Critics of America’s interference in other countries by invading, bombing, and killing, and fomenting coups that overthrow their governments and create general chaos are often asked what the US should do instead. The US government always says that it is doing whatever it does for humanitarian reasons but history has shown that that is merely the excuse given to make the interference palatable to the public.
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I was glancing through the team rosters for the cricket World Cup currently underway and noticed that the South African team seems to be the most diverse, consisting of Africans, Asians, Anglos, and Afrikaaners. This is quite an irony since South Africa was for many years ostracized from the world of sports because of its strict segregationist apartheid policies that forbade anyone but whites from playing not only on national teams but at any level of real skill.
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Glenn Greenwald points out that Libya is a classic example of something that happens over and over again: War hawks drum up some case for attacking some country, the ‘humanitarian interventionists’ gleefully sign on to the war effort and condemn those who think that the wars are wrong, there is great gloating among the war hawks when the invaded country’s leaders are toppled at the beginning of the war and a ridiculing of the war’s opponents, and then silence as things go badly awry, leaving the situation worse than before
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I watched this much-talked about film recently. It was interesting but not quite what I expected. I expected a more biting comedy about the kinds of racial tensions that exist on elite college campuses that seek to have a diverse student body and yet struggle to make minorities feel welcome, making mistakes that are can be awkward, patronizing, and cringe-inducing. It is something that the college I work at also struggles with.
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The first upset win of the tournament came yesterday when Ireland defeated West Indies. The West Indies batted first and the game followed the same pattern as the previous four matches with the first team scoring 300 or more runs. In the other games, the chasing teams all failed to exceed the score but in this case, Ireland proved well up to the challenge of the WI total of 304/7 and reached it comfortably in 46 overs with four wickets in hand.
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David Carr, the media critic for the New York Times collapsed and died in the news room on Thursday at the age of 58. There have been many testimonials to the quality of his writing and about the man himself. Not being a regular reader of that newspaper, I did not know much about him but was struck by something he said recently in the wake of the story of NBC News anchor Brian Williams having made up false stories.
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Jon Stewart points out that president Obama’s opponents seem to be quite sure of the kind of qualities they want in a leader as long as Obama does not display those qualities.
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Yesterday’s two games ended up with the expected results of the favorites winning, South Africa beating Zimbabwe and India beating Pakistan.
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I have not seen, and do not plan to see, this film about a real life sniper Chris Kyle who apparently has the deadliest kill record in US military history. While some critics say that Clint Eastwood’s film portrays war in a complex way, it may have been too nuanced because the public seems to have reacted to it with jingoistic pride at the way that Kyle gunned people down in the war in Iraq, making it a huge success at the box office. The fact that Eastwood put the word ‘American’ in the title seemed to me that he was saying that Kyle somehow represented America and this undoubtedly would have colored people’s perceptions to think of this film as an exercise in patriotism.
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Jordan Klepper goes to Las Vegas where students in the schools are bemoaning the fact that their schools don’t teach any sex education at all, leaving them at a loss as to where to get reliable information. Klepper also interviews a woman who says that parents are the ones who should talk about these matters with their children.
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