Being a good politician is not so different  from any Manhattan cocktail party, corporate meeting, baboon fight, or any other test for dominance.   We use the tools we have to beat our opponents.  Of course a black politician will use his race to win.  Just as white politicians would use theirs if he helped them. [...]

August in Arkansas.  If you’ve ever experienced it you don’t want to again.   Kinda like having an out-of-touch President. But it might be useful.  Just as hard exercise hurts but may be useful.  But only if you use the experience wisely. An Arkansas August can help you appreciate the North, but won’t help those [...]

A landslide of Missourians say the federal government should not force us to buy anything. Right now they’re trying to force us to buy health insurance, but what will it be next? Maybe we should all have to buy a copy of our adored leader’s biography.  It would probably do us good.  Or maybe we [...]

It is not a concept to be taught. It is a talent to be coached. There are good reasons for being critical about specific American policies.  But some Americans denigrate all things American.  If you are one of these, you hate yourself, whether you know it or not.  If you hate yourself, you cannot build [...]

No.   Yet, you’d think it was if you live in America.  I’m so glad I’m headed for Tajikistan where they don’t yell racism whenever they lose.  It’s sad when you have to go to the former Soviet Union to escape group-think. When the Ten Commandments were written, racism was not in the top ten.  In [...]

Six months ago an earthquake flattened Haiti.  Today the country is still in ruins.  Why?  The answer is simple, but “mokita.”  Mokita is a word from New Guinea which means “a truth everyone knows but no one will talk about.” The mokita about Haiti is that Haiti does not produce good leaders.  Some Haitians put [...]

Sympathy for your enemies?  Should you wish the best for a President whose policies you adamantly oppose?  Some may call this Sympathy for the Devil.  In that song of our youth, the devil urges us to  ”have some courtesy, have some sympathy, and some taste” and be polite. Those in power always want their suffering [...]

When a President tells NASA that its primary mission is to make Muslims feel good about their contribution to science, it’s clear why the US has fallen so far in science and technology.    This is the type of patronizing psychobabble that only an affirmative action baby could truly believe in. The boss of the [...]

America is buying Russian helicopters for Afghanistan and borrowing money from the Chinese to pay for them.  What’s wrong with that picture?  Is anything right about it? What’s worse, it’s emblematic of our endemic American contradiction.   Somehow, in trying to spread light and freedom to the world, America has managed to post soldiers in [...]

So many wonderful memories of Africa.  Victoria Falls.  Hippos playing in the river as we drove by.  Buzzing the airstrip to scare off the giraffes before we landed.  I want those experiences  again, so the 2010 World Cup made it awfully tempting to go to Southern Africa. I used to visit Africa regularly, but the [...]