Quatrain no. 12 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám concerns the imperative to live in the moment and take our pleasures where we can, disregarding visions of future power or the afterlife, which we may never achieve. XII. “How sweet is mortal Sovranty!”-think some: Others” How blest the Paradise to […]
Archives for September 2025
Israeli Strike in Doha crosses a new Line from which Relations with Gulf may not Recover
By Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University (The Conversation) – The Israeli airstrike targeting senior Hamas political leaders in Qatar on Sept. 9, 2025, represents the crossing of a number of lines. Resulting in the deaths of six people but seemingly failing to kill any members of Hamas’ leadership, the strike was the first serious attack […]
Remembering William Blake on our Relationship with Nature in an Age of Environmental Degradation
Excerpt from Mark Vernon, Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination (London: Hurst, 2025): We are inclined to forget that this world is a home, not only physically, in the sense that we depend upon planet Earth and its intricate chains of living interaction, but psychologically. We are a part of a totality […]
Top 4 Reasons Netanyahu Bombed Negotiators’ Offices in Qatar
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bombed the building being used by civilian Hamas negotiators in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday, in the midst of ongoing indirect negotiations with them. Five low-level Hamas members were killed, along with a Qatari security guard, but the top negotiators survived. Earlier this […]
Why Conflict Refugees are Particularly Vulnerable to Climate Risks
By Kerrie Holloway, ODI Global (The Conversation) – After heavy rains, a landslide “completely levelled” a remote village in western Sudan in early September. It was the temporary home of hundreds of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who had fled the conflict between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, to what they had […]
Is Trump Christian America’s Golden Calf?
( Tomdispatch.com ) – It was a moment somewhat like this, 30 years ago, that turned me into a biblical scholar. In the lead-up to the passage of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, political and religious leaders quoted scripture to justify shutting down food programs and kicking mothers and their babies off public assistance. Those […]
How the Heartbreaking Story of 5-Year-Old Hind Rajab begot an Effective Human Rights Foundation
As The Voice of Hind Rajab is winning over Hollywood, the real-life story is fostering complicity allegations against the Israeli military and Western complicity. New York (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – Recently, The Voice of Hind Rajab won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize in Venice after a 23-minute standing ovation. The docudrama is […]
“A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse, and Thou:” Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:11
The eleventh quatrain in the first edition Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám became one of the more famed poems in the English language. It epitomized romance for people in the late 19th and through the 20 century. Nervous young men brought it along on dates to read out as an ice […]
Gaza Diary: How I risk Death to feed my Family
Hassan Herzallah Before the war, Hassan was a university student chasing his dreams. Now he risks his life every day to feed his family (OpenDemocracy.net ) – It’s 7am. My alarm rings and I get myself ready, just as I used to in the days when I would drink a cup of mint tea and […]
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