Birds Eating Birds

Death as Concept, Death as Survival, Death as Distant Reality. The first time I became aware of the concept of death was from the tag on a hair dryer. “Warn children about the danger of death from electrocution,” it read, under a cute rendering of a bathtub with lightning bolts all around it. As long-haired …

Homs, The Syrian Revolution, and the Icon

Abdel Basset Sarout breaks from silence to tell his side of the Syrian Civil War. Something that bothers me deeply about the western world is our relationship with Syrians. We have a real lack of awareness for the actual conflict happening there. Even now, all people are aware of the Syrian refugees whereas few understand the …

Ahead of 9-11 Anniversary, Firefighters Retell the Story

The controlled demolition model solves many riddles about the World Trade Center collapse. Sitting in the middle of Lincoln Hall on Saturday, to my right was my partner, Kate, and to my left was a new friend, John. Both of them are East Coast natives, born and raised in New York State, just a short …

THE REVOLVING DOOR OF JIHAD

Featured Image by Keylay Tukor Syria takes the heat for the cold war Western nations largely support regime change in Syria but haven’t the will to do it. That is understandable because Iraq, Afghanistan, and more recently, Libya have all turned out disastrous, following Western-sponsored regime change. Each mission has contributed to the illicit proliferation …

Doctors on the Edge of Syria

50 Feet From Syria at the heart of civil war In April of 2011, the Syrian Civil War began after months of peaceful protest against the Assad Family and the dictatorship of his Ba’ath Party. Syrians were united in a widespread call for democratization across the Arab nations. The Syrian government responded not with reform but …

The Greatest Nation’s Festering Conspiracy

Featured image by Keylay Tukor Confronting 9/11 for the Sake of Healing The events of September 11th, 2001 have never been adequately explained. After the initial shock, having witnessed something never-before-seen, few people were objective about what they saw and desperate for a clear explanation, they clung to the hastily-produced reports and television specials that followed. …

Where is Abdel Basset Sarout?

The silence of Basset stirs many rumors. He was a star in Syria as the national soccer team’s goalkeeper, and were he to have fled Syria like four million others since 2011, peace and good fortune would characterize his life. He might have been in the World Cup by joining a different nation’s team, becoming …

Yemen Crisis and the Wheel of Contradiction

The Yemen Crisis only recently grabbed my attention during the usual morning routine of reading the news over breakfast. Lately, a story of violence, destruction, extremism, and political crisis breaks nearly everyday. Not only are there too many civil wars going on right now to cover, they tend to read like sports articles and analysis: …

Political Prison of The Islamic State

Peshmerga fighters in Syria. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images The writer is beleaguered from studying The Islamic State and the whole geopolitical shit-show of Syria and Iraq. But I am blessed compared to those who once called the cities of Kobani, Homs, Aleppo, Sinjar, Mosul, and hundreds more small villages, home. Those meek, religious residents …