Podcasts about el akkad

In concomitanza con l'uscita in italiano del suo ultimo libro, intitolato Un giorno tutti diranno di essere stati contro, ecco un'intensa intervista allo scrittore e giornalista egiziano-statunitense Omar El Akkad. El Akkad riflette sul collasso morale dell'Occidente, incapace di chiamare “genocidio” ciò che sta avvenendo a Gaza per timore delle conseguenze politiche e personali. Denuncia l'ipocrisia di leader e istituzioni che, pur vedendo l'orrore, scelgono il silenzio. L'autore parla da una posizione disillusa e profonda, maturata da reporter in Afghanistan, a Guantanamo, durante la prima guerra del Golfo e durante le sollevazioni arabe popolari del 2010-2011. Figlio del colonialismo, cresciuto tra culture diverse, El Akkad incarna il trauma dell'esilio e la frattura identitaria, oggi aggravata dal massacro in Palestina, che considera il punto di rottura definitivo. Il suo libro è un atto di coscienza, più che un tentativo di persuasione, nato da una crisi personale e morale che lo ha spinto a non voltarsi più dall'altra parte.undefined

Journalist and writer Omar El Akkad has won acclaim for his novels “American War” and “What Strange Paradise,” and he's now published his first non-fiction book which takes a searing look at the war in Gaza. “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This,” is a rebuke of Western institutions including governments, universities, and the media for failing to denounce Israel's treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. El Akkad, born in Egypt, examines the political systems, beliefs, and prejudices that he says Americans have used to shield themselves from confronting atrocities. Guests: Omar El Akkad, journalist and author, His latest book is, "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This." He is also author of the novels, "American War" and "What Strange Paradise." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acclaimed novelist Omar El Akkad grew up in Qatar, yearning for uncensored magazines and Hollywood movies, and believing in the Western project. But after moving to Canada as a teen, and a journalistic career covering the U.S. response to 9/11, El Akkad started seeing cracks in his conception of the West. Then, watching the response to the Israel-Hamas war changed everything for him. El Akkad speaks with Piya Chattopadhyay about taking stock of those fissures with his new book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This.

Journalist, novelist, and memoirist Omar El Akkad talks about his latest book, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This – a blend of memoir, social criticism, and moral philosophy. The book creates and shares space for everyone who is full of grief and rage, who cannot be at home in institutions that support or ignore genocide. We discuss the linguistic obfuscations around Gaza, El Akkad's critique of Western liberalism, and the possibilities for a different future.Show notes:You can get One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This from Penguin Random House, where a sample of the audiobook is available, read by Omar El Akkad.Omar's first novel, American War, is also available from Penguin Random.You can subscribe to BULAQ wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on Twitter @bulaqbooks and Instagram @bulaq.books for news and updates. If you'd like to rate or review us, we'd appreciate that. If you'd like to support us as a listener by making a donation you can do so at https://donorbox.org/support-bulaq. BULAQ is co-produced with the podcast platform Sowt. Go to sowt.com to check out their many other excellent shows in Arabic, on music, literature, media and more. For all things related to Arabic literature in translation you should visit ArabLit.org, where you can also subscribe to the Arab Lit Quarterly. If you are interested in advertising on BULAQ or sponsoring episodes, please contact us at bulaq@sowt.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Poet, editor, and writer John Freeman and novelist Omar El Akkad join co-hosts Whitney Terrell and V.V. Ganeshananthan to talk about the final issue of Freeman's, a literary magazine founded in 2015. El Akkad, a contributor to the volume, describes founding editor Freeman's intense and uniquely broad interest in literature, as well as his unusual ability to curate collections of pieces that are in conversation with one another. Freeman explains the work and support that made the magazine possible, and reflects on the moment when he decided to pursue it, as well as how he decided to conclude it. They discuss the publication as a project that created a valuable network of literary connections and gave many writers a new context and outlet for their work. El Akkad reads from “Pillory,” his story which appears in the final edition of Freeman's, and talks about how he came to write it. To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This episode of the podcast was produced by Anne Kniggendorf. John Freeman Freeman's Wind, Trees Maps How to Read a Novelist Dictionary of the Undoing Omar El Akkad “Pillory”, by Omar El Akkad American War What Strange Paradise Others: Freeman's Conclusions | Vancouver Writers Fest Freeman's Conclusions - The Nest - Vancouver - Oct 20, 2023 · Showpass Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3, Episode 22: “The Unpopular Tale of Populism: Thomas Frank on the Real History of an American Mass Movement” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 3, Episode 17: “Poetry, Prose, and the Climate Crisis: John Freeman and Tahmima Anam on Public Space and Global Inequality” Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 1, Episode 5: “Is College Education a Right or a Privilege?” featuring John Freeman and Sarah Smarsh Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 2, Episode 17: “Emily Raboteau and Omar El Akkad Tell a Different Kind of Climate Change Story” Denis Johnson Barry Lopez Wendy Chen Li Qingzhao Li Po Debra Gwartney Michael Salu Colson Whitehead Jon Gray Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's 2074 and a suicide bomber has killed the President of the United States. Months later Marines open fire on protesters killing dozens. The Second American Civil War has just begun and once again the North and South are pitted against each other. This is all according to the dystopian world chronicled in Omar El Akkad's novel, American War. El Akkad's imagined, yet familiar, world is reflective of today's deep political and societal fissures, but it also pushes us to understand the universal language of war and ruin, to what happens after the violence begins and why it's so hard to end.In this episode of Throughline, we immerse ourselves in El Akkad's 'what could be' to understand larger questions about history, humanity, and American exceptionalism.

