Mobutu Sese Seko

I have had the dubious honor of meeting President Mobutu Sese Seko Wa penza....etc. I also met Presidents Eyadema, Houphouet Boigny, Mengistu, Omar Bongo, etc. I must admit I had to shake their hands (But , hey, I also had to shake GWB's).
I have generally not been impressed by the administrations of the above mentionned rulers.
Whether Mugabe, (I also had the misfortune of meeting him), or thabo M'Beki, Paul Biya, or the current elected dictator of Kenya, Sankara or Sekou Toure, none of my African acquaintances impressed me with their skills.
Great speakers, they all insisted on Hope and Reconciliation . They were all victims of Bwana, the mean Toubab.
I am voting for Hillary.

The losing machine

The French say they have the stupidest Right in the world. I believe the US have the stupidest Left. Before the campaign started, Hillary Clinton was the anointed candidate, far superior to all her rivals, true and tried, with an ironclad platform, and coming after the worst president the republic had ever seen.

The media, Tim Russert, George Stephanopoulos, The washington Post, Broder, Robinson, etc.., the very same journalists and pundits to whom we owe both the two disastrous GWB terms and the war in Iraq , thank you very much, decided to spice up the race.
In part to settle an old account with Bill Clinton, whom they never managed to destroy, and to jack up their numbers, encouraged a young upstart, Barack Obama to challenge Hillary.
Obama, untried and untested, launched his campaign with a visit to Oprah, a true measure of the seriousness of his candidacy. After all she already gave us Dr. Phil!
Today, every Hillary win is minimized, every Obama loss is forgiven, and any Hillary hanger-on is painted as a racist for good measure.
What about the 98% black voters who vote Obama? Not the race card?
Is the glass ceiling harder to break than the race barrier?
Instead of having an unbeatable candidate facing John Mc Cain, the stupid left now has two weakened candidates. One weakened by the Press (Quit Hillary, Quit!), the other weakened because he will lose the white vote, the female vote, the catholic vote,the hispanic vote and the blue collar vote and perhaps my vote come November.
If Obama is the Democratic candidate, many Hillary backers will either abstain or, worse, vote Republican.
Obama could have waited for his turn, he could even have been a great vice-president.
But no, the pundits had to take their revenge on the Clintons. That will show her!
We will all end up with a 3rd GWB term.
thank you Oprah!
Thank you Chris!
What part of the Clinton legacy was so hard to swallow? Peace or prosperity?
The dummest Left in the world.

Images

I just came back from the UN in New York, where I attended the UN Forum on indigenous rights. Indigenous nations from all over the world came up with the first UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights. Topics such as the effect of Climate change on the SIDS, the preservation of Indigenous languages, or the promotion of land titles for First nations were hotly debated.
It was a nice complement to the week before , where I was in Tokyo, attending a meeting of the G 8 Education group in charge of implementing the 2nd Millenium Goal, Education for all.
One is struck, when hearing these debates, how much more fundamental these conversations are, than the latest sound bite about Rev. Jim Wright or Bosnian sniper fire from last Century. (I happen to know that Rev. Wright speaks for all blacks and gives a very good description of their state of mind. And why would not blacks think like that?) What troubles me is that Obama was not strong enough to champion the cause of all the blacks who voted for them. Instead, when came the time to own up to it, he played the part of St Peter when the rooster sang three times... Disappointing, but not surprising for a candidate who never had to face a tough question until now.
I was still mulling the interview I had the other day with Jeremy Rifkin on the dichotomy between Efficiency and Affectivity, when I met a living Hero, Bronislaw Geremek, founder of Solidarnosc. Humble, learned, a historian who made history, a patriot who was jailed by traitor to his country, you know greatness when you hear him.
The Olympic flame riots have really riled the Chinese and their government has skillfully used the videos around the world to rally the population around the image of country about to lose face. Face is the singlest most important currency in the Middle Kingdom, and all the pro-Tibet do-gooders have not realized they were walking right into the trap!

Tintin in Tibet

The recent riots in Tibet have thrown a shadow over the Beijing Olympic games.
Ever since its de facto annexation by China in 1960, Tibet has been a thorn in the side of the Middle Kingdom.
The Mongols were the first to throw Tibetans and han Chinese together in the IX Century AD. Ever since Tibet has been the object of wars and unrest. The Dalai lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, lives in exile in India.
It is probable that activist Tibetans saw a golden opportunity to rattle their cage when the entire world is about to shine a light on China at the occasion of the Olympic games. Some have asked to boycott the games. I think it is a mistake.
Chinese people are very sensitive to FACE. By making the authorities lose face, the would be boycoters would only harden their stance. Besides, the Chinese population would surely side with their government.

There is probably a long way to go to accomodate both communities. But diplomacy, integration, regionalization in an age of globalization, and, perhaps federalism, might be better suited to solve the problem than criticism.

Greed

Our era is marked by a surfeit of news. But paradoxically, we know less than our grand parents learned from their gazette. Amid the clutter of information, how are we to sort out the grain fron the chaff? Beyonce's wedding, the olympic torch, Obama's slip... We sort of missed the return of hunger in the World.
Institutional investors no longer want to park their money in a tattered US dollar.Investing in real estate turned out to be a bad deal, just as rotten as investing in dot coms. So the world traders are now betting on commodities. This explains partly why oil is going through the roof, as well as gold, steel, coal paper etc. Unfortunately, these financial blood hounds have also decided to speculate on foodstuff. The price of grain, rice, meat, and other staples is on a fast ascending spiral.
This has hit poor countries badly. When you are on 1 or 2 dollars a day, the doubling or tripling of the price of rice is the difference between life and death. People have started rioting all over the world.

Since Ronald Reagan, regulations and rules enforcement has been sacrificed on the altar of greed. We are now reaping its bitter crop.