September 15, 2013 President Barack Obama foolishly backed himself into a corner during the growing Syrian crisis by issuing fatwas about mythological red lines. When his bluff got called, the silver-tongued president was left twisting in the wind. Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize should be rescinded and given, instead, to Vladimir […]


September 7, 2013 Recalling the massacres and destruction during the 1820’s Greek war of independence from the Ottoman Empire, then Victor Hugo wrote, “the Turks have passed by here – All is in ruins and mourning.” Today, the nations in ruins and mourning are Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, and, to a […]


29 June 2013 Nice, France – I’m just down to sea level from the 2,600 meter high mountain forts on France’s wild, vertiginous Alpine border with Italy. The Cote d’Azur, or Riviera, is buzzing with summer activity: packed beaches, traffic jams, crowded restaurants, outrageously priced hotels and an armada of […]