In speaking with friends who are all parents about teaching young children about the world and the world issues, we then ended up talking about books. While there is undoubtedly a plethora of books availible for children, its actually almost daunting how many books there are, and while most are good books few seem to […]
Think of it as fence-mending, image-building and playing his strong suit. With the Republican nomination now in hand, John McCain is making the overseas trip he was forced to delay earlier this month when he still faced opposition from both Mike Huckabee and from conservatives unreconciled to his being the Republican standard bearer. Now he's […]
From March 13-16, former soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are giving eyewitness testimony to what they did in that country. Unlike filtered news from the military, or the biased news from the media, this is the visceral truth, straight from the frontlines. Whether you are against the occupation or for it, finding out what is […]
HIV major factor in rising child deaths in South Africa as “every year 20,000 babies are stillborn and another 22,000 die within the first month of their lives. In total, at least 75,000 children die before their fifth birthday, while 1,600 mothers die due to pregnancy or childbirth complications, according to a report on infant, […]
There have been rumors circulating (or for some hawks, wishful thinking) that the Bush administration has been considering a unilateral attack on Iran. The move would be aimed at halting the Iranian government's nuclear enrichment program, which the US government believes will lead to the development of not just nuclear energy (as the Iranians claim) […]
The words of Martin Luther King, Jr., ring as true today as they did they did then. It is our silence that allows suffering to continue. As a society we cannot remain silent about the injustices that plague our world, the injustices that children face daily, for if we speak then we can hear not […]
The astoundingly influential economist and development guru Jeffrey Sachs has a new book coming out next week. It is called Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, and has laudatory blurbs by both Al Gore and Kofi Annan. Sachs is a great writer, and although I sometimes disagree with him (among other issues I disagree […]
THE HAGUE (AFP) ‚ The International Criminal Court said Thursday that its first war crimes trial, involving former Congolese militia chief Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, would open on June 23.Lubanga, 46, is accused of abducting children under the age of 15 and forcing them to participate in attacks by the armed wing of his political Union […]
As spring peeked its sleep head though the last days of winter, the sun shown on the steps of the Senate Building as a group converged to demand that America fight to end slavery in its fields. Today Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin from Illinois, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John […]
According to CoalSpeak, The Official CoalRegion Dictionary, the above term refers to “tuberculosis, or some virulent strain of TB. Consumption was a common word for tuberculosis many years ago (“consuming’ the lung tissue). “Galloping’ refers to the speed at which the disease progresses.” Ironic, perhaps, that I’m using this term to illustrate one of the […]
I was sad to miss this event put on by the Center for Global Engagement in Washington, DC last week. The event featured General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC (Ret.) and Admiral Leighton W. Smith, Jr., USN (Ret.) fresh from testifying at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill. According to the Center, the General and […]
Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State during President Bush's first term, was recently interviewed by the Washington Diplomat. Armitage spoke about the need to repair the U.S.'s tarnished image abroad. He told the Diplomat: "The decline in American influence can be a temporary phenomenon. I believe most countries want us to be the indispensable […]
The man describing himself as the chief of operations for former Liberian President Charles Taylor, Joseph Marzah, or "Zigzag," told the United Nations-backed Special Court for the Sierra Leone that Taylor encouraged his fighters to "play with human blood." Marzah told the court about roving bands of death squads terrorizing the civilian population at checkpoints […]
America is many things, as are Americans, and our culture is as diverse as they come and when one thinks of America and our modern culture one of the things that pops into your mind is inevitably fast food. We are all touched by the reach of the fast food industry. While for some of […]
John Bolton, former Bush-appointed Ambassador to the United Nations, recently authored a book, titled Surrender Is Not An Option. The American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank in Washington, DC at which Bolton is a scholar, describes the book: “With no-holds-barred candor, the straight-talking former ambassador to the United Nations takes readers behind the scenes at the U.N. and […]