In amateur theater, being rejected as not good enough for a bit part is a hurtful snub. On the world stage, Donald Trump just turned that into a starring role, once again proving that he’s in a class of his own — just not in the way he fantasizes.… Read the rest
That few New Year’s resolutions are kept in full matters less than the recognition of defects that need to be addressed. Imagine how much of an improvement 2026 could be over last year if those who wield power made a few.… Read the rest
The sad beings who put a sign reading “Santa Is Fake” in a window along a Christmas parade route, and Western nations who’ve made unprecedented cuts to aid budgets have something in common: neither see the value in what they are denigrating.… Read the rest
Acclaiming what amounts to a ceasefire in Gaza as potentially (or definitively) worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize before it becomes a signed-by-all-sides peace agreement, is premature. It also threatens to subsume what the very suggestion makes clear should be awarded: an Ignoble Indifference-to-Peace Prize.… Read the rest
Sliding quietly along the shoreline of a lake created 12,000 years ago, when the last Ice Age retreated, brings the difference between change caused by natural process, and that wreaked by human folly, into baffling focus.… Read the rest
Railing against the idiocy and iniquities of pusillanimous media barons, shameless political opportunists and the perpetrators of the abomination of the war in Gaza having had little to no effect, it’s time to deploy what they fear most — mockery.… Read the rest
Known to psychologists as “the illusion of truth”, the propaganda law “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is used so often, blatantly and cynically by Israeli spokespersons that anything they say must be taken with not a pinch, but the pillar of salt the Bible says Lot’s wife turned into for looking back at Sodom and Gomorrah.… Read the rest
The killing of five journalists in a tent in Gaza this week is a cruel lesson for world leaders who have played along far too long with Israel’s “righteous victim” shield: what you do out of fear is what you become.… Read the rest
A few days ago I spent some time with the loon family I wrote about last week. The parents called out twice, to help the two chicks find them in the choppy waves, which prompted the thought that my exasperation with news coverage, and the world in general, is directly related to the excessive use of pointless words.… Read the rest
Those who “speak truth to power” by calling out injustice and demanding change are exalted as courageous. So what word shall we apply to those with power who speak weasel words instead of acting?… Read the rest