During the Hillary Clinton rally in Austin on Monday night, the photographers were on the stage right before she entered the arena. One was getting a crowd shot, and he was captured in the act:

Did you see it last night? If you missed it, feel free to take a look at my Flickr set. Here’s one example - it was a beautiful, eerie sky.

If you peruse this list of policy initiatives provided by The White House in relation to President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address last night (transcript is here; C-SPAN video is here), you may notice that two topics concern science and technology, two topics concern education and no topics concern the arts.

[NB: The final topic on that list, about worldwide compassion, stands out to me because I recently read about Compassion, which is a faith-based initiative that will use word of mouth blog power in Uganda next month. (If you’re interested in how non-profits are trying to leverage blogs and blogging and bloggers’ enthusiasm, you might want to follow Beth Kanter’s blog and read about How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media; she is one of the top experts in this area.) But I digress.]

So, while it’s nice that President Bush leaves us with his thoughts on science-related issues and makes sure to mention education (given No Child Left Behind’s continued existence, it’s unlikely we could forget Bush’s role there), some groups are demanding (or trying to demand) that the presidential candidates pay attention to their specific issues: Science Debate 2008, Ed in ‘08 and Arts Vote 2008 are three examples. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re into the concept of national sovereignty, central governments and all that kind of stuff, then Afghanistan is a seriously beautiful but broken place.

I happen to believe strongly that Afghanistan is, in fact, ungovernable, as a succession of foreign occupiers have learned to their dismay.

But that doesn’t mean that the culture and history of this wild place should not be preserved, and that’s where Rory Stewart enters the big picture.

Stewart is the author of “The Places In Between,” (2004) one of the best travel cum history books to come down the pike in a long time.

Stewart, a fearless (or fearlessly insane) Scotsman, walked the 600 miles of Afghanistan from western to eastern border to border alone in 2002 not long after a U.S.-led invasion had repelled the Taliban. (Okay, Stewart had the company of a dog for much of the trek, but you don’t want to know what happened to it.)

It should go without saying that Stewart fell in love with Afghanistan and has started a foundation to help save Old Kabul.

Click here for a National Geographic Adventure story on his efforts and here for a photo essay.

In a horrific Brigadoon, a place that only comes into view once every millennia, a place where everyone seems related by cousin kinship to everyone else, the police chief of Bashiqa in northern Iraq is being replaced. Authorities over him have arrested four men alleged to have participated in the ‘honor killing’ last month of Dua Khalil, a 17-year-old Kurdish girl whose religion is Yazidi. Without any evidence the alleged killers (one of them a cousin) accused her of seeing a boy of another faith, a Sunni Muslim, converting to that faith, and marrying him secretly… all of which appear to date to be false.

Someone in the witness-mob had a camera-phone and filmed Dua being stoned to death, literally bleeding to death before a crowd of dozens of excited men. She was first dragged into the circle in a headlock by a large man, thrown to the ground, stones half the size of her head used to crush her face and skull. She was kicked in the face and belly as she tried to rise. Police watched impassively.

What really is a grave “dishonor murder of one of God’s souls,” these so-called ‘honor killings’ have in modern times gotten the nod from more than a few village males, while others, as well as women, are often afraid to protest… given the rage and loss of rational thought that seems to go hand and hand in those who commit such murders.

One woman who spoke out and continues to speak out against the dishonor of murdering daughters, is a Bangladeshi woman named Taslima Nasrin, a physician and writer. I came to her work twelve years ago through my affiliation with PEN Prison Project as she was facing imprisonment for writing and speaking out against “honor killings.”

Dr. Nasrin had to flee her country after a fatwa was issued by Muslim fundamentalists who offered money to whomever would kill her to silence her. Month before last, in March 2007, a group in India, calling themselves “All India Ibtehad Council” said they would give 500,000 rupees as an award for anyone who would behead Dr. Nasrin.

There is a saying in curanderismo, which is the ancient healing practice of many Latino groups from Spain through to the New World… that if you if wish to understand how a mad person comes to their conclusions, you must ask yourself what you yourself would have to believe and think to come to the same conclusion…

While we are waiting to understand the inunderstandable, here is one of Taslima Nasrin’s poems, called “NoorJahan,” the name of a young woman who was ‘honor murdered.’ Read the rest of this entry »

The bomb attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City 12 years ago today ushered America into the modern age of terrorism. But for me it was a professional nadir and resulted in a cautionary tale worth telling and retelling.

I was covering the O.J. Simpson criminal trial full time when a rental truck loaded with more than two tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil was detonated by anti-government militia sympathizer Timothy McVeigh at the foot of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Some 168 people were killed, including Baylee Almon (see photo) and 14 other children at a day care center in the building.

I was pulled off of The Trial of the Century and tasked with writing my newspaper’s main story on the bombing while our reporter and photographer were still in the air en route to the scene of the tragedy.

The Internet was in its infancy and blogging was a few years off, and so I hastily assembled my story based on wire service reports and other information I was able to glean as I raced against an early deadline for our paper and the national wires. I came upon a reference to Oklahoma City having a largish Muslim community and the fact that was a source of some friction.

Desperately needing the WHO piece of the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY and HOW that every news story should include, I mentioned that Muslim population in the fifth paragraph, not so high in the story as to give it too much importance, but not so low that it would get lost. The implication was unmistakable: The bombing might have been a terrorist act stemming from members of that community.

How utterly wrong I was, so wrong that I sometimes use my egregious lapse in judgment as a talking point — one that is even more relevant today in this age of rampant racial stereotyping — when I speak to university journalism classes.

I set up the students by distributing photocopies of my story and then ask them to point out a major error in it.

I have yet to find one student who is able to do so.

Sometimes I come across a photograph that says it all.

That is definitely the case with this great Spencer Platt shot taken in South Beirut on the first day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah last year. It simply knocked my socks off.

Others also were impressed. The image has now won the 2007 World Press Photo award.

Photo by teen photographer Greg S. of San Diego, CA