High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
I read a name from the past in today’s news: Medgar Evers. The name takes me back to the days of when as a child we visited our aunt who lived in the deep south, and I was astonished that there “colored only” restaurants and water fountains. Evers was one of the heroes who fought […]
The latest “Western” movie from Hollywood, about aliens and starring a petulant British actor, was a bomb, and that led many “experts” to again predict the demise of the Western as a film genre. Of course, the real reason for the problem is the nihilism of Hollywood, not the lack of stories. So could I […]
My husband as a young teenager joined his older brother’s guerilla group to help rid Luzon of the Japanese in 1945. Alas, the story of the terrible fight, first in the city of Manila, and later against the fleeing Japanese hiding in the jungles and mountains of Luzon, is too often forgotten, overshadowed by those […]
It was called “Operation Vengence”. He had ordered the deaths of thousands of Americans using airplanes, and alerted the average American that a war of civilizations was now endangering them. Therefore, the president used secret intelligence networks to find where the mastermind was hiding. And after some discussions, the president approved of the mission tasked […]
Although the last holdouts in Corrigidor didn’t surrender until May 1942, it is April 9th that is the anniversary of the surrender of Bataan. At dawn, 9 April 1942, against the orders of Generals Douglas MacArthur… Major General Edward P. King, Jr., commanding Luzon Force, Bataan, Philippine Islands, surrendered more than 76,000 (67,000 Filipinos, 1,000 […]
Back in the “good old days”, a lot of states had “literacy tests” for voters. If you didn’t pass them, you couldn’t vote. Of course, it was a scam: the real reason for the testing was to eliminate black voters, and the fight to remove the laws was part of the civil rights movement to […]
While doing some investigation into the history of epidemics, I came across this fact in an article about Native American women veterans, many of whom served as nurses in the US Military. Â Four Native American Catholic Sisters from Fort Berthold, South Dakota worked as nurses for the War Department during the Spanish American War […]
ArcheologyNews reports that a researcher claims Henry VIII didn’t die of a combination of syphillis, obesity related diabetes and malaria, (and perhaps a bit mentally unstable from cerebral syphilis and the mercury used back then to treat it). No, they claim it was a rare complication of the Kells’ antigen called McLeod syndrome. Research conducted […]
the news of the Japanese earthquake is terrible. US Navy Photo from StrategyPage. But a few stories below the fold show how such disasters sometimes bring out the best in people. BelmontClubBlog points out how the US Navy is there, assisting the Japanese Navy in areas where the infrastructure makes other ways to deliver aid […]
If you live in the US, mark your calenders: It’s the Great American Shake- out drill. check out this link for more information. so what do you do when an earthquake strikes? when I lived in Minnesota, we always kept emergency supplies in our car (in case we got caught in a snowstorm or skidded […]
The Washington post discovers that patients can find a lot of medical nonsense on line. Well, duh. Every conspiracy theory known to man is on line. And the more outrageous, the more “hits” and readers you get. One “advice” column on how to make money blogging suggested you stick to one type of blogging and […]
In a previous post, I joked that if the Governor of Wisconsin wanted to fire all his teachers, he could hire a lot of qualified Filipino teachers to replace them. Yet this is not quite a joke: The cut backs in US medical training have resulted in the active importation of foreign medical graduates to […]
Clinton once had a line “It’s the economy, stupid”, and one longs for someone to teach economics to the present administration. I was always a union supporter, and many of my family and friends belonged to unions. But you know what happened to a lot of textile jobs in the northern states in 1950’s and […]
TedLipien.com, Truckee, CA, February 08, 2011 — One would think that the centennial of Ronald Reagan’s birthday could be a perfect public diplomacy theme for all U.S. embassies in Central and Eastern Europe — a great opportunity for embassy-sponsored events to strengthen ties with America among diverse nations that owe their current independence and freedom […]
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 […]
When I heard that there had been a Native American prayer at the memorial ceremony in Tucson, I was not surprised. When I lived on Indian Reservations, we commonly had such prayers at most ceremonies or meeting. But for memorial services, we often also had Christian clergy (usually either Anglican or Catholic) give a prayer. […]