Local author Omar El Akkad recently won the Oregon Book Award for his latest novel "What Strange Paradise." Today we listen back to a conversation with El Akkad from 2017 about his first novel "American War." The book imagines a near future in which the country is fighting a second civil war.

Omar El Akkad won the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize for his novel What Strange Paradise, a devastating yet beautiful story of two children against the backdrop of the refugee crisis, and the dehumanization of those who must flee home. The jury wrote: "Amid all the anger and confusion surrounding the global refugee crisis, Omar El Akkad's What Strange Paradise paints a portrait of displacement and belonging that is at once unflinching and tender. In examining the confluence of war, migration and a sense of settlement, it raises questions of indifference and powerlessness and, ultimately, offers clues as to how we might reach out empathetically in a divided world." El Akkad's writing is both fortune-telling dystopia and precise cultural criticism; a necessary writer who probes our humanity. He spoke with Globe and Mail editor, Mark Medley, at the 2021 Vancouver Writers Fest.

For a few days in late 2015, global outrage coursed at the photo of Alan Kurdi, the lifeless two-year old Syrian boy found washed ashore in Turkey after the boat carrying him and other migrants sank on its way to Greece. Omar El Akkad's new novel "What Strange Paradise" imagines an alternative narrative: a young migrant child survives a shipwreck and tries to forge his way to safety. El Akkad, who's also a journalist and former war correspondent, says he wrote the novel to counter what he calls "the privilege of instantaneous forgetting." We talk to him about the ongoing global refugee crisis and the human stories that inform his work.

