I am grateful to the linguist Alton L. Becker for drawing my attention to a principle that language is both exuberant and deficient. His words sank deep into my consciousness at the time of first reading them over twenty five years ago: In the fifties, the...
The massacre of Christians at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad on October 31 2010 gained extensive world-wide media attention. This Assyrian Catholic church was taken over by jihadis, and during the course of the several hours during which they controlled the church, the...
Today there are many debates about the meaning of the Arabic word jihad. Most recently John Brennan, White House adviser on terrorism, has reiterated views which he had previously presented at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: Nor does President Obama see this challenge as...
