First, an observation which I seldom see in print: King remembered going to a lecture on the principles of Gandhi, and how it changed his thinking. And Gandhi remembered reading Henry David Thoreau‘s “Civil Disobedience” while in jail in South Africa. Now, of course, we know that another South African prisoner, Nelson Mandela, was, in turn, inspired by King in South Africa, where Gandhi had...

Is there any historical basis for the alliance between certain Latin American nations and Islamic fundamentalist Iran? For Spain’s La Vanguardia, apparently exasperated columnist Pilar Rahola says that, “If Simon Bolívar were raise his head and see Ahmadinejad and Chávez in his noble land, he would die a second time of pure shame.” For La Vanguardia, Pilar Rahola writes in part: At what...

When I read this letter for the many-eth time in my life, I see MLK’s spiritual discipline, the knowledge of how to go forward in four steps, the leadership, the clear demands, the efforts at negotiation, the spiritual self-examination so one doesnt go off half-cocked caught up in the yelling… and the non violent protest for clear cut goals. When I read Reverend King’s letter from Birmingham...

Five years ago, in another political world when Barack Obama was getting ready to run for president, I wrote this: West Side residents of Chicago now have a U.S. Senator who looks like them and it may be, in more ways than one, due to the man whose birthday we celebrate tomorrow. Martin Luther King Jr. preached nonviolence to the oppressed. “Our weapon is love,” he told them, and he used it with stunning...

How hateful has our politics become? This hateful: An email recently sent by Kansas House Speaker Mike O’Neal (R-Hutchinson) to his Republican colleagues appears to endorse a controversial prayer that some say calls for the untimely death of President Obama. “Pray for Obama. Psalm 109:8.” That’s the slogan an email from O’Neal refers to, a phrase that’s become popular in...

Venezuelan columnist Jose Toro Hardy is upset. Why? Because, according to him, President Hugo Chavez’ embrace of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad not only puts Venezuelans at odds with almost the entire developed world, it goes against Venezuela’s historic strict adherence to neutrality when it comes to conflicts it has nothing to do with. For Venezuela’s El Universal, Jose Toro Hardy starts...

Meet fake cowboy and superPAC proprietor Foster Friess (center) This moment that Rick Santorum’s money backer is revealed is a fleeting moment. The New Hampshire Primary is this Tuesday, followed by the quadrennial South Carolina Confederate Flag controversy a week later. (Don’t laugh. It was that, far more than the “black babies” whispering campaign that doomed John McCain’s candidacy...

Even as tension over the Strait of Hormuz escalates, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is touring Latin America as a way of showing Iran has friends in the U.S. ‘backyard.’ But this tongue-in-cheek welcome to the Iranian leader by columnist Luis A. Vivanco of Ecuador’s La Hora goes to show that not everyone is buying the story. For La Hora of Ecuador, Luis A. Vivanco starts out this...

Is it the United States – and not Iran or Venezuela – that the world’s people need to worry about? According to this news account by María Lilibeth Da Corte of Venezuela’s El Universal, the arrival of Iran President Ahmadinejad in Latin America has begun with a Venezuelan ‘love fest’ of sorts, with lots of spicy language about the United States. For Venezuela’s El...

What’s a risky business to go into? Apparently one of the riskiest is to be a nuclear scientist in Iran – since yet another one has been killed: At a time of growing tension over its nuclear program and mounting belligerence toward the West, Iran reported on Wednesday that an Iranian nuclear scientist died in what was termed a “terrorist bomb blast” in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist...

The size and scope of the American Embassy in Baghdad has been something of a major news story in the U.S. – but not so much in Iraq. Until now that is. For Iraq’s Al-Iraq News, Ibrahim Zaidan reports that with the U.S. supposedly ‘withdrawing’, Iraqi lawmakers and religious figures are demanding to know why Washington needs a $6.2 billion embassy staffed by 16,000 people that is bigger...

The idea of replacing Joe Biden with Hillary Clinton on the 2012 Democratic ticket is preposterous, an idea that won’t go away and one that is growing on me. Bill Keller offers the most compelling argument for an Obama-Clinton ticket in The New York Times, and while I have known Biden since we were in our teens and I deeply admire him, my own views track closely to his. I was disgusted with Clinton by...

