The alarm went off at 3:30 a.m. on Guatemala’s presidential election day in December 2003. Another electoral observer and myself, accredited by the Organization of American States, found our way through dense fog and a 35-degree chill to a local high school in the city of Quetzaltenango to mee
It can be lonely living by oneself in a small town, as I do. But I can always go to Wal-Mart and know that I will be met at the door by a smiling employee who will greet me with “Welcome to Wal-Mart” and give me a shopping cart and a flier with today’s specials. If only I could be
On my desk is a photograph of a large poster that had been crudely taped to the wall of a bakery in an Arab souk just inside the Damascus Gate to the Old City of Jerusalem. The poster shows a Palestinian man crouching on the ground, his back against a cinderblock wall, his mouth contorted in a silen
Taking a subway from one island to another—that is something you can do only in a place like Manhattan. Manhattan itself is an island, and I was going from there to Roosevelt Island just across the East River. Coming up the long escalators from subterranean depths, I was stunned to see the riv
Unleash the Capitalists
How disillusioning to read your editorial Trading Jobs (4/5). I expected something better from a Jesuit publication than this stale diatribe on American capitalism.
To begin, let me compliment you on your initial observation on the outsourcing
George W. Bush is a high-stakes gambler. When the going gets tough, he is inclined to up the ante. Whether it is tax cuts, the prescription drug benefit, bringing democracy to the Middle East or sending astronauts to Mars, he reaches for the sky. His endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharo
“Students who understood very little of his lectures told me that they attended because they ‘felt better’ about themselves in his presence. ‘This is a professor to whom I can confess,’ one said.”