Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Unsurprisingly, calls for the arrest of Officer Darren Wilson only became more restive yesterday, after lawyers for Michael’s parents released results of an autopsy they commissioned, which show that Wilson shot him at least six times. More importantly, here’s the truly poignant way these lawyers used CNN’s coverage of their release to reinforce his mother’s… Read more.
In an uncanny bit of political symmetry, every Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson has had a brother who seemed hell-bent on embarrassing him or exploiting his presidency for all it’s worth … or both. Jimmy Carter had to cope not only with his brother Billy’s hillbilly bon mots, which made Jimmy’s political sound bites seem… Read more.
I took a lot of intra-racial flak for not eulogizing Michael in my original commentary as an innocent victim of yet another racist police shooting. The (my-race-right-or-wrong) guardians of Black pride took exception to my pointing out that this kid would not have been shot if he had cooperated with the arresting officer; that is,… Read more.
In 2002 voters in The Bahamas rejected a national referendum “to change the Constitution to eradicate language that made men superior to women” – as the February 12, 2012, edition of the Nassau Guardian framed the issue. I was so shocked and dismayed that I wondered aloud if we were vying to become the new… Read more.
Here’s what I wrote the day after TMZ aired audiotapes of Donald Sterling sabotaging his ownership, the way Richard Nixon sabotaged his presidency: The commissioner should forfeit his ownership with fair compensation in the interest of the NBA. (The commissioner of Major League Baseball set an instructive precedent by prevailing upon Marge Schott to sell her interest… Read more.
One of my pet peeves is the person who insists on using the honorific title “Dr” after receiving an honorary PhD. But even more galling is the person who insists on using this title after buying one from a diploma mill. Most galling of all, however, is the person who insists on using this title… Read more.
Let me assert from the outset that police brutality is all too common in the United States. For example, according to the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project, from April 2009 to June 2010, there were 5,986 reports of police misconduct; 382 fatalities linked to police misconduct; and $347.5 million spent in settlements and… Read more.
It’s easy to forget how promising Haiti’s future seemed when Jean Bertrand Aristide was elected in 1990. But, after 14 years of providing more political drama than national development, Aristide was escorted into exile on the paternal wings of the U.S. Marines… Aristide’s national ambition seems to be for his people to live in chronic… Read more.
Related commentaries: Snowden… Assange… Read more.
Partisan critics routinely cite Obama’s decision to announce a date certain for withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan as evidence of his military incompetence and political naiveté. More to the point, they invariably juxtapose this disregard for Obama with reverential regard for Russian President Vladimir Putin – as if the former is to the latter as… Read more.
