Toledo-based Hip-Hop producer Freek Sanatra may not be in the running for a Grammy (yet), but his music is worthy of notice.
“I’ve been producing for over 10 years,” Sanatra said. “I started out in the third grade with a Casio keyboard. The technology was so different back then, it was really hard to make music how you wanted to.”
As years progressed, Sanatra continued to produce music and acquire different tools.
“I got a computer, and the very first Fruity Loops program,” he said. “I also started using an MPC2000.”
Now his primary production tools include Reason 5, Fruity Loops and of course the MPC.
“I’ve been told that I have my own sound, even with sampling beats. Hearing that encourages me and reinforces my path,” Sanatra said.

Freek Sanatra

Sanatra’s early influences included Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Premier and Dr. Dre. “I’ve been really listening to J-Dilla lately too,” he said. “People listen to A Tribe Called Quest or Farside and think that’s a New York sound. That’s not New York’s sound, that’s our sound; Dilla was from Detroit and people don’t really recognize that.”
Sanatra describes his sound as “Hardcore Hip-Hop.”
“If you rap on a beat I produce, you can’t come with the bubble gum and lollipop stuff. You need to dig into your soul and come up with something that’s worth writing,” he said.
With several projects planned this year, Sanatra plans to flood the local and regional market with his music.
“I’m not even worried about the money. I just want people to hear what I’m doing. I’m on a yearlong grind to be heard,” he said. “Music for me is my stress reliever, my pick-me-up, my downer and my celebration. I love the blank canvas and when there is nothing there, the possibility for creation is limitless.
“I just love music, so anything I hear that feels good inspires me. My sample archive is so deep now that I can make whatever I want. I’m drawn to sampling because when you throw on an old record you hear the soul and passion that you don’t really hear anymore and that does something for me.”

Every four years, the world gets to experience sports on its most prestigious stage during the Olympics. Athletes from all across the globe don their country’s colors and compete on an international level. This summer, Toledo native Mark Wexler will wear the red, white and blue and compete on an international stage, though he will also represent something much more than the United States. On July 5-13, Wexler will be one of about 2,000 Jewish athletes from around the world participating in the 13th European Maccabi Games in Vienna, Austria.
What’s more is that this year’s games will mark the first time since 1945 that a collection of Jewish athletes will compete in the tournament on territory formerly occupied by Nazi Germany.

Mark Wexler

“It’s something I can pass on to my kids because my kids are young enough that they just don’t even understand what the Holocaust was all about,” Wexler said. “It’s all cultural. It’s all history. It’s something I want to learn a little bit more about.”
Like the Olympics, the European Maccabi Games take place every four years. They take place two years after the Maccabi Games, which take place in Israel every four years. At the end of January, Wexler — a Conservative Jew and member of the B’nai Israel Congregation — received a letter from Maccabi USA/Sports for Israel notifying him that he had been selected for this year’s games, as one of just six male bowlers from the United States chosen to compete in Ten-Pin Bowling. But this is not Wexler’s first time bowling on an international level. In 2005, he participated in the Maccabi Games in Tel Aviv.
“You get a chill up and down your spine,” Wexler said of the opening ceremonies at the Israel Maccabiah in 2005, where he said more than 1,000 people from the United States were marching. “We had our two flag bearers. One was Mark Spitz; the other one was Lenny Krayzelburg, both Olympic swimmers. They participated [in the opening ceremonies], and [when] they called off the U.S. and we’re marching after them, you get chills marching with them.”
The 59-year-old Wexler has been bowling since the age of 8 when he was in Cub Scouts and has always had a passion for the sport. He bowled all the way through his time in college, as well as during his 22 years in the military.
Wexler said the individual competitive nature of bowling is what keeps him going.
“I think it’s independence,” Wexler said. “I can take out my frustrations. I look at the pins out there and say, ‘OK. Something’s bothering me tonight, and I want to take revenge on that headpin.’ Basically, I’ve conditioned myself that I thrive on the competition.
“It’s an independent sport, and in order to be successful, you’ve got to do well independently.”
When Wexler travels to Vienna, he will compete for the United States in Ten-Pin Bowling against Austria, Belarus, England, Finland, Poland and Sweden, all of whom have committed to bring athletes to the games.
Instead of traditional bowling where bowlers play three games, however, each country in the Maccabi plays six games apiece in singles, doubles, trios and team competition. If bowlers make the top 16 individually, they bowl stair step style in the Masters competition, where the highest seed takes on the lowest seed and whoever bowls the best two out of three games advances. Gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded in all of those categories.
Disappointed with his performance in 2005, Wexler said he wants to make the most of his opportunity this summer in Vienna.
“Personally, when I went to Israel I felt like I bowled atrocious,” Wexler said. “In my heart, this is my last opportunity that I will have to compete on that kind of level. I am totally looking forward to redeeming myself.”

