October 02, 2009

Parabéns, Brazil!

Fabulous news that Brazil "won" the 2016 Olympic Games! I am really sorry Obama put his international status so visible into the ring for Chicago-- and then lost. (But I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:41 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

September 13, 2009

Ramadan t.v. offerings, 2009

Another Ramadan, another set of soap operas in the Arab world (along with new seasons of old-established favorites like "Bab al-Hara.") From Beirut, the "Land and People" blog's Zayd gives...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:33 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 06, 2009

Deadly hijabophobia in Germany

Many westerners suffer from an irrational fear of headscarved women ('hijabophobia'). But fortunately very few have gone as far as a 28-year-old German identified only as "Axel W" who last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:34 AM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

March 29, 2009

Waltz with Bashir: See it!

I was finally able to get to the movie Waltz with Bashir last night. I was blown away. I thought it was tremendous.... very moving indeed. I know some people...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:29 PM | Fulltext link (46 comments)

March 21, 2009

'Birthright' project provoking problems in Hillel?

I heard recently from a friend whose cousin is the director of a "Hillel" Jewish student-life program at a west-coast US university that she (the cousin) had been having a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:33 PM | Fulltext link (14 comments)

March 08, 2009

Noa & Mira -- confusing the categories

(Update, after making this post, I've been alerted that there's another side to Noa lately that rather undermines her reputation. I'll post a separate entry above.) There's something ironic, yet...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 12:10 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

December 04, 2008

Khomeini of Palestine

In this BBC report, I saw some quotes used from a former member of the Al-Aqsa brigades whose given name was "Khomeini." Not surprisingly the young man's age was given...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:18 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

December 17, 2007

Ever On, Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007)

(Note - this is Scott writing.) Independent thinkers, activists, and peacemakers have lost a friend in the passing yesterday of Dan Fogelberg. Just 56, Dan "the artist" Fogelberg succumbed to...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 11:40 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

April 12, 2007

Lille, London, the art of global conquest

I'm in Lille, in northern France, where I'm teaching a two-week course on Transitional Justice at the city's Institut des Etudes Politiques (Sciences-Po). It seems like hard work but the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:30 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

February 05, 2007

Kuwaiti singer satirizes Bush policies

Thanks to Juan Cole for the link to this 5-minute video, which is a hard-hitting anti-Bush satire energetically sung (and performed) by the Kuwaiti singer Shams. She sings a well-known...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:25 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

December 04, 2006

Alert: Childish sexism at work

There is quite enough sexism, demeaning of women, and exclusion of women from the public sphere already without Joshua Landis further contributing to and propagating childish sexist attitudes on what...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:11 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

October 14, 2006

New York, Cairo kids, the universe

Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:07 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 01, 2006

A different window on Gaza

I know that the poverty and hunger statistics for Gaza are currently appalling. But it's great to be reminded that the Strip has a fine and ancient culture, of which...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:18 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 01, 2006

Taboo #2: Israel and the bomb

In addition to discussion of the role of the pro-Israel lobby, another major Israel-related taboo within the US mainstream media has to do with the topic of Israel's nuclear weapons....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:35 PM | Fulltext link (30 comments)

Islamic-Gregorian date converter

In response to my earlier query on this, Reidar Visser sent me this handy link, which is to a site that automatically does either Gregorian-to-Hijri (Islamic) or Hijri-to-Gregorian calendar conversion....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:55 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Good piece on Mearsheimer-Walt

There's an excellent piece over at The Nation about the Mearsheimer-Walt article. It's by Philip Weiss. Weiss gives some significant background to the writing of the piece, which was originally...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:42 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

April 11, 2006

A blessed Passover

Wishing a blessed Pesach to all of JWN's Jewish readers. And special greetings to the wonderful group of young Jewish men and women in Boston who held this seder outside...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:53 PM | Fulltext link (16 comments)

March 20, 2006

Marking this anniversary

One of the best ways to mark the third anniversary of this war: go read this, by Riverbend. Another good way to do so, given the many organic links between...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:35 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

February 22, 2006

Helpful statement from Muslim thinkers on the 'cartoons'

