The Simpsons: It’s Funny ‘Cause it’s True

Flying into Orlando in a 2003 episode of The Simpsons, patriarch Homer peers down at a theme park and sees a large, distinctive Future Sphere like the one at Disney’s Epcot, and takes a decidedly dim view. “It’s even boring to fly over,” he whines. Thus begins a typically madcap set of misadventures and missteps familiar to any family that has dragged itself to Florida for a vacation it couldn’t afford, including a run-in with a fascist-sounding mouse and grossly overpriced food.

The Electronic Intifada: Pushing the Envelope with Ali Abunimah

IF YOU LISTEN TO NPR AND THE BBC as frequently as the editorial staff of Tikkun does, in all likelihood you’ve heard the British-accented voice of Ali Abunimah. The editor and publisher of both the Electronic Intifada (www.electronicintifada.net) and Electronic Iraq (www.electroniciraq.net) since 2001, Abunimah has established himself as one of the single most influential Palestinian intellectuals in North America.

Alternative Web News on the Middle East

Given the narrow reportage of the mainstream media and the increasing accessibility, simplicity, and range of online information sources, there is no reason for people who want to keep up on news from Israel and Palestine to remain in corporate-sponsored darkness. Following is a brief survey of some of the best alternative Middle East media websites.

Nixon and the Sixties: Mass Media and the Sanitized Past

The spectacle of revisionism exposes our mass-mediated postmodern culture for what it is: a montage of images, symbols, and sound-bites that not only obscures reality but in some critical ways reverses it. The results of this sanitizing process are readily apparent in the Orwellian comments of people too young to remember the real events. What can progressives do in the face of such a total rewriting of history?