In an e-mail newsletter dated January 27, Senator Sherrod Brown boldly announced (sound an imaginary fanfare): “It is time that we crack down on oil speculation, which I believe is partially responsible for driving up (gas) prices at the pump.” Of course, he threw in the mandatory demonizing of “big oil companies and shadowy hedge funds” and “multi-millionaire and billionaire investors” for “placing bets on the price of oil might (sic) be turning a massive profit” while the common folk struggle to pay higher gas prices.

To be fair, he is correct in citing the harm done to the economy by rising energy costs. But Senator Brown has done precisely nothing about the real causes of rising gas and oil prices. He dismisses the role of supply and demand, by which prices rise as supply shrinks, while wholeheartedly supporting Obama administration policy and its disastrous impact on oil pricing and domestic supply.

These policies interfere with domestic oil production by refusing to permit deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, even as China and other nations drill freely. They make us more dependent on foreign oil that will become much more expensive as Middle East unrest disrupts supply, quite possibly by installing radically anti-American regimes in oil exporting nations and strangling shipping through the Straits of Hormuz and the Suez Canal. They allow the dollar, to which the price of oil is tied, to be devalued, resulting in automatic price increases. None of this is really surprising; after all, President Obama dearly wants a “cap and tax” scheme that would inflate energy prices even further, and his only concern when gas hit $4.00 a gallon was that it happened as quickly as it did.

Speculation is the engine that drives capitalism. Money is invested in commodities and business ventures, on the speculation that the investment will turn a profit as the venture succeeds or prices rise. That’s why news, good or bad, involving a commodity like oil – such as the supply being fuddled thanks to government incompetence – prompts speculation. But profit is anathema to progressives like Senator Brown, unless it’s them or their supporters who are profiting and anyone else who gets rich can be massively taxed. He’s not the least bit concerned with the factors that are destabilizing the oil market; he’s more upset that someone might get rich from them. (As an aside: Has anyone else noticed how, as oil nears $100 a barrel again, we aren’t hearing allegations about oilmen in the White House anymore? Kinda gives the lie to that line, doesn’t it?)

So why just oil speculation? Why not a crackdown on other commodities as other consumer prices, such as food and clothing, increase? Because no other commodity is as handy or conspicuous a target as oil. That’s the psychology behind this: Brown believes that the common folk hate Big Oil, and so we’ll cheer pompous Statements like this and reward our conquering hero in Washington come election day for coming to our defense. (Another aside: Many pension funds and retirement accounts are funded by the dividends earned by profitable investments, including oil speculation; and punishing that speculation will harm seniors – while is precisely what progressives wrongly accuse Republicans of doing.) Sadly, a lot of voters will react in just that fashion to this politically correct but profoundly ignorant and grammatically challenged piece of grandstanding.

