b. traven The five o’clock whistle is on the blink/ the whistle won’t blow and whad’ya think? I fondly recall these lyrics to a popular World War II song about factory workers unknowingly working overtime because the whistle didn’t blow to signal the end of their shift. This time the whistle did blow, thanks to…
The National Security Agency (NSA) has always been highly classified, a fact captured by the joke that NSA really stands for Nonesuch Agency. Lately, with all the revelations by Edward Snowden about “inadvertent” and “unintentional” spying on Americans, the NSA seems to be defining a new acronym for itself. Call it the Nothing to See…
This is also featured at Huffington Post Americans generally, and politicians in particular, proudly proclaim that we live in “the greatest” country. But how should we measure the greatness of a country? I’d suggest that quality of life should be a vitally important measure. And what is more fundamental to quality of life than ready…
One of my favorite quotations comes from the Jamaican bobsled coach. Remember how the Jamaican bobsled team captured the world’s fancy? A bobsled team from the Caribbean … how crazy is that? They weren’t very good, but so what? They gave it their all. Anyway, here’s the quotation: “If you’re not enough before the gold…
Here, as promised, is what I hope is some fresh thinking. I also posted this at Huffington Post. Currently, so-called “fresh” thinking on national security from the Obama administration includes the pivot to Asia, more emphasis on cyberwar and drones, continued expansion of Special Forces, a withdrawal from Afghanistan in super-slow motion, and intervention (sending arms at minimum; troops…
Andrew Bacevich, a retired U.S. Army colonel and professor of international relations, writing in January 2009 as Barack Obama took office as president, made the following cogent observation about the need for true “change” in Washington: When it comes to national security, the standard navigational charts used to guide the ship of state are obsolete.…
We recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Carlos Alzugaray, the former Cuban Ambassador to the E.U. and a long time Foreign Service officer. Changes are taking place in Cuba and there is strong evidence that sentiment in the US and Cuba is beginning to shift in favor of normalization of relations. Contrary Perspective was…
In our media and our culture today, there’s an unfortunate tendency to see military service as uniquely efficacious and ennobling, and to see war as necessary and even to view it as antiseptic (notably our so-called “surgical” drone strikes). But real war is dirty. It’s as likely to infect us, to spread sepsis through our bodies…
Richard Sahn I live in Central Pennsylvania, the heart of the gun culture in the state. Guns are considered a birthright, a God-given birthright no less. The Second Amendment, of course, is interpreted literally (the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed), meaning that the Founding Fathers intended that people should have…
W.J. Astore Just posted a new article to Huffington Post. Here’s the link and the article (pasted below): The expression “bread and circuses” captures a certain cynical political view that the masses can be kept happy with fast food (think Cartman’s “Cheesy Poofs” on South Park) and faster entertainment (NASCAR races, NFL games, and the like).…
The Contrary Perspective 