Intro to Geopolitics – Buffer States
Tuesday, January 5th, 2010For those who consider most of my posts relating to geopolitics too arcane, I offer the following: Source: comics.com Strip: Pearls Before Swine by by Stephan Pastis
Archive for the ‘Geopolitics’ Category
For those who consider most of my posts relating to geopolitics too arcane, I offer the following: Source: comics.com Strip: Pearls Before Swine by by Stephan Pastis
They Still Can’t
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009This post is available as a PDF file here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/theystillcant.pdf 30 December 2009 In August of 2002 I endured a personal challenge. At the time, I was sitting on a bar stool at a friend’s house in my Iowa home town listening to a classmate prattle on about 9/11 and all of ...
My World View
Monday, December 21st, 2009This essay is available in PDF form here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/myworldview.pdf “Your world view is, well, wrong.” Those were the last words I ever heard from a guy I’d been friends with for more than 30 years. That was back in late 2004. At the time, I was sitting in Beijing, China, and had recently ...
Thoughts on Obama’s Peace Prize Speech
Thursday, December 10th, 2009U.S. President Barack Obama presented his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway, earlier today. The headline you will read in the mass media regarding the speech will likely be some variation of “Obama defends US wars as he accepts peace prize.” The press will be doing its self-anointed job of ...
Sobering Facts
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Adult Americans Between 1989 and 2007 Americans knowledge of current events dropped by 8.3% 93% know Arnold Schwarzenegger while 36% know Vladimir Putin 32% know Sunni and Shia as two branches of Islam 41% know the name Muslims use to refer to God and the name of Islam's sacred text 33% believe that Iraq carried ...
It’s a Small World After All
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Americans don’t get out much. That should come as no surprise considering that, according to the U.S. State Department, only 27 percent of Americans hold a valid passport. That means that 73 percent of Americans couldn’t get out to see the rest of the world even if they wanted to; even ...
Outside the Fishbowl – 2009/10/06
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009When you're inside the United States, it is nearly impossible to realize how insular it is, especially related to information and perspective. Since we're going to be here for a while, I'm providing a semi-regular injection of outside perspectives and information gleaned from other cultures, counties and regions in an effort ...
The Blind Leading The Blind
Monday, July 13th, 2009Steph and I completed our “Big Summer Drive Across America” trip yesterday with an eight hour run from Arkansas to Texas. Along the way we listened to C-SPAN, the BBC and XMPR. One show on XMPR, Let’s Consider The Source, really jumped out at us, unfortunately for all the wrong ...
Lessons From Saddam
Monday, July 6th, 2009This post is available as a PDF document here: http://www.hackneys.com/docs/lessonsfromsaddam.pdf ******* For the 23 people in the United States who have not been wholly consumed by the All Michael, All The Time media onslaught, it’s been an interesting week. For instance, California, the world’s 8th largest economy, went officially, publicly broke and started ...
A Milestone. Or Not.
Friday, June 5th, 2009After 9/11, and especially after visiting ground zero, I had some strong personal reactions. I wrote some magazine columns and also wrote quite a bit about the issues and challenges surrounding the event in non-commercial venues. In addition to doing what I could within my sphere of influence and expertise, I also ...
