Some years ago, a cameraman gave me one of the tee shirts he’d sold as a sideline at a Republican convention. The front read “Life in News”. On the back, in large type, was printed “BLAME IT ON THE MEDIA.” Delegates, he told me, didn’t get the joke. Today, it’s in danger of becoming less a joke than a justifiable truism.… Read the rest
Much as it is justified, the opprobrium heaped on the Taliban for decreeing women must shroud themselves in all-encompassing burqas in public, would carry more weight if it included an uncomfortable acknowledgement: institutionalised misogyny doesn’t make them unique.… Read the rest
When Bob Dylan sang ‘the times they are a changin’, neither he nor those of us who sang along with him had regression in mind. Not even the oft-prescient Dylan could have guessed the verse that begins ‘the line it is drawn/the curse it is cast’ would sum up what the times have changed into.… Read the rest
“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.” Attributed to U.S. Vice-president (1893–1897) Adlai Stevenson I, the quote is an apt warning that strident avowals of Western leaders to go all out to help Ukraine are as much a thin veneer covering self-interest and hypocrisy, as they are firm and unshakeable policy.… Read the rest
It must be really annoying to be so rich that bleeding hearts are always banging on about how you could single-handedly solve world poverty or whatever. So, here’s a suggestion to ease the pain for the world’s leading multi-billionaires: try cashing in on the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: “It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it.”… Read the rest
The Peanuts character Linus once said: “There are three things I have learned never to discuss with people…religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin.” Pumpkins aside, the rare convergence of Passover, Easter and Ramadan prompts me to ignore his wisdom and ponder why faith is so often used as an excuse for venal behaviour.… Read the rest
The chances of self-imaged macho man Vladimir Putin ending up in court for war crimes in Ukraine are slim to nil. He has, however, already been judged impotent by the one thing his massive firepower could not overcome…the perverse truism that the worst of human beings invariably bring out the best of them.… Read the rest
Western governments are all but crowing over the efficacy of sanctions as a weapon in the war in Ukraine. Forgotten in the rush is that whatever their contribution towards victory over Vladimir Putin, sanctions are on the point of destroying the people of Afghanistan, but have little chance of changing let alone ousting the Taliban.… Read the rest
“Warning: viewers may find some of the images in this report disturbing.” Can there be a more pointless and insensitive caveat to a story about the civilian victims of war? You are supposed to be disturbed by war and suffering. The journalists who capture those images often take horrendous physical and psychological risks.… Read the rest
Nearly seven decades after they were written, the repeated lines at the end of each verse of Pete Pete Seeger’s great political song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, pose what may be the defining question for some of the ways the world is dealing with the war in Ukraine: “When will they ever learn?”… Read the rest