Things Are Not What They Seem

Juan Cole 11/27/2004

Things are Not What they Seem Department

On Thursday night on the David Letterman Late Night show on CBS, actress Natalie Portman announced that she was studying Arabic.

On Friday night on the LBC Arabic satellite network the main attraction was a karaoke contest that involved a fair number of old American disco songs from Gloria Estefan and Donna Summer.

More evidence that Samuel Huntington, author of The Clash of Civilizations, doesn’t have the slightest idea what he is talking about.

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page