Archive for the ‘Autobiographical’ Category
Archive of posts and writings that touch on my life and the experience of keeping this blog.
August 23rd, 2010 by steve@slgardiner.com
In Islam, Ramadan is a lunar month of daytime fasting and prayer marked by a ritual breaking of the fast at sunset, called Iftar. While the Prophet of Islam broke his fast on dates and milk, contemporary Iftars can be quite elaborate and restaurants do a brisk business in fast-breaking buffets and meals. In Abu [...]
Tags:
Abu Dhabi,
Urban Life
August 21st, 2010 by steve@slgardiner.com
I have lived with my wife and partner Angie Reed Garner and our German shepherd Heathcliff in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates, since August 2008. We moved here directly from Lahore, Pakistan, where I had been a professor at the Lahore University of Management Science (LUMS) in 2007 – 2008. [...]
Tags:
Abu Dhabi,
Pakistan,
UAE,
Urban Life
August 17th, 2010 by steve@slgardiner.com
For those of you who have been reading my Xenophilia blog, this is its new home. You will note that nearly all of the older content is missing. This is because the database–the place where the posts and comments are stored–became corrupted and I had neglected to make a back-up. (I had backed up all [...]
August 7th, 2010 by steve@slgardiner.com
It is, of course, ancient history that iconic figures of mid-century movements for independence and revolutionary change–Mao, Fidel, Frantz, Camilo, Ho and particularly Che–have long since lost their anchor not only in revolution, but even a broader sense of social justice and become, if anything, images of popular culture roughly equivalent to Elvis, Marilyn and [...]
May 16th, 2010 by steve@slgardiner.com
Writing in the Week in Review section of today’s New York Times Jacques Steinberg modestly suggests that not everyone in the United States is best served by pursuing a college education. First of all, Steinberg tells us, less than half of those who begin at a four-year college earn a bachelor’s degree within six years. [...]
April 16th, 2009 by steve@slgardiner.com
On arriving in Abu Dhabi in August 2008, we made a conscious decision not to buy a car. Given that this is one of the least pedestrian-friendly cities in the world, it was not an automatic decision, but given a desire to economize, and given the proportionally large carbon footprint that living in the Gulf [...]
