By Mark | January 2, 2020
News has just broken that the Trump administration, without any congressional debate, has assassinated Qassim Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds force. I hate to think it of my own government, but I can’t help but wonder if this had more to do with changing the narrative around impeachment than it did making the […]
By Mark | October 27, 2019
In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, a U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, as part of an operation code-named Neptune Spear, entered a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and executed Osama bin Laden, the head of the Islamist terrorist group Al-Qaeda. In a televised announcement later that day, a sober Barack Obama […]
Posted in Other, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Abbottabad, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, al Qaeda, assassination, Barack Obama, baseball, booing, chants, credit, crying, Donald Trump, hypocrisy, hypocrisy watch, Idlib, ISIS, Kurds, lock him up, Mike Pence, Navy SEALS, Neptune Spear, Osama bin Laden, Pakistan, Russia, screaming, September 11, Situation Room, Syria, threats to Democracy, Washington Nationals, whimpering, William McRaven, World Series |
By Mark | October 13, 2019
When Donald Trump announced last week that, at the request of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, he would be pulling back American troops stationed in Syria, everyone knew exactly what would happen. We knew that our allies, the Kurds, would be wiped out by the Turks. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now. […]
Posted in History, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Ahrar as-Sharqiya, border security, border wall, chaos, Chuck Schumer, diplomacy, Donald Trump, enemy combatants, ethnic cleansing, Europe, foreign relations, Havrin Khalaf, Homeland Security, ISIS, jihad, Kurds, M4, mercenaries, murder, offending allies, Qamishli, Richard Engel, Russia, Stephen Miller, Syria, Syria Future Party, Tayyip Erdogan, threats to Democracy, Turkey, war, withdrawal |
By Mark | August 18, 2019
Yesterday, several white nationalist groups descended on Portland, Oregon. The idea, it would seem, was for these heroic specimens of Arian perfection to bait the anti-fascist counter-protestors who had gathered in response into some kind of violent confrontation, in hopes that right-wing “journalists” like Andy Ngo might be able to get a few photos of […]
Posted in Civil Liberties, Politics, Uncategorized | Also tagged Andy Ngo, anti-fascist, ANTIFA, cereal, chauvinism, Civil War, Donald Trump, El Paso, fascism, fear, grievance, higher self, Hyborian Warlord, incels, Jeffrey Epstein, Joe Briggs, MAGA, Nazi, non-violence, Oregon, Portland, Proud Boys, racism, recession, sexism, Ted Wheeler, white nationalism, Wisconsin |
An old friend of mine who teaches at a public high school in Minnesota just got word that he’s inherited a 12-week elective course on film, and he’s reached out to me, asking if I might help him design the curriculum. All that he’s been given to work with thus far is a list of […]
Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1957, 1974, A Face in the Crowd, Algeria, Algerian War of Independence, Andy Griffith, Billy Wilder, Blade Runner, bugging, celebrity culture, curriculum, Dan Richardson, documentary film, Donald Trump, Double Indemnity, drifters, Elia Kazan, Eugene McCarthy, film criticism, film history, film school, films, folksy, foreign film, France, Francis Ford Coppola, Gene Hackman, Gillo Pontecorvo, Glenn Beck, great films, Harrison Ford, Harry Caul, high school, Hot Channels, House Committee on Un-American Activities, Italy, Lonesome Rhodes, M, Martin Stett, Mildred Pierce, neorealist, populism, privacy, red scare, simple truths, small town America, social media, Sunset Boulevard, surveillance, surveillance culture, The Battle of Algiers, The Conversation, The Killing, The Night of the Hunter, torture |
