The news this morning is of fighting in the suburbs of Damascus as army deserters and activists fight Syrian troops loyal to the regime.Early in the Syrian crisis we wrote that the fall of the regime would not happen until the government lost control of the streets of Syria’s two major cities: the commercial center […]

Bill Cosby has been pilloried for years by the radically chic who’ve disliked his efforts to get African-Americans to take more responsibility for their own success and education.  Now Spike Lee seems to be picking up the torch for education, discipline and hard work.Speaking to an audience in Arizona, the film director made some trenchant […]

Readers of Via Meadia know that there’s little love or respect here for the lazy, lying demagogic politicians whose corrupt patronage politics have ruined Greece. Nor do we hold in particularly high esteem the cultural qualities that led the Greeks to support such rotten politicians year after year.  Greek politics is in the school of […]

Japan and Russia have agreed to expand ties and are trying to work around if not resolve their dispute over the ownership of territories the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War Two.  Russia seems to be hinting that further progress on the islands may be possible after Russian presidential elections […]

A fascinating and important piece in the Wall Street Journal this morning makes the case that our modern habit of keeping kids out of work during years and years of academic study may actually stunt the development of important parts of their brain: the parts that have to do with practicality and making responsible decisions.Generally […]

Khaled Meshal, the longtime head of Hamas, has left Damascus for good, according to Hamas spokesmen in Gaza as reported by the NYT.For decades, Syria provided sanctuary for top Hamas operatives when no other Arab country would host the leaders of a group considered terrorists by many and opposed to the then dominant Fatah faction […]

As the world struggles to understand where the new Turkey is headed (something Turkey itself may not know for sure), it looks not only at Turkey’s relationship with Israel — getting worse — but at Turkey’s more general approach to the Jews.And there is some good news this week; as the NYT reports, Turkish government […]

The conflict that threatens to rip Nigeria apart is about a lot of things.  There is ethnicity: the Hausa and their allies dominate much of the the north, the Yoruba are strong in the south west, and the Igbo are strong in the south east. They speak different languages, have different histories, and want different […]

Aspiring Billy Elliots in London may soon have a school of their own, says the BBC. To be called the “Class Free School,” the school for boys 11 to 16 hopes to open in London in September 2013.School reform is moving quickly in the UK.  Under proposals from the coalition government, teachers, principals, community groups […]

Thousands of Russians recently took to the streets to voice their opposition to the prospect of a further six (perhaps twelve) years under the grip of Vladamir Putin’s rule at the Kremlin. Many of the protestors chanted for a more democratic government and a more open society. But not everyone who hates the Putin-Medvedev team […]