By building up the reputation of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords and then allowing him to remain free, is the United States building a case for intervening in an incompetent Mexico? For Mexico’s La Jornada, columnist Jorge Carrillo Olea asserts that the U.S. has failed to help capture Joaquín Guzmán Loera, also known as El Chapo, in order to demonstrate that Mexico is a failed state...

How badly is the Mexican drug war going? According to this news item from Mexico’s El Universal, to better communicate the gravity of the situation and send a message to the people and government of the United States, Mexico President Felipe Calderón has unveiled a huge sign within a stone’s throw of the U.S. border that says: ‘No More Weapons!’ For Mexico’s El Universal, reporter...

by Walter Brasch It was a delightful show. All 37 Shakespearean plays, cleverly and humorously abridged to 97 minutes by the Reduced Shakespeare Co. Short of having a set of Cliff’s Notes or a collection of Classic Comics, sources of innumerable student essays for more than a half-century, it was the least painful way to “learn” Shakespeare. The critically-acclaimed show, in addition to being a delightful...

A reader/commentator on my previous TMV post stated a preference that I include footnotes, references, and citations to outside source materials to justify my various statements of fact. That’s just not going to happen very often because I’m not writing an article for a peer-review scientific, legal or academic forum. In most TMV articles/posts/submissions, these types of citations and annotations are rarely...

The fabricated contraceptive debate that has raged in certain quarters of Washington DC, in various places across the US, and within the blogosphere and our hyper-partisan political system, is another diversion from reality. I had hoped saner minds would have emerged by now, but unfortunately we are left with a narrow analysis of HHS guidelines and the various arguments by a plethora of viewpoints that completely...

Pakistan’s former ISI chief General Ziauddin Khawaja, also known as Ziauddin Butt (head of the ISI, 1997-1999), claims that then President Pervez Musharraf knew about Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. Even if this news is true, it is not shocking. What the world would be eager to know is whether the then American President George W. Bush, the CIA and the Pentagon were in the know about this...

It is a tragic fact that in every war the civilian population pays a very high price. Afghanistan is no exception. According to the UN mission in Afghanistan’s (UNAMA) annual report, a total of 3,021 civilian died in 2011 in Afghanistan — an eight percent increase in the number of civilians (2,790) who died in 2010. According to the same grim report — “Afghanistan Annual Report 2011: Protection...

If you are a U.S. citizen and wondered why back in the fall when the U.S. signed the agreement in Tokyo you didn’t hear anything about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, it might be because U.S. media ignored the event. Newspapers Reporting On ACTA, Sept 1 - Nov 1, 2011According to LexisNexis[1], only 13 newspapers covered the story between September 1 and November 1, 2011; the agreement was...

The Nazi legacy is an understandably heavy burden for Germany, even today. This leaves Germans emotionally vulnerable to comparisons to their 20th century forebears. And with the country exercising ever-more influence over its European Union allies, cutting remarks that include such comparisons are blossoming like mushrooms after a spring rain. So how to deal with it? For Germany’s Die Zeit, Bernd...

Is it possible that American citizens, now under arrest in Cairo, were involved with a plot to partition Egypt into four smaller states? According to columnist Muhammad Dunia of Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram, maps that were discovered during a raid on the Cairo offices of the U.S.-based International Republican Institute prove that at least some of the foreign NGOs operating in Egypt are actively involved...

UPDATE: A wave of unusually severe cold is gripping Europe. But the weather is not the only thing that is chilling over there. Under the headline “A Chilling Verdict in Spain,” the New York Times reports that “The enemies of Judge Baltasar Garzón have finally gotten their way” as Spain’s Supreme Court has found Judge Garzón guilty of misapplying the country’s wiretap law and suspended him from...

When it comes to the oppression of dissent in Syria, are the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council undermining global peace and security by issuing ‘reckless vetoes’? According to this editorial from Japan’s Kochi Shimbun, by concerning themselves with the interests of their own countries rather than what is best for the world, China, Russia, America, Britain and France are demonstrating...

Would the United States, utilizing what is known as a ‘false flag’ strategy, sacrifice a nuclear aircraft carrier to persuade the world that a war against Iran must be waged? According to columnist Anna Pinderak of Poland’s Wprost24, a theory is making the rounds that the Pentagon has sent the famed USS Enterprise to the Persian Gulf – to sink it – and then to blame Tehran...

As compared with the Brits, few Americans have made India their home. Among those Americans who became well-known, I wrote about the legendary Samuel Evans Stokes Jr who fought along with Mahatma Gandhi to free the country from the colonial rule, and also brought horticulture revolution in the hills. The other well-known figure is an Indian actor of American origin – Tom Alter – who is now a household...

When you find yourself agreeing with Donald Trump, it’s time for a sanity check. Still, The Donald knows about beauty contests (pace Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado), so he may be qualified to comment on the results: “Rick Santorum was a sitting senator who in re-election lost by 19 points, to my knowledge the most in the history of this country for a sitting senator to lose by 19 points. It’s unheard...

Reinventing yourself is a promise of the American Dream. Barack Obama, once a community organizer, is now in the Oval Office. Ronald Reagan, a movie actor, transformed himself into the same role. But evolution stops short of fantasy and now, as the GOP demonizes our 44th President and deifies the 40th, come reminders of the limits. Speaking near Reagan’s grave, Haley Barbour, a conservative, tells colleagues:...

For a global business community still experiencing economic pain, Facebook’s humongous $100 billion Initial Public Offering has been an emotional shot in the arm. For French business newspaper Les Echos, columnist Philippe Escande praises the story of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as being at the heart of what still makes the American business sector the greatest in the world. For Les Echos, Philippe...

Are young people in America less stridently nationalistic than their predecessors? Columnist Fyodor Lukyanov of Russia’s Gazeta, citing recent Pew Research Center polling data, asserts in this detailed evaluation of U.S. public attitudes, that there is a declining tendency on the part of the U.S. population to believe in American exceptionalism, and concludes that U.S. foreign policy will be increasingly...

One of the most anticipated and commented upon 2012 Super Bowl commercials was Honda’s which kind of updated “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off”. Here’s the Honda explanation on You Tube: To celebrate the launch of the all-new 2012 CR-V, Honda brought Ferris Bueller’s Day Off back in a big game commercial. We cast Matthew Broderick as himself, skipping out on a day of acting work and...

WASHINGTON — We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and it doesn’t work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn’t happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy. Two...