By Lauren Peterson — While the number of topics in poetry is unlimited, poetry is commonly thought of as that which explores love and loss. When poetry is brought up, one may be quick to think of Shakespearean love sonnets or Emily Dickinson’s poems on death. Yet, poets, including the two just mentioned, had much…
Category: Current Events
Adventist Church Selects New UN Liaison
From Adventist News Network – The Seventh-day Adventist Church has selected Ganoune Diop, a theologian and multi-linguist, as its new voice at the United Nations. Former mission study centers director will also contribute to IRLA 12 Aug 2011, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States Bettina Krause/IRLA/ANN The Seventh-day Adventist Church has selected Ganoune Diop, a theologian and multi-linguist,…
Refuge Camp in Africa “The Most Desperate Place on Earth” (CNN)
EXCERPT: “It makes me want to scream, but instead I nearly cry.” CNN’s Anderson Cooper reports – Dadaab, Kenya (CNN) — Right now, this may be the most desperate place on Earth. “A drought, not seen in 60 years, compounded with near complete lawlessness and utter disregard for human life has made it so. “It is…
Article18: Norway — Personal Reflections on the Origin of a Tragedy
The fact of the matter is that the demon of terrorism is one that will practice whatever religion it must to satisfy its craving for violence. Terrorism knows no religion that it can’t corrupt. Violence can find a home in any religion, any belief system, be it Muslim, Christian, or Sikh and it is not partial to any one in particular, despite the ramblings in the media.
Italy Edges Closer to ‘Burqa Ban’ Law (AJE)
EXCERPT: An Italian parliamentary commission has approved a draft law that would ban women from wearing veils that cover their faces in public, if passed by parliament in September. The draft approved by the constitutional affairs commission on Tuesday would prohibit women from wearing a burqa, niqab or any other garb that covers the face in…
A Madman and His Manifesto (NYT)
EXCERPT: It passed with only scant notice, as with so many of the rude extremes of American life in a kinetic media age. The bodies of those Norwegian children slaughtered by a terrorist had yet to be fully recovered, let alone buried, when Glenn Beck compared the victims to Nazis. The summer camp where children…
Buying Power: Human Trafficking and the Local Marketplace
I’m not willing to pick cocoa beans or cotton for a dollar a day, so who is? Trafficked boys on the Ivory Coast and factory children in Asia whose fingers are small enough to work intricate and dangerous machines fill this gap. – One of the biggest reminders and strongest points I repeat daily is that I have done nothing to secure the position I have in life of being in a free country, just like these modern day slaves have done nothing to have their entire lives indebted to us because of the harsh demands we put on them with our high consumerist behavior. These socially conscious products contain more than just a new age aura or a better selling point; they represent a desire for the priority of humanity instead of selfish search for profit.
Article18: Uzbekistan — Recent Incidents of Violence Against Christians Alarm Religious Minorities
By Martin Surridge – The former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan occupies a precarious and oft-forgotten spot in Central Asia. Unlike other egregious religious liberty offenders such as Saudi Arabia, China, and North Korea, Uzbekistan is discussed little in the United States and is not well-known for any one thing. Unfortunately, it is often lumped in…
State and Federal Legislators Introduce Bill to Outlaw Local Criminalization of Circumcision
California Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco) and Assembly member Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) have introduced a bill that would directly ban local bans on circumcision. In a press conference held in Los Angeles yesterday, July 21, 2011, Ma and Gatto said that the bill would render the San Francisco ballot measure moot.
Speak Now – A Response to the European Sunday Alliance
In its Founding Statement, the European Sunday Alliance argues that, in the interest of synchronicity, Sunday is the appropriate day of rest for all of Europe, and makes no allowance or acknowledgment of what should be done for those whose faith requires them to rest on a day outside of Sunday. In fact, it is not hard to see how those who rest on a different day might be an annoyance or hindrance to Sunday rest, and even in the debate may be portrayed as roadblocks, troublemakers, or even anti-religious. Businesses who open on Sunday could be fined, and those who conduct their own entrepreneurial endeavors on Sunday could also find themselves operating against the law.