Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Invisible Children’s entire campaign smacks of little more than a feel-good PR stunt (perhaps even a misleading ploy to raise funds for administrative rather than charitable purposes). In fact, I would wager a fair amount of my pride that if you were to ask Rihanna and any of her followers a week from today who Joseph Kony is, they would react as if you asked what… Read more.
Ukraine, a new post-war Germany Ukraine is at the epicenter of a global power struggle reminiscent of historical flashpoints. Russia seems hellbent on mirroring Germany’s aggressive expansionist tactics of 1939. Its ongoing attempt to annex Ukraine is eerily reminiscent of Germany’s annexation of Poland. Russian forces in two armored columns captured a key southeastern coastal town near the Russian border Thursday after… Read more.
I feel obliged to note that Israel and Gaza agreed to another truce on Tuesday – with both sides insisting that it will prove more lasting than their eight previous ceasefire agreements. Alas, this might only mean that, in about two or three years, Gaza will be rocketing Israel and Israel will be bombing Gaza… Read more.
A 9-year-old girl at a shooting range outside Las Vegas accidentally killed an instructor on Monday morning when she lost control of the Uzi he was showing her how to use… In a similar incident in 2008, 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj shot himself to death with an Uzi at a Massachusetts gun show organized by a… Read more.
Truth be told, I had no idea who Richard Attenborough was until Gandhi became an international blockbuster in 1982. This, I’m embarrassed to admit, despite Attenborough having an established career as an acclaimed character actor long before then. Hell, I only realized after he became the Oscar-winning director of Gandhi that he also directed one… Read more.
When George Orwell warned of “newspeak,” he envisioned a dystopian state in which a “Big Brother,” like Russian President Vladimir Putin, would use it as a tool to limit and control freedom of thought … and speech. Therefore, I suspect even Orwell would be shocked and disappointed to see newspeak being used instead by members… Read more.
Nothing betrays what cynical and exploitative regard the producers of Fifty Shades of Grey have for loving relationships quite like their scheduling the release of this movie for “Valentine’s Day 2015.” But they could not have anticipated the “premature” release of a scientific study on the deleterious psychosocial impact the Fifty Shades phenomenon is having on… Read more.
Ferguson has become a theatre of the absurd – complete with the-sky-is-falling reporters doing more to fuel the protests than to cover them, while using selfie-camera angels to ensure that they are featured as much as the protesters. There’s no denying that these protests would burnout overnight if the media lights, which have been inflaming… Read more.
Here, in part, is how I pooh-poohed – in “I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy,” July 2, 2013 – the moral indignation Germans (and other Europeans) hurled at the Americans after Snowden’s leaks revealed that the NSA routinely spied on them, including Chancellor Angela Merkel: The Europeans are ‘shocked, shocked,’ and are expressing feelings of profound… Read more.
