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WEIGHING UP THE UNWORTHY IS WORTHY OF UNUSUAL WORDS

WEIGHING UP THE UNWORTHY IS WORTHY OF UNUSUAL WORDS

As a jour­nal­ist, noth­ing about  FOX “News” inclines me to be any­thing but pro­fane­ly dis­parag­ing of their ultra­crepri­dar­i­an law­suit defence of com­mit­ment to “the high­est jour­nal­is­tic stan­dards.” In an effort to com­ment and still main­tain deco­rum, I sought affla­tus (not what sprang to your mind) from a delight­ful work called “Foyle’s Philav­ery”.Read the rest

A LOT OF NOT ENOUGH WAS TOO MUCH

A LOT OF NOT ENOUGH WAS TOO MUCH

“Too much of any­thing is bad, but too much good whiskey is bare­ly enough”. Health con­cerns aside, Mark Twain’s apho­rism is an apt way to mea­sure the report­ing booze-up of the Trump arraign­ment. Too much of noth­ing hap­pen­ing on air for too long dis­tilled the live cov­er­age into a vin­tage more akin to a cheap blend than a fine sin­gle malt.Read the rest

A TOUCH OF REALITY CAN GO A LONG WAY

A TOUCH OF REALITY CAN GO A LONG WAY

News of a shift in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics to the point where “anti­war voic­es on the left have aligned with ‘Amer­i­ca First’ enthu­si­asts on the right who resist entan­gling the Unit­ed States in for­eign con­flicts”, will no doubt come as a relief to those who might be con­cerned about what recent ver­sions of “Amer­i­can val­ues” entan­gling might include.Read the rest

A MODEST OFFER TO THE GUN LEGISLATORS

A MODEST OFFER TO THE GUN LEGISLATORS

In a response to the Nashville school shoot­ing hor­ror, House Major­i­ty Leader Steve Scalise (R‑La.) man­aged to add a clause to the rote “keep those fam­i­lies in our prayers” that in any oth­er con­text might indi­cate he actu­al­ly has a grip on the real­i­ty and urgency of the issue: “…and then see if there were things that were missed along the way.”Read the rest

Three Letters spell ‘How to cope’

Three Letters spell ‘How to cope’

Polit­i­cal per­fidy, eco­nom­ic irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and dis­agree­ment over accept­able social norms and speech have become so per­ni­cious that those who favour a sen­si­ble and civ­il mid­dle ground, need some help to stay sane in the hope of rea­son even­tu­al­ly pre­vail­ing. To that end, I offer this advice from the gold stan­dard of cri­sis man­age­ment, Win­ston Churchill: “Stay calm and K.B.O.”Read the rest

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS AN ADJECTIVE

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS AN ADJECTIVE

It seems to me that what used to be termed “civ­il soci­ety” has slid into the abyss that is its antithe­sis. The blame could be attrib­uted to the myr­i­ad stress­es and strains the mod­ern world impos­es on a dai­ly basis, includ­ing too many choic­es. How­ev­er, the crux of the mat­ter, I think, is the lack of a sin­gle adjec­tive: mutu­al.Read the rest

CARING SHOULDN’T BE JUST AN AID PACKAGE

CARING SHOULDN’T BE JUST AN AID PACKAGE

“Com­pas­sion”, the 19th cen­tu­ry Pol­ish philoso­pher Arthur Schopen­hauer wrote, “ is the basis of morality.”
In a world sore­ly in need of copi­ous amounts of it, com­pas­sion is both high­ly selec­tive and hostage to a short atten­tion span on the part of the pub­lic and the news media, the inevitable con­se­quences of the way news is disseminated. Read the rest