Election 2012: Is it over yet?

In Texas, there’s never any doubt as to who will win a big election: Republicans. Indeed, in Williamson County where I live, a man can drive for miles before he spots an Obama sign in a front yard. Democrats are out there, but they are so greatly outnumbered that only truly bold souls- such as my neighbor- publicly advertise their support for Barack Obama and the grinning clown he chose as his VP.

A World Without Heroes

Many years ago, it was not considered strange for an unmarried bachelor to occupy his idle hours taking photographs of scantily clad little girls. In fact it was a favorite pastime of Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in Wonderland, who died without any scandal attached to his name. Could he have gotten away with that nowadays? I don’t think so.

How to Become an International Celebrity Protestor

This week I was wandering around my local supermarket when I spotted something very unusual for Central Texas. A young woman was wearing a shocking pink T-shirt that read FREE PUSSY RIOT. Wow, I thought, they’re megastars now! And yet, although I more or less agreed with the sentiment on the T-shirt, I did wonder why these young women receive so much attention, when their protest was so asinine, and there are so many more causes in the world deserving of attention.

For instance, that little girl who got shot in the head in Afghanistan earlier this week- where are the T-shirts demanding justice for her? Nowhere. Or what about Mali, overrun by radical Islamists who are busy destroying ancient Sufi shrines? When is Paul McCartney going to tell them to stop? Never. And then there’s Nato member Turkey, which imprisons more journalists than any other country in the world: when is Sean Penn going to speak up for them? He isn’t.

Mysteries of the Aninal Kingdom

Humans – we think we know it all. There we go, traveling all over the planet, measuring things, taking pictures of things, analyzing the DNA of things, and – as we saw in last week’s column – we’ve even started recording the temperature on Mars for no good reason. But how much do we really understand about our world, our universe? Consider animals for instance. They’re all around us, eating, sleeping and pooping, but what do they really want? When you look closely at our four legged “friends” you’ll see some very mysterious behavior indeed.

Mars 2012: The Hunt for Microbes

Space: it’s not very interesting, is it? Well, alright I suppose that if you like rocks and dust and gas burning in a void it’s absolutely fascinating. But I must confess that ever since I discovered at age 8 that there are neither aliens nor robots nor warring space empires out there I’ve found it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for the cosmos.

Free Speech and Stating the Obvious

It’s very difficult for outsiders to grasp what’s going on in a foreign country, even when it’s in the headlines a lot. I saw this when I lived in Moscow. Every day I’d read something in the UK or US press and be appalled at the trite, superficial and generally awful level of analysis of Russia on offer.

DAS IST NICHT GUT! Latvian Nostalgia for the Waffen-SS Death Machine

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like Nazis very much. Call me crazy, but all that Judenhass, genocide, invading other people’s countries, war and Thousand Year Reich stuff- it’s just not for me. It’s kind of, you know- evil.

Now Latvians on the other hand, they’re a different kettle of fish. They’re totally nuts for Nazis! No, really! It’s incredible! Is it the black leather and the skulls? The uniforms? The cool salute? The goose stepping? The death camps? It’s difficult to say, but one thing’s for sure, in Latvia the Swastika never goes out of style!