Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Republican Senator John McCain has been front and center in the peanut gallery of those screaming that Iraq is falling apart today because Obama withdrew all U.S. troops in 2011. You’ve probably heard their chicken-and-egg complaint about Obama torpedoing negotiations for a stabilization force to remain in Iraq, indefinitely, by offering a low-ball number of… Read more.
Truth be told, when producers raised the curtain on Michael Jackson’s much-hyped performance, in hologram form, at last month’s Billboard Music Awards, far from being thrilled, I was just creeped out. But it occurred to me that, if they could make Michael appear to have risen from the dead to perform live on stage, they could… Read more.
Many are convinced that Iraq is on the brink of a destructive sectarian civil war that would herald its disintegration as the country we know, and that agreement on partition would be the least-bad option… Instead of being seen as a partner, Mr. Maliki has been accused increasingly of going it alone with autocratic powers… Read more.
The aftermath of school shootings is now all too familiar. The shock of the breaking news, the scenes of school evacuations, the ensuing political debate and the inevitable inaction. (Huffington Post, June 16, 2014) It has become customary to say that America has a gun-violence problem. But what America really has is a gun problem… Read more.
This championship series got off to a thrilling and promising start when the Miami Heat effectively stole game two from the San Antonio Spurs, in San Antonio, to even their best of seven series at 1-1 heading back to Miami. But after the Spurs froze the Heat out to win games three and four in… Read more.
Related commentaries: Brazil World Cup Russia Winter Olympics Read more.
I’ve been trying for years to disabuse expectant couples of the purportedly bonding, but plainly emasculating, affectation of saying, “We’re pregnant.” (Saying this would only be appropriate if the couple were lesbians … and they were both pregnant!) I am an avowed feminist. But close (female) friends will attest to my long-standing belief that the… Read more.
You do not have to be a fan of the “beautiful game” of soccer to be interested in the World Cup, which kicks off in Brazil today. Not least because, like the Olympics, the political, economic and cultural factors involved mean that it transcends sports. This is why the matches (and even who wins that coveted Cup)… Read more.
Nothing affirms the proposition that only authoritarian regimes can govern Arab countries quite like the very Egyptians who protested against the authoritarian regime of Hosni Mubarak being the ones now cheering for the authoritarian regime of General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Especially given that al-Sisi seized power from the country’s first democratically elected government of Mohamed… Read more.
What concerns me is that people around the world seem even more vested in this anachronistic institution (namely, the British monarchy) today than they were when William’s parents, Prince Charles and Lady Diana, got married 30 years ago (on July 29, 1981). I have long maintained that royalty makes a mockery of the universal principle that… Read more.
