March 2022
Putin: A Genius or Unhinged?
Russia specialists (historians, former ambassadors, intelligence operatives) seem to have some disagreement on the mental state of Vladimir Putin. In his two decades of leadership after the fall of the Soviet Union, he has slowly morphed Russia from a new liberal democracy to a dangerous illiberal democracy.
Liberal democracy is governed by rule of law, (separation of powers, independent press, independent courts, and honest elections). Such democracies are only as good as the peo more...
Liberal democracy is governed by rule of law, (separation of powers, independent press, independent courts, and honest elections). Such democracies are only as good as the peo more...
Putin the Angry
Putin is a fascinating man. He is enjoying what he appears most hungry for: attention. Russia experts suggest motives and intentions that seem to explain his actions and the world watches anxiously. The Russian people, however, are only given a diet of lying Russian media, almost all controlled today by the leader of their pretend republic.
A dictator?s playbook does not permit scrutiny, criticism, or contradiction, therefore the press cannot carry out its mandate in libe more...
Space Aliens Among Us
I watched a fascinating CNN documentary (they seem to air one every Sunday evening) and I cannot get it out of my mind. It was called "The Hunt for Planet B." Young environmentalists remind us that we have just one planet, and there is no Planet B. But this documentary is about the astronomers who are looking for exactly that: another planet like ours that can sustain life.
Nathaniel Kahn, the film?s producer, tells us: The Hunt for Planet B captures the human drama behind NASA's more...
Nathaniel Kahn, the film?s producer, tells us: The Hunt for Planet B captures the human drama behind NASA's more...
August 2021
Intelligence Divide
A number of times during my many years of writing columns, I have noticed the great gulf in human intelligence. It does not seem genetic, but it does seem cultural. Culture is formed by conscious decisions among groups of people and is subject to change as people have new experiences.
Watching Richard Branson last month, floating in the weightlessness of space on his own spacecraft reminded me of all the intelligence required to perform such a feat. This 70-year-old billi more...
The Future of Work (Part 1)
One of the thorniest problems facing all the world?s modern governments is providing work for all able-bodied adults. Work is the process of providing all the needs of a society and paying those performing the work enough to support their families, their communities, and their government (through taxes).
In flourishing societies, most people who want to work can find it. When societies are in trouble, gainful employment shrinks, leaving many people potentially homeless and hungry more...
In flourishing societies, most people who want to work can find it. When societies are in trouble, gainful employment shrinks, leaving many people potentially homeless and hungry more...
June 2020
"Incredible," and "Unbelievable," Indeed.
Words are a funny thing; they sometimes morph from one meaning to its opposite over time, as we can see today. President Trump?s limited vocabulary favors "incredible" and "unbelievable" every time he means "wonderful." Knowing how untrue most of his utterances are, I always take his "unbelievable" and "Incredible" literally: "not believable" and "not credible."
Among things not believable and not credible are his promotion of conspiracy theories: that the Coronavirus was created more...
Among things not believable and not credible are his promotion of conspiracy theories: that the Coronavirus was created more...
June 2019
Putin?s Game Plan
Russia is no longer the Soviet Union, an enemy with nukes they were ready to use. They held captive a huge empire, part of which was a continuation of their 19th century occupation of the Muslim Silk Road states in Central Asia and across Siberia to the Pacific. The other part was taken at the end of World War II: most of eastern Europe, because their troops had "liberated" them.
In the almost half century of the Cold War, the United States and western Europe were able to more...
Rogues? Gallery for Impeachment
Retired Admiral William McRaven, a man of sterling character, has been making the rounds of interviews to talk about his book, Sea Stories. He has said that the greatest danger that America faces is not the attacks of Russia or China, but the rhetoric of President Trump. Presidents, he said, will come and go, but our institutions remain, the bulwark of our democracy.
From President Thomas Jefferson until now (except for Nixon), presidents have supported the free press as e more...
The Mueller Report Summaries Part 2
Volume I summarizes the Russian social media campaign through hacking the Democrats, feeding the results to the press, and timing such releases to inflict maximum damage on the Democrats. The report documents four major contacts between Trump operatives, the Trump family, and candidate Trump himself. The Russians did not just try to corrupt our election; they succeeded. The report concludes that the Russians not only tried to impact our electoral system, they actually succeeded.
more...
