Gail Vida Hamburg reported for the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Daily Southtown, before teaching communications and journalism at Roosevelt University, Chicago. Using the organizing principles of the Committee for Concerned Journalists and Project for Excellence in Journalism, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in reporting Islam, bias in journalism, and verified feature writing. She was awarded a Herman Kogan Meritorious Achievement Award by the Chicago Bar Association for her 8-part enterprise reporting series on child welfare and protection agencies for the Chicago Tribune. Her screenplay, The Journey Home about African-Americans exiled from America, was a finalist for the Guy Hanks Marvin Miller Screenwriting Fellowship (aka The Cosby Fellowship). Hamburg's first novel, The Edge of the World, about the impact of American foreign policy on individual lives was released by Mirare Press, Boston in 2007. Her forthcoming novel, Liberty Landing, a social novel about America that continues John Dos Passos' USA trilogy, is scheduled for release in Summer 2009 by Mirare Press. Hamburg studied mass communications at North East London Polytechnic, UK and holds an MFA in Writing and Literature from Bennington Writing Seminars.She currently works in science communications. Hamburg is now completing research on the emerging post-colonial literature and writers of Iraq, and editing an anthology on the subject for Mirare Press.

Blog Entries by Gail Vida Hamburg

Republicans: The Party of Whiners

Posted October 5, 2009 | 01:18 PM (EST)


Republicans: The Party of Whiners

Sen. Phil Gramm, economic adviser to John McCain's Presidential campaign, got it only half wrong when he called us a nation of whiners. He would have nailed it if he'd hurled the charge with more accuracy -- at his own party and its...

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President Obama's "Spock" Rationale On Iraq War Investigation Untenable

58 Comments | Posted May 31, 2009 | 09:03 PM (EST)


In a recent interview with Newsweek, President Obama mentioned seeing the latest Star Trek movie and that everybody was saying he was Spock. In another interview a while ago, the First Lady said, "The President is a very rational man."

This explains a lot. The President's refusal to investigate the...

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Wars Made Real: Photography at Dover Air Force Base

Posted March 3, 2009 | 12:52 PM (EST)


The Obama administration's decision to reverse the 18-year Pentagon ban on photography of soldiers' caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base is an important one for the public. Leaving the decision to military families to accept, or reject, public recognition of the service of their deceased is a respectful, Solomon-esque...

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Hold Your Fire: Children and Civilians In Gaza

Posted January 7, 2009 | 04:12 PM (EST)


In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag's meditation on images depicting the atrocities of wartime, she cites Virginia Woolf's lacerating indictment of war, written in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War was unfolding. Woolf's polemic was a response to a lawyer who had engaged her on the issue of...

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You Morons, What Have You Done With Our Money?

Posted December 22, 2008 | 02:19 PM (EST)


Three weeks before the election -- as John McCain was flailing about for a message to connect with voters to resurrect his comatose campaign, and settled on Nobel Laureate in Economics and also Bad Plumbing, Joe Wurzelbacher, to inspire us all -- Ed Rollins, GOP strategist and CNN commentator, tried...

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Some Late Advise for Patti Blagojevich

Posted December 11, 2008 | 04:00 PM (EST)


It's a truth universally acknowledged, but rarely spoken about, that one of the unwritten obligations of spouses is to save their partners from themselves. Who else but the person who loves you can save you from your own vanity and stupidity?

The recipient of this mother lode of spousal...

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Governor Blagojevich, the Shakedown Artist

Posted December 9, 2008 | 04:36 PM (EST)


At 6.15 am yesterday -- as the people of Illinois willed themselves to wake up to the cold and gloom to put in a day's work that didn't involve theft, plunder, or chicanery -- our Governor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested on evidence that he attempted all three.

The Governor was...

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Eliot Spitzer, It's Way Too Soon

Posted December 5, 2008 | 02:35 PM (EST)


Even compared to the fast pace of a New York minute, the speed at which Eliot Spitzer made his comeback is dizzying. It appears that the former Governor of New York decided to time his journey from irrelevance back to public life in the smallest measurable unit of time --...

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About That Bipartisan Cabinet, Hold Your Horses

Posted November 18, 2008 | 09:24 AM (EST)


President-Elect Barack Obama's intention to bridge the chasm between Republicans and Democrats, by assembling a bipartisan cabinet, is a gorgeous idea.

It's the embodiment of his vision for America to be that 'more perfect union,' the Founding Fathers wished it to be. It is also a testament of his...

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Wake the Neighbors: The President Has Regrets

Posted November 14, 2008 | 01:50 PM (EST)


In the sunset of his presidency, George W. Bush who has the singular distinction of being the most unpopular President in US history, and possibly the most reviled and despised American around the world, decided to do the honorable thing and do something he took pride in not doing --...

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White Pundits: Make Some Black Friends Before Opining on Obama Effect

Posted November 13, 2008 | 04:03 PM (EST)


To save us all from further excruciating meditations on the meaning of Barack Obama's capture of the Presidency to blacks, pundits like Maureen Dowd, Roger Cohen, and Frank Rich of the New York Times and syndicated opinionator, Kathleen Parker should be forced at pencil point to make some black friends....

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