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Does anyone doubt that if Tunisia’s president had been overthrown by an Islamic Revolution, there would have been 24/7 coverage of it in US media? Stories more important than almost everything on CNN and other US cable television news channels on Monday: A new Tunisian government was announced, and whether the public is mollified might […]

‘ I have condemned any organizer of war, regardless of his rank or nationality. ‘ – Martin Luther King, Jr. ‘ All history teaches us that like a turbulent ocean beating great cliffs into fragments of rock, the determined movement of people incessantly demanding their rights always disintegrates the old order. ‘ – Martin Luther […]

Tunisian President Zine al-Abidin Bin Ali has fled the country before the advancing crowds pouring in to the capital’s center. A French eye-witness said of the masses thronging Bourguiba Avenue that “it was black with people.” The Speaker of Parliament [first minister] is caretaker leader of the country, though Aljazeera is reporting that there are […]

Number of Murders, United States, 2009: 15,241 Number of Murders by Firearms, US, 2009: 9,146 Number of Murders, Britain, 2008*: 648 (Since Britain’s population is 1/5 that of US, this is equivalent to 3,240 US murders) Number of Murders by[pdf] firearms, Britain, 2008* 39 (equivalent to 195 US murders) *The Home office reported murder statistics […]

Ironically, while Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri was meeting with President Obama on Wednesday, his government fell. As one Arab commentator observed, he went into the meeting a prime minister and came back out a civilian. It is a joke of course. Al-Hariri will be caretaker prime minister until a new government is formed, which […]

(courtesy Stacey (twitter.com/flipflops).

Some 24 persons have been killed in clashes between protesters and government security forces in Tunisia. The government has closed schools and universities “indefinitely” as a way of demobilizing youthful protesters. The Arabic press is reporting that Tunisia has called the US ambassador on the mat, and has called back its own ambassador in Washington, […]

Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other far right-wing demagogues have been quick to defend themselves from the charge of fostering a climate of poisonous political hatred in the United States, in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford and the killing of Federal Judge John Roll, along with the injuring or killing of […]