The Statute against Liberty
In 1886, slightly more than a century after the birth of the United States of America, the government of France gave a gift to my country: the iconic Statue of Liberty in New York City’s busy harbor. Less than a decade later my great grandfather saw that shining symbol of freedom on his way from Sicily to make a better life in this great new democratic More...
Amnesty International USA to Co-Sponsor Women’s March on Washington on January 21
Amnesty International USA will co-sponsor the Women’s March on Washington, which is set for January 21, 2017, the day after the presidential inauguration. “We’re proud to stand with people from all across More...
War with the Sexes
Much has been written about the age-old war “of” the sexes, pitting males against females. When Muslim women in niqab are written about in the West, it is invariably about the patriarchal mode that is said More...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Donald Trump: Are there any similarities?
The election of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States (US) has surprised not only the Americans, but also the whole world. A lot of questions were asked about the reasons that led to this tragic More...
Faith, Hope and Charity
As a child growing up in northern Ohio, I was nurtured on the beguiling rhetoric of the King James Version of the Bible. Archaic and obscure as this early 17th century translation has become, there are certain phrases More...
Violence, Climate Change and the Water Crisis
From a historical perspective, it is difficult to argue that the current level of violence and armed conflict in the Middle East is unique. The monumental inscriptions of Pharaohs, Babylonian and Assyrian kings More...
Bombs, Billions and Body Parts
War has always been a nasty business. Hand-to-hand combat, the anti-modus-vivendi before gunpowder, was brutal with spears, swords and daggers tearing into flesh. World War I introduced aerial bombardment, carried More...
Progressive bigotry and liberal homophobia
Many words have been spilled in texts about homosexuality, homophobia, and Islam, not least since Orlando. “What does the Quran say? What is the Muslim perspective? Can you be Muslim and gay?” The list of generalized More...
Team Trump and Yemen
The election of Donald Trump as the next U.S. President has left those of us who had some semblance of trust in the pre-election polling in a state of shock. Pundits are now scrambling to predict what Team Trump More...
What’s in a name?
Desiring Arabs (2007), by Joseph Massad is an understandably controversial – but undeniably well-researched – book, partly based on an earlier article, “Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International More...