Our fifth consecutive Thanksgiving out of the U.S.  A tricky holiday, when you are overseas. As great as turkey is (low fat, lots of meat at a low price) and as great as the holiday is (a meal with family/friends with football) … it just doesn’t translate well anywhere that isn’t Canada. How have we […]

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Why not? Those were the words from Kefah Al Kaabi, a TV and radio soccer pundit here in the UAE. The question was:

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Having now moved into a tower of about 20 floors … this story has a bit more resonance with me on a personal level. A tower in one of the finest neighborhoods of the Dubai went up in flames, and it appears to be because of shoddy construction. Here is video of the 34-story building […]

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I really don’t know how this works, but the UAE seems to have about a thousand major hotels. Big hotels. Name-brand hotels. They … are … everywhere. So this latest story about the UAE and hotel building? No surprise.

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We get these stories now and then. The ones about some astonishing number of men living in a small space, and an inspector catching them at it and fining the landlord. In this case, it was 20 men sharing a one-bedroom apartment in the Dubai International City neighorhood. How did they manage it?

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We should have a new journalism catchphrase. Similar to “if it bleeds, it leads” and “the definition of news is man bites dog …” The new one? “A monkey makes every story better.” Take, for instance, our latest sensational True Crime story here in the UAE. Under the web headline: “Man walking pet monkey kills […]

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I have written before about the caretaker/super/handyman here at our aging, low-rise apartment complex near Airport Road, here in Abu Dhabi. That would be Mr. Mohammed. He seems to have first made an appearance under that name, in this blog, nearly three years ago. If you followed the link, go past the Tiger and Frank […]

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In terms of global visibility, the biggest day on the calendar in Abu Dhabi is when the Formula One grand prix is contested here. As it was today. At no other time do so many influential people congregate in the UAE capital. Eleven heads of state (including King Juan Carlos of Spain, etc.), as well […]

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This team has to be better than this, doesn’t it? I can envision Los Angeles Lakers fans saying that, back in SoCal. This 0-3 thing on a team with Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, Steve Nash and Pau Gasol … it can’t be what they really are about. Can it? I was so impressed by Mitch […]

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As the east coast of the United States braced for the onset of megastorm Hurricane Sandy, we had our own impressive — if ultimately harmless — storm roll onto these shores. In no way was this weather front the crisis Sandy posed to New York and New Jersey, but it was interesting in that it […]

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