This article first appeared in the Algemeiner on April 23, 2013. You can read the follow up there now: “A Campaign of Willful Blindness on Terrorism.” The Boston Marathon bombing provoked enactment of what has emerged, since 9/11, as a ritual of political theater refined even beyond its long history of performance. Even while law […]
The Barbaric Subjugation of Women
. I once wrote, “The original, unredeemed social and political crime of human history is the displacement and genocidal destruction of aboriginal populations.” Yet there is something prior. We might call it first a human crime, though it transforms almost immediately into a social, then political crime. Unlike the crime against indigenous peoples it has […]
Politicians, Faith, and Reason
Invariably in American politics, the faith of political candidates will be scrutinized. Because of protestant strains in the nation’s colonial origins and its long-time demographic majority, the scrutiny has always been heightened for the non-Protestant. In the evangelical age, for the Protestant, the scrutiny has taken the form less of a necessary demystification – and […]
Good God. Or Not.
Image by Andrew Rusk via Flickr Last Friday in Toronto Christopher Hitchens debated Tony Blair on religion. That was bound to be an entertainment. Whether it turned out, in fact, to be so I do not know. You can find out by shelling out your $2.99 (it was $4.99 for the live stream) to the […]
History Forgotten, Remembered
We forget a lot. It is natural. It is also, at times, convenient. Here is a fascinating and inspiring bit of history, on the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, of how Jews in Palestine, in wishing to practice their religion, were treated by the occupying British because of the Arab intolerance of Jews. In a […]