in much of the world). Nor even the Asian Cup, the continental championship. The most important soccer competition in these parts … is the […]

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This is an odd case, in professional sports. Nearly every professional athlete plays through pain. . When an injury is too severe to play on … he or she returns at the first moment. Often before they were expected to play — or perhaps should be playing. Then there is Derrick Rose.

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The Dodgers released the dates for their promotional giveaways, in 2015, and we will wade through the tatty (fleece blanket) and the bizarre (a Tommy Lasorda garden gnome; brilliant but creepy) and go straight to the stuff that matters. The bobbleheads! The Dodgers have 10 bobblehead games scheduled for 2015, which boggles the mind. Remember […]

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A common sight among Britons in early November? A representation of a red poppy flower, worn on the left lapel. The red poppy is the symbol of Remembrance Day, November 11. That date is called Veterans Day, in the U.S., and is a bit broader in its goals, honoring everyone who served in the country’s […]

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