With the gutting of foreign coverage by most U.S. newspapers and the need to populate infinite Web space with content, a new creature has emerged: the foreign affairs blogger. Max Fisher, who hosts the Washington Post’s WorldViews page, is a leading exemplar of the species. Fisher’s newsy nuggets are often low-priority zeitgeist items that may […]
Big concert this week, October 10, in Kinshasa to honor the 2012 Francophonie summit. Performances by Papa Wemba and Werrason with their groups have already been posted online. Also on the program were Mbilia Bel, Tshala Muana, Nyoka Longo, Koffi Olomide and other titans of soukous and ndombolo, plus a few artists from other countries. […]
For two decades Ghana has been celebrated for its democratic politics, on-schedule elections and peaceful transfers of power. The record contrasts with the country’s prior instability, going back to the 1966 coup that unseated Kwame Nkrumah, a blow to pan-Africanist dreams and the event that opens John Dramani Mahama’s memoir My First Coup d’Etat: And […]
I am very sad to learn that Billy Bang has died at age 63. He was a beautiful musician who struggled with mental illness and other woes from the trauma of his service in Vietnam until he processed it in his music. I was introduced to his work by Butch Morris. Two years ago I […]
1. Anyone who has done any kind of archival research will know immediately the use of the WikiLeaks cables, and also their limits. Now that the superficial and the obvious are out of the way, the truly interesting material is coming to light; specifics of diplomacy and statecraft in an era where those arts are […]
“I’ve kept some distance from the 50th anniversary,” my friend says, “because I’m being doubted.” A few days ago he went online to check his voter eligibility status. My friend was born in Côte d’Ivoire and has always been Ivorian, nothing else. He travels back to Côte d’Ivoire for Christmas or, recently, to bury his […]
Didier Drogba is all the rage now–”Time” named him to the magazine’s annual 100 Most Influential People,” largely because of his apparent role to end the civil war in his native Cote d’Ivoire’s civil war through football. As a result, Drogba apparently has god-like status in his homeland. So much so that he even spawned a dance […]
