The al-Qaeda documents released by West Point’s Center for Combatting Terrorism (which needs to be better funded by Congress) show that the whole warmonger meme that Iran and al-Qaeda are in bed is a complete crock. Ali Gharib at Think Progress shows that the flurry of Weekly Standard articles alleging al-Qaeda-Iran links in recent months […]
Archives for May 2012
Omar Khayyam (128): Lovers are at home in heaven and in hell
Seekers of the truth look at the lovely and the ugly as the same. Lovers are at home in heaven and in hell. Those who’ve lost their hearts can dress in satin or sack cloth; the infatuated do not know if they are laying down their heads in clouds or resting them on earthen bricks. Translated by […]
Raging Weather & Climate Change (McKibben)
Bill McKibben writes at Tomdispatch.com Too Hot Not to Notice? A Planet Connected by Wild Weather By Bill McKibben The Williams River was so languid and lovely last Saturday morning that it was almost impossible to imagine the violence with which it must have been running on August 28, 2011. And yet the evidence was […]
Ashton Kutcher ad in Indian ‘Brownface’ Pulled for Racism
Ashton Kutcher’s ad for Popchips, playing an Indian character in brown make-up, has had to be pulled over charges of stereotyping and racism, reports ITN: Reaction from Manan Ahmed, @sepoy: Dear US media: Just remember, it is only Arabs you can be racist about.
Top Five Reasons to Celebrate World Press Day (Rice)
Alice Rice writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism; alas, the breaking news is that she could have added Tunisia to the list: Today the United Nations highlights the pressures and dangers facing journalists across the world with a conference in Tunis and a themed day, World Press Freedom Day. Tunis is a slightly strange […]
Deaths of Protesters Lead Egyptian Politicians to Suspend Presidential Campaign
Thugs, very possibly backed by the continued military dictatorship in Egypt, attacked protesters at dawn on Wednesday in front of the Ministry of Defense in al-Abbasiya, Cairo, leaving some 20 dead. The protesters suspect that they were actually plainsclothes police. The 500 or so protesters had been gathered to object to the disqualification of their […]
Almohad Tower of Gold, Seville (Photo)
Photograph by Juan Cole, July 27, 2010 The Torre del Oro in Seville, Spain, was built in the 1200s by the Almohad (Berber Muslim) dynasty to serve as a watchtower to guard the Gualdalquivir River (in Arabic, Wadi al-Kabir or ‘big river valley.’)
It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart … (D. H. Lawrence Poster)
Collapsing Afghanistan & Pakistan Refuse to Cooperate with Obama Photo Op
President Barack Obama sneaked in and out of Afghanistan by the cover of night, his advance security team clearly too worried about the situation in Kabul to allow him to appear in public by day. And they would have been right, since shortly after Obama departed, Taliban hit a foreign workers’ guest house (which was […]
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