March 23, 2012
JWB's fab titles--in C'ville Saturday, and globally, forever!
For all JWN readers in the Greater Charlottesville area-- do come by the VaBook book fair that runs tomorrow, 9am-4pm, at the Omni Hotel. Tell your friends to come, as...
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February 16, 2012
Powerful, intimate memoir from Israeli peace activist Miko Peled
The countdown clock is now ticking fast, toward the publication of Miko Peled's amazing and powerful memoir, The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. The book traces Miko's...
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February 02, 2012
What's new in the publishing biz!
... is Just World Books's new webstore, which gives us global reach for distributing books from, as of now, three different print/distribute hubs... I am really excited about this development....
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December 20, 2011
Mrs. Peled and the Palestinian homes of West Jerusalem
I am delighted that my company, Just World books, is publishing Miko Peled's intimate and thought-provoking memoir The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. (We're already taking advance...
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October 25, 2011
Getting back to the blogosphere
So much has been happening in the world... The horrible killing of Qadhafi; an earthquake in Turkey (preceded by an upsurge in PKK-Turkish violence); some great-looking elections in Tunisia; continued...
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October 04, 2011
In Algiers: Book Fair and Colloquium
I'm writing this on a plane, at the end of a four-day visit to Algiers... In Algiers I was participating in a big international Colloquium on the Arab Spring organized...
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September 26, 2011
Updates, Sept.26
I have found it really hard to find time and energy to blog recently. Lots has been going on with Just World Books. This very evening, we are launching Manan...
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July 30, 2011
Remembering Qana, five years on
On this day five years ago, at 1:30 am Lebanon time, Israel's U.S.-supplied warplanes attacked houses in the south Lebanese village of Qana, killing more than 60 civilians, 37 of...
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July 28, 2011
Place your orders now for Zurayk's 'War Diary: Lebanon 2006'
You can now go to the 'Buy' button on the web-page for Rami Zurayk's 'War Diary: Lebanon 2006' and place your advance order for this unique, 60-page work. The ebook...
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July 24, 2011
Nurturing that better future
All my wonderful longtime readers here at JWN may wonder why I've been so silent recently. Two reasons, mainly. I've been deep immersed in the most wonderful forms of family...
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July 12, 2011
New e-book soon: 'War Diary: Lebanon 2006'
Today is the fifth anniversary of the beginning of that terrible march of folly, the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006. So I'm delighted to announce today that my publishing company, Just...
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July 01, 2011
My piece on Egypt and Gaza, at ME Channel
... is here. I rather like the title they put on it, "Tahrir's journey to Palestine". In fact, the journey that the "spirit of of the Tahrir uprising" has to...
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June 09, 2011
Publishing: From 140 characters to 150,000 words
I haven't blogged much recently, I know. I've been incredibly busy. Primarily with the book-publishing but a bit with family things and also, increasingly, with planning for the trip I'm...
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March 15, 2011
Interview with R. Visser at 8th anniversary of invasion of Iraq
(I first became acquainted with (and came to admire) Reidar Visser's work when he started posting comments here on JWN during and after Iraq's December 2005 election... Last fall, he...
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March 14, 2011
Freeman, El-Haddad, Foust in Charlottesville, Saturday
My publishing company's three great authors Chas Freeman, Laila El-Haddad, and josh Foust will all be in Charlottesville this Saturday, taking part in a panel discussion on developments in the...
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February 10, 2011
I've been tweeting
... more than blogging these past few days. You can follow me here....
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February 06, 2011
JWN's 8th blogiversary
... is today. Over the Christmas of 2002, my son Tarek said to me a number of times, "Mom, you really should start a blog." I said, "A what?" (not...
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February 05, 2011
Egypt, the world food-price crisis-- and JWB's next book!
I just want to pick up on the food-price dimension of what's happening in the Middle East (and other parts of the world) today. Since the beginning of the current...
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November 30, 2010
Visser's book on Iraq now available for sale!
Reidar Visser's magisterial 300-page book A Responsible End? The United States and Iraq, 2005-2010 is now available for sale from Amazon. Actually, it's already selling really well there! Long-time JWN...
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November 18, 2010
Celebrate Laila's book launch today!
Today's the day! Laila El-Haddad will be launching her first book, Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between at 6:30 pm EST in Washington DC's Palestine Center. The...
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November 13, 2010
Laila El-Haddad and Josh Foust books: on Amazon!
