Computer Geek Piracy: File Sharing and the Law
When a person hears the word “pirate,” what is the first image to come to mind? Is it a swarthy, unkempt scalawag with a parrot on his shoulder and cutlass at his hip? Maybe it is that of a rugged individual searching for the treasure of a lifetime. Others might even say it is Johnny […]
Street Corner Counterterrorism: The Role of Police in Combating Terrorism
The United States counterterrorism community has evolved significantly in the nine years since the attacks on September 11, 2001 but questions persist about the intelligence community’s ability to prevent the next attack. Terrorism is just as much, if not a greater threat today than before the attacks. Leon Panetta, current director of the Central Intelligence […]
Un Prophéte: 2009 French Film
The romantic allure of Paris often obscures American perceptions of French film. French cinema can be as gritty and moody as that of any other country. In recent years, critical favorites, such as Marion Cotillard’s Oscar-winning performance in La Vie en Rose (140min, 2007) and the cult hit Amélie (122min, 2001), have allowed French movies […]
The Voice of the Dolphins, and Other Stories
The Voice of the Dolphins, by Leo Szilard, brings into question the many sociopolitical paradigms exposed at the height of the Cold War, since shuffled behind a red curtain stained with shapes of hammers and sickles. The hardheaded diplomacy of the 1960s clouds the vital questions that the ideological struggle was essentially based on: the […]
The Politics of Sound
Words have never been enough. While the brain can process thousands of feelings and sensations every minute, spoken language will forever be a bottleneck that retards the sharing or expression of sensations from one person to the next. Think about it – how often are you left struggling to relay a thought to a colleague […]
Against the Revolted Multitudes: Why A Lie is More Scandalous Than the Truth
Was there ever a time when people trusted politicians? Given the United State’s democratic system of governance, the men and women that preside over our daily lives are supposed to be the few among us who are capable of leading America toward prosperity. While mankind is rife with destructive inadequacies and backward tendencies, a select […]
What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East?
In What’s Really Wrong with the Middle East, author Brian Whittaker has taken an unconventional and ambitious look into authoritarianism what is not so much the Middle East but the Arab world. The book asks: why is political order in so many Arab countries dysfunctional; why does political and religious violence spring from the region […]
Raising or Razing the American Family? Reforming Parental Leave
Family leave policies in the workplace have traditionally focused on women, reflecting traditional American cultural values that assign a dominant role for mothers in the child rearing process. Recent research shows that this framework neglects the role fathers can play. Parents learn the “maternal instinct” through caring for a child in the initial stages of […]