Chicago (Special to Informed Comment) – Today the United States eclipsed 125,000 deaths from the Coronavirus pandemic, and the worst might be yet to come. Despite having months to right-foot the White House’s initial, lackadaisical response to the looming disaster, the country is in many ways in a more dire position than it was in […]
Archives for June 2020
Colonial Violence: Ahmed Erekat was Killed at Israeli Checkpoint in Palestine on way to Sister’s Wedding
( Middle East Monitor) – For Palestinians, Israel’s military checkpoints are made for its colonial violence and perpetual dehumanisation of the occupied population. In the latest grotesque spectacle of extrajudicial killing, Ahmed Erekat, a 27 year old Palestinian man and nephew of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Secretary General Saeb Erekat, was killed by Israeli soldiers […]
A Drunken Nightingale: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Honolulu’s Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art
Shangri La Museum of Islamic Art, Culture & Design | Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art |- Here is a short video made while I was Scholar-in Residence at Shangri La in Honolulu in December of 2016. The grounds are the former mansion and guest house of the billionaire art collector Doris Duke, who filled […]
Trump’s incompetence has Reduced Americans to Lepers whom Europe won’t Let in
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The French press is reporting that the European Union is opening its borders on July 1, but will keep them closed to countries that seem incompetent in dealing with the coronavirus. The worst offenders in this regard are the United States and Brazil, the citizens of both of which will […]
Only a Criminal Regime would Coerce Int’l Criminal Court as Trump is Doing — Oh wait
By Tasnim Nazeer | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Trump administration in Washington has attempted repeatedly to block investigations by the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICC) in Afghanistan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These investigations are significant for probing into the conduct of American and Israeli citizens but the US President […]
Teach police nonviolence, scholars say, and how to work with local residents
By Jennifer Earl, James J. Nolan, Jessica Maves Braithwaite and Kirssa Cline Ryckman | – Scholars: Kirssa Cline Ryckman, Jennifer Earl, Jessica Maves Braithwaite, University of Arizona Police have a saying, “better to be judged by 12 than carried by six,” acknowledging they might face a jury if they use excessive force, but it’s preferable […]
When even Trump’s Supreme Court upholds Gay Rights, You know Christian Fundamentalism has Lost
Charleston, WV (Special to Informed Comment) – This month’s Supreme Court decree that gays cannot be fired from jobs simply because they’re gay is a solid blow to white evangelicals, the heart of the Republican Party. Such born-again conservatives claim they have “religious freedom” to treat gays cruelly. Now they’re exposed, once again, as more […]
The Final Defeat of the John Bolton Hawks? How Russia and China could humiliate Trump on Eve of Election by Lifting Iran Arms Embargo
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump is about to go up against China and Russia at the United Nations Security Council over the looming end to the UNSC arms embargo on Iran, and is facing a humiliating defeat that will further harm the US standing in global affairs. The 2015 Joint Plan for Collective Action […]
Martin Luther King’s Giant Triplets: Racism, Yes, But What About Militarism and Materialism?
(Tomdispatch.com) – In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Americans are finally — or is it once again? — confronting the racism that afflicts this country and extends into just about every corner of our national life. Something fundamental just might be happening. Yet to state the obvious, we’ve been here before. […]