It has been a crazy and wonderful week! We launched Josh Foust's book Afghanistan Journal on Tuesday. Just prior to that, both his book and Laila El-Haddad's Gaza Mom: Palestine,...
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October 06, 2010
Chas Freeman book: Buy it on Amazon!
We've done it! The paperback version of Amb. Chas Freeman's book, America's Misadventures in the Middle East, is now available for purchase through Amazon. The paperback, hardcover, and e-book versions...
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September 09, 2010
Just World Books website is born!
Okay, I know I've been promising my readers here that the JWB website will be published "any day now"... And the day is here! So head on over and check...
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August 10, 2010
Building 'Just World Books'
This is kind of a "what I've been doing this summer". Yes, I have felt intermittently guilty that I haven't done more JWN blogging. One item in particular I wish...
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July 16, 2010
Just World Books update #4
We're still tweaking the website at Just World Books, so until it's ready to roll out, I'll be sending out my updates from here. I've signed three new contracts in...
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July 10, 2010
Summer thoughts: On publishing
I've been amazingly (and wonderfully) busy, reading the first two book manuscripts for the new publishing house. Okay, let's be truthful. I've been reading one (Laila El-Haddad's), and Bill the...
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June 29, 2010
Update from Just World Books
I realize I haven't posted anything here since mid-April about the progress of my new book-publishing company, Just World Books. But the authors and I-- along with a range of...
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June 21, 2010
My piece on Syria at the M.E. Channel
... is here. It already says that 13 people like it. Well, that's nice. (And I didn't cast any of those votes myself.) Not many comments there, though....
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April 15, 2010
Announcing... Just World Books!
I am delighted to announce the establishment of a new book-publishing company, Just World Books, an imprint of the recently created limited-liability company, Just World Publishing, LLC. The first titles...
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March 13, 2010
'Journey to Jerusalem, 1995', Part 1
I'm happy to make available to JWN readers Part 1 of a seven-part series I wrote about Jerusalem for Al-Hayat, back in July 1995. It's here. Getting this series into...
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February 23, 2010
Essays by HC in 'Boston Review', since 2001
Nearly all these articles contain considerable amounts of material from interviews and other information gained during on-the-spot reporting trips, as well as analysis and reflections: Contribution to discussion on...
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February 19, 2010
Blast from the CNI past
Well, what should drop into our mailbox yesterday but the latest direct-mail fundraising appeal from CNI... And goodness, what an embarrassment to me now, my name is even on the...
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February 13, 2010
Malta: Some notes from the conference, tweeting, etc
I have wifi inside the conference hall here, which is nice. I did a bit of tweeting already-- here. The appearance of the US ambassador here just now was interesting....
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December 23, 2009
In Boston Review forum-- on Afghanistan
I have a contribution in this latest Boston Review forum on Afghanistan. The forum is built around a great piece of reporting by Nir Rosen. I wish I'd had more...
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October 25, 2009
New blog!
For the foreseeable future I'll be doing all or most of my Middle East-related blogging over at the new blog I've launched on behalf of the CNI Foundation. It's called...
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October 19, 2009
New horizons ahead!
Check out my big news here. It will be quite the lifestyle change for me, working with the excellent people at CNI/CNIF to put some real organizing oomph into the...
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October 15, 2009
Good reporting from RFE/RL on Galbraith/DNO
Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty is a relic of the Cold War that in the mid-1990s got rebranded by Tom Dine (as you can read in my Nation piece) as...
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'The Nation' piece on AIPAC's Tom Dine
This piece is online now, here. It was really fascinating to work on-- just as it has been really interesting to work with Dine on the US-Syria Working Group, as...
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October 13, 2009
RIP Leila Abu-Saba
Leila Abu-Saba was one of the first great American bloggers for Palestinian rights and Arab-Israeli peace. Since early 2004, she used her blog Dove's Eye View to explore many dimensions...
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October 11, 2009
IPS piece on Abbas's waning popularity
Oops, I forgot to mention this when it came out, on Friday. But anyway, the piece is here, and also archived here. The conclusion there: there is increasing talk amongst...
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August 01, 2009
IPS piece on Obama, Jewish Israelis, and Jewish Americans
... here. Also archived here. Actually, right now the archived version is the definitive one, because I lost a few words from the version I'd sent to my excellent editor...
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July 23, 2009
My Nation piece on Fateh/Hamas, fulltext on web
So here I've been, quietly waiting for The Nation to put the fulltext version of my May piece about internal Palestinian politics up onto their website... and I didn't realize...