And that’s why Senator Brown’s egocentric crusading, as offensive as it is, is not the central issue. The heart of the matter is the fact that so many of us are so distracted by our champion’s latest headline-hunting adventures that we do not see the far greater peril. Congress passes laws that erode our liberties, and we don’t care because Sherrod Brown is taking it to oil speculators. The administration openly defies a court ruling that Obamacare is entirely unconstitutional, and we applaud because we demand handouts at the expense of others. Government at all levels is being bankrupted by lavish spending, and we gladly re-elect the spenders because they promise us goodies. Our grandkids will be facing a tax burden in the range of 80% to pay for today’s federal spending, and we demand more handouts for ourselves. The nation betrays its allies and befriends enemies, and we proclaim peace in our time. The Republic slowly collapses, and we cheer the opportunists and their trite PR-driven crusades against contrived evils.

Thomas Berry, for the Children of Liberty, www.meetup.com/The-children-of-liberty.

An increase in demand for grants to fund solar panels and advanced energy projects in Ohio, along with a shortage of funding, has prompted the state to stop taking requests and left many applicants without thousands of dollars they hoped or expected to get.

The Department of Development stopped taking grant requests for the Advanced Energy Fund in November as money ran out, The Columbus Dispatch reported Feb. 20. The program awarded $15.6 million in grants for 161 solar-panel and wind-turbine projects from July to November, according to records.

More than 200 homeowners and businesses filed grant requests before the cutoff, only to find out they wouldn’t get funds from the program this year, according to the newspaper.

A 9-cent fee on most residents’ monthly electricity bills paid for the grants, but the fee expired last year and was not reauthorized. The Legislature enacted the fee in 1999, beginning the program with low-interest loans offered to homeowners and businesses. It became a grant program in mid-2006. Since then, it has paid out more than $49 million.

State Rep. Mike Foley, A Democrat from Cleveland, sponsored a bill to extend the fee, but the bill died in the Legislature. He plans to reintroduce it.

It’s clear the cutoff has upset people, but the state doesn’t have the money to fund the grants, said Chad Smith, interim energy resources director for the Department of Development.

“The (grants) were structured on a first-come, first served basis,” Smith said. “From July to November, we did more projects than we ever did in any fiscal year.”

The 200-plus applications submitted last year sought nearly $21 million, compared with just $2 million provided for 67 projects five years ago.

Demand may have increased in part because projects have become more financially feasible, especially with the help of state grants and federal tax credits. The cost of solar paneling has decreased significantly over the past few years, said Geoff Greenfield, who co-owns Third Sun Solar in Athens, which installs alternative-energy systems.

Chris Whitemyer of Wooster decided he’d install solar panels on his home after a salesman showed him the state grant would slash the cost from $47,000 to about $8,000. He expected to get nearly $25,000 in grant money, but instead got a letter saying the money had run out.

Though there’s a federal tax credit available to cover the other $14,000 or so, he said he’s postponing his project.

Few of you can have failed to take note of the debate over the compensation of union government employees (especially with the recent demonstrations in Madison, WI and Columbus, OH).  On one hand we have people trying to perform what’s often a difficult job to a normally ungrateful public.  On the other we have taxpayers in the private sector facing difficult financial situations and watching those in the public sector not being subjected to the same brutal reality of today’s increasingly harsh economics when it comes to wages, health care, and pensions.

In many cases there is little available by which to judge the right of these situations, and no standard by which they can fairly be measured.  It recently occurred to me however, that this might not be so for two of the groups we hear from on the municipal level during contract negotiations, police and firefighters.

No sane person would debate the danger and difficulty of the job that they perform for their fellow citizens.  No reasonable person would deny that they should be paid fairly to perform this necessary duty. The question arises however: How shall we determine what’s fair?

This question isn’t a simple one, as we determine not only what ‘fair’ means, but who determines such meaning:

1. What’s fair tor those who place their life on the lives on the line every day in their vocation?
2. What’s fair for the families who may endure the injury or death of a family member serving?
3. What’s fair to taxpayers who are not only their employers in the broad sense, but contributors through taxes in a very real sense to the compensation that these safety workers receive?
4. What’s fair to municipalities facing decreasing revenues from taxes and the increasing budget restrictions resulting?

