High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
David Schussler Here we are a nation of escapists, having displaced the indigenous, having fucked up the old world as we (whether we knew it or not) looked for a new world to destroy. While escaping the harsh realities of personal responsibility for the lives we no longer wanted, we dragged a battery of philosophers […]
Don’t pay attention to the quotes taken out of context and spun to make Pope Francis seem to the left of the trendier than thou Episcopal church. Go and read what he actually said, and what he has said in the past, and you will find nuances that don’t fit into sound bites. The Catholic […]
One Catholic pacifist blog said he opposed the Iraq war but wanted to see the “other side”, so read a highly touted book by someone who was there. The problem? The book was a cynical one, of course, imitating the “Catch 22” meme. How did the writer get a book contract? A reporter found him […]
One only has to scan the news papers or listen to comments about religion to see anti religion is now in style: not just of Catholics, of course, but hatred of all men of good will who follow traditional values. How dare they think that some things are actually right and some things are wrong […]
The latest episode of the “Consider This!†podcast is out. Conservative commentary in 10 minutes or less. Hugo Chavez died recently. He took a country rich with oil money and turned it onto a socialist paradise, complete with high inflation, shortages of food and electricity (to name just a few items), and soaring crime rates. Only in […]
Most Americans know about the “Asian Tiger” economies (and if PNoy keeps hitting at corruption, the Filipinos may join that group). But did you know that other areas of the world are similarly expanding their economies? A day or two ago, I ran into an article that those “undocumented” immigrants in the US are now […]
I had written two skeptical articles on the issue of “isolated tribes” in the Amazon region. In the first article, I pointed out that the idea that these people can and should remain isolated (by keeping out the governments and do gooders and developers) is wrongheaded, because that won’t stop the bad guys from moving […]
Back in February, I wrote sarcastically about the kerfuffle by some do gooders who were trying to “protect” some isolated tribes in Peru. Yes, let them live in their paradise, untouched by modern man. Because you are protecting them from government and anthropologists and and church do gooders, no one else will bother them. (and […]
My summer reading this year kicked off with Cambodia’s Curse: the Modern History of a Troubled Land by former New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley. Brinkley won a Pulitzer in 1980 for his coverage (at the Louisville Courier Journal) of the fall of the Khmer Rouge. The title Cambodia’s Curse bugs me. Though cultures resistant […]
I am old enough to remember when women were exiled into specific specialties in medicine (quick: how many women Urologists do you know), and a similar problem was seen in college (few women in my advanced science classes) and in the newspaper (where women often were expected to write fluffy reports for the fashion and […]
Jose Henriquez, the Chilean Miner has sent a special message to parents and carers of children and adults with autism to mark Autism Sunday 2011 which falls on Sunday 13th February. Jose Henriquez was one of the 33 miners trapped underground in the San José mine in Chile. Henriquez organised daily prayers deep down in […]
I always say: “Follow the money”. A couple of days ago, a lot of my green bloglinks were rhapsodic about those isolated Amazon tribes who were filmed from a plane. So when I checked on the group that released the photos and story, voila, sure enough: they are run by folks with very European/white American […]
A lot of fundamentalist Christians see radical environmentalism as a neo pagan religion, so when some bimbo invoked a Mayan goddess, it was sure to raise a few eyebrows. From the WashingtonPost: Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, invoked the ancient jaguar goddess Ixchel in her opening statement to […]
I saw the word "Jesus" on the sleeves of the shirts on the Chilean miners as they came up, one by one, in the capsule. (Yeah, we had the streaming video going as I worked from home. What a terrific event.) But no news organization so much as mentioned the other writings on those shirts. […]
A small headline in the news: Guinea pig touted as solution to Congo food crisis. …it’s not known how or when guinea pigs — native to South America — arrived in Congo, but CIAT (the Colombia-based agricultural research institute, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture) researchers discovered them last year being kept as “micro-livestock” in […]
