Category: History

Relative to Albert Einstein…

 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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/21/relative-to-albert-einstein/

Albert Einstein

 Just read (confession: scanned) “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment” by Peter Beinart: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/ What caught my eye, near the very end of the article, was this: …the December 1948 letter from Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and others to The New York Times, protesting right-wing Zionist leader Menachem Begin’s visit to the United States …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/20/albert-einstein/

Part 1 of 3: First the good news…

 …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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-1-of-3-first-the-good-news/

Haiti: the Lebanese and the bat-crap crazies

 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 …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/01/16/haiti-the-lebanese-and-the-bat-crap-crazies/

Movie review: District 9

 Anybody else watched this sci-fi flic yet?  The first aerial shot of the alien ghetto reminded me of the refugee camps we used to see along the road to the Beirut airport.  Besides being thoroughly entertained, did anyone but me see an  Israeli/Palestinian connection?  I did a quick Google search and found that there are a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/08/29/movie-review-district-9/

Tortured logic (a letter/editorial submission)

 For the sake of argument, let’s suppose torture works… For the sake of argument, let’s also suppose that 9/11 was inevitable.  Let’s suppose that it wasn’t a circus of errors and missed opportunities and hot pursuits that were allowed to grow cold.  Let’s suppose that the CIA and the FBI were a model of harmonious …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/04/27/tortured-logic/

All along the watchtower

 Having just finished a book that extols the virtue of harmonizing right-wing elements of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity (see http://tinyurl.com/b3levz and http://tinyurl.com/ahashg), I found the following Fisk commentary on papal perspective most interesting.  And more than a bit alarming…  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html and/or  ttp://tinyurl.com/avwuz3  Fisk’s last paragraph And what do I make of all this? Well, I don’t think the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/28/all-along-the-watchtower/