The latest in fair observer’s series of fictional dialogues intended to make sense of the underside of the news. FADE IN: INT.OFFICE AT CIA HQ, LANGLEY VA. — EVENING TWO SENIOR CIA ANALYSTS: TONY CATANIA (37), TAMMY AINSWORTH (45). THEY HAVE BEEN ASKED TO ASSIST ON...
In an article published by Al Jazeera, Donald Earl Collins, a history professor who has worked as a reader of students’ exam copies for the US College Board, describes one of the ways the US educational system transforms the teaching of history into a form of Eurocentric, neoliberal and...
In this edition of The Interview, Fair Observer talks to Akil Houston, an associate professor of African-American studies at Ohio University. Anti-black racism in the United States continues to be a problem over half a century since the abolition of Jim Crow laws. These laws enforced segregation...
Trump is not the first president to have problems with the English language. But he has transformed the language and style of presidents. No one can deny that Donald Trump is the hands-down champion of self-congratulations. As he awaited the calamitous arrival of Hurricane Florence on the East...
Hey, kids, soon your teachers may have the guns they need to keep your attention. Hand it to US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos — whose brother, Eric Prince, founded the mercenary army of Blackwater — to find a way to turn classrooms into virtual military battlegrounds. According to a report...
Recent trends show that while rents are falling for high-end dwellings, middle- and low-income renters are still struggling to afford housing. A lasting fallout from the Great Recession has been a sharp rise in the number of Americans who are renting rather than owning their homes. Sky-high...
History teaches us nothing, except the importance of cultivating the faculty of awareness. Historian Alfred McCoy has been tracking the rise of China and the decline of the American hegemon, a process he claims set in at the turn of the 21st century. He cites George W. Bush’s foreign policy as...
When there is no government response to do what is right in the face of what is wrong, what is wrong feeds on that void and grows. I have a story to tell. I just found a 5-year-old child from El Salvador. He is being “cared for” by Christians in Maryland under contract to the Office of...
A former Silicon Valley entrepreneur was downgraded and humiliated because of a combination of illegal activity and a failing business. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of life sciences company Theranos, is in the news again. Once the darling of Wall Street, admired and backed by no less than James...
Remembering Robert F. Kennedy and a time when political assassination was all the rage. Fifty years ago, the third spectacular assassination that marked US history in the 1960s took place. Robert F. Kennedy was fatally wounded in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. This followed...
This is how to make yourself available and rich in US culture. Yahoo News asked best-selling author Jen Sincero why so many people aren’t rich. Her answer tells us a lot about US culture today. “I find that in my own life and with the people I’ve been coaching, when people make the...
State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert gives us a lesson in what the US wants in Egypt. It may seem odd to define want, which is one of the first words any English-speaking child acquires when learning to speak. But when used in the context of diplomacy and political analysis, want is a...
The only thing worse than being threatened and infiltrated is not being threatened and infiltrated (apologies to Oscar Wilde). One of the key concepts of the Cold War was “communist infiltration.” As both the Democrats and Republicans appear to believe that the best way to “make America...
Robots and artificial intelligence may make humans redundant. In an article for the African publication The Elephant, Joe Kobuthi reminds us of a radical change taking place in Western economies, which he refers to as the “global North.” “A recent study conducted by two Oxford researchers...
Deep divisions and nonstop elections have destroyed any sense of common purpose or long-term thinking in the US. Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump celebrated his first year in office with a shutdown. The federal government closed for business at 12.01 am on January 20 and reopened on...
