Subjects Archives: Media

I was immensely saddened to hear of Fred Halliday‘s untimely passage.  I knew Fred since 1978 when through a New Left Review friend, Robin Blackburn, I met him at his London home on my way to revolutionary Iran, temporarily forfeiting my US education for the sake of the greater cause.  Fred was putting the final touches on his seminal book on Iran, Iran: Dictatorship and Development, which had the distinct flaw of depicting the Shah’s regime as “strong,” rather belatedly adding a final chapter to account for the unexpected whirlwind “populist” revolution that did not lend itself easily to Fred’s conventional Marxian class analysis.

  Having tried to use the witch cord that erases the stretch of thirty-three blocks and tuning in the voice which woodenly stated that the talk box was “disconnected” My mother, religiously girdled in her god, slipped on some love, and laid on my bell like a truck, blew through my door warm wind from […]

  There is an embarrassing giddiness in the religious studies world today.  With our new mantra in hand — the new “salience” of religion — we, both scholars of religion and other self-appointed spokespersons for religion, feel licensed to instruct the world on the importance of religion.  We are suddenly relevant again.  Or so we […]

  Fyodor Savelyevich Khitruk, born on 1 Mary 1917, is a Russian animator.  This film was released by Soyuzmultfilm in 1973. | | Print  

  For years, right-wing groups have been beating the drums to roll back decent pensions and retirement benefits for American workers.  At the federal level, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, ranking member on the U.S. House Budget Committee, proposed a “Road Map” plan to privatize social security, cut payments, and slash Medicare benefits for all seniors. […]

  Norman G. Finkelstein: Israel would not be so up in arms about the Goldstone Report, would not be so upset by it, were it not for the fact that, yes, they are very vulnerable to the public opinion, and they know very well the limits beyond which it may not express itself against them, […]

  Martin Axmann.  Back to the Future: The Khanate of Kalat and the Genesis of Baloch Nationalism 1915-1955.  Oxford University Press, 2009. In a country where nationality is defined in terms of religion and religion alone, “the Baloch nation” can hardly find a legitimate space, even as a term of reference.  There is no notion […]

Journalist: “What is the name of your husband who you say is a political prisoner?” Lady in White: “Jack the Ripper.” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published by Cambios en Cuba on 25 March 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

“Teacher, what does ‘media manipulation’ mean?” “For example: five journalists are murdered in Honduras, and transnational media corporations report: ‘Calm in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans’; a common prisoner commits suicide in Cuba, and they say: ‘Tsunami in the Caribbean!’” Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist. This cartoon was published by Cambios en […]

  This past July in Tehran, I went to see Tehran Has No More Pomegranates at Azadi Cinema, which was excellent.  As I walked out of the theater, I realized that my cellphone had dropped out of my pocket.  When I went back inside to find it, the ticket collector had me sit in the […]

  (Phone Message) “Hey, Justine, I just wanted to say, ‘Come back safely.’” May 16, 2007.  Tomorrow morning, my son and I leave for Iran. (Phone Message) “Hi, Justine, I want you to be careful and maybe not mention to people that you’re Jewish.” (In-flight Announcement) “. . . We do ask you to respect […]

  Today’s ruling for Comcast by the DC Circuit Court could be the biggest blow to our nation’s primary communications platform, or it could be the kick in the pants our lawmakers need to finally protect it.  Either way, the future of the Internet, the fight for Net Neutrality, and the expansion of broadband is […]

  5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time […]

  Address by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the State Council and the Council of Ministers and Second Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, at the Closing Session of the 9th Congress of the Young Communist League, Havana, 4 April 2010, Year 52 of the Revolution Comrades, delegates, and guests: […]

Abstract: From the moment Marx and Engels became involved with the League of the Just, Marxism has always had a long and often difficult relation with theology and the Bible.  Some of the leading figures of the twentieth century were no exception — Althusser, Adorno, Gramsci, Lefebvre, Eagleton are just a few.  And in our […]

  In 2008, an estimated 49 million Americans, or 16% of the total U.S. population, lived in a family household that contained at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation.  In 1980, this figure was just 28 million, or 12% of the population.   This 33% increase since 1980 […]

Nilanjana Gupta.  Reading with Allah: Madrasas in West Bengal.  New Delhi: Routledge, 2010.  Pp. 192.  R. 595.  ISBN: 978-0-415-54459-7.  Much has been written on the Indian madrasas or Islamic seminaries, but because the most influential madrasas in the country are concentrated in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, many of these writings tend […]

Barack Obama is a fanatical believer in the imperialist capitalist system imposed by the United States on the world. “God bless the United States,” he ends his speeches. Some of his acts wounded the sensibility of world opinion, which viewed with sympathy the African-American candidate’s victory over that country’s extreme right-wing candidate. Basing himself on […]

  Tegucigalpa, Honduras — Scores of students, trade unionists, and teachers of the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH) marched to the National Congress today in protest, due to the current crisis of this university, demanding that it be not closed. The march was composed of a student group from the University Revolutionary Front (FRU), […]

A Tehran Bureau correspondent in Germany reports on the IranHaus celebration of “cultural dialogue” held at the International Conference Center in Hamburg on 14 March 2010, featuring Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.  “A number of young Iranians were there,” the sight of whom the pro-Green Tehran Bureau correspondent found “very disheartening.”  According to the correspondent, Mashaei, “the […]