Mahler's Prodigal Son

Iraq has slipped off the front line of reporting - only to be replaced by Afghanistan, Pakistan and now Yemen. Things haven't improved in Iraq contrary to what people may have come to believe. In a piece on truthout.org Nick Mottern reports on some things in Iraq which ought to cause more than disquiet - and questioning the whole "exercise" of invading Iraq in the first place. "... security in Iraq may not be sustainable unless significant steps are taken to uphold the rule of law and human rights ..." - Human Rights Report of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, released December 14, 2009. It's probably safe to say that most Americans think the US military involvement in Iraq is coming to an end this year - that the Iraq War is effectively over. There are, however, some very nasty facts having to do with detention, torture and execution that must be considered in judging what will be happening this year for Iraqis and US soldiers." Co...

These graphic photos, here , published in The Boston Globe , convey in the most graphic terms, the dimensions of the devastation visited upon Haiti by the earthquake which hit it..... One can only hope that what is already said to be an estimated death toll of 50,000 doesn't grow - let alone reflect on what it will entail to somehow get the country back onto its feet.

Most of those living in the West take for granted that the internet is, by and large, free from censorship and readily accessible to everyone. Not so in many countries. Even if the internet is freely available, there is always the Net Filtering [some of it quite bizarre in its operation] in the background. A real stoush has now broken out between Google and the Chinese authorities. In a piece by Antony Loewenstein [the author of the book The Blogging Revolution (MUP)] on the ABC's The Drum / Unleashed he explains what is happening: "Google has threatened to withdraw entirely from China in protest at the authoritarian regime's oppressive online censorship and continuing attempts by Chinese hackers to gain sensitive information of local human rights workers. Perhaps most significantly, Google's Chinse search engine, Google.cn, now allows once banned material to be displayed, such as images of the brutal crackdown in Tiananmen Square. A few people even placed flowe...

Tom Dispatch makes more than some valid points about where things are at in Iran and how the West is, or is not, approaching the alleged threat from Iran having a nuclear capacity. "The Obama administration’s Iran policy is a riddle wrapped inside a conundrum folded into a pickle. So many signals are being sent in so many directions that it’s a wonder the Iranians (or other involved parties) have any idea what’s going on. Barack Obama came into office pledging to reach out diplomatically to Iran. In fact, the administration did so in only a half-hearted way, even as the president quickly began setting deadlines for the Iranians to respond (on their nuclear program) in a way Washington considered satisfactory -- or face further “crippling” sanctions. Now, the latest of these deadlines, January 1, 2010, has passed and a move towards new sanctions, especially against companies associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, which controls significant parts of the country's...

It beggars belief to think of Sarah Palin being engaged as a political "commentator" on Fox News. Then again, look at the vacuous and shrill dunderheads on Fox she is about to join. Crikey - and online daily publication - probably puts the whole thing in appropriate context: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes' horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to." That is what Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud, thinks of the journalistic standards of the 78-year-old mogul's Fox News TV network. We know that because Freud's views were quoted, on the record, in The New York Times on the weekend in a profile of Roger Ailes, Fox's founder and boss. "Matthew Freud’s opinions are his own and in no way reflect the views of Rupert Murdoch, who is proud of Roger Ailes and Fox Ne...

"Published since 1972, Freedom in the World examines the ability of individuals to exercise their political and civil rights in 194 countries and 14 territories around the world. The survey analyzes developments that occurred in 2009 and assigns each country a freedom status—Free, Partly Free, or Not Free—based on a scoring of performance on key indicators. In this year’s findings, five countries moved into Not Free status, and the number of electoral democracies declined to the lowest level since 1995. Sixteen countries made notable gains, with two countries improving their overall freedom status. The most significant improvements in 2009 occurred in Asia. The Middle East remained the most repressive region in the world, and some countries that had previously moved forward slipped back from Partly Free into the Not Free category. Africa suffered the most significant declines, and four countries experienced coups. This year’s findings reflect the growing pressures on journalis...

When reading Gideon Levy's latest piece for Haaretz " Only psychiatrists can explain Israel's behavior " remember that he is an Israeli, writing for an Israeli newspaper and is not a self-hating Jew: "Why doesn't a country so ostracized by so much of the world not ask itself, even for a moment, what part it played in shaping that position of isolation, from which it simply attacks and points fingers at its critics? How can a society which has already existed with a cruel occupation in its backyard for two generations refuse to deal with it, continue feeling so good about itself and evade any kind of self-examination or even an inkling of moral equivocation? What kind of explanation can be given for the fact that a nation with a clear secular majority has no system for civil marriage, no buses or trains operating on Shabbat? How in such a country are wealthy municipal governments required to transfer funds to religious councils, of all places, rather than oth...