You couldn't make it up. The FIFA bribery scandal reads more like a comedy script as each day passes and fuels the anger of football fans everywhere.
In modern society, we all seem to be over-scheduled and running ourselves ragged. We are continually operating at an unrelenting pace hoping things will eventually slow down. But rather than slowing down, it seems as though there are more demands on our time.
Understanding ways in which we can be influenced by others and in turn be persuasive ourselves is an important tool which we should add to our toolbox.
Most Americans don't watch Winfrey Oprah's show. They are at work or school or shopping or watching something else on TV. Sure, Oprah has a big following, but it is still a minority of Americans who watch Oprah, say once every couple of weeks, and even fewer who watch her show consistently.
Talk is often boring, and listeners are often tired, but this is not the least true with Oprah Winfrey's talk show. She is a national treasure of the United States, promoting American family values, culture, and lifestyles. She is another typical "American Story", growing up out of poverty and hardship.
Conventional wisdom has it that when you smile, the world smiles with you, but when you frown, you frown alone. Researchers Jessica Tracy and Alec Beall suggest that smiles may not be all they are cracked up to be.
Any anticipation that US President Barack Obama's speech on the Middle East on May 19 would help break the impasse in the region's peace process may look too good to be true.
The successful raid by American forces of Osama bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan will most likely boost President Obama's bid for re-election next year. Therefore, it does appear that the killing of bin Laden represents a personal victory for President Obama.
What bin Laden's death means to me is mainly the clinching of a trend that began under Bush and is continuing under Obama: namely, that the United States is becoming something much uglier than it once was-- even if its beauty were never flawless to begin with.
On a theoretical level, war can be classified into two types: first, the just against the unjust; second, the unjust against the unjust. But no sooner do we apply this theoretical clarification into an analysis of a concrete case than we are confused.
The death of Bin Laden will indeed result in the chaos among the now leaderless terrorist forces. However, if the roots of terrorism cannot fundamentally be removed, the anti-terrorism methods of using violence to check violence will be unsustainable.
What makes the name Bin Laden so disturbing is not just that he is a ruthless killer but that we lack available conceptual frameworks to understand people such as Bin Laden. And it is such a conceptual framework this article tries to offer.
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