The Mueller Report Summaries, Part 1
There has been so much anxious anticipation of what the Mueller Report would tell us?at least anticipation of people who care about rule of law. I suspect the number of people who cared would be about the same as those voters who care about foreign policy: ten percent in peaceful times, and 20 percent in times of danger.
I am one of that caring group, and have been since my childhood during World War II, when my father followed events with pins on a world map in our kitche more...
Our Security Clearance Gap
We recently learned that President Trump insisted that his son- in-law and daughter, both of them senior advisors in the White House, be given security clearances despite denial by the Intelligence Services. This raised a red flag with Trump?s former chief of Staff and chief White House lawyer, both of whom kept memos of this decision.
Our presidents do have the right to award security clearances to any members of their staffs and cabinet, but this president lied that he i more...
The Russian Bear is Now a Snake
A friend of mine once commented that Russia never changes. The USSR was still an empire; the "great leader" Stalin was the Czar; the Politburo (parliament) were still the nobility; and Marxist/Leninism replaced the Orthodox Church as the state religion. Does that apply today?
Post-Communist Russia is a shrunken empire, but still extends 11 time zones across Asia; Putin?s ambition has given him what looks like lifetime tenure---a Czar; the good old Orthodox Church has been given ba more...
Post-Communist Russia is a shrunken empire, but still extends 11 time zones across Asia; Putin?s ambition has given him what looks like lifetime tenure---a Czar; the good old Orthodox Church has been given ba more...
Coincidence or Collusion?
My head reels to learn the FBI is exploring if our president is a willing agent of a foreign country? Surely this can?t be true, can it? Are we seeing a coincidence: that President Trump just happens to believe the same things that Vladimir Putin does? Or do the Russians have something secret and embarrassing over him?
Until the Mueller report is released, we cannot know for certain which of these scenarios is credible. Many in Trump?s base are prepared to believe anything he says more...
Until the Mueller report is released, we cannot know for certain which of these scenarios is credible. Many in Trump?s base are prepared to believe anything he says more...
July 2018
James R. Clapper: Facts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence, Viking Press, 2018.
For a first-hand account by somebody whose entire almost life (he is over 80) was spent in the Intelligence community, it would be difficult to find a better guide. This memoire covers the successes and failures of an institution designed to protect us from external forces meaning us harm. Clapper is honest to a fault, considered blunt and fearless in speaking truth to power (see some of his Congressional hearings) and yet the first to acknowledge that the human beings in Intelligence ca more...
Michael V Hayden: The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies
Penguin Press, NY 2018., Random House, 2018.
Reviewer: Laina Farhat-Holzman
The unexpected election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 has spurred a library of new books explaining to the public how America?s most important institutions work and why we have them. This particular president has little patience for institutions that may constrain his authority, which differs from the norms followed by most of our former presidents, regardless of political part more...
Reviewer: Laina Farhat-Holzman
The unexpected election of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 has spurred a library of new books explaining to the public how America?s most important institutions work and why we have them. This particular president has little patience for institutions that may constrain his authority, which differs from the norms followed by most of our former presidents, regardless of political part more...
October 2017
Vietnam Revisited
The latest Ken Burns documentary, Vietnam, should have been as widely watched as his Civil War documentary. Many people, however, including some of my friends who were in college then, and others, working class and patriotic, have found it too painful to watch. I am sorry that they missed this, because it was an extremely fair revisit that would have been impossible to make short of 50 years passage of time.
The series was punctuated by the popular music of the period and more...
February 2017
Crisis for the Muslim World
Laina Farhat-Holzman
Pajaronian
February 25, 2017
Islam is said to be the World?s fastest growing religion, but it may not be. We are seeing the frantic activity that precedes collapse. In history, religions either evolve or die out.
The elements of decline are threefold:
? Theological
Sharia law stopped evolving in 1200. There was to be no more modification, no more discussion. It was frozen in time. Islam, unlike Chris more...
June 2015
History Reveals Presidential Close Calls!
As a historian, I can be pretty dispassionate about reading things that are past and gone. Knowing that President Woodrow Wilson had a stroke and that his wife Edith secretly kept him hidden from October 1919 to April 1920 is certainly alarming, but nothing disastrous seems to have happened. This could not happen today, I hope.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, a weekend when the actions of individuals both in the White House----the cool head of Bobby Kennedy who advised his broth more...