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July 13, 2009
My piece on the decline of the Israeli peace movement
... is now up on the Boston Review website, here. I found it a really tragic article to work on. I have admired the Israeli peace movement since its inception....
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July 06, 2009
Molavi's question
In a July 4th Washington Post oped, the excellent Iranian-American journalist Afshin Molavi writes of how Iran's fitful struggle for freedom is well in-grained within Iran's history and political culture....
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June 24, 2009
Me in the CSM, on bringing in Hamas
The piece I wrote on this topic Monday is now on the CSM website. As JWN readers might guess, I had a lot more I wanted to say about this...
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June 19, 2009
Now at TPM Cafe!
Big thanks to Josh Marshall and his colleagues at Talking Points Memo, who recently invited me to join the roster of contributors to their excellent discussion forum, TPM Cafe. My...
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June 12, 2009
CSM piece on the AKP in Turkey
Sometimes I feel I exist in a time-warp! Today, the CSM published an opinion piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago, based on my time in Turkey. I still...
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June 10, 2009
My book on Syria-Israel talks, being reprinted
I just heard from the good folks at the US Institute of Peace Press that they will be reprinting my 2000 book The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-96 and Beyond. The...
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May 09, 2009
My piece in The Nation on Hamas
... is in the May 25 edition of the magazine. It's here-- but sadly most of it is behind a subscribers-only paywall. So I guess you'll need to go buy...
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April 11, 2009
IPS analysis on re-emergence of one-state idea
... It came out yesterday here. Also archived here. My own main position on one state vs. two states is one of agnosticism. Not least because I'm not a direct...
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April 03, 2009
My IPS analysis on the Lieberman bombshell
... is here. Also here. On a related note, we have this from the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Information center: Dr. Salah Al-Bardaweel, the spokesman of Hamas's parliamentary bloc in the PLC,...
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March 27, 2009
IPS piece on including Hamas in the diplomacy
My latest IPS piece on issues around including Hamas in the diplomacy was published today (and also archived here.)...
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March 25, 2009
Short piece on J'lem on 'The Nation' website; DC talks next week
I have a short piece on Jerusalem on The Nation's website today. I'll be working on one more short piece for the website and a couple of longer pieces for...
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March 21, 2009
IPS piece on Egypt's diplo challenges
I had a new piece up on IPS yesterday, titled " Pressure Mounts on Egypt to Deliver Results". You can find it on IPS here and on my analysis-archive here....
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March 09, 2009
From Have-not to Have (DSL)
JWN readers might recall my laments from years past about the great digital divide in America, between those who have DSL or some form of real broadband and those who...
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March 03, 2009
Note on my Inbar interview
I have just written up and posted onto this blog a lengthy account of the interview I conducted with Efraim Inbar here in Jerusalem, on Sunday. I did it in...
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February 27, 2009
My IPS piece on Israel's lurch to the right, and peace prospects
... is here. Also here. It contains some key points from my recent interview with Ramallah PM Salam Fayad....
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February 23, 2009
CSM article about need for Hamas-Fateh reconciliation
... is here. (Also archived here.) As you can see, I wrote it in Amman, before I came here to Ramallah. Since I've been here I've done a lot of...
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February 14, 2009
My IPS pieces on a new blog; JWN blogiversary
A big thanks to readers who offered to help me aggregate and archive my developing corpus of weekly IPS news analyses! However, once I sat down and thought about the...
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February 07, 2009
At IPS: 'Mideast: A truce too big to fail?'
My latest news analysis for IPS, "Mideast, a truce too big to fail?", went up on their website yesterday. Doing these weekly pieces for them is an interesting experience so...
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January 30, 2009
My IPS analysis on Obama's Middle East policy so far
Read it here....
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January 23, 2009
IPS articles from Syria and Washington, DC
I've been really busy these past couple of weeks-- plus, figuring out too much new technology. So, to catch up a little, here are the last two pieces of News...
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September 01, 2008
Post on China in US occupied zones-- at Japan Focus
The folks at Japan Focus have republished my recent JWN post on some implications of China's investments in Iraq and Afghanistan. What's more, they did a light edit on it...
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August 04, 2008
My piece in the CSM on ending the Iraqi & Afghan wars
Here it is in today's paper. (It's also archived here.) The headline is good (if not terribly snappy... but then, who needs snappy?): The U.N. can end these wars: It...
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June 01, 2008
HC writings on Hamas, 2006-2008
One strategy you can always pursue is to check out my writings on Hamas, both those published here on JWN and (links to) those published elsewhere, by going to the...
