Askew priorities

Here we have the US involved in military action in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, at an enormous financial cost - let alone the flow on - and now possibly even becoming "involved" in another military operation in an attack on Iran.

In the meantime American cities, and their people, are suffering from cutbacks in a variety of ways, most material. New York mayor Bloomberg has just said it all in relation to the State of New York - which can be replicated across the country.

"Towns and counties across the state are starting to have to make the real choices — fewer cops, fewer firefighters, slower ambulance response, less teachers in front of the classroom.”
There is something radically wrong with America's priorities.

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Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives? In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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