Before I get to this week’s topic, I want to personally congratulate the centenarian, Ismay Spooner, who was featured in the Kaieteur News yesterday.  Regular readers of this column would know that I have written several times on the elderly, and how we as a society can show our appreciation for them – reading Mrs. Spooner’s story, I can now add another suggestion to the several I’ve made over the years: anyone who lives to be 100 in this society should have their living expenses taken care of by the State.
Of all the stories in the news this week, the one that caught my attention most deeply is the whole News of the World scandal that has rocked not only Britain but, by extension of its owner’s global reach, the media fraternity across the world. After getting a sense of the full impact and implication of the case with regard to, I couldn’t help but think about how it should have effect on things across the Atlantic, specifically Murdoch’s most famous, or infamous, media property – Fox News.
Explain to me what is meant by fair and balanced according to Rupert Murdoch’s minions…
I visited the Fox News website late yesterday afternoon as I was finishing off this column to see how it was that the “Fair and Balanced” network was covering the embarrassment at its sister network.  In the “Latest news” tab on the site the top story is about the scandal but the headline reads, “UK Government Defends News Corps Ties as Scandal Spirals” while the rest of the story, granted skilfully, weaves only recently adopted Murdoch’s mea culpa attitude into reportage which focuses primarily on the UK government’s housecleaning as opposed to publisher’s, News International, internal failures.
I know it’s wishful thinking, but what I would have liked to see some pronouncement on the issue by Fox pundits – there was not even a peep from Bill O’Reilly, probably the most daring and balanced, and we’re speaking in relative terms here, of Fox’s prime time people.  What I want explained to me in this case therefore, is if there is all this pontificating about being “Fair and Balanced”, why is it not being applied in this case?
In the ‘Most Read’ tab on the Fox home page, below a Washington, DC school district employee layoff story, a feature on killer-mom Casey Anthony, and a story on Mila Kunis and her date with the marine, is an OP-ED piece entitled “President Obama Doesn’t Know the First Thing About Economics”, written by Iain Murray.
Explain to me how it is that the same party that is now talking about fiscal responsibility is the party of Dick Cheney who said, famously, “Deficits don’t matter”…
In his piece, Murray takes the Obama administration to task in relation to the recent move to raise America’s debt ceiling, a measure seen as necessary to prevent America from possible economic collapse.  I’ve been following the story, and while the party line from the Republicans – and rightwing corporate deregulation shills such as Murray – has been that the party has America’s fiscal responsibility at heart, America’s current debt crisis is an accumulative one coming at the tailend of a recession fuelled by Bush’s national economic policy and his disastrous decisions to start two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the latter of which led to the literal disappearance of billions of dollars and the expenditure of billions more either directly as a result of the mobilization or on contractors close the administration.
Explain to me how is it that  America’s definition of democracy keeps being conveniently applied, and how today’s ally is tomorrow’s pariah…
And as we are on the issue of ill-conceived aggression, the situation in Libya, is being sold as this epic struggle against this erratic strongman who has been oppressing his people, much in the vein of the Saddam Hussain ‘regime change’ in Iraq.  Yet, the reality on the ground is that ordinary Libyans are suffering more in the present crisis than under the Colonel’s rule.  And anyone trying to sell me that long-term good argument needs to look at the situations in Iraq and arguably Afghanistan – the latter in which the only real gain, in my mind, has been the liberation of women.
And speaking of the liberation of women, if we look at America’s close ally, Saudi Arabia, it is completely hypocritical of America to speak to the world about democracy, and the rights of people, when women in the Saudi Kingdom, cannot be elected to high political office, cannot vote and are not even allowed to drive. 
How is that the same leaders – Mubarak and Gadaffi – both of whom had access to successive Washington regimes, including Obama’s, one month were suddenly the most undemocratic despots on earth the next?
Explain to me how global warming denial is still around…
Finally, there are the climate change skeptics, a category to which, incidentally but predictably, Mr. Murray I wrote on above belongs.  Someone needs to explain to me how anyone right now could be mounting any sort of credible challenge to the reality of climate change and the need for its mitigation.  On the one hand, you have scientists who have by and large as a community come out and said, that with all  objective data and analyses in, we are sure that this is what is happening and this is the cause of it; on the other hand, you have a few people who are either career conspiracy theorists, or ‘scientists’ who – as has happened before with the tobacco industry’s campaign against scientific proof of the hazards of smoking – are in the employ of companies whose enormous profit margins would be affected if things were done not just differently, but to the benefit of everyone in the long run.
I could go on and on, and the fact is, I intend to, but this column is one which has limited space. While I am out of that particular commodity this week, I intend however to expand further upon my list of things that I need a proper explanation for, only this time, I’m coming a lot closer to home.