Category Archives: Journalism and Media

The $2 Trillion Nightmare

Iraq War, Journalism and Media

By BOB HERBERT, The New York Times, March 4, 2008

We’ve been hearing a lot about “Saturday Night Live” and the fun it has been having with the presidential race. But hardly a whisper has been heard about a Congressional hearing in Washington last week on a topic that could have been drawn, in all its tragic monstrosity, from the theater of the absurd.

The war in Iraq will ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers not hundreds of billions of dollars, but an astonishing $2 trillion, and perhaps more. There has been very little in the way of public conversation, even in the presidential campaigns, about the consequences of these costs, which are like a cancer inside the American economy.

On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. Continue reading The $2 Trillion Nightmare →

Sufi Film on Link TV

Film and Video, Journalism and Media, Music and Dance


A Sufi qawall offering his devotional music in Lahore

Sufi Soul – The Mystic Music of Islam
U.K., 50 minutes

Director: Simon Broughton

Appearing on Link TV, Saturday, February 23. Visit the site for a preview.

With a dogmatic and fundamentalist view of Muslims increasingly predominant in the Western media, there has never been a more important time to show an alternative view of Islam. Sufism is the mystical dimension of Islam that preaches peace, tolerance and pluralism, while encouraging music as a way of deepening one’s relationship with God. This documentary explores Sufism and its music in different parts of the Islamic world, including Syria, Turkey, Pakistan and Morocco.

Sufi Soul reveals the views and beliefs of devotees while examining the growing threat from fundamentalist Islam and showcasing fantastic performances from some of the world’s greatest Sufi musicians.

For a review of the film, click here.

Primary Hellfire and Born Again Brimstone

Iraq War, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Luke R. E. Publican, Osama Bin Laden

In yesterday’s Super Tuesday slapdown, John McCain appears to have bailed out in his Republican quest with a majority of the party’s caucus-oid delegates. But not without friendly, which is actually unfriendly, fire from his right. At the last minute the conservative evangelical bornagainagogue James Dobson delivered his protestant version of papal bull: “I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are … I cannot, and will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience.” It is though Dobson in his daily bible reading, found a new translation of Matthew 16:15: “And I tell you, John McCain, on this rock I will not tell my church to vote and the gates of hell will prevail is he is elected.” Or to tell the Gospel truth, Mr. Dobson cannot see the mote in his candidate’s eye for the large walk-the-plank in his own.

Adding to the smoking cigar of Rush puffed endlessly in Big Mac’ weathered face, Super Tuesday turned into the GOP version of American Gladiators. Move over, Chuck and Arnie, here comes Hulk Hogan onstage to officiate, only without the scantily clad and pumped-up Amazon models. Here is last night’s apocalypse now. The great Latter Day Conservative from Utahssachusetts lies bloodied and hanging on to the Washington-is-broken ropes, waiting for a Good Samaritan to come along and say Mormonism is not a cult. Meanwhile, down in the holler hides the Huckabilly, who is able to have his Southern cruisin’ grits and eat them too; but likely this will be his Last Supper of the primaries and not for want of Ron Paul’s fundraising ability. On the other side, Hillary and Obama both took the Jesus-like approach of saying you should love your enemy. This time around, in not-so-swift Kerry-like fashion, the Republicans seem hellbent on electoral suicide that will holocaust the party a victory in November. Think of it this way, which pile of shit would you rather avoid: that of a donkey or an elephant?

Politics astride, you would have to be severely politically anemic not to see the irony of the moral majoritarian Dobson damning Big Mac to an undisclosed level of hell and at the same time playing up the spectre of Radical Islam’s Threat to the Western World. Continue reading Primary Hellfire and Born Again Brimstone →

What is There to Study?

Afghanistan, Journalism and Media, Taliban, Terrorism Issue

Tomorrow I am scheduled to teach a class on the political advice of Niccolo Machiavelli, some five centuries removed. If this noted Florentine were alive today, he would probably display an unseemly Italian gesture at the political disarray of his beloved Italy and the ineptness of the world’s remaining superpower’s involvement to his geographic Orient. Can you imagine this advice in an updated edition of The Prince: when in doubt or unwilling to act, form a study group. Just over a year ago we had the highly touted and now conveniently shelved Iraq Study Group. The media touted the prominent bipartisan members, the report was available free to the public, and the sitting President more or less brushed aside any recommendation that did not flatter him. This would no doubt please Machiavelli’s realism. He just surged ahead, sending more troops rather than admitting a flawed policy in the first place.

Each day the news media report suicide bombings, now more commonly in Pakistan and Afghanistan. For some this might mean the surge is working. But what about the surge in violence outside Iraq, especially in Afghanistan, the place it all started. Somebody forgot to form a study group for Afghanistan, but now we have it. Continue reading What is There to Study? →

Where are the Moderates?

Bangladesh, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Wahhabi


[Illustration: Ayaan Hirsi in the Theo Van Goghin film, left;alleged preparation of woman for stoning, right.]