I saw the NYT linked to this statement today, jointly issued by around three dozen eminent Muslim thinkers and religious leaders from around the world. It explained the Muslim position...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:49 AM | Fulltext link (12 comments)

February 11, 2006

French responses on the cartoons issue

I am delighted to publish here, in its entirety, a very informative and thoughtful comment recently submitted here by Christiane, who lives in a Francophone part of Switzerland. Christiane, thanks...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:09 PM | Fulltext link (28 comments)

February 10, 2006

Some calming wisdom from Kofi Annan

I just saw a good piece by the LA Times's Maggie Farley in New York, where she reports on Kofi Annan's latest attempts to calm things down around the cartoons...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:13 PM | Fulltext link (21 comments)

February 09, 2006

CSM column today on cartoons, the sacred, and sacrilege

My column titled Respecting both free speech and Muslims' faith can bring peace is in the CSM today. As so often, they didn't choose exactly the title I would have...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:53 PM | Fulltext link (32 comments)

February 06, 2006

Long live Erdogan and Zapatero

Here: MADRID, Feb 6 (Reuters) - The prime ministers of Turkey and Spain made a joint plea for respect and calm on Monday after violent Muslim protests at the weekend...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:12 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

Information liberation award to Juan Cole

Talking of freedom of media, information, and dialogue in our present world, I want to express huge appreciation to Juan Cole for liberating the "Fact File" on the Danish cartoons...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:34 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

What is it about Rasmussen?

...And maybe other European leaders, too. Note: I revised and extended this post shortly after first posting it. Including I changed its title. ~HC I can't understand why Denmark's Prime...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:29 AM | Fulltext link (31 comments)

February 04, 2006

The "cartoons"

I can understand, perhaps, if some publisher in a not terrifically lively place like Denmark decides he wants to make some money by publishing some cartoons that-- perhaps-- he doesn't...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:21 PM | Fulltext link (57 comments)

January 15, 2006

Public remembrances, US and elsewhere

Here in Virginia, we are currently suspended between "Lee-Jackson Day", which was celebrated as a state-wide holiday on Friday, and "Martin Luther King Day", celebrated as a holiday both state-wide...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 PM | Fulltext link (22 comments)

December 24, 2005

Solstices

Many people have noted the synchronicity of Christmas with other midwinter festivals and observances. And yes, there is something good and hopeful for people living a distance from the Equator...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:31 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

September 10, 2005

In memoriam, 9/11

I have just spent a little time over at this September 11 victims' memorial website, clicking through to some of the names and learning more about the people who died....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:12 PM | Fulltext link (8 comments)

September 07, 2005

Rumors of violence

This is an interesting account by Matt Welch of how dark rumors about the disorderly and violent tendencies of the low-income and mainly black evacuees from New Orleans have often...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:35 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

August 30, 2005

On the road: DC

I drove up to DC this evening, and am now sitting in my room in my favorite DC hostelry, the Tabard Inn. The rooms here are all extremely funky. This...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:43 PM | Fulltext link (17 comments)

August 28, 2005

Storm readiness, Louisiana

Keep the people of New Orleans, the rest of Louisiana, and Mississippi in your thoughts today as they face the unknown strength of Hurricane Katrina. The usual practice in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:11 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

July 04, 2005

Independence Day

Happy July 4th. I've been thinking about what "national independence", i.e. sovereign self-government, should mean for any national group. I can support it for the US citizenry only by also...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:56 PM | Fulltext link (13 comments)

May 08, 2005

Our Palestinian embroidery sale

So, our Charlottesville-based group 'Holy Land Treasures' held its second annual pre-Mother's Day sale of Palestinian Heritage Embroidery here in town. We sold more than $7,500-worth of these really lovely...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:55 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

May 03, 2005

Palestinian bazaar; Hip NYC performance space

Lots of interesting things happening in our family, culture-wise, this week. If you're in central Virginia this Saturday, come on by the sale of Palestinian heritage embroideries that some friends...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:18 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

April 04, 2005

Juan Rocks, too!

Catching up with my reading here. I only just got down to this great post, "The Other Pope", in which Juan Cole pulled together many facts about the late Pope's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

April 01, 2005

"Far Away"

Last night, we went to an amazing production-- directed by my very good friend Betsy Rudelich Tucker-- of "Far Away", a play written in 2000 by the brilliant British playwright...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:58 AM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

March 30, 2005

Is "Yank" or "Yankee" a slur?