Omar El Akkad's new novel, “What Strange Paradise,” uses some fablelike techniques to comment on the migrant crisis caused by war in the Middle East. El Akkad explains that he thinks of the novel as a reinterpretation of the story of Peter Pan, told as the story of a contemporary child refugee.“There's this thing Borges once said about how all literature is tricks, and no matter how clever your tricks are, they eventually get discovered,” El Akkad says. “My tricks are not particularly clever. I lean very hard on inversion. I wanted to take a comforting story that Westerners have been telling their kids for the last hundred years, and I wanted to invert it, to tell a different kind of story.” He continues: “At its core, it's a book about dueling fantasies: the fantasies of people who want to come to the West because they think it's a cure for all ills, and the fantasies of people who exist in the West and think of those people as barbarians at the gate. The book takes place at the collision of those two fantasies.”Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang, two reporters at The Times, visit the podcast this week to discuss their new book, “An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination,” including how the company makes many of its strategic decisions.“A lot of people think that a company like this, that's so sophisticated, that has so many people who have come in with such incredible pedigrees, that they have a plan in mind,” Kang says. “They're actually, in many cases, doing this on the fly. They're making a lot of ad hoc decisions.”Also on this week's episode, Tina Jordan looks back at Book Review history as it celebrates its 125th anniversary; Alexandra Alter has news from the publishing world; and Emily Eakin and MJ Franklin talk about what they've been reading. Pamela Paul is the host.Here are the books discussed in this week's “What We're Reading”:“How the Word Is Passed” by Clint Smith“Red Comet” by Heather Clark“Lenin” by Victor Sebestyen

Omar El Akkad is the author of American War, a ''poignant and horrifying'' (Washington Post) dystopian novel that imagines a future civil war born from the U.S.'s current destructive policies and impulses. It was an international bestseller, translated into 13 languages, and named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, NPR, and Esquire. Also an acclaimed journalist, El Akkad earned Canada's National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists for the reporting he did from locations such as Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. His new novel tells the story of the international refugee crisis through the experiences of Amir, a Syrian boy who washes up on the shore of a small island. Books with signed book plates will be available from the Joseph Fox Bookshop (recorded 7/22/2021)

This special non-fiction episode includes commentary about the attempted insurrection on January 6th, 2021 and extended reading/listening/watching resources. Transcript available here Related to the complicity of Capitol police (be it active or passive) Aljazeera is reporting on the FBI's warning US Law Enforcement before the attack. They also have live updates pertaining to the insurrection, Donald Trump, consequences, and lack thereof. BBC News has an article called The 65 Days that Led to Chaos at the Capitol that helps track some of the key moments, predominately on social media, that led to Wednesday's action as well as the evolution of the Stop the Steal quote, movement. Unicorn Riot's reporting on Proud Boy's leader Henry Tarrio's arrest. Tarrio was arrested before the attempted insurrection, upon arrival to DC, because in December of 2020 he carried out a hate crime against a Black church in the area. His arrest revealed two illegal high capacity firearms. I think this one is particularly important because it helps illustrate that Wednesday's action was part of a steady violent escalation, very much reinforced by racism, rather than a spontaneous show of political ideology. PRX's podcast Reveal's most recent episode Democracy Under Siege dives into the attempted coup and explores a historical parallel Politics and Prose Bookstore has lecture/reading from On Tyranny author Timothy Snyder free on YouTube. It's a bit over an hour. The takeaway is, it can happen and it happens fast. It Could Happen Here is Robert Evan's podcast from 2019 that considers the possibility of a modern American civil war. Speaking of imaginings of a modern US civil war, Omar El-Akkad's American War is a work of speculative fiction that reads like historical fiction. As a former conflict journalist El-Akkad brings intense realism to his dystopia. (Affiliate link included, purchasing through Bookshop helps support DDP) And, if you're turning to SpecFic right now, obviously, read Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower. If it's not an option for you right now due to funds. A teacher has done a very cool thing and shared a reading on Youtube to help get students through shelter in place. She also displays the PDF text. In June of last year Politico wrote about the current golden age of conspiracy theories. Reporter Jake Hanrahan's podcasts Q Clearance delves into the origins of the Qanon conspiracy. Also, check out our Bingo, Fascism card! It's free, and terrifying.

Artslandia Happy Hours and Adventures in Artslandia podcasts provide indisputable proof that artistry retains the power to unite, inspire, and comfort despite the distance we must keep. Let’s have a round of applause for the human spirit! Support Artslandia here. Up next on Adventures in Artslandia, our fearless host Susannah Mars and friends chat with novelist Omar El Akkad about the writing of his short story Government Slots before the gang (Duffy Epstein, Barbie Wu, Kisha Jarrett, Merideth Kaye Clark, and Susannah) reads the story. You can read along here. El Akkad’s work has appeared in The Guardian and Le Monde among many other esteemed publications. His upcoming novel will hit the shelves in spring 2021.    

