Recent Columns

I treat most things said here in Yemen about Jews with skepticism. The latest gem came from a Yemeni colleague ranting, in an unpublished column, about the so-called Jewish conspiracy. He cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purportedly Jewish texts from the late 1800s, describing Jewish plans to enslave the world.

Chronic illiteracy in Yemen reflects the belief that teaching a woman to read will empower her at the expense of men.

We’ll never know why some parts of the human family get more than their share of natural disasters such as tsunamis.

Merry Christmas, don't get too busy, and remember: don't eat too many cookies, because you still have to get around next year.

I hate politics. You can't trust anyone. I mean, if I was Maqtada Al-Sadr, the dangerously political Shiite cleric who's jostling for position in Iraq now, I wouldn't trust my grandmother.

Thanks for that gift from last year, the Gulliver's Travels book. Very nice choice. The Houyhnhnms, those horse-like characters, were so bright, so noble. And those savage Yahoos: so dim, so lost. Poor Gulliver couldn't see himself in them.

If we are in a so-called war of civilizations, the biggest battlefields may not be in places like Iraq but in the classroom.

Ever wonder why you don't live in a George Orwell novel, a place where up is down if the right person says it's so; a place that sooner or later, like a rotten empire, will always implode under the weight of its own self-deceit?

George Bush and rival John Kerry could both have picked up a few good tips from the wild-haired genius.

but like Western liberties we now take for granted, they won't come overnight.

It's no wonder that so many folks from Muslim nations want to emigrate to western nations.

Yemen is the cradle of Islam. But it’s not Iraq. Bullets aren’t falling like rain. Nobody is getting beheaded. It’s no Disneyland, but, besides the white-knuckle driving, most days pass without terror.

ST. GILDEN, AUSTRIA ✦ OK, for the record, nobody rocks like Mozart. But Julie Andrews made plenty of Austrian stores come alive with the sound of ka-ching, after her famous opening to the Sound of Music, filmed 40 years ago on a mountain near this lake-district resort town. The movie initially raked in a cool $165 million, about $800 million in today's dollars. Now tourism cash still flows from it like a river, especially an hour from here in Salzburg, Mozart's hometown, where the visitors never really leave.

We're finishing another back-to-school month, as good a time as any to ask why so many Canadians are underwhelmed at how our education system is preparing their children for the 21st century.

SALZBURG, AUSTRIA ✦ I love my daughter, all 15 months of her, for many reasons. One is that she’s more like her mother than me. Especially while flying. My wife Jean and I continue to be aid workers in the Middle East and Africa, so this is often. In fact, diaper-clad Elizabeth Katherine has already been on more than dozen flights and four continents. The Squirt knows one word. Just one. It’s “hello.” But words can be powerful things.