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Tony Kushner on the Overlooked "Radicalism" and Lessons of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 10 (Interview) - For his latest project, Tony Kushner is writing the screenplay for an upcoming Steven Spielberg movie about Abraham Lincoln. Kushner says an understanding of Lincoln's presidency carries valuable lessons for political life today. "I think [Lincoln's] incredible ability to finesse very treacherous political circumstances and continue to move the country forward in the midst of the most horrendously difficult period in its history, I think, is breathtaking and awe-inspiring." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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Cinco de Mayo History Short on Beer, Long on Bloodshed

Sat, 05 May 2012 00:00:00 -0700

National Geographic - By Stefan Lovgren - May. 05 (Special Report) - U.S. partygoers may be surprised to learn that Cinco de Mayo history is less about margaritas than military conflict.

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Selections from The Spoken Word

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Smithsonian Magazine - Oct. 29 (Other) - Listen to famous British and American writers talk about their work and their views on culture and society.

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10 myths about Afghanistan

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Jonathan Steele - Sep. 28 (Special Report) - In 1988, the Soviet army left Afghanistan after a concerted campaign by the western-backed mujahideen. But since then, many enduring myths have grown up about the war-torn country. In his new book, Jonathan Steele sorts the fact from the fiction 1. Afghans have always beaten foreign armies, from Alexander the Great to modern times Afghan history is certainly littered with occasions when foreign invaders were humiliated. But there have also been many cases when foreign armies penetrated the country and inflicted major defeats. In 330BC, Alexander the Great marched through the area of central Asia that is now Afghanistan, meeting little opposition. More than a millennium later, the Mongol leader Genghis Khan also brushed resistance aside. Since Afghanistan emerged as a modern state, there have been three wars with Britain. The British invasion of 1839 produced initial victory for the intruders followed by stunning defeat followed by a second victory. In 1878, the British invaded again. ...

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What did Nixon say?

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Rick Perlstein - Aug. 09 (News Report) - A judge says the disgraced president's grand jury testimony, the one time he was required to tell the truth of Watergate, should be unsealed. Prepare to be shocked anew by the politician's venality.

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The Past Is a Foreign Country

Wed, 27 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Jo Nesbo - Jul. 27 (Opinion) - A FEW days ago, before the bombing here and the shootings on Utoya Island, a friend and I were talking about how the joy of being alive always seems to go hand in hand with the sorrow that things change. Not even the brightest future can make up for the fact that no roads lead back to what came before — to the innocence of childhood or the first time we fell in love.

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What our Declaration really said

Mon, 04 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By E.J. Dionne Jr. - Jul. 04 (Opinion) - Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted.”

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The space shuttle: Into the sunset

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 03 (Special Report) - If the weather holds and there are no unforeseen complications, then early in the morning on July 8th a woman and three men will ascend the launch tower at Florida’s Kennedy Space Centre, strap themselves into Atlantis, the last operational space shuttle, and, as the engines ignite, wait for the countdown to reach zero. Burning thousands of litres of rocket fuel every second and blasting superheated gas into the water-filled trench beneath the pad, the engines will kick up the vast gouts of steam and smoke that characterise a rocket launch.

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The day the drug war really started

Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salon - By Jonathan Easley - Jun. 19 (Interview) - On June 19, 1986, 25 years ago Sunday, University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of cocaine intoxication. Many believed the 6-foot 7, 220-pound small forward possessed a level of talent equal to that of Michael Jordan, and only two days earlier he'd been selected as the No. 2 overall pick in the NBA draft by the reigning champion Boston Celtics.

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“A Moment in the Sun”: An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John Sayles

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, John Sayles - Jun. 17 (Interview) - “However small your audiences, however frustrating it is to get where your version of the world or what you want to talk about out there, it is part of the conversation. If you shut up, the conversation is one-sided,” says Sayles.

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Debbie Reynolds is parting with her movie treasures

Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Susan King - Jun. 14 (News Report) - The actress has amassed a collection of about 5,000 pieces of memorabilia. Finally admitting that her dream of a permanent museum won't be a reality, she is auctioning off the artifacts.

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In China, a long path of writing the Communist Party’s history

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Andrew Higgins - May. 27 (News Analysis) - BEIJING — China’s Communist Party has finally got its story straight. It took 16 years of editing and four extensive rewrites. Chinese leaders, otherwise preoccupied with running a rising superpower, weighed in throughout. “I never thought it would take so long,” said Shi Zhongquan, who helped craft what the party hopes will be the final word on some of the most politically sensitive and also bloodiest episodes of China’s recent history — a new 1,074-page account of the party’s early decades in ...

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Separation of Church and State: PBS Airs Documentary of a Mother's Story

Wed, 11 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Chris Benson - May. 11 (Review) - The powerful human story behind the story of the fight that led ultimately to the Supreme Court's 8-1 ruling in 1948 that provided the framework for the contemporary principle of separation of church and state. It is a story that is beautifully rendered in the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning documentary, The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today.

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David Barton Lies To Jon Stewart On Sharia Law Views

Mon, 09 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

rightwingwatch.org - By Brian - May. 09 (News Analysis) - As Miranda noted yesterday, David Barton raised eyebrows when he told The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart that religious law, including Sharia law, is compatible with the Constitution if a locality or state wanted to implement it, as he has a long track record of promoting vehement anti-Muslim views. Julie Ingersoll of Religion Dispatches also pointed out that Barton has consistently criticized “the threat of Islam taking over the country by imposing ‘Sharia Law.’”

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The Shirley Sherrods of Academe?

