In a world beset by a seemingly ever-metastasising Pandora’s box of life-altering, if not ending threats, for those with the means and responsibility of eliminating, or at the very least ameliorating them, the French philosopher Voltaire offers a worthy piece of advice: “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”… Read the rest
“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
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
“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
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
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
According to a recent headline: “Coverage of Ukraine has exposed longstanding racist biases in Western media”. The thrust of that and similar articles was that reporters noting the victims were Europeans, rather than people we normally think of as being refugees, were guilty of racism. As a journalist who has covered more than a few conflicts, I beg to differ.… Read the rest