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The Syria Solidarity Movement applauds the Syrian people for their widespead participation in the first competitive election since the new Constitution approved in 2012. The voting by Syrians living or taking refuge in Lebanon was massive. Voting in Beirut needed to be extended by a full day. Similarly, the voting inside Syria on June 3, 2014 exceeded expectations and polls remained open until midnight to accommodate the huge numbers of Syrians waiting to vote.

Insurgents increased their shelling of civilian areas in Damascus and Aleppo but otherwise the election was conducted peacefully …

Democracy is a core feature of Western society, normally understood as representative parliament – i.e. in free elections citizens vote for people to represent their interests for a parliament consisting of parties of which some form the government and some the opposition.

It’s not always included in the definitions that democracy requires a reasonable level of knowledge and information, freely available. For instance, one often hears that India is the world’s biggest democracy but 26% of the people are still illiterate (287 million people).

So the ”world’s largest democracy” also has the world’s largest population who can’t read and write. In comparison, …

One of the most important Palestinian feature films ever, Omar, is the deepest expose of the diabolical nature of the Israeli occupation and the inhuman situation imposed on Palestinians by the Jewish State. It also throws light on the tragic and depressing Palestinian struggle against a sophisticated, demonic enemy — an on-going battle that so far has led nowhere.

In his latest film, Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad sets Omar (Adam Bakri), a young freedom fighter in an impossible, yet common, Palestinian dilemma, caught in a devastating triangle between his patriotic commitment, romance and the omnipresent Jewish State – a brutal, …

Anyone who reads his work will quickly be made aware of the enormous amounts of study that lie behind the writing of Paul Levy—study in the form of wide and vast reading, of deep and patient thought, and, perhaps above all, a never-ending process of extraordinarily close observation. Observation of what? For the moment, the answer to that question can best be given in two parts. First, Paul Levy is an acute and close observer of the nature of life. Second, he is an acute and close observer of us, of we, of the ones who live inside of that …

We live under the omnipresent shadow of a political/economic system, which promotes materiality, selfishness and individual success over group wellbeing. It is a model of civilisation that is making us miserable and ill. Dependent on continuous consumption, everything and everyone is seen as a commodity, and competition and ambition are extolled as virtues. Together with reward and punishment this trinity of division has infiltrated and polluted all areas of contemporary life, including health care and education.

It is a system that denies compassion and social unity.  Unhappiness and mental illness, as well as extreme levels of inequality (income and wealth) flow …

Pope Francis’ “pilgrimage” to the Holy Land last week proved to be an unbalanced impossible mission. The pontiff failed to strike a balance of neutrality between contradictory and irreconcilable binaries like divinity and earth, religion and politics, justice and injustice and military occupation and peace.

Such neutrality is viewed by the laity of Christian believers, let alone Muslim ones, in the Holy Land as religiously, morally and politically unacceptable.

The 77-year old head of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics “is stepping into a religious and political minefield,” Naim Ateek, the Anglican priest who founded the Palestinian liberation theology movement and runs the …

For years now prominent scientists have warned of the dangers of global warming and a concomitant tipping point for the Arctic. Because of abnormal heat, things are not looking good. Arctic sea ice is in a vertical free-fall. But, the melt season only just started!

This makes Obama’s call for regulation of coal-burning power plants look like a fanciful ephemeral wish list, too little, too late.

Do not expect to see this story on the nightly news. This news story comes by way of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) obtained whilst comparing images of sea ice concentration on May 14, 2014 to …

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”

Astronomer Carl Sagan was fond of saying this when talking about the possibility of intelligent life existing elsewhere in the universe. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also used the expression in his own portrayal of intelligent life on this planet, in reference to his inability to find Saddam Hussein’s WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) that didn’t exist.

It’s a basically useful mindset that has both useful and useless applications, as in Rumsfeld’s using it to mean, apparently, something like: “we don’t need no stinking evidence, we know his WMDs used to …

Victoria and Albert Museum, London; March, 2000

A passel of statues spread before us, a collection: Buddhas, Saints, variations on a theme of Pietà, knights on catafalques, the whole bit. Centuries of Fashion revised, redacted, re-positioned, from time-to-time, by expert members of Museum staff, in deference to the fashion du jour and its inevitable re-valuation of all values as defined in relation to (and in correlation with) levels of Manichean contempt and contrast between, former regime – Them, and its successor – Us.

Time is the new black.

Percocet clonazepam espresso.

Fresh-air promenades avec Gitaines, Hyde Park.

It cost a pound to …

Contra Arendt, one may speak of the “’evil’ of banality”—certainly a pervasive cultural pathology at the present time. Although the average American is not guaranteed sufficient panem, he almost always has access to circenses; i.e., the cornucopia of amusements and games which may soothe and refresh his otherwise battered, humble self. TV sitcoms and the like can be said to offer a kind of low-grade therapy—if by therapy we refer merely to a temporary catharsis of tension rather than deeper insight.

Indeed, as Freud wrote in his book on jokes: humor, by suddenly juxtaposing incongruous thoughts, momentarily dissolves an inner inhibition–thereby …

With the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) all set to restart the English badger culls that were so disastrous last year, people are beginning to question the safety of the exercise.  In particular, they are looking at the poor standard of policing.

Admittedly, trying to police an unfamiliar rural area at night, with emotions running high and men with guns and a tendency to ignore the law pitted against people who were trying to stop the badgers from being shot was never going to be an easy job.  But that is no excuse for the muddle, bias …

Irrespective of how one feels about the direction taken by various Arab revolutions in the last three years, a few facts remain incontestable. Arab revolts began in the streets of poor, despairing Arab cities, and Arabs had every right to rebel considering the dismal state of affairs in which they live.

Few disagree with these two notions. However, the quarrel, in part, is concerned with the cost-benefit analysis of some of these revolutions, Syria being the prime example. Is it worth destroying a country, several times over and victimizing millions to achieve an uncertain democratic future?

The cost for Egypt was high …

One of the most prestigious honors any university can bestow is an honorary degree, a degree which is conferred honoris causa, that is, for the sake of honor. This degree recognizes an individual’s exceptional achievement or distinction in a field or activity consonant with the mission of the university. Through this major public action, the university is able to acknowledge worthy individuals of national and international acclaim whose accomplishments support the ideals of the university and serve as an example for our students, alumni, and society. Nominations may be made by the public or any member of the university …

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This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can’t be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.

— Carl Sandburg, from The People, Yes

Gary Corseri: I’ve been reading your work fairly regularly over the past 4 years.  Within this year, I’ve reviewed your two most recent books: The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and How America was Lost.  I know something about your background as Assistant Treasury Secretary during the Reagan Administration, and as a former associate editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, etc.  You and I have corresponded a little, mostly about …

how do we stop the bleed in higher education which is the bleed of participatory governance?

This will be quick since I have to hoof it to the Vancouver City Council in support of a resolution to NOT allow that dirty, rotten thug of a company, Tesoro, to run its rails of immolation from North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields to our “port” of Vancouver. A virtual pipeline on rails, and what a stupid idea this is. You know, in a world of sickness, more kids with more lung ailments, more talk about mitigating climate warming by REDUCING CO2 emissions. Mark that …