Global Lens Reflections on life, the universe, and everything

Archive for December, 2011
Cairo family
Cairo family

Today is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, the day we remember the massacre of the children of Bethlehem by the army of an empire that was threatened by the birth of a child. To escape the violence, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to Egypt, where they lived until Herod died. Despite all the […]

Ethiopian mother and child
Ethiopian mother and child

In these final days of Advent, when we practice waiting, I remember this woman. In April 2000 I was in Gubalaftu, a poor village in the stark northern highlands of Ethiopia. I was covering the effect that a periodic drought had on families there. Some had received food from the Mekane Yesus Ethiopian Evangelical Church, […]

Palestinian pictures
Palestinian pictures

Newt Gingrich paints himselfs as a "historian," but it's obvious that his recent reference to the Palestinians as an "invented" people, just as his claim that they are all "terrorists," is a lie so big that only the most ardent Fox News devotee, who knows less about the world than someone who doesn't watch any […]

Port au Prince posture
Port au Prince posture

I'm a little late posting this week as I wandered off to New York City for three days, where among other things I signed copies of Rubble Nation, a new book on Haiti that I coauthored, at a reception in Manhattan. So I was thinking a bit about the images in the book and what […]

Advent waiting
Advent waiting

Advent is a time when Christians practice the discipline of waiting. For many people in the world, however, waiting is more ordinary, the stuff of every day and not just special days. Waiting shapes who they are and how they see the world. For many who wait, impatience simply isn’t an option, perhaps because it’s […]

Enough stigma
Enough stigma

In the last few years I’ve shot a lot of images related to HIV and AIDS. Because today is World AIDS Day, I wanted to pick just one. Would it be a care giver in Malawi, one of those unsung heroes on the front line of the war against suffering? Would it be an angry […]