The United States has opened its arms to greet Pope Benedict XVI who is visiting the country for the first time since he became head of the Roman Catholic Church three years ago. Tuesday April 15th, on his arrival at Andrews Air Force Base, he was greeted by President Bush and first lady Laura Bush. The official ceremony took place Wednesday on the White House’s South Lawn with more than 13,000 people in attendance. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, women are looked at differently in the US and Europe. And as such they also look different in their attire, specially if we talk about women in politics. Let us start with American women. Have you seen all those pant outfits of Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton? The problem is not so much with the individual taste of the women but with what is expected of them when they are in the public eye. In 2005, the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee and a black coat that fell to mid-calf. As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots with high-heels. Rice boldly avoided the typical outfit chosen by powerful American women on the world stage. She was not wearing a bland suit with a loose-fitting skirt and short boxy jacket with a pair of sensible pumps. If it was distracting, it is only because it was so rare. Nevertheless, that earned her some names like the dominatrix. Read the rest of this entry »
Italy has chosen and while the results of the elections I am sure are welcome among many of the Republicans in the US, I am not sure many Italians feel the same way. Yesterday, Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s third richest man and owner of the most important commercial TV channels in the country, became prime minister for the third time. Read the rest of this entry »
Reading Maureen Dowd’s article published on April 16th, 2008 in the New York Times was like a strange experience. Since the elections’ campaign began to heat up she had been so vituperative whenever she wrote about Hillary Clinton and so praiseful about Barack Obama that this last article sounded as if it had been written on April 1st. Could she have written “The last few weeks have not been kind to Hillary, but the endless endgame has not been kind to the Wonder Boy either” and “Behind closed doors in San Francisco, elitism’s epicenter, Barack Obama showed his elitism, attributing the emotional, spiritual and cultural values of working-class, “lunch pail” Pennsylvanians to economic woes.” Read the rest of this entry »
This morning I read an article posted on April 10th, 2008 by the Daily Colonial News from which I quote “Religion will continue to be a driving force in modern day politics, according to a panel of religious experts at the “Faith and Politics” forum Wednesday night in the Marvin Center.” It is well known that the Unites States is a country where religion and politics are widely mixed and where no candidate to a political post could go very far without professing a religion. I am not criticizing this nor am I condoning it. I am a firm believer that religion and politics should not mix. There have been, and are, many unfortunate examples of countries where this mixture has created a lot of pain and even wars. In the States we have been civilized about this even if somewhat intransigent at times. For this reason I was a little curious with what has arisen in Spain. Read the rest of this entry »
At a fund-raiser concert on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign on April 9th at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, British pop star Elton John said he was amazed at the misogyny of some in America. He had reached that conclusion hearing about all that was written and talked about in the media about Hillary Clinton. Many of the senator’s opponents deride these comments as being made by a foreigner and several epithets describing the singer have been used. It is sad that in America, in the 21st century, we have arrived to this point. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday I wrote about the health care plans of the three candidates and the day before about the different way of how some of their overstatements were reported by the media. Today I am going to mix both topics, prompted by another article from Paul Krugman “Health Care Horror Stories” that appeared in Friday’s New York Times. Read the rest of this entry »