In this case however, there might be a ready model before our eyes for such standards that has never been considered. I speak of course, of the pay scale used by the government for the compensation of federal safety workers more commonly known as members of the Armed Forces.

After all, aren’t these soldiers and sailors also placing their lives on the line around the world for citizens every day? Don’t they and their families run similar risks?  Don’t they already even have a similar hierarchical structure that’s used for both chain of command and pay scale?

While there are certainly differences, neither group is currently subject to conscription to perform this function.  In fact, don’t we find that there are often long waiting lists to get into the academies that lead to well-paying jobs in municipal fire and police departments.

Could it then be this simple?  Should we compensate policemen and firemen at the same rate of pay as their counterparts in the military, with firefighters and patrolmen receiving a private first class’s pay, sergeants, lieutenants, and captains their service equivalents, and so on up the ladder (figuratively, of course).

Some will say that operating by such a system is untenable, as those in the military are not properly compensated for their service, nor nearly so well as those in local safety departments.  The federal government simply cannot afford to treat those in uniform fighting wars around the world as well as cities do those wearing fire and police uniforms. Doing so would bankrupt the nation.  I am forced to ask in turn:  “Is that fair?”

The question might then be asked if the income disparity between municipal and federal safety workers comes not from putting their lives on the line, but because unlike their military counterparts, they currently have the right to organize and negotiate with their employer as a union.  Again this begs the question:  “Is that fair?”

I don’t claim to have an answer here, but it may be far past time that we began to ask the question.  While we’re at it, perhaps its time we asked unions who have had so much to say regarding ‘criminally poor’ compensation for municipal safety positions to explain to us why their members are more deserving than those similarly laying their lives on the line in wars around the world.  Perhaps these labor leaders can explain why the sacrifice of their members is more deserving than those spending long periods far from home and loved ones in foreign lands to their families, and to those of us whose taxes are paying those wages.

Tim Higgins blogs at Just Blowing Smoke

The PGA and Champions Tour started their 2011 seasons in January in warm sunny Hawaii. The ladies of the LPGA Tour are glad to finally get to tee it up even if it is late February and they are in Asia. With five of the top 10 Rolex Ranked women golfers in the world and 35 of the top 100 being Korean it makes a logical place to start.

Yani Tseng is No. 1 in the Rolex Rankings and she continued her domination of women’s golf beating Michelle Wi by 5 shots to win the Honda LPGA Thailand. In 2010 Tseng had 3 wins, 8 top ten finishes, and earned over $1.4 million, including a major title from the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

The ladies will stay in Asia and move to Singapore for the second event of the season. The LPGA Tour definitely has an international flavor in 2011 with 13 of 25 tournaments being held outside the United States. Their new motto should be “Join the LPGA Tour and see the World”. The tour makes stops in France, Ireland, Scotland, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, and China. Can you say frequent flier miles? I hope no one loses their passport. The first tournament of the year was slated to be held in Mexico but had to be canceled due to the instability of the region where the event was to be held.

The regular Jamie Farr Classic normally held in Toledo over the July 4th weekend will not be held in 2011 due to the Champions Tour Senior Open coming to Inverness. The Farr will return to Highland Meadows Country Club for the 2012 season.

The LPGA finally hits U. S. soil with three tournaments in March, with one in Scottsdale, Arizona and two in California. The first major of the year the Kraft Nabisco Championship will be held at Rancho Mirage, California, March 3 through April 3..

LPGA Tour Commissioner Michael Whan has improved relationships with tournament sponsors and with the economy beginning to turn around can look to increase the number of tournaments available for LPGA players and increase the size of purses.

It is great that the LPGA is so widely recognized around the world but one would think that there are more mid-size markets around like Toledo that could use an LPGA Tournament to energize the community and pump dollars into the local retail establishment. If the LPGA could develop a true home grown super star like say a Michelle Wi, Cristie Kerr, or Paula Creamer, it probably would be more palatable to the American golfing public and corporate sponsorship dollars would follow. Currently the only American born players in the top ten in the Rolex World Rankings are Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer.

