Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
You’ve probably heard reporters all over TV today hyperventilating over “declassified” documents, which confirm that the police suspected Tiger’s wife Elin of domestic abuse: i.e., giving him a fat lip and then taking a nine iron to his SUV when he tried to escape. But this is hardly news – as my original commentary on this saga, entitled,… Read more.
There’s something egalitarian, and therefore perversely reassuring, about a little princess being bullied at school. After all, this is a rite of passage almost every commoner must endure…. But, ironically, there is nothing common about the bullying Japan’s eight-year-old Princess Aiko has been subjected to (which reportedly became so severe that she begged her parents… Read more.
No politician in US history has exploited his power for personal gain with more unbridled pride and joy than Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). And none has been more successful. For not even investment guru Warren Buffet could have amassed the fortune Rangel has by doing it the Smith Barney way; i.e., by earning it. His… Read more.
Truth be told, there was always a disconnect between Winnie Mandela’s behavior and the Joan-of-Arc vestments she wore during the last throes of Apartheid rule in South Africa. More to the point, her behavior always gave the impression that those vestments were covering up character traits that were more Ma Barker than Indira Gandhi. But anti-Apartheid supporters in the West overlooked her intemperate,… Read more.
They really should give up trying to make the Oscars into a comedy/variety show. Neil Patrick Harris might’ve been persuasive playing a doctor on Doogie Howser, but he must have embarrassed gay men everywhere with that wooden song-and-dance opening, Broadwayesque number. And Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting together weren’t half as good as Billy Crystal hosting by himself…. [A] three-hour show – only six minutes of… Read more.
Here are my picks for the only Oscar categories anybody will be interested in tomorrow evening; with due respect of course to all of the other very talented nominees: Actor in a Leading Role JEFF BRIDGES in Crazy Heart – Not necessarily because I think he was the best; for that distinction goes to Colin… Read more.
Yesterday, a congressional committee passed a resolution declaring the World War I killing of untold numbers of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a genocide. And, given media reports on this resolution, you’d think it caused a Cold-War rift in the strategic relationship between the US and Turkey, its NATO (and Afghan-War) ally. But nothing could be… Read more.
What has transpired over the past five years in the Second-World country of Ukraine should disabuse anyone of the notion that terminally dysfunctional governments exist only in the Third World. Here are a few excerpts from a September 24, 2008, commentary entitled Update on my favorite ex-communists: the Ukrainians that should explain why: I officially declare the coalition… Read more.
It’s bad enough that grownups would expose themselves to the humiliating spectacle of competing on national TV to be a total stranger’s spouse. But that this contrived farce makes for entertaining television for millions of Americans speaks volumes about this country’s cultural maturity. (At least with Soap Operas there’s some redeeming social value in knowing that the people on… Read more.
Natural disasters – like earthquakes – should always remind us that there but for the grace of God…. But there’s no denying that living in a relatively rich country increases one’s chance of surviving such disasters tremendously. For what is most significant about the 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday is the fact… Read more.
