Marine Le Pen will never be president of France. But if the French political balance moves further toward the fringes in the next decade, her National Front (FN) could end up as a necessary partner in any right-wing coalition. In... Continue Reading →
GETT: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is a small-bore, low-budget film about marriage and divorce in Israel. The action takes place almost entirely in two rooms, a Jerusalem Bet Din (Rabbinical Court) and its waiting room, accommodations that look like... Continue Reading →
French country-wide local elections will occur next week in which president François Hollande risks another disavowal by the people. Marine Le Pen’s nationalist National Front party will probably win the most votes as it did in European Parliament elections last... Continue Reading →
Fifty Shades of Grey is a hilarious movie. I was going to write profoundly hilarious but nothing about Shades is profound. It’s an erotic sado-masochist fantasy in which the audience, according to reports and my own quick look around the... Continue Reading →
In 2006, Clint Eastwood’s film Letters from Iwo Jima received many awards, some for Eastwood as the director, others as best picture of the year. Letters is told as a flashback to the battle of Iwo Jima in 1944, provoked... Continue Reading →
Everyone wonders why the U.S. military command announced outlines of the plan to retake the city of Mosul from Islamic State control. There is surface clarity but there must be more underneath. The battle plan itself is simple: overwhelming force,... Continue Reading →
Media accounts of gruesome executions and beheadings carried out by ISIS fighters over the past week have put in the background another aspect of their strategy besides barbarism: the process of constructing a state. Islamic State’s leadership announced that it... Continue Reading →
Co-authored by Michael Chioke* The outside world’s war with ISIS seems to be evolving in a more positive direction. In the battle for Kobani on the Syrian-Turkish border, ISIS fighters are retreating even although elsewhere in Syria and Iraq they... Continue Reading →
Milan is not one of Italy’s most-visited travel destinations. Guide-books often say it’s a two-star city. Rick Steve’s excellent Italy 2014 says, “OK, it’s a big, intense city, so you probably won’t linger.” But he’s speaking here to the average... Continue Reading →
Tiersky's Viewpoint 