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The Challenge of the Islamic State and U.S. Policy

What to do about the political mess in the Middle East and the rise of the Islamic State and related political movements?

Shortly after the end of World War II, the Western powers and the whole world began to recognize that the age of explicit colonial domination was over, and dozens of colonies were let go of and took political independence.

It is now past time for the United States and other world powers to recognize that the age of neo-colonial military, political and economic domination, especially in the Islamic Middle East, is decisively coming to a close.

Attempts to maintain it by military force have been disastrous for ordinary people trying to survive in the affected countries. There are powerful cultural currents and political forces in motion in the Middle East that simply will not tolerate military and political domination. There are thousands of people prepared to die rather than accept it.

U.S. policy will find no military fix for this reality.

Archival footage resurrects African fight for freedom

Next week, Columbus viewers will get the chance to see Selma, a smart and impassioned film about a pivotal moment in America’s Civil Rights Movement.

While they’re waiting, they may want to check out the documentary Concerning Violence, a collection of film footage shot during the 1960s and ’70s. Though it’s set in colonial Africa rather than the United States, the underlying racial inequities are all too similar.

Subtitled Nine Scenes From the Anti-Imperialist Self-Defense, the documentary takes us to various countries that were ruled by European governments or business interests. The vintage footage, shot for Swedish television and compiled by Swedish director Goran Hugo Olsson (The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975), offers a diverse look at an era of African upheaval.

Several revolutionaries talk about the lengths they’ve gone to in their fight for freedom—and the lengths their government has gone to in its attempt to suppress them. A smattering of graphic images underscore their words.

Duty to Warn

“We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. – Harold Pinter

British playwright Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. His powerful acceptance speech exposed the United States for its fascist, imperialist policies since World War II. His speech (delivered three years before he died in 2008) was an important glimpse into – and a reasonable summary of -- the innumerable documentable US imperialistic crimes that have been secretly facilitated by our multinational corporations, our national security apparatus, our military leaders, our wealthy elites and the craven politicians who are beholden to those four realities that have shaped American foreign policy over the past 60 years.

Data Hygiene Part 2: Hiding in the Cloud

Back in September I wrote about cleaning up your phone settings to keep your photos and personal information safe. (And if you got a new phone, tablet, or even laptop over the holidays, you might want to give that article another look!)  But with cloud storage becoming more and more popular as we juggle an assortment of connected devices, it’s important to be mindful of where you’re putting not just your naked selfies but also your credit card and banking information, your passwords, and the 12,000-word Captain America/Iron Man slashfic you don’t want anyone to see. 

Hands Up Dont Shoot

They would do it again

Streep and Sondheim are together at last

Meryl Streep long ago proved she can act. In Into the Woods, as she did in 2008’s Mamma Mia!, Streep proves that she can sing, too.

One thing, though: You probably wouldn’t want to sing in a choir with her. Performing in an ensemble requires more restraint than performing a solo, as your goal is to blend with the other voices, not to stand out. Whether she’s singing or acting, Streep often seems incapable of exercising this kind of restraint.

Maybe it’s not her fault. Maybe her directors think to themselves: “Hey, I’ve got Meryl Streep here. Why shouldn’t I take advantage of the situation by letting her deliver a Meryl Streep-style star turn?”

Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as she’s the star. It’s not so good when she’s merely one member of a large ensemble, as she is in Into the Woods. The fact is that whenever her Witch is on-screen, the other actors basically disappear into the fairy-tale-style woodwork.

Fending off sharks and sadistic corporals

In Unbroken, World War II bombardier Louis Zamperini is subjected to a crash landing at sea and a grueling stint in a Japanese POW camp. Will he survive?

Obviously. Otherwise, the flick would be titled Broken.

The real question is whether you, the viewer, will survive Angelina Jolie’s oh-so-slow, oh-so-traditional war epic. Two hours and 17 minutes might not sound like a long slog, but that’s exactly what it turns out to be.

As you know if you’ve seen any of the recent interviews with Jolie, the second-time director was enamored of the real-life Zamperini, who died before the film was ready for release. Perhaps the saga’s greatest shortcoming is that, after watching it, we’re not sure why she found his story so compelling.

Yes, he was heroic. Yes, he was a survivor. But so were lots of other U.S. veterans.

One thing that sets Zamperini apart is that he was a distance runner at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Even there, however, he barely stood out. In an early flashback, we watch as he runs an exceptionally fast final lap on his way to an eighth-place finish.

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