The topic of passports comes up fairly often in the UAE, probably because about 90 percent of everyone here is a citizen of a country that is not the United Arab Emirates. You live here long enough, and you begin to notice and appreciate a strong passport. United States and United Kingdom passports are, at […]

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Two signs of status in the UAE: 1. A license plate with three digits or fewer. 2. A mobile phone with a “distinctive” number. Like, say, 052 222 2222. One Emirati liked that number so much that he won a bidding war for it tonight and is handing over to a local telecom 8,010,000 dirhams […]

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The National regularly writes about the results of the annual Arab Youth Survey. A variety of questions are posed to people in the 18-to-24 age group across North Africa and the Middle East, the Arab homeland, and the results are collated. The total number of youths surveyed was 3,500, including 300 from the UAE. One […]

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For the past few years, The National newspaper, in the United Arab Emirates, has been paying fairly close attention to the National Hot Rod Association, back in the United States. It wasn’t just because we like to watch people driving 300 miles per hour. (We can see that on the UAE’s freeways. Just kidding. Not.) […]

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The National celebrated its seventh birthday today with dinner and party favors at the almost-new Eastern Mangroves Hotel & Spa by Anantara on Abu Dhabi Island. We have had a birthday party every time April 17 rolls around, or on the Friday nearest to it. In this case it was Friday. These are always fine […]

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Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Manny Pacquiao is a big deal in the UAE, too. Interest seems to be high, and most of it seems to focus on Manny. In part because the UAE is home to about 500,000 Filipinos. In part because Mayweather seems a bit arrogant, from the other side of the world. His […]

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Dust storms are never fun. They are never good. But this one was alarming. Weird. Check out the video from The National’s website. It was that reddish-brown cast to it that made a person think of the “end of times”.

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Late last year, I went off on the sloppy usage of “icon” and “iconic”. It was in regard to Vin Scully and a media release (not written by Vinny) about his plan to return to the Dodgers broadcast booth in 2014. And the intellectually bankrupt Dodgers PR crew used both icon and iconic within the […]

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Most. Tedious. Global. Event. Ever. The Cricket World Cup. The thing ended Sunday, the 44th day of the competition. Yes, 44 days. Or longer than many Hollywood marriages. Twelve days longer than William Henry Harrison‘s presidency. Forty-four days is one-and-a-half soccer World Cups. And not only was it long, it was often crushingly dull in […]

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One of the great things about being old is that you need pay no attention to teen culture. Or to anything “the kids” are listening to. Or doing. Or wearing. That is, you don’t reject it … you ignore it. Blissfully. Until you can’t. Which is the case presented by a boy band named One […]

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