There's been an interesting but fairly off-topic discussion going on on the previous JWN Comments board. Here's the gist of it so we can continue this discussion over here: At...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:21 PM | Fulltext link (25 comments)

February 20, 2005

Foray into DC

Bill and I made a quick foray into Gomorrah-on-the-Potomac this weekend. A dear friend of ours was having a Big 6-0 birthday party there. Her spouse organized the party as...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:17 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

October 14, 2004

NYT on the 'blond beasts'

The NYT's Craig Smith had a good piece from Kabul in yesterday's paper about the problematic behavior of the (US mercenary) 'blond beasts' who've been guarding Hamid Karzai. (I wrote...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:06 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 06, 2004

Global outbreak of candor?

We seem to be witnessing a sudden, worldwide epidemic of candor: In the US, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bremer, and the head of the Iraq Survey Group (Charles Duelfer) have all been...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:45 AM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 05, 2004

Juan Cole in Charlottesville

I should have written something here before about the visit Juan Cole made to Charlottesville last week. He stayed with us, and he gave a couple of talks at UVA....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:20 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

September 04, 2004

Running my first 4-mile race

Today, I got up at 6 a.m. to go and take part in the first running race I've competed in since I was nine years old (42 years ago). It...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:34 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

August 05, 2004

What a serious mea culpa looks like

... It looks like this. (Thanks to Yankeedoodle for signaling it.)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:01 AM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

August 01, 2004

Country roads, Virginia

I wrote here Friday that I'd been playing hooky from "a residential conference", though in fact the gathering in question was the 333rd annual session of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:59 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 27, 2004

Go, Jimmy!

Kudos to Jimmy Carter for mentioning the need for an Arab-Israeli peace process in his speech at the Democratic Convention last night. In all the general US political rhetoric about...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:47 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

July 15, 2004

Hoagie seeing sense?

The WaPo's Jim Hoagland, for so long the uber-hawk of the inside-the-Beltway commentatariat, may at last be seeing some sense on Iraq? I live in hope... His column today, Perception...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:42 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 14, 2004

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

When I was a young journo working in the Middle East for the Christian Science Monitor, I was lucky enough to work for an extremely wise Foreign Editor called Geoffrey...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:07 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 03, 2004

Karpinski joining our Hall of Fame?

Back in February, I wrote (here and here) about what seemed to me to be the disproportionate involvement of women in heroic whistleblowing acts from inside big, powerful organizations. Now,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:11 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

July 02, 2004

Da movie: F-9/11

Okay, a few quick thoughts about 'Fahrenheit 9/11' before I do my next post. I guess the first thing to say is that it has always been evident to me...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:09 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

July 01, 2004

Movie night

Tonight, no blogging because it was Bill 'n Helena's night out at the Michael Moore movie. (Also, three other friends.) We have a great little independent (art-ish) movie theater in...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:57 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

June 28, 2004

Let's hear it for the rule of law!!!

Today's Supreme Court decisions on Padilla, Hamdi, and Rasul (the latter being the Gitmo case) are great news for all those of us who believe that women and men are...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:10 PM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

May 29, 2004

The 'greatest generation'-- and W's lot

Even though I'm a pacifist (and some day I might tell you why), I recognize the great human qualities often exhibited by people who go to war: courage, self-discipline, a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:30 PM | Fulltext link (10 comments)

April 08, 2004

Friedman--marbles--loses

I had a quick read of the NYT and the WaPo today. NYT news coverage on Iraq seems ways better conceptualized and better organized than WaPo's. The quality of NYT...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:46 AM | Fulltext link (7 comments)

March 18, 2004

Sad, isolationist harrumphing escalates...

