A couple of days ago, my  daughter asked me, “Do you ever have regrets?”

She asked me this in the bathroom, as I was drying my hair.  No matter what I am doing, my two youngest kids seem to hover around me, fluttering like moths to a flame. … Read full post »

With the Supreme Court hearing arguments in two cases related to same-sex marriage, was written - and said and thought - last week about marriage equality in the United States. No matter how these particular nine justices rule (and there is speculation that, unlike the&nbs/… Read full post »

Photo by my colleague Rosalyn Park, taken during our trip to Sierra Leone in 2004

Nelson Mandela read Chinua Achebe when he was in prison and reportedly described him as a writer "in whose company the prison walls fell down."  I read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall A… Read full post »

View of the Kasbah in Rabat
January 2013

There is no guidebook to Morocco, and no way of knowing, once one has left Tangier behind, where the long trail over the Rif is going to land one, in the sense understood by any one accustomed to European certainties. 

… Read full post »

This is the second in my series of CALL OF (Parental) DUTY posts about the discussion we are having in our house about violent video games. Today is my 13 year-old son Sevrin's chance to share his point of view.  Below is a letter that he wrote to us (his parents) about his… Read full post »

It's pretty rare that a national debate mirrors so exactly one that is raging within my own family circle.  But in the wake of the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary - and subsequent comments by National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre blaming gun violence on video game makers… Read full post »

I picked up my seven-year old daughter early from school one day not too long ago.  "How was your day?" I asked, as she buckled herself securely into her booster seat.  The key was in the ignition, and my brain had already sent… Read full post »

 And now for something completely different.

 Last week, I found the normal shapes and rhythms of my world disrupted. In the midst of a major storm in the East  and a bitter, divisive election, we buried my grandmother.  She was 98, so it shouldn't have been a surpris… Read full post »

Every morning when I come into work, I am greeted by the smiling face of a young girl. Her hair is pulled neatly back into two braids, glossy black against her pink hairbands.  Her eyes, dark and alert, shine - I swear I can see a twinkle in them.  She… Read full post »

Like most mothers, I spend a good deal of time preparing meals for my family.  Most mornings find me in the kitchen, making lunches as the sky lightens from deep blue to pink, and so on to sweet orange. Brilliant shafts of sunlight are spilling through the back door by… Read full post »

Some students walk - up to 2 hours each way - to the Sankhu-Palubari Community School to access their right to education.

I've been in Nepal for the past ten days with a team of staff and volunteers.  We are here to visit the Sankhu-Palubari Community School (SPCS) in the… Read full post »

 Landing at Elefthérios Venizélos in Athens, you can't miss the sprawling blue and gold IKEA near the airport.  While tourists arriving  in Greece may recognize the siren call o… Read full post »

My 10 year old son comes out of the ice arena, swaggering despite the heavy hockey bag he carries like a giant backpack. His hockey stick and waterbottle he wields before him, for all the world like a rod and staff.  I'm sitting on a picnic table in the sun… Read full post »

My daughter in Norway in August 2010.
For many in Norway, the terrorist attacks on July 22, 2011 represent the loss of innocence.

On the morning of July 22 last year, I read the breaking news of a car bomb attack in Oslo, Norway.  I clicked on the link… Read full post »

Cartoon by Kianoush

In May, I was in Geneva to participate in the United Nations' Universal Periodic Review of Morocco and India.  I went for a run one day along Quai Wilson on Lake Geneva and discovered an exhibition of political cartoons. The exhibition was sponsored by Cartooning… Read full post »

Raj Ghat,  Mahatma Gandhi Memorial

New Delhi, India

Last year, on my first trip to India, I visited Raj Ghat in New Delhi.   Raj Ghat (or Rajghat) is the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial and, as Gandhi has long been one of my human rights heroes, I was glad to have… Read full post »

When asked the secret to living past 100, my Grandpa Olaf  had a standard response.  Eyes atwinkle and shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, he would wait a moment (to maximize the impact) and then reply, "DON'T DIE!"  But Grandpa Olaf had more going f… Read full post »

Charles G. Taylor with NPFL fighters during attack on Monrovia in 1990

(Image Source) 

The Special Court for Sierra Leone  today sentenced former Liberian President Charles G. Taylor to 50 years in prison for his role in the Sierra Leonean conflict in the 1990s.   Mr./… Read full post »

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Photo courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Library via Wikipedia Commons.

 Eleanor Roosevelt once said,

"Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home - so close and so small that th

… Read full post »

For his senior project, my talented college friend Dave Saltzman wrote and illustrated a children's book.  He did this during a time when he was being treated for cancer.  Dave was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma during the fall of our senior year; he died a year and a half la… Read full post »

Image Source

I had a bad feeling when Adam Yauch was a no-show for the Beastie Boys' induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall o' Fame in April. So, while I was not surprised, I was saddened to learn of his death from cancer at the age of 47.

The… Read full post »

 Folksinger Lillebjørn Nilsen and a crowd of 40,000 sing Barn av regnbuen (Children of the Rainbow) at the trial of Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo

Source NRK 

I thought I would write about the Charles Taylor verdict today.  The verdict by the Special Court for Sierr… Read full post »