The first time I heard “Someone’s starting the ‘Terrible Twos’ a bit early!” directed towards my bambino, he was hardly a year old. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard it since. According to an outside observer, any child aged 1 to 3 who’s having a tantrum must be suffering from the “Terrible Twos.” (If they’re under a year old, it must be colic.)
The terms “Eighteen-Month Angst” or “Throwing-a-Tantrum Threes” just don’t flow off of the tongue as easily. “Terrible Twos” makes for great alliteration, I’ll give it that, but people have overused the clever title so it refers to any behavior in a toddler that can be ruled distasteful.
Don’t be fooled.
The ‘Terrible Twos’ is the ultimate misnomer. Let’s face it. Babies begin the magnum opus of their personalities the moment they are born. The first thing they’re able to express — and they do so quite loudly — is their unhappiness with the world that they’ve been thrust into.
Babies fuss. It’s their specialty. Sometimes babies fuss and we just don’t know why. Any stimulation of the senses is equal stimulation for the tear ducts, apparently.
Usually the origins of fussiness are simple — or at least obvious (I don’t know if I would call some of those diapers “simple.” I’m still traumatized by the second week of July, 2009, when I had three ‘poop-up-to-the-armpits’ fiascoes in one day).
Generally, babies cry when they’re hungry, tired, overtired, over-awake, or (somehow) all of the above. The bottom line is that tantrums begin early. Really early.
I can easily recall a few instances of unbridled rage spewing forth from the lungs of Bambino at 4 months-old, 6 months old and throughout the months until he began to look and act (read: toddle) the part of someone suffering from the ‘Terrible Twos’.
However, the Fuss Department is trickier now that Bambino is a Little Dude — you know, a toddler. His needs are essentially the same as when he was a baby, only now if they’re not met his reaction is a bit more … theatrical (he’s had more time to practice). His fits range from shrieking to feet-stomping to head-butting (yes, head-butting), usually leading to the signature finish: collapsing to the floor, an immovable, screaming puddle.
Let the judgment of strangers begin.
The most helpful thing an onlooker can do is offer a sympathetic smile or hold the door open (so we can leave everyone in peace). It’s not that I resent your advice; it’s just that I can’t ingest even the greatest wisdom when my kid’s screams are setting off car alarms.
And, if you have nothing nice to say, look the other way. Or look at it this way: the situation is not nearly as hard on you as it is on me. (Thankfully, the kid won’t remember any of it.)
Based on my observations, I’ve concluded that Little Dude’s potbellied, toddler body is overwhelmed with emotions and hormones, and there’s no way he can funnel any of them properly. Think of it this way: if his intellect is a computer, skyrocketing at the rate of Moore’s law (which, paraphrased loosely, predicts that computing power doubles every 18 months), then his ability to communicate is still in the floppy disc era.
It has to be frustrating to realize that a.) Most people don’t understand them and b.) Most people can do things that they can’t (like get onto the couch unassisted). As a result, toddlers perfect the art of the tantrum (some sooner than others) — but can we really blame them?
The ‘Terrible Twos’ has become a catch-all term to encompass the rage and angst of little children as they attempt to understand their world. Perhaps it’s just a placeholder until they’re old enough for the label “pre-teen.”
Ah yes, pre-teens and teenagers, the sister phase to the ‘Terrible Twos’. The issues surrounding these two developmental stages are nearly identical in their foundations — members of both age groups are filled with hormones and the absolute inability to express themselves. No one seems to understand them, even when they do communicate, certainly aggravates the situation.
At least in 10 years we can blame their friends, or society, or the music they listen to (That’s what I’m planning to do, anyway). Here, in the throes of the toddler fiasco, however, it’s all on the parents.
A toddler’s entire life has only been about 1,000 days, so it’s only fair that their perspective on things might be a little different. Each day brings new discoveries, personal broadening … and battles. A toddler, experimenting with the world around him, learns to express himself and gauge the reaction of others:
“What will my parents do if I give myself a magic marker moustache?”
“Why does Mom get so mad when I help her unload the laundry basket?”
Some days the real miracle in parenting is that we all make it through the day. On good days, we can be there right along with them, discovering the world and broadening ourselves.