WASHINGTON — Before there was the tea party to define the phrase “far-right fringe,” there was Rick Santorum. He’s a nice-guy zealot who should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office. It’s understandable that progressives would be tempted to cheer Santorum’s sudden rise as a viable candidate for the Republican nomination. The likely nominee, Mitt Romney,...

Is the United States a war-happy nation? With the situation surrounding the Strait of Hormuz escalating, columnist Abd Al Bari Atwan of Samidoon in the Palestinian Territories writes that American embargoes invariably lead to war, and with the U.S. economy in crisis, a war with Iran that would boost weapons sales may be precisely what Washington wants. For Samidoon, Abd Al Bari Atwan writes in part: There...

Like Saddam Hussein, are Iranian leaders boasting of their nuclear program and military prowess when in fact they are quite weak? Ahmed Al-Jarallah, the editor in chief of Kuwait’s Al-Seyassah, warns Iranian leaders to step back from the brink and retract their threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which 40 percent of the world’s oil flows – before it is too late. Al-Seyassah...

We are all familiar with the separation of the sexes in Saudi Arabia and in other Islamic countries and with the many laws restricting and limiting the rights and activities of women. While many of the Sharia laws are ostensibly to protect women from the prying eyes and other inappropriate gestures or advances by men, curiously women shopping for panties, bras, negligees, etc. had to endure the embarrassment...

As readers who have followed my writings — some call them rants — for the past few years know, while I have always opposed and condemned our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have supported our efforts in Afghanistan to catch and punish the perpetrators of 9/11 and, in some measure, to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban. However, so many of the reports coming out of that country about the government’s...

I will be haunted for a long time by this. On the other hand, it gave lots of hope. FOOTNOTE: My father had an experience like this about three years before he died.

A post to We Are For Israel by my friend Rabbi David Jay Kaufman of Des Moines IA: So here we are with the Iowa Republican Caucus tomorrow. Friday night, we hosted Shmuel Rosner, who is in town for the Caucus and spoke about the Arab Spring at my congregation. Yesterday, I was among about forty Jews, hosted by the Chabad rabbi and a Conservative Jewish supporter of Gingrich, who met with Newt for a little over...

How sorry is the present state of Iraq – and how bitter do some Iraqis feel about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and withdrawal? For Iraq’s Azzaman, columnist Fateh Abdulsalam accuses President Obama of brazenly using the Iraq withdrawal to his political advantage and leaving the country ‘with a government reveling in the joys of its own corruption and the opportunistic use of the symbols...

The New Year of 2012, a general election year, will be a year when the fortunes of political parties and politicians will rise and fall; it will be a year of unprecedented social and ideological confrontation; most important, it will be a year when “we the people” once again have the opportunity — the obligation — to make necessary adjustments or corrections to the course of our society,...

Now that we have pulled out of Iraq — on a schedule negotiated by the Bush administration — and as instability and violence are on the increase there — as we feared they would — the very same chickenhawks who got us into this mess are now rearing their heads to blame Obama — as we knew they would. They are now saying the same they would have said if we had pulled out of Iraq six...

Is America’s fear of terrorism putting a chill on essential scientific research? For Italy’s La Stampa, columnist Piero Bianucci warns that the White House, in an unprecedented move to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on an even more deadly form of bird flu, has persuaded science journals Science and Nature to censor themselves, undermining the free flow of information that scientific...

On a chilly but snowless Christmas Eve here in my corner of Philadelphia, you’ll find me stretched out on the living room sofa, laptop in its proper place, Christmas tree straight ahead, glimmering in the soft light and still nearly perpendicular to the floor. My seven-year-old son is nestled snug in his bed, while visions of Lego blocks dance in his head. When I was my son’s age, Christmas Eve...

With Christmas Eve upon us I thought I’d offer my annual post on the origins of the Christmas Star (per astronomy) and thus offering thoughts on when he was really born. Most of us know that Christ was not really born in December or the year zero. A number of people have tried to look first to the Bible for clues about what the star did and when, then they went outside the Bible to find events fitting...