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May 15, 2008
Re-engage update
I put a couple more interesting posts onto the Re-engage book's blog this week. This one has a fascinating map showing how, in a time of high oil prices, life...
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May 14, 2008
Re-engage book, launch news
My Re-engage! book has been getting a good soft roll-out already. But next week we have the first two significant launch events-- one in Charlottesville, VA and the other in...
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April 25, 2008
CSM piece on America-World relations, today
I have a big piece in the CSM today that urges Americans to build a relationship with the rest of the world on the basis of strong commitment to the...
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April 19, 2008
"Re-engage!"-- the book is here!
Yesterday I got my hands on the first copies of my upcoming book Re-engage! America and the World After Bush. It is so exciting! Paradigm Publishers have done a fabulous...
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March 20, 2008
New book, 'Re-engage' goes to press; website launched!
So here we are! The great folks at Paradigm Publishers told me my upcoming book Re-engage! America and the World After Bush went to press today-- and we are now...
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February 21, 2008
Article-- and audio-- on Lebanon in CSM
My piece on Why Lebanon hasn't slipped into civil war is in Friday's Christian Science Monitor. (Here, and archived here.) If you go to the first of those links, you...
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February 20, 2008
'Economist' rips me off
Interesting that the Economist recently used a quote from the portion of my January 16 interview with Khaled Meshaal that had been published on the Foreign Policy website, by agreement....
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February 07, 2008
Where did my 5th blogiversary go to, anyway?
I've been pretty busy this week-- including on a special project, see below. So though yesterday was my 5th blogiversary I completely forgot about marking that fact here. Darn! It's...
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January 30, 2008
Meshaal interview at 'Foreign Policy' website
A condensed version of my Jan. 16th interview with Hamas head Khaled Meshaal is now published on the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Under my agreement with them, they have...
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January 01, 2008
My article on the post-9/11 world in 'Friends Journal'
Earlier this year I had a strong leading, as we Quakers say, to do more writing for a specifically Quaker audience. This is a part, really, of the personal/spiritual journey...
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Michael Massing, on Iraq
Michael Massing of Columbia Journalism Review has two excellent pieces in the current and upcoming issues of the New York Review of Books; and luckily for us they both available...
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November 13, 2007
New blogging gig on urban transportation systems
I have a new little blogging gig-- a periodic feature called "Eyes on the Street" over at The City Fix, which is a blog published by the Washington DC-based World...
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November 03, 2007
Article in The Nation on Hamas and Hizbullah
I see that The Nation has put up on its website a teaser for a piece I wrote for them about a month ago, which is on the need for...
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October 29, 2007
Book-writing progress report
In my experience, birthing a book is similar to publishing a family in the sense that, once you've done it, you look at the product-- beautifully produced books that can...
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October 03, 2007
Piece in CSM today on Bush and global warming
I have a non-column in the CSM today on climate-change. The title is "Bush's good idea on global warming." Don't let that put anyone off reading it! I start the...
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September 25, 2007
Bookwriting "Mission Accomplished"
Well I haven't decided which aircraft carrier to make a showboat appearance on yet... Gotta try on my fighter-aircraft piloting duds and have the midshipmen paint the banner... Nah, that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:03 AM |
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August 29, 2007
Bush fiddles, world warms, China 'rises'
The work on my current book project has been going generally well. When I'm working on a big project like this, the writing I do when I'm writing sometimes feels...
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August 17, 2007
Fasting from blogging is good for productivity...
Okay, my current blog-fast has lasted nearly five whole days. In that period I've wrestled with some big issues in Chapter 4 of my new book and.... just about nailed...
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July 23, 2007
My new book: Help with mapping and other graphics
I wrote here about the new book project I'm currently working on. I'd really like any help any of you can give (or link to) regarding production of good graphics...
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July 21, 2007
My new book project, & a request
I know that my posting here at JWN has been a little episodic in recent weeks. One big reason is that I've been working on conceptualizing and pulling together the...
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July 09, 2007
Three on Africa
In a fit of hyper-productivity I just put three posts on Transitional Justice issues in sub-Saharan Africa up onto the Transitional Justice Forum blog. They are on Uganda, Sudan (including...
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June 24, 2007
Reconciliation, from Africa to the Middle East
Actually, the reason that I received a paper copy of the latest issue of the Palestine-Israel Journal, which I have just written about on JWN here, is that it...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:20 PM |
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June 05, 2007
Changes ahead at the CSM
This note in today's Christian Science Monitor informs the world of something that I learned of only on Sunday, namely that at the end of June all five other regular...
