United Nations

Latest Articles

What's wrong with the Palestinians' U.N. gambit

A dangerous charade
The Palestinian campaign to upgrade their diplomatic status at the United Nations is a train wreck in the making.
By EDITORIAL | September 14, 2011

Tod Machover's Death and the Powers, plus Norrington's C.P.E. Bach and the Cantata Singers' B-minor Mass

Robotics
In her director's note for the American premiere of Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera , Diane Paulus, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, wrote that this "work of music-theater . . . has brought together artists from the widest range of disciplines — from theater and film to modern dance and the cutting-edge technology of the MIT Media Lab."
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 25, 2011

The ''Weak Evidence Effect''

That's It?
About one month before the mid-term elections last fall, 98 people from around the country — Democrats, Republicans, and independents — sat down at their computers to participate in a psychological experiment put together by three Brown University researchers.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | March 16, 2011

A Congolese feast

Beans and rice, with African flair
I met Constance Kabaziga at the checkout at Mittapheap World Market. She was buying frozen cassava root and dried beans, and I really wanted to know what she was going to do them.
By LINDSAY STERLING | June 30, 2010

Balls of fire

Porn stars, witch doctors, elephant farts, and the worst soccer team on the planet take center stage at this summer’s World Cup
For one month every four years, the United States — try as it might — can’t impose its vacuous culture on the rest of the planet. The World Cup arrives and the Americans are, at best, an afterthought.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG AND LANCE GOULD | June 01, 2010

The powerless rise

The danger of the unfocused anger of the Tea Party
I’m an even-tempered guy. I don’t lose my cool more than, maybe, once or twice a day.
By AL DIAMON | May 19, 2010

Leaves of Life from Arborea, and other Portland music news

Sibilance
BUCK AND SHANTI CURRAN , the husband-and-wife team behind ethereal folk band ARBOREA , have been touring nearly non-stop and curating compilations right from their home base in Lewiston.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX MUSIC STAFF | May 19, 2010

Freedom Watch: Speak no evil

Why are African-American leaders silent about slavery in Sudan?
It wasn’t the first time members of the Congressional Black Caucus had heard – and done nothing about – Sudan’s dirty secret. Even before a recent House international-relations subcommittee hearing on human-rights violations in Sudan, they knew that kidnapping and slavery had become a barbarous byproduct of Sudan’s bloody holy war.
By TIM SANDLER | May 20, 2010

Review: Cairo Time

Gaza Strip tease
Patricia Clarkson projects great warmth as Juliette, a Canadian journalist who travels to Cairo to join her husband, a UN aid worker stationed in Egypt, for a scenic holiday among the Pyramids.
By BRETT MICHEL | April 21, 2010

The question of Iran

Plus, Tim Flaherty for State Senator
Once again, Washington’s gunslingers are agitating for a war with Iran. Cheered on by Fox News and enabled by uncritical talking heads such as NBC’s David Gregory and PBS’s Charlie Rose, the let’s-bomb-or-invade-or-maybe-do-both-to-Iran brigade is busy softening up public opinion for a war they seem to think is inevitable.
By EDITORIAL | April 07, 2010

Kooksville

Might be something in the water
As every sane Mainer knows, the wackiest ideas for improving this state come from people in the immediate vicinity of Portland.
By AL DIAMON | March 24, 2010

China expert sees a nation at the 'shadow-line'

Across the Globe
Joseph Conrad wrote of a "shadow-line," an indistinct boundary between youth and adulthood that adolescents awkwardly straddle; one moment there is impressive poise and maturity, and the next, a slip into past boorish, immature behavior.
By PETER VOSKAMP | March 17, 2010

Ted Leo | The Brutalist Bricks

Legacy (2010)
Leave it to Ted Leo to find his way from "There was a resolution pending on the United Nations floor" to "Tell the bartender I think I'm falling in love."
By MIKAEL WOOD | March 09, 2010

