December 2018
Women with No Choices
I wrote about Pakistan?s hideous culture last week, about a woman accused of "blasphemy" who was sprung from execution by a brave court after a decade in prison. Pakistani men held violent demonstrations, outraged that the woman was being released from prison and not executed. They threatened the life of the judge too.
This time, Pakistan is my target once more. National Public Radio (NPR) jolted me by exposing what seems to me the most horrible situation that a woman can more...
Pakistan?s Poisonous Underbelly
Pakistan, like Saudi Arabia, is a country with which we have alliances despite our distaste for their cultures. We needed Pakistan during the Cold War, when Russia had neutered India (they were "non-aligned") and we could count on them not to be seduced by Marxism.
But Pakistan, unlike Saudi Arabia, aspires to be a modern state with the institutions that protect a supposed republic: free press, independent courts, and respectable elections. They have a modern military, or more...
Scuttling All the US Government Departments
The US government is a very big bureaucracy, which to some critics is a bad thing. Howeve, each department under the Administration has been established by Congress to provide essential services. They all do the work that keeps us the most productive, enviable country in the world.
When a new president comes into office, he goes through the transition process, learning what each government agency or department does, its budget, and over all, how government works.
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The Final Gift of President Bush
We have all become so numbed by the constant flood of nastiness in our current politics that President George Herbert Walker Bush, our 41st president, even in dying, has given the country his final gift. His graceful death at 94 has been accompanied by memorials to his life of service and his astonishing competence as a one-term president. His passing even shamed President Trump to do what he rarely does: praise the life of this remarkable man, whom he trashed throughout his run for the 2016 pre more...