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March 19, 2007
HC column on big trends in Arab world
... Just out in Tuesday's CSM. Read it....
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March 08, 2007
CSM column on Syria
Here is the column I had in the CSM today. (It is also here.) The editors put this title on it: The time is ripe for the US to engage...
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February 06, 2007
JWN celebrates 4th blogiversary
Gosh, has it been four years already? And who knows, one day I might even figure out what I want to do with this blog... I sometimes look up from...
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January 13, 2007
33-day war article, footnoted version
I have just uploaded to my home website a late-draft and footnoted version of the text of my recent Boston Review article on the 33- Day war between Israel and...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:43 AM |
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January 10, 2007
Day of Shame: Five years of Guantanamo
Jan. 11 is the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first group of prisoners at Guantanamo. Some of those original 20 men are still there today, having been through...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:32 PM |
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January 01, 2007
How to withdraw from Iraq
• My "3-step withdrawal program" of Jan., 2007, and my "Namibia plan for Iraq" of Nov., 2006. • My Christian Science Monitor columns from Oct. 2006 and June 2006 on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:44 PM |
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December 22, 2006
New site to read and discuss the ISG report
The Institute for the Future of the Book and Lapham's Quarterly, which is edited by former Harper's magazine editor Lewis Lapham, have established a new website that will enable a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:24 AM |
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November 28, 2006
Saudi 'Mystique' alive and still writing
The Saudi woman blogger 'Mystique' left a comment on JWN yesterday pointing out that the reason her earlier blog was down for a while was because I sort of lost...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:13 PM |
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November 18, 2006
My BR article on the 33-day war
It's finally here: The 33-Day War: Hizbullah’s victory, Israel’s choice, the piece I wrote back in late August/early September about the Israel-Hizbullah war. Yesterday I went over to BR's new...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:59 AM |
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October 11, 2006
CSM column calls for US pullout from Iraq, accountability
Here's my column in the CSM of Thursday, October 12. The title is Bush created a mess in Iraq. Here's how to clean it up. The subtitle is: It's time...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:27 PM |
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September 29, 2006
Back to JWN
Phew! My horrible time/work crunch is now over. I had a really busy schedule planned for this week, and then on Mon. afternoon Deb Chasman at Boston Review sent me...
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September 13, 2006
My 'Atrocities' book-- about to ship!
I can't figure out why I'm so excited about my new book, Amnesty After Atrocity?: Healing Nations After Genocide and War Crimes... Maybe because it was a new, intellectually challenging,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:45 PM |
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September 11, 2006
9/11 article in Tom Paine
TomPaine.com today carries a piece I wrote for them to mark the fifth anniversary of 9/11....
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September 03, 2006
Article-writing lockdown here
I just have to intensify the article-writing lockdown I've been trying to impose on myself for the past week. For some reason this Boston Review piece is proving hard to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:36 PM |
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August 22, 2006
'Peace after Lebanon' at TomPaine.com
I did another piece for TomPaine.com at the end of last week, and I see it's up on their site today. Astute JWN readers will see it's an updated combination...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:38 PM |
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August 09, 2006
My CSM column on the need for speedy, comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace
The Christian Science Monitor of Thursday carries my column on what to do about Lebanon (also here.) The editors there titled it For a lasting Middle East peace, look back...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:23 PM |
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My upcoming book: paperback and hardcover
I've been working with the good folks at Paradigm Publishers who will be releasing the hardcover edition of my book Amnesty after Atrocity?: Healing Nations after Genocide and War Crimes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 AM |
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July 09, 2006
The new haves vs. the have-nots: Broadband
With all the horrendous conflicts escalating in the Middle East, it may seem a tad trite to observe the obvious – that monitoring the world via the internet without broadband...
Posted by Scott Harrop at 10:00 PM |
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July 01, 2006
Got broadband, succumbed briefly to blog-addiction
Spouse made slight error in planning last night and we ended up in a place with in-room broadband. It has proved a little distracting, as you can see. Now I'm...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:31 AM |
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June 16, 2006
Every heart a peace factory!
Whew!! I just finished the painstaking process of going over the page proofs for my upcoming book Amnesty After Atrocity? Healing Nations After Genocide and War Crimes. The page layout...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:58 PM |
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June 02, 2006
Article on East Timor in TomPaine.com
I have a piece on TomPaine.com today, about East Timor. It was a good experience working with them. Their turnround time on the piece was about one hour. So it...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:05 PM |
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May 09, 2006
Too much work on dead-tree publications!
