I’m involved in another flirtation with the Criminal Element. This time, it’s a review of a limited-run BBC2 cop-noir series, Line of Duty. The normal British TV depiction of police work goes something like this: the hero DI or DCI and his trusty sidekick badger witnesses and arrest the wrong…
In case you’ve been dying to know how the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s CIA and FBI, respectively) are funded in the state budget, Haaretz is there for you with an explanation of how Israel keeps its secret agencies’ money secret. Apparently, the appropriations are masked in a line item…
Once more, I’m consorting with the Criminal Element. This installment is a think piece about why so many literary detectives are addicts. Crime fiction is cheerfully described as an addiction by many of its fans, including such diverse personalities as Sigmund Freud and Woodrow Wilson. Just as neurochemical addicts have…
One of our favorite autocracies (Russia) brings us a new tech product that bypasses pesky FISA courts and warrants: AIBIS, a device that mimics a GSM cell tower and can intercept up to eight simultaneous connections within a 500m range. It can soak up voice, SMS, mobile internet and call-setup…
It had to happen: the Mossad, Israel’s answer to the CIA, is taking applications online. According to Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot, if you’re one of those “challenge-loving people,” you’re “needed for an interesting, unconventional and dynamic position.” It involves “short and numerous trips abroad” as well as an “unconventional…
Miriam has brought (don’t ask) to my attention an interview in today’s Los Angeles Times with Major General Orna Barbivai, Israel’s highest-ranking female officer and commander of the Israeli Defense Forces’ Manpower Directorate. In it, MGen Barbivai talks about some of the challenges of integrating two almost diametrically opposed groups…
I’m consorting with the Criminal Element again, this time with a profile on the Australian gangster TV series The Straits: Things we think about when we think of Australia: kangaroos, the Sydney Opera House, endless beaches, tropical reefs, Paul Hogan, Anna Torv (or Elle Macpherson, if you’re of a certain…
If you’ve followed my series of posts about the dystopian version of 2032 America in my work-in-progress South, you may be wondering if anything good has come of the state of things. Someone in my critique group asked what the South equivalent would be to Italian trains (supposedly) running on…
I’m back among the Criminal Element again, this time with a story about antiquities smuggling: Our story begins with a pot and a pig. In 1970, an Italian man working on a canal near Naples discovered a remarkable piece of crockery: a 27-inch-tall, double-handled chalice or krater, black with red…
The ongoing terrorism trial of Hossam Yaakoub in Cyprus may have several consequences, including deciding whether the European Union will declare Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. Its current impact is to show how much better Hezbollah operatives have gotten at basic covert tradecraft. A recent Washington Post article about…