Current Comment

Identifying immigrants, violence against women, the rise of Hugo Chavez

No News… When Pope Benedict allowed wider use of the Latin Mass last July, he explained that he did not expect as a result any extensive return to the Tridentine rite. Rather, he said, he intended to heal rifts with traditionalist groups and allow young people attracted to the rite to experience i

Proving Innocence by DNA DNA evidence from hair, saliva, semen or other cell sources, has led to over 200 exonerations of wrongly convicted prisoners nationwide since 1989, according to an Innocence Project report. The 200th exoneration last April led to a national campaign to support the formation

Hollywoods Drama Strike! After an 11th-hour bargaining session between representatives of the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers failed, the Writers Guild called a general strike on Nov. 5 for the 12,000 scribes covered by the guild. It has been almo

Conscience and Information Two newspapers in Malaysia were recently closed down for specified periods as a punitive measure after their editors published controversial cartoons. In both cases the press could be seen as an equal opportunity offender, since one cartoon pictured the prophet Muhammad an

More Light Than Heat The public forum on the Iraq war sponsored by The New Yorker magazine on Oct. 5 at Manhattan’s Town Hall theater was first-rate. Credit goes to moderator George Packer (author of Assassin’s Gate) and to the participants: Jon Lee Anderson (Fall of Baghdad); Phebe Marr

Christians Need Not Apply On July 4 the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the appointment of Meir Sheetrit as Israels Minister of the Interior. The Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that shortly after taking office the minister complained about the quasi-Jews, Africans and ill

A Church in Qatar Despite the bleak news about the situation of Christians in much of the Middle East, there are occasional bright spots and reasons for hope. One glows in the southern part of Doha, the capital of Qatar, on a large parcel of land provided by the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Th

Racist Dictator Daily life in Zimbabwe, a country blessed with natural resources and an energetic population, goes from bad to worse. The average life expectancy for women is 34; for men 37. Inflation is at 8,000 percent. As the people suffer and as African neighbor states seem disinclined to inte

Jailhouse Blues Disturbing news from the vast American prison system suggests that a new kind of censorship is afoot, one far more draconian than anything even the most inventive of inquisitors might have dreamed up. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has used the excuse of potential terrorist agitatio