Friday, February 21, 2014

Resources for February 21, 2014

Horton, Scott. "The Torture Doctors." Harpers (November 4, 2013) [An expert panel concludes that the Pentagon and the CIA ordered physicians to violate the Hippocratic Oath.]

Kilkenny, Allison. "The Poster Boy For Unending War." The Smirking Chimp (February 20, 2014)

Sovyn, Olena. "#Euromaidan Protests Spread Throughout Ukraine After Explosion of Violence." Global Voices (February 20, 2014)

"Protests in Venezuela." Global Voices (Ongoing archive: 2014)

Carlin, Dan. "Blueprint for Armageddon I." Hardcore History #50 (October 29, 2013)

Hudson, David. "Zero Dark Thirty and the CIA." Keyframe (May 8, 2013)

"Zero Dark Thirty (USA: Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)." Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Benton, Michael Dean. "Introduction and Discussion of The Battle of Algiers." Dialogic Cinephilia (February 20, 2014)

The Battle of Algiers (Italy/Algeria: Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)." Dialogic Cinephilia (Ongoing Archive)

Democracy Now Headlines for February 20, 2014


Chen, Stephen. "A New Cold War? Ukraine Violence Escalates, Leaked Tape Suggests U.S. Was Plotting Coup." Democracy Now (February 20, 2014)


Merriam-Webster's Word-of-the-Day
small beer \SMAWL-BEER\

noun 1 : weak or inferior beer; 2 : something of small importance : trivial

The money we spend on cable is small beer compared to the mortgage payment we have to come up with every month.

"The main drink was 'small beer', which had a low alcohol content—just enough to preserve it—and was drunk by almost everyone, from children to old men, instead of water." — From an article by Alex Fensome in The Dominion Post (New Zealand), January 13, 2014


"Small beer" dates from Shakespeare's day. The Bard didn't coin it (he would have been just a child in 1568, the date of the first documented instance of "small beer"), but he did put the term to good use. In Henry VI, Part 2, for example, the rebel Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes king, he will "make it felony to drink small beer." In Othello, Desdemona asks Iago to describe a "deserving woman." Iago responds by listing praises for ten lines, only to conclude that such a woman would be suited "to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer"; in other words, to raise babies and keep track of insignificant household expenses. Desdemona quickly retorts, declaring Iago's assertion a "most lame and impotent conclusion."

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