March 7, 2015 NEW YORK – During World War II, the very drunk American humorist Robert Benchley, decked out in a tux and top hat,  came staggering out of the tony Sherry-Netherlands Hotel.   A US Navy admiral in full uniform was waiting for […]


  February 28, 2015       The wildly exaggerated threat of so-called Islamic terrorism is being shamelessly used by some western governments to boost their flagging fortunes at a time of economic malaise.   Marketing fear is a sure-fire political ploy, as the Bush administration showed.  But if you […]


November 15, 2014 A full century after World War I we still cannot understand how generals sent so many soldiers to be slaughtered. Ten million soldiers died on all sides; millions more were left maimed or shell shocked. Seven million civilians died. 20 million horses died. The image we have […]