My schedule has been crazy. Last week I got back the copyedited and laid-out versions of two significant longer articles that I needed to review very carefully. One was my...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:36 PM |
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March 21, 2006
The international courts discussion grows
Well, my article in Foreign Policy on international war-crimes courts has been getting a gratifying amount of attention. My intention in publishing it was, after all, to open up the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:27 PM |
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March 16, 2006
CSM column on the Israeli election
The CSM today published my column on the Israeli election (here and here). It underlines the fact that in this election, the main platform plank of the front-running party is...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:26 AM |
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March 02, 2006
Articles in Salon.com, Foreign Policy
So the piece I wrote for Salon on Hamas went up onto their site last night. It's here. If you don't have a subscription you just have to sit through...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:47 AM |
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February 25, 2006
Still in receive mode here
I hope that y'all are sitting on the edge of your chairs to see what I'll be reporting during my time here in Israel/Palestine. It will come. But I'm still...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:35 AM |
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February 13, 2006
Africa book re-edit finished
So I finished it today, coming in with a whole text that I feel fairly good about and that is under 94,000 words... Plus, two days before deadline. At times...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:36 PM |
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February 06, 2006
JWN's third blogiversary
Has it been three years already since JWN's inaugural post? It has indeed.. And what a three years it has been... Most of it, alas, dominated by the US invasion...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:19 PM |
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January 22, 2006
Writing and life
Yesterday, I completed the revision of the Rwanda section of my upcoming book. I had to cut it from three chapters to one (!) ... I was also trying to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:15 AM |
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January 12, 2006
CSM column on Israel and Palestine
Here is the column I have in the CSM today, on the implications of the leadership crises in Israel and Palestine....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:16 AM |
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January 05, 2006
Some recent Hayat pieces
Y'all know I write periodic columns for al-Hayat. I frequently don't see them when they come out in Arabic, because I make a bee-line for the news pages and find...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:53 PM |
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January 02, 2006
New URL for my homepage
I've had my home web-page hosted by the University of Virginia for four or five years now. But over the holiday I got kicked off their server. Grrr. Tech advisor...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:00 PM |
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November 10, 2005
CSM column on France (and Europe)
It's been a really busy week. Monday, I had a deadline for my CSM column for this week. I started out writing something about the Middle East, and at around...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:42 PM |
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September 20, 2005
Calling US radio listeners
National Public Radio, Wednesday, 2:15 through 2:35 p.m. or so, on "Talk of the Nation"... I'll be talking (from London) about the need to withdraw US forces from Iraq. [That...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:51 PM |
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September 08, 2005
CSM column on the US and the UN
I have a column in the CSM today about the importance of the UN to the US. It decries the bullying tactics that John Bolton has used since his arrival...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:13 AM |
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July 21, 2005
The woman behind the byline
... Hannah Allam, that is, the talented and incredibly courageous 27-year-old journo who's been running Knight Ridder's Baghdad bureau since late 2003. That nice profile of her there, from Editor...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:00 AM |
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July 17, 2005
Notes from a busy Sunday
This morning our Quaker Meeting held its regular (generally monthly) "Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business". Since we don't have a paid minister, it's the responsibility of all...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 05:19 PM |
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July 14, 2005
CSM column on NZ
The column I wrote earlier this week on New Zealand is in today's Christian Science Monitor. They cut it pretty drastically and I see now there's a little bit of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:29 AM |
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May 16, 2005
Passages
Saturday was a big day. At 6 a.m., in northern California, my beloved mother-in-law DQ passed away, just one day short of her 98th birthday. She was an amazing woman...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:51 AM |
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May 10, 2005
Africa book, chapter 11 (again)
So just in case any of you is sitting there thinking, "I wonder how Helena's getting on with finishing her long-awaited (!) book on violence and conflict termination in Africa?".......
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:17 PM |
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April 11, 2005
Hizbullah article appears
The article on Hizbullah that I worked on over the Christmas holiday weeks has finally come out. It's in the April-May issue of Boston Review. Knowing that the text would...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:51 PM |
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March 23, 2005
Wanted: some respect!
