May 31 2010
This headline in today’s supposedly-progressive Haaretz – “Israel Navy commandos: Gaza flotilla activists tried to lynch us” – makes me wonder if something was lost in translation. The irony of a lynching in Israel’s own Deep South is strange enough fruit (see postscript) for a crack PR operation, but for an Israeli newspaper to acknowledge …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/31/beyond-incredulity/
May 21 2010
Thanks to “my” crack team of researchers, here’s the letter by Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook, and others, first published in the Books section (page 12) of The New York Times, Saturday December 4, 1948: http://www.archive.org/details/AlbertEinsteinLetterToTheNewYorkTimes.December41948 or http://bit.ly/d5pUR7 or http://tinyurl.com/2av8cho (thanks Børre) …interesting that “terror” or “terrorist” shows up 7 times. And here is …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/21/relative-to-albert-einstein/
May 16 2010
And finally the bad news. Marjorie Wright sent this very depressing piece by Philip Giraldi (also former CIA) last night. For those of you who don’t get moist with Armageddon-anticipation, reading Giraldi’s prediction (that Israel will try to force us into a war with Iran by August) will make your heart sink lower than a …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-3-of-3-first-the-good-news/
May 16 2010
Ray’s friend Paul Stahnke (a retired Foreign Service Officer) then forwarded this May 13 response (to Breger’s essay) by M. J. Rosenberg, adding this comment: “As you m[a]y know, Rosenberg was once an official with AIPAC before he saw the light.” Ray’s further comments by way of introducing Rosenberg’s response: “Rosenberg pulls no punches. More …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-2-of-3-first-the-good-news/
May 16 2010
…bad news to follow. Here’s a short introduction Ray Close (retired CIA) added yesterday to a recent essay by a credentialed Republican: This short essay contains no particularly original ideas or deep insights, but in the simplicity and clarity of its logic and language, (and the credentials of its author), it is exceptionally helpful. It …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-1-of-3-first-the-good-news/
Jan 16 2010
Curious about the origins of Pat Robertson’s outrageous comments about Haiti’s latest agony, my research turned up this interesting nugget in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti): “In 1912 Syrians residing in Haiti participated in a plot in which the presidential palace was destroyed.” Syrians in Haiti? My spider-sense for all things Levantine was tingling, so I digressed from …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/16/haiti-the-lebanese-and-the-bat-crap-crazies/
Aug 30 2009
I’m almost finished with Charles Pierce’s “Idiot America — How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free” (Doubleday, June 2009). Just read the chapter on the 9-11 fiasco and the “sexing up” of the Iraq war and I’m so angry right right now that I feel compelled to share the following links …
Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/30/book-review/