In a New York Times op-ed published yesterday by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a controversial Dutch Somali, a relevant and timely question is asked: Where are Muslim moderates when misogynist renderings of Islam sweep the media? She has a point in noting the relative absence of condemnation of three recent tabloid news items. There is the Shi’a woman in Qatif, raped by several Shi’a men, and herself branded (to the barbaric tune of 200 lashes) guilty by a Sunni Wahhabi court for “mingling” with a man not her husband. Then the hug-my-teddy-bear-but-don’t-mention the-prophet’s-name fiasco over a naive British teacher in Sudan, and finally the case of Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi writer vilified for her feminist writings that approach the controversial barzakh of Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. So where are the moderates? For Ms. Ali they are phantom progressives, too blinded by their loyalty to the faith and fearful of telling truth to Muslim power. Here is her assessment:

It is often said that Islam has been “hijacked” by a small extremist group of radical fundamentalists. The vast majority of Muslims are said to be moderates. Continue reading Where are the Moderates? →

Secrecy and Anthropology

Anthropology/Sociology, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, December 3

With debate over the role of anthropologists in aiding the military machine a theme threading through their annual meeting, scholars voted Friday to demand that the American Anthropological Association reinstate strict language from its 1971 code of ethics prohibiting secret research. Members at the meeting – who, for the second time in about 30 years and the second year in a row constituted a quorum in excess of the required 250 — also voted overwhelmingly to oppose “any covert or overt U.S. military action against Iran.”

The language anthropologists want reinstated on secrecy – which, the resolution’s sponsor affirmed would apply to anthropologists doing work for corporations too – stipulates that “no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.” Like every item of business discussed Friday other than the resolution on Iran, the resolution on secrecy was not filed for consideration 30 days in advance, as is required under association rules, and so will be submitted to the association’s executive board on an advisory basis only.

But Friday’s vote only strengthens a recommendation contained in a new report from the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities, which suggests that the membership or ethics committee “should consider” reinstating those same sections (1.g, 2.a, 3.a, and 6) of the 1971 code. The report centers on whether the association’s ethical standards bar ties to the military or intelligence agencies. The commission’s short answer: Not necessarily, although more scrutiny is needed. Stressing the diversity of roles anthropologists can play in military and intelligence apparatuses, the panel determined that while certain interactions would violate the ethical code, members also “see circumstances in which engagement can be preferable to detachment or opposition.” On issues of secrecy, for instance, the commission offered one particularly complex dilemma as illustration: “Some situations might be counterintuitive for most of us: consider a situation in which a research project is kept secret from the scholarly community, but not from the local population or community under study – as when an anthropologist employed by a government agency helps a special operation to get medical supplies to a remote town in northern Afghanistan.” Continue reading Secrecy and Anthropology →

What Makes a A Muslim Laugh?

Arabic Cartoons, Danish Cartoon Controversy, Humor and Satire, Islam in Europe, Islamophobia, Journalism and Media, Muhammad

Today’s BBC News has a story with the headline “Does Islam have a sense of humour?” This is the kind of question that makes me want to cry. “Islam”, like any religion, will “have” whatever people read into it. For a Christian or Hindu apologist just about everything that Muslims do is “funny” in the sense of being different and looked down upon, although it is not funny to non-Muslim fundamentalists when Muslims practice their faith in ways that are dismissed as violent or antagonistic. Muslims do not generally take their own faith as a joke, unless they are in the Enlightenment-mentored mode of rationalizing away whatever fixed dogma demands about the power of Allah. Islam is not inherently funny, especially to those who practice it, but neither is it opposed to laughter. Humor is a pan-human trait and it is highly contextual. Yes, there are Muslims who have a sense of humor and those who do not. In the real world how could it be otherwise?

The article’s hook-line teaser notes: “Muslims are often depicted as people who can’t take a joke. But as a stand-up comedy tour showcasing Islamic talent arrives in the UK, is that fair?” There is something quite different about looking for a sense of humor in an entire religious tradition compared to observing what individual Muslims do. Continue reading What Makes a A Muslim Laugh? →

Imagine a world without football

Journalism and Media, Lebanon, YouTube Watch

Having just endured another weekend in which my son flicked from one college game to another on Saturday and channel hopped the pro games on Sunday, I sometimes wonder what would happen if football suddenly disappeared. I don’t think we would have baseball year round and basketball is too indoor a sport for the macho and nacho masses with apparently nothing to do on fall weekends. Of course, American football will not disappear as long as high school and college men have a forum to beat each other within limits (on pain of 15 yard penalties) and bear the manly marks of pain and showboat half way across the field for daring acrobatics. But our Rugby-derived version of the world’s most popular sport is no match for the millions worldwide who follow what we think is soccer and they think is real football (i.e. a foot hitting a ball instead of one body with pads bashing into another body with pads).

Imagine if this culturally transmitted and universally acclaimed sport suddenly lost all its spectators. What if the team showed up with their Nike endorsements and flourescent Gatorade bottles to empty stadiums? Well, you do not have to. Welcome to Lebanon, Continue reading Imagine a world without football →