iPINIONS Journal: Commentaries on the Global Events of 2013-Volume IX

ANTHONY L. HALL takes aim at the global events of 2013 with a unique and refreshing perspective. Here are some of the topics he addresses:

Public outrage over NSA spying

"There's no rationalizing their outrage over the NSA monitoring their promiscuous and indiscriminate footprints (online and via telephone). For, evidently, these nincompoops think it's okay for Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Facebook, and others to spy on them to sell them stuff, but not okay for the NSA to do so to keep them safe."

National praise NBA player Jason Collins got for coming out

"His courageous stand is somewhat undermined by the fact that he waited to take it on his way out of the league."

Women who'd rather pose nude than be caught without makeup

"Who would've thought the liberation inherent in the sexual revolution and feminist movement would devolve into a self-abnegating farce where women themselves consider it a 'brave decision' to go out in public without makeup?"

Mediterranean Sea becoming a graveyard for Africans migrants

"I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women, and children) are risking their lives, practically every day, to subjugate themselves to the paternal mercies of their former colonial masters in Europe."

Pope rebuking church for neglecting poor

"Nothing indicates how far mainstream Christians have backslidden quite like the pope's good old-fashioned religion being hailed as revolutionary."

World paying tribute to Nelson Mandela

"As you see the most powerful people in the world falling all over themselves to sing Mandela's praises in the coming days, bear in mind that the people Mandela himself loved and admired most (outside of family members) are old comrades--most of whom you will never see on TV or social media."