General and Concise Thoughts, Comments, and Updates from the Author.
When I learned that actor Ed Asner had passed away at the age of 91 the other day, I couldn’t help thinking about the old “Lou Grant” television series in which Asner played the gruff and curmudgeonly city editor of the fictional Los Angeles Tribune. By the way, in case … Read more…
Today, I am stepping away from the FUBAR disaster that has occurred during the past several weeks in Afghanistan, to something “completely different,” as they used to say on the old Monty Python TV show. Instead of Afghanistan, I am taking you to Japan, where there is a national holiday … Read more…
By now you have heard about the military weapons, vehicles, aircraft, drones, classified technology, and encrypted communications equipment the feckless and incompetent Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff left behind for our new friends the Taliban in Afghanistan. Clearly, the deaths of 12 U.S. … Read more…
Joe Biden is a disgrace. He is feckless. He is a coward. He is a liar. Yesterday, he went on television to talk about the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan. But how did he begin? He started by talking about the Democrat’s Build Back Better plan and all the “free stuff” … Read more…
Recently I was interviewed on Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” show, hosted by Jan Jakielek about the similarities and differences between what is happening now in Afghanistan and what happened in Saigon in April 1975. Here is a link to that interview. It lasts about 30 minutes. I hope you … Read more…
Ocassionally, I post stories I wrote while working as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. I filed the story that follows in Febrary 1987 after returning from a foray into Afghanistan with a warlord and his Mujahideen militia. The Mujahideen, who eventually morphed into the Taliban, were fighting the … Read more…
Accomplished wordsmith William Safire once defined a gap between the generations as “a frustrating lack of communication between young and old, or a useful stretch of time that separates cultures within a society, allowing them to develop their own character.” That’s a pretty good definition. But it doesn’t tell the … Read more…
In the past few weeks, two stories caught my attention. One decried the growing wealth gap between the young and old in America. The other highlighted the growing difference between older and younger Americans on issues such as social values and morality. Should we be surprised by either of these … Read more…
Today, I am running an obituary of legendary Vietnam war correspondent Joe Galloway that appeared in the Stars & Stripes newspaper. Galloway passed away Wednesday. I hope you will take a look at it. Galloway was the quintessential war reporter–self-effacing, courageous, and honest in his powerful reporting. Ron Yates In … Read more…
America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan with an enemy and a people still stuck in the Middle Ages has ended. Finally. And just as it was 47 years ago in a place called Vietnam, it did not end in victory. That became clear on Sunday when Taliban forces entered Kabul essentially unimpeded by … Read more…