In this episode of the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast, novelists Emily Raboteau and Omar El Akkad discuss telling the stories of climate change with hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell. Raboteau talks about her recent NYRB article, "Climate Signs," and El Akkad shares how his history as a journalist connects to his novel, American War,   Readings for the Episode: ●      “Climate Signs” by Emily Raboteau, New York Review Daily ●      The Professor's Daughter  by Emily Raboteau ●      Searching for Zion  by Emily Raboteau ●      American War  by Omar El Akkad ●      Gold Fame Citrus  by Claire Vaye Watkins ●      “Flying Cars Could Save us from Climate Change,” by Jen Christensen, CNN ●      “Climate Change: European Team to drill for ‘oldest' ice in Antarctica” by Jonathan Amos, BBC ●      “Atchafalaya”  by John McPhee, The New Yorker ●      The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming  by David Wallace-Wells ●      “There's so much CO2 in the atmosphere that planting trees can no longer save us,” by Rob Ludacer and Jessica Orwig, Business Insider ●      "Young Readers Ask: The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells," by Geronimo LaValle, Orion Magazine ●      “As We Approach the City,” by Mik Awake, The Common ●      “The Climate Museum Launches Pun-Filled Art Installations Across the City,” by Katie Brown, Medium/NYU Local ●      “‘Hand that's feeding the world is getting bit.' Farmers cope with floods, trade war” by Crystal Thomas and Bryan Lowery, The Kansas City Star ●      “Senator uses Star Wars posters, image of Reagan riding a dinosaur to blast Green New Deal,” by Christal Hayes, USA Today ●      Learning to Die in the Anthropocene by Roy Scranton ●      Horizon, by Barry Lopez ●      The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben Guests: ·       Emily Raboteau ·       Omar El Akkad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Omar El Akkad is a journalist and author of the novel American War which depicts a disturbingly believable future of America at war with itself. The novel was runner up for CBC Canada Reads, shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and described as “masterful” by the Globe and Mail. In this talk El Akkad unpacks the events that inspired his debut novel, from growing up on imported culture in Qatar, to witnessing a soldier's burial in blistering Afghanistan, to visiting the one truly Kafka-esque place in the world. He ultimately asks us to consider what will happen to the world if we continue forward unchanged. The talk is followed by a Q&A moderated by Dr. Y-Dang Troeung and Dr. Phanuel Antwi from the Department of English Language and Literatures. Presented by UBC Asian Canadian & Asian Migration Studies Program, School of Journalism, Department of English Language and Literatures, St. John's College and Faculty of Arts. Recorded March 11, 2019, at the Chemistry Building on UBC's Vancouver campus.

