And not on purpose. Have to say I’ve never seen this before: A mushroom growing in my kitchen. Not in a planter. Not in a pot. Out of the floor. Does that look creepy, or what? That perhaps begins to tell you about the quality of construction here in Abu Dhabi.

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No pressure … but the next 10 weeks could define Landon Donovan on the global stage. Donovan joined Everton of the English Premier League earlier this week, on loan from the Los Angeles Galaxy, and the ramifications are enormous. For better or worse, unfairly or otherwise, Donovan’s career could turn on how he performs in […]

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So, I stepped outside the Teeny Tiny Apartment© (which Leah has posted some photos of on her Facebook page) … and I was headed to the li’l dumpster that serves as our community trash can … when I was intercepted by a guy in a green-and-reflector-orange jump suit. I mention this for two reasons — […]

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I was walking past Khalifa University, just a block from the apartment. It was the warm-down lap after my jog-slog. Inside the fence that surrounds the schools (they are big on security, here) a dozen Mitsubishi-brand buses were idling. Most of the buses were filled with students. Guys. I decided they were going off to […]

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The Burj Khalifa opened tonight in Dubai. It’s the world’s tallest building, at 828 meters or 2,717 feet. It knocks a building named Taipei 101 down to second place on the tallest building list. Blows it out of the water, actually, by 319 meters. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, or […]

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The emergence of Yemen and Somalia as havens for the recruitment, training and export of terrorists … hammers home a geopolitical reality we in the United Arab Emirates prefer not to dwell upon. We live in a very rough neighborhood.

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If you’re a Lakers fan and you’re not worried about Kobe Bryant … you ought to be. Not because of the way he is performing. Of course not. He’s as good as ever. Three buzzer-beating shots for victories already this season. Which is more than any other team has. A scoring average of 30.6 points […]

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One of my half-dozen great regrets about living and working overseas is how difficult it is to see college football. It is by far the most important American sport that has zero exposure overseas. None. You can find some NFL, some NBA, some MLB … but college sports. Nope. Just not shown on “local” cable. […]

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If this makes any sense, well, maybe there is something to the old notion that the best writing is done while drunk. I’ve never believed it, but I couldn’t pass a breath test anywhere on the planet, unless there’s a legal limit of .15 out there somewhere. I might be able to beat that. Maybe. […]

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Another rough year for the economy. The world economy, the national, the state … People losing jobs. Unemployment of, what, 12.5 percent in California? Something like 10 percent in the nation? Even higher, when you include people who have stopped looking for work and the scads of people not fully employed. U.S. print journalism is […]

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