Live8/G8 Archives
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I'm not so sure this was a riot. For me, a riot should involve tear gas and fire. Which we may still see if – as I suspect he will – President Bush turns aside British Prime Minister Tony Blair's entreaties to reduce Africa's debt.
No, I'd say yesterday's Edinburgh street-scuffle was your average Euro-student protest summertime run-in with the cops. But Josh Trevino, in search of a Wifi connection stumbled right into it. Actually, Josh was looking for a Starbucks but as any San Franciscan can tell you – we may be the only city in America that has breathing self-proclaimed anarchists still roaming the streets – anarchists love to trash Starbucks and Mickie Dee's. It's their hobby.
In any event, Josh's posts from Scotland – as always – are well worth your time. To quote Emma Goldman: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
And check out the picture of the horses in riot gear. This is now my screensaver, I love this photo so much. The Boy Scouts got nothing on the Scottish police.
Here's another great photo to warm my old news hounds heart: Riot cops at the ready with the nonplussed Scot in the background.
Tue 03:28 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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The president's on vacation so maybe that’s it. But is there some reason no one in the Bush administration has said "boo" about the approaching G8 Summit?
British Prime Minster Tony Blair can't shut up. If it's not African debt relief – the focus of the conference, courtesy of Bono and Bob Geldof – he's talking about helping the Chinese and Indians better manage auto emissions. Yes, he's hosting and yes, it's an extension of "Cool Britannia" and yeah, this one's for the history books. But there's something else going on here. The Brits are winning the political PR war and, to some extent, they're doing it by imitating the tried and true U.S. approach to solving problems. First, they've racheted up the high-minded rhetoric.
All the Bush folks want to talk about is the "last throes" of the Iraqi resistance, a clear piece of wishing aloud as you're liable to see in public these days. They'll fill your ears with talk about the administration's AIDs relief efforts, too. But that's about it. They're saving their energy for the war on terror; a semi-permanent state of world affairs that's not going to be changed anytime soon and which most Europeans – particularly the English and the Irish who haven't forgotten the IRA – see as a regrettable fact of modern life.
Continue reading "What's He's Looking For"Mon 10:12 AM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
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Those of you with Geek tendencies may have noticed two things – not unrelated – about this site in the past few days. One, I haven't written much and two, there's another writer's name appearing on the RSS feed for Politics From Left to Right.
As I said, not unrelated. I've made several references in the past few months to the work we're doing here behind the "magic curtain." Well, it's time to raise it a bit.
Please welcome Josh Trevino to Politics From Left to Right. Josh knows how to make an entrance: he is one of a handful of writers or bloggers going to Edinburgh, Scotland on today to cover Live8 at the G8, the International Media Extravaganza of the Summer. Our pals at Technorati hooked us up. So we thank Mr. Sifry and Mr. Hirshberg.
Josh started his on-line career as the pro-Iraqi war blogger Tacitus and was one of the co-founders of Redstate.org. He thinks Ronald Reagan is one of our greatest presidents. He conservative, anti-abortion and thought Congress did the right thing in the Terri Schiavo case. In short, there's almost nothing about which Josh and I agree politically.
But here's what matters: He writes honestly and well; he is smart and sincere. His coverage of the events in Scotland – he started yesterday with a good, solid post about the purpose of these sort of mega-events -- is both smart, original and dead-on. Josh has traveled extensively in Africa as part of his work in public health so he doesn't just know the issues, he's seen them first hand. Oh, and did I mention that he's not much on movie stars?
Josh will be filing through the week and I can't wait.
Sun 12:42 PM | permalink | printer-friendly version | email this article