Leah Lederman lives in Toledo with her husband, their 2-year-old son and a boxer dog. She has 11 nieces and nephews. She can be reached at llederman@toledofreepress.com.

The ice storm that hit the Toledo area that began on Feb. 20 and is continuing to impact the area has created closures as well as power outages.

The Toledo Zoo announced it would be closed Feb. 21 due to the ice storm and Toledo-Lucas County Public Library announced that the West Toledo Branch, 1320 Sylvania Ave. and Sanger Branch, 3030 W. Central Ave. will be closed today, Monday, February 21 due to power outages.

Other branches scheduled to be open on Feb. 21 were expected to open at noon.

The Lucas County Sheriff’s office has issued a Level One Snow Emergency for the Lucas County area until further notice.

Jen Sorgenfrei, public information officer for the City of Toledo, told Toledo Free Press, “We have 52 plows on the street that are salting the roads, we have 5 to 6 trucks out in Forestry Division. They are cleaning up several streets that are blocked by downed trees.” There are also additional crews out maintaining traffic and safety to assist with First Energy’s power restoration, Sorgenfrei said.

A Winter Weather Advisory remains in effect for Lucas County until 10 a.m. Feb. 22. The advisory forecasts mixed freezing rain, sleet and snow will be changing to all snow by late afternoon on Feb. 21. Snowfall is predicted to intensify the evening of Feb. 21 with snow and sleet accumulations before 5 p.m. an inch or less and 2 to 4 additional inches of accumulation by the morning of Feb. 22.

As of 11: 38 a.m. a First Energy spokesman reported that 36,000 Toledo Edison customers are still without power down from 42,000 customers at an earlier point. Most of the power outages are in the Sylvania area though scattered outages exist in other parts of Northwest Ohio, including Toledo.

Updated information is broken down as far as number of customers reported by First Energy with times marked below:

Outages as reported at 2:12 p.m.

Outages reported at 6:36 p.m.

The Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom on Feb. 20.

Staff Sgt. Bradley C. Hart, 25, of Perrysburg, Ohio reportedly died February 17 at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa, of injuries sustained in a non combat incident. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C. No additional details about his death have been released by the Department of Defense at this time.

The Cobined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa states about 2,000 military personnel from each branch of the U.S. Armed forces, represenatives from Coalition and Partner countries as well as civilian employees are based at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.

Their mission is to “facilitate an indirect, non-kinetic approach to counter violent extremism by applying the ’3Ds’principle, which includes defense, diplomacy and development.

As American ex pats living in Dubai, we have front-row seats to one of the amazing nation-building stories of our time. As a young nation, the United Arab Emirates, which will celebrate its 40th year this December, has emerged as a Middle East leader on many fronts. Bolstered by the prosperous, oil-based economy, this one-time impoverished coastal desert region now bustles with post-modern metropolitan cityscapes with architectural masterpieces that are virtually unrivaled for their creativity and beauty.

Notwithstanding the challenges and problems of this young nation that have come with rapid social and economic development, the UAE is undaunted in its quest to become one of the leading nations in the world. Its major metropolitan centers, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, have weathered the global economic recession and are preparing and positioning themselves for a decade of continued fast-paced development on a global scale.

Like every other nation, the United Arab Emirates has its strengths and weaknesses. For those so inclined, it is not difficult to go beyond the beautiful first impressions of Emirati society to find that there are huge issues facing the nation’s leaders in numerous areas including education, health, labor, national security, environment and more. The increasing freedom of the press is enabling citizens, public officials, and ex pat communities to gain a better understanding of these issues as well as the inner-workings of government, its ministries and the broader society.

