Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The protagonist of the new Denis Villeneuve film, Dune, Paul Atreides, is a complex character, but he should be seen as an antihero, as the protagonist of a Greek tragedy with a fatal tragic flaw. The author of the 1965 novel on which the film is based, Frank Herbert, was […]
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Culture
Citizen Pilgrim: Richard Falk’s Breakthrough against Israeli Apartheid toward Palestinians
A review of Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim, by Richard Falk. By Walden Bello | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – Richard Falk is universally regarded as one of the top minds when it comes to international law. Yet his views are not only unwelcome in establishment circles, but even among many […]
“To Dirty it!” On how For-Profit News Obscured William Shatner’s Climate Emergency Warning after Suborbital Flight
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Wednesday, pop culture icon William Shatner, Star Trek‘s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, explained the enormity of seeing the earth from a suborbital flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepherd space craft. Part of what he said when he returned from 66 miles up got lost in all of the news […]
Abdulrazak Gurnah: what you need to know about the Nobel Prize winner for Literature
By Melanie Otto | – Abdulrazak Gurnah has been awarded the 2021 Nobel prize for literature. The Tanzanian novelist, who is based in the UK, was awarded the prize for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”. Migration and […]
Top 5 Books on Islam – Juan Cole’s list at Shepherd
The new book website Shepherd asked me for a list of what I thought were the best five books on Islam for a general audience. The best books on Islam By Juan R.I. Cole Who am I? My interest in Islam was kindled when I lived in Eritrea, East Africa as a teenager, and in […]
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Muslim Secularism: A conversation with Juan Cole (Ta’seel)
Juan Cole in conversation with Ta’seel Commons: “’To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely […]
In Siccing Justice Dept. on Jimmy Kimmel and SNL, Trump Channeled worst Mideast Dictators
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Bassem Youssef was Egypt’s most famous comedian in the 2000s and until 2014. His weekly half-hour satire, “The Program,” skewered the government of president-for-life Hosni Mubarak in the run-up to the 2011 youth revolt. Mubarak was thin-skinned but did allow some comedians and pundits to blow off steam. He did, […]
Was Mark Ruffalo wrong to accuse Israel of Genocide?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The great actor and great humanitarian Mark Ruffalo apologized on Twitter last week for asserting that Israel was committing “genocide” toward the Palestinians, saying that the accusation was inaccurate, inflammatory and disrespectful and he had thought better of it. He also implied that such language was related to anti-Semitic hate […]
As Boteach comes for Dua Lipa, has Tactic of Smearing People as anti-Semites for Backing Palestinian Human Rights jumped the Shark?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Orthodox Rabbi Shmuely Boteach has come after the brilliant, Grammy-award-winning Kosovar-British pop star Dua Lipa with an ad in the New York Times accusing her of anti-Semitism for supporting Palestinian rights. She vigorously denied the charge and denounced the ad. She should also sue for libel. Boteach is a huge […]