The most important rule in the world of theater is to keep the attention of your audience. If they become distracted or bored, if they start to fidget in their seats, the illusion of the spectacle is at risk. Once word gets out that you can’t deliver as a playwright or a director, the audiences dwindle. And fewer people are interested in your next offering. North Korean leaders have always understood the importance of theater.
Susan Rice’s announcement that she would withdraw her name from consideration to be the next secretary of state is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it marks yet another example of the Obama administration’s failure to defend its appointees from concerted and misleading Republican attacks. On the other, Rice’s willingness to state demonstrable falsehoods to defend actions by the United States and its allies that violate international norms would have made her a poor choice for secretary of state.
“It’s déjà vu all over again.” The classic quote from the great American philosopher Yogi Berra, originally in reference to the home run chase between baseball greats Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in 1961, could just as well describe the hand-wringing currently taking place from Beijing to Washington over North Korea’s planned missile launch in late 2012.
Given the thousands of people returning to Cairo’s Tahrir Square and growing discontent over the economy, security, and civil liberties, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi may have inadvertently provided his critics with a temporary unifying device: rallying to defend the rule of law.
Surely, I thought, the critically acclaimed Argo would be an intelligent film. Directed by noted progressive Ben Affleck, I had high hopes that the film would tackle complex subject matter in a responsible and nuanced way. But while well-intentioned, Argo failed to deliver, falling into the common Hollywood trap of making Muslims into a monolithic Green Menace.
Indonesia’s Shi’a minority is under heavy attack. Men, women, and children have been assaulted, schools damaged, and villages burned to the ground. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Saudi Arabia’s intolerant brand of Wahabbi Sunni Islam—propagated far and wide by Saudi oil money—is behind most of assaults.
In the latest eight-day conflict, six Israelis were killed by Palestinian rocket fire. In Gaza, however, Israeli bombs killed 179 Palestinians—a substantial portion of whom were civilians, including several dozen women and children. One of them was Hitham’s oldest child, who was visiting relatives in Gaza.
The November 22 cease fire between Israeli and Hamas forces is a huge relief for the civilian population on both sides—the primary victims of the conflict. But the Obama administration’s unconscionable decision the previous week to block a ceasefire effort by the UN Security Council not only resulted in additional civilian deaths but also serves as an indication that, despite the president owing his re-election to the hard work of his progressive base, his foreign policy will continue to lean to the right.
We can save $440 billion over a 10-year period without compromising national security.
Latin America itself got scarcely a mention in the U.S. presidential campaign, but a new generation of voters has put it definitively on the agenda. Indeed, the rigid divide between “Latin America” and the United States needs to be revised.