Over my Christmas vacation, while I wasn’t blogging much, I was still watching the news and bookmarking articles to cover later on. Today I’m using one of those bookmarks. While the original story itself is a bit stale, the concept is what I want to focus on. From “Investor’s Business Daily” on December 4th: Chile […]
Those who travel by air in the future might soon face full body pat downs to check for bombs in the bosom and crotch, thanks to Umar the Panty bomber. But the real problem is that “no using the rest room for the last two hours of flight”. Apparantly, Umar spent an hour in the […]
Hollywood, are you listening? Liberals who think at least Chavez isn’t the monster he’s often portrayed as, are you paying attention? President Hugo Chávez has risked international ire by lauding Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan terrorist notorious for a series of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings across Europe, as a "revolutionary fighter" unjustly imprisoned for trying […]
An article on the left-leaning website Truthout announced yesterday that a “new direction in the war on terror” may result from a case that occurred in the last year of the Bush Administration. Bryant Neal Vinas, an American-born suspected terrorist who was captured in Pakistan, was given “all the rights of American criminal suspects.” The results? […]
Reading through the Screens of Bias The New York Times has a poignant story, in significant miniature, of how last week’s coup in Honduras has split Honduran society. Jorge Arturo Reina, Honduran ambassador to the United Nations has sided with ousted President Manuel Zelaya. Honduran ambassador to the United States Roberto Flores Bermúdez, Reina’s former […]
Thoughts on Honduras All of the facts that can be gleaned through the news media indicate that the OAS (Organization of American States) is acting irresponsibly. They have called the ousting of former Honduran President Zelaya a “military coup” when the facts clearly indicate that the Honduran Supreme Court ordered the military to remove Zelaya […]
In Africa alone, 800,000 children die of malaria each year. The death rate was actually once lower, but then economic problems, and the banning of DDT caused a rebound of disease carrying mosquitoes, and a resurgence in these diseases. But it’s not only malaria: Southeast Asia has had a rebound in Dengue fever in the […]
CNN is reporting that there is to be a “new beginning” in the US relationship with Cuba. Yet Cuba continues to jail dissidents, and has not changed it’s policies (so loved by the western social planners) that let the neighborhood busy bodies butt into your private life. Shouldn’t a “new beginning” mean something? At the […]
When offered the opportunity to review En Este Momento, Claudia Acuna’s latest album, I jumped at the chance. I am a huge fan of Latin Jazz in general, and Claudia Acuna in particular. Once the album arrived, I wasted no time in ripping open the cover and getting down to business. I was not disappointed. […]
Here in the Philippines, we live within sight of an extinct volcano, and less than 100 miles from the great Mt.Pinatubo. Mt Pinatubo, whose eruption was so severe that it lowered the world average temperature a degree, showed the world how devastating a volcanic eruption can be, but it also showed the world how a […]
MEMO TO: Richard Feducci, Overlord of Finance FROM: E Pluribus, Wondergod SUBJECT: Five Year International Finance Plan DATE: January 1, 2005 Happy New Year, Rich. Got some good news and some bad news. The bad news: We’re going to let the American economy crater. The good news: Everybody else’s will, too. The best news: By […]
By Jefferson Flanders Who hasn’t been disturbed by the recent images of Palestinian civilians killed and wounded by the Israeli incursion into urban Gaza? Or deeply troubled by the video of injured children and lifeless bodies? The IDF’s military assault proved both misguided and counterproductive, a disproportionate overreaction to rocket attacks by Hamas. It was […]
It’s a saga that brings tears to the eyes. Years ago, back in the late 1960’s or 1970’s, some imported Argentinian parrots arrived in the US and set up housekeeping in Brooklyn, a section of New York famous for their immigrant neighborhoods. How the Quaker Parrots got there is not known: theories range from being […]
I’m watching CNN International gleefully report a “gotcha” against the Colombian government. Apparantly, one of the soldiers who rescuedIngrid Betancourt and other innocent hostages from FARC in Colombia had a tiny Red Cross on his jacket. Hmm…aren’t there stories of “insurgents” in Iraq and Gaza and Lebanon using Red Crescent ambulances to move arms? I […]
A former United States Diplomat is asking a Virginia judge for leniency after being charged for possession of child pornography in April. Gons G. Nachman, age 42, a former Consular Officer, had recorded various sexual acts with young girls between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. Nachman admitted in court that he did have sexual […]
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