Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – NBC News maintains that four sources in US government agencies (probably the FBI and the State Department) told its reporters that the Trump White House is seeking ways to expel Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gulen. But the kicker is that Trump apparently is exploring the extradition as a bribe to […]
Scotland was first Industrialized Country to Run wholly on Wind in October
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Scotland generated enough wind power from onshore wind turbines in October to fuel electricity for five million homes, that is, virtually the entire country. By the end of 2017, renewable energy generated nearly 70% of Scotland’s electricity. That percentage continued to grow this year, led by wind projects. The next […]
Chomsky: Occupation, Gaza ‘Concentration Camp’ turning Israel Fascist
Trump’s Visa Ban, Rhetoric Scare off Foreign Students, Threatening 450K Jobs
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The “Open Doors” annual report of the Institute for International Education on the surface seems to contain good news. There are slightly more foreign students studying at American universities than last year, i.e. slightly over a million. This is good news because foreign students at US universities bring in $42 […]
Remembering Stan Lee
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I write today to honor a titan who has passed on, who once did me a great kindness when I was a mere college student. Meeting him was the thrill of a lifetime. A saying is attributed to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad […]
Macron’s Slam of Nationalism got it Right, but didn’t note Dehumanization
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Emmanuel Macron’s extraordinary rebuke of Donald Trump from the podium at the commemoration of the end of World War I was more than mere rhetoric. Macron, an educated man, knows that modern social science distinguishes between patriotism, which is considered healthy, and nationalism, which has a pathological dimension. As Trump […]
The Qur’an and the Modern Self: A Heterotopia
This essay has just been published in Social Research: An International Quarterly, Volume 85, No. 3, Fall 2018, pp. 557-572. The whole issue is about essential books, and includes Lisa Anderson on Frantz Fanon, Rebecca Goldstein on Spinoza, and many other great essays. I recommend getting it. I wrote about the Qur’an in modern literature […]
The Lessons of World War I– Don’t Trust Hateful Politicians like Trump
Trump is in Paris to commemorate the end of World War I, about which he knows almost nothing. The outbreak of that war in 1914 took many contemporaries by surprise. That it would last four years, when leaders promised a quick victory, was a another shock. That advanced machine guns and artillery would make mincemeat […]
Yemen: Trump admin Further distances Self from Saudi-Led bombers
After Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave Saudi Arabia and its allies a month to start negotiations with the Houthi rebels in Sanaa, nothing much seemed to happen. Friday, an official Saudi source said that the coalition had asked the US, after consultations, to cease its in-flight refueling of […]
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