Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
[Author’s note: This commentary was originally published on Friday at 8:50 pm. The crisis in Egypt remains acute: Mubarak is ignoring persistent and defiant calls to step down, over 100 protesters have been killed yet tens of thousands continue to ignore increasingly rigid curfews, burning and looting are now widespread, and the initially accommodating military… Read more.
Whose next: Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah of Jordan, Saleh of Yemen … Khadafi of Libya? The prospects make me positively giddy. (Egypt on fire, The iPINIONS Journal, January 29, 2011) Related commentaries: Egypt on fire Read more.
[Author’s note: The following commentary was originally published on Tuesday, January 25, at 5:53 am. I have decided to reprise it because the protests the Tunisian revolution triggered across the Middle East will likely reach a tipping point today. I have also appended an update based on recent developments in Tunisia.] Eleven days ago, Tunisian President… Read more.
Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger and other freaks pumped up on steroids distorted public perceptions about health and fitness, Jack LaLanne was the pied piper exhorting people to get in shape the old-fashioned way: with proper nutrition and daily exercise. The only way you can hurt the body is not use it. Inactivity is the killer… Read more.
I have listened to enough State of the Union Addresses to know that they invariably amount to a triumph of style over substance. And nothing demonstrates this quite like the most memorable thing about President Obama’s address last year being not something he said, but a congressman yelling, “You lie.” Nevertheless, Obama can take credit for delivering… Read more.
Anyone who knows anything about football knows that the most exciting day of the NFL season is Conference Championship Sunday, not Super Bowl Sunday. And, true to form, yesterday’s NFC Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears (which the Packers won 21-14) and AFC Championship game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets (which the Steelers won 24-19)… Read more.
Related commentaries: Mr Hu comes to Washington Read more.
Nothing reflects the schizophrenic and indulgent nature of parenting in America today quite like non-Asian mothers wanting their kids to be just as educated and talented as Asian kids, while venting self-righteous indignation at the way Asian mothers raise their enviable kids. Well, a Chinese mother has finally addressed this parenting pathology among non-Asian mothers… Read more.
As if the Haitian people have not suffered enough…. Talk about an earthquake; psychologically, this might be an even bigger blow. Never mind the few poor, misguided souls who greeted former dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier like their Lord and Savior when he returned out of the blue on Sunday. For I suspect the vast… Read more.
It’s clear why China timed the first public display of its new stealth bomber a couple of weeks ago to coincide with the first visit by a U.S. defense secretary in more than ten years: China wanted to signal its rise not just as an economic superpower, but as a military one too. I’ve been concerned… Read more.
