By Golnaz Esfandiari via RFE/RL A friend of the Imam asks him, “Would you like to drink vodka or tequila?” Outraged at the indignity, the pious Imam slaps the man in the face. “What’s wrong with homemade aragh sagi?” he asks. This knee-slapper, which mocks Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s fierce rejection of alcohol and his promotion […]
Elizabeth Warren: Taking on Entrenched Wall Street Interests that have Rigged the Game (Moyers)
Bill Moyers: “The Massachusetts senator talks to Bill about taking on the entrenched political and Wall Street interests that have rigged the game against the rest of us.”
Did Anyone win the Gaza Conflict? Was it even a “War”?
By Ramzy Baroud (Maan) In the rush to analyze the outcome of Israel’s 51-day war in Gaza, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, some may have neglected an important factor: this was not a war by traditional definitions of warfare, thus the conventional analyses of victory and defeat is simply not applicable. That being the case, how […]
Can Obama Resist Hawks’ Pressure to Rush to Syria Quagmire?
By Adam Quinn, University of Birmingham via The Conversation US president Barack Obama has yet to work out exactly what America’s strategy is in confronting Islamic State (IS), and has been foolish enough to say so in public. Cue the foreseeable torrent of point-scoring from opponents. As Vox’s Zack Beauchamp perceptively pointed out, however, a […]
Putting the ‘Hero’ back in ‘Superhero’: How the Muslim Superhero Can Save the Genre
By A. David Lewis for for ISLAMiCommentary A. David Lewis Muslims don’t present a problem for superhero comics. They present a solution. A previous installment of “Comics & Dialogue” addressed an apparent awkwardness for Muslims as superhero characters. How could they fulfill the generic role of a typical superhero, while also being true to Islamic […]
What You won’t See on US TV: Iranians Sympathetic to US over ISIL Attacks
Channel 4 News Channel 4 News: “What does Iran make of Islamic State?” Meanwhile, although some Iranian sources deny it, the BBC’s sources say that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader has “authorised his top commander to co-ordinate military operations with the US, Iraqi and Kurdish forces.” Khamenei seems to be preparing the Iranian people […]
Israel: Reverse Illegal Plans for West Bank
Human Rights Watch (Jerusalem) – Israel should immediately reverse its illegal appropriation of a large swath of land in the occupied West Bank south of Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said today. The appropriation, announced on September 1, 2014, paves the way for substantial settlement construction near the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Transferring civilian settlers […]
America is a Gas Hog and we’re not going on a Diet even if Global Warming Kills Us
By Michael T. Klare Considering all the talk about global warming, peak oil, carbon divestment, and renewable energy, you’d think that oil consumption in the United States would be on a downward path. By now, we should certainly be witnessing real progress toward a post-petroleum economy. As it happens, the opposite is occurring. U.S. oil […]
Natural Gas Battle: Ukraine vs Russia – An Animated History
AJ+ “While the West threatens further crippling sanctions on Moscow for invading and supporting Ukrainian rebels, Russia controls the nozzle that supplies Europe and Ukraine with natural gas. And they’ve already cut off Ukraine as winter looms. Russia also depends on gas sales for its governments revenue, so sanctions could cut both ways. AJ+ animates […]