Emphasis, as always, added. Worst Fatwa Ever Another clergy member offered biblical justification for the military’s death flights, according to an account by one of the pilots anguished about dumping drugged prisoners out of aircraft and into the sea. Starting a Papacy, Amid Echoes of a ‘Dirty War’, William Romeiro and Simon Neumann, The New […]
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Did the College of Cardinals foresee the Dirty War controversy?
Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election to the papacy further tarnishes the position — and the Church. In a New York Times piece titled Starting a Papacy, Amid Echoes of a ‘Dirty War’, William Romeiro and Simon Neumann write: And last November, after the future pope’s tenure as head of the bishops’ conference had ended, the church […]
St. Patrick’s Day: wearing o’ the black
Originally posted 3.17.08 and re-posted each St. Patrick’s Day. I won’t be wearing green today. Don’t get me wrong – like many Americans, I’ve got plenty of Irish blood in my veins, and I’m quite happy to celebrate that heritage. But this St. Patrick thing… Sadly, very few people have stopped to think about exactly […]
Did John Brennan’s end run lead to the death of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi?
Who would you believe: JSOC operatives past and present or the U.S. government? Benghazi: The Definitive Report is the title of an e-book published on February 12 by William Morrow. It’s written by two editors at SOFREP.com, the unofficial special operations site: Brandon Webb — a former Navy SEAL — and Jack Murphy — a […]
Oscar Pistorius and the heart of South Africa’s violent society
It was about 3am when the noise of a car being stealthily driven down the drive awakened him from slumber. Fearing that criminals were attempting to invade, he drew his firearm and shot at the vehicle. When Rudi “Vleis” Visagie looked inside he saw that he had shot his daughter, Marlè, in the head. She […]
The shooters: a photoessay
by Dan Ryan They were young boys shooting corks from toy rifles at a street fair in a poor Tokyo neighborhood. It was a sunny, gorgeous Saturday in late April, 2012, the beginning of an extended holiday called Golden Week. And the gunplay was an innocent thing, just kids having fun taking harmless pop-shots at […]
The European Union’s next crisis
The European Union has surprised people over the past year with its resilience. Much of 2012 was spent listening to commentators predicting the imminent break-up of the EU, with Greece the first to go, followed in short order by Portugal, Spain, and perhaps even Italy. That most of these commentators were British or American should […]
Egyptian protesters eat their own
Two years after the Lara Logan assault, women continue to be attacked at protests in Tahrir Square. Remember the Tahrir Square attack on Lara Logan two years ago while she was covering the demonstrations for CBS News? It seems that women — even protestors — continue to be sexually assaulted. At the Egypt Independent, Tom […]
Uganda Journal: heading home
Standing on the Equator, I’m as centered as I’ve felt during my entire journey. A few feet to my left, in the Northern Hemisphere, there’s a sign that says “Did you know?” with a shallow bowl that drains into a bucket. In the Southern Hemisphere: same thing. Did you know, in the north, water drains […]
Uganda Journal: Africa’s darkest heart
Final words, written in shit: “I never for my husband was killed….” Scrawled on concrete, marred by blood: “Cry far help me the dead.” The lost voices of 300,000 dead, forgotten beneath the earth. These are Idi Amin’s torture chambers—five concrete bunkers burrowed into the mountainside beneath Mengo Palace in Kampala. Amin, the notorious dictator […]
S&R Honors: Ivan Toms and Lawrie Schlemmer – what we were we still are
Waiting for a miracle “How long are you prepared to wait?” I asked. It was 1991 in the Eastern Cape city of Port Elizabeth and I was in my final year of high school. Nelson Mandela had been released in 1990 with me hovering over the television, my camera on a tripod, in a futile […]
Uganda Journal: making matooke
Because he’s back home from secondary school for the holiday, Simon is in charge of the kitchen at the Bethlehem School this month. Although only seventeen, he’s easily one of the best cooks whose food I’ve ever eaten. “In Uganda, it’s considered a disgrace for a man to cook unless he trains to be a […]
Uganda Journal: a walk to the well
The well at Nakagongo sits in a low valley, with a web of trails that lead down to it from the surrounding hillsides. It’s not an especially grueling walk and not especially steep, but it’s a five-minute hike downhill from the road. On days like today, when it rained for a couple hours in the […]
Uganda Journal: the double tragedies of Kasensero
The Rwanda Genocide Memorial in Kasensero sits high atop a limestone bluff that overlooks Lake Victoria, which shimmers gray-blue against the horizon a half-dozen kilometers away. In 1994, the bodies of more than 10,000 genocide victims washed up on Victoria’s shores after floating nearly a hundred kilometers downriver from the killing grounds in Rwanda. The […]
Uganda Journal: the safari (part two of two)
The second of two parts The first thing we see on our boatride along the shores of Lake Mburo is a pair of African fish eagles, which look like streamlined bald eagles but with the white extending from the head and neck down to the chest. Our park ranger, Moses, tries to fill us in […]
Uganda Journal: the safari (part one of two)
The colonial King of Ankole, Omugabe, loved his impala. The capital of Uganda, Kampala, had been named for the graceful antelopes—but the growing population in the city began to squeeze the impala out of their habitat, and they were being hunted relentlessly. The king knew he had to protect the impala he so dearly loved. […]
S&R Honors
Click here to learn more about past honorees...- “Where Girls Grow Strong” – and Boy Scouts follow
- Atheists in heaven? Vatican spin machine leaps into action
- I-5 bridge collapse: reflecting on our crumbling infrastructure
- UPDATED: Pope Francis says atheists can go to heaven: Sweet Jesus! The College of Cardinals done elected a hippie
- Magic Hat vs. West Sixth brewhaha: will MH win the battle that costs them the war?
- Mystery Unraveled: How a white, moderate, married, churchgoing, middle-class, middle-aged woman could vote for Obama
- An open letter to Burt Rutan, regarding his WSJ commentary on human-caused climate disruption
- Meet the men of Match.com: Really, guys, are you serious?
- Climate scientists still besieged
- Pelosi on Bush: “He’s not worth impeaching”
