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 written many commentaries decrying the way natural disasters often befall those least able to cope. But this time it’s personal. Hurricane Dorian has wind speeds of [185 mph and gusts of 225 mph], making it the strongest hurricane in modern records [as it bears down on the northwestern Bahama islands of Abaco and… Read more.
Just weeks ago, I ridiculed the celebrated platform The Atlantic gave Obama adviser Ben Rhodes to finally recognize what some of us have been decrying for nearly 10 years. That recognition, of course, is that Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s has been complicit in Myanmar’s genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas. But, even though… Read more.
Bearing in mind that what is past is prologue, here is how I ended “G20: Trump Clueless, Friendless, and Feckless (and Those Friggin’ Trump Kids!),” July 12, 2017: ____________________ I’m mindful that criticizing Trump is becoming as sadistic and futile as flogging a dead mule. Therefore, I shall end where I began – with the… Read more.
The New York Times is marking the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first blacks in America with a three-month editorial series called The 1619 Project. The series will document and narrate how enslaved blacks were already building America at Point Comfort before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. It will also… Read more.
Leaders around the world are aping Donald Trump’s dystopian presidency. For example: Democratic leaders in Hungary, Poland, and Italy are adapting his neo-nationalist policies while others in the Philippines, Brazil, and India are parroting his demagogic and divisive rhetoric. Dictatorial leaders everywhere are chanting his “fake news” mantra – not only to discredit any reporting… Read more.
This has been an annus terribilis. Already four relatives and two friends have passed away. And summer’s lease still has a way to go. Derek was rushed to hospital on August 8. There he presented many of the symptoms that resulted in the death of my big brother Christy in January. My sense of foreboding… Read more.
‘The world is laughing at us’ says Trump. (The BBC, February 6, 2018) He says this all the time, of course. It’s like a Tourette vocal tic. More to the point, though, it betrays his clinical projection. That said, some of us were laughing at Donald Trump long before he launched his laughable presidential bid… Read more.
Jeffrey Epstein was arguably the most notorious sex trafficker in US history. He was also a serial rapist with too many victims to count, invariably too young. Epstein pimped many of his victims out to his rich and powerful friends. That might explain how he amassed a fortune of over $500 million. Because I suspect many of those friends fell prey… Read more.
In November 2012, Barack Obama became the first US president to visit Myanmar. More to the point, he became the first world leader to make a pilgrimage to the home of its celebrated democracy activist, Aung San Suu Kyi. That home, of course, is where she spent 15 years under house arrest. This is why… Read more.
Social networks are replete with cynical and misleading posts. Nothing demonstrates this quite like the twits who tweet support for social activism. Because, far too often, they never take a single step beyond tweeting, and never express any concern when nobody else does. Imagine, for example, if the Civil Rights Movement amounted to little more… Read more.
