Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Reports are that, in remarkable symmetry, birds flew into both engines of a US Airways flight departing New York’s LaGuardia Airport yesterday, causing them both to blowout immediately. Then, performing an even more remarkable feat, the pilot managed to land the plane on the Hudson River with such ease and in tact that all 155 people on board… Read more.
To hear Democratic leaders in the US Senate hailing today’s scheduled swearing in of Roland Burris as the junior senator from Illinois you’d never know that these are the very senators who only a week ago were swearing that he would never set foot on the Senate floor. By way of reminder, however, here’s the public… Read more.
Of course, I appreciate not only the from-slavery-to-the-White House theme but also the Illinois connection this commemoration is intended to reflect. But I hope the organizers have the presence of mind to pay homage to the 80th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s birth as well. [Obama’s inauguration…, The iPINIONS Journal, November 8, 2008] When I read that the… Read more.
President-elect Obama has been sounding just like a typical politician lately, trying to explain why America’s worsening economic crisis will prevent him from fulfilling some of his campaign promises in a timely fashion, and others perhaps not at all. And I gather that many of you are becoming disllusioned by this … change. But keep hope alive. Because he’s just doing what any prudent and pragmatic politician… Read more.
On Thursday the UN passed a resolution calling for: … an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Instead of honoring this resolution, however, Israel escalated its ground offensive over the weekend, demonstrating not only its determination to end this latest battle on its own terms… Read more.
Unfortunately, given the number of wackos who’d love to assassinate him, and the number of terrorists who’d love to kill thousands of Americans in the most symbolic and spectacular way possible, it’s all very necessary. But just in case, I think I’ll stay home and watch this historic event unfold on TV. Just kidding, I’m sure it’ll… Read more.
No doubt you recall that the British governor of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), HE Gordon Wetherell, suspended the House of Assembly, indefinitely, a few weeks ago. And perhaps you recall that, in a commentary published here just hours before the Governor announced his decision, I dismissed the political drama unfolding in our beloved… Read more.
Alas, the same people who insisted that Barack Obama was too passive, naive and inexperienced to defeat the ruthless team of Bill and Hillary Clinton (or the war-hero John McCain) are the ones now insisting that his choice to head the CIA, Leon Panetta, is too passive, naive and inexperienced to lead this agency “in a time of… Read more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko an offer he could not refuse: he told Yushchenko that if Ukraine’s 47 million “orange revolutionaries” wanted to continue receiving gas from Russia to cook their food, heat their homes and drive their cars, they would have to pay four times as much for it. When… Read more.
[Author’s note: Yesterday, after a number of people asked about my thoughts on the spectacle surrounding the appointment to fill Obama’s Senate seat, I gathered that many of you probably missed the second commentary I published on the afternoon of December 30. Therefore, especially given that Mr Burris comes to Washington today, I’ve decided to republish it below – followed… Read more.
