Getting an eyeful:
Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut

Who ever would have suspected that Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece, Eyes Wide Shut, was a documentary? But it's starting to look less like a movie and more like a simple slice of life. Case in point: Former IMF boss and accused rapist Do/… Read full post »

Anne Sinclair and her horny hubby 

Discretion is the better part of valor, as Falstaff used to say, and for journalist Anne Sinclair, the long-suffering wife of world-champion skirt-chaser and former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Kahn, it is also the essence of her virtue. Finally, more tha… Read full post »

People can never get enough of the endless debate over the alleged innate differences between men and women, probably because there’s so little really hard data on the subject (I already wrote about this topic here). Now a new study from England, conducted under actual field conditions/… Read full post »

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

                                                       = Will… Read full post »

“Vive la différence,” the French say, and they seem to know what they're talking about. But when the rest of us describe human beings as being male and female - masculine and feminine - what are we really referring to? For a long time, the matter seemed to… Read full post »

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947?)

One of the final lingering questions about the Second World War might possibly find an answer in the coming months. It concerns a Swedish architect and hobby diplomat who single-handedly turned what we think we know about twentieth century hist… Read full post »

Iraqi newborn in Fallujah (al-Jazeera)

Those of us who pay attention to such things (and our numbers are ludicrously small) felt sick to our stomachs upon hearing last month that at least 100,000 additional Vietnamese citizens have been killed or injured by American/… Read full post »

In recent weeks I have written extensively about the simmering conflict between ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) and secular Israelis over the segregation of the sexes in Haredi neighborhoods. The standoff turned violent in late December, and some Haredi activists reacted to pressure from secu… Read full post »

According to the US State Department, “Afghanistan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.” Now it appears yet again that the American-led NATO military force stationed there… Read full post »

Would you go on a date with a guy called Marvin? Or how about a girl calling herself Chantal? If you’re hesitating, then you’re not alone. According to a study published in last month’s issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science, first names serve as particu… Read full post »

They sure took their time about it, but last week a court in Cairo ordered the Egyptian military to halt its practice of submitting women in its custody to controversial “virginity tests.” The tests have been only one of many humiliating measures inflicted on female demonstr… Read full post »

 
She's got his back!

I have to confess that I didn’t know the French even chose a Woman of the Year. But if someone had told me, I would have guessed that this year’s prize would go to Christine Lagarde, the newly-appointed chair of the International Monetary Fund, or &… Read full post »

On November 14, 2011, Spc. David Emanuel Hickman of Greensboro, NC died in Baghdad of injuries he suffered after encountering a roadside improvised explosive device (IED). He had been assigned to 2nd Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82n… Read full post »

During a ceremony at Fort Bragg yesterday, President Barack Obama formally ended the Iraq War by saying that US troops

will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high. One of the most extraordinary chapters in the history of the American military will come to an end. Iraq’s… Read full post »

If it’s summer, you might be thinking, then it must be flotilla season again. And you'd be right: The “Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human,” consisting of some nine ships, is currently waiting to sail to Gaza and distribute humanitarian goods after the Canadian vessel Tahrir was recent/… Read full post »

With the world’s attention riveted on the revolutions sweeping North Africa and the rest of the Arab world, you may have missed a development that is theoretically just as historic: the Taliban have been quietly dropping their opposition to female education.

Do you remember the wome… Read full post »

 
Pope Benedict XVI

You know, sitzfleisch really pays off, even after 2,000 years. Last week, Pope Benedict XVI explicitly repudiated the Jewish people’s responsibility for killing Jesus Christ. In the second volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth, entitled From His Transfiguration Thr… Read full post »

 
Congolese women from the campaign
Stop Raping Our Greatest Resource

With global media attention focused on the revolutions in the Arab world, it's all the more important to shine some light on other news stories that refuse to go away, as much as we would like them to.  These/… Read full post »

 
Clinton and Netanyahu are inviting the Palestinians to dinner

It’s called “biting the hand that feeds you,” and pretty much everyone agrees that’s the worst, most ungrateful form of behavior in existence. The Israeli government is currently blaming the Palestinian… Read full post »

 
Actor Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher in Martin
Scorsese's Gangs of New York (2002)

Anyone born after, say, 1985 can be excused for believing that the title The Gangs of New York refers solely to an almost-great film by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Le/… Read full post »

 
Poster for "Valley of the Wolves - Palestine," which is
being released on January 28 (Wikipedia)

We all know by now that Youtube has made illegal military assaults and human rights violations risky for the perpetrators since the new technology makes it possible for the entire plane… Read full post »

 
On board the "Irene"

(AFP/Ynet)

Relief convoys to Gaza have become a familiar sight in the Mediterranean lately, but the latest entry has an unusual twist: This time it isn’t Turks or European and American Christians on board, but a team of nine exclusively Jewish activ/… Read full post »

 
The more the merrier?

Fat is fun! At least, that’s the word from Turkey this week. Researchers at Erciyes University in Kayseri have just completed a year-long study correlating body mass index (BMI) and male sexual performance. Their findings: men with excess body fat last longer/… Read full post »

 
Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef

Israel's former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef may be a lousy diplomat, but he sure knows a thing or two about timing. During his weekly Shabbat sermon, held just days before the start of a new round of peace negotiations to help resolve the intractable Israel… Read full post »

 
US soldier in Baghdad, 2008 (Daily Mail)

Just about everyone has heard of George Santayana’s famous warning* that “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Almost as many people are acquainted with Senator George Aiken’s modest Vietnam-… Read full post »