Make Sense of the world
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The majority of media outlets in the US seem to agree, with hindsight, that the wars in the Middle East initiated by George W. Bush and prolonged by the next two presidents were launched under false pretenses and represent a waste of blood and treasure. Curiously, they also seem to believe that...
Dark times loom for the US economy in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s latest threat on August 1 to levy 10% tariffs on some $300 billion of imports from China. In response, China allowed the yuan to weaken against the dollar and thereby cushion the impact for Chinese exporters. In...
Business Insider attempts to make sense of the deep divide within the Democratic Party in the US that leaves those who identify as Democrats in a major metaphysical quandary, wondering not just about their identity but whether they have a claim to exist. In so doing, it demonstrates a problem...
A group of Italians started the Slow Food movement back in the 1980s. Stay away from fast-food restaurants, they urged: Eat local, focus on traditional recipes, relax and enjoy your meal. The Slow Food movement began as a protest against McDonald’s, which opened a new franchise near...
Julie Turkewitz, writing for The New York Times, reveals the existence of an innovative sector of the economy represented by “a new group of real estate developers investing in the nation’s central prairies and Western foothills: doomsday capitalists.” Their business consists of following...
When a government fails to meaningfully respond to the carnage in its streets, every citizen should question the competence and corruption of those charged with the governmental responsibility to act, as well as the legitimacy of the government itself. So it is, in the wake of the latest gun...
During the last two years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the news media focused on one story: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The developing and probably lingering story that may dominate the news cycle for the remaining 18 months of Donald Trump’s first presidential term may turn out to be...
The HuffPost explores the question of whether, as Donald Trump and others have claimed, video games are responsible for the frequent mass killings in the US. We learn that Trevor Noah, a late-night television comedian, “introduced ‘The Legislator: License To Bill’ ― in which players try to...
Editor’s Note: Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy American financier, was found dead in his prison cell in an apparent suicide on August 10, 2019. He had been awaiting trial on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges, to which he pleaded not guilty in July. This article by Ellis Cashmore, author of...
In the runup to the 2018 midterm elections, US President Donald Trump insisted that what was happening at the border should be thought of as an invasion. Hesitating between employing a metaphor or a simile, Trump said, “Some people call it an ‘invasion.’ It’s like an invasion. They have...
Afghanistan has long been touted as the “graveyard of empires.” The British and the Soviets certainly discovered that lesson to their great regret. Perhaps future historians will judge the failure of the United States to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan over a two-decade period as a critical...
