Pascal Bruckner on America’s obsession with sex, and what it says about a nation with a Puritan past — and uncertain future. A few years ago, we were on a family beach vacation in Florida. After a swim, my two-year-old daughter took off her bathing suit. Suddenly, the summer visitors began looking…
PARIS — They are not patients, they are followers. Some call it a “miracle.” Others credit the drug for offering them “freedom” or for “saving” them. For these recovering alcoholics, Baclofen, is nothing short of a wonder drug – a long elusive “cure” for their addiction. Never mind that Baclofen was never…
Cairo Thousands of Egyptians stormed the Israeli embassy. The ambassador had to be flown to safety in a military aircraft. In Ankara, too, Israel’s representative was driven out – by the government of Turkey, the host country. The Arab Spring has segued into an incandescent Arab Summer now threatened by a cold snap….
By Gordon Corera The new film adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, premiered at the Venice Film Festival last week, has been praised for its atmospheric depiction of 1970s London. But how firmly is John Le Carre’s novel rooted in reality? (Spoiler alert: Key plot details revealed below) Trying to establish the precise relationship between…
One decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans continue to pay for damages. The costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, hidden costs of intelligence wars reportedly underway in Pakistan and elsewhere, and the price of increased security within American borders have now far exceeded early predictions and continue to grow as global counter terrorism…
9-11 and the United States’ Empire of Language and Ideas
Left behind in America: Who’s to blame for the wealth divide? Take a moment and think about how you feel wealth should, ideally, be spread among the American people. If you’re like the average respondent in a 2010 Harvard Business School/Duke University study, your response was this: The richest top 20…
Burning Man is, in some ways, a virtual world. It’s not unlike Second Life: a flat, empty plane onto which creator/participants build a temporary society however they can, making every decision into a work of art. Indeed, Second Life founder Philip Rosedale is a longtime Burner himself, and the Burning Man organization now holds an…
All the world comes to Chungking (Cheung Fun) HONG KONG– Whoever has been to perennially pricey Hong Kong on a low budget has spent at least one night there: Chungking Mansions, “the world’s most globalized building,” offers rooms at unbeatable prices at 36-44 Nathan Road, right on the point of Tsim Sha Tsui,…
Julian Assange and his former German cohort Daniel Domscheit-Berg blame each other for the circulation on the Internet of the identities of secret informants from diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks. Now, with lives in danger, the organization risks quickly losing credibility. This story of two bickering computer nerds vying for a place in history —…