Archive for the ‘NGOs’ Category
Creepiest Google searcher ever, and a confidentiality conundrum
Like a lot of bloggers, weird Google search terms will send people my way. I used the word “thighs” in a blog headline once, and now every week I get a few people who I’m pretty sure are just looking for porn. Awesome.
But here’s a Google search term that’s also a reminder of how important [...]
Does charity work like carbon offsets?
First, let me just say that it sounds like carbon offsets are a guilt salve more than anything else. If you saw the piece in Harper’s Magazine, it’s hard to be optimistic that offsetting carbon does much more than make lay people feel guilty and make smart people scheme about how to create another [...]
"I swear, that is SO legal," or, why the man in charge of fixing Liberia's justice sector "owns" all the laws
A piece of investigative reporting that took Glenna Gordon and I the better part of our month together in Monrovia, and lots of her time before that, is finally in the world. The story is about Philip Banks, by my impression a genial and very smart man, who claims to own the copyright to [...]
One year of corruption in Africa = 704 million years of HIV treatment
At least according to the calculations of the Namibian* activists who made this video, the first in a series called “Lords of Bling.” Take a look if you want to know how many courses of TB or HIV treatment you could get for the money Uganda’s President Museveni pours into his private jet, Swaziland’s [...]
South Africa loses feisty AIDS activist, poignant digital diarist
This happened last week, but I only just caught up: 24-year-old Thembi Ngubane died last Thursday, after becoming an incredible force for fighting HIV/AIDS.
She did this in part by recording a year in her life living with AIDS, as part of Joe Richman’s Radio Diaries series. Her story starts:
“Every morning, when I wake up, [...]
Top 10 Sad Things the Palin-Letterman Controversy Says about America
I had a nice little list going, centered on the most outrageous element of all: a form letter for anti-Letterman protestors–egged on, in spirit at the very least, by Sarah Palin and the exeuctive produer of Sarah Palin Radio (“Governor Palin’s own ‘friendly’ media,” according to the site). The sample letter accuses Letterman’s advertisers [...]
I am a freelance journalist and multimedia producer who covers human rights, Africa and foreign affairs. [