After reviewing so many well-meaning, badly-written books, it’s a pleasure to dissect the work of a skilled liar. The liar in question is Leon Aron, the book is Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life…
Jul 12, 2016 | Comments (7)
After reviewing so many well-meaning, badly-written books, it’s a pleasure to dissect the work of a skilled liar. The liar in question is Leon Aron, the book is Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life…
Jul 12, 2016 | Comments (7)
It’s just past Christmas here in Germany and and headed to Hamburg to report on 32c3, the annual Chaos Computer Club conference. And I gotta admit, I’m a bit unnerved.
Dec 27, 2015 | Comments (4)
When I first started reporting on the subprime suburb of Victorville, I little expected that the neighboring town of Adelanto would become ground zero for a fight between billionaires on one side and poor kids on the other.
Dec 5, 2015 | Comments Off on Pulling the Trigger: School Privatization in California’s Subprime Suburbs
The War Nerd and host Mark Ames recorded a special free episode of Radio War Nerd, their subscriber-supported podcast show, to cover the recent Paris attacks.
Nov 16, 2015 | Comments (2)
A bit of random war nerd porn from my Surveillance Valley archive research. This one comes courtesy of a taxpayer funded military rag called “Army Research & Development.” It shows a rare specimen: a 1969 vintage Pentagon Quadruped Hotrod. Kinda…
Nov 9, 2015 | Comments Off on From the Archives: Pentagon’s 1969 Quadruped Hotrod
This article was first published on timshorrock.com. In January 2010, a few days after a Nigerian terrorist came close to blowing up a US passenger plane on its way to Detroit, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser made an extraordinary confession. “I told…
Oct 27, 2015 | Leave Comment
Zinky Boys focuses, much more than any Nam memoir I know, on the dead. Even the title refers to the closed zinc coffins in which Soviet dead were sent home.
Oct 8, 2015 | Comments (1)
I always wanted to be a number one. But now, when I am number one, probably most interesting personality and of course most interesting writer of my country, now approaching 57, I am rather sad.
May 24, 2015 | Comments (2)
The Medvedeva woman was impossible as everybody knows. She was prone to bouts of drunkedness, fits of hysteria, you name it. She was awkward, did not know how to fit into society, she was ready to love or hate passionately at…
Apr 14, 2015 | Comments (2)
“Surveillance Valley” will tell the story of how Silicon Valley turned the Internet into the greatest surveillance apparatus in the history of mankind.
Feb 23, 2015 | Comments (1)
This is a slightly abridged version of an interview conducted by the great Berlin-based journalist Àngel Ferrero. It was originally published in the Spanish media cooperative La Marea.
Jan 9, 2015 | Leave Comment
The notion that the French are cowards is total bullshit, and anybody who knows anything about European military history knows damn well that over the past thousand years, the French have the most glorious military history in Europe, maybe the world.
Jul 4, 2014 | Comments (25)
For the past six years I’ve been a journalist. Last year I was brought up on criminal charges by a Ukrainian court, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. All I did was write a few words about the truth, which unfortunately later on I was unable to prove.
Jun 11, 2014 | Comments (14)
The crimes of history are optional. We mix, match and discard according to taste and convenience. It’s useful for Applebaum’s Tory backers to remember Stalin’s crimes because they can still use them to bash anyone who might want to beef up the National Health system with higher taxes. “Today an extra 1% VAT on my Jag convertible, tomorrow Kolyma!” is a very familiar war cry from these crusaders for human rights.
Dec 19, 2013 | Comments (12)
But there is not any “final” thing in politics, least of all in Ukrainian politics, or Eastern European politics in general. The keys to understanding today’s political landscape in Ukraine can be found not in the European Enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century, or the Russian political discourse of “slavophiles” vs. “westernizers” of the 19th century. Instead, one should reach back to the genius of the Ukrainian soul revealed some 150 years ago by Nikolai Gogol.
Dec 14, 2013 | Comments (7)
Donetsk is a fascist city. I’m not using this term in the cheap way that it gets bandied around at a dinner table discussion between Republicans and Democrats. Donetsk actually is fascist. There is one party, people get beaten for opposition views, information is controlled, nationalist sentiment is enflamed with insane rhetoric about America/NATO plots to enslave Ukraine, and fear is the main motivating factor.
Dec 2, 2013 | Comments (7)
Vietnam, a war characterized by thousands of small skirmishes, was richer in incident and gore than an inner-city basketball tournament. When next you hear that rough voice asking, “War — what is it good for?”, you tell it: “First-person memoirs, that’s what!”
Nov 30, 2013 | Comments (1)
On Friday morning, 23-year-old Paul Ciancia walked into Terminal 3 of the Los Angeles LAX airport, pulled a Smith & Wesson AR-15 semi-automatic rifle from a duffel bag and started shooting his way through a security checkpoint. He specifically…
Nov 5, 2013 | Comments (3)
Ever since Malcolm Gladwell’s “David and Goliath” came out in early October, he’s been on a non-stop promotional tour. He’s appeared on the BBC and the Daily Show, he’s done Twitter group chats and Ted Talk Q&As, and has had…
Oct 26, 2013 | Comments (1)
The recent death of Andrea Dworkin didn’t even make the small print news in Russia. Feminism, at least the feminism of the kind Westerners take for granted, never caught on. Patronizing Westerners often see that as a sign that Russians…
Sep 14, 2013 | Comments (34)