Richard Arthur
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Ric Arthur's written for the staffs of Commander-in-Chief and NCIS, produced two feature films and directed several shorter pieces. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and served aboard two navy ships based out of Japan as a navigator and deck officer. He finished out his active duty time as a United Nations Peacekeeper in the Western Sahara where he became an expert at negotiating with Bedouin tribal chiefs which came in handy when he was recalled back to active duty after 9/11 and served as an international affairs officer at the Pacific Fleet headquarters in Pearl Harbor. He received a Masters in Politics at Harvard University during which time he helped Al Franken write Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell.

Blog Entries by Richard Arthur

The Next National Security

Posted July 7, 2010 | 15:34:20 (EST)

By Jack d'Annibale and Richard Arthur

Last week, the USNS Mercy hospital ship completed its mission to Cambodia as part of the United States Navy's Pacific Partnership. Among the 29,000 patients treated by Navy doctors and Cambodian medical staff was a small boy who underwent a successful surgery. During pre-op,...

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No Horizon: A Cinematic Tale of Corruption, Greed and America

Posted June 11, 2010 | 16:11:00 (EST)

2010: An oil rig blows up in the Gulf of Mexico, killing eleven and beginning what will turn out to be the largest oil spill in American history. Thousands of miles of coastline will be covered with oil, shutting down fisheries, killing untold numbers of marine animals and stealing the...

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The Hurt Locker: Beyond Movie Magic

Posted March 1, 2010 | 17:55:54 (EST)

Much has been made of The Hurt Locker's unending tension and awful beauty as characters portrayed by Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty defuse IEDs on the urban battlefields of Iraq. But the film presents something more than entertainment. The writer, Mark Boal, and director, Kathryn Bigelow, have presented...

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It's Time to Repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell

Posted February 2, 2010 | 16:44:56 (EST)

In his State of the Union speech last Wednesday, President Obama called for a repeal of the controversial "Don't ask, don't tell" directive that has kept gays and lesbians from serving openly in the U.S. military. Against the backdrop of California's continuing debate over gay marriage, the President's statement reflects...

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Time to Sell

Posted October 12, 2009 | 11:16:25 (EST)

If Afghanistan was a stock, we would sell it. Their CEO is a crook, their corporate governance is woeful, and too many of their employees are uncommitted to success. Besides, even if they could actually get a product to market (peace? stability? democracy?) consumers could probably buy it elsewhere for...

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Bringing Democracy to Corporate America

Posted March 30, 2009 | 14:47:52 (EST)

If U.S. government owns 80% of AIG and still can't force the company to quit overpaying their executives, something is very wrong. Read on, I have a solution because shareholders (also know as "owners") must have more of a say. Multi-national companies enjoy unprecedented power in every facet of public...

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Sarah Palin's Taken $125,000 Cash from Oil Companies

Posted August 31, 2008 | 13:23:25 (EST)

How is America to take Sarah Palin seriously when, since 1983, she and her husband have taken $125,000 from the oil companies because she has lived in Alaska?

While the rest of America has been held hostage by high gas prices, her family has actually made a profit. Big...

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Bring the Corpses Down from our Lamp Posts!

Posted August 13, 2008 | 15:40:08 (EST)

In the dark old days, bloodthirsty despots hung or staked the corpses of political prisoners and vanquished enemies in the city square as a brutal warning of their power.

Is that process continued today? Sort of. Leave it to the Germans to update the practice and then bring it...

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Offshore Oil: What Would Sun Tzu Do?

Posted June 26, 2008 | 14:25:04 (EST)

President Bush is mounting an election-year initiative to end the federal ban on offshore drilling and oil exploration in ANWR. While high prices at the pump making any panacea attractive, drawing down those resources now irrevocably weakens America's long-term strategic resource positioning without even the benefit of a price break...

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