popular culture

Set on the mean streets of Jaffa, politics are ever-present in a tragic tale of a drug deal gone bad. Meanwhile, in the city that gives the film its title Jewish-only housing is being approved and properties developed.

Tamara, the girl who is dead but doesn’t know it, who exists only within the “magic circle” of a virtual game, takes center stage in this week’s episode, and in our commentary.

For Beck, social justice is the new fascism.

Among other clues to this sci-fi opera, our Caprica watchers took particular note of a bobbleheaded bull on the dashboard of a Tauron killer. What can we learn from the possibility that Capricans can be as kitsch-obsessed, cigarette-addicted, and as reckless with civil liberties as earthlings can be?

The exaggerated indulgence in high-risk activities at the Winter Olympics offers more than a subtle glimpse into the deeper connections the Greeks perceived between sport and war. In the US we want greater speed, but fewer crashes; higher platforms, but we don’t want anyone to get hurt. We imagine ever-riskier surgical procedures, but we seem surprised and morally outraged if they fail.

Many Israelis and Jews took to Avatar with aplomb, likening it to Kabbalah and turning out in record numbers in Israel. But it remains to be seen how Jews and Israelis will respond to Palestinian protesters who, dressed as the film’s besieged protagonists, aim to position themselves in the hearts of observers as the sympathetic underdogs.

The recent firing of a progressive leader by the Jerusalem Post has lit up the international press. If Israel is entering its own McCarthy era, as many fear, it is not without American support—on both sides. So where’s the American media coverage?

Sara Miles was a journalist and a chef who wandered into a San Francisco church one Sunday, got religion, and stayed to start a food pantry that now feeds 600 families a week. We talked to her recently about her newest book, Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead.

While Tiger Woods’ public apology offers us the chance to talk about rituals of confession and repentance, we must not forget to ask who this mythical “public” is that we hear so much about.

Notorious healing televangelist faces divorce.