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 »

(Click to watch show's opening sequence)

Palestinian children have lost a major inspiration for tolerance now that “Shara’a Simsim,” their Arab-language spinoff of “Sesame Street,” has been put on lockdown due to US aid cuts. Last October, Congress fr… Read full post »

Ever since 1917, when French Dada artist Marcel Duchamp tried to display a common urinal in a New York art exhibition under the title “Fountain,” artists and advertisers have understood that provocation can be an effective way of selling both museum tickets and products of… 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 »

"Playtime" in Jerusalem yesterday (Reuters photo)

Anyone who may have been suspecting that, as memories and common human decency fade, the tragic series of events popularly known as the Holocaust has become nothing more than a dishonest and utterly arbitrary talking point for reactiona… Read full post »

Image from one of thousands of websites promising to teach men "how to flirt with a girl"

There was a time not too long ago when books and websites dealing with how to pick up women were largely aimed at helping shy men break out of their shell. But ever since Neil… Read full post »

If you live in Brooklyn and ride a bicycle, no issue has pushed more buttons and started more arguments over the past two years than the conflict between the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community and the rest of us regarding bike lanes through Williamsburg. Hasidic leaders have been complain… Read full post »

My supervisor warned me already during the job interview. “Do you like being home for the holidays?” he asked.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Well, you can’t count on it in this job. Here we celebrate the holidays when we find the time, not when the calendar tells us… 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 »

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity, so as a struggling freelancer I guess I should be delighted to discover an entire blog entry from a stranger dedicated solely to his interpretation of my personality. Beggars can't be choosers and all that, but couldn't the author have at least… 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 »

 
The photo op from hell:
Israeli schoolchildren writing messages on
artillery shells before they are fired on southern
Lebanon in 2006 (AP/Aljazeera)

They say truth is the first casualty of war, but consistency and basic human decency are never far behind. In a remarkable essay publis… Read full post »

 
Liya Kebede plays Somali model
and FGM activist Waris Dirie in Desert Flower

Some stories are too terrible to tell. But sometimes t… 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 »