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On The Americana Road Again

As a photographer and writer I have spent nearly 30 years crisscrossing the continental United States in search of unique and typical examples of roadside and Main Street architecture and design. In traveling over 100,000 miles in a long series of marathon automobile

Disease: Shrimp Aquaculture’s Biggest Problem

A mass of gulls hung like kites in the clear air above a shrimp farm in Sonora, Mexico. The birds indicated a situation familiar in every country where shrimp are grown. “Birds are the first sign of disease,” said Jose Reyna, a technical

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America’s “Give While You Live” Philanthropist

“I can testify that it is nearly always easier to make $1,000,000 honestly than it is to dispose of it wisely.” – Julius Rosenwald, 1929 Listen to a National Public Radio broadcast and chances are you’ll hear programs supported by the Ford Foundation

Secret Land Swaps Taxpayers Help Finance I

Fred Ruskin wants thousand of acres of national forest land in Northern Arizona to build a shopping center, subdivisions and other developments that assure his family’s financial fortunes. Most of it is desert scrub where cattle graze and people horseback ride, target practice,

Gateways of India’s Globalization

Globalization is hardly a new force affecting India. To think so is to ignore a diverse and pluralistic long-standing civilization that was shaped by a long list of “invading” (globalizing) cultures that became what we now know as India. The previous globalizers of

Choosing Servility To Staff America’s Trains

He was a black man in a white jacket and sable hat. He only recently had stepped out of the cotton fields, and now was stepping onto one of the locomotives that had symbolized freedom to slavehands like him. He lit the candles

Murdering Women For Entertainment

In the last decade alone, movie-makers have raped, murdered and mutilated more women than all the serial killers combined. Worse yet, they went about it and continue to do so with the same sadistic enthusiasm as the monsters they pretend to revile. Directors

The Curse of Cancer

Kevin Webster couldn’t go outside to play in the snow, his favorite thing to do. A fever and lung congestion kept the active two-year old inside. Cathy Webster, who admits she is overprotective, thought it was just a routine January cold as her

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Refugee Foster Care in Mississippi — When Cultures and People Clash

Refugee Foster Care in Mississippi — When Cultures and People Clash (Note: The names of the Sudanese youth in foster care were changed because of foster care privacy rules.) It was a simple misunderstanding. The article in the small Catholic Diocesan newsletter in

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How Long Will It Last?

The timing hardly seemed fortuitous. On May 1st, only 24 hours after a controversial referendum in Pakistan, which allowed General Pervez Musharraf to extend his Presidency for an additional five years — and, in the process, stripped away the country’s last façade of

Of Birds and Bombs

I never thought I would ever want to return to Dalbandin, a little desert town of some five thousand people in the Pakistani province of Balochistan. It is one of the least memorable places I have ever been, situated uncomfortably in the middle

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“The Monkey’s Head”

Does a New Mexico museum have looted and smuggled artifacts in its collection? It’s among the best collections of pre-Columbian art anywhere. In a gallery at the Palace of the Governors museum in Santa Fe, N.M., dimly lit and hushed but for a

The Dichotomies in Indian Women’s Lives

For every truth you find in India, the opposite is equally true. This well-worn cliché is doubly true when looking at the lives of Indian women. Indira Gandhi’s rule as Prime Minister of India, for example, was a triumph for women in leadership,

Stopping the Pillage

In Peru, villagers mobilize against the looters who ransack ancient sites A lean man in his 50s with skin burnished from a lifetime working in sugar cane fields, Gregorio Becerra remembers the days when his father used to bring home ancient ceramic pots

Michael Neufeld, curator of the Enola Gay exhibition.
(Photo by Julia M. Klein)

Tremors from the Enola Gay Controversy: An Argument for the Postmodern Museum

WASHINGTON — Sitting in his book-lined office at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, Michael Neufeld talks bitterly about his role as the much-maligned curator of the most infamous museum exhibition never mounted. Michael Neufeld, curator of the Enola Gay exhibition.
(Photo

A Judge in Coal Country

In the coal business, lawsuits are as common as roof falls and black lung disease. They’re part of doing business. Charles H. Haden II, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Charleston WV. (The Charleston (WV) Gazette) At first blush, the West

General on a Tightrope

With his country’s domestic and foreign policies largely buried in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, General Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler of Pakistan, faced a stark choice: to align his country solidly behind the United States’ war against

Haitians in New York

Brooklyn, NY — It was one of those New York City summer days when the heat bounced back and forth between buildings and the asphalt seemed to sweat. The temperature alone was cause for irritation. The police department’s timing could not have been