I was, I think, one of the first, back in February, to point out that the complicated system put in place in Iraq by Paul Bremer's bizarre and almost...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:07 AM |
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March 09, 2005
CSM column Thursday
I have a column in Thursday's CSM. It's titled Time to end US cotton subsidies, and it celebrates the recent WTO ruling in favor of Brazil and against the US...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:47 PM |
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March 01, 2005
Hard at work here
I've been working hard at making myself get my Africa book finished. Since I also have a life (okay, this may come as a surprise to some blog-readers), this means...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:59 PM |
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February 24, 2005
CSM column on post-Hariri Lebanon
Today's CSM has my column on post-Hariri Lebanon. It's titled: Can real peace take root in Lebanon? Let's hope so! There have been some encouraging signs, as noted in the...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:20 AM |
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February 14, 2005
A Valentine from the WaPo
Well, you know that in some places around the world, women's rights, interests, and voice have been getting progressively devalued over recent years (while in others they've been becoming progressively...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:59 PM |
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February 10, 2005
A little writing crisis here
Really interesting things are happening all over the world. The North Koreans have announced they have nuclear weapons... The Iraqi election commission has announced yet more problems in ballot-counting, necessitating...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:04 PM |
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January 24, 2005
Women getting WaPo-ed, update
Week 5 of the WGW watch has just finished. It was a "banner" week. 5.5 of the 34 op-ed articles published in the WaPo since last Tuesday were by women,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:04 PM |
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January 06, 2005
A new day
I've been struggling with the Comments boards here on JWN for some time now. Yesterday, I felt I learned something new about what's been going on. As someone who works...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:33 AM |
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January 03, 2005
Women getting WaPo-ed
Okay, readers, so what proportion of the wisdom of the human race do you think resides in the minds of the world's women? Fifty percent, perhaps? That might be a...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:38 AM |
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January 02, 2005
Hizbullah: the discussion resumes
Okay. Commenter Dominic, who appealed my decision to close the Comments board on the recent Lebanon's Hizbullah post, wins. (At least, I think "appealing" was what you were doing, Dominic?)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 07:08 PM |
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December 21, 2004
Women and the WaPo
Item 1: The lede paragraph of a review in last Friday's WaPo of a new Chinese-made movie: The experience of "House of Flying Daggers" isn't like going to a movie...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:48 AM |
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December 16, 2004
CSM column on Iran (and CAMERA letter)
The CSM ran my column on Iran in today's edition. I think it came out pretty well despite some hasty last-minute edits. In addition, today was the day they finally...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:33 AM |
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December 09, 2004
CSM column on Syria
Today's CSM has the column I wrote for them about (and from) Syria. Again, I'm not really happy with the title they chose. Plus, in the CSM's own version of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:12 AM |
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December 06, 2004
Inconveniences of travel
It's Monday morning in Philadelphia. We flew (back) here yesterday from Beirut, transiting through Paris-Charles de Gaulle. None of the four bags we checked made the connection. Grrr. We met...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:05 AM |
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December 03, 2004
"Islamo-fascist slut" fights back (peacefully)
The Comments boards here on JWN have hosted some really great discussions. They also, sadly, host some really nasty, commercially generated spam, much of it pornographic, that I'm constantly trying...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:58 PM |
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November 20, 2004
On the road to Damascus
In about an hour I'll be leaving Beirut to go to Damascus for a few days. Returning here Wednesday. Then next weekend (God, or mainly the Iranian visa authorities, willing)...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 04:53 AM |
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September 06, 2004
How's your Arabic?
You could test it out by reading this column of mine, that appeared in al-Hayat today....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:48 PM |
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August 21, 2004
Pray for peace in Najaf (& new Golden Oldies here)
I just put up two more months' worth of Golden Oldies onto the sidebar here. Last November was quite a momentous month for Iraq! October was a momentous month for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:41 PM |
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July 13, 2004
Wiped
I'm wiped. I finished writing the section of my book on Rwanda today. And I don't even have energy for blogging. What's happening here?? Don't worry. I'll be back tomorrow...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:00 PM |
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July 08, 2004
Our Quaker book on Israel/Palestine--finally!
Finally! After long labors, the book-length report that 14 of us--nearly all Quakers--have written on the Israel/Palestine situation is out. (Quaker process takes a famously long time, but we did...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:30 PM |
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June 15, 2004
Guess who?
