(By Juan Cole) The late Peter O’Toole played T.E. Lawrence in David Lean’s 1963 “Lawrence of Arabia” with genius and abandon. All of us in my generation who went into Middle East studies were influenced by that film one way or another. Only later did it gradually become apparent to many of us how flawed […]
Month
Category
- Africa (248)
- Asia (1,242)
- Australasia (34)
- Authoritarianism (384)
- Canada (7)
- Culture (558)
- Economy (1,050)
- Agriculture (3)
- Banking (67)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (51)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (21)
- Homelessness (16)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (425)
- Inflation (5)
- infrastructure (10)
- Insurance (1)
- Investment (92)
- Market Crash (10)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (8)
- Neoliberalism (203)
- Plutocracy (621)
- Poverty (206)
- Poverty (13)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (4)
- Taxes (37)
- Technology (3)
- Trade (114)
- Weapons sales (7)
- Education (171)
- Energy (1,725)
- Batteries (51)
- Coal (139)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (325)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (415)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (15)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (107)
- Nuclear Energy (158)
- Petroleum (299)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (408)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (9)
- wind energy (339)
- Environment (2,660)
- Climate Change (1,645)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (12)
- Climate Refugees (3)
- CO2 (125)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (147)
- Desalinization (4)
- Desertification (159)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (6)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (390)
- Extreme Weather (297)
- Flooding (138)
- Food Supply (2)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (40)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (61)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (11)
- Sea Level (338)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (263)
- wildfires (237)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,302)
- Drought (295)
- Ecology (1)
- Ecology (10)
- Environmentalism (392)
- Green Transportation (252)
- Ice Melt (133)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (1)
- Oceans (101)
- Oil Spills (7)
- Pollution (231)
- Water (95)
- wildlife (19)
- Climate Change (1,645)
- Europe (1,360)
- Featured (4,089)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (698)
- History (356)
- Human Rights (1,588)
- Apartheid (263)
- censorship (305)
- Death Penalty (30)
- Disappeared (3)
- Displaced and Refugees (578)
- Food Insecurity (29)
- Gay rights (29)
- Genocide (56)
- Human Rights Watch (90)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (89)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (4)
- Torture (102)
- Trans Rights (3)
- Transgender Rights (4)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (103)
- Unlwful Killing (80)
- War Crimes (411)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,099)
- Arms Sales (73)
- BRICS (3)
- Corruption (265)
- Crime (130)
- Democracy (331)
- Dissent (436)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (112)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (21)
- Immigration (4)
- Islamophobia (382)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (117)
- NATO (37)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (140)
- Policing (2)
- Politics (306)
- Politics&Culture (21)
- Propaganda (13)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (101)
- media (481)
- Middle East (9,732)
- Arab World (5,223)
- Iran (1,320)
- Israel (938)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,473)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (291)
- Turkey (588)
- Turkiye (115)
- Patriarchy (10)
- racism (468)
- religion (1,496)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (171)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (279)
- Terrorism (1,093)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,081)
- United Nations (168)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,340)
- US politics (5,353)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (79)
- Conspiracy Theories (23)
- Constitution (401)
- Courts (15)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (971)
- Democratic Socialists of America (22)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (389)
- Far Right (391)
- FBI (47)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (240)
- Israel Lobbies (130)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (273)
- National Security State (475)
- Native Americans (40)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (566)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (9)
- Private Prisons (2)
- Progressive Politics (13)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (15)
- Reproductive Choice (67)
- Republican Party (2,984)
- Supreme Court (133)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (35)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (613)
- White Supremacists (229)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (557)
- workers (232)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (215)
Culture
“Hallelujah” cover by Tunisian Folk Singer Emel Mathlouthi
Emel Mathlouthi covers Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” Mathlouthi has been an important voice of the ongoing Tunisian political upheavals provoked by leftist youth activism.
On the 80th Anniversary of Repeal of Prohibition, Why isn’t Marijuana Legal?
It is the eightieth anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Among the many reasons for the popularity of banning alcohol in the US then were the concern of industrialists such as Henry Ford for the creation of a sober, industrious working class. Prohibition was in part intended to regiment and control working people and ensure […]
G. Willow Wilson on her Ms. Marvel Character as Muslim-American Superhero (BBC)
The BBC interviews G. Willow Wilson, creator of the reboot of the Ms Marvel comic book as a young Muslim-American. Here is the BBC interview: Informed Comment covered this development earlier: “ Umberto Eco argued that Superman, from the character’s inception in the 1940s through about 1970, was a politically conservative figure. The stories were […]
Arts of the Arab Uprisings at the Arab-American Museum, Dearborn
The Arab-American Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, has mounted an exhibition on the Arts of the Arab Uprisings. It includes art, photography and video by street artist Amr Nazeer and celebrated social justice blogger Wael Abbas of Egypt and Tunisian activists Lina ben Mhenni and Nadia Khiari, among others. Here is NPR’s interview with Egyptian street […]
Red Baraat makes NYC Music with a Punjabi Beat (Video)
Blurb: “New York City’s multicultural population is fertile ground for fusions in art and music. VOA’s Carolyn Weaver reports on Red Baraat, an eight-member band from Brooklyn blending Northern Indian bhangra – a high-energy dance music – with jazz, hip-hop, and other genres.” VOAnews reports:
Pentagon: Americans must give up Liberties to fight “enemies” but we won’t say who they are (Currier)
Cora Currier writes at ProPublica In a major national security speech this spring, President Obama said again and again that the U.S. is at war with “Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces.” So who exactly are those associated forces? It’s a secret. At a hearing in May, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked the […]
Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever”
Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever– as stars move into conjunction in the sky, it will go on. The brick they will one day mold from your clay will be lodged in the portico of someone else’s palace. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 162
Omar Khayyam (259) “Have some wine, since no one is given a long life”
The revolving sky, which has never revealed any mysteries, has brutally crushed a thousand innocents. Have some wine, since no one is given a long life and once people have left this world they aren’t coming back. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 259
© 2024 All Rights Reserved