Richard Hart

More About Baghdad Once again, we were overwhelmed. Not just physically (we were that, too), but by the significance. The Independent sponsored the area’s premiere this week of the documentary About Baghdad, made by a cooperative that included local activist Rania Masri. After the stunning response we got last year when we had to hurriedly […]

The time is July 2003, just a few months after the end of the American invasion of Iraq. The scene is chaos and devastation–Baghdad’s Academy of Fine Arts is a pile of rubble, children in a hospital suffer the most disturbing kind of dehydration, and storefronts are in ruins. Poet Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi-American […]

The N&O won’t do it, The New York Times barely did it, and television news is too busy promoting the Bachelor Super Millionaire American Idol to be bothered. But as a semi-respectable news organization, I’d like the Independent, at least, to acknowledge where we made mistakes and misled readers in our coverage of the run-up […]

The hypocrisy in the Republican Party’s opposition to gay marriage and civil unions is enough to make you scream out loud. And it’s too bad the media aren’t helping matters any, amplifying it into more of a controversy than most people really believe it is. A prime example recently is a poll done in Indiana […]

With all the lip service given to the goal of “diversity” in you name it–schools, corporations, media, any place organized enough to have a mission statement–you’d think the idea would have been raised in the discussions these past few weeks about the 50th anniversary on May 17 of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board […]

“I have to say that I’m not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.” —Sen. James M. Imhofe (R-Okla.) “Some might call that decent punishment, some might say here’s a taste of your own medicine.” —Rush Limbaugh “Worse things happen in frat […]

One of the unrecognized costs of the war in Iraq is the way it has taken our time and attention away from other issues that require action as urgently as the war itself. Imagine what we’d be talking about if there were no war in Iraq–all of us, supporters of the war and opponents alike, […]

We got a letter recently that said: “… [L]et’s see, you are pro-gay rights, defender of the African American, against guns, against capital punishment, for more aid to the disenfranchised, pro-abortion, tree hugger, anti-war and yawn, on and on.” The writer accused us of being “the same type of bigot, prejudiced person, justifier for your […]

Finally, Democrats are speaking out against the lies of the Bush Administration. Yes, it’s partly because an election’s under way. Yes, it’s partly because the invasion of Iraq has become a debacle, making it safe to criticize. But it’s also because the administration continues to use policy and bureaucracy on an unprecedented scale to further […]

From the moment I heard about the horrible explosions at the Atocha train station in Madrid, I couldn’t believe it was Basque separatists. I lived just blocks from that train station. I covered ETA terrorist attacks (or wrote about them, anyway) for United Press International and the English-language service of the Spanish news agency, EFE, […]