Subjects Archives: Media

  • What Difference Does a Revolution Make?  A Preliminary Contrast of India and China

    I. Commonalities At the time of their casting off of colonialism — India gaining independence from Britain in 1947, China putting an end to a century of imperialist domination in 1949 — the two largest countries in Asia shared many common characteristics.  Each possessed an enormous continental landmass with a population in the hundreds of […]

  • Thoughts in a Hijab

      “This is the story of Sahar, an Iranian girl, and her personal choice to continue wearing the hijab after moving to the United States.” Produced by Reel Grrls, an organization supporting young women who are beginning filmmakers.  2008. | Print  

  • Can the European Welfare State Survive?  Can National Public Radio Survive?

    NPR wants to convince listeners that the European welfare state is on its last legs.  While it tells listeners this, nothing in the piece actually supports this case. For example, it implies that growth is grinding to a halt in Europe because of its generous welfare state, noting that Europe is expected to grow just […]

  • Fayetteville as in Fate

    . . . I mix metaphors among them like a reckless cook throwing things into a pot hoping they don’t explode when they touch each other, hoping they don’t turn bitter when the heat rises . . . Mohja Kahf is a poet and professor of English.  This poem is included in her E-mails from […]

  • India: The Poverty of the Intellectual Mind and the Enlightened Mind of the Backward Adivasi

      This is a rejoinder that the slain CPI (Maoist) spokesperson had penned in response to B.G. Verghese’s article in Outlook. Reading B.G. Verghese’s article Daylight at the Thousand-Star Hotel in Outlook (May 3), one is stunned by the abysmal poverty of thought and colonial mindset of this renowned intellectual.  How is it that the […]

  • Paris, October 1961

      Leïla Sebbar, The Seine Was Red. Paris, October 1961: A Novel (translated by Mildred Mortimer).  Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2008.  xxiv + 116pp.  $17.95 U.S. (pb).  ISBN 10-0253-2202-38. The official French obfuscation of the police violence against Algerians in Paris in October 1961 has inspired long-term personal and collective memory retrieval that […]

  • $tudent$ Make Banks Rich (Only If the Loans Are Repaid)

      These are original poster designs by EDUdebtorsunion.org.  They are all formatted for print on standard 8 1/2″ x 11″ letter paper.  Please print and display anywhere you think this information would be relevant, provocative, or necessary! Some ideas of placement: Within Universities: Financial Aid Office, Bursar’s Office, Cashiers’ Windows, Student Unions Within the City: […]

  • Samandal: Picture Stories from Here and There

      What is Samandal?  Samandal is about comics, a trilingual publication dedicated to comics from the region and abroad that comes out quarterly in Arabic, English, and French.  All the comics in Samandal are published under a Creative Commons license.  And how does Creative Commons change commons?  To answer that, we need to look at […]

  • Iran: January 2010-July 2010

      January 2010: “There are rare moments when you feel like you’re living in a world without any borders.  Without anyone to rule over you.  One cannot help but to cherish these moments and wish them upon others.  On the road to Shemshak from Tehran, the CD player played a tune from a movie soundtrack […]

  • The Chair Not Taken

      A tale of politicians, seats, and struggles in a parliament far, far away. . . . Script, Design, and Animation by Zach Cohen.  This video is his final project at the Shenkar School of Engineering and Design in Israel.  Click here to view other works by Cohen. | Print  

  • Beirut, I Love You (I Love You Not)

      Written and directed by Mounia Akl and Cyril Aris.  Music by Mashrou’ Leila, Barnabas Folk, and Yann Tiersen.  Cast: Mounia Akl and Cyril Aris.  Lebanon, 2009. | Print  

  • Ni’lin

      Emily Henochowicz is a young Jewish American artist and activist.  While demonstrating in Jerusalem against the Israeli massacre of activists on the Mavi Marmara, Henochowicz lost her left eye to one of the tear gas canisters fired by Israeli border police.  The image above was published under a Creative Commons license in her blog […]

  • Iran Sanctions: An Obsession Explained in Five Acts and a Poem

      Act I In the second half of the 1990s, at the onset of his first term as Brazil’s president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, or FHC for short, faced a dilemma.  To honor his recent conversion to the Washington Consensus, he had to get rid of State companies to make money to pay the interests on […]

  • Muros / Walls

      Production, Camera, Post Production: Janeth Berrettini.  Dance: La Serpiente – Abdiel Villaseñor, Laura Martínez, Yesenia Rivera.  Music: Hermann Bühler.  Mexico/ Switzerland, 2005/2006. | Print  

  • What US Soldiers Say about Afghanistan: We’re Fucking Losing This Thing

      “But we’re fucking losing this thing.” — Staff Sergeant Kennith Hicks This video was released by Brave New Films on 26 June 2010.  See, also, Michael Hastings, “The Runaway General” (Rolling Stone, 22 June 2010). | Print  

  • How the Media Mislead the Public about Venezuela: The Case of Stephen Sackur’s Interview with Hugo Chávez

    Stephen Sackur provides a misleading and one-sided picture of Venezuela after a brief visit there, during which he interviewed President Hugo Chávez (“A Chat with Chávez — Oliver Stone’s New Lead Tells All,” 14 June).  I am the co-writer of Oliver Stone’s forthcoming documentary on Chávez, South of the Border, and was present throughout the […]

  • Greece: Explosive Debt

      A time bomb of interests on the debt, threatening to explode the edifice of Greek economy propped up by an IMF package. Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was featured on the home page of Rebelión on 16 June 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | […]

  • Two, Three, Many 1960s

    The global Sixties began in Tokyo on June 15, 1960, with the death of Michiko Kanba, an undergraduate at Tokyo University.  On the night of her death she had joined a group of fellow university students at the front of a massive demonstration — 100,000 people deep — facing off against the National Diet Building. […]

  • The Fine Old English Gentleman

      The Fine Old English Gentleman New Version (To be said or sung at all Conservative Dinners) I’ll sing you a new ballad, and I’ll warrant it first-rate, Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate; When they spent the public money at a bountiful old rate On ev’ry mistress, pimp, […]

  • Turkey: Media’s Latest Target for Terrorist-Baiting

      The Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla that resulted in the deaths of eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American has led Israel and its supporters to argue (see The Weekly Standard, 5/31/10) that the Turkish government and a prominent Turkish humanitarian organization are “terrorist” sympathizers with ill intentions toward Israel and the United States. […]