Eric has launched his new book.
Just in from Eric Walberg
Presstv interview: Where are the resistance allies? Arabs, Turkey, Russia?
As usual Shia are on their own. Even defending Sunnis. With Bruno Baklini from Brazil. i'm on at 46:30
Peace & Socialism
Inconvenient truths: the Shia Salah al-Din and 10/7
Jerusalem's hard-fought liberation, now in process, is a recapitulation of the Christian Crusades of the 11th—13th cc, this time, not by the knight on a white horse of legend, but through the long march of guerilla warfare by the much maligned Shia. This follows on the liberation of Iran from its Judeo-Christian yoke in 1979 and Iraq 25 years later, ironically by the US, forming the second Shia majority state. But it is the Shia minority of Lebanon that holds the keys to Jerusalem. Their 40% of the Lebanese population punches well above their weight in a fractious country split among Christians, and Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Sacred economics: Part iii. Using money to destroy money
The history of our Story
Firing the first shots: Honduras and odious debt
Out of control, permanent crisis, role of government
клин клином or Make love not war
Exercise: rethink the Story, demonetize
What you can do
Cold ugly cynicism or warm beautiful passion
Culture & Religion
Sacred ping pong
Rumi: Come out of the circle of time into the circle of love.
I have taken up ping pong as my sole viable remaining sport in my 70s. It really was made for frustrated sedentary has-beens. I played real tennis till tennis elbow set in, but even the thought of lurching, run around asphalt (let alone falling) makes it easy to shift into a scaled-down version. The paddle weighs almost nothing, the ball nothing. You play for an hour without noticing the time. Unless you have bodily aches and pains making anything unpleasant. But even then, if they're not too serious, you don't notice the pain (e.g., sciatica) so much, you don't suffer.
From the start, I told Marty, 'let's not bother scoring. Let's just make every rally the best.'
Ramadan fasting: Less is more
Quran 20:81 Eat of the good things We have provided for your sustenance, but commit no excess therein.
Fasting is good for you. Very good. Josh Mittledorf, in Cracking the aging code: The new science of growing old and what it means for staying young, 2016, estimates he's added a decade, a good, healthy decade, to his life with his regime, which includes a weekly fast from 10pm Wednesday to 8 am Friday, when he only drinks water. He has figured out other ways to trick his mind into operating in its highest metabolic mode, but the main thing is the fast. Fasting has long been a spiritual exercise to quieten the body's incessant desires for petty satisfactions, real world distractions.
It is of course the no-brainer way to lose weight, but the marvel, paradox, is that for all living creatures, reducing consumption to just above starvation guarantees better health and longer life.
Books of Interest
Essays on War and Peace ebook by Eric Walberg
Interview with Opperman Report July 2024 -- Ames and Cold War then and now
Review: Scott Anderson, Four CIA spies at the dawn of the Cold War -- a tragedy in three acts (2021)
Review: Diana Johnstone, Circle in the Darkness: Memoir of a World Watcher (2020)
Review: Richard Falk, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim, Clarity Press (2021)
Travel
Sacred transport
Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts. No!
Well then, don your bicycle helmet. No! Drivers actually pay less attention to you if they see a helmet, figuring they're not likely to kill a smarty-pants, and are less careful around you (2x as likely to pass close). A toque or baseball cap in case of rain is more practical.
No-carbon-footprint travels to Toronto's outer spaces
Walberg's bike adventures in and around Toronto (ok, walking around Gaspe and some religion too)
Peterborough-Oshawa-Toronto by bike 14 July 2024
Biking the Grand: Reinventing tourism 06 July 2023
Shakespeare by bike 25 June 2022
Middle East
Presstv interview: Where are the resistance allies? Arabs, Turkey, Russia?
As usual Shia are on their own. Even defending Sunnis. With Bruno Baklini from Brazil. i'm on at 46:30
Presstv interview: Israel's latest horrors in Syria sure to do the trick
When will Russia pull the plug on Israel in Syria and Lebanon? Putin learned the hard way with its attempt to talk sense to the US. Will he have to wait to be shafted by the other half of US-Israel?
I'm on at 4:20
Europe, Canada & U.S.A.
Presstv interview: What makes US mass shooting capital of universe?
Do I hear Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine? Israel?
2024 - Historic al-Quds Day
It took a genocide for Torontonians to commit themselves to the goal of defeating Israel. It turns out Iranian President Akhmedinejad was right after all. 'Israel' must be wiped off the map. It is an ugly cancer that could kill its Earthly host. But it will disappear only by the will of the people, Palestinian, Canadian, Jewish-Christian-Muslim united.
Russia and Soviet Union
Подарок Трампа Сирии: мир во всем мире, благоволение к людям
Russian translation of РI считает, что главным событием 2018 года стало решение президента Трампа вывести войска из Сирии. Этим действием президент немедленно противопоставил себя не только всему вашингтонскому истеблишменту, но даже собственной команде национальной безопасности, состоящей в основном из сторонников американской империи разной степени радикальности. Канадский геополитик, автор книги 2011 года «Постмодернистская империя», публицист в целом левых взглядов, но симпатизирующий консервативному анти-интервенционизму, Эрик Вальберг в специальном материале для нашего издания попытался суммировать все те чувства, которые испытывают сегодня противники американского империализма в англо-саксонском мире. Будем надеяться, что сегодняшнее сообщение о приостановке вывода американских войск из Сирии не свидетельствует об изменении политического курса президента и что в 2019 году мы увидим наконец долгожданную нормализацию отношений России и США.
Внезапно президент Трамп перестал быть дураком, марионеткой своих генералов. Его последние, исторические твиты взорвались как настоящие бомбы. «Уход из Сирии не был сюрпризом. Я выступал за это годами, и шесть месяцев назад, когда я об этом говорил публично, то согласился подождать. Россия, Иран, Сирия и другие — это локальные враги ИГИЛ. Мы выполняли там (так! опечатка, должно быть «их». — Э.В.) работу».
Eric Walberg Interviews
Connect with Eric Walberg
Eric's latest book The Canada Israel Nexus is available here http://www.claritypress.com/WalbergIV.html
Eric's From Postmodernism to Postsecularism is available here
Eric's Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics
and the Great Games is available here
Eric's Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics
and the Great Games is available here
Canadian Eric Walberg is known worldwide as a journalist specializing in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia. A graduate of University of Toronto and Cambridge in economics, he has been writing on East-West relations since the 1980s.
He has lived in both the Soviet Union and Russia, and then Uzbekistan, as a UN adviser, writer, translator and lecturer. Presently a writer for the foremost Cairo newspaper, Al Ahram, he is also a regular contributor to Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Global Research, Al-Jazeerah and Turkish Weekly, and is a commentator on Voice of the Cape radio.
