Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
I have already explained why no peace is at hand in such commentaries as “U.S. and Russia Strike Deal to Avert U.S. Bombing Syria … for Now,” September 16, 2013, “Bombing ISIS Smacks of Masturbatory Violence,” November 18, 2015, and “Putin’s Bush-lite Declaration of Mission Accomplished in Syria,” May 19, 2016. Yet here they go… Read more.
North Korea is commanding world attention again, after announcing that it tested another nuclear bomb earlier today. Duly spooked, leaders from China to America are reacting like alarmed parents chastising an unruly child for playing with fire, for the umpteenth time. South Korean President Park Geun-hye called it an act of ‘self-destruction’ showing the ‘maniacal recklessness’… Read more.
Donald Trump has edged ahead of Hillary Clinton in a poll released Tuesday, the latest to reflect a tightening race as the campaigns kick into high gear after Labor Day. The CNN/ORC poll shows Trump leading Clinton 45-43 percent in a four-way race, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 7 percent and Green Party’s Jill Stein… Read more.
The Rio 2016 Paralympics got underway with the Opening Ceremony last night. If you live in the United States, however, you could be forgiven for having no clue (unless you happened to notice yesterday’s Google doodle heralding the start of these Games). To be fair, this ceremony did have to compete for media coverage with… Read more.
I took a lot of flak for dissing the 2011 Video Music Awards (VMAs) as “the triumph of packaged and formulaic acts over talented performances.” But no show since then has controverted my diss. Some critics hailed Beyoncé for bringing a little redeeming value to this year’s show with her imperious, bootylicious, 15-minute set. Unfortunately, truer… Read more.
Er, by kneeling before it…? What began as a gesture to protest police brutality and social injustice had careened into a national debate on everything but that. Instead, the question being asked was whether Kaepernick was disparaging the sacrifices made by the military. So, on Thursday night, in his team’s final exhibition game before the… Read more.
That this has been a “black swan” election year is an understatement. In fact, we’ve been treated to confirming instances on a daily basis. But nothing has been more surreal in this respect than watching Evangelicals abandon their values to support Donald Trump. These, after all, are Christians who professed religious scruples over supporting Ronald… Read more.
American news organizations provided so much coverage of Donald Trump’s traveling circus to Mexico today, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the most important geopolitical event of the century. But, trust me, within 24 hours his trip will be relegated to the dustbin of viral stunts. Meanwhile, they provided scant coverage of an event… Read more.
It’s been a while since I felt constrained to pooh-pooh “Breaking News” about the killing of a “high-value” terrorist. But this I could not resist: The Islamic State’s spokesman and overseer of external terrorist operations, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo, the group’s news outlet reported on Tuesday… Accounts from… Read more.
I know many of you have no idea who Colin Kaepernick is, and couldn’t care any less about what he did. But bear with me. Kaepernick told NFL Network on Friday night that he chose not to stand [during the National Anthem] because: ‘I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag… Read more.
