politics | ZETEO

Robert Durst: Jinxed by Viral Media

March 16, 2015 by fritztucker

I just finished watching the last episode of HBO’s The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst, only to find out that Durst was arrested yesterday in connection with the 2000 murder of Susan Berman. Filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, with the help of viral media, may have finally done what our nation’s government(s) have been unable to do for the past 25 years: hold Robert Durst accountable for three potential murders. The similarities between this incident and the Bill Cosby and Ray Rice fiascos this past year […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: crime, death, ethics, film, law, movies, New York City, politics, technology

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International Women’s Day

March 9, 2015 by fritztucker

It’s popular for leftists this time of year to point out the (debatable) fact that International Women’s Day was originally known as International Working Women’s Day. I’m all for intersectional studies, and believe that the world would benefit from examining a different intersection of oppression every day. Insofar as there is going to be a Labor Day, a Black History Month, and an International Day of Persons with Disabilities, however, I’m glad that there’s no “Working” qualifier in International Women’s Day anymore. Women of […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: capitalism, civil rights, gender, History, politics, pornography, rape, sexual assault, sexuality, technology, women

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Michael “Little B” Lewis, abandoned orphan who has spent more continuous time incarcerated than any person starting his sentence at the same age.

How to treat a boy convicted at age 13

February 16, 2015 by Alexia Raynal

Last month, The Daily Kos published an article written by Shaun King about Michael “Little B” Lewis, a 13-year-old Atlanta resident who was convicted for murder in 1997. In one of the first paragraphs, King explains: [Lewis’s] story had gripped the city and was regularly on the nightly news and on the front page of the AJC. They said he murdered a dad in cold blood in front of his kids on January 21, 1997. I didn’t know if it was true or not, but […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: childhood, children, civil rights, crime, education, politics

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The Death of Free Speech

February 16, 2015 by fritztucker

(Warning: The above video depicts or describes the murder of several individuals, including children.) The recent shooting in Copenhagen, like most terrorist acts, was reprehensible, unforgivable, ineffective, and immature. At the same time, holding a free speech conference in Copenhagen seems somewhat masturbatory. According to the Committee To Protect Journalists, no Danish journalists have been killed since at least 1992; whereas the most deadly country in the world for journalists in the last two decades has been Iraq, with Syria in distant […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker, ZiLL • Tags: civil rights, Copenhagen, ethics, free speech, media, politics, war

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Examining White People

February 9, 2015 by fritztucker

Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny by Mark Sandiford, National Film Board of Canada I just watched a great film, Qallunaat! Why White People are Funny, an anthropological study of White people featuring the Inuit writer Zebedee Nungak. He begins: We Inuit are deeply fascinated by Qallunaat and their ways. The word “Qallunaat” is used universally by Inuit to describe White people. But it doesn’t refer so much to skin color, as a state of mind, a culture that has reached all corners […]

Categories: Fritz Tucker • Tags: anthropology, capitalism, children, colonialism, education, ethics, film, gender, History, immigration, politics, race

Photo by Lloyd Mulvey shows actors Gibson Frazier (playing Anton) and Zoe Winters (playing Alina) in the Pearl Theatre’s staged reading of Oded Gross’s The Government Inspector, January 2015; directed by Lucie Tiberghien.

“We’re merely pawns in a corrupt system”

February 5, 2015 by William Eaton

The comedian, actor, songwriter, and playwright Oded Gross has done a marvelous (to include quite funny) job of updating Gogol’s classic satire of bad government: The Government Inspector. I will get right to the new text, near the beginning, when the officials of a small town realize that a government inspector is coming. ARTEMIS (The Director of Health): What does he want to inspect us for? ANTON (The Mayor): He’s traveling here to deem whether or not there’s any unnecessary […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: corruption, Gogol, government, politics, The Bible, theater

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Boko Haram: On lack of sympathy

January 26, 2015 by Alexia Raynal

Earlier this month, UK-based researcher Mark Hay wrote about the press’ lack of interest in Boko Haram’s most recent massacre. But rather than being downright condemning, Hay wrote analytically. While acknowledging the influence of racism and Western views of Africa on this matter, the writer points out to a much larger lack of sympathy for those with whom we fail to identify. Hay explains that to Westerners, the events at Baga seem distant, chaotic, and devoid of familiar faces. For many in the press, that murky […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: History, politics, reading, writing

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The American Splitting Experiment

January 24, 2015 by William Eaton

In The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan, Rick Perlstein splits Americans of that recent period into two “tribes.” One comprised the suspicious circles, which had once been small, but now were exceptionally broad, who considered the self-evident lesson of the 1960s and the low, dishonest war that defined the decade to be the imperative to question authority, unsettle ossified norms, and expose dissembling leaders. The other tribe “found another lesson to be self-evident: never […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: American Dream, American history, class warfare, Declaration of Independence, History, Lewis Mumford, money, politics

Amnesia: hackers and subversion in Australia

January 16, 2015 by William Eaton

[email_link] Amnesia begins with a hacker known as Angel. She releases a computer worm which opens the gates of CIA-sponsored prisons around the world. Many of these are in Australia. Some suspected terrorists manage to escape; others are shot by prison guards. Angel goes on the run. Her mother, a well-known actress, asks investigative journalist Felix Moore to write the girl’s life story. The idea is to create a wave of public sympathy for her and help her avoid extradition […]

Categories: Catherine Vigier, ZiR • Tags: capitalism, crime, History, literature, politics

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ZETEO

Zeteo (ζητέω): to challenge, question, dispute, explore the forgotten and ignored

Tag: politics

Robert Durst: Jinxed by Viral Media

International Women’s Day

How to treat a boy convicted at age 13

The Death of Free Speech

Examining White People

“We’re merely pawns in a corrupt system”

Boko Haram: On lack of sympathy

The American Splitting Experiment

Amnesia: hackers and subversion in Australia