author - oman observer

How does one fall from the giddy heights of national treasure and international acclaim to the depths of national chagrin and scorn? The praise of the world’s media for then New Zealand Prime...

Journalism’s Identity Crisis and How Engagement Metrics is Distorting Public DiscourseThe controversial phenomenon of ‘clickbait’ has been described variously as harmless, a nuisance, a clever...

This week has taken me on a journey, as Of course, this hasn’t come just ‘out of nowhere,’ but out of a concern, a fear, at the tensions between Israel and Iran, the widening involvement of the...

Actor Christopher Reeve, the actor played the original ‘Superman,’ during the late seventies and the eighties. Off-screen he also proved to be a man of steel, after a horse-riding accident in 1995...

Metaphors, idioms and colloquialisms have become an ever-increasing component of the English language, therefore making it difficult for English as a second language learners to keep their heads about...

How can an ethnic group, rich in culture and tradition, and numbering more than 30 million people, not have a home to call their own? The Kurdish people are a proud people, gentle, yet, in protecting...

Mythology, whether Egyptian, Greek, or Roman mythology, has played a role in all our lives as stories, myths and legends that have influenced us virtually since the beginning of time. The deities,...

Learning English is compulsory in Oman and I believe rightly so. It is the unrivaled global language in the world of business, commerce and finance; and has become the most effective because it is...

We talk too much. So many of us seem to need attention, so we speak what is in, or on, our minds, without having thought through, or processed sufficiently, speaking without thinking those thoughts.Is...

What on earth is going on? Now India and Pakistan are at each other’s throats again and all as the consequence of a partitioning that occurred in 1947. Theirs may well have always been a fractious...

Society is constantly changing, isn't it? There was a time, for most of history, when women didn't work outside of their housework, which, to be fair, can be a full-time job in itself.The evolution of...

Most of us, it would appear, are just trying to get through life and its myriads of challenges. The problem is that the ‘rules,’ society’s boundaries and limitations, keep changing, so all that...

This weekend is celebrated widely within Christianity as Easter, which sets out to commemorate the passing of the Son of God and the events of the following days that established the religion upon...

Strange... but the ‘Black-Eyed Peas,’ a group of musicians with their origins in the mid 1990’s wrote a song that somewhat rearranges our week. ‘I Got a Feeling,’ launched in 2009 and was a...

The winds of a storm are battering us today, making it difficult to concentrate on the work we are trying to do. It is only wind... but it’s disruptive with its incredible banshee wail, and the...

Once upon a time... teaching was a much-revered profession. Teachers were seen as community leaders, shining examples of modesty, knowledge, understanding, enthusiasm and resilience. The perfect role...

Whether parents are justified in their recent criticisms of the content, format and results of the General Education Diploma, or not, Oman’s educational authorities would do well to heed their...

Our fascination with the human form and its possibilities has been with us for all time, but more especially so since Charles Darwin challenged mankind’s religious origins, in his ‘Origin of...

It will always be seen as the day the fog lifted, the gloves came off, preconceived illusions as to the strength and resilience of the so often quoted constitution and the true nature of the American...

Being perpetually poor, well no, not really, that would be disingenuous to those genuinely in poverty, so, how about if I say, just perpetually not rich? That’s a bit better I think. But I do like...