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Inside Higher Ed - By Scott Jaschik - Apr. 29 (Special Report) - Videos posted by the conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart appear to have ended the teaching career of an adjunct at the University of Missouri -- even as university officials issued a statement backing the contention of the two instructors of the labor studies course that their comments in the class had been edited to present an "inaccurate and distorted" picture of what was said.

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Werner Herzog Enters 'The Cave Of Forgotten Dreams'

Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - By Terri Gross, Werner Herzog - Apr. 25 (Interview) - In 1994, three French cave explorers discovered hundreds of prehistoric paintings and engravings on the walls of the Chauvet Cave in southern France. Carbon dating has since shown that the depictions of rhinoceroses, lions, cave bears, horses, bison, mammoths and other animals are between 30,000 and 32,000 years old. That doesn't mean the ancient drawings are any less sophisticated than what artists create today, says filmmaker Werner Herzog. "Art ... as it bursts on the scene 32,000 years ago, is fully accomplished. It doesn't start with 'primitive scribblings' and first attempts like children would make drawings," Herzog says. "It's absolutely and fully accomplished." The acclaimed German director, who has produced, written and directed more than 40 films, gained exclusive access to the Chauvet caves. He tells their story and the story of the world's oldest cave paintings in The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a 3-D documentary film. "Since early adolescence, I have been fascinated by cave paintings," Herzog tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "It actually was my personal intellectual awakening ... and shook me to the core — seeing an image of a horse [from the] prehistoric Stone Age. I couldn't believe it." Part of Herzog's interest in the paintings, he says, is the knowledge that tens of thousands of years ago, humans had the instinct to make art in order to represent the world around them.

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Prehistoric Cave With a Hornet on the Wall

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Larry Rohter - Apr. 24 (News Report) - The director Werner Herzog remembers being about 12 years old when he saw, and was transfixed by, a picture of a horse on the cover of a book about Paleolithic art, displayed in the window of a bookstore in the isolated Bavarian village where he lived. Ever since, even as he was making films like “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” and “Nosferatu,” that image “has engaged me and haunted my mind,” he said. “It has never left me.” But it took more than 50 years after that first exposure to prehistoric cave art for Mr. Herzog to be able to act on his childhood fascination. In the spring of 2010 he was allowed to film in the Chauvet cave in southeastern France, where archaeologists have found exquisite wall paintings some 32,000 years old, the oldest ever discovered, and the result is an 90-minute documentary called “Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

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The 1% solution

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - By M.S. - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - MY COLLEAGUE and I have something in common: we both think concentrations of power in alliances between gargantuan business instititutions and gargantuan government institutions are generally terrible. My colleague and I don't have much in common in how we analyse the formation of those concentrations of power, or what we think should be done about them. Another thing my colleague and I have in common is that we each think the other guy's approach to this problem is hopelessly naive. And another thing we don't have in common is that I largely agreed with Joseph Stiglitz's article in Vanity Fair, which my colleague describes as an example of self-refutingly absurd liberal ideology.

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April Fool's Day: Recalling Sidd Finch and Some of the Greatest Hoaxes Ever

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Dundalk Patch - By Ron Cassie - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Mike Bielecki was just starting his second year in the big leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates, 26 years ago today, when Sports Illustrated broke news of a New York Mets rookie right-hander with the unusual name of Hayden Siddhartha Finch.

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Marking Davis’s Confederate Inauguration

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Campbell Robertson - Feb. 21 (News) - But even the politics on Saturday were tied up in a larger sense of grievance, a feeling of being marginalized and willfully misunderstood. Expressions of this feeling led to some rather unexpected analogies, like when Kelley Barrow, a teacher from Georgia, declared that people of Confederate heritage “have been forced to go to the back of the bus.”

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Jewish ritual bath found in Baltimore may be oldest in U.S.

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Baltimore Sun - By Frank D. Roylance - Feb. 13 (News) - Jewish ritual bath found in Baltimore may be oldest in U.S.

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The tyrant has gone. Now the real struggle begins for Egypt

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Pankaj Mishra - Feb. 12 (Opinion) - The protesters have stripped Mubarak and his foreign backers of their authority. But the roots of despotism run deep For the last two weeks I have, like innumerable others, careened from the television news to internet updates and back, longing for the moment that came last night , when the tyrant finally yielded to a brave and spirited people. History has been made; celebrations are in order. But it is not too early to ask: what next? The so-called Higher Military Council inspires no confidence. Does another military strongman lurk in the regime's entrails? I wonder if western leaders, shamed into moral bluster after being caught in flagrante with Mubarak, will, when we relax our vigils, tip the balance towards "stability" and against real change. I grow a bit apprehensive too, recalling the words of an extraordinarily perceptive observer of Egypt's struggles in the past: "The edifice of despotic government totters to its fall. Strive so far as you can to destroy the foundations of ...

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India’s protection against Egypt style rebellions

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By John Elliott - Feb. 11 (Editorial) - Questions have frequently been asked in India during the past three weeks about whether the type of uprising seen in Cairo’s Tahrir Square could happen there, with a street-level rebellion occupying a city centre and spreading across the country to such a degree that it topples (or almost topples) the national government.

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Revisiting the Reagan Nightmare

Sun, 06 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

truth-out.org - Feb. 06 (Opinion) -

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The End of New Deal Liberalism

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By William Greider - Jan. 05 (Comment) - Society faces dreadful prospects and profound transformation. When both parties are aligned with corporate power, who will stand up for the people? Who will protect them from the insatiable appetites of capitalist enterprise and help them get through the hard passage ahead? One thing we know for sure from history: there is no natural limit to what capitalism will seek in terms of power and profit. If government does not stand up and apply the brakes, society is defenseless.

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