Exhuming the Sabra & Shatila Massacre

It's been nominated eight times, but Israel has never won a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar the 67 times it's been awarded since 1947. Lebanon has neither won nor been nominated. The two countries were set to win their first two weeks ago with "Waltz With Bashir." Somehow, "Departure," a Japanese "Six Feet Under," staged a coup and took the award, though in my book "Waltz With Bashir" is still the winner, as were Lebanon, Israel, and a shred of that thing so elusive in stories out of the Middle East: truth.

Charles Freeman, Roger Cohen and the Changing Israel Debate

Anyone who doubts that there has been a substantial -- and very positive -- change in the rules for discussing American policy towards Israel should consider two recent episodes:  (1) the last three New York Times columns by Roger Cohen; and (2) the very strong pushback from a diverse range of sources against the neoconservative lynch mob trying, in typical fashion, to smear and destroy Charles Freeman due to his critical (in all senses of the word) views of American policy towards Israel.

Why I'm Not Now and Have Never Been the Democrats' Rush Limbaugh

I have watched with mild amusement this week the self-immolation of the Republican Party as it bows before the altar of Rush Limbaugh, begging for mercy, pleading for forgiveness, breathlessly seeking guidance and wisdom from The Oracle.

President Obama and the Democratic Party have wasted no time in pointing out to the American people this marriage from hell, tying Rush like a rock around the collective Republican neck and hoping for its quick descent to the netherworld of irrelevance.

The Danger of Losing Ethnic Media

AsianWeek, San Francisco's English-language weekly for Asian Americans, and San Francisco Bay View, which has served the black community there for three decades, both have dumped their print editions. Siglo21, a Spanish-language paper published in Lawrence, is returning to publishing weekly after three months as a daily due to declining advertising. Ming Pao Daily in New York will shut down entirely, while Hoy New York abandoned print at the end of last year. At the venerable Ebony and Jet in Chicago, all employees must reapply for their jobs - that is, the jobs that remain.

The Recession and the ‘Deserving Poor’

As the economy crumbles, issues of poverty and economic need have begun to make more frequent appearances in the news media. From October through December 2008, for example, the three nightly TV news shows ran 20 stories—about one every four or five days—addressing poverty or related issues such as homelessness or food stamps. A previous FAIR study of nightly news coverage (Extra!, 9–10/07), by comparison, found an average of one poverty story on the evening news every three weeks.

Let’s Talk About Race—or Maybe Not

There were early indications that corporate media coverage of Barack Obama’s candidacy would be squirm-inducing, putting on display the elite (mainly white) press corps’ murky ideas about race much more than any straightforward reckoning of black Americans’ situation or what an Obama presidency might mean for their concerns.

War Is Over (If You Want It)

Have you heard that we won the Iraq War? Well, sure, we've still got 142,000 troops there, we're spending $12 billion per month on it and hundreds of Iraqis per week are dying violent deaths. What's more, none of the fundamental political questions that divide Iraq's murderous factions have been settled, and the place is poised to collapse into genocidal anarchy--which might engulf the entire region--should President Obama withdraw our troops too hastily. So we're going to have to stay, well, perhaps forever.