http://youtu.be/EC9j6Wfdq3o In case you have forgotten it, here is the historic and controversial “Willie Horton Ad” that obliterated Michael Dukakis’s chances for the presidency in 1988. The ad was called racist by the Dukakis campaign, but it was hugely effective.  When tested in focus groups in July of that year, audiences turned instantly against Dukakis […]

The United Nations is finally getting around to trying senior leaders of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime for genocide, The New York Times reports today.  The trial, which is targeting just four defendants, comes 32 years after the Vietnamese military ousted the fanatical agrarian socialist government from power.  The cost of the trial – to date […]

The ABC news (Australian public television) is reporting that food shortages in North Korea are becoming so bad that soldiers are going unfed.   This is a stark departure from the famine in the early 1990’s when North Korea’s military was insulated from food shortages, while well more than a million citizens died of starvation. The […]

There is a fine line between driving media and chasing headlines.  Sarah Palin, in scheduling her film premier in Iowa tomorrow, has slipped into the latter category.  Her five minutes of fame are about up.  Irrelevancy is looming; you can feel it in her actions. I am not a Palin basher.  Never have been.  I’m neither that […]

I’ve been reading horrific stories of late about gender selection abortions across the globe.  So many pregnancies where the unborn child is female are being terminated that it is significantly altering the natural ratio of girls to boys worldwide. The practice is particularly prevalent in Asia, where the norm of 105 boys to every 100 […]

Many years ago, on the eve of a highly contested congressional election in New York, a guerrilla telephone campaign was waged within the New York City gay community against the Republican candidate for whom I was working.  There was a sizable gay community in the district, and the whisper calls were suggesting that my candidate was a virulent […]

http://youtu.be/q-0ecuS8tWs  

Talk reportedly is rampant in the Venezuelan capital about the possibility that Hugo Chavez may be physically incapable of retaking the reins of government after he returns from a Cuban hospital stay.  But who could replace the animated and ubiquitous Chavez?  Who could capture the essence of his rule?  Is there anyone out there who could replace such a […]

President Obama is getting tagged today for his continued tap-dance around the issue of gay marriage.  His ever-“evolving” position seems always to fall short of the “M” word – just like it does for so many Republicans in New York State. The President soft-shoed before an audience of 600 gay and lesbian dinner goers last […]

I had the good fortune of spending a week in Hanoi in 2002 (and not 1972) with my sister Priscilla.  Priscilla, who works in the travel business, arranged the trip and hired an extraordinary guide named Trinh Huy Tho, with whom I made fast friends.  We are still in occasional touch today. One gets dozens […]