KULTUR

KULTURALIA—We thought this was an interesting topic, and the author does provide some persuasive answers. He may be focusing too much on “modern soldiers” typical of the “West”, especially those of Northern European extraction, Britan, Germany, etc., or US soldiers, who comprise a predominant mass of huge people, typical of the US population. That said, the comparison may be less apt when we talk about “modern soldiers” from the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Chile, El Salvador, Japan, etc., where average male body mass is certainly much smaller.

On Russian TV Maria Zakharova properly calls US journos “politicians” and “propagandists” pretending to be journalists.

MATT TAIBBI—Obviously, no one has a constitutional right to a Facebook page or a Twitter account. As ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner points out, there’s no First Amendment issue here. “To the extent First Amendment rights figure in at all, they’re enjoyed by the companies, who get to decide what does and does not go on their platforms,” he says. But the fact that removals are probably legal does not mean they’re not worrisome. If a handful of companies are making coordinated decisions about content, especially in conjunction with official or quasi-official bodies, this has far-reaching implications for the press.

JASON HIRTHLER—Thanks to this artful disguise, the West can stage interventions in nations reluctant to adopt its platform of exploitation, knowing that on top of the depredations of an exploitative economic model, they will be asked to call it progress and celebrate it. Washington, the metropolitan heart of neoliberal hegemony, has numerous methods of convincing reluctant developing nations to accept its neighborly advice. To be sure, the goal of modern colonialism is to find a pretext to intervene in a country, to restore by other means the extractive relations that first brought wealth to the colonial north.

Rolex that once belonged to Paul Newman sold for $17.8 million last month, the…