Tag Archives: Saudi Arabia

The Whipping Post

November 5, 2019 · by · in Society, Travel · 1 Comment

They stopped whipping women in 1791 – but continued to flog the men until 1837. Today that might be considered sexist. Of course today we don’t see flogging as a civilized method for punishing criminals. Things were different in 1572 when this post was first used at St. Martin-in-the-fields in downtown London. The post was […]

The Banana Republic

September 29, 2018 · by · in World Affairs · 3 Comments

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister was at the United Nations this week, demanding an apology from Canada. He feels Canada has treated his country like a “banana republic.” The dispute has been ongoing for a couple of months now – a textbook example of why Twitter shouldn’t be used for foreign policy. Canada’s foreign minister tweeted […]

Barakah Yoqabil Barakah

May 4, 2017 · by · in Entertainment, Society · Leave a comment

Why not I thought? An Arabic-language comedy. It was a long flight, so if it turned out to be horrible I had time to choose something else.  I’d been spending some time with Arabs – and they don’t come with subtitles. The movie did. It’s a pretty simple story, one you’ve seen and read a […]