BOLD like a Leopard

It is undeniable that in the course of the last 60 years going back to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War there has been a process whereby each generation of Americans is confronted with an event that causes them to doubt the official version of events and media accounts. This phenomenon can be seen in a wide variety of topics from campus culture (the Duke Lacrosse Case , Rolling Stone 's " A Rape on Campus ") to scientific data (Michael Mann's " Hockey Stick " saga), to war atrocities ( Ghouta chemical attack , Kuwaiti incubators controversy, Pallywood ), to alleged spying scandals (Trump-Russia scandal). Media organizations do the work of power brokers to promote a story without regard for establishing the facts before going to print (or the airwaves). In many cases when journalists, alternative media, or individual citizens question the conventional logic to the story they are reprimanded by media figures as "conspi...

Still frame of Abe Foxman of the ADL from Defamation (2009). Many people have written their 9-11 experience story, but for me it wouldn't be that interesting. I was in earth science class, sophomore year of high school, and most of the kids didn't take the images on the TV seriously, and neither did I. And at the same time I've been listening to a lot of people (Jews and non-Jews) fighting over anti-Semitism. Yesterday a YouTuber that I watch, a harsh critic of Israel, posted a movie called Defamation by Yoav Shamir ( Spoiler Alert). It details the frenzy over the "new anti-Semitism" and was released in 2009 sometime around the period when I returned to the USA. In the movie, there is a murky debate raging between Shamir, the then-head of the ADL (Abe Foxman), Israeli teens visiting death camps, Orthodox Jews in Moscow, and far-left anti-Israel activists like Norman Finkelstein and Uri Avnery over what anti-Semitism is. Watching the film it drove me to conc...

In 2017 I came across a blogger on Times of Israel  (TOI) who I thought was a refreshing and different voice on matters of the Middle East. Reading much of his social media shares as well as many of his blogs, I was pretty impressed that he wanted to change people's attitudes and be a positive force for showing readers and friends of his a rational and earnestly liberal perspective. The vast majority of his writings concerned Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians, and to be frank in many cases this person seemed much more of a stalwart supporter of Zionism than I. However in recent months this person has undergone a very thorough shift in his public attitudes. The writer in question is Fred Maroun, and while I did correspond with him from time to time I would say we were casually friendly and very open about our differences of opinion. But when I say that he appeared to be more Zionist than I, it is very notable that he happens to be a Lebanese Canadian, and I a...

On Wednesday Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) withdrew from the 2020 presidential race after a rip-roaring eight month long ride where the nation joined her at soaring crests of 1.5% of prospective 2020 Democratic voters on January 19  in the RealClearPolitics aggregate and commiserated with her at the depths of 0.1% this week. Fortunately so that the American public does not forget the searing imprint of her candidacy The Nation has stepped forward to give the perfect send-off for this woman that was so inspiring, that only someone with equally unfulfilled potential could pay proper tribute. And how appropriate that such a person, Joan Walsh, is their National Affairs correspondent? The woman that authored What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America has presumably found the perfect real-world subject for that book’s rhetorical question. Walsh titled her homage to the withdrawn candidate “ Kirsten Gillibrand leaves the 2020 race with no apolog...