Media

In the pre-Internet age, Raed al-Saeed would be punching above his weight. Last month, the 33-year-old Saudi posted a six-minute film on his blog that has thrust him into a millennial debate previously waged by only mullahs and popes: Can religion be evil? "My goal was not to make me or my blog famous," said al-Saeed. His intentions were more subtle: "Don't be brainwashed into judging a religion by one video made by someone who hates that religion."… more

If I didn't already prefer Ketel One vodka in my martinis, I might very well call for my own boycott against Absolut.

Not because I agree with the knuckleheads who fear that the Swedish company's advertisement featuring a map of the American Southwest as Mexican territory is fueling ethnic secessionism, but because, in its attempt to lure upper-middle-class consumers in Mexico, the company played on an age-old canard that has historically been used to justify discrimination against Mexican immigrants and… more

For the past year, twenty-something Washington Post reporter Amar Bakshi has traveled across the globe talking to ordinary people of his generation -- farmers, rebels, rappers, laborers -- whose primary experience of the United States has been with George W. Bush at the helm.

What he found was eye-opening. Having just returned to the U.S. this month, Amar will offer some new perspectives on the texture of pro- and anti-Americanism at the local level.

Amar C. Bakshi is currently reporting for the… more

All right, I admit it. I sold out. Last Wednesday night, I went on "The Colbert Report," and I can't quite shake the feeling that I made a pact with the devil.

But did I?

I published a book four months ago, and everyone knows a sit-down with Stephen Colbert gives book sales a healthy bump.

So when a "Report" producer called last month to invite me to the show, I said what any author eager to sell more books would say:… more

Six weeks ago, 29-year-old Culver City Internet copy writer Christian Lander started a blog, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, on a whim, thinking he'd poke fun at himself and fellow white people. Spending roughly two hours a day writing satirical posts about "stuff white people like," Lander had no idea how much his little inside joke would catch on. In the first week, the site received about 200 hits a day. The next week it jumped to 600, and then 4,000 the next. By… more

Primary-Palooza! (Brian Lehrer Live/New York Public Radio)

Director of the American Strategy Program Steve Clemons participated in a televised show with New York public radio host Brian Lehrer in a discussion about new media, blogs, Facebook, microjournalism and how it was changing the structural ecosystem of political organizing and participation.

While the United States and Europe share much in common, they also exhibit basic differences, an "American Way" and a "European Way," that are diverging and had been leading to frequent clashes even before the U.N. rift over Iraq. In a globalized capitalist world, where all nations are seeking models of development that allow "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for its people, this clash within the West is every bit as elemental as the clash with Arab-Islam because… more

On a muggy August afternoon in Baltimore, trash scuttled down Guilford Avenue, the breeze smelling like rain and asphalt. It was the last week of shooting for the fifth and final season of the HBO drama The Wire, and the crew was filming a scene in front of a boarded-up elementary school. Cast members had been joined by forty or so day players -- mostly kids from the neighborhood. Earlier, the episode’s director, Clark Johnson, had been giving some… more

Are you outraged by Rush Limbaugh’s characterizing some Iraq War critics as "phony soldiers"? How do you feel about Joy Behar’s suggesting, on The View, that Republican presidential candidates are Klansmen?

There’s a lot of hot talk going around, for two reasons. But there’s also a cooling counter-trend.

The first reason for heated rhetoric is the fragmentation of the media, which encourages talking heads to turn up the burners. In the 500-channel universe -- not to mention blogs and Web sites --… more

Is there anything redeeming about the tabloid news? Any justification for being preoccupied with the doings and dallyings and dyings of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Anna Nicole Smith?

And how ‘bout that O.J. Simpson? Or Phil Spector? As their cases remind us, sometimes the issue is not the damage that stars do to themselves, but rather the damage they do to others.

A society functions only as long as it maintains a common moral standard. So if the rich and famous… more