The civics of capitalism
I ran into an article today that raises a point similar to one that troubled me earlier, about the seeming panacea of purchasing power. This is a fantastic, if a bit lengthy, piece from 2002, a diary of one woman’s regular calls to the White House Comment ...
Geography jokes
These satire places are great at them — but only because we, as a collective nation, appear incredibly stupid. The latest take on the “Americans don’t know where anything is” style of humor comes from this Onion video, which is indeed, alas, hilarious: “The United States gave billions ...
From the Department of That’s-Not-What-I-Meant
Bush’s visit is all the buzz, in Africa and back in the States. I had a similar experience to The New York Times when doing some legwork for my own frequent employer: In Kigali, as in Tanzania, if you ask random folks about George W. Bush, they ...
In Real News from the Region…
This will be a hopefully frequent “feature” on the blog, where I’ll break with my more fun, writerly self to objectively share news from the region, in that more traditional news voice. Think of me as your RSS feed for things you didn’t know you wanted to know about ...The contradictions of cleanliness
The first thing they tell you when you say something like, “I’m going to the middle of Africa,” is Don’t drink the water.
This is obvious, mostly, and there’s a whole host of good reasons why—last time I was here, there was a cholera outbreak linked to drinking water. Then ...
Short is the new tall
Coffee, that is. That’s right, people. There’s a Starbucks-like coffee shop in Kigali. Only here, a tall is a medium. Even for those of us schooled in the vocabulary of ventis, it’s less confusing than if it were in Kinyarwanda, I suppose. English is the ...
Jina Moore
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [More here]