Red Queens and White Knights

We’re not through with the Looking Glass, here, people
Four new DVD releases that capitalize on the latest Alice in Wonderland rush.
By SHAULA CLARK | March 10, 2010

Crossword: ''The Future Is Now''

... And they got it wrong
... And they got it wrong.
By MATT JONES | March 05, 2010

Department of conjecture

Letters to the Portland Editor, January 29, 2010
The Haiti disaster will not serve to turn a state from toss-up to safely Republican as the George W. Bush Administration's calculated response to Hurricane Katrina did in Louisiana.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | January 27, 2010

Cambridge finds it ain't easy being green

Greater Boston's Gas-House Gang
The hype leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Congress in Copenhagen last month reached near tsunami proportions, but in the end, the gathering went out like a neap tide.
By TOM MEEK | January 13, 2010

Adventures in pot stickers

Exploring new worlds of flavor
My friend from Thailand taught me how to make real pot stickers and pad Thai.
By LINDSAY STERLING | January 13, 2010

Green school. Red light?

At-large City Councilor John Connolly sets his sights on creating multi-million-dollar environmental academy.
Little girls and boys frolic on swing sets whittled from recycled beech wood.
By CHRIS FARAONE | January 06, 2010

Fourth-estate follies, 2009 edition

The Phoenix's second annual year in media malfeasance
Between the rise of the Web, the ADD-addling of America, the fragmentation of any national political consensus, and the devastated economy, working in the press can feel a bit like manning the Titanic — and this year, the entire industry seemed to teeter on the edge of oblivion.
By ADAM REILLY | December 28, 2009

Faltering steps forward

Going Green
As in many other sectors, the green world in 2009 was marked as much by bluster as by tangible positive action.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | December 22, 2009

Youth to power

Going Green
Bates College junior Robert Friedman will be missing a couple weeks of class in December.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | November 24, 2009

Conservation in Copenhagen

Going Green
In about a month, representatives from almost 200 nations will converge on Copenhagen, Denmark, for what could be the most meaningful meeting on climate change, ever.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | November 04, 2009

United Nations Day

Hoopleville
I'll break the pinata!
By DAVID KISH | October 21, 2009

Interview: Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall on her new book, North Korea, and Bible-thumping conservatives
If only there were more trees to be torn down, we could utilize them . . . to fill newspapers with the endless depressing stories out there about the environment and all its hapless inhabitants.
By LANCE GOULD | September 23, 2009

Dance Fever

Where to shake it like you mean it
Those with a hankering for slick riffs and dirty break beats look no further.
By ABIGAIL CROCKER | September 03, 2009

Whole Foods health-care boycott gathers momentum

Human Rights Watch
Unfortunately for Whole Foods Market CEO and founder John Mackey, those who appreciate his store for the healthy, eco-friendly (read: left-leaning, progressive) lifestyle it promotes are the same citizens who support universal health care.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | August 24, 2009

Cursed films

"Le Film Maudit" at the HFA
At some point while watching the features in the Harvard Film Archive's "Le Film Maudit" ("cursed films") series — perhaps during the "Circle of Shit" chapter in Pier Paolo Pasolini's SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM — you might ask yourself, which is more cursed, the movies or anyone unfortunate enough to be watching them?
By PETER KEOUGH | July 17, 2009

The block is hot

Jumping genres at Providence Sound Session '09
The summer sun has arrived just in time for the "premier genre-defying summer music festival" known as Sound Session '09, a weeklong block party and musical melting pot for the masses kicking off on Sunday, July 5 and culminating in the climactic, carnival-style parade trough downtown on Saturday, July 11.
By CHRIS CONTI | June 30, 2009

Power through peace

In exile, Burmese monks still carry the torch
Now is a critical time for democracy's worldwide battle against totalitarianism. Rioters in Iran are disputing the outcome of a possibly stolen presidential election. North Korea has sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor for allegedly crossing the border into the closed country from China.
By JEFF INGLIS | June 18, 2009