The New York Times has done it; so, recently, have European cease-fire monitors, the BBC and NPR. They, along with a host of other investigators, have looked once again into the events surrounding the Georgian incursion into South Ossetia on Aug. 7, the incident that led to the massive Russian invasion of Georgia on Aug. …
Rather faster than I would have expected — sometime around the close of play last Wednesday — I began to get a familiar creepy feeling: It was that old “Princess Diana is dead and the media coverage is too much” sensation.
The maps on the television screens started turning blue as soon as the polls had closed on the East Coast; by midnight, John McCain had conceded the presidency to Barack Obama. But I had known the election result many hours before.
Election Day, as always, is fraught with peril. Beware the seductiveness of opinion polls, which can mislead badly; beware the even greater attraction of exit polls, which have so often been wrong. Beware the too-early commentary, the too-swift judgment; and, above all, beware the hopeful, reassuring cliches that will be passed around today and tomorrow, …
Yesterday, while reading the latest polling data on John McCain, Sarah Palin and their appeal — or growing lack of it — to ” independent women voters” it suddenly dawned on me: I am one of these elusive independent female voters, and I have the credentials to prove it.
Perhaps it was the elaborate court rituals, perhaps it was the stiff manners of the royal family, or perhaps it was the swiftness of the final collapse: for whatever reason, even the most tragic tales of the latter years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire often lapse into black humor.
Imagine this scenario: In a medium-size European country — call it Country X — the bank regulators hold an ordinary meeting. These being extraordinary times, the regulators discuss the health of various banks, including the country’s largest — call it Bank Y — which is owned by an even larger Italian financial group.
Step out of the bus, walk across the courtyard, stop in front of the low-built, blue buildings: Here, in the Joint Security Area — a neutral space between North and South Korea, under U.N. jurisdiction since the 1953 armistice — is one of the world’s weirdest scenes.
“I think we need a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there, brought to Washington, D.C.” A specter is haunting this presidential election — the specter of “Washington.”
Kabul — The scene is a small textile factory in a new industrial park on the outskirts of Kabul; the characters are an Afghan businessman, his American partner and a USAID official, the latter straight out of central casting: flustered, important, accompanied by gun-wielding bodyguards.
