The recent Nigerien coup has put the rest of the world—or at least the part that swears love for democracy—in something of a quandary. Out deepest political principles compel us to oppose the use of force in obtaining power, especially when the afflicted regime was selected at the ballot box. Yet if the old guard [...]
Entries Tagged as 'politics'
The Hero of Tippecanoe
February 15th, 2010 · 4 Comments
On this President’s Day, we can think of no better way to celebrate our nation’s most exalted job than by recalling the wise, though incredibly logorrheic words of the starcrossed William Henry Harrison. As the American history nerds in the audience will recall, Harrison doomed himself to an early death by refusing to wear [...]
Tags:Dan the Automator·Handsome Boy Modeling School·hip-hop·holidays·music·politics·President's Day·Prince Paul·William Henry Harrison
The Congressional Culture of Violence
February 2nd, 2010 · 4 Comments
While today’s Congressional politics may seem somewhat distasteful to fans of decorum, Capitol Hill’s past is full of far more vicious conflict between ideological opposites. As noted in this New York Times report from 1856, the people’s representatives were once none-too-shy about resorting to the gun or sword when positions seemed irreconcilable—though, to the American [...]
Tags:Bladensburg Dueling Grounds·Congress·dueling·Maryland·politics·U.S. history
The Antidote to Cathy
January 15th, 2010 · No Comments
Sorry, but we just couldn’t bear to have that dreadful Cathy clip atop the blog all weekend. So we’ll instead leave you with this 1970 campaign ad, which we discovered while reading about Spiro Agnew’s proto-Tipper Gore act in the Rome (Ga.) News-Tribune. Ms. Dickinson eventually lost this election in a landslide, but we still [...]
The Jonestown Diet
January 8th, 2010 · 3 Comments
During one of our recent discussions about food taboos, a sage commenter noted that one of the theories regarding such prohibitions is that they aid social cohesion—if we can all agree to, say, eschew beef or Funyuns, we instantly have something that defines us in opposition to “The Other.” Given the inherent creepiness of that [...]
Tags:cults·food·Guyana·Jonestown·politics·psychology·sushi·Unification Church
Transformation or Calculation?
November 16th, 2009 · No Comments
One of our favorite scenes in The Godfather trilogy occurs near the beginning of the second installment, as Michael Corleone dances with his wife at a lavish party in honor of their son’s First Communion. Kay Corleone asks her hubby when, exactly, the family will go legit—something that Michael promised several years prior. “I’m trying, [...]
Tags:crime·Kenya·Maina Njenga·Mungiki·politics·The Godfather
“Beam the Bomb”
November 11th, 2009 · 3 Comments
After posting a vintage pro-SDI ad on Monday, we got to wondering about this “Coalition for SDI” that sponsored the spot. Who could be so bold as to create the risible “Peace Shield” euphemism?
We connected the dots back to Daniel O. Graham, who claimed to be the coiner of the term “Strategic Defense Initiative.” The [...]
Tags:1980s·Daniel O. Graham·Lyndon LaRouche·politics·space·Strategic Defense Initiative
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
October 28th, 2009 · No Comments
We recently argued that symbols do, indeed, matter. Is it possible that someone in the administration of Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki read our screed? Because the Nairobi regime has suddenly decided to make a rather brilliant token gesture, obviously designed to indicate a willingness to tackle government excess: it’s forcing officials to give up their [...]
Tags:cars·corruption·Kenya·politics
Casting With Disaster
October 15th, 2009 · 5 Comments
As we went digging into our pocket for some change this morning, we came up with a piece of currency sure to give the vending machine a case of indigestion: a 20 shilling coin from Kenya, a souvenir of our recent East African jaunt. Before tossing back the useless money in frustration, however, we noticed [...]
Tags:animals·Burma·coins·currency·economics·Ivory Coast·Kenya·North Korea·politics·Roman Empire·Turkmenbashi·Turkmenistan
The Waga Toso Loophole
October 13th, 2009 · 5 Comments
We’re in the midst of watching The Nazis: A Warning from History, which really should be required viewing for anyone who casually throws around Hitler analogies when discussing contemporary politicians. It’s chilling stuff through-and-through, loaded with interviews with unrepentant party members and victims of persecution alike. The series essentially argues that the Third Reich was [...]
Tags:Adolf Hitler·books·Germany·Mein Kampf·Nazism·politics·TV
The Insects Cannot Hold
October 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments
The fact the map above is entirely green-and-white attests to the success of one of modern history’s great international projects: the FAO’s Locust Watch. When the project started in 1979, the ravenous critters were a regular menace from Mali to eastern India, in large part because of a lack of information flow—countries were seldom aware [...]
A Hole in the Happiness Theory?
September 24th, 2009 · 6 Comments
So many statistical goodies to sift through in the latest report on American asylum cases (PDF). But by far our favorite oddity can be glimpsed in the chart above. What’s going on with the Bhutanese? Only three citizens of the isolated kingdom claimed asylum in the U.S. three years ago, and then none in 2007. [...]
Goons Never Go Out of Style
July 17th, 2009 · No Comments
A recent rash of moonshine deaths in Gujarat got us thinking about the state’s failed prohibition policy (PDF). While liquor bans may have some discernible impact in isolated villages, they’re doomed to failure in larger regions that are tied to wet neighbors via modern highways. But the black market for legit liquor is only [...]
Annals of Unnecessary Legislation
July 8th, 2009 · 2 Comments
By any reasonable measure, scleral tattooing—that is, the injection of ink into the eyeball—is far from a widespread fad. As far as we can determine, in fact, a grand total of three people have had their corneas inked for non-medical reasons. They are body-modification enthusiasts whose story made a stir on The Tubes two years [...]
