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’m on record stating how much I dislike the annual Academy Awards show (the Oscars). Because I have little regard for preening, pampered poseurs showing off their borrowed frocks and bling-bling as a prelude to a three-hour show — only six minutes of which anyone really cares about (i.e., the time it takes to present… Read more.
Apple’s compliance with the Chinese government makes a mockery of its defiance against the American government. Not least because this betrays the fact that Apple is all too willing to sacrifice customer privacy for corporate profit… And if you believe the Chinese government used Apple to protect the privacy of its citizens, your naiveté is matched only by Apple’s hypocrisy.… Read more.
With all due respect to critics and members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy), how much a film makes, not whether it wins an Oscar, is the generally recognized measure of its success. Especially considering that winning an Oscar is more the result of crass political campaigning than any assessment of… Read more.
I have been lamenting Uganda’s floundering democracy all my adult life. With respect to elections, here is what I wrote years ago in “Where’s the Outrage?! Opposition Leaders Doing Hard Time During Elections,” December 30, 2006. ____________________ Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni is no more a democratic pioneer in Africa than Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is in… Read more.
Three years ago, Edward Snowden made defying government mass surveillance a cause celebre. Ever since, tech companies have been in the vanguard of those championing this cause. From day one, however, I’ve been decrying their hypocrisy and the ignorance of their customers. This excerpt – from “Complaints about NSA Spying Are Schizophrenic … and Misguided,”… Read more.
Inserting himself into the Republican presidential race, Pope Francis on Wednesday suggested that Donald J. Trump ‘is not Christian’ because of the harshness of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border. [Trump responded immediately, denouncing the pope’s remarks as ‘disgraceful’ and warning that] ‘If… Read more.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. In fact, rumors about Hillary’s sexuality have dogged her for as long as rumors about Bill’s infidelity have dogged him. Except that, where Bill’s indiscretions soon confirmed rumors about him, Hillary’s discretion always kept them in doubt about her. But things changed in 1992, when they… Read more.
I’m on record stating how much I dislike the Oscars. I have little regard for preening, pampered poseurs showing off their borrowed frocks and bling-bling as a prelude to a three-hour show — only six minutes of which anyone really cares about (i.e., the time it takes to present Oscars for actor and actress in a… Read more.
As improbable as it seemed when I launched this weblog, today marks the 11th anniversary of The iPINIONS Journal. Remarkably enough, I enjoy writing my commentaries even more now than I did back then. It might be a little more challenging, but I have no doubt I’ll be writing them for at least another eleven years.… Read more.
Justice Antonin Scalia, whose transformative legal theories, vivid writing and outsize personality made him a leader of a conservative intellectual renaissance in his three decades on the Supreme Court, was found dead on Saturday at a resort in West Texas… ‘He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues,’ Chief Justice… Read more.
