Nearly 70 years after the Games began again in the modern era, the Olympics finally took place somewhere outside the West. It was 1964, and the host country was Japan. The Tokyo Olympics were an opportunity for Japan to erase the stain of history. It had been tapped to host the 1940 Olympics, but its… Continue reading Asia’s Olympics Debs
Within walking distance of downtown Rome there is a sheep farm that dates back to the Middle Ages. The Casale della Vacchereccia, leased from the Vatican, is nestled in a park that has preserved the kind of farmland that once surrounded Rome on all sides. The humble Vacchereccia still produces ricotta cheese from the milk… Continue reading Postcard from Rome
Being a futurologist means never having to say you’re sorry. Our predictions always come true eventually — or, if they don’t, well, how quickly people forget. Look at Newsweek’s George Will. He predicted that the Berlin Wall would endure, and in an article published on the very day in 1989 that the Germans were tearing… Continue reading The Goldilocks Apocalypse
According to the overpopulation crowd, the current food crisis is the latest evidence that the world has become too heavy with us all. We are currently at 6.6 billion and expected to approach 9 billion some time before 2050. Mother Earth is mad as hell and isn’t going to take us anymore. We’ve heard this… Continue reading Pop ’til We Drop?
Empires die hard. The war that broke out last week between Russia and Georgia is a terrifying reminder that the disintegration of the Soviet Union is far from over. Seventeen years ago, it looked as though that region might escape the worst consequences of imperial collapse. After all, the Baltic states achieved their independence with… Continue reading Die Hard
The debate has seesawed back and forth in the press, in blogs, on the street. Will George W. Bush, prodded by his pitchfork-wielding vice president, bomb Iran before the end of his term? According to one camp, an attack on Iran is so last term. In fact, the whole “evil axis” thing is passé. The… Continue reading Will He or Won’t He?
Here’s a tip on how to sound smart on foreign policy. When your friends are talking about the Iraq War, shake your head and look very somber. “The real problem,” you inform them, “is Iran. That’s the next battlefield.” Okay, people have been talking about Iran for several years now. And, according to Seymour Hersh,… Continue reading Be Ahead of the Pack
In the 1960s, a subculture of Americans became obsessed with alien abductions. Their ur-narrative revolved around the experience of Betty and Barney Hill, a sober, middle-aged, interracial couple who told of being taken from their car one night in 1961 and subjected to medical investigation by extraterrestrials with small bodies and large foreheads. They were… Continue reading North Korea, Japan, and the Abduction Narrative of Charles Robert Jenkins
With the Six Party Talks to denuclearise North Korea once again on the ropes and the world reeling from a deepening financial crisis, the United States is looking to China for help. The Pentagon still views China as a rising and potentially threatening military power. But the State Department has been relying on China’s mediating… Continue reading US/China: Rivals, Partners in Asia
After more than 15 years in the drafting, Burma unveiled its new constitution in February. The 194-page document has generated a widely disparate response. In May, just days after Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit Burma and killed tens of thousands Burmese, the military government reported that 92 percent of the population supported the new constitution in… Continue reading Burma’s New Constitution: Radical Change or Fig Leaf