Africa Horn Now

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INSIGHT

Teen Girls And Social Media: A Story Of ‘Secret Lives’ And Misogyny

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  February 29, 2016 | NPR Social media and dating apps are putting unprecedented pressures on America's teen girls, author Nancy Jo Sales says. Her new book, American Girls, opens with a story about one 13-year-old who received an Instagram request for "noodz" [nude photos] from a boy she didn't know very well. "When I was a girl and the things that would come up … [Read more...] about Teen Girls And Social Media: A Story Of ‘Secret Lives’ And Misogyny

Head in the cloud

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Sophie McBain | 23 February 2016 | NEW STATESMAN As we download ever more of our lives on to electronic devices, are we destroying our own internal memory? I do not remember my husband’s tele­phone number, or my best friend’s address. I have forgotten my cousin’s birthday, my seven times table, the date my grandfather died. When I write, I keep at least a … [Read more...] about Head in the cloud

How People Learn to Become Resilient

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Maria Konnikova | February 11, 2016 | THE NEW YORKER Norman Garmezy, a developmental psychologist and clinician at the University of Minnesota, met thousands of children in his four decades of research. But one boy in particular stuck with him. He was nine years old, with an alcoholic mother and an absent father. Each day, he would arrive at school with the exact same … [Read more...] about How People Learn to Become Resilient

Why humans find it hard to do away with religion

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John Gray | 20 January 2016 | THE NEW STATESMAN The new atheists decry religion as a poisonous set of lies. But what if a belief in the supernatural is natural? An American scientist visiting the home of Niels Bohr, the Nobel Prize-winning Danish physicist and refugee from Nazism who was a leading figure in the Manhattan Project, which produced the atomic bomb, was … [Read more...] about Why humans find it hard to do away with religion

Author Profiles The ‘Traumatized People’ Living In The World’s Largest Refugee Camp

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January 4, 2016 | NPR Founded in 1991 as a temporary shelter for Somalis, the Dadaab complex in Kenya now houses nearly half a million refugees. Ben Rawlence profiles nine of its residents in his new book, City of Thorns. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The Syrian refugee crisis has increased awareness of the desperate situations many … [Read more...] about Author Profiles The ‘Traumatized People’ Living In The World’s Largest Refugee Camp

How to Let Go

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Kalim Rajab | 31 Dec 2015 | Daily Maverick Just over a decade ago, I was responsible for raising money for the refurbishment of the Rhodes statue in Oxford. The idea may seem appalling now, but we were filled with a different kind of magnanimity then, and Mandela’s thinking. I wish the South African organisers of the current Oxford campaign well; I also hate our past. But I … [Read more...] about How to Let Go

The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did

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 Ward Wilson | May 30, 2013 | Foreign Policy Have 70 years of nuclear policy been based on a lie? The U.S. use of nuclear weapons against Japan during World War II has long been a subject of emotional debate. Initially, few questioned President Truman’s decision to drop two atomic bombs, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, in 1965, historian Gar Alperovitz argued … [Read more...] about The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did

Changing America’s Culture of Greed

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John W. Traphagan | 30 December 2015 | The Huffington Post Bernie Sanders has gained quite a bit of momentum in the US presidential election as he candidly points to the sources of many social ills and offers solutions that make sense. A few years ago, in response to a group of 80 CEOs cynically publishing a letter lecturing Americans about deficit reduction and urging … [Read more...] about Changing America’s Culture of Greed

How Stories Deceive

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Maria Konnikova | December 29, 2015 | The New Yorker On the afternoon of October 10, 2013, an unusually cold day, the streets of downtown Dublin were filled with tourists and people leaving work early. In their midst, one young woman stood out. She seemed dazed and distressed as she wandered down O’Connell Street, looking around timidly, a helpless-seeming terror in her … [Read more...] about How Stories Deceive

WHY ISRAEL WAITS

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Anti-Solutionism as a Strategy Natan Sachs, November/December 2015 Issue, Foreign Affairs Israeli national security strategy can seem baffling. Many observers in the United States and Europe, for example, wonder how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have warned for years that Iran’s nuclear program posed an existential threat to Israel yet has balked … [Read more...] about WHY ISRAEL WAITS