Stunning scenes of dissent and defiance played out across China over the past week, marking the country’s largest protests in decades – and an unprecedented challenge to leader Xi Jinping. Deep public anger after nearly three years of snap lockdowns, border closures and financial hardship brought thousands out onto the streets to demand an end… Read More How a deadly fire ignited dissent over China’s zero-Covid policy
By TROY FARAH A space rock that crashed in Somalia decades ago lay partially encased in sand until 2020, when researchers dug it up and sliced into it for samples. Inside the 15 ton meteorite — the ninth largest ever found intact on this planet — were two minerals, and possibly a third, that had never before been seen on Earth. The… Read More Never-before-seen minerals discovered in Somalian meteorite
Fascism thrives on gruesome caricature — and it’s tough to beat a pro-Trump Black rapper praising Adolf Hitler By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA On Thursday afternoon my editor asked me what thoughts I might have about the vile quarter of American humanity that includes Kanye West, Donald Trump, Nick Fuentes and now apparently the conspiracy theorist and podcaster… Read More Kanye’s tragicomic, antisemitic Alex Jones meltdown: Absurdism in the service of fascism
by Matthew Rose In the spring of 1941, as Hitler was laying plans for his invasion of the Soviet Union, Leo Strauss gave a lecture at the New School for Social Research as part of a seminar on “Experiences of the Second World War.” The lecture, which was not published until five decades later, marked one… Read More Leo Strauss and the Closed Society
Wilfred Chan Rose Tang was stunned when she saw videos last week of crowds in China chanting in Mandarin, “Give me liberty or give me death.” It was a phrase the Brooklyn resident had last heard more than three decades ago, when she was one of the student leaders at the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.… Read More ‘Freedom in China is precious’: Tiananmen Square protest veteran salutes new generation
First posted February 09, 2012 A photo of a lone man with his arms folded as hundreds around him perform a salute in Nazi Germany has resurfaced. The snap was taken in Hamburg in 1936, during the celebrations for the launch of a ship. In the crowd, one person refuses to raise his arm to… Read More Ordinary people. The courage to say NO
First posted January 23, 2012 Irena Sendler (1910-2008) was a Polish Catholic social worker who served in the Polish Underground and the Żegota resistance organization in German-occupied Warsaw during World War II. Assisted by some two dozen other Żegota members, Sendler saved 2,500 Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, providing them… Read More Remember this lady. In memory of Irena Sendler
First posted December 22, 2015 Patrick Kingsley On Tuesday, the number of asylum seekers to reach Europe this year passed 1 million. Nearly half of them did so via the beaches of this Greek island As an institution, the Greek Orthodox church is often considered a bastion of nationalism and conservatism. Some of its priests have… Read More Lesbos is swept by wave of compassion as refugees continue to arrive by sea / ‘Love has no religion’ – priests and pastors reach out to refugees
First posted August 27, 2019 Last year my daughter and I were on the train from Carlisle to Manchester. There was a stag party, loud and pretty annoying, and getting cross looks from some passengers. Then along comes an older lady, who couldn’t find her case. She was going from compartment to compartment, desperately searching. One… Read More The kindest thing I ever saw …
First posted August 03, 2019 NB: This story is moving because our time is filled with animosity. It reminds us that there are still amongst us those for whom compassion is a primary instinct. If there are people in danger at sea, sailors save them, without asking where they come from or the colour of their skin. The… Read More Sicilian fishermen risk prison to rescue migrants: ‘No human would turn away’
After the truth-shower 