Rendition presents the subject of torture through an aching love story that encourages the viewer to suffer along with the wife of the disappeared, wondering when love will be restored and family made whole.
Read MoreThe issue of academic tenure has been a persistent catalyst for academic disputes. Proponents of tenure claim that it preserves academic freedoms on campuses, whereas opponents refer to the stagnation of research and publications that may occur once tenure is granted.
Read MoreThe US Congress recently attempted to pass a law officially recognizing Turkish genocide of Armenians. Backed by more than half the members of the House, the bill called upon the Turkish government to acknowledge the Ottoman Empire’s role in committing atrocities against its Armenian population from 1915 to 1924. Yet the motion was ultimately quashed. As a New York Times editorial put it, “Historical truths must be established through dispassionate research and debate, not legislation.” In other words, history, like religion, is not something the state should be institutionalizing.
Read MoreCandide, Canterbury Tales, and The Arabian Nights were all once deemed “obscene” by the federal government.
Read MoreIn late April 2004, the news that American soldiers had abused detainees at Abu Ghraib prison arrived to the public in a string of shocking photos. The images that exposed the torture of prisoners were brutal and strange—and they were memorable, resistant to amnesia. On May 24, President Bush made a somber address about the news. He called the abuse “disgraceful conduct by a few American troops, who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”—seedless, atypical, un-American. The story of our response to torture at Abu Ghraib is also the story of our unbelief in that declaration.
Read MoreIf you are what you eat, then America is corn. It’s in just about everything we eat: soda, ketchup, English muffins, breakfast cereal, cookies, crackers, ice cream, BBQ sauce… hell, even cough syrup. It feeds the cattle that go into your hamburger. And now it’s going into our gas tanks as ethanol.
Read MoreIn the coming years, will we see environmental preservation as a new approach of state policy directed at preventing and resolving conflict?
Read MoreIn an effort to recast himself as a “compassionate conservative,” President Bush often invokes HIV/AIDS relief as a key component of his foreign policy. Amid a history of strong-armed diplomacy, this altruistic endeavor is distinct. Launched during the 2003 State of the Union, “The President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief” (PEPFAR) garnered rousing bipartisan applause and was awarded legislative authorization just three months later. At $15 billion in funding, PEPFAR shattered records as the largest commitment by any nation to focus on a single disease.
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A major occurrence in history can be spun in different ways, depending on the words used to describe it. The attacks of September 11, 2001 are a seminal event in the lives of students today, and are bound to remain so for future generations. Despite the indelible images of that day, the greatest impact that 9/11 will have in the public memory may be its description in the pages of history textbooks.
Read MoreYou hear the story every year around this time: Turks massacred hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the early 1900s. The modern state of Turkey claims that the crumbling Ottoman state did not premeditate or direct the killings, noting that the Turks suffered as many deaths as the Armenians. Armenians, for their part, want the episode recognized as genocide, and they blame the international community for its inattention and hypocrisy. It sounds like one of those debates that will go on for eternity.
Read MoreThis passage from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude could be read as another example of the Nobel Prize-winner’s genius ability to use fantasy as a metaphor for everyday life. It could be an imagined story that references the violent history of Colombia and the country’s seeming inability to learn from its experiences. Yet as those who visit Colombia will realize, Marquez describes Colombian reality much more often than one would think, and this case is no exception: in Colombia, banana companies help pile people like bananas.
Read More“I don’t drink Starbucks.” That used to be my mantra. They had destroyed Spinelli’s and were squeezing Martha’s, and I did not appreciate it. It wasn’t that I did not love their orange-mocha frappuccinos (I did), but I felt like buying their coffee would be an unforgivable breach of my ethical codes.
Read MoreIn the past few weeks, Hillel Neuer, the executive director of the watchdog organization UNWatch, has become the persona non grata at the recently overhauled UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. At the Council’s fourth session in late March, Neuer delivered a speech that so infuriated Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba that it was stricken from the official UN record. What could Neuer have said to provoke such censure?
Read MoreDuring a speech in Milwaukee in mid-April, Barack Obama brought his talk back to a common campaign theme: “Our incapacity to recognize ourselves in each other.” That was an especially poignant point to make in front of the mostly black audience. Obama’s authenticity as a black man has been questioned publicly by a number of people.
Read MoreEverybody knows that politicians lie. They mudsling, twist facts, and express regret over things, often claiming that what they “actually meant at the time” was misconstrued. In fact, it is so obvious that the noses of our current leaders are unnaturally long that it is not even cool to talk about it anymore. Bush is a liar, Cheney’s a bigger liar, and Rove’s the biggest, fattest liar of all. Everyone knows it. Everyone accepts it. No one seems to care.
Read MoreIndicted former Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay is a born fighter, a fact he makes clear in his aptly titled new book, No Retreat, No Surrender: One American’s Fight.
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