Set 50-plus years in the future, Omar El Akkad‘s debut novel American War (Knopf, 2017) has been widely praised, becoming one of those rare books with science fiction themes to make numerous mainstream publications’ Best Books of the Year lists. It was, for example, among the 100 Most Notable Books in The New York Times, the Best Books of 2017 in GQ, and was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s top pick for Canadian fiction. El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, grew up in Qatar, eventually moved to Canada, and now lives in Oregon. He has worked as a journalist, covering everything from the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter movement. He also spent two years covering the terrorism trials of the Toronto 18, which gave him insight into how young minds are radicalized and provided partial inspiration for his depiction of American War’s protagonist, Sarat Chestnut. We meet Sarat when she’s an appealing, headstrong six-year-old and follow her, via El Akkad’s nuanced writing, as she grows up in a refugee camp, sees her family destroyed, and is groomed to commit acts of terror. Ultimately, she plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the Second American Civil War, and yet, in a reflection of the true-to-life nature of El Akkad’s storytelling, her motives aren’t the black-and-white of Hollywood, but remain murky. Despite the book’s title, El Akkad tells Rob Wolf that he doesn’t feel he’s writing about America. “To me if was never a book about America but about the universality of revenge… That any of us subjected to the injustice of being on the losing end of war, being on the losing end of violence, break down the same way and become damaged the same way and become wrathful the same way. The book is set in an allegorical America.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Set 50-plus years in the future, Omar El Akkad‘s debut novel American War (Knopf, 2017) has been widely praised, becoming one of those rare books with science fiction themes to make numerous mainstream publications’ Best Books of the Year lists. It was, for example, among the 100 Most Notable Books in The New York Times, the Best Books of 2017 in GQ, and was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s top pick for Canadian fiction. El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, grew up in Qatar, eventually moved to Canada, and now lives in Oregon. He has worked as a journalist, covering everything from the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter movement. He also spent two years covering the terrorism trials of the Toronto 18, which gave him insight into how young minds are radicalized and provided partial inspiration for his depiction of American War’s protagonist, Sarat Chestnut. We meet Sarat when she’s an appealing, headstrong six-year-old and follow her, via El Akkad’s nuanced writing, as she grows up in a refugee camp, sees her family destroyed, and is groomed to commit acts of terror. Ultimately, she plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the Second American Civil War, and yet, in a reflection of the true-to-life nature of El Akkad’s storytelling, her motives aren’t the black-and-white of Hollywood, but remain murky. Despite the book’s title, El Akkad tells Rob Wolf that he doesn’t feel he’s writing about America. “To me if was never a book about America but about the universality of revenge… That any of us subjected to the injustice of being on the losing end of war, being on the losing end of violence, break down the same way and become damaged the same way and become wrathful the same way. The book is set in an allegorical America.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Set 50-plus years in the future, Omar El Akkad‘s debut novel American War (Knopf, 2017) has been widely praised, becoming one of those rare books with science fiction themes to make numerous mainstream publications’ Best Books of the Year lists. It was, for example, among the 100 Most Notable Books in The New York Times, the Best Books of 2017 in GQ, and was the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s top pick for Canadian fiction. El Akkad was born in Cairo, Egypt, grew up in Qatar, eventually moved to Canada, and now lives in Oregon. He has worked as a journalist, covering everything from the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter movement. He also spent two years covering the terrorism trials of the Toronto 18, which gave him insight into how young minds are radicalized and provided partial inspiration for his depiction of American War’s protagonist, Sarat Chestnut. We meet Sarat when she’s an appealing, headstrong six-year-old and follow her, via El Akkad’s nuanced writing, as she grows up in a refugee camp, sees her family destroyed, and is groomed to commit acts of terror. Ultimately, she plays a pivotal role in the outcome of the Second American Civil War, and yet, in a reflection of the true-to-life nature of El Akkad’s storytelling, her motives aren’t the black-and-white of Hollywood, but remain murky. Despite the book’s title, El Akkad tells Rob Wolf that he doesn’t feel he’s writing about America. “To me if was never a book about America but about the universality of revenge… That any of us subjected to the injustice of being on the losing end of war, being on the losing end of violence, break down the same way and become damaged the same way and become wrathful