She writes civilized yet passionate journal entries, focused on international affairs. The look of the page is cool--as are the colors. Her background and experience make her deeply credible... This,...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:27 PM |
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June 09, 2004
New York, CSM column on China, etc
I've been in New York since I flew in here from Toronto on Sunday evening. Monday, I suddenly remembered I needed to write not one but two columns for The...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:24 PM |
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May 17, 2004
From Dar al-Hayat's English-language website
I've been trying to discuss reproduction rights issues with my editors at Al-Hayat for some time now. (No, that does not mean abortion issues. It means reproduction of the columns...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:57 PM |
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May 14, 2004
CSM column on Iraq
The column I had in yesterday's Christian Science Monitor was on Iraq. It's titled "A pattern of culpability in Iraq". Regular readers of JWN may find quite a few familiar...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:13 PM |
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April 17, 2004
Gaza article, etc.
Finally! The Boston Review article I wrote about Gaza has been put up on their website. You can read it here. I wrote it in late February and revised it...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:35 PM |
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March 31, 2004
Voices from Mozambique
I've been struggling quite a bit with (re-)shaping and (re-)writing the section on Mozambique for my current book-writing project, "Violence and its legacies". Actually, the conference I went to on...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 08:50 PM |
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March 18, 2004
New CSM column out today
Here is my latest CSM column, out today. The editors there put a good headline on it: Movement controls stunt Palestinian lives - and democracy. I mentioned in there that...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:01 AM |
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March 10, 2004
CSM column on Gaza, Arafat
Here's a link to my column in Thursday's Christian Science Monitor. I had to do huge rewrite right up against deadline, for reasons I shan't go into here. So it's...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:39 PM |
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January 07, 2004
New CSM column: the U.S. and the rest
My latest column is in Thursday's Christian Science Monitor. It's a call for US citizens to start reflecting seriously on our rightful place in the world. I ask, "How, during...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 11:19 PM |
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December 10, 2003
Dec 11 CSM column now on web
My latest Christian Science Monitor column is now up on the CSM website. You can read it here. It's titled 'Made in Israel' crackdowns in Iraq won't work, and it...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:48 PM |
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November 09, 2003
Nose to authorial grindstone here
I've had the nose to the grindstone here since Friday a.m. First, I finished final edit on a long piece about the Int'l Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that the Boston...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 03:45 PM |
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September 09, 2003
A columnist's job is never done
I just finished writing my CSM column for this Thursday's paper (9/11). As soon as I get to the published version, as usual I'll put up a link to it....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:10 PM |
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August 18, 2003
Heathrow
Finally, I'm able to get a link to the CSM column of mine that ran last Thursday, that provoked so many expressions of anger and hostility in the Comments sections...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 06:28 AM |
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August 16, 2003
Short update from the UK
I'm writing this from my sister's computer in England. Interested to see the numbers of ardently pro-Israel people posting comments on my last post, on the CSM column of mine...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:20 PM |
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July 27, 2003
NYC/Star Island reflections
Sunday morning in New York City's East Village. I'm writing this in Alt.coffee, an internet cafe facing Tompkins Square Park. Sunshine outside. Inside, heavy-metal music and air-conditioning. Intermittent short rushes...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:44 PM |
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July 17, 2003
No time to write!
I've been crazy busy for the past two weeks. Haven't had a moment to write. And now I'm going off to a place where I'll have no net access for...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:19 PM |
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July 08, 2003
Work, and a long weekend
I'm sorry I haven't posted much here recently, but I've been writing up two or three storms. "Real" writing, that is... working on this humungous great redrafting project I'm working...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:27 PM |
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June 07, 2003
Heavy work zone ahead
I spent much of Thursday and Friday doing family stuff, what with Lorna's graduation, etc. Today after seeing Joe and Tarek off, I pulled out an essay I needed to...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 10:14 PM |
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April 29, 2003
HAYAT COLUMN DEADLINE COMING UP:
HAYAT COLUMN DEADLINE COMING UP: Oh my goodness, it's nearly the end of the month. Which means I need to get my head around doing my next column for Al-Hayat....
Posted by Helena Cobban at 01:29 PM |
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April 10, 2003
CSM COLUMN OUT TODAY
CSM COLUMN OUT TODAY: I have a column in the Christian Science Monitor today. I wrote it last weekend. It's titled, "Postwar shock and awe in the global economy". I...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 02:06 PM |
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March 27, 2003
CSM COLUMN OUT TODAY; AL-HAYAT COLUMN YESTERDAY:
Posted by Helena Cobban at 09:57 PM |
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March 24, 2003
BLOGGING AS FIVE-FINGER EXERCISES: For
BLOGGING AS FIVE-FINGER EXERCISES: For some reason, two of my sisters have both expressed a concern that my blogging "might be taking too much of my time". (All three of...
Posted by Helena Cobban at 12:09 AM |
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