Month: February 2016
Social politics according to Facebook’s new emojis—we’re pretty much doomed
The talk in the series of tubes this week buzzed over the new reaction emojis available on everyone’s favorite social media site—the Book of Face. Whereas for most of the last decade, friends, friends of friends,...
Unexplainable
Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, San Bernardino, Fort Hood—now, Kalamazoo. It’s surreal to think that next time the president or a pastor laments forlornly over the not-so-little list of American gun tragedies, my hometown could be there. A...
Foodless
That we know of, Jesus only fasted once. He fasted after he was baptized in the Jordan, after water wrapped him up like a tomb, after a dove descended as if to say Peace itself...
How to make 2016 a better year for Syria
The city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria closed out 2015 with explosions. They weren’t fireworks. They were the blasts of a car bomb outside a popular café. Thirteen people were killed, mostly young men and...
Syria in summary – January 2016
An estimated one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, but the brief open-door sentiment captained by a German government newly-alert to the severity of the refugee crisis at its doorstep is already beginning...