The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs--the military sworn to defend democracy and the same military currently bombing the snot out of ISIS thugs who have been rightly vilified for beheadings--now wants his members to honor a Saudi royal whose regime beheaded countless dissidents and allowed flogging women for flirting.
A quarter century after the end of the Cold War and decades after the signing of landmark nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements, are the U.S. and Russian governments once more engaged in a potentially disastrous nuclear arms race with one another? It certainly looks like it.
There is no doubt about the passion of Owen Arthur, one of the Caribbean’s foremost economists and thinkers, for the economic integration of the Region.
From January 4-12, 2015, Witness Against Torture (WAT) activists assembled in Washington D.C. for an annual time of fasting and public witness to end the United States' use of torture and indefinite detention and to demand the closure, with immediate freedom for those long cleared for release, of the illegal U.S. prison at Guantanamo.
Hackers target 19,000 French websites after extremists rampage leaving 17 dead. Two people are killed as police thwart a terror attack in Belgium. Former Detroit Rotary Club president gets life sentence for arranging the murder of his wife. Twenty Mexican state officials are being investigated for covering up threats and torture of witnesses to alleged extrajudicial killings. These are all stories in my local newspaper today.
There are many victims of terrorism carried out in the name of Allah and the prophet Muhammad, but none more so than people of the Muslim faith or people with Muslim names.
On December 29, 2014, the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor was shut down for good, cancelled 18 years before its license expired. The shutdown comes after thousands of protest actions; widespread uncontrolled leaks of radioactive tritium; the shocking collapse of a cooling tower, operator mismanagement, lying and cover-ups, and the state legislature’s 2010 passage of a “shut-down by 2012” law¾a statute later voided by a federal court. Entergy Corp.’s surrender announcement mentioned only “economic concerns.”
It’s 2015. People everywhere are making resolutions…lose weight, read more, quit smoking, etc. To resolve is the act of finding an answer or solution to a problem. Yet most of our resolutions are never achieved. According to Marti Hope Gonzales, Associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, just six weeks after making a resolution, 80 percent of people either have broken them or cannot even recall what they resolved. And of course, we feel like losers when we don’t achieve these goals.
If ever there was a time and an issue for the countries of the Caribbean to speak with one voice and at a high level, both the time and the issue have arrived.
At the beginning of each new year people around the world express their hopes and desires for seemingly elusive peace on earth. In the past year there have been many strides toward that goal. The greatest threat to peace and our survival, nuclear weapons, are at long last on the road to abolition. The people have spoken and leaders have heard. This new year we must recommit to the steps necessary to make this a reality.
It's now more than 40 years since I first worked in international sport and I have seen tremendous turbulence and significant change in the market ever since. But, quite frankly, I am not sure whether there has ever been another year like 2014 when it comes to off-field events hogging the headlines.
With the best intentions on the part of the Cuban government, the new relationship between the United States and Cuba -– welcome as it undoubtedly is -- will pose serious challenges for the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Unlike the progressive rehabbing of downtown buildings in Huntington, many cities suffer from population shifts that left sprawling amounts of real estate in their downtown empty and deteriorating.
Detroit has been recognized as a photographic paradise for those seeking abandoned structures, specifically large ones like hotels, department stores, and theaters. Ironically, as walk to work has become popular, over mall'ed larger cities have vacancies there too. (Video courtesy of You Tube.) Read more
On Christmas Eve 1914, German and British soldiers crept out of their trenches, played soccer together, exchanged gifts of food, and joined in singing carols. Alarmed, commanders on both sides warned of the crime of “fraternizing with the enemy” and the war ground on for an additional four years, not only killing millions but setting the stage for the next world war two decades later.
Hopefully, our country is emerging from years of economic disasters, beginning with the horrific events of and the horrendous betrayal of the U.S. economy by Wall Street’s “masters of the universe,” whose credo seems to be “as long as we get ours," as evidenced by the quick recovery of their salaries while much of the economy is still in intensive care as we enter 2015.
Those in our lives whom we consider to be most objective, who in many ways are paid to be objective, have repeatedly been shown to be anything but objective. Rather, they make decisions that are consistently influenced by unconscious (implicit) bias. White NBA referees call more fouls against black players than against white; MLB umpires are more likely to erroneously call a ball a strike if an all-star pitcher is on the mound; Israeli judges are more likely to grant parole at the beginning of the day than before lunch; doctors are less likely to provide adequate pain medication to patients of color and, because of bias, are prone to predictable errors in diagnostic reasoning.
On the evening of December 24th a century ago, peace broke out in the most unlikely of places. In the blasted, putrid trenches of Belgium and France, soldiers fighting on the Western Front put aside their arms in what became known as the Christmas Truce. Although World War I was then only a few months old, there had already been a million combat deaths. Many soldiers were weary of the futility and horrific costs of the war, and thousands of them spontaneously stopped trying to kill each other.
