Time magazine invariably has very clever, multi-faceted covers, the latest one being no exception. It shows the White House – the American president’s residence and workplace, all in one – being slowly but surely devoured by Saint Basil’s Cathedral, with its red brick walls and colourful onion domes, which stands on the Red Square and […]
America
Posted inBusiness, General
Why American market capitalism is broken
Yes, you’ve read correctly. You may not know who Rana Foroohar is, so let me inform you that she is a highly respected business and economic journalist working for TIME magazine, who has just published a book called Makers and Takers, published in May (Crown publishers), in which she makes this (to some startling) announcement. […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
The ‘perversion’ of Donald Trump’s popularity
A lot has been written speculatively about American presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s popularity, which has seemed surprising to many if his outrageous statements about women or about Mexicans are taken into account. Until recently when he did an egg-dance on the question of women and abortion, trying to correct what he had suddenly realised had […]
Posted inBusiness, General
Read Yanis Varoufakis’s “The Global Minotaur”!
Until recently, Yanis Varoufakis was the Greek Minister of Finance, who resigned after the Greek populace voted overwhelmingly against the imposition of more austerity measures against them in order to service the country’s crippling debt — resigned, because he believed that would give Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, more negotiating space with the representatives of […]
Posted inGeneral
What the Samurai can teach the world about a truly human ethos
What does it mean for a people, or a nation (the two are not necessarily synonymous) to have a fulfilling ethos? By ethos (on which I’ve written here before) I mean broadly the distinctive cultural and social character of a group of people as manifested in their collective and individual activities, which are therefore expressive […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Working class hero
If one takes a good look at John Lennon’s song Working Class Hero it must dawn on you sooner or later that, just like the song Imagine, it is powerfully revolutionary. In addition to targeting the family, school, college or university (Althusser’s apparatuses where ideology is inculcated in subjects), and the class structure of society, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Time to rethink justice in Africa
I recently attended a public lecture by acclaimed author, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, titled The Language of Justice in Africa. The lecture was on how the English language has assumed its powerful status in Anglophone Africa and how the justice systems in these countries, premised on English codes, may actually be miscarrying justice by virtue of […]
Posted inEquality, Lifestyle, Media
Reclaiming ‘bitch’ a pointless exercise
I need us to get serious for a few minutes. Let’s take some time to cut the jokes for once and start to look at this issue with the seriousness it deserves. Because I’m quite sure if we did, we’d be able to agree on the sham that is “reclamation of words”. “Reclamation of words” […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Don’t let the ANC bully you
I recall a conversation I had with my Iranian-American friend Farhang Erfani when I was living in the US and despairing for that country after George W Bush’s (to my mind) fraudulent election as president ahead of Al Gore. When I expressed my misgivings about America’s future under ”presidents” like George Dubya, he pointed out […]
Posted inGeneral
Framing Romney’s big-money politics
In the October 1 2012 edition of TIME magazine, James Poniewozik wrote an incisive piece of journalism on the imminent US presidential election – more precisely on Mitt Romney’s aspirations and the occasion of his gaffe about “the 47%” although Poniewozik concentrates on a different, to my mind, more telling aspect of the donor banquet […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Obama: Rip those conservatives apart
Four years ago, Barack Obama and his rival, John McCain, both embodied the American idea of nobility in their respective campaigns. This time Obama enjoys the power of incumbency, and he will fight on his record. While all political figures become repositories of hope by virtue of taking office, Obama had built his entire campaign […]
Posted inBusiness, General
Obama, please don’t break our hearts
by Bright Simons The enthusiasm that greeted the election of Barack Obama, the first and only American president with an African name, was palpable across Africa. Everywhere you travelled you heard and felt a new wave of positive sentiments about the possibility of a great new era for doing business between Africa and America. One […]