When it was written, there was no obvious connection to the Beatle’s profitable lyric “money can’t buy me love” and the Paul the Apostle’s warning that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’. In a coincidence you couldn’t make up, however, money is the basis of an unholy link-up of two reprehensible regimes and an easing of a record-breaking enmity between two others.… 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
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
How much bloodshed, destruction and chaos Vladimir Putin is willing to inflict upon Ukraine can be guessed at by looking at how far he’s already gone down the road to perfidy and infamy. And bear in mind he claims to be doing it to “de-Nazify” the country and end “bullying and genocide.”… Read the rest
Experts tend to have better focus than peripheral vision. In the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there is considerable evidence many of them had neither. Vladimir Putin’s aims have long been obvious, subtly framed by his historical perspective and steadily buttressed with means to fight back if they are opposed.… Read the rest
The early 2nd century poet Juvenal coined the phrase “bread and circuses” to describe how Roman emperors distracted their public from governmental shortcomings. The rash and ultimately short-sighted ploy echoes today in the form of crises. The danger is that crises can be lethal if mishandled, a distinct possibility when they are seasoned with cynicism.… Read the rest