Blog

If we can spend billions of dollars (estimated) invading Iraq, might we spend a few million dollars teaching useful foreign languages to our diplomats and students? The New York Times has a brilliant story about a shortage ...  (Read more)

Their name is Gogol Bordello and they are a gypsy punk band/cabaret. Seeing is believing.

The ideas of Gilles Kepel, a French academic who has written a counter-intuitive book on Islamic extremism, deserve more attention than they are receiving. In a new ...  (Read more)

It sounds like a bad joke, but what happens when you put, on a flight into New York City, a famous Indian actress, singer and comedian–and an American who suspects they might be terrorists? The answer was provided yesterday, when the Indians were arrested upon their arrival at LaGuardia airport, ...  (Read more)

The conviction of Ahmed Omar Sheikh for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl reminds me of an interview I conducted in Karachi in May with the police investigator who led the manhunt for Sheikh. As the police closed ...  (Read more)

Michael Kinsley has a point: “It was amazing to read the Pentagon’s detailed plans for an invasion of Iraq in the New York Times last week. The general reaction of Americans to this news was even more amazing: Basically, there was no reaction. ...  (Read more)

That’s a quote from the legendary Robert Capa, and it appears at the beginning of “War Photographer,” which is a documentary about Jim Nachtwey, whose life and ideas are no less stunning than the beautifully grim pictures ...  (Read more)

My newest story, an opinion piece in today’s New York Times, can be found here.

One of the pleasures of summer in New York is the Shakespeare festival at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, where the plays are performed outdoors, free of charge. A few nights ago I went with a friend to see “Twelfth ...  (Read more)