RJ Matson, Roll Call This cartoon is copyrighted and licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Continuing our foreign press coverage of the Roman Polanski saga, this news item from Switzerland’s Le Temps reports that an embarrassed Swiss foreign ministry is denying any deal related to the UBS scandal and that the people of Switzerland ‘can be proud’ that Polanski has been nabbed by Swiss authorities. The article also offers a description of how Polanski’s arrest was set in motion. By...

I always admired Prof John K. Galbraith, the US ambassador to India, for his remarkable insight, professionalism and warmth. His son, Peter W. Galbraith, until recently the top American in the UN mission in Afghanistan, appears to have inherited the same wonderful qualities of his no-nonsense dad. Peter Galbraith was fired yesterday after refusing to take part in what he called “a cover-up” of...

The Iraqi Army Diaries, Entry 1 (First in a series) By S.D. Liddick In the spring of 2009 I embedded with the U.S. Army’s 1-63 Combined Arms Battalion, in the small town of Mahmudiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad. The town is a cardinal point on what American soldiers have termed the Triangle of Death. Within a month I was offered a de facto embed spot with the Iraqi Army (IA), by General Mohammed, commander...

For those who have been following the European reaction to President Obama’s decision to ditch the Bush-era anti-missile shield, you know that the divide between East and West Europe has been stark. This article by Bartosz Weglarczyk of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, in very cool-eyed fashion, councils Poles on some down home truths and urges people in that nation to accept the inevitable end of a...

Let me begin by saying that I don’t really have strong feelings one way or another when it comes to President Obama heading to Denmark to push Chicago for the Olympics. But as the story has developed I’ve heard some things that do make me wonder about the whole story. When I first heard the reports that he was going to make this trip I assumed it would be for a few days and would probably involve...

Where have you heard this before: “We believe that the decision to perform a medical or surgical procedure should be made by the ____ in consultation with their ____.” If you filled in the blanks with “patient” and “physician,” you were wrong. The correct answer is your cat and veterinarian. In California, it seems the health care debate has spread to cats. Specifically, the...

As this article from the Romanian newspaper Romania Liberia shows once again – the divide between East and West Europe over President Obama’s decision to cancel the Bush-era missile shield couldn’t be starker. What West Europe regards as a reasoned and rational decision to bring Moscow more into the fold, Eastern Europe regards as naive if not betrayal. For Romania Liberia, Cristian Campeanu...

My last post took note of American arms sellers camping in New Delhi (see here). This post is about the increasing number of expats/professionals (including Americans) who are making India their home, and feel more than welcome here. Dave Prager and Jenny Steeves (photo above), who arrived in New Delhi from Brooklyn in 2007, say: “Unlike most countries in the world, Indians love Americans.” Their...

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, on a visit to Northrop Grumman’s Newport News shipyard yesterday, effectively said “Don’t worry over the quality of our submarines.” After visiting the submarine building facility at Newport News—one of only two shipyards in the nation to build nuclear-powered submarines— Mabus said during a brief news conference: “I’m absolutely comfortable with the quality...

Is the Polanski case an example of the Euro-American cultural divide striking again? Or is it about Switzerland, worried about its relations with the United States after the UBS debacle, trying to curry favor with Washington? Whatever the cause, the controversy triggered by the arrest and possible extradition to the United States of famed film director and pedophile Roman Polanski is fierce. For France’s...

One of the stories behind the story of the demise of the F-22 Raptor fighter is the “developing story” of the increasingly important role unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are playing in today’s and certainly in tomorrow’s Air Force. In my story behind the story of the F-22 demise, I quoted Fred Kaplan’s comments that, during the most intense period of the Cold War, “much higher...

Update: Reports now indicate that more than 500,000 people are homeless. Few people have insurance to pay for rebuilding. The death toll now is at 140 but is expected to climb. A story that has not been getting a lot of play in the US media is that of Typhoon, now Tropical Storm Ondoy. The storm has already devastated Manila in the Philippines and is heading for mainland China. The storm has dumped more rain...

