Jackson School of Geoscience News | University of Texas, Austin | – Excerpt: Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) in the Jackson School of Geosciences have discovered two seafloor gateways that could allow warm ocean water to reach the base of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica’s largest and most rapidly […]
Archives for March 2015
Top 5 Signs of the Decline and Fall of the American Republic
By Tom Engelhardt | (Tomdispatch.com) Have you ever undertaken some task you felt less than qualified for, but knew that someone needed to do? Consider this piece my version of that, and let me put what I do understand about it in a nutshell: based on developments in our post-9/11 world, we could be watching […]
Iraq: Shiite Militia atrocities During Fight Against ISIL & Iraq’s Response
Human Rights Watch | (New York) – Militias, volunteer fighters, and Iraqi security forces engaged in deliberate destruction of civilian property after these forces, following US and Iraqi air strikes, forced the retreat of Islamic State fighters (also known as ISIS) from the town of Amerli and surrounding areas in early September 2014, Human Rights […]
Tom Friedman & funding ISIL: Israel/Iran Derangement Syndrome
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Being a liberal Zionist was always a tough thing to pull off, but it is becoming increasingly just impossible. The intrinsic contradiction between wanting social justice and equity at home and supporting a militaristic and Apartheid Israel abroad produces what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. It is hard to […]
Mideast Reacts with Horror: “Israel has elected Extremism and Racism”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Observers in the Arab press who contemplated the victory of far right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections express emotions from “concern and anxiety” to out and out horror at the potentially destructive impact it will have on the region. Barhoum Jaraisi writes in the Jordanian […]
Growing Up in Syria: Children Images and War
Asaad Al-Saleh | (Informed Comment) When I wrote my book, “Voices of the Arab Spring” (Columbia UP, 2015), I did not feature testimonials by children. Though the book surveys participants from various backgrounds—in age, politics, and education— – children were excluded for a proper reason. They should stay out of politics, though adults in the […]
Facing Down Anti-Muslim Bigotry Through Faith in America
David Schanzer | (ISLAMiCommentary) – Address to Islamic Association of Raleigh (NC) David Schanzer As-salamu alaykum. Thank you so much for the invitation to address you this afternoon. I am very pleased to be included in this wonderful celebration. I know we are gathering today with very heavy hearts. I was out of town last […]
Will Terrorist attack on Tunisia Museum-goers Test Gov’t’s Commitment to Rights?
Human Rights Watch | (Tunis) The despicable attack in the Bardo Museum in Tunis on March 18, 2015, killing at least 19 foreign tourists and Tunisians, will test efforts by the Tunisian authorities to build a rights-respecting society, Human Rights Watch said today. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the assault at the museum, much […]
The Palestinian-Israelis’ Selma Moment?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Ayman Odah, leader of the Joint Arab List, the party representing Palestinian-Israelis and elements of the Israeli left, responded late Tuesday to the news that Israelis of Palestinian descent came out in droves to vote. Their turnout in the last Israeli election had only been 56%. Odah said from […]