Did the Allies liberate Europe from Fascism? Many leftists would say no. In West Germany, for example, Nazi-era civil servants, judges and police officers remained in place for nearly three more decades. The same could be said of France, not to mention, of course, Italy. Why? For the Allies, quite often, due to pragmatism. How would they run these countries without them? (More…)
The Aleppo Kebab Stall is a small, corrugated plastic booth slightly larger than its occupants, and only slightly narrower than the alleyway where it stands, in Yerevan. Barely avoiding the oncoming traffic, I crossed the street and squinted at the shop sign, miming the letters to myself in an attempt to decode the name. Ha-lep. Aleppo. Braving a heady perfume of cigarette smoke and shawarma, I poked my head through the window, and ordered. (More…)
Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than the government shutdown for those of us living in the United States has been the mainstream media’s coverage of the shutdown. Day after day, pundits speculate about how much the Tea Party-led campaign to defund the Affordable Heath Care Act by holding the nation hostage will hurt Republicans in the next election cycle. But they ignore the obvious: the ideologues responsible simply do not care. (More…)
In a cartoon series about Eurozone asylum policies, a Greek is shown donning a blackshirt’s hat, Golden Dawn buckler, and club to beat two Africans to death – whom the other Eurozone countries refer to as pimples. Israel is showing putting up an umbrella to keep out a rain of migrants and refugees, who end up getting stuck next door, in Egypt. (More…)
In the American Prospect today, Gershom Gorenberg raises the key argument against a one-state solution: that nationalism is too strong on both the Jewish and Palestinian side for them to reasonably exist in a single state. (More…)
Somalia is a security problem. Without a doubt. For its neighbors, and for the international community, whose vessels frequently find themselves preyed upon by pirates working from its shores. Press a little harder, and you’ll find more reasons for discomfort, though. The objections are as much cultural as anything else. (More…)
“The two-state solution is the only viable option to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” So goes the familiar refrain. Lately, I’ve noted a couple of instances where the cliché has been accompanied with mockery of those who advocate for one secular, democratic state in all of the land Israel now controls. There’s a lot of arrogance and condescension in that attitude. (More…)
Throughout the shutdown, American media have repeatedly reminded us that there have been seventeen prior to this one. The suggestion is that shutdowns aren’t that big of a deal. The fact is that every one of them hurts the country. It’s time that the press presented the problem differently. (More…)
Death was everywhere. A large, jovial Calaveras print greeted gig goers at the entrance to Sacramento’s Sol Collective – a reminder that Dia De Muertos is approaching. Sitting on the floor, I could see the dimly lit St. Joseph’s Cemetery across the street. A painting of a skull, tucked into a deep-sea diving mask, hung above Amy Farina’s drum set. (More…)
Somalia’s PR strategy is violence. Or so one might be inclined to think, based on press coverage of Nairobi’s spectacular Westfield mall attack by al-Shabaab gunmen (and apparently women.) The last time that Somalia fanned comparable ripples in US media culture was during the Battle of Mogadishu, a highfalutin moniker for the botched commando raid in 1993, in which 18 American soldiers and an estimated 1000 Somalis were killed. (More…)
It wasn’t until I was stretching as far as I could towards the ceiling, my hand inching towards the smoke detector, that I realized how high up I was. For many people, standing on a ladder, twelve feet above the ground, is no big deal. But for me, the boy who had almost failed out of Cub Scouts for not being able to climb half that high, it surely was. (More…)
I just got off the phone with a Pakistani-American friend, who had just read a Facebook post of mine. He called me to ask if I could elaborate on the first sentence: “I have no patience for people in the Diaspora who say that Pakistan is finished.” I replied that I’m aggravated with how expats often give a desperate assessment of our country’s prospects. (More…)