Australian town of Bundanoon has become the first in the world to ban commercially-bottled water. The ban, which is supported by local shopkeepers, means water in plastic bottles can no longer be bought in the town in the Southern Highlands, two hours from Sydney. Instead, reusable bottles have gone on sale, which can be refilled for free at new drinking fountains (photo above), reports The Independent. “Bottled...

“Future news from September, 2012: After eight infuriated, highly-armed polar bears seize the U.N. General Assembly, the world suddenly realizes it confronts a new form of terrorism.” As the climate Change Summit in Copenhagen draws ever closer, pessimism is growing over whether the biggest gas emitters will take action to stop what most scientists assure us will be a catastrophe. And in the minds...

It must be a bittersweet experience for my mother-in-law and hundreds of cannery workers being honored today for their contributions to a city’s industry that was snuffed a generation ago. The San Diego Unified Port District spent a half-million dollars to erect a bronze sculpture and commemorate the site honoring tuna and albacore fishing and cannery workers at the waterfront. The story in the San Diego...

As the cartoon above says, War is Big Business. This major issue is discussed, if at all, in passing by the mainstream media. Newspapers in India’s capital city had to borrow a news story from The Washington Post that “major US arms suppliers are wooing Indian defence agents and officials.” Emily Wax of The Washington Post continues: Almost every weekend, there are cocktails and closed-door...

We are told that Tandoori murga (or chicken), India’s contribution to the world of cuisine, was born in Peshawar in 1929. After India’s bloody Partition, the shop (later known as “Moti Mahal”) moved to Daryaganj in New Delhi, very close to the ancestral house of Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf. Tandoori chicken gained in popularity when India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal...

By now, most of the stories behind the dazzling rise and ignominious demise of a proud, magnificent bird, the F-22 Raptor, have been told. Stories about the brilliant design and cutting edge manufacturing and assembly technology. A technology that has been described as “the only thing more complex than the human body.” (I was fortunate to visit the “mile-long” Lockheed Martin F-16 assembly line;...

Unidentified members of Iran’s august Assembly of Experts, purported under Iran’s revolutionary constitution to oversee and be capable of removing that nation’s ’supreme leader’ who never faces the verdict of the average voter. (The same can apparently be said of that nation’s president, but setting that aside for the moment … While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...

As we’ve all heard by now, Western Europe is relieved, and Eastern Europe is aggrieved, over President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap Bush-era missile shield bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. This article by Marek Magierowski of Poland’s Rceczpospolita offers a good sense of how Poles view the decision. So why did Obama do it? Magierowski gives three reasons: “First, the Americans...

Prof. John K. Galbraith, a former US ambassador, once described India as a “functioning anarchy”. Galbraith’s famous quote comes to mind on hearing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent helpless cry that the country’s fight against Maoists/Naxalites is failing. Such public display of vulnerability appears pathetic, although it is a fact that governing a large democratic and diverse country like...

This article from Colombia shows the Latin American backlash against Republican Joe Wilson’s anti-immigrant outburst during President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress. According to this editorial from Colombia’s El Tiempo, Wilson is the one who’s ‘lying’, since the bill in Congress ‘explicitly’ forbids health care to the undocumented. Which is why,...

Legendary keyboardist and bassist Larry Knechtel, 69, performed with top-selling artists for nearly half a century. His most famous piano work is his 1970 Grammy Award winning contribution to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” by Simon and Garfunkel. Larry earned fame performing and recording with a broad range of artists, including his work as a session musician with Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy,...

First, a personal story intended as full disclosure for the second part of this post. I immigrated to the United States at the age of 17 from the Netherlands. Immediately upon reaching my 18th birthday, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. In those days, the 50s, a legal immigrant could join the U.S. armed forces upon signing a “declaration of intent” to become a U.S. citizen. Serving in the U.S. armed...