Stepping Into a More Brutal Ring
July 2nd, 2009 · 2 Comments
We were saddened to learn of the death of Alexis “The Explosive Thin Man” Arguello, one of our all-time favorite boxers. And we were surprised to discover that just a year before his passing, Arguello had been elected the mayor of Managua. (Okay, we admit it—we don’t keep up on Nicaraguan municipal politics like we [...]
Tags:Alexis Arguello·Bill Bradley·football·George Weah·Great Sasuke·Japan·Kevin Johnson·Peter Boulware·politics·sports
Pigeon Protectionism
July 2nd, 2009 · 1 Comment
If a Massachusetts pigeon breeder gets his way, out-of-state squabs could soon be aves non grata on the state’s film and TV sets. Bill Desmarais has coaxed the Massachusetts House of Representatives into considering H816 (PDF), more colloquially known as “An act relative to pigeons in motion pictures.” The bill’s text reads in full:
Be it [...]
Tags:law·Massachusetts·movies·pigeons·politics·Smoot-Hawley·TV
Vital Boost or Glass Ceiling?
June 24th, 2009 · No Comments
As we walked across Little Senegal this morning, a throng of devout Muslim men got us thinking about Bangladesh. That may sound like a non sequitur, but our internal logic went something like this: Though most Islamic societies obviously feature male-dominated governments (note, for example, that all of Iran’s mullahs are male), Bangladesh’s two leading [...]
Two Sticks Better Than One
May 27th, 2009 · 2 Comments
There’s a movement afoot in the Senate of the Philippines to designate arnis the national sport. From the text of Senate Bill 1424 (PDF):
Arnis is a sport that is indigenous and uniquely Filipino. Among the many games in the country, it can be considered as one of our national cultural gems that completely originated from [...]
Microtribe
May 27th, 2009 · No Comments
Today’s New York Times features a fascinating account of the Shinnecock Indians’ three-decade quest for federal recognition—a quest that should finally be resolved this year, at least according to an Interior Department promise. At stake is the tribe’s right to build a casino, as well as its potential to lay claim to large swaths of [...]
After the Tigers
May 18th, 2009 · 3 Comments
When we went to bed last night, we were all set to kick off the week’s blogging with a “Where’s Prabhakaran?” post. But during our all-too-fleeting stay with the Sandman, the Tamil Tigers leader’s fate became widely known. Contrary to expectations, Prabhakaran did not end it all with a bite of cyanide, but rather (at [...]
Tags:Mahinda Rajapaksa·politics·Prabhakaran·Sri Lanka·Tamil Tigers
The Pride of Sagaing Division
May 11th, 2009 · 1 Comment
The handsome logo at right belongs to Zeya Shwe Myay FC, one of eight teams that will soon compete in Burma’s National League Cup, the nation’s first-ever professional soccer league. Matches kick off this coming Saturday, with the early money on Mandalay’s Yadanarpon FC as the prohibitive favorite; the team is owned by a drinking-water [...]
Tags:Burma·corruption·National League Cup·politics·Sagaing Division·soccer·sports·Zeya Shwe Myay
Freedmen and the Five Tribes
May 8th, 2009 · No Comments
A few years back, Microkhan wrote a lengthy Wired opus about a thorny conflict in Oklahoma: The battle over whether descendants of freedmen should be allowed to join the Native American tribes that their ancestors had belonged to. Now the Obama administration may be entering the fray:
In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric [...]
Combating Corruption with Sandwiches
May 5th, 2009 · No Comments
Indonesia regularly languishes near the bottom of Transparency International’s corruption index; in the 2008 rankings, the world’s fourth-most populous nation came in tied for 126th, alongside Honduras, Uganda, and Mozambique. With everyone’s hand out when foreign investors come knocking, it’s no wonder that major development deals fall through all the time.
So what’s to be done? [...]
“Greater Liberia”
May 1st, 2009 · No Comments
The earliest draft of Now the Hell Will Start contained a long passage about the efforts of Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-Miss.) to deport America’s black population to West Africa. The Bilbo tangent got lost in the shuffle, and probably for the best. But the senator’s vitriol is something to behold, and it’s worth reviving for [...]
Tags:Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·politics·Sally Hemmings·Theodore Bilbo·Thomas Jefferson
Nixon in Ceylon
May 1st, 2009 · No Comments
In 1953, America dispatched Vice-President Richard Nixon to the island nation of Ceylon (still nearly two decades away from being rechristened Sri Lanka). The Eisenhower Administration was mighty worried about reports that Ceylon was shipping strategic materials to newly Communist China, a sign that the former colony might be contemplating an even more dramatic leftward [...]
“A Crushing Insult”
April 28th, 2009 · No Comments
In today’s edition of Now the Hell Will Start Extras Month, we’re going to delve into one of the book’s main themes: Military segregation during World War II. Time and again in the course of my research, I was struck by the virulence of Jim Crow attitudes within our nation’s armed forces. Despite the desperate [...]
Tags:Now the Hell Will Start·NtHWS Extras Month·politics·pseudoscience·World War II
The Migingo Spat
April 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments
To the untrained eye, Migingo Island appears to be no great shakes. It covers just a half-acre’s worth of Lake Victoria, and it’s covered with the tin shacks of fishermen. Yet Kenya and Uganda both covet the ramshackle rock, leading to a border row that threatens to lead to outright war. Ugandan marines overtook the [...]
Tags:Africa·British Empire·Kenya·Migingo Island·politics·Uganda