En ce moment, il n’y a plus de pilote dans l’avion. [At the moment, there is no longer a pilot on the plane.] — A European comment on President Obama as a leader of the Free World. TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, USA, January 03, 2011 — Who is the leader of the Free World when democracy […]
Update: America.gov restored Ted Lipien’s comment. TedLipien.com, Truckee, California, December 27, 2010 — On the day the U.S. Senate voted to approve the new arms reduction treaty with Russia, I found an article on the State Depatment’s website, America.gov, which gave a long list of the START treaty’s benefits lauded by the Obama administration but […]
How’s that for holiday spirit?? I’ve just about had enough of the minimization of Christmas. Political correctness, coupled with bitter, angry atheists, have all but destroyed any remnants of the reason for celebrating this holiday, and I am at an unprofessional boiling point. Yes, this shall be one of my rants. Does anyone really believe […]
China has already used it’s economic clout to intimidate many countries to boycott the Nobel Prize cermony that honors their poet Liu Xiaobo. This boycott has gotten them criticism from some human rights groups, including those in our Philippines. The ability and willingness of China to use it’s economic clout for political purposes is a […]
Obama to the Poles: Have some Patriot missiles that don’t work to protect you from Russia  Opinia.US Truckee, CA, December 6, 2010 — The Guardian newspaper in the U.K. has released and commented on a number of leaked U.S. cables dealing with Poland. There needs to be a much greater scrutiny of these cables by mainstream U.S. […]
Opinia.US Truckee, CA, December 8, 2010 — A secret cable from the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw released by WikiLeaks shows former American Ambassador Victor H Ashe being deeply disappointed and frustrated with the Obama Administration’s treatment of Poland. The leaked cable lists a number of public diplomacy missteps by the Obama White House, including the President’s decision not to accept the […]
by Ted Lipien Opinia.US Truckee, CA, November 29, 2010 — Leaked secret State Department cables may help to resolve the mystery as to why President Obama chose September 17, 2009 to make his announcement on canceling President Bush’s missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The announcement pleased the Kremlin, which had been […]
Teacher of the Year: The Mystery & Legacy of Edwin Barlow is unlike any memoir you will ever read, because unlike every other memoir, Edwin Barlow’s life was an impenetrable secret that took years to uncover. When Mr. Barlow died, there were no libraries to reveal his taste in literature, neither wife nor relatives to […]
I am bemused when the elites of both parties are horrified at a woman candidate who overturned their chosen candidate in the primaries. No surprise about this, after all the Press promises to promote the propaganda, never mind the truth of the matter. From the Atlantic: Chuck Todd said it first… “There will be an […]
In April, 2008, the press was hailing the brilliance of Barack Obama, and dissing the much more experienced Hillary Clinton for not dropping out of the race, even though the race was close and several primaries were still due to be held. So, when in early April, stories started percolating on right wing blogs and […]
Background: According to a report in the National Review, the ACOG (American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists) originally opposed the procedure the select ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure . . . would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.†But Kagan wrote them a memo instructing […]
General Mc Chrystal has committed a major breech in protocol when he openly criticized the President and the President’s plans for Afghanistan in an interview in the Rolling Stone. For the sake of our democracy, such behavior cannot be tolerated. He needs to be relieved from duty. Why do I say this? No, I am […]
In the olden days, we learned in school the folly of King Canute who sat on the seashore and ordered the tide to stop coming in, but all that happened was that he got wet. The real story Canute had learned that his flattering courtiers claimed he was “So great, he could command the tides […]
There are missing folks in the culture of Hollywood and the American news media. One “missing person” are ordinary Hispanics.Another is the ordinary Asian. Hispanics differ from one another (my Colombian born sons never ate a taco, and spoke Castilian, not Mexican dialect). But Asians differ even more, even those from the same country. Asians […]
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