BlueMTexpat
BlueMTexpat's JournalThanks very much for posting this article.
Although I am currently retired from full-time work in international organizations/affairs, I was reincarnated as an adjunct professor a few years back. Among others, I teach a course in Comparative Politics to international students, several of whom are Russian nationals.
This article should elicit some excellent discussion from my students, especially since one of our comparative topics is how the media influences politics in a given nation and/or vice versa.
I am not sure who your "usual jousting partners" are, but I am with Gore Vidal on what our own mainstream media is:
Any DUers who live in or who visit Washington, DC should visit the Newseum. http://www.newseum.org/
It's a great learning experience.
Post-UK debate photo seems to indicate leftward movement ...
at least, I hope so! Fun article ... and perhaps a hopeful omen for us in the US in 2016.
This handshake has the formal, momentous quality of, say, the meeting of Dutch and Spanish generals in Velazquezs painting The Surrender of Breda. Sturgeon seems almost to bow, as the Spanish leader does in that masterpiece of history painting. All it lacks is someone looking out of the picture, catching our eye, commenting silently on the falseness of the moment, the complexities behind a simple image of friendship and possible alliance.
Perhaps some will see that ironic commentator as Farage, who voiced his discontent with the event itself and the composition of its audience, and claimed to be uniquely addressing the real audience watching at home.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/17/tv-election-debate-new-british-politics-image?CMP=fb_gu
Yawning, blinking and sweating ... hmmm!
Be careful the next time you have to go through TSA checks ...
Despite its own report finding that the human ability to identify deceptive behaviour through body language is no better than chance, the US government has spent almost $1 billion on a programme deploying Behaviour Detection Officers to airport security.
The specialised agents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) are taught to evaluate passengers based on a checklist known as the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT).
But according to a copy of a SPOT report published by The Intercept, the stress factors that could see passengers stopped at security include arriving late for your flight, blinking too much, sweating and excessive yawning.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/leaked-us-security-documents-reveal-how-to-spot-a-terrorist-trying-to-board-a-plane-10145842.html?cmpid=facebook-post
Sorry if this has been posted earlier ... I just saw it now.
Charlie Hebdo: A Clash of Extremisms, not of Civilizations
Source: Informed Comment
...
What is absent from our mainstream media and politics is a careful analysis of what Islam is in France today. This would show once and for all that the Muslim community is not the monolith Le Pen would like us to believe. The terrorists who massacred 12 people on 7 January are apparently Muslim but so was the policeman who lost his life trying to stop them. Mustapha Ourrad, Charlie Hebdos copy-editor killed in the attack, was born in Algeria.
This is not a clash of civilisations, this is not a war between the West and Islam, but a fight waged by some very few, marginalised yet extremely dangerous people, for whom division is key. Ultimately, condemning Islam and Muslims indiscriminately would play in the hands of those seeking to terrorise and divide us, as well as fuel the kind of nationalism that Charlie Hebdo has always fought.
Read more: http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/charlie-extremisms-civilizations.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
This article is well worth reading, especially since so much of Western media reporting continues to represent horrific acts of terrorism, especially those of Muslims, as a clash of civilizations.
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