Chickens come home to roost for the UK

Many of the conflicts around the world have their roots in the way that the British colonialists drew lines creating nations that divided people that had common identities and joined together in one nation groups that had tensions with each other. After the British left as a result of the decolonization process, these ethnic conflicts simmered and exploded. Robert Mackey says that the British did the same thing with Ireland and that is now biting them in the rear when it comes to Brexit.
[Read more…]

Why is it so hard to understand that donning blackface makeup is racist?

I try to avoid the occasional dust-up involving media personalities, since I do not really care about their comings and goings. But the recent flap over Megyn Kelly’s comments expressing puzzlement as to why white people wearing blackface is seen as racist is worth noting. In this case, she was saying that if someone wanted to be Diana Ross for Halloween, then what was wrong with making her face black? As a result of her comments, it appears that she is being fired by NBC. Before coming to NBC, Kelly had a long history at Fox News of racist dog whistles, via statements proclaiming that Santa Claus and Jesus were white.
[Read more…]

Mohammed bin Salman goes into damage control mode

In the wake of the widespread outrage over the involvement of the Saudi Arabian government in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has gone into full damage control mode. He has allowed Khashoggi’s eldest son Salah, who had been barred from leaving the country and was forced into a photo op with bin Salman a few days ago, to leave the country. bin Salman is also trying to placate the Turkish president,the person most dangerous to him because of his ability to release all manner of damaging information. After not saying anything for three weeks, bin Salman has now said that Saudi Arabia and Turkey must work together.
[Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra fires two prominent members

I blogged recently about two prominent members of the Cleveland Orchestra, concertmaster William Preucil and principal trombonist Massimo La Rosa, who had been placed on leave pending investigations into sexual harassment and misconduct. Today, after an outside investigation delivered its report, the two were fired. People outside Cleveland and the orchestra world may not realize what a powerful figure Preucil was in the classical music circles, so this is not an insignificant event. It will have wide repercussions and I hope it will deter such behavior in the future.
[Read more…]

Erdoğan’s speech and the UAE connection to Saudi Arabia

The speech today by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan turned out to be somewhat underwhelming. It had been expected that he would provide at least some of the evidence that Turkish investigators have accumulated on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But he did not do so, choosing instead to reject the Saudi account of the killing and pointing the finger at the ‘highest ranks’ of the Saudi government.
[Read more…]

Why voting matters

Election day in the US is on November 6 this year. Although many places allow early voting and voting by mail, I like to do it in person. Writer and comedian Demi Adejuyigbe explains how to vote and why it is important to do so, despite all the well-known problems with democracy in the US. The greatest fear of the oligarchy is if large numbers of people vote, which is why voter suppression efforts are so commonplace in the US. The wealthy and powerful control pretty much everything and voting is really the only time when ordinary people get to exercise any power at all. For that reason alone, it is important to not squander that opportunity.

Australian political turmoil continues

Australia has seen a huge turnover in its political leadership with five prime ministers in as many years, with most of the changes occurring not due to national elections but because of political backstabbing and intrigue within parties that have unseated party leaders. (In the parliamentary system, the prime minister is not directly elected but is the person who commands the majority of party members in parliament.)
[Read more…]

Why the Saudis have the US over a barrel-and it’s not an oil barrel

That the Saudi government and its powerful figure crown prince Mohammed bin Salman are brazenly lying about what happened to Jamal Khashoggi is now blindingly obvious. There is an unbridgeable gulf between their initial response that Khashoggi had left the consulate and they did not know where he was to their most recent grudging admission that he died after he got into a ‘fist fight’ with people inside the consulate. The body has still not been produced. What we are now seeing is careful maneuvering to decide what is the most they can concede that will enable their most ardent supporters, in this case Donald Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner, to continue their warm relationship with both the kingdom and bin Salman.
[Read more…]

I will vote ‘Yes’ on Ohio Issue 1 on drug use

Election day in the US is on Tuesday, November 6 and in addition to the slew of people running for political office in Ohio, there are also a large number of candidates for judicial offices and various ballot issues. One of the ballot issues is Issue 1 that is a constitutional amendment that calls for major reforms in sentencing for drug possession. Basically it distinguishes users of drugs from dealers of drugs, and treats the former as people with a health problem that should be treated medically, socially, and psychologically and not punitively. Drug addiction is better treated as a disease, not as a choice that people can be frightened away from with the threat of harsh prison sentences.
[Read more…]