Board of Accountability, Week 13

Yeah, holidays.

Christmas, with a twist

I've been known to enjoy a Christmas song or two. Even though I'm not particularly given to sentimentality, in the past the right song has, on occasion, stirred up some dust in the room.

Still, if you really want to beat a path to my heart, you have to make it weird. That's why I was so delighted when the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society came out with "An Ancient and Abhorrent Solstice", their collection of seasonal carols with a Lovecraftian bent. Now, I may have a new holiday favorite in Norm Sherman's stirring rendition of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", done in his inimitable, darkly comedic style. You can find it on the latest edition of the Drabblecast, which includes a Christmasy story featuring the world's most successful cryptozoologist, or you can just listen below.

Board of Accountability, Week 12

Here, in a nutshell

Living in a country largely unknown to Westerners has its good points and bad points. One of the good points is that the location lends itself to conversation fodder. There's always some tidbit of knowledge or travel story that can fill the gaps between updates on various family members' conditions.

One of the bad points is having to repeat the same basic information about the country every time you speak to someone new. No, this is not a theocracy; yes, they let Western infidels like me have a bank account and everything; no, I'm not dodging suicide bombers on my way to work; yes, living here is actually fairly pleasant, if a little on the dull side.

As a service for those curious about the UAE, here are links to some of the biggest stories around the country in the past few months. Some of this is big-picture stuff, some more spot-newsy. For starters:

In the UAE, the United States has a quiet, potent ally nicknamed 'Little Sparta' – Washington Post

“The UAE has gone all-in,” said Anthony Zinni, a former commander of all U.S. forces in the Middle East. As U.S. ties with long-standing allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia have frayed, and Egypt and Jordan contend with domestic challenges, the UAE now occupies a unique position in the region. “It’s the strongest relationship that the United States has in the Arab world today,” Zinni said.

It is also the least well known. Although there are about 3,500 U.S. military personnel stationed at Dhafra, and it is the only overseas base with F-22s, the facility has never been identified by the U.S. Air Force in publicly available materials because the UAE government had been concerned that touting the extent of its cooperation with the United States could antagonize some of its citizens.

But UAE officials relaxed those rules during a recent visit by a Washington Post reporter because of growing concern at senior levels of the Emirati government that keeping mum has led to an underappreciation of the country’s contributions beyond what is known in a handful of offices in the Pentagon and at the State Department, particularly as this nation seeks to convince the Obama administration to sell it more advanced fighter jets and adopt a tougher line on Iran.

“We’re different from our neighbors,” said Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador in Washington, who noted that his country has participated in every major U.S.-led coalition since the 1991 Persian Gulf War — save for the 2003 invasion of Iraq — joining Americans in Somalia, Kosovo, Libya and Afghanistan in addition to the ongoing air campaign against the Islamic State. “We’re your best friends in this part of the world,” he said.

More below the fold.

Sticking to sports

I was going to rant about these people who believe athletes should stick to playing sports, that they're too dumb to hold court on matters outside of their job or have no business exercising their Constitutional right to free speech. I was going to point out how protesting and sports have always mixed, and that the history of such mixing in the United States goes back to at least the 1960s, if not earlier. I was going to mention how such protests are hardly limited to US sports, and that authorities have been surprisingly reasonable in allowing athletes to publicly express their support for the families of those caught up in the recent tragedies.

But then, in a scant five minutes, Andrew Hawkins of the Cleveland Browns gave a rebuttal to those meatheads and chauvinists that was so eloquent, so poignant and so heartfelt that it scarcely requires further comment.