A domestic struggle between political powers in Papua New Guinea is emerging as a new front in the Pacific power conflict between the United States and China.
Christopher Hitchens was never quiet for a long enough time to allow anyone to ask him any questions about himself. Readers never had a chance to inquire about how his ardent and militant atheism reflected his Jewish heritage. No one was afforded the opportune moment to probe the former anti-Vietnam crusader’s personal transformation into one of the greatest intellectual supporters of the Iraq War. There was never time to ask, because the self-described “contrarian” preempted every question with a thoroughly developed answer.
The Occupy movement that has consumed the attention of America’s news media, city governments, and populace for the past few months is not the first to attempt—or succeed—to change social order and political discourse in America. To the confusion of media, politicians, and the public, the Occupy movement has declared itself leaderless and non-hierarchical. This stands in high contrast to previous social movements, many of which have featured powerful leadership.
For over thirty years, Farah Pahlavi has been forbidden from setting foot in the country she once ruled. Married in 1959 to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, she reigned alongside him until the 1979 Islamic Revolution made pariahs of Iran’s powerful royal family, forcing them into the nightmare of exile. In her 2004 memoir An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah, Pahlavi chronicles this nightmare and the years leading up to it with a bias only a proud leader could possess.
Few men are as reviled as Michael Moore. The director of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Sicko has made himself notable not only for his Oscar nominations but also for the incredible hate he has inspired in countless conservatives. Even the Democratic Party has a strained relationship with the documentarian. But Moore can take comfort that there is one man who remains loyal to him, one man who knows the truth of Moore’s life long crusade to fix the United States: Michael Moore.
Journalists and international officials have markedly ignored the modern history of Guatemala. The nation’s past includes a long list of wrongs against the indigenous peoples of the country, including exploitation by wealthy, mixed-race landowners and government complicity in discriminatory practices. However, until the 1983 publishing of Quiché leader Rigoberta Menchú’s controversial autobiography, the attention of the world was rarely drawn to the bloodshed and activism happening in Central America.
The title of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memoirs–Known and Unknown–is appropriate of almost any position that requires making decisions based on predictions. In national security matters, especially during war-time as in Afghanistan and Iraq, there will be good intelligence and bad intelligence, and Clausewitz’s concept of ‘fog of war‘ can confuse even the most prescient of individuals. Rumsfeld’s memoir presents a well-researched defense of his decisions in the midst of that fog.
