A Food Fight to End Them All

Mary — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:04:14 -0300

Watch this incredibly smart short film, called "Food Fight". It is the history of modern warfare from WWII to the present as re-enacted by food (Japanese are sushi, Americans are hamburgers, etc.). The director, Stefan Nadelman, describes it as a "smorgasbord of aggression" and you'll see why. (The end is particularly effective.) You might have to watch it more than once to successfully identify all the battles, but it's worth the effort.

Troubling Thought at 2:05pm

Mary — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:04:00 -0300

I am interested in digital activism to the extent that is is politically transformative, that it can give marginalized political actors more power. I usually think about this in the progressive context of human rights activists and democracy promoters but, as the case of Internet jihad demonstrates, violent and hyper-conservative marginalized groups are also empowered by the Internet.

Digital activism is an array of tactics but implies no moral value. I am interested in digital activism because it empowers global progressives, but am I being naive? Will an equal or greater number of conservative political actors use the Internet to

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Jihad's Digital Activists

Mary — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 02:36:26 -0300

image from a terror-promoting web site celebrating the attack in Kenya in 1998

I'm wary of even discussing this topic. I need to begin by saying that this post in no way advocates terrorism or violence of any kind. Terrorism and war and hatred make me sick and sad. Rather, this article is an analysis of how Islamic terrorists are incredibly effective at using the Internet to active their strategic aims while traditional NGOs lag behind. It is about implications.

An article in the New York Times today, An Internet Jihad Aims at US Viewers, inspired me to finally

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Terrorism in my Morocco

Mary — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 11:29:00 -0400

The news of Attorney General Gonzalez's Senate hearing and the massacre at Virginia Tech grabbed most of the headlines in the US this week. However, you may have noticed a small item in the international section of the newspaper or a line scrolling by at the bottom of the screen during a newscast: Morocco has experienced three suicide bombings in the past two month, two of them last week alone. This new violence paints Morocco as yet another redoubt of violence and fanaticism in the Middle East. But I know Moroccans better than that. I lived in Morocco for two

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