April 14, 2012 HAVANA – Fifty years ago this month the US and USSR came terrifying close to full-scale thermonuclear war. I recalled those days of fear while staring at a rusting Soviet medium-ranged SS-4 missile displayed outside La Cabana fortress Nuclear-armed Soviet SS-4’s, secretly brought into Cuba, were ready […]
Syria’s murky, multi-level conflict continues to grow worse. So does public confusion here in the west as the US, British and some European media keep depicting Syria’s civil war as a simple passion play pitting the evil Asad regime in Damascus against mostly unarmed democratic protestors. We saw this same […]
June 9, 2012 NEW YORK – US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the major portion of US naval power will shift to the Pacific by 2020 as part of the Pentagon’s new “pivot to Asia” strategy. Though not totally unexpected, this news has caused quite a stir across Asia and […]
26 May 2012 One of my favorite artists was the superb Victorian painter Elizabeth Butler who captured in oil the triumphs and tragedies of the British Empire. Her haunting painting, “The Retreat from Kabul, ” shows the sole survivor of a British army of 16,500, Dr. William Brydon, struggling out […]
June 11 2016 My beloved British godfather, Lynn Perkins, always used to warn me of the manifest evils of Europe and beyond, “remember, Eric, the wogs begin in Calais (pronounced ‘Callis’ by the Brits.)” Wog is a nasty British term for oily, untrustworthy foreigners. I recall the Perkins warning because […]
