I’ve recently watched the season premiers of two shows I like to watch–South Park and Saturday Night Live. Both shows were returning after a long hiatus, but rather than lampoon the intervention against ISIS, the crisis in Libya, the conflict in Ukraine, or global indifference to climate change, both shows chose to lead off with the recent scandals in the NFL, with South Park making fun of the Washington Redskins name controversy, while SNL mocked the league’s indifference to the domestic violence committed by players Ray Rice (punched his fiancee in an elevator) and Adrian Peterson (beat his kid with a switch), among others. My Facebook feed is dominated by this stuff. This is really unfortunate, because it is yet another case of the American voting public being distracted from the serious issues by soap opera outrage politics.
Author: Benjamin Studebaker
Hey, Whatever Happened to Libya?
As the United States once again intervenes militarily in a Middle Eastern civil war (this time in Syria and Iraq), I am reminded of the 2011 western intervention into the Libyan Civil War. Remember three years ago when the western states decided to help Libyan rebels overthrow Muammar Gaddafi’s government? We almost never hear anything about what’s going on in Libya these days. What happened there? 2011 was about a year before I started up this blog, but I remember being vitriolically opposed to the intervention there. How did it turn out? Let’s investigate.
Scottish Independence is a Terrible Idea
On September 18, Scotland is set to have a referendum for independence from the United Kingdom. This is a really bad idea. Here’s why.
Internet Troubles
As usual, when something is obstructing me from blogging, I like to let my readers know what’s going on. Over the last week, my internet access at home has been totally out of service. I’ve had few opportunities to get online at all, much less invest the time and energy necessary to write a piece on here that’s worth reading. I’m hoping that regular access will be restored sometime in the next couple of days. If it continues, I’ll update readers with any new information.
Why ISIS is Beheading Americans and What We Can Do About It
Two American journalists have now been beheaded by the Islamic State–James Foley and Steven Sotloff. Vice President Joe Biden has already declared that he wants to follow ISIS to “the gates of hell.” But why is ISIS doing this, and what should the United States do about it?
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Benjamin Studebaker 