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The Treasure of the Rocky Mountain Front

BROWNING, MT—Nowhere in the West does the rolling sea of the high plains meet the mountains with such dramatic effect as in northwestern Montana. State Highway 2 stretches through the northern Hi-Line for miles of coulees and intermittent creeks, antelope, buffalo and Plains

A Whole World Gone: The Loss of the American Chestnut Tree

Early McAlexander looks through the window of his granddaughter’s car onto a wide open hill fringed by a line of white pines. “All this land used to belong to my father,” Early says in a voice that’s surprisingly steady and strong for a

Lady of Limbo Land

She looked like a human crucifix — arms outstretched, left hand grabbing the wall while the right hand grasped the door, legs clamped. Maria Guadelupe Aranda was in labor.

I didn’t know Lupe when I put my hands on her belly. I didn’t even speak her language.

Importing Nuns to Save American Monasteries

PHILADELPHIA – The monastery’s gray stone mother house stands stoically amid lonesome pine trees and statues of saints. At one time, the Sisters of St. Basil the Great on Fox Chase Road numbered about 150. Today most sisters have quietly retired from

The Politics of the Habit

Faint voices floated from behind the faded drapes that separated the nuns’ portion of the parlor from their visitors’. On my side, an armchair was stationed in front of the curtains, like a theater set for an audience of one. I could only wonder what was waiting on the other side.

Risking the Pope’s Wrath

Pope John Paul II, who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of his papacy, has issued strong denunciations of women who have tried to widen their role in the Catholic Church. Just a week before the liberal Loretto Sisters met, he called for “just punishment,” including excommunication, for those who support ordination of women.

The Masada Complex

(JERUSALEM) — Readers have been exposed to a great many words lately about the Islamic resurgence, some of them coming from this very typewriter. A rebirth of Koranic zeal helps explain to Westerners the recurring episodes of what looks to us like bizarre

End or Begin?

CAIRO – Hassan AI-Tuhami is one of those men who, at first sight, conveys to you a special presence, and even something more. I had asked for an interview because he is known as Anwar Sadat’s eminence grise, and apart from Sadat himself

Shofar Blowing

Israel: Revisionism Resurgent

(JERUSALEM) – It came so suddenly, this surge of power from the Revisionists, and no one expected it at all. Menachem Begin, their political leader for so many years, was an authentic hero of the war of independence. Vladimir Jabotinsky was Begin’s intellectual

Islam

Islam As Raison D’Etat

What is this religious fervor that is gripping the Islamic world? Institutional Islam has toppled a government in Iran, threatens a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, executed a former prime minister in Pakistan. Interpreters say that the huge influx of wealth from

David NewelI-Smith /Camera Press/Photo Trends

Impossible Dreams

(JERUSALEM) – The “melting pot” is an American concept, without bearing in the Holy Land. In the Old City of Jerusalem, where the great religions exalt their symbols of spirituality, Moslems, Christians and Jews rub shoulders in crowded streets, and barely stop to

Muammar Gaddafi

Defining Islamic Terms

This article was written before the seizure of the United States Embassy in Teheran by student followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Some time ago, writers adopted the convenient habit of categorizi

FUNAFUTI, TUVALU

Adapting on the Atoll

(Alicia Patterson Reporter, Spring 2009) Tuvalu Map FUNAFUTI, TUVALU – Karl Tili joined the Tuvalu Philatelic Bureau in 1976, when the former Ellice Islands colony first began to produce its own stamps in the early years of self-government leading up to independence. He

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The Complicated Problem of Stopping the Poaching of Wild Animals

March, 2009 – GORONGOSA NATIONAL PARK, Mozambique — For years, the rangers at this long-struggling national park knew about Tato Alexandre.  They knew how the slim farmer crossed the muddy Pungue River into their protected area, and how he looped wires around trees

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Trying Out a New Country Before Climate Requires They Move

In a Strange Land   August, 2008 – BAY OF PLENTY, New Zealand – Of all the adjustments she’s had to make since arriving in New Zealand, Annabelle Lolo Palota says one of the biggest struggles has been getting acclimatized to the climate.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — On October 1, 1975, the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands officially split in two, with the nine small coral atolls of the Ellice Islands reclaiming their traditional name of Tuvalu.

Against the Rising Tide

(Alicia Patterson Reporter, Summer 2008) WELLINGTON, New Zealand — On October 1, 1975, the British colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands officially split in two, with the nine small coral atolls of the Ellice Islands reclaiming their traditional name of Tuvalu.  Exactly

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Canadian Wetlands Produce Fuel for U.S.

Like a great silver snake, the Athabasca River glides though a spongy-wet wilderness of spindly forests, lakes and marshes 650 miles north of the U.S.-Canada border. Breathe deeply, though, and you catch a whiff of fresh, hot tar. In the river, fish are

Investigative Report: Promises and Poverty

Starbucks calls its coffee worker-friendly,but in Ethiopia, a day’s pay is a dollar Text and photos by (APF Fellow) Tom Knudson – Bee Staff Writer APF fellow Tom Knudson’s article on Starbucks was published jointly by the Sacramento Bee and the Alicia Patterson

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A Union Once Again Woos Underpaid Farmworkers

April, 2007 – Lerdo, California — Ryan Zaninovich is standing in the middle of his vineyard, surrounded by the men and women who pick his grapes and tend his vines. In khaki pants, work boots and his favorite cap, the blond boss has