Paul Klee, the Swiss-German modernist painter, experienced epiphanies during the ‘student trip’ he took with two other young artists to Tunisia in 1914. It was there that he, deeply influenced by the color and the quality of the light (which other European artists have remarked on), he “began his path toward abstraction,” as the brochure […]
Omar Khayyam (209) “those oceans of learning never…”
Those oceans of learning and culture who burned with the light of science in their day, never found an exit from this pitch-dark night. They delivered themselves […]
Your Government’s 92 Million Secrets are Safe . . . from You! (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com That Makes No Sense! Your Security’s a Joke (and You’re the Butt of It) By Tom Engelhardt When my daughter was little and I read to her regularly, one illustrated book was a favorite of ours. In a series of scenes, it described frustrating incidents in the life of a […]
Syria Crisis: Cole on BBC Newshour (Audio Link)
My appearance on BBC’s Newshour re: Syrian developments on Wednesday afternoon. I come in about 8 minutes in, and make comments throughout the rest of the show.
Top Ten Implications of the Damascus Bombing
The bombing of the Security Headquarters of the Baath government of Syria on Wednesday killed the Minister of Defense, the deputy Minister of Defense, and the Assistant to the vice-president and head of crisis management office Gen Hassan Turkomani. It wounded the Minister of the Interior (i.e. head of the secret police) and a member […]
Marionette 2 (Painting by Syrian Modernist Marwan)
Marwan, Marionette 2 (2007), gouache on paper, 21 x 30.2 cm 2011,6020.2. Mirrored from [pdf] the British Museum Modern Syrian Art Collection. Marwan (Kassab Bachi), born in Damascus, Syria, in 1934, did his studies in literature at the University of Damascus and then went to Berlin, Germany, to pursue painting with Hans Trier. He has […]
Is Michele Bachmann an agent of the Muslim Brotherhood?
It has become increasingly apparent that politics and business often attract psychopaths, because of the opportunities they offer for the gratification of narcissism, grandiosity, sadism and other severe pathologies. For psychopaths, really on an Anders Breivik pre-massacre level, no one takes the cake in American politics more than Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, of Minnesota’s 6th District. […]
Street Art in Honor of 100 Years of LaMarsa, Tunisia (Photo)
Photo by Juan Cole, LaMarsa, Tunisia, May 2012 (Note that if you are viewing with an internet browser, you can enlarge the photo by pressing Control and the plus sign.) In May, the upscale neighborhood of LaMarsa in the northeast of Tunis commemorated the hundredth anniversary of its founding. A street was blocked off, with […]
Omar Khayyam (442) “I wish there were a place to rest…”
I wish there were a place to rest or that this long, long road would end; and that a hundred thousand years from now, there were a hope that from the earth we’d bloom to breathe again. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 442
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