I remember when the wave of Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek and these beautiful Hispanic women came into light, and I looked up to them and I loved them, but I was like, 'Where are Middle Eastern women?'

Memory is the first casualty of middle age, if I remember correctly.

He is terrifying to Middle Eastern elites. He is terrifying to Middle Eastern governments,

MOST OF THE NATIONS OF the Middle East can be divided into those with long histories and no oil, and those that have lots of oil and very little history. With a few notable exceptions, both groups share a common feature: they were cobbled together by outsiders. The borders of the modern Middle East were drawn by Europeans after the First World War with no regard for the interests or backgrounds of the people who inhabited it.

When I'm not at the keyboard, I'm generally reading, practicing tai chi or middle eastern dance, or cooking.

I was sort of born into a Subud cult that has ties to Islam and Indonesia and Middle Eastern spiritualism. My parents were kind of trial-and-error when it came to religion.