Gentlemen of Bacchus
We are they whose loud carousing, Tankards deep and anthems rousing Fill the inns, the drink espousing: Gentlemen of Bacchus. As on drunken nights aplenty Since before the age of twenty; Alcoholic...
Year: 2009
Will we put Guantanamo detainees on trial for terrorist speech?
Scenario one: someone posts on the Internet step-by-step instructions for building a crude weapon of mass destruction, or act of bioterrorism. Scenario two: someone stands in the street with a sign...
“The Stoning of Soraya M.”: a review
One of this year’s most powerful dramas, "The Stoning of Soraya M.," has tremendous implications for global audiences immersed in both the movie’s story arch and the political situation...
A note to the world: we DO play football in the States!
To the average American sports fan, football is played with two eleven member teams of massive men struggling to score with an oblong ball on a striped 100 by 53 yard field with U-shaped goalposts at...
Don’t cry for Mark Sanford, take a stand for privacy instead
$700 million dollars was the amount of money that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford wanted to refuse from the stimulus package. $700 million for failing South Carolina schools, for underpaid...
Michael Jackson: Dead at 50
Yesterday, people began gathering in front of UCLA Ronald Reagan medical center to pay homage to a man who gave new meaning to the word "iconoclast. " Michael Jackson first came onto the world stage...
Michael Jackson: of mortal coils and music
Back when the Soviet Union was crashing around our ears, Michael Jackson was cool. I distinctly remember when, as a pre-schooler, I enraged my parents by refusing to get out of the car mid-song. It...
From Iran to the open road: Hypernova on seducing the states
Originally from Tehran, Hypernova have a sound reminiscent of Interpol, except less clinical and more organic. Having made the transition to the American music scene, they have come to symbolize...
France’s burqa ban: in the name of freedom?
France, like most Western countries, prides itself on individual freedoms. It has a long history of dissent and uprising when these norms are threatened or minimized in anyway. Immigrants change...
Yulia Tymoshenko’s candidacy: looking beyond the dichotomy
Already, much of the outside coverage of the upcoming Ukrainian presidential election, scheduled for January 17 2010, has boiled down to the absurd notion that "pro-Western" and "pro-Russia" forces...