Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Pope Leo XIV flew from Turkiye to Lebanon on Sunday, and surprised the press corps flying with him by making some comments to them. His predecessor, Pope Francis, had been more engaged with the press in such situations. Justin McClellan at the National Catholic Reporter reports that Leo said that […]
Sorry, White Nationalists, Europeans were Black until the Rise of Rome, and Rome was Multiracial
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
From T. S. Eliot to the Grateful Dead: echoes of FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:26
Stanza no. 26 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám calls the notion of an afterlife a “lie” and compares the death of an individual to the demise of a flower such as an individual tulip. Actually I think it is saying that human beings are not like […]
“All the Saints and Sages:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:25
Quatrain no. 25 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is about the futility of metaphysical teachings in the face of certain death. XXV. Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn […]
In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: Activism and the Struggle for Academic Freedom
Juan says: I’m honored to have an essay in this volume on threats to academic freedom and to free speech in the United States since 2023. I look at the crisis as it unfolded in is first months. All of the essays are urgent reading during America’s current Third Red Scare. I have been in […]
The Hot Tub of Death? Bill Gates, Hurricane Melissa, and a Civilization Under Threat
Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com. Don’t miss Tom Engelhardt’s canny introduction, in which he points to Donald Trump’s climate denialism as a context for that of his “billionaire buddies.” And by the way, it has now been shown that Hurricane Melissa clocked a wind gust of a mind-boggling 252 mph shortly before […]
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