Uncategorized
-
America's Immigration Lesson to Europe
The United States and Europe face a host of common economic and security challenges that are well-known and well-debated: The risk of future terrorist attacks, the effects of global warming, exorbitant gas and food prices and the global credit crunch are recognized as transnational threats for which transatlantic cooperation will be critical. A recent article…
-
Sudan, Off With the Head!
Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir has just been indicted for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. It’s a nice gesture. Better 19 years late than never. Whether the warrant issued by the ICC will result in Bashir’s arrest and trial, however, is a dubious prospect. It will take more than…
-
A Stream of Change at Fountain Square
Barack Obama’s address to the NAACP convention was unspectacular, as these things go. It’s just that we’d heard all his material before, as good as it is. Repeat tomorrow.What made the NAACP speech significant wasn’t what Obama said and it didn’t happen in the convention hall. Its significance was in a crowd thousands-deep, two blocks…
-
History Made, History Promised
Poor John McCain. He must be asking himself, “How am I supposed to follow that?” That, of course, is Barack Obama’s rousing appearance at the NAACP convention in Cincinnati Monday night. When McCain delivers his own speech to the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization on Wednesday morning, the ovation Obama triggered may still…
-
Misfire
Honestly, I can’t get worked up about it. Maybe because it’s summertime. Maybe because economic analysts are predicting more than 100 U.S. banks could fail this year, and the bank-run scene from It’s a Wonderful Life keeps flashing through my mind. (Maybe I should mosey on down to the local branch.) Or maybe because it’s…
-
Satire 101
Are you laughing yet? If not, you’re probably joining the growing chorus of jeers that has assailed the July 21 The New Yorker magazine cover illustration by artist Barry Blitt, dubbed “The Politics of Fear.” In it, a turban-wearing Barack Obama gives his Afro-wearing, machine-gun gripping wife Michelle a pound as they stand in the…
-
Homewreckers
You gotta admire, on some cynical level, a crook who can steal your money and make you believe it’s your own fault for getting jacked. That’s perhaps the most galling part about the con-job banks and lenders are still running on America. They spent a decade creating the “mortgage meltdown”—knocking down prescient state-level safeguards, dreaming…
-
Lift EVERY Voice?
Jazz singer Rene Marie recently courted controversy when she performed at the “State of the City” address by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper. Expected to sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” Marie instead broke out into a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Some have complained, including Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, that Marie needlessly made a…
-
Lay Off Soror Barbie!
When I’m correctly tagged as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, I’d like to think that it’s because I exude ambition, class and a belief in paying it forward. Experience has taught me otherwise. Some people look no further than the color of my skin and length of my hair. The stereotype of…
-
Global Waiting
Last year, Congress passed a measure calling for better gas mileage by the year 2020. Last week, the G-8 proposed reducing global gas emissions by the year 2050. I’m making some major announcements, too. I will be coming to work on time (starting in 2010). I will clean up my garage (by 2015). I will…