the same way. The book is set in an allegorical America.” Rob Wolf is the author of The Alternate Universe. He worked for a decade as a journalist, writing on a wide range of topics from science to justice reform. He now serves as director of communications at a think tank in New York City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on "State of Wonder," singer Beth Ditto breaks out from her band Gossip, the Slants gets their big day at the Supreme Court, and we look back on Thara Memory's complicated legacy.After Years of Fighting, The Slants Prevail at the Supreme Court - 1:23This week the United States Supreme Court cleared the way for the Portland dance rock band the Slants to register a trademark for its name — something the Patent and Trademark Office had previously rejected, claiming it was derogatory. The Slants argued that their name reclaimed a racist slur, but the case also sets a permissive precedent for how the federal government handles trademarks using offensive language. It's prompted celebration from some groups—such as a well-known Washington football team—that use objectionable terms unironically.Oregon Ballet Theater Centers Women Choreographers at Choreography XX - 6:33It’s not at all rare for major ballet companies to go whole seasons without performing a single work created by a woman. Oregon Ballet Theater set out last year to change that with a new competition called Choreography XX. Of nearly 100 applicants, they chose three women from around the continent to create new works, set them on the company, and premiere them at free performances on June 29 and 30 in Washington Park's Rose Garden Amphitheater. Powerhouse Singer Beth Ditto's New Solo Record: 'Fake Sugar' - 13:37As the singer of the hit garage-turned-dance-rock band Gossip, Beth Ditto rose to international acclaim with the 2006 breakout “Standing in the Way of Control” and broke the record in Germany for the longest-selling hit single with “Heavy Cross.” While touring with the band, she also became a fashion icon for her unique style and unapologetic approach to her weight, posing naked on the covers of magazines, walking in Paris fashion shows, collaborating on a line of MAC cosmetics and even creating her own clothing lines. She also penned a memoir about growing up poor in the south. Now, Ditto is mining those roots in her first full-length solo record, “Fake Sugar.”Playwright E.M. Lewis Stages a Different Kind of 'Gun Show' - 22:14The Oregon playwright E.M. Lewis grew up surrounded by guns and learned to shoot on a date with her husband-to-be. But then she found herself on the other end of a barrel during a robbery and lost her husband to a gun wound. She knows firsthand the whole range of emotions guns elicit, and she’s loaded them all into a provocative play “The Gun Show.” The show debuted locally last fall, and it was so successful that Lewis and Vin Shambry, the actor who plays Lewis's character in the one-man show, are taking it on the road: first to Washington, DC, and then to a month-long run at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Hood River Teacher Rachel Harry Wins the Tony for Theater Education - 31:39The Tony Award for theater education goes to... teacher Rachel Harry at Hood River Valley High School. Harry welcomed us in during the final week of classes, so we could see what sets her program apart. She's been teaching in Hood River for 30 years, forging close connections with her students and pushing them toward fairly high-level creative practice.Remembering Jazz Musician Thara Memory - 36:46Jazz musician and educator died last Saturday night after an extended illness at 68. He lived hard, impacted hundreds of lives, mentored star musicians like Esperanza Spalding, and spent his final months trying to clear his reputation after former students accused him of inappropriate conduct. We look back on his complicated legacy.Omar El Akkad's "American War" Imagines - 43:40As a former correspondent for Toronto’s 'Globe and Mail newspaper, Omar El Akkad covered the Arab Spring in Egypt, military trials at Guantanamo Bay, refugee camps in Afghanistan, and the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson, Missouri. You can see many of those worlds in detail in his new book, but there’s a twist: El Akkad’s new book is a novel—a terrifyingly realistic one that’s set in the second half of the 21st century. The book is called "American War," and it’s the story of the second American Civil War—a war fought over fossil fuel consumption from 2074 to 2095.

Welcome to the House of Crouse. When Terry Jones announced, ‘I’ve got dementia. My frontal lobe has absconded,’ I immediately thought back to discussing the legacy of Monty Python with the comedy legend. He's a lovely man and I wanted to share a few minutes of that talk with you. Then "Degrassi: Next Class" screenwriter Courtney Jane Walker swings by to talk about how she finds inspiration everywhere from court rooms to the subway. Finally, we go long with "American War" author and former war correspondent Omar El Akkad. The Washington Post called the novel "poignant and horrifying" and El Akkad is a fascinating conversationalist. It's all great stuff so c'mon in and sit a spell.

El Akkad has seen it all as a journalist so his fictional view of the future is tinged with reality in American War. Is it time to stop eating contests, Fox anchor Bill OReilly has to go, and Mark gets another notch in his boy scout belt.