Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We live in a time when a once level-headed anti-populist politician such as J. D. Vance has increasingly adopted the language of white nationalism, signing on to the Great Replacement theory that nefarious forces, often coded as Jewish, are bringing in immigrants to replace “white” Americans, attacking “multiculturalism” and aligning […]
Archives for November 2025
“Came out by the Same Door:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:27
The 27th quatrain in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám casts doubt on the value of metaphysical speculation and scholastic learning. XXVII. Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I […]
Yemen: Houthis’ Widespread, Arbitrary Detentions of Political Opponents
Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Houthi authorities have detained dozens of political opponents since July 2025, including the leaders of several political parties in Yemen, some of which may amount to enforced disappearances, Human Rights Watch said today. At least 70 people associated with the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, known as the Islah party, were […]
Syrian FM: Israel’s deadly Incursion against Islamic Group a ‘War Crime’ after 13 killed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli military forces made a raid into Syria on Friday that from what I can gather turned into a disaster for them. Israeli troops mounted an assault on the hamlet of Beit Jinn southeast of Damascus, where they maintained that three members of the Lebanon-based Islamic Group (al-Jama`ah al-Islamiyyah) constituted […]
A 40-year Fight against Cluster Bombs offers Lessons to stop the US-Israel Weapons Pipeline
The Honeywell Project in Minneapolis showed how to beat a weapons maker: obstruct operations, recruit workers as allies, build camaraderie and persist no matter what. Joseph Mogul ( Waging Nonviolence ) – After more than two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, popular outrage has mounted against the weapons manufacturers enabling the slaughter. The antiwar […]
Vanishing Future? The Arab World Faces 2x Global Heating, Corruption and High Tech Divide
By Jasim Al-Azzawi ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Arab world is standing at a precipice. Climate change is accelerating at twice the global average across the region. Water scarcity threatens to erase up to 14 per cent of GDP by 2050. Illiteracy and failing education systems leave millions unprepared for the AI revolution […]
Amnesty: So-Called Gaza ‘Ceasefire’ becoming Smokescreen for continued Israeli Genocide
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amnesty International concludes that, over a month after a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza and all living Israeli hostages were returned, the Israeli authorities continue to pursue the textbook definition of genocide “by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” Moreover, Israeli […]
How Turkiye Plans to use the Spotlight of hosting the next UN Climate Summit
By Ezgi Unsal, SOAS, University of London (The Conversation) – In a break from tradition, the next major UN climate summit will be hosted by Turkey but chaired by a different country, Australia. This is the first split arrangement in three decades of these summits, known as “Cops”. The unusual deal, devised to avoid diplomatic […]
How ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ inspired Victorian Hedonists
By Roman Krznaric | – ( Aeon ) – How did a 400-line poem based on the writings of a Persian sage and advocating seize-the-day hedonism achieve widespread popularity in Victorian England? The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám was written by the eccentric English scholar Edward FitzGerald, drawing on his loose translation of quatrains by the 12th-century poet and […]
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