Across Difficult Country

The Khaleej Times reports the drummer of the Scorpions is being held captive in Dubai . If this were the 80’s I would scour the dive bars, pool halls, and fast food restaurant parking lots to assemble a crack team of metalheads and hard rockers, and we would go give the Mussulmen what for. But this is the 21st Century. I don’t even know where those guys are these days. Some got fat, some are dead, some drink white wine and listen to Mumford & Sons. What the rest are doing, I don’t want to find out.

Sad news from Nigeria, the Tide reports reggae artists there are “now in limbo”, thanks to the surging popularity of other musical forms, many of which are even worse than reggae.  Also sad is how the Tide, once a great newspaper with a commitment to truth , has gotten rid of all of its interesting columnists and is now little more than an African version of Vox media, minus Vox’s smug pretensions and tedious liberal bias. Sad news from Driffield: the Driffield bus depot closes May 31st , annihilating my plans to finally take that bus trip to Driffield. I think there is a carpe diem type  lesson here, either that or try harder to come up with holiday ideas that aren't total shit. Sad news from Harare , where tobacco farmer Brighton Magutakuona had “his privates burnt” by a goblin . The saddest part is the goblin was his own, one he inherited from his grandparents.

A violent career criminal and overrated boxer, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (no relation) was beloved by sleazy journalists , Hollywood hacks, mush-brained liberal judges  and croaky folk singers because he murdered three white people.

His books, a gooey mix of ghosts, rotten bananas, magic, bean farts and jungle sweat, are beloved by prize committees, middlebrow politicians, left-wing psueds and college girls who wear army boots.

I was drinking scotch (Dewar's, rocks) and reading Fruit-Inform (the leading information source on the fruits and vegetable markets of Ukraine, Russia and other Eastern European countries), like I do most afternoons when I wake up, and I noticed the big Potatoes & Vegetables of Ukraine 2014 Conference was scheduled to be held in Kiev this Thursday. I’m no conspiracist, but isn't it curious Ukraine explodes in unrest and the Russians move into Crimea just before this crucial conference? “I too find it curious,” observed Across Difficult Country's foreign correspondent Ismail Mat Taib . “If I were not so busy patrolling this damned beach on a motorcycle I would go and do some reporting from there. Which reminds me, did I ever tell you about the time a barge that I thought was full of potatoes had —" Yes, yes you did.

Exciting developments in Malaysia, where Across Difficult Country foreign correspondent Ismail Mat Taib has once again witnessed a barge wash up on the beach. The Daily Light reports : A resident of Mempisang Beach, Kampung Jawa, was surprised to see an object lying just off the coast that he initially believed was float logs, but apparently a barge overturned.  Local resident Ismail Mat Taib, 66, said he believed the barge is upside down due to the relatively strong waves. "Three days ago I was patrolling the beach on a motorcycle around 4 pm and I saw a large object in the sea. "At first I thought it was drift logs, but when viewed correctly, apparently it is a barge," he told the Daily Light.  According to him, to this day no party has come forward to claim ownership of the barge.  "Some villagers went to look, they look from a distance, to see if there were victims or goods, but they did not find anything," he said.  Meanwhile, Ismail said, a...

Each new accession of an “issue” leads to the demand that we demonstrate our “commitment.” Not coincidentally, the desired commitment invariably involves swelling the bureaucratic class and its power over our lives.  The spirit of neologism is perhaps best illustrated when it fastens on a word in common use. Note the recent career of the word “ diversity .” This term denotes a key conservative theme. As is pointed out by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn in writings including his classic Leftism (1974), a devotion to diversity arguably distinguishes the Right from the Left. The elements of this devotion are many; consider, for example, respect for regional traditions, the insistence that human beings are not interchangeable, the tendency to think in terms of distinct persons rather than large classes of people, support for various institutions that shield individuals from the State, as well as the related belief in decentralization. We are now expected to restrict the term to one expli...