Originally published 22 July 1997 in Nexus, the University of Waikato student magazine, as part of a regular series I wrote under the banner of “Postcard from Hong Kong” What is the “New Zealand dream”? One could be forgiven for thinking that the answer is to simply leave this earth in no worse state than […]
The future of Hong Kong
The following is from my pre-blog archives. When I lived in Hong Kong in 1997, I was asked to write a semi-regular column under the banner “Postcard from Hong Kong” for a university newspaper in New Zealand. This article appeared on July 4 1997, three days after the United Kingdom transferred sovereignty of Hong Kong back […]
Do we really have a genius in the Oval Office?
I’ve often been struck by how frequently commentators suggest that President Obama is one of the smartest or most intelligent presidents in history, with little or nothing to back up these claims. Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss famously said that “[Obama] is a guy whose IQ is off the charts.” But when pressed, Beschloss wasn’t able to […]
James Foley, The President, The Washington Post and the WSJ
When reading The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and Washington Post’s editorials on President Obama’s speech yesterday about James Foley’s beheading, I was struck by how similar they were. As any regular reader of the two papers will know, while it’s not unheard of for their editorial pages to be in agreement, it’s also not typical. […]
Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?
The latest conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis is once again resulting in terrible suffering, horrific injuries and casualties on both sides. In previous conflicts, opinion has reflexively and, in my view, unjustifiably tended to favor the Palestinians. This time around, in spite of the usual mob protests in Europe and some of the […]