Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Here is the cynical note I sounded in 2006, when African businessman Mo Ibrahim announced his Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership (MIPAAL): Mo seems to think that African leaders are so congenitally corrupt, the only way ‘to remove corruption and improve governance’ in Africa is, ironically, to bribe them… And to prove… Read more.
If one buys Chávez’s sales pitch, PetroCaribe promises to ‘…contribute to the energy security, socioeconomic development and integration of the Caribbean countries, through the sovereign use of the energy resources.’ I am loath to suggest that Chávez is selling snake oil instead of the crude oil that is supposed to fuel this pact. But I have… Read more.
I wrote a college paper almost 32 years ago on the growing gap between rich and poor in America. It was replete with all kinds of warnings about the social, political and economic consequences of this gap, almost all of which have come to pass. Conspicuously missing, however, was any reference to CEO-to-worker pay. I… Read more.
These are very discouraging times for anti-monarchists like me. For watching tens of millions around the world reveling in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations last year was dispiriting enough. But watching just as many, if not more, heralding the birth of William and Kate’s son (as the third living heir in waiting to the throne)… Read more.
There has been a great deal of speculation in the media lately about the relationship between Oprah and President Obama. In fact, to listen to some political commentators you’d think Oprah has become a woman scorned because Obama refused to give her the White House access she coveted (to exploit for commercial purposes) “after helping… Read more.
What passes for journalism at the moment? This blog brims with commentary on my disdain for what passes for journalism these days. So, imagine my dismay when 60 Minutes, the reputed standard bearer of broadcast journalism, only reinforced my disdain on Sunday. On October 27, 60 Minutes aired a highly touted report on the 9/11/12 terrorist attack on the US consulate in… Read more.
A cache of “lost” paintings looted by the Nazis before the Second World War containing some 1,500 works by world-renowned artists including Picasso, Matisse, Chagall and Klee and valued at an estimated €1bn has been found, according to German media reports. Bavarian customs police discovered the sensational haul in the home of Cornelius Gurlitt, the… Read more.
News outlets cover natural disasters purportedly as a public service. But there’s no denying that such coverage is a ratings boon for their bottom line – catering as it does to the perverse thrill of suspense that keeps us fixated on the hype of impending doom…. (“Katrina’s Coming, Katrina’s Coming,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 29,… Read more.
I disabled the comments feature on this weblog years ago when it became clear that most people were just using it as a message board to write snarky comments that had nothing to do with what I actually wrote. But this did not stop interested readers from using the CONTACT feature to send relatively informed… Read more.
