In this video blog, Massachusetts Review editor and translator Jim Hicks reads selections from the English translation of Erri De Luca’s A Dissenting Word. De Luca is currently being tried in Italy for expressing — during an interview on the Italian site of the Huffington Post — his solidarity with the Susa Valley’s NO TAV activists, a . . .
Read MoreYesterday morning Charlie Hebdo hit the newstands in France and sold out within minutes. The cover of this “survival issue”—the newspaper’s first since two armed gunmen slaughtered eight of its journalists, killing four others as well at its Paris offices—appeared with the title, “All is pardoned,” and featured a caricature of Muhammed wearing an . . .
Read MoreTo die with a pencil in your hand, a box of colors, as you sketch a pratfall for some tyrant or other, using the unrivaled instrument of the smile. From the page before them they must have raised their eyes toward the hooded assassins—the ones who didn’t dare show their faces. They . . .
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Cincinnati, OhioJanuary 2, 2015 Yesterday, January 1, 2015, marked the two hundred and eleventh anniversary of Haiti’s independence. In ten more days, January 12, 2015, Haiti, Haitians, and Haiti allies will commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 7.0 Richter scale earthquake that left 316,000 people dead, thousands more injured, and an approximate . . .
Read MoreYou know the call, so here I’ll simply turn it to task: “Can we get a jury?” “Hell no!” “Can we get a jury?” “Hell no!” After these long years of hate, and after this, our nation’s latest failed Reconstruction, what else could we expect? Justice? Democracy? Some measure of public institutions . . .
Read MoreOf the dozens of posts I’ve written in the years since the magazine added this blog to its website, this is the first that has worked its way through three working titles. Having just returned from a grueling, difficult, and—I believe—essential two weeks at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC . . .
Read MoreThe event in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 set the course for the twentieth century, yet its story reads like a political thriller straight out of Hollywood. Under the guise of national interest, a brilliant intelligence officer plans to create an international incident. He assembles, arms, and trains a team of outsiders . . .
Read MoreGiven the state of post-Berlusconi Italy today, it was perhaps to be expected. Yet the judge’s decision at Erri De Luca’s preliminary hearing—to proceed to trial—is still, to put it mildly, disappointing. That the trial date is set for January 28th at least gives those of us who still believe in free speech . . .
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On my computer is a dataset, ICPSR 6399, cataloging every homicide committed in Chicago over a thirty year period, along with all the particulars the police could gather by investigation. The dataset includes nearly 24,000 killings, with murder weapons ranging from ash trays to padlocks to pantyhose. One weapon is preeminent: between . . .
Read MoreDear Eric Holder: I write, as one of a growing chorus of voices, to ask you to grant early release to Dicky Joe Jackson, a convicted felon currently serving time in the federal penitentiary in Forrest City, Arkansas. Jackson was sentenced in 1996 of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, in addition . . .
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