Dear Michael Jackson,This is the first letter I’ve written to a dead person, though you’re still alive in a sense, aren’t you? There were always two Michael Jacksons: one, the flesh-and-blood mortal who succumbed 12 years ago; the other, a product of countless people’s imaginations, a creation freed of the constraints of time and space who will live forever.
Across the globe, democracy appears to be in a curious state. One of the main indicators of the health or pathology of democracy is the turnout in elections. Some might claim that the high turnout for the Biden-Trump face-off last year was a sign of health for US democracy.
Guacamole, or so BBC has claimed, is “undoubtedly one of Mexico’s most popular dishes,” dating back to the times of the Aztecs. Thanks to Pancho Villa and Old El Paso’s spice mix, guacamole has conquered European lunch and dinner tables from Norway to France, from Switzerland to Spain. Served as an appetizer or a side dish, guacamole is a versatile culinary delight.
In January this year, the public attention was drawn to a Serbian souvenir shop selling shirts with the inscription “” (“Knife, Wire”), the slogan celebrating the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica where the Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. The Belgrade-based shop specializes in streetwear honoring Serbian nationalism, irredentism and military history from World War II to the 1990s wars in former Yugoslavia.
What is it about some great artists that makes them want to be someone else? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the father of Sherlock Holmes, aspired to be a historical novelist like Leo Tolstoy or Fyodor Dostoyevsky, neglecting that he created some of the finest detective fiction of all time. François Truffaut was in awe of Alfred Hitchcock, even though many thought his own films as complex, mysterious and beguiling as Hitchcock’s. Marvin Gaye had his sights set on becoming another Frank Sinatra. At least that’s the inference we take from his biographer, David Ritz. In his book “Divided Soul,” Ritz quotes Gaye: “Everyone wanted to sell to whites ‘cause whites got the most money,” adding that, at Motown, his record label, “Our attitude was — give us some.”
With an estimated 255 million full-time jobs lost in 2020, the global economy shrank by 4.4%, pushing ever more people into poverty. Right now, 34 million are on the brink of starvation, and 235 million will require humanitarian assistance and protection in 2021 — an increase of 40% from last year. Limited social and economic mobility has deeply altered family life with alarming speed and magnitude. For families, the fundamental building blocks of our society, the pandemic is a public and yet a very personal crisis. As the raging socioeconomic inequalities we have allowed to multiply are exposed, their severe strain continues to be experienced differently among families.
Earlier this week, an Israeli military official evoked “a worst-case scenario” conducted by three Israeli infantry brigades that would amount to crushing Gaza on the ground rather than just bombarding it. Some observers have noticed that the current worse-than-ever-before-but-not-as-bad-as-what’s-to-come scenario has miraculously permitted Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to hang on to power after the March 23 election deprived him of the hope of heading a new coalition.
In the days following the announcement of Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce, it has become clear that Melinda was the force behind it. In this column, we speculated that Alexander Zaitchik’s devastating critique of Bill’s role in the enduring drama of vaccine inequality may have been a contributing factor. Bill’s disastrous commitment to prioritizing intellectual property over human health may have been the spark Melinda was waiting for.
It is inarguable that cuteness matters in campaigns focused on animal protection and conservation. Feeling a connection to a species engenders compassion and the desire to see its continuity, and even moves us to engage in programs focused on its survival. Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not all animals exhibit the same level of objective adorability. It is with this sentiment in mind that the World Animal Protection aptly framed its “Ugly Animals Need Love Too” campaign.
Yemen’s food crisis is not different in its nature from other regions of the Arab world and the agrarian south more broadly. However, it is a severe case, hence the warning issued a year ago by the United Nations that Yemen, along with other countries, faces the imminent threat of famines of “biblical proportions.” The mass starvation that has engulfed the country is partly a consequence of the ongoing conflict, especially the economic blockade imposed in 2015. Yet the root causes predate the civil war, as devastating as it has been, and have only been revealed and exacerbated by it. At its core, Yemen’s food emergency is an agrarian and a rural social crisis that has been in the making since the formation of the two republics in the 1960s.
