Academy Awards 2012—Documentary Shorts
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 5:06 AM
Academy Awards 2012—Documentary Shorts
With this year’s nominees clocking in at an average of 34 minutes, the Academy might want to rename this category Documentary Mediums rather than Documentary Shorts. Perhaps because of their length, they ...
Dictator of the Month: Who Was Kim Jong-il of North Korea?
Friday, December 23, 2011 7:18 AM
The death of Kim Jong-il probably marks the end of an era, the end of one family controlling the fates of 24 million people. Despite the fact that I have written about living dictators for many years, I managed to visit North Korea in 2007. It w...
Dictator of the Month: Ali Khamenei of Iran
Sunday, November 27, 2011 5:46 AM
To hear some commentators, you would think that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, was the most dangerous man in the world. In reality, he has almost no power whatsoever. He does not control Iran’s nuclear program. He does not control Ira...
Dictator of the Month: Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 9:24 PM
This month’s Dictator of the Month award to Islam Karimov is given in honor of Herman Cain’s complete lack of awareness of Uzbekistan and the important controversy regarding President Barack Obama’s decision to lift sanctions against Karimov despi...
Dictator of the Month: Paul Biya of Cameroon
Thursday, September 29, 2011 10:47 AM
On October 9, the nation of Cameroon in west-central Africa will hold a presidential election. There will be 23 candidates, but there isn’t much doubt which one will win…78-year-old Paul Biya, who has ruled Cameroon for 29 years. In fact, Biya i...
Why Do They Hate Us?
Saturday, September 10, 2011 3:35 PM
In the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, many people I spoke with simply could not understand why anyone, anywhere, would not like Americans, even if it was just a few dozen fanatics. In one form or another, they asked: W...
Dictator of the Month: Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya
Friday, August 26, 2011 5:46 PM
“All of the great prophets of modern times have come from the desert: Mohammed, Jesus and myself.”
-Muammar al-Gaddafi, October 1988
Muammar al-Gaddafi seized control of the North African nation of Libya in 1969 when he was only 27 years o...
Dictator of the Month: Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 6:03 AM
One of the most overlooked nations in the world, Equatorial Guinea popped onto the international scene after large reserves of oil were discovered there in 1995. Between 1968 and 1979, the nation was controlled by a dictator, Francisco Macías Ng...
Dictator of the Month: King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 4:13 AM
Barack Obama bowed down before him and George W. Bush made a point of being photographed in public holding his hand. But if King Abdullah didn’t control the world’s largest oil reserves, U.S. presidents and the vast majority of Americans would h...
Dictator of the Month: Fidel Castro
Thursday, May 19, 2011 6:19 AM
Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in January 1959, at the age of 31 or 32, and held on until health problems forced him to begin giving up partial control in 2006. He finally retired officially as the leader of the Communist Party of Cuba on Apr...
Dictator of the Month: King Mswati III of Swaziland
Sunday, April 17, 2011 5:21 PM
“A king is a mouth that does not lie.”
-Swazi saying
The next pro-democracy uprising in Africa may take place in Swaziland, the small landlocked nation surrounded by South Africa. There, King Mswati III has ruled for decades, amassing wealt...
Dictator of the Month: Who is Syria’s Bashar al-Assad?
Saturday, April 2, 2011 6:25 AM
The anti-dictatorship movement spreading through the Arab world has now reached Syria, a nation with which the United States has had a mixed history—denouncing the Syrian government and military as supporters of terrorism, while at the same time s...
Who is Muammar al-Gaddafi?
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 10:04 AM
“All of the great prophets of modern times have come from the desert: Mohammed, Jesus and myself.”
-Muammar al-Gaddafi, October 1988
When I wrote my book, Tyrants: The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators, it goes without saying that I includ...
17 Things that Fell from the Sky
Wednesday, January 12, 2011 5:04 AM
The recent fall from the sky of thousands of dead birds in Arkansas and Louisiana appears to be a disturbing development. However, incidents of unexpected substances falling from the sky have a long, long history. Here is a sampling.
1. MEAT...
Bud Greenspan, Olympic Filmmaker
Monday, December 27, 2010 5:24 AM
Olympic filmmaker Bud Greenspan died in New York City, at age 84, on December 25, 2010, with his partner and business associate, Nancy Beffa, by his side.
As the vice-president of the International Society of Olympic Historians, I had the ho...
4 Political Concepts Ruined by Their Boring Names
Saturday, December 25, 2010 6:23 AM
Sometimes a policy or concept becomes popular because it acquires a catchy name. The Car Allowance Rebate System, for example, would not have captured the public’s imagination had it not become better known as “Cash for Clunkers.” Here are four co...