The Kensington Review

14 October 2005

Donate to the American Red Cross to Help Hurricane Victims

Latest Commentary:
Call 1-800-HELP-NOW

Volume IV, Number 123
US Red Tape Keeps Emergency Rations from Hurricane Victims -- When the British government arranged to send military ration packs (known to Tommies everywhere as “rat packs”) to Louisiana to help out, this journal ran a rather lighthearted piece about British cuisine in general and the rat packs in particular. It turns out the 500,000 meals that could have been given to the hungry in the Gulf Coast are still sitting in a warehouse where it costs taxpayers $16,000 to store them. The American ban on British beef is the culprit, but the State Department is looking for another needy country to which to ship the food.

Blair Offers Draconian Terror Laws -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is a highly accomplished politician. He has created a right of center Labour Party out of an old socialist one, and has been so effective in stealing the Conservative Party’s policies that the Tories are trying to choose their fourth leader since John Major lost the 1997 general election. He is committed to ends and doesn’t care much about ideological means. This has allowed him to adopt policies that may benefit the British underclass despite their non-socialist content. However, it also means he has a blind spot about civil liberties, as his new proposals on fighting terrorism show.

Bank Cards Offer Deposits to Savings Accounts for Naive -- Bank of America and American Express have been banging their respective drums this week about their cards that allegedly help consumers save. While neither company is doing anything illegal, shady or deceptive, what they are doing is contrary to simple common sense. Under their programs, the more one spends the bigger one’s savings account gets. But the savings account will get bigger faster if one simply doesn’t spend in the first place.

Playwright Harold Pinter Wins Nobel Literature Prize -- When an author has such an impact on literature that the critics invent an adjective to describe his mood, tone or approach, it’s a pretty good sign that he is really big. In the case of Harold Pinter, “pinteresque” was needed to describe what the FT called “full of dark hints and pregnant suggestions, with the audience left uncertain as to what to conclude.” Maybe, maybe not. But Mr. Pinter’s body of work is as brilliant as it is huge, and he deserves the Nobel Prize the Swedish Academy announced yesterday.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Google

Comprehensive Media Web Directory

WWW Kensington Review

Search:
Keywords:






Links

Contact us

Back Issues