The Dome of the rock sits on the most controversial piece of land in the world. The Dome itself is situated on a disputed area in the middle of Jerusalem in the very center of Israel. Centuries of conflict have enveloped this tiny sanctuary. The Dome is at the center of a current, ongoing military and religious conflict. Just […]
In the years following World War II the United States had many economic ties with Cuba. Most involved human exploitation and criminal activity in some way. The Mob moved in and legalized gambling in an attempt to lure American tourists. Prostitution and illegal narcotics were also promoted on the island. The tourist industry flourished. The […]
The United States is the last country in the world which should be speaking out about human rights abuses when it continues to torture people at military bases and inside its military, federal, and state prisons across the country. The US has the world’s largest prison population by a huge margin. There are nearly 2.2 […]
The Saga of the Greenlanders and the The Saga of Eirik the Red tell of the Viking discovery of North America. The two accounts were written independently, but the stories are ‘interlaced’ (they reference each other). Both tell of events which took place in the early 11th century and passed down by word of mouth […]
The Saga of Hrafnkel Frey’s Godi (Author unknown; late 13th century). The Saga of Hrafnkel, Priest of Frey, is one of the best known of the Old Icelandic legends dealing with a feud, as most sagas do. Hrafnkel’s Saga is unusual in its directness and for its simple, forthright structure which focuses directly on the feud […]
What is happening in Gaza is not new. Misguided religious beliefs and simmering, deeply entrenched racism each play a role in creating the conditions for genocide. In many cases, violence is perpetrated by one ethnic group upon another based solely on religious affiliation. In Cambodia, organized religion was considered a threat to civil order, and […]
According to J. Samuel Walker in Prompt & Utter Destruction, the five fundamental considerations which led to the use of the atomic bomb grew out of circumstances that existed in the summer of 1945, when an especially brutal island-by-island military offensive was still being waged in the Pacific. The battle of Okinawa had sacrificed tens […]
The government of Japan had many reasons to resist the Potsdam Declaration initially. As discussed in J. Samuel Walker’s Prompt & Utter Destruction, The Declaration – also known as the Proclamation Defining Terms for Japanese Surrender – was a document outlining the conditions for Japan’s surrender in World War II issued by the US, Great […]
Federalist Paper #10 is a continuation of Federalist Paper #9, entitled, The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard Against Domestic Faction and Insurrection, in which James Madison argues for the need of a successful Union to “break the control and violence of faction.” According to Madison, these factions are “diseases” born of dangerous vices. […]
According to “Publius” in The Federalist Papers, a faction is “A number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or a majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the […]
Jason Darensburg's Blog-o-rama 