Culture

Chris Rock | (ABC – Academy Awards) | Oscars 2016: Chris Rock’s Best Lines The host had Hollywood’s A-list laughing with jokes about the controversy over the lack of diversity at this year’s Academy Awards. ABC Breaking News | Latest News Videos —– Screenshot

Bill of Rights

Best Movie of 2016: Michael Moore skewers US Inequality in “Where to Invade Next”

contributors

By George Lakey | ( Waging Nonviolence ) | – – Many fields of endeavor have what they call “best practices,” and self-respecting workers look for those. I wouldn’t expect Michael Moore to focus there, since his films delight in blistering attacks on capitalism, the U.S. healthcare system and gun culture. That’s why I was […]

poetry

Spirit and Sensuality in the mystical Sufi poetry of Rumi

contributors

By Nesreen Akhtarkhavari and Anthony A. Lee, Translators | (Informed Comment) | – – The poems of Rumi, the thirteenth-century teacher, scholar, and poet known simply as Mowlana in the Muslim world, have shaped Islamic culture for centuries. They still stand just as vital after eight hundred years. Rumi speaks to us of unchanging spiritual […]

censorship

Iran: Poet of Gender Discrimination flees Lashes, 11.5 Year Sentence

contributors

By Golnaz Esfandiari | ( RFE/RL ) | – – To get her first book of poetry past the Iranian censor, Fatemeh Ekhtesari did what other Iranian writers often have to do: She used dots for words and sentences she thought would not get past the authorities. But Ekhtesari wasn't prepared for her voice to […]

African-Americans

The Day Beyoncé Turned Black – SNL

contributors

Saturday Night Live | (Video satire) | – – “It’s the day white people never saw coming: when Beyoncé turned black.” Saturday Night Live: ” “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” – SNL”

Arab Spring

Despite Risks, Egypt’s Cartoonists Take on increasingly Authoritarian Regime of al-Sisi

contributors

By Mohamed Hassan | ( Global Voices ) | – – Cartoonist Islam Gawish. Photograph from his Facebook page. Photograph by Mostafa Darwish. Less than two weeks after the fifth anniversary of the January 25 revolution, Egypt is not showing any signs of improvement in its treatment of human rights advocates. On the evening of […]

Arab Americans

Kahlil Gibran: “Lazarus & His Beloved”

Juan Cole

Kahlil Gibran | (New York Public Library) \ – – New York Public Library, Billy Rose Theater Production Photograph File Genre: Photograph [of Tableau Vivant] — Related Book: Kahlil Gibran, The Vision, trans. Juan Cole.

African-Americans

Beyonce angers US Right by bringing up African-American Rights at Superbowl

contributors

TeleSur | – – Beyonce and her powerhouse backup dancers are facing threats of a boycott for speaking out against police brutality. Social media has been awash with both criticism and praise for Beyonce’s halftime show at the Super Bowl Sunday. Critiques of the U.S. policing system and support for the Black Lives Matter movement […]

Arab World

How a Medieval Muslim thinker invented Sociology

contributors

Stephen Dale/ Joseph Preville/ Julie Harbin | (ISLAMICommentary) | – – Column » ‘By the Book’ with Joseph Preville by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary on JANUARY 7, 2016: Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was a colossus among Muslim scholars. Stephen Frederic Dale gives us a portrait of this extraordinary man in his […]