A daily concoction of internet articles and essays dealing with arts, science, literature, politics, technology, opinions, gossip, and everything else in between.
A nation attacked by terrorists or an oppressed minority whose legitimate grievances are brutally suppressed? However one interprets the recent violence in Xinjiang, it was far from unexpected ... more >>
Life for the foreign woman in Cairo: unless she has a murderous uncle by her side or a veil over her face, she can expect to be treated as a communal dish... more >>
Is the biblical tale of Hagar “a creation story as important as the Garden of Eden,” as Charlotte Gordon argues in her provocative new book? ... more >>
Under the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Turkey's foreign policy is becoming more Islamist. Can the country's history of cooperation with the West survive? ... more >>
The former weapons inspector and military intelligence officer plumbs the depths of American ignorance and offers this history of Iraq, the Mideast and Islam. When so few of our politicians, and even fewer of the citizens who elect them, understand the forces at work in Baghdad and beyond, is it any wonder the occupation has been a disaster? ... more >>
Despite the vast number of religions, nearly everyone in the world believes in the same things: the existence of a soul, an afterlife, miracles, and the divine creation of the universe. Recently psychologists doing research on the minds of infants have discovered two related facts that may account for this phenomenon. One: human beings come into the world with a predisposition to believe in supernatural phenomena. And two: this predisposition is an incidental by-product of cognitive functioning gone awry. Which leads to the question, is God an accident ... more >>
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