The US is cutting loose the shackles of the past by establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba after 53 years. But the first blow in the Western Hemisphere against those shackles was struck by four governments of the English-Speaking Caribbean. Today that single act should be a source of great satisfaction to leaders who put themselves, their governments and their countries at risk for a principle in which they believed Read more
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. -- Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965)
Churchill should know: his mother, Jennie Jerome, was an American! From Brooklyn!
I just [Saturday a.m. 12/13/14] saw on "Forbes on Fox" on Fox News Channel a panel discussion on why is Congress is talking about sending $498 billion in foreign aid to corrupt countries that hate us, including Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq. Steve Forbes said that this kind of foreign "aid" only contributes to the inherent corruption of the above countries, along with most of African nations.
In a recent article about Shirley Jackson, the president since 1999 of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)--a private university located in Troy, New York--the Chronicle of Higher Education revealed that, in 2012 (the latest year for which statistics are available), she received over $7 million from that institution. Like many modern campus administrators, President Jackson was also given a large mansion, first class air travel, and a chauffeured luxury car to transport her around the campus.
On Friday, Dec. 12, 2014, I received the following email from Frank Koller, author of "Spark", a 2011 book about Lincoln Electric Co. and other companies with no-layoff policies. (see the link below for my Aug. 14, 2011 review of this ground-breaking book)
Caribbean countries whose value is fixed to the US dollar should benefit, at least in the short term, from the fall in oil prices and the strengthening of the American currency. Oil prices fell to below US$65 a barrel for the first time in 5 years, while the US dollar strengthened against every major currency, including China’s Yuan Read more
Across West Virginia, our young people are aiming for greatness. Whether choosing a career path requiring a two-year degree from one of our state's community and technical colleges or a four year degree at one of our colleges and universities, many are considering futures in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields-and helping to lay a strong foundation for West Virginia's economic future.Read more
Hold on there, folks. Weird as it may sound, the confession of what was done in those torture chambers in the name of Americans but denied at the very top of government….yes this final opening of the books presents an opportunity.
Rolling Stone alleged a gang rape at UVA and now doubts its own report. I have no knowledge of the matter. Maybe the victim was completely honest. Maybe she was largely honest but too drunk, or just too traumatized, to remember which fraternity house she was in. Maybe she made it all up. I have no idea and hope a competent police department, rather than an incompetent magazine, tries to find out if possible.
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I think this applies to the U.S. clinging to the hoary Grand Jury system. Let's do what England did in 1933 and abolish grand juries.
It can only be a good thing that the attention of the nation is focused on the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and its aftermath. However, if the debate continues to be on the details of this particular case – many of which will likely never be known – or even on the growing problem of police heavy-handedness, or even the besetting problem of racism in America, we will never reach a solution to these tragedies.
Oil prices have hit a five-year low of US$67.50 a barrel. This should have been a godsend for the global tourism industry because the cost of air travel should have declined. But that has not happened.
To cap a 50-year career in service to West Virginia, retiring Senator Jay Rockefeller will deliver his final speech on the floor of the United States Senate Thursday afternoon, December 4, 2014. The speech is free and open to the public, and it may be viewed on C-SPAN. Senator Rockefeller’s long and distinguished tenure in the United States Senate began in 1985. His speech will reflect not only on his time in the Senate, but also his pathway to public service and the importance of public policy, now and into the future. Please share this email with others you know who may be interested. Read more
David Brook’s December 2 column in the New York Times arguing that classism, not racism, is what really ails our nation came off as one of the more racially tone-deaf commentaries so far on events in Ferguson. What must it feel like for an African-American to take in Brooks’s examination of 21st century class differences by means of a description of 19th century conditions in Britain: “The people who lived in these slums were often described as more like animals than human beings. For example, in an 1889 essay in The Palace Journal, Arthur Morrison described, “Dark, silent, uneasy shadows passing and crossing — human vermin in this reeking sink, like goblin exhalations from all that is noxious around. Women with sunken, black-rimmed eyes, whose pallid faces appear and vanish by the light of an occasional gas lamp, and look so like ill-covered skulls that we start at their stare. ‘Proper’ people of that era had both a disgust and fascination for those who lived in these untouchable realms. They went slumming into the poor neighborhoods, a sort of poverty tourism that is the equivalent of today’s reality TV or the brawlers that appear on ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’”
Like many in the U.S, I normally consider myself a staunch advocate of free speech and against most forms of censorship. I agree with a previous U.S court of appeals decision that determined a Facebook “like” was constitutionally protected free speech. As a long-time anti-domestic violence activist, though, I am deeply concerned about the use of social media to harass and abuse others. A decision in favor of Anthony Elonis in Elonis v. United States, expected in summer 2015, will have potentially grievous implications for the safety of persons in abusive relationships.
The following situation in Fayette County exemplifies the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) disregard for public safety. There are other examples, but this one has been studied by Duke University and the U.S. Geological Survey. These scientists found high levels of endocrine-disruptors and frack-fingerprint chemicals in affected water sources.: Read more
Charleston, W.Va. – As West Virginians head to stores to check-off gifts from their Christmas lists, Secretary of State Natalie E. Tennant is urging people to remember to check out the small businesses in their hometown.Read more
