Short Fuse

Short Fuse Interview: The Enigma of Vo Nguyen Giap — Military Mastermind, or “Marginalized Hero”?

October 19, 2013
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iIf we lift the fog hovering over the War in Vietnam what we find a story nearly unknown in the West: far from devising and launching the Tet Offensive, Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap consistently and adamantly opposed it.

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Short Fuse Book Review: “Dissident Gardens” — Fantasy Meets Radical Politics

September 21, 2013
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It’s hard to grasp how Jonathan Lethem assimilated all this material — historical and fantastic — and gave it new narrative life in Dissident Gardens, except by granting, to start with, his special genius for absorption.

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Short Fuse Film Review: “The Attack” — A Compelling Look at the Conflict Between Israelis and Palestinians

August 22, 2013
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The Attack is a movie that tries to get to the core of violence without dissolving into its depiction.

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Fuse News: Farewell, Elmore Leonard

August 20, 2013
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Writer Elmore Leonard, passed away on Tuesday, 8/20/13, 87 years old. Age no doubt chipped away at him physically but not so far as I could tell at his style and his prose.

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Short Fuse Book Review: “Zealot” — Jesus as Jewish Peasant and Revolutionary

August 14, 2013
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I am a secular Jew who can’t but welcome Zealot‘s conclusion that Christianity pulled a role reversal on Jesus, and made this failed revolutionary Jew into someone who eschewed his people and its traditions in favor of Roman power.

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Fuse News: Paleo-Atheism, Susan Jacoby, sexting. . .

August 1, 2013
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New media always abets the power to articulate fantasy and fetish.

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Short Fuse Film Review: “Computer Chess” — An Engaging Dream

July 29, 2013
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The eccentric and charming “Computer Chess” focuses on a group of geeks concentrating on what they see as the infinite microcosm to be found on the sixty four squares of the chess board.

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Film Review: “Hannah Arendt” — Heidegger in Jerusalem

July 11, 2013
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“Hannah Arendt” is a substantial and worthwhile portrait of the influential and controversial thinker who gave us the phrase “the banality of evil.”

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Short Fuse Book Review: A Fascinating Tale of “Strange Rebels”

July 3, 2013
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Author Christian Caryl ends “Strange Rebels” with the idea that “if the experiences of 1979 suggest one conclusion, it is that we should never underestimate the powers of reaction.”

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Short Fuse News: “Man of Steel” — Send the Pixels Back Where They Came From

June 20, 2013
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New York suffers what might be the effects of innumerable 9/11s.

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