Yes folks, he’s at it again…. Vladimir Putin climbed into a three-seat submersible craft Tuesday to check out an ancient sunken ship found recently in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea — the peninsula annexed by Russia last year from Ukraine… On previous trips deep underwater, Putin has explored the Gulf of Finland… Read more.
Archives for August 2015
Media Frenzy Over Hillary’s E-mails Missing the Point
For months, the U.S. State Department has stood behind its former boss Hillary Clinton as she has repeatedly said she did not send or receive classified information on her unsecured, private email account, a practice the government forbids… Reuters has found at least 30 email threads from 2009, representing scores of individual emails, that include… Read more.
On Iran: While US Dithers and Israel Bickers, China Grooves and Russia Moves
Members of the China Philharmonic Orchestra play during a rehearsal in Tehran, Iran, on Aug. 12, 2015. The visiting China Philharmonic Orchestra will jointly perform with Tehran Symphony Orchestra. (Xinhua, August 13, 2015) This is China using soft power to supplant the United States as the preferred superpower patron throughout the developing world. By contrast,… Read more.
Women In Combat: Hail ‘Woman Power’ Rangers
In light of the recent trend set by Angela Merkel of Germany and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, Bachelet’s election would be encouraging to those of us who welcome the seepage of womanpower through the crevices of political and corporate governance around the world… Here’s to ‘the fairer sex’ – not only as indispensable guardians of home and… Read more.
Sam Is Gay. Too Bad He Can’t Play
No heterosexual was prouder than I was last year when Michael Sam became the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL. He made history, but I had misgivings almost immediately. Not least because he signed with the Oprah Winfrey Network to turn his Football career into a Kardashian-style reality show even before he signed… Read more.
Hail, Jeremy Corbyn! The Bernie Sanders of British Politics
It’s hardly surprising that the U.S. media are providing obsessive coverage of Donald Trump’s egocentric campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. After all, nothing attracts today’s ratings-driven media quite like a freak show or impending doom. Trump’s campaign offers both. Meanwhile, the media are providing relatively little coverage of Bernie Sanders’s holistic campaign for… Read more.
ANC Women Attacking Zuma Prosecutor like Cosby Wife Attacking His Accusers
Too often women enable bad behavior in men, Too often women are their own worst enemies. How did you celebrate Women’s Day … in SA? Don’t get me started on Bic’s chauvinistic decree that, in order to be successful, a woman must: Look like a girl Act like a lady Think like a man… Read more.
U.S. Military Finally Calling for Political Solution in Iraq
The U.S. Army’s outgoing chief of staff warned Wednesday that reconciliation between Shiites and Sunnis in Iraq is becoming harder and that partitioning the country ‘might be the only solution…’ General Raymond Odierno, who once served as the top U.S. commander in Iraq and retires Friday after nearly 40 years in uniform, said the U.S.… Read more.
A Prayer for Jimmy Carter
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, a time to build up… A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace… [But above all… Read more.
Chávez Chavismo: More a Robbing Hoodlum than Robin Hood
My socialist affinities are such that I used to be a big fan of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez: His critics argue that Chávez is merely expropriating property in a Robert Mugabe-style land grab. (No doubt Mugabe is flattered by the allusion.) But Chávez has declared it a ‘war on the latifundio’ (or rich estate owners),… Read more.