Israel: growing sense of war
And then the conversation turned to the war. The next war. I can’t remember how we rounded that corner, how we hit against that brick wall. It was last Friday, a beautiful evening, and we sat on a...
Category: Politics
Azarov’s sexist remarks in context
Last month, Mykola Azarov made Ukraine look like a wonderfully modern and enlightened nation when he famously said that conducting reforms "is not a woman's business." Since then, plenty of people...
President Calderón and speaking “badly” about Mexico
On repeated occasions in recent months, Felipe Calderón has urged Mexicans to avoid speaking ill of their country. The latest example came in a speech in late March, but perhaps the clearest...
Rethinking Work: service industry labor and the face of SEIU
When Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union and Barack Obama's most frequent guest at the White House, announced last week that he was stepping down, it sent ripples...
Shades of Oklahoma: people are still angry
April 19th marked the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh was spurred to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building by what he deemed to be the mishandling of Waco and...
An Arab Renaissance against all odds? – excerpt
Pan-Arabism, which crystallised during the 50's and 60's of the last century as a quasi secular socialist movement is, by all accounts, dead. The Arab Intelligentsia has grieved and mourned for the...
Tamsin Omond: Not 4 Sale, not well organized either
“There’s this thing, it’s called Government, and it’s got a hell of a lot of resources and it’s got a lot of people making very important decisions… but those people and those decisions...
Britain’s televised electoral debate: the end of politics?
This week the British public will see a theatrical spectacle that most other democratic countries have 'enjoyed' for decade: a pre-election leaders' debate. As Britain heads for the first general...
WikiLeaks and monsters
During Vietnam, we in the U.S. saw the war. We saw photographs come back that froze scenes of horror in front of our eyes. During current wars, though, we have television cameras and satellites and...
From Nixonland to Obamanation
The most disturbing thing about reading Rick Perlstein's Nixonland is how little has changed. Even the names of the players themselves--some are still around, like Charlie Rangel, Donald Rumsfeld,...