Muhammadu Buhari, Wikipedia. This article summarizes historian Samuel Fury Childs Daly’s perspectives on Nigerian history and the armed rule that shaped its national identity and government. In particular, I discuss the legacy of the recently deceased Muhammadu Buhari...
Image by Duncan Shaffer. Protests over the last 6 years The sheer number of protests in the first six months of 2025 resulting from unpopular actions taken by the federal government (and state and local governments) is getting difficult to track: Legislation to cancel...
‘To a Land Unknown’ Cannes Film Festival. Mahdi Fleifel’s “To a Land Unknown” opens with a quote by the great Palestinian intellectual Edward Said, reflecting on the fate of his people to be scattered in different lands since their home is denied. Such is also the...
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Egyptian-born Omar El Akkad had studied in the United States and been 10 years a journalist when, in the summer of 2021, he became an American citizen. Covering the War on Terror in Afghanistan and at the U.S. detention center in...
Security experts, United Nations officials, and congressional leaders have for years insisted that in dealing with North Korea, its government’s systemic human rights abuses need to be addressed alongside nuclear proliferation. North Korea pays for its weapons...
In a gut punch to the base, National Education Association leaders lickety-split dismissed a motion passed by a majority of the NEA’s 7,000 delegates not to partner with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for curriculum or professional development. In a possible...
Photo by Rajesh Kavasseri The word veganic is a combination of “vegan” and “organic.” Organic, in essence, refers to anything of natural origin, derived from living matter. Vegan, in this context, is best defined as a way of growing that minimizes impact on all life...
Photograph Source: Ashraf Amra – CC BY-SA 4.0 The odious idea of a camp within a camp. The Gaza Strip, with an even greater concentration of Palestinian civilian life within an ever-shrinking stretch of territory. These are the proposals ventured by the Israeli...
Image by Patrick Tomasso. I grew up poor, that is, American poor. I fantasized about food at night–mashed potatoes, buttery dinner rolls, raspberry cheesecake. I would wake up and imagine a breakfast–strawberry waffles with whipped cream, cold orange juice–then, talk...
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Donald Trump is putting in place the largest tax increase in the country’s history with his big import taxes (tariffs). We won’t know the full size of Trump’s taxes until after Liberation Day III (August 1), and probably not even...
Photograph Source: Ajay Suresh – CC BY 2.0 When media critic A.J. Liebling wrote in The New Yorker 65 years ago that “freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one,” he might have glimpsed a media system dangerously dominated by a small number of...
Photograph Source: Wikideas1 – CC0 The United States is responsible for half of global spending on defense. The Trump administration is committed to spending more than $1 trillion dollars on defense, and this figure doesn’t include the hundreds of billions devoted to...