Torture Is Not In America?s Best Interests.
Americans are debating several complex moral issues:
? Does torture produce essential information at a time of terror activity?
? Does torture do moral damage to the torturers themselves?
? Does imminent danger warrant violating US law?
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. The 9/11 attack really frightened this country and the government went into emergency mode to find out if more attacks were on the way. This is the ticking bomb theory: do anything nece more...
? Does torture produce essential information at a time of terror activity?
? Does torture do moral damage to the torturers themselves?
? Does imminent danger warrant violating US law?
Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. The 9/11 attack really frightened this country and the government went into emergency mode to find out if more attacks were on the way. This is the ticking bomb theory: do anything nece more...
August 2014
Will Pakistan Become a Failed State or Change Its Direction?
Did the US go to war with the wrong countries when we took on Iraq and Afghanistan? Perhaps we should have gone after our ?good allies? Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, who were really responsible for 9/11. This is, of course, wishful thinking considering the many ways that we need relations with these two countries, so we hold our noses and deal with them as ?frenemies,? not friends.
Pakistan grows more troubling by the day, with the Islamists increasingly violent and the secul more...
Laina with July Movies
Netflix
Dresden
Dresden is a two-part 2006 German TV film set during three days before and during the horrendous British bombing raid on Dresden (13-15 February 1945). This film is particularly significant now to reconsider how little we remember history in the face of current issues, such as the clamor about the disproportionate war being fought between Israel and Hamas. War is not cricket, and throughout 10,000 years of the history of civilization, wars were never propor more...
Dresden
Dresden is a two-part 2006 German TV film set during three days before and during the horrendous British bombing raid on Dresden (13-15 February 1945). This film is particularly significant now to reconsider how little we remember history in the face of current issues, such as the clamor about the disproportionate war being fought between Israel and Hamas. War is not cricket, and throughout 10,000 years of the history of civilization, wars were never propor more...
Let's Give them a Big Hand: Current Darwin Awards
Periodically, I round up all the most stupid human behaviors that manage to reach the press worldwide. My view is that these individuals are so stupid that they should not contribute to the human gene pool. The fact that they do contribute provides the ongoing fodder for this review.
o Women Driving. The Saudis are notorious for keeping their women from driving automobiles. Their reasons cannot be Koranic, since the Prophet Mohammad did not have automobiles and couldn't forbid more...
o Women Driving. The Saudis are notorious for keeping their women from driving automobiles. Their reasons cannot be Koranic, since the Prophet Mohammad did not have automobiles and couldn't forbid more...
Movies are America’s Soft Power
Movies are an extremely important element of American foreign policy around the world. These movies are not, however, products of the government; they are an extremely lucrative business that just coincidentally has overwhelming influence around the world.
Recently, I heard a discussion about the terrible picture of American life that is sent abroad by our popular culture. The American youth cult has promoted around the world blue jeans, McDonald hamburgers, Coke or Pepsi, more...
October 2013
Insane, or just “Intellectually Challenged?”
When criminal perpetrators go to court, lawyers and judges still have problems with the “insanity defense.” The courts in Florida determined that an obviously demented man knew what he was doing when he murdered eight people in the 1970s. They finally got through all the appeals and executed him, to the howls of those who both oppose capital punishment and especially oppose executing the “insane” or, in some cases, the Intellectually Challenged (very low IQ). To some others, the fact th more...
January 2013
The Dilemma of Changing IQ outcomes
We used to think that IQ (Intelligence Quotient) was something that we were born with. Some of us were bright, some not so bright. Over the decades since IQ was first tested, we can no longer assume that IQ is a fixed genetic talent. IQ can be stimulated to increase or can be damaged into decline (or failure to develop), both the consequences of human behavior.
Although this finding gives us a heads up of what seems to be a evolutionary increase in brain functioning, accor more...
May 2012
Should the New York Security Police Be Called Off?
Several reporters have received the Pulitzer Prize for journalism for their investigation of the New York Police Department “spying” on Muslim communities. These reporters claim Muslims are being “unfairly profiled” and their privacy violated. Should we make the police stop their spying? Do we want no profiling at all, in the name of “fairness?”
The first duty of all government is to protect people from violence and criminal activity. Most of us, even those champions more...
The first duty of all government is to protect people from violence and criminal activity. Most of us, even those champions more...