Our time in Dubai and the U.A.E. has evolved into a very rich and meaningful experience. And, while we would be the last to deny the real problems of this young nation, we find our lives and the lives of untold numbers are enhanced and enriched by many powerful positive forces at work in the Emirates. These forces are not the simple products of serendipity or even the sole result of the great wealth that has come through petroleum revenues. Rather, they are the result of enlightened, bold, and visionary leadership as well as strong concerted efforts, particularly the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, to put in place strategies to realize bold visions for the future.

The qualities of this place we most appreciate and enjoy include the confluence of many cultures and nationalities. The population of the UAE consists largely of people from other nations. Approximately 85 percent of the people living and working here come from elsewhere. Part of the richness of life here is due to the contributions of the many cultures represented in the nation’s labor force and population. The U.A.E. is an excellent example of the enriching power of diversity.

The news coverage by local newspapers is a daily education in world affairs. In addition to several Arabic newspapers that are widely read by Emiratis, there are three major English newspapers read mainly by the ex pat communities. As a small nation with many economic and diplomatic ties to nations on every continent, the interest in global affairs is strong. Each day brings the news not only from the UAE and the Gulf Region, but detailed accounts of events in all of the Middle East countries, the nations of Africa, Asia, and Europe. The United States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America are also well covered. The United States is of special interest and several pages are devoted daily to the actions of the White House, Congress, and major events.

A quality that seems to permeate life here, particularly among Nationals, is a strong optimistic outlook on life and the future. This optimism stems, in part, from the dramatic progress of the past three decades. The younger generation has grown up with the rise of the nation and has seen what is possible. With advances in education and growing knowledge of world affairs, the new generation of leaders coming on the scene believe they can build on what has been accomplished and achieve even higher levels of sustainable growth and development. I admire this quality and the optimistic spirit of young people. I see it and hear it from our students at Zayed University. Their ideas are bold and creative and they are not reluctant to share them.

I’ve witnessed a genuine desire on the part of many Emiratis in positions of national and local leadership to reach out to non-Muslims to establish dialogue, increase understanding and to expand tolerance among major world religions. The government of Dubai provides land for Christian churches. Scores of Christian denominations hold weekly services and carry out their activities with the knowledge and support of local governments. The terrorist bombing of a Coptic Christian Church in Alexandria, Egypt last month ago brought sincere expressions of condolences from National leaders to the local Coptic church in Abu Dhabi. I was privileged to be present for this very moving event.

There is among UAE Nationals a fascination—even fixation—on being “world-class.” Recognizing excellence in all its forms through awards ceremonies has become an industry in itself in the larger Emirates. These award ceremonies are part of a national effort to set high standards and expectations not only for the young generation coming forward but for the international companies and ex pats working here or doing business. This drive to be “world-class” is contagious and one is easily drawn into the spirit that propels businesses, organizations, professions, and institutions to strive for excellence. There are times, of course, when rhetoric outpaces reality but it is difficult not to appreciate the desire to be the best.

There are many other qualities we have come to enjoy and appreciate here in Dubai and the U.A.E.. We enjoy the many festivals that seem to come monthly. We enjoy the architecture and the building frenzy that continues even now. We especially enjoy the winter weather where a “cold” day may dip to the high-sixties or low-seventies. Of course, summers are a different story.
Living halfway around the world also has its downside. We miss family and friends which is only partially alleviated by email and the internet. We miss birthdays and holidays and even funerals of friends and loved ones. And, notwithstanding the wonderful “winter” weather here, we do miss the seasons and even the snow.

On balance, the opportunity to live and work in Dubai and Abu Dhabi is one that, while not planned, has added to the quality of our lives, our perspective on the world, and our sense of the growing interdependence of nations, religions, and cultures. Our time here has evolved into a very rich learning experience. With each passing week we see, taste, hear or touch something new to us. Over the past few years we have learned a great deal about the people and this special place in the heart of the Middle East. It is truly a unique experience.

Dan Johnson is provost and COO of Zayed University, United Arab Emirates and president emeritus of UT.