Well, here we are again. All that nasty little current of isolationist, xenophobic hate-speech that we heard in the US in the run-up to Bush's invasion of Iraq-- remember the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:47 AM | Fulltext link (5 comments)

March 05, 2004

Sam, meet Dora

Samuel Huntington, Mr. "Clash of Civilizations", has his knickers in a twist once again. This time, it's over the alleged "threat" that Hispanic immigrants pose to "America's identity, value, and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:05 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

March 02, 2004

Cultural notes, from Boston

I've had a great weekend in Boston with my son Tarek, who works here. I/we had a number of interesting cultural experiences. Here are some I ended up writing...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:56 PM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

February 28, 2004

Gender and whistleblowing: Karen K

Marine's Girl was eager to remind us that, regarding women and whistleblowing, Karen Kwiatkowski's name definitely needs to be near the head of the list. I agree! Here is a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:20 AM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

February 27, 2004

Gender and whistleblowing

Katherine Gun, Clare Short, Jane Turner,* Sherron Watkins,** hundreds of female service members now in the Gulf... What do all these people have in common? They are all female and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:13 AM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

January 28, 2004

"Ve haf vays of making you enjoy caucuses"

Oh shucks. The deadline just passed for one of the greatest possible opportunities in the field of "Advertising". Chugging along as though the Nov. 15th scheme for caucuses etc were...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:32 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 18, 2004

"Caucus", contd.

Wise reader Vivion commented on the previous post that in her opinion the best definition of "caucus" comes from Alice in Wonderland. After kicking myself that I had not thought...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:56 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

January 17, 2004

"Caucus": the word

From my Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, p.154: caucus (U.S.) private meeting of the chiefs of a political party XVIII [that's the century, folks]; in Eng. use applied from 1878...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:03 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 16, 2004

WaPo shows the way (not)

I'm actually trying to write a column for Al-Hayat today. (First of a two-part series on interesting UN experiences in managing transitions from foreign occupations to democracy in Namibia and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:14 PM | Fulltext link (0 comments)

January 02, 2004

'Cold Mountain': Teague as Ashcroft

Just saw the movie of 'Cold Mountain'. Wept many buckets. Therefore a good movie... I say that in spite of scenes of gross, unnecessarily large-scale violence in the first 30...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:04 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

January 01, 2004

Palestinian Christmas creche--the photo

In this December 24 post I wrote a bit about how, when I saw how "Christmas" was being widely represented in beijing, it forced me to think more about my...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:29 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

Cooking therapy--it works!

Happy New Year everyone!!! I was feeling a bit in turmoil about something yesterday. So, since my daughter Lorna gave me a great Lebanese cookbook for Christmas, I checked out...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:11 PM | Fulltext link (6 comments)

December 04, 2003

The Dalai Lama, Chomsky-- and me

Wow, it's out, and it's heading my way! The "it" in question being a book to which, a few months back, I contributed a short essay. It's titled THE IRAQ...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:46 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 20, 2003

'Contesting Religions' in Atlanta

I've been at a conference in Atlanta for the past couple of days. It's organized by the Journal of the American Academy of Religion and the general theme is global...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:32 PM | Fulltext link (3 comments)

November 03, 2003

The other 96

How about if Americans started taking seriously all the calls in our national discourse for global democratization? How about if our government started acting as though it represented only (a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:54 PM | Fulltext link (4 comments)

October 26, 2003

Washington Post news division regains sanity!

Praise the Lord! The Washington Post's news division, which for long months before the US invasion of Iraq had suffered from what I thought of as the "Hoaglandization" of the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:27 PM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

October 23, 2003

U.S. history, interpreted

Ever since my daughter Leila's wedding some 12 days ago, I've been sort of tour-guiding various aspects of US history and culture for, serially, two of my three sisters. Last...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:26 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)

October 21, 2003

Mahathir, Bush, Cohen, Krugman

So, that plucky young leader George W. Bush has "taken on" those naughty Muslims by telling Malaysian PM Mahathir bin Mohamad that his remarks about Jews at the recent Islamic...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:40 AM | Fulltext link (9 comments)

October 03, 2003

Transatlantic Differences

... No, I'm not talking political differences here. I'm talking political culture. Bill ("the spouse") and I are coming up to 20 years of a transatlantic marriage. It took us...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 AM | Fulltext link (2 comments)

July 28, 2003

"The American Effect", NYC

Still in New York City. Yesterday, I went to The American Effect exhibition at the Whitney with Greg and his and Leila’s friend Dave. To quote from the Whitney’s calendar,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:30 PM | Fulltext link (1 comments)