Showing posts from 2011Show all
Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong-il
The deaths of these two leaders--one despised around the world, the other admired--are linked in ways that might not be immediately obvious. Have…
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Israel has never been so ugly
Of late the "Jewish state" has been showing a face that many American Jews might not want to recognize: Racist, anti-democratic, and ev…
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US to Gaza: Round Two
Act now!! BOATS SAILING NOW TO GAZA! SPREAD THE WORD. Israel and the U.S. outsourced the siege of Gaza to Athens last summer by prevent…
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Israel Doesn't Want Peace Nearly as Much as It Wants the West Bank
This slideshow from Peace Now shows how it's being done. With thanks to Mondoweiss for posting it. Anatot takeovereng View more present…
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Ben-Hur and how the Los Angeles Times swallowed revised Jewish/Palestinian history whole
The excellent blog Mondoweiss describes a particularly interesting (I would say amusing but it's not really funny) example of the way in whi…
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Obama and Palestine
“Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N." --Barack Obama in his speech before the United Nations. Peace w…
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Some of My Best Friends are Zionists
Initial Development Trailer: Some of My Best Friends Are Zionists from Open Letter Productions on Vimeo .
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Israel on the run
Greetings from New York, where I will be based until just before Christmas. The blog is always more active when I am here, for no other reason tha…
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The blog is coming back, and it's going to be a riot
Yes, summer is nearly over, and it's time for me to start putting all my festering thoughts into print. The comeback will be slow and erratic at…
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Truth and lies (from Netanyahu) about the Rafah border crossing
The Israeli human rights organization Gisha , which fights for the right of movement of the people of Gaza, has issued a new press release setting t…
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DSK: Who's the victim here?
I've just arrived in New York from Paris, with the case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn resonating on both continents. In the eyes of the law, of cours…
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Many are the ways...
... that Israel has sought to cleanse the West Bank of its Palestinians and steal their land. Yesterday a story in Haaretz by Akiva Eldar detailed h…
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Israeli leaders: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
The Israeli narrative has run its course, and it's time for those who believe in justice and an end to the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands…
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Hiding in plain sight? So was The Purloined Letter
It seems intuitively unlikely, as so many have pointed out, that Osama bin Laden could have been hiding out in a large, obvious compound in a wealthy…
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Did the Navy Seals shoot an unarmed man who was already dead?
It's hard to know who is going to get more batty over the killing of OBL, the left or the right. Cindy Sheehan, on her Facebook page, says we are…
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The man who shot Osama Bin Laden
I'm sure that many fascinating details about the raid against Bin Laden's compound just north of the Pakistani capital (what did Pakistani in…
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Opening Gaza's prison gate
Over the past several days Egyptian officials have indicated that they will permanently open the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, altho…
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Donald Trump demands proof that Barack Obama actually exists
The intrepid Donald Trump, having forced Barack Obama to release the long form of his birth certificate, upped the ante yesterday and launched an inv…
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Israel's deadly fire
A few days ago the excellent Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an investigative piece by Shay Fogelman into one of the deadliest massacres of the…
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How about an editorial for Bradley Manning?
The New York Times and other publications have done a great job mining through the documents released by Wikileaks to find stories that readers need…
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What does IQ really measure?
That's the subject of my latest online story for ScienceNOW. Please click the link to read, but here is the first paragraph: Kids who scor…
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Bradley Manning gets to mingle with Fort Leavenworth prisoners
Let's put things in perspective: Bradley Manning, if he is indeed the person behind the documents released by Wikileaks, is a hero. The revelatio…
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Mass Killings of Gazelles Marked Rise of Human Civilization
This has been turning into a science blog lately, but no worries, I will be getting back to politics soon. Meanwhile my latest online ScienceNOW can …
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Language May Have Helped Early Humans Spread Out of Africa
Here is my latest contribution to science journalism. Click the link to read the whole thing, but here as usual is the first paragraph to get you st…
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Early Birds Smelled Good
I've been very busy lately between trips to South Africa, Nantes, and now Toulouse for a prehistory meeting--so little time to do political comme…
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Stripping Bradley Manning naked
I've been meaning to comment on the moral vacuousness of President Barack Obama's comments on the abusive treatment of Bradley Manning, but M…
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Juan Cole: An Open Letter to the Left on Libya
The best and most carefully reasoned statement I have seen so far, from a left perspective, in support of the U.N. intervention in Libya. The proble…
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How a Dinosaur Is Like a Vacuum Cleaner
Yours truly has recently added Science 's dino beat to his repertoire of science writing. Here's the first paragraph of my latest contributio…
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Libya and the left
My thoughts on the intervention in Libya are clear: I'm for it 100%. And my friend and colleague Marc Cooper, a journalism prof at the University…
Read more![Peter Rathjen: Serial sexual predator, pedophile protector, and manifestation of all that is rotten at the University of Adelaide? [Update July 20, 2020: Rathjen resigns due to "ill health"]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv2zZDdkMCZ682nm_jjaMKj10YQlHM_1NXSBgpRCHqJJXltcoS7wFYbh8aYMX_M8EEkiW-gBGZTxuW6icTYY5hrPEDlBalEStHCvh6wWUS6Pl30v6Jhw45a726-uLQKtPE1tuCq9MyXqRV/w680/Rathjen.jpeg)
My book about Neolithic Catalhoyuk in Turkey and the origins of civilization, the paperback edition. For more information about it, please visit MY WEB SITE
- Michael Balter
- I have been a working journalist for more than 40 years, beginning in Los Angeles as an investigative reporter and then in Paris as a travel, food, and science writer. For more than 20 years I have covered anthropology and archaeology writer for Science, Audubon, Scientific American, SAPIENS, and other publications. I have also covered sexual misconduct for The Verge, Scientific American, and others; I write about mental health, especially schizophrenia; and I engage in occasional media criticism. I returned to the USA in October 2017 after 30 years in Paris, and now live in the New York City area, where I currently teach journalism at City College of New York (I previously taught journalism at Boston University and New York University.) For more about me and what I do, copies of my articles, information about my book, and other goodies, please visit MY WEB SITE
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