Watching Invictus, the 2009 movie based on Nelson Mandela’s attempts to unify South Africa through rugby, then considered an Afrikaner sport, the viewer can’t help […]
Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows, darkest and best of series yet
The 20th century wasn’t a particularly good one in historical terms: more people were killed in war than in previous centuries combined; we saw fascist […]
From Fatwa to Jihad
Most comments on the rise of radical Islam tend to fall into either a left or right wing version of political scientist Samuel P. Huntington’s […]
Book Review: The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves—and Why it Matters
Over the past few months, North Korea has been been in the headlines even more than usual. A partial list includes a revelation through the […]
Aisha points to a peace movement in malaise
Most people have now seen the cover of the August 9th issue of Time magazine, which depicts a portrait of Aisha, the 18-year-old Afghan girl […]
Hitch-22: When the left moves right
Book Review “Hitch-22” By Christopher Hitchens 2010, Twelve press, 448 pages, $26.99 (hardcover) The name Christopher Hitchens is, to many on the left and right, […]
Totalitarian household: a review of “Dogtooth”
Giorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth” captures the physical and moral damage that occurs when what is perhaps the ultimate insult is visited upon otherwise healthy human beings: […]
Sex, Violence, and Videotape
Princess Directed by Anders Morgenthaler Starring Thure Lindhardt, Mira Hilli Møller Hallund, Stine Fischer Christensen Run time: 90 minutes Released to DVD from Palisades Tartan […]
Forced labor: a global menace
UNITED NATIONS—Anna, now 21 years old, was born in the Ukrainian town of Kamenets-Podolsky, then still a part of the Soviet Union. During her early […]
“Nuclear weapons and humans cannot coexist”
Sixty years ago the United States became the first (and since then the only) country to use atomic bombs, dropping one each on the Japanese […]