Disappointed by flying

Inigo Montoya: “Who are you?”Westley: “No one of consequence.”Inigo Montoya: “I must know…”Westley: “Get used to disappointment.”During the sword fight in the movie The Princess BrideI live below the flight path of planes going to San Diego, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. Upon ... Continue reading

What do you expect?

A friend took a trip to visit some relatives with her son. Since they hadn’t seen her son in years, she went expecting them to have some curiosity about his family, his life, his plans.It never happened. They ate together, they laughed, they talked, but the relatives never once spoke of ... Continue reading

Street dreams

My boyhood, and the Arab political culture I have been chronicling for well over three decades, are anchored in the Arab world. And the tragedy of Arab political culture has been the unending expectation of the crowd — the street, we call it — in the redeemer who will put an end to the decline, who ... Continue reading

(Don’t) get used to disappointment

Inigo Montoya: Who are you? Westley: No one of consequence. Inigo Montoya: I must know. Westley: Get used to disappointment. —The Princess Bride In less than 10 hours from now, the Huygens probe will plunge into the atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn's most interesting moons. Huygens has been ... Continue reading