For students of American politics, there are at least three reasons to remember the late U.S. Senator from Arizona, Barry Goldwater. First, as the Republican presidential nominee back in 1964 he posted one of the most catastrophic losses in modern American politics. Incumbent president Lyndon Johnson demolished him by the extraordinary margin of 22.58% of [...]
US President Donald Trump has strong local competition for the award which columnist David Brooks recently bestowed on him. He declared that the erratic leader of the free world as ‘ the all-time record holder of the Dunning-Kruger effect.’ In 1999, David Dunning and Justin Kruger – two academic psychologists at Cornell University – described [...]
'Present at the Creation' was the title of US Secretary of State Dean Acheson's autobiography. As the US's chief diplomat between 1949 and 1953, he inaugurated and witnessed key events that shaped our world after the end of the war against Hitler and the commencement of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet [...]
It’s the memes wot won it. This shorthand definition of an image, video or cartoon — usually humorous and shared rapidly by internet users — is one of many explanations for the extraordinary results posted in Thursday’s British general election. Bundled off the campaign just three days before the poll because of a series of [...]
Israel is one of the few countries available for the South African political establishment to burnish their human rights credentials. For reasons of solidarity and expediency or simple inattention, such gross rights violators as Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Syria –where political protestors are shot dead, imprisoned or gassed with poison respectively, escape both attention and censure. [...]
Two events last Friday morning, oceans and several time zones apart, remind us that politicians embrace the full spectrum of the ethical universe. First up, literally since it was predawn, were the intemperate, vituperative and ranting tweets - starting at 3am - of US presidential candidate Donald J Trump. These were on heavyweight matters: on [...]
Tony Leon is a major figure in South African politics. He became the leader of the Democratic Party in 1994, and over the next five years, he helped grow it into South Africa’s second largest party, making him Leader of the Opposition. He held this role for several years until 2007, keeping the ruling African [...]
Exactly seventy-two years ago on Monday, June 6 1944, over 150000 allied troops stormed the Nazi-held beaches of Normandy, France, a day immortalised as D-Day. D-Day began the final, though bloody, phase of the war against Hitler and the liberation of Europe from the Nazi jackboot, achieved with finality the following spring, on May 8 [...]
Cynics here and elsewhere might think it appropriate that South Africa's face overseas is that of a criminal accused Readers might have observed last week's moving ceremony in Hiroshima, when Barack Obama made history by becoming the first US president to visit the city America hit with an atom bomb in 1945 . Less noticed, [...]
Lula and Brazil's descent from grace goes a lot beyond country and personality The great, now sadly late, rocker Prince will be remembered for many things, from musical genius to edgy sexuality and the shock of the new back in 1978. Back then he burst onto the musical scene with his debut album For You. [...]
