The Open Village» Policy

Dubious Lab Results and Do-Overs: The New Healthcare Double-Billing Scam

Daniel Ihonvbere — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:35:06 +0000

I’ve heard about it for quite some time but always thought it was one of those stories you can never verify. Until I experienced it first hand at a major clinic in Round Rock, TX. Imagine going to a hospital and no matter what ailment brought you to the hospital, you are always required to [...]

Save Their Families, Destroy Yours

Daniel Ihonvbere — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 16:11:14 +0000

Did you hear about the American soldier who got thrown in jail because she missed her deployment plane to go save families and people in other countries? Yes, she got jailed because she could not find someone to take care of her ten-month old son and missed the plane! While she was being asked to go save other families in far away countries where she will probably be killed, she is being punished for trying to take care of a little boy who is just TEN MONTHS old.

The Party of “NO”?

Daniel Ihonvbere — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:49:36 +0000

It's just over a year since President Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential elections. A full year, you would assume, for the Republican Party to lick its wounds, put country first and help the new president get the country up and running as it tries to recover from...the worst recession in many decades.

Campbell Brown’s Righteous Indignation….

Daniel Ihonvbere — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 20:27:11 +0000

or A Case of Serious Logic Problems. For the past couple of weeks, watchers of CNN have been bombarded with serious doses of misguided commentaries by Campbell Brown and her self-styled “No Bias, No Bull” segments which are probably the most biased and bull-filled on TV, second only to Fox News. Now, her rants are about [...]

Obama’s Security Team

Daniel Ihonvbere — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 17:54:08 +0000

As was widely rumored, President-Elect Barack Obama unveiled his National Security Team today. Here’s the announcement as released: Good morning. Last week, we announced our economic team, which is working as we speak to craft an Economic Recovery Program to create jobs and grow our struggling economy. Today, Vice President-elect Biden and I are pleased to [...]

Pimping D.L. Hughley

Daniel Ihonvbere — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:38:03 +0000

A little over a week before the U.S. presidential elections, CNN, the cable new network, decided to start airing a “comedy show” hosted by the Black comedian D.L. Hughley. On the face of it, it does not look like much, but the bottom line is that in a very sensitive election cycle where a Black candidate is on the verge of becoming the first non-white to be the president of the United States of America, CNN is using Hughley to give voice to its concerns about the Obama candidacy. To avoid being labeled racist, who better to make jokes about a black candidate without the attendant backlash than a black fool? It is a shame that D.L. Hughley is allowing himself to be pimped in such a fashion. One expects him to know that he is just feeding into the stereotype of an idiot (albeit a rich one) making a fool of himself in the village square. The dry jokes are not resonating. It would have been more respectable for him to delay his show until after the election. Perhaps, he could have avoided the unnecessary scrutiny this new gig will attract. Deep down, Hughley knows it’s not going to work. Comedians like him are not used to working in a very scripted environment where the jokes are forced and the language is plastic. There is nothing wrong in making fun of a black presidential candidate or any person of color running for higher office, but it should be done on the terms of the comedian, not as an outlet for a wimpy news organization trying to find a shortcut to asking difficult questions or raising and discussing difficult issues involving ethnicity, race and achievement. D.L. Hughley, you are better than this.

Obama’s Millions

Daniel Ihonvbere — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:17:14 +0000

In the closing days of this historic presidential campaign, a lot of noise has been made by the Republicans, John McCain and right wing ideologues about the amount of money senator Barack Obama has raised in his quest to be the next president of the United States of America. John McCain has complained about the [...]

John McCain’s Fantasy World

Daniel Ihonvbere — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 16:33:00 +0000

“I know how to win wars” “I am a maverick” “I have been tested” “I know how to get Osama Bin Laden” Hearing senator John McCain make these claims, the totally uninformed is wont to take the word of the 72-year old at face value. After all, he has been celebrated as a war hero; he is a long-serving [...]

The Cowardice of the American Media

Daniel Ihonvbere — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:31:56 +0000

In the most profound show of lilly-livered, wimpy and cowardly display of journalistic ethos, the American media brazenly towed the official line of right-wing ideologues in suppressing the most powerful aspect of General Colin Powell’s endorsement of Senator Barack Obama’s candidacy for the U.S presidency this past week. In the course of the most eloquent, well thought-out explanation of why he thought Obama deserved his endorsement, General Powell asked the question, in response to the charge that Obama may be a Muslim, “What if he is?”. Powell then went on to tell the story of a courageous American Muslim who joined the army after the attacks of September 11, 2001 in order to fight the extremists who were responsible for that dastardly act. While the media jumped all over the endorsement, there has been a frightening silence in picking up the story of Kareem Khan. This is disquieting in a country that claims to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have gone to wars in order to “spread freedom”. We have sponsored “regime changes” in order to remove leaders we thought were brutal to their own people. Yet, in the most powerful country in the world, we can not openly talk about people who are Muslims? In an era of ratings and competition, there could be the fear that if they (the media) ran an extended story on Khan, there was a possibility that their viewership would be affected. It is really a shame.

Lou Dobbs: Intellectual Bully or Ignorant Fool?

Daniel Ihonvbere — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 00:15:48 +0000

For quite a while, I actually enjoyed listening to Lou Dobbs on CNN. I religiously followed what I assumed were intelligent discussions of pressing issues, especially when it had to do with capital flight and the so-called war on the middle class, outsourcing and disappearing jobs in America. But the more I listen to this [...]