Arabic Sign Language
While living in Doha, I was fascinated by the amount of transliteration of store names in to Arabic. I realize that store names are often trademarks and thus tend to be sounded out in Arabic letters rather than translated. Thus, Applebees, the restaurant, is fortunately not tufāḥ naḥl in Arabic. Language is constantly evolving, especially with More...
Etiquette in the Middle East
Many matters of etiquette in the Middle East are connected to Islam as it is written in the Qur’an and how it has been traditionally understood and practiced throughout the centuries. Prescribed Islamic etiquette is More...
A Good Offense?
Yemen is now in the third year of a bombing campaign and mercenary-fueled ground war that has created one of the most pressing humanitarian crises in the world. The bombing started in March, 2015, when Saudi Arabia More...
Divide and Don’t Conquer
The Saudi-led coalition that launched a devastating bombing campaign on northern Yemen has continued over two years. It is largely a coalition of those willing to be bought (such as Egypt, Sudan and Somalia) alongside More...
Bombing al-Asad and Arming the Saudis
The world was rightly aghast at the recent callous use of sarin gas by the desperate regime of Bashar al-Asad on Syrian civilians in Idlib last week. Twitter-and-trigger-happy American President Trump, reeling from More...
The Toxic Proxy War over Yemen
A little over two years ago a coalition led by Saudi Arabia began a bombing campaign against its southern neighbor, the poorest and most populous country on the Arabian Peninsula. Although it was named “Decisive More...
It’s a horses’ life at the Pyramids
Horses, old, large and small are hosted at the Great Pyramids. These horses are what tourists see and often ride when visiting one of the most famous attractions in the world. Unfortunately, the lack of tourism More...
With Friends like this…
The old saying goes “With friends like this, who needs enemies.” This is especially apparent in the visit of Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman to meet newly elected American President Donald Trump in mid-March. More...
The Politics of Famine
In the year 1798, just at the start of the French Revolution, an English parson named Thomas Malthus published a book that would have major repercussions, including influence on a young Charles Darwin working on More...
Banning (Muslims) Terrorists in the Trump Era
The only thing worse these days than the twittering rhetorical effluvium of President Trump is the impact of his executive disorders. Without consulting seasoned diplomats at the State Department, nor with the approval More...