Frederick S. Lane | In my previous post, “The Napoleon of the Mailbags,” I talked about the enthusiasm of Christian nationalists for a re-invigoration of the 1873 Comstock Act. In the view of zealots like US District Court Judge Matthew Kaszmyrak (D. 19th Cent.), the law's long-dormant prohibition against the mailing of “(e)very article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion” amounts to a national ban of mifepristone and misoprostol, the two medications most commonly used to induce abortion. Read more →

A Q&A with Jonathan Rigsby | By the time I sat down to write “Drive,” I’d had to put a lot of thought into where I wanted to focus my energy. Working, parenting, and driving were taking up the majority of my time, and I had to choose how to spend the very small amount of free time I had. I’m very fortunate to have an incredibly supportive partner. When I decided to get serious about writing a book, she was with me every step of the way. Read more →

By Philip C. Winslow | Sierra Leone’s civil war ran from 1991 to 2002. I reported it occasionally, in 1994 and 1995, mainly about a group of South African mercenaries hired by the Freetown government. (The same mercenaries had also worked in Angola.) In 1999-2000, I worked there again, not as a journalist, but with UNAMSIL, the United Nations peacekeeping mission, with 17,500 troops then the world’s largest. Read more →

By Christian Coleman | “How do you teach a kindergartener about the histories and contemporary legacies of race and racism in a way that affirms her humanity and agency?” Dr. OiYan Poon poses herself this question in the introduction of “Asian American Is Not a Color: Conversations on Race, Affirmative Action, and Family” after her three-year-old daughter Té Té broaches the topic of race. An answer to her question could be found by turning to this year’s theme for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Read more →

By Philip C. Winslow | I reported from Angola 1993-1995 as the Southern Africa radio correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, and later on my own. The war took a terrible toll on civilians, mostly through the use of landmines, but also through murder and various forms of coercion. For a time, the civil war, extravagantly fueled by the US and the Soviet Union, with help from South Africa and Cuba, was known as “the worst war in the world.” Although that title has passed to other conflicts, Angola’s forty-one years of war remain a distinct chapter in the annals of human destruction. Read more →