Oliver Stone has provided a great antidote to mainstream U.S. media coverage of Latin America with his latest film, “South of the Border.”
Articles
Prophetic Contingency: Why Jim Douglass’s JFK Book Matters
|
The best way to honor John F. Kennedy’s legacy is to muster the courage to walk again through the “dark history” associated with his short but consequential presidency, in order to learn its lessons and discover its hope. Jim Douglass’s “JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why it Matters,” which Touchstone is reissuing this month as a trade paperback, is a reliable guide for that demanding task.
2010
Disenchanted with Disenchantment: Can We Integrate Science and Ethics?
|
Science is sometimes seen as a cold, heartless enterprise that “disenchants” the world and destroys its mystery and wonder. In his most recent book, Alfred Tauber questions this view of science and seeks to understand the implications of Darwinian evolution for the humanities and religion.
Articles
Love the Life–and Activism–You’re In
|
“Awakening Joy: Ten Steps that Will Put You on the Road to Real Happiness” by James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander: Review by Margie Jacobs
2010
Undiscovered No Longer
|
“The Undiscovered Paul Robeson” by Paul Robeson Jr.: Review by Paul Von Blum
Articles
Eco-Enchantment and the Limits of Conservation
|
“A Reenchanted World: The Quest for a New Kinship With Nature” by James William Gibson and “Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples” by Mark Dowie: Reviews by Roger S. Gottlieb
2010
The Second American Revolution
|
“Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” by Ralph Nader: Review by Charles Derber
2010
Why the Propaganda?
|
“A Lethal Obsession: Aanti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad” by Robert S. Wistrich: Review by Milton Viorst
2010
Prophetic Courage in an Imperial Age
|
“The Man Who Knew God: Decoding Jeremiah” by Mordecai Schreiber: Review by Barry L. Schwartz
2010
Word Jazz: Music and the Poetry of Rav Kook
|
We can sense the shared matrix of poetry and music in the rhythmic loam of language from which they both arose. Some of our languages preserve the connection in name: in Hebrew we use shirah to signify both song and poem, as if all song implies poetry and all poetry implies music.
2007
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.
2007
Two Dystopian Movies . . . and their Visions of Hope
|
WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be human? What is it that limits our humanity, and what causes it to flower? The need to find or create meaning seems to be one commonality of human existence—through storytelling, myth, or religion, we can connect to our core decency, a place untouched by the vagaries of the world. Recently, a cadre of Mexican directors—Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu (Babel)—has taken on our global humanity, offering genre-defying and emotionally rich perspectives