There’s a faint collective gasp all around me the instant ten pale horses break from the darkness and tear, as a herd, through a clearing dappled with soft light.

Melissa d’Arabian is a home economist for a new era. Actually, she’s more CFO than home ec.

Earlier this week, in making plans to attend the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show with girlfriends, the invitation was extended to the men in our lives.

Arizona’s biggest horse event of the year offers an evening of free family fun. Watch Arabian horses vie for the internationally coveted Scottsdale Champion title, enjoy a meal or browse the shopping expo.

Time to shine those shoes, clip that facial hair and grease up those rippling muscles - the 57th annual Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show and Shopping Expo has begun.

Time to shine those shoes, clip that facial hair and grease up those rippling muscles — the 57th annual Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show and Shopping Expo has begun.

One of several causes of the 9/11 attacks, by Saudi Arabian Freedom Fighters, was the presence of American military personnel in their homeland that also is all Muslims’ Holy Land, Saudi Arabia.  

Imagine trying to hit a 3-inch ball with a wooden mallet through a pair of goalposts nine football fields away. Now picture doing it at breakneck speed on the back of a horse that’s been trained to turn on a dime and stop dead in his tracks at a split-second’s notice — all while seven other riders try to get at that same tiny ball.

Well the Newspaper media and TV News people struck out with two new “almost” major events. The Iran-Mexican Drug Cartel-Saudi Arabian Ambassador assassination “story” which quickly became a “bed time” story everywhere but on MSNBC. This “bedtime story” was dropped quicker than a hot potato even by Obama Newspaper mouthpieces like the Atlanta-Journal Constitution and the Washington Post. Vice-President Joe Biden couldn’t be persuaded to go out on a limb for Obama on this one.

Having lived through WWII, having good friends, neighbors and business associates who are Jews, having met survivors of Hitler's death camps, having joined with other people of good will in a pledge to "never let it happen again" and having heard Islamists deny that the Holocaust ever happened, I am saddened to learn that a once-great American company like Delta Airlines has willingly entered into a business arrangement with Saudi Arabian Airlines in which Delta put itself in the position of having to enforce the Saudis' hateful policies against American Jews. Delta's defense that they must enforce the laws of Saudi Arabia fall on deaf ears because they entered into this agreement willingly just to make a few extra dollars.

The Phoenix Zoo announced the recipients of more than $40,000 in grant funding for international conservation projects as part of the Phoenix Zoo's Conservation & Science Grants Program. The Phoenix Zoo has a legacy of conservation dating back to the 1960s with their participation in Operation Oryx, an international effort to save the Arabian Oryx from going extinct.

The Phoenix Zoo announced the recipients of more than $40,000 in grant funding for international conservation projects as part of the Phoenix Zoo's Conservation & Science Grants Program. The Phoenix Zoo has a legacy of conservation dating back to the 1960s with their participation in Operation Oryx, an international effort to save the Arabian Oryx from going extinct.

If it sounds strange now, it won’t for long. Amococo is about to become a Valley buzzword.

The 56th annual equine extravaganza opens with a couple thousand horses, lots of competitions to watch, behind-the-scenes barn tours and a shopping expo. Opens 8 a.m. Thursday and runs through Feb. 27. WestWorld of Scottsdale, 16601 N. Pima Road. $7-$15. (480) 312-6802 or scottsdaleaz.gov/westworld.

"Pretty primitive" and "held together by baling wire" are terms founders of KAET-TV (Channel 8) use to describe getting the public TV station up and running from the Tempe campus of ASU.

It’s a touchy situation.

As the controversy over the proposed Islamic Cultural Center in Lower Manhattan continues to fester, perhaps a historical perspective on such matters is worth considering.

 Scenes from the beloved story will come to life Sunday at The Black Stallion Show in Scottsdale. It’s a traveling production put on by performers and horses from Arabian Nights. The show is also a fundraiser for The Black Stallion Literacy Foundation, a nonprofit started in 1999 to get first- through fifth-graders hooked on reading through interaction with live horses and Walter Farley’s books.

Who says bagpipes don’t make a great accompaniment to taiko drums? Or that an electric guitar and a ukelele can’t make a perfect pairing?

 Who says bagpipes don’t make a great accompaniment to taiko drums? Or that an electric guitar and a ukelele can’t make a perfect pairing?

Two New River residents were arrested for animal cruelty after a horse was killed by a pool acid injection and another was found starving.

MANAMA, Bahrain — A U.S. Navy aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf region on Wednesday and one of the four crew members is still missing, the military said in a statement.