‘How come he can’t see his own savagery?’

04.03.2016 ________________________________________________________ It’s Friday: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter have passed; Passover approaches; in the distance Ramadan Continue reading →

Re-light the Lamp Beside the Golden Door

09.05.2015 _____________________ Labor Day, when I was growing up, was both the time that heralded return to school (in those Continue reading →

The 1,400-Year-Old War that Isn’t

06.25.2014 _____________________ It’s been years since I read John O’Hara’s novel Appointment in Samarra, but I remember well its introductory epigraph, Continue reading →

America: Avoiding an Appointment in Samarra

06.22.2014 _____________________ It’s been years since I read John O’Hara’s novel “Appointment in Samarra.” The epigraph that introduces the book Continue reading →

Searching for the Mideastern ‘Highroad of Truth’

09.15.2013 _____________________ “My head hurts.” It’s an expression a student I know uses when she is confronted by too much Continue reading →

The Middle East’s Evolving Axial Age

08.25.2013 _____________________ Operation Ajax. Sixty years ago, on Aug. 19, 1953, the United States of America, staunch defender of democracy, Continue reading →

American Vision in Syria Obscured by Too Many Scales

06.02.2013 _____________________ Jane Elizabeth Digby died in 1881. A promiscuous English aristocrat who had had four husbands and many lovers, Continue reading →

GOP Fiddles Over Benghazi as Mideast Burns

05.19.2013 _____________________ “As I have been home,” Michele Bachmann said, “there isn’t a weekend that hasn’t gone by that someone Continue reading →