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Archives for December 2013

poetry
Walt Whitman’s “Salut au Monde” (Poem of the Day)

Walt Whitman’s “Salut au Monde” (Poem of the Day)

contributors

(By Walt Whitman) “Salut au Monde” [Greeting to the World: from Leaves of Grass, 1856] 1 O TAKE my hand, Walt Whitman! Such gliding wonders! such sights and sounds! Such join’d unended links, each hook’d to the next! Each answering all—each sharing the earth with all. What widens within you, Walt Whitman? What waves and […]

Iran
Iranian-Armenian Nurse taking an X-Ray in Isfahan, 1900 (Photo of the Day)

Iranian-Armenian Nurse taking an X-Ray in Isfahan, 1900 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) This amazing photograph probably dates to 1900. Taken in at the Christian Mission Society hospital in Julfa, the Armenian neighborhood of Isfahan, it shows a nurse taking an x-ray of a patient. The use of x-ray technology was still relatively new even in the US and Europe, and that the medical missionaries […]

Domestic Surveillance
NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors:  Was the Law Broken?  Did Obama Know?

NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors: Was the Law Broken? Did Obama Know?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Reuters gets the scoop: the National Security Agency gave internet security firm RSA some $10 million to use an NSA encryption formula in its BSafe software. RSA is now a subsidiary of the EMC corporation, and they have urged customers not to use BSafe since the revelations by Edward Snowden made clear […]

astronomy and outer space
Real-Life "Gravity:"  Space Repair Walk and NASA's Breakthroughs 2013

Real-Life “Gravity:” Space Repair Walk and NASA’s Breakthroughs 2013

Juan Cole

CBS reports on today’s space walk by astronauts to repair the cooling system at the International Space Station: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports on its achievements and breakthroughs in space and on earth in 2013. NASA video here And here is the NASA press release covering these developments: In 2013, NASA helped U.S. […]

Drones
How many American Weddings would have to get hit by Drones before they were Banned?

How many American Weddings would have to get hit by Drones before they were Banned?

contributors

(By Tom Engelhardt) The headline — “Bride and Boom!” — was spectacular, if you think killing people in distant lands is a blast and a half.  Of course, you have to imagine that smirk line in giant black letters with a monstrous exclamation point covering most of the bottom third of the front page of […]

Popular Culture
Video of the Day: Fox News wishes you 'Happy Holidays' (War on Christmas Fail)

Video of the Day: Fox News wishes you ‘Happy Holidays’ (War on Christmas Fail)

Juan Cole

Cenk Uygur of Young Turks reports on Fox Cable News’ hypocrisy in hyping a mythical “war on Christmas” that allegedly involves forbidding the phrase “Merry Christmas,” and then turning around and using the phrase themselves. Some companies prefer ‘Happy Holidays’ because they have significant numbers of customers who are not Christians. In New York, e.g., […]

art and photography
Sufi Center in Hama, Syria, c. 1900 (Photo of the Day)

Sufi Center in Hama, Syria, c. 1900 (Photo of the Day)

Juan Cole

(From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908) Hama is a small, mainly Sunni Arab city in the center-west of Syria famed for its water wheels. For Syrian Sufi orders see this link

Featured
Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators

Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) In his end-of-the-year press conference, President Obama had to defend his Iran negotiations in the face of a revolt within his own party. Thirteen Democratic senators and thirteen Republican senators banded together to try to derail President Obama’s negotiations with Iran by slapping new sanctions on that country in the middle of […]

Erdogan expected to bounce back from corruption probe blow

Erdogan expected to bounce back from corruption probe blow

News Aggregator

Turkish prime minister has been hurt by arrests of people close to him – and his government’s response – but his presidential prospects are still strong

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