Author: nick
Warhol in his studio. Photo: Richard Schulman. Fictional Truths My period of making portraits appear in the rear view mirror like a collection of a rogues gallery and the inimitable. My camera has interacted with a lot of art, an army of artists, and art-world figures. It is something that rests comfortably in the shadows of my archives. One evening, I huddled with cultural icons of another era: Senator Edward Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Andrew Wyeth and Andy Warhol. The Red Sea parted; the waltz of fame ensued, looking part Fantasia; part Charlton Heston’s The Ten Commandments. It was me being a…
In his 1962 essay titled “The Creative Dilemma,” James Baldwin wrote, “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” Baldwin goes on to state that the role of the artist is to reveal the deeper truths of the society they live and work in; a situation which ultimately means that the artist is always at war with that society. It may be what he calls “a lover’s war,” but it is a war nonetheless. The ideal result…
Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, a native of Senegal and former enslaved person who during the period of the French Revolution became a member of the National Convention. by Anne-Louis Girodet De Roucy-Trioson. Public Domain. On Aug. 21, 1789, just a month after the storming of the Bastille that launched the French Revolution, France’s new governing body, the National Assembly, approved the first article of its historic Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. The French document proclaimed that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights,” echoing the most famous line of the American Declaration of Independence that…
Image by Depositphotos / Hernancho The recent presidential election in Colombia highlighted a striking political paradox. New data from the country’s national statistics agency shows that the national poverty rate fell to 28% in 2025, the lowest level ever recorded. Nearly 1.8 million Colombians moved out of poverty in a single year, while extreme poverty and income inequality also declined. The figures represent a significant social achievement and continue a multi-year trend of improving living standards. Yet, despite this advance, Colombians elected right-wing lawyer and businessman Abelardo De La Espriella, whose nationalist and law-and-order platform marks a sharp contrast with…
Osama bin Laden was supposed to have been a supporter of top English soccer team Arsenal FC. Yet he seems to have since switched his allegiance. Following Arsenal’s defeat by French rivals Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) in May’s Champions League final, Osama himself (or a masked fan dressed as him, anyway) was pictured dancing in the streets of Paris, accompanied by chants of “Bin Laden! Bin Laden!” from his fellow coreligionists. An isolated one-off? Apparently not. In 2012, another supporter was charged with “defending terrorism” after walking into a sports shop requesting that the name of his favorite terrorist be printed…
I know crime statutes and dates can be boring and hard to read. Please bear with me for a minute. These laws are written a certain way for a reason. Staying in the dark about them is part of how this system keeps swallowing people, families, and whole communities, regardless of the harm it causes. This article isn’t just statutes and dates; it’s about what those choices do to real people. Rehabilitation is supposed to be the goal of Florida’s justice system, of every justice system. But Florida’s own laws say something different. Florida’s sentencing statute, section 921.002, states that…
Nobody is making it easy for Vice President J.D. Vance and his team of negotiators. Israel’s continued military campaign in Lebanon has caused Iran to doubt America’s commitment, or ability, to carry out the very first point of the memorandum of understanding (MOU), which calls for an end to the war in Lebanon and ensures that nation’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty,” and has led to the possible reclosure of the Strait of Hormuz. Trump’s threat, as the negotiators sat down to talk, to the Iranians that if they close the Strait, “you won’t have a country. You won’t even make…
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Tressa Rae Finerty, a U.S. career diplomat, to be the Deputy UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). While most Americans would regard this an obscure diplomatic appointment, the decision carries significant implications for President Donald Trump’s efforts to thwart global illegal immigration. Guterres intentionally rejected the White House’s nominee and selected someone whom he knows to be clearly out of step with Trump’s objectives for reforming the corrupt international refugee business. One major issue that requires exposure is the sleight-of-hand ways UNHCR officials have erased the differences between genuine refugees and economic illegal…
Amid all the verbiage, pixels and printers’ ink being expended over whether President Trump achieved anything by launching his illegal war (along with Israel) on Iran, misses the worst impact, and that is the lesson that it has taught, not just to Iran, but to all the nations of the world that find themselves being bullied by the US. That lesson is that in a world of nuclear bullies, any country that does not have a nuclear weapon is at the mercy that of those countries that do have such weapons. In such a world, the only choice then is…
Date of sighting: June 12, 2026Location of sighting: Danvers, Massachusetts, USASource: NUFORCThis is one of several UFO disk the eyewitness saw flying down to the ground and disappearing in the tree line before ever touching the ground. Whats happening here is that the alien craft are actually flying down to a location where an underground base will lock on to them and open a shaft in the ground…which a tractor beam catches and slowly lowers the UFO, but understand, by this time the UFO was already cloaked and invisible, thus not seen flying lower behind tree line. This is absolute…