Rajendra Pachauri, the formerly outspoken head of the IPCC, was yanked firmly off the global stage last January after his blustering and insulting attacks on well-founded criticisms of exaggerations and false predictions in the UN’s high profile climate report turned him into an embarrassing liability to the global environmental movement.  “Voodoo science,” he said dismissively […]

On my recent lecture tour in Pakistan, I was lucky enough to spend some time in Karachi with Dr. Elizabeth Colton, a 65-year-old ex-journalist who has made her second career in the State Department working on public diplomacy for the United States.This wasn’t the first time I’ve encountered Dr. Colton.  Over the last eight years […]

The unremitting spate of bad news from Pakistan continues; rains are still drenching the highlands and the devastation continues to spread down the river valleys.  This year’s harvest has been ruined; increasingly, it seems unlikely that farmers will be able to plant fall crops.  While visiting Pakistan earlier this month, I posted on the roots […]

After two weeks in Pakistan and a week’s vacation I am hoping to return tomorrow to the stately Mead manor in glamorous Queens.  A bit sunburned and blistered from some tough scuba duty here in the Cayman Islands, I expect to resume regular posts on Via Meadia this week.  Many thanks to Professor Cristol and […]

I am nearing the end of a week’s rest and recuperation at an undisclosed location in the Cayman Islands, but Pakistan’s Summer from Hell is still going strong.Things were tough enough during my stay.  On my way in from the airport in Karachi, traffic was unusually light.  Roving gangs of armed thugs were roaming through […]

Sometime in the last 24 hours, Via Meadia passed an important milestone: the blog has had more than one million hits.When I started to blog last fall, I had no idea whether these essays would find an audience.  I’ve been more than gratified by the response, and thanks to all the visitors, regular and occasional, […]

It’s been one disaster after another this week in Pakistan.  The WikiLeaks documents opened raw wounds in Pakistan’s agonizing relationship with the United States.  A plane crash on the outskirts of the capital of Islamabad killed 152 people.  UK Prime Minister David Cameron ostentatiously attacked Pakistan for exporting terror and ‘looking both ways’ in the […]

I’m not much good at timing.  I was visiting Jordan on a lecture tour when the Israelis assassinated Hamas founder Sheikh Yassin.  Amman closed down and much of my program had to be canceled; Americans weren’t welcome on campuses where student groups were mourning the sheikh and vowing revenge.  I was in Indonesia when the […]

During the next two weeks I’ll be visiting Pakistan at the invitation of the US Embassy there.  I won’t be there to toe the government line; from time to time US diplomats abroad call on people from many different points of view and walks of life to give overseas audiences a chance to encounter Americans […]

I was waiting to name my blog until the White House came up with a new name for the Conflict Formerly Known As The Global War On Terror (COFKATGWOT); I’ve pretty much given up on that now.  We are fighting an anonymous war with unspecified goals against Those Who Cannot Be Named and that’s the […]