The shock and horror at the mass drowning in the Mediterranean has been followed by a lot of huffing and puffing about how callous Europe is for allowing this to happen. Indignation abounds, but few solutions are being offered. (More…)
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With the first video from his forth-coming album ISSKOOTSIK (Before Here Was Here), spoken-word artist, attorney and activist, Gyasi Ross recovers a revolutionary American moment that occurred on the banks of the Puyallup River in the rural area surrounding Seattle in 1964. (More…)
When attempting to assess the work of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, one is tempted to do as Richard Bernstein did in a piece about Habermas in the 1980s and write two columns: one showing what a sympathetic, the other what an unsympathetic critic would say. (More…)
Even if you’ve heard nothing about the new Sufjan Stevens album Carrie and Lowell, the cover should make its purpose clear. But I somehow managed to remain willfully ignorant until the moment when I put it on the stereo. It must have been a defense mechanism, because the minute his voice entered the warbling folk of the first track, I was already in tears. (More…)
If the Financial Times has it right, the centre-left is on course to win Britain’s general election. According to the erstwhile pink tabloid, it all comes down to math. Statistics show that a Labour-SNP government has a 32.5% of victory, whereas the governing Tories lag painfully behind, at 0.39%. If true, it’d be a spectacular drubbing. (More…)
Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, father of the ongoing Houthi revolt, demanded greater autonomy and influence for his family as spiritual leaders among Yemen’s Zaydi Shia community. President Ali Abdullah Saleh refused to accept these demands, not wanting to lose power to a rival family. (More…)
Modern Pakistan is filled with myths about “the Afghan character,” particular to its urban middle class. As a result, students of Pakistani politics frequently encounter bizarrely colonial appraisals of “culturally Afghan” groups in Pakistan. (More…)
Climate change is dominating the global news cycle as never before. With every catastrophic storm and highly unusual spate of weather, the possibility that we have irreparably destabilized the Earth’s delicate ecological balance looms larger. Even in the United States, where, despite — or perhaps because of — a comparatively high standard of living and learning, denial of this dire situation has been rampant, the tide is tuning. (More…)
The first round of Britain’s election debates passed with little trouble. In spite of a heckler’s best efforts, three women represented the left on the national stage. As the UK media has grudgingly acknowledged, Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon won the debate. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. (More…)
Igor Kolomoisky was having a bad week. The Ukrainian parliament had passed a new law that would have cost him control over a major oil company. So Mr. Kolomoisky, one of the richest men in Ukraine, decided to fight back. Just not through the courts. He and a group of handpicked, armed men stormed two office complexes in Kiev on March 19th and 22nd. (More…)