Television commentator Bill O’Reilly lambasted the press for referring to Anders Breivik as a Christian terrorist, on the grounds that he is not a practicing Christian and on the grounds that no true Christian can be a terrorist and on the grounds that Christian fundamentalists are essentially different from Muslim fundamentalists (“those crazy jihadis”). O’Reilly, […]
Boycott Beck! Brands Child Victims Hitler Youth
Glenn Beck, who was purveyed to the American public in their millions by Time Warner’s CNN for some time, before he was picked up and built up by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Cable News, is obviously unstable and has done a good job of encouraging others to be unstable. But on his radio show on Monday, […]
The Irrelevance of the Knights in a Global Society
Norwegian right wing Christian terrorist Anders Breivik spoke of being a member of the “Knights Templar,” and if anything is further terrorizing about Friday’s attacks beyond their own horror, it is the possibility that an organization was behind them or that there are other members of it as looney and violent as Breivik himself. Update: […]
When Extremism Learns to Blow things Up
The revelation by CNN that Norwegian right wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik kept a diary in which he obsessed about the dangers of cultural Marxism, multiculturalism, and the “Islamification” of Europe will remind many Americans of the tactics of our own right wing (only these themes have been taken up by people much more mainstream […]
White Christian Fundamentalist Terrorism in Norway
That the horrible terrorist attacks in Oslo on Friday that left some 90 persons or more dead– a bombing of the prime minister’s office and shootings at a Labor Party youth camp– were allegedly committed by a blonde, far right wing Norwegian fundamentalist Christian rather than by a radical Muslim group is being treated as […]
Syrian Gov’t Besieges Homs Ahead of Friday Demonstrations
AP reports that most people were trapped in their homes as gunfire crackled in the background in Homs, Syria, the country’s third-largest city on Thursday. Government troops have the dissident city under siege. Aljazeera English reports on the crackdown on Homs. Elsewhere in the country on Thursday, people in towns and cities held a general […]
Is the Arab Spring Coming to Palestine?
Marwan Barghouti, a jailed Palestinian leader who was important to the “Second Intifada” or Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, has called for “million-person marches” in support of the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations this September. Barghouti supported the Oslo peace process in the 1990s, but turned to violence against Israeli security forces […]
Top Self-Defeating Moves in the Middle East
One of the great mysteries in Hollywood is how bad films get made. After all, no one sets out to make a bad film. And most major films are made by professionals with a proven track record, backed by savvy investors. But occasionally these film professionals make an “Ishtar” or a “Town & Country.” Not […]
Can Bookstores be Saved?
I like bookstores. I savor being in a place with book-lined walls. I love the covers, the titles, the blurbs. Some bookstores have jazz playing in the background. Some have coffeeshops. I like reading some pages of a magazine I don’t usually read, and deciding whether to buy it or even to subscribe. I like […]