What is Pakistan’s agenda in the Middle East? We will examine U.S. expectations of Pakistan with Feroz Hassan Khan and Roger Morris. Retired Pakistan Army Brigadier General Feroz Hassan Khan is currently on the faculty of the Department of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. Before teaching in the U.S., Khan represented Pakistan in diplomatic nuclear arms control negotiations. Roger Morris served on the National Security Council under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and has authored several critically acclaimed books, including Shadow of the Eagle, which exposes U.S. policy and covert intervention in the Middle East and South Asia over the past half century.

Michael T. Klare's latest book on the geopolitics of energy: your purchase benefits LCC programmingRising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy, by Michael T. Klare

Reviewed By Dick Platkin

Richard Dreyfuss, Dick Cheney: The actor incarnates the veep in Oliver Stone's "W"In his new movie "W," a biopic about outgoing President George W. Bush, director Oliver Stone has Dick Cheney (played by Richard Dreyfuss) narrate a series of large-screen slides that demonstrate how the countries adjacent to the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea contain most of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves. As the Cheney-Dreyfuss presentation unfolds, we see the locations where the U.S. government has constructed dozens upon dozens of Middle East military installations since the first Gulf War. We are also told that the country which controls these Middle Eastern oil and gas reserves will control the Eurasian continent. This, in turn, will become key for the U.S. to maintain its dominant position in the global economy.

Christopher Caldwell on "What is the West's Problem with Islam?"

Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West: your purchase benefits LCC programming Europe has received a wave of immigration from the global south in recent decades, similar in scope to the US-but very different in its results. Many immigrant and second-generation communities have astronomical unemployment rates and a thin connection to European identity. Some have produced terrorists. The problems are particularly severe among newcomers from the Muslim world.

If Europe has an Islam problem, whose fault is it? Is Islamic belief and culture incompatible with Western institutions? Or is there such a thing as "Islamophobia," poisoning immigrants' efforts to integrate on European terms?

Christopher Caldwell, who writes for the Financial Times, The New York Times Magazine and The Weekly Standard, visits Zócalo to talk about themes from his upcoming book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

The eclectic Al-Fareed aka Alfred Madain is a deejay, musician and ethnomusicologist in Los Angeles. A walking encyclopedia of traditional, folkloric and contemporary music of the Arab/Islamic world and Africa, he intimately “gets” and analyzes music ranging from ancient traditions to modern world techno, hip hop, western new wave, heavy metal and punk. Al-Fareed’s attuned feel for rock gives him the ability to reflect on the west from an eastern perspective and on the east from a western perspective. As a music historian he can explain the history and influence of ziryab (a musician of the Baghdadi and Andalusian courts) as well as the history and influence of Woody Guthrie, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Black Flag, Blind Lemon Jefferson, the Velvet Underground and more.

By Mehnaz M. Afridi

The Journey of Ibn Fattouma: your purchase benefits LCC programming“Well, I’ve missed my way. I turned from art to a profession, which is also dying. Law and art both belong to the past. I can’t master the new art, as you have done, and like you, I failed to study science. How can I find the lost ecstasy of creation? Life is so short and I can’t forget the vertigo caused by the fellow’s words: Don’t we live our lives knowing that our fate rests with God?”

“Does the idea of Death disturb you?”

“No, but it urges me to taste the secret of life.”

Language for a New Century: your purchase benefits LCC programmingKudos to Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. This handsome new anthology (Norton 2008) celebrates the artistic and cultural forces flourishing today in the East—gathering an unprecedented selection of works by East Asian, Middle Eastern, South Asian and Central Asian poets as well as poets living in the diaspora. The volume is organized around nine themes—including childhood, politics and oppression, identity, war, homeland and love—and includes more than 400 unique voices from 59 countries. Each section of the anthology—organized by theme rather than national affiliation—is preceded by a personal essay from the editors that introduces the poetry and invokes the readers to examine their own identities in light of these powerful poems.

A city with history...[Al-Quds/Jerusalem] – Perched on a bar stool in Jerusalem, I looked around at the many Israeli men in the room, relaxing, drinking beer and playing pool. I felt serene, but the tired faces of the soldiers told a different story. For them, this was an escape from their enemies who lay intimately bound to them beyond the hills of the city.