Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump produced widespread disgust on Tuesday by accusing a 75-year-old peace activist in Buffalo New York who was put in the emergency room by police of being an Antifa plant. It is a lie. The man is part of the pacifist Catholic Worker movement, there is no Antifa (anti-Fascist) organization […]
Eyeing Iran as Weapons Market, Russia shoots down as “Ridiculous” Trump’s demand for Arms Embargo on Tehran
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Neoconservative wing of the Trump administration, which is dying to drag the United States into a war with Iran, suffered an embarrassing setback on Monday when its latest flimsy scheme crashed and burned. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s scheme “ridiculous and irresponsible,” according to AP While the […]
What we can Learn from the Qur’an about valuing People of all Races and Colors
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Qur’an (sometimes spelled Koran), is one of great books in world history. Only a handful of works have been nearly so influential and widely read. The Bible, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Analects of Confucius, and the Buddha’s Sutras are among the few books that rival it in that […]
Palestinian Lives Matter: Huge Jewish-Arab Rally in Tel Aviv Decries Netanyahu’s plan to Annex 1/3 of West Bank
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Arab48 reports that some 6,000 Israelis gathered in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest the Netanyahu government’s plan to annex one third of the Palestinian West Bank. The gathering was addressed via video by US Senator Bernie Sanders, who said, “It has never been more important to […]
George Floyd and Mohamed Bouazizi: What Americans can Learn from Tunisia’s Arab Spring
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In mid-December, 2010 in the small Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, a small drama unfolded that would change the world, and certainly would change Tunisia. Tareq Mohammed Bouazizi, a street peddler who had just bought $200 worth of produce to sell off a cart, was harassed by police for not […]
Remembering Big Floyd the Artist and Dreams of Transcendence, Dreams of Breathing Free
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – George “Perry” Floyd had the misfortune to become a symbol when he was killed by a Minnesota policeman after having been arrested for allegedly trying to pass a counterfeit twenty dollar bill (not usually a capital crime, and it is not clear that Mr. Floyd was aware). No one can […]
Esper and Mattis try to put the Genie of Trump Militarism back in the Bottle, Years too Late
Former SecDef Mattis calls Trump a Danger to the Constitution
Don’t Hesitate to Raise a wine Glass High: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
For the earliest collection of verse attributed to Omar Khayyam see my just-published The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian (NB: the poem above isn’t in this collection– there are lots of such anthologies, and Whinfield favored the late Indian manuscripts.) Here is what novelist Michael Chabon said about my new […]
How American cities were Reduced to Esper’s “Battlespace”: From Fallujah to Minneapolis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Bush administration’s war of aggression on and military occupation of Iraq that began in 2003 shifted the United States to a militaristic society. Some 2.7 million Americans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, an astonishing number. The Bush administration began the practice of sending to civilian police departments military […]
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