Six Tanzanian children killed 'for body parts' - BBC News

Six Tanzanian children killed 'for body parts' - BBC News:

Six children in south-western Tanzania have been killed and had their ears and teeth removed, the authorities say.

Some of the bodies of the children, aged between two and nine years old, were also missing limbs.

"This is all about superstitious beliefs and many believe they will get help from witchcraft," Njombe District Commissioner Ruth Msafiri said.

Police have detained one suspect, a close relative of three of the children who were from the same family.

Ten children in all have gone missing in Njombe since the beginning of December and four have been found alive.

Six Tanzanian children killed 'for body parts' - BBC News

Six Tanzanian children killed 'for body parts' - BBC News:

Six children in south-western Tanzania have been killed and had their ears and teeth removed, the authorities say.

Some of the bodies of the children, aged between two and nine years old, were also missing limbs.

"This is all about superstitious beliefs and many believe they will get help from witchcraft," Njombe District Commissioner Ruth Msafiri said.

Police have detained one suspect, a close relative of three of the children who were from the same family.

Ten children in all have gone missing in Njombe since the beginning of December and four have been found alive.

India 'witch hunters' kill mother and four children - BBC News

India 'witch hunters' kill mother and four children - BBC News:

Police in India are searching for more suspects in connection with the murder of a woman and her four children who were accused of being "witches".

Six people in the eastern state of Orissa have already been arrested, but police believe more people were involved in the crime.

The bodies of Mangri Munda and her children were found in a well near their home on 26 January.

An open letter of apology to all South Africans | News24

An open letter of apology to all South Africans | News24:

We had witnessed how an oppressive government had been defeated by the people of our country. It was a magical moment.

With this belief, I voted for the ANC in 1994 and 1999.

For this, I offer my most profound apology.

March for Life no place for Trump slogan, says Catholic bishop | Lexington Herald Leader

March for Life no place for Trump slogan, says Catholic bishop | Lexington Herald Leader:

Without engaging the discussion about the context of the viral video or placing the blame entirely on these adolescents, it astonishes me that any students participating in a pro-life activity on behalf of their school and their Catholic faith could be wearing apparel sporting the slogans of a president who denigrates the lives of immigrants, refugees and people from countries that he describes with indecent words and haphazardly endangers with life-threatening policies.

We cannot uncritically ally ourselves with someone with whom we share the policy goal of ending abortion.

I doubt that it is only these students who are not aware that the pro-life movement got its start among peace activists who saw their opposition to abortion as a natural extension of opposition to all forms of violence.

Opinion | How We Destroy Lives Today - The New York Times

Opinion | How We Destroy Lives Today - The New York Times:

these days the social media tail wags the mainstream media dog. If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views — you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers.

The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran - Hit & Run : Reason.com

The Media Wildly Mischaracterized That Video of Covington Catholic Students Confronting a Native American Veteran - Hit & Run : Reason.com:

Partial video footage of students from a Catholic high school allegedly harassing a Native American veteran after the anti-abortion March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., over the weekend quickly went viral, provoking widespread condemnation of the kids on social media. Various media figures and Twitter users called for them to be doxed, shamed, or otherwise punished, and school administrators said they would consider expulsion.

But the rest of the video—nearly two hours of additional footage showing what happened before and after the encounter—adds important context that strongly contradicts the media's narrative.

The Binding by Bridget Collins review – magical tale of supernatural books | Books | The Guardian

The Binding by Bridget Collins review – magical tale of supernatural books | Books | The Guardian:

Bridget Collins’s fantasy novel, her first for adults, begins sombrely, with its teenage hero Emmett being sent away from his family farm to become an apprentice to a binder of books. He’s weak after a long illness of a mysterious nature and, from his family’s strained behaviour, we intuit that he’s in some kind of disgrace he doesn’t fully understand. When he arrives at the isolated house of Seredith, the elderly woman to whom he’s apprenticed, it’s both an exile and a haven. He spends his days learning to make endpapers, tool leather, gilding – the delicate physical labour of making beautiful books. But he soon realises that the true work of binding is magical, manifested in the way that lives are turned into stories.

Top 10 Quakers in fiction | Books | The Guardian

Top 10 Quakers in fiction | Books | The Guardian:

From magnanimous Mrs Wilcox in Howards End to the bloodthirsty Captain Bildad in Moby-Dick, these portrayals complicate porridge-oat stereotypes

Persona, Ideology, the Egregore, and Social Media

Persona, Ideology, the Egregore, and Social Media | The Center for Sophiological Studies

Psychopathological complexes (or egregores, if you prefer) can also behave as autonomous beings capable of interfering with the intentions of the individual ego in your local Facebook coterie. In fact, social media may make such generation both more prolific and more effective.

The problem, of course, is we tend to think that this kind of thing happens to other people, but never to us. But how do we stay awake?

10 wasted years: The continued cost of cadre deployment, BEE and professionals leaving SA – The Citizen

10 wasted years: The continued cost of cadre deployment, BEE and professionals leaving SA – The Citizen:

Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s call to “think outside the box” about economic growth is akin to closing the stable door after the horse has not only bolted, but already won a race elsewhere.

Mboweni picked Harvard economist Ricardo Hausmann as an adviser, knowing full well that Hausmann’s advice on productive knowledge has been flatly ignored by the ANC government since 2008.

Hausmann sees productive knowledge as the key factor separating successful countries from unsuccessful ones, with a lack of productive knowledge retarding economic growth and development.

We need a split of Orthodoxy and the breakdown of Russia, and Ukraine, where betrayal is the norm of public morality, will help us in this - Brzezinski

We need a split of Orthodoxy and the breakdown of Russia, and Ukraine, where betrayal is the norm of public morality, will help us in this - Brzezinski:

American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski, back in 1997, in his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives wrote: “After the victory over communism, we need a split of Orthodoxy and the breakdown of Russia, and Ukraine, where betrayal is the norm of public morality, will help us in this."

“It is unreasonable to stop a schism at the price of the unity of the Orthodox world”—Pat. John of Antioch / OrthoChristian.Com

“It is unreasonable to stop a schism at the price of the unity of the Orthodox world”—Pat. John of Antioch / OrthoChristian.Com:

Pat. John emphasized that the events surrounding the creation of the new church cause concern not only because of the disunion they create in the Orthodox world, but also because the opinion of the Local Orthodox Churches was not taken into account by Constantinople, reports the official site of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The Synods, primates, and hierarchs of the Orthodox Churches from around the world continually warned Pat. Bartholomew that unilaterally creating a new church would have disastrous consequences and they called on him to convene a pan-Orthodox council to resolve the matter, though he repeatedly refused.

“We want to see the unity of the Orthodox world strengthened and consolidated,” Pat. John writes. “From your letter, it seems that you have decided to continue the process of granting autocephaly… Therefore, we call upon you to not make any decisions not supported by the consensus of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches. It is unreasonable to stop a schism at the price of the unity of the Orthodox world.”

His Beatitude also expressed confidence that “the most useful thing for peace in the Church, its unity, and for the common Orthodox witness in our world today is to stop and postpone this process until the Ukrainian problem is studied and a pan-Orthodox solution is found.”

ThrillWriting: Does Your Character Need to Access Her Past? Genealogical Searches for Writers with Juliette Godot

ThrillWriting: Does Your Character Need to Access Her Past? Genealogical Searches for Writers with Juliette Godot:

Using a genealogical search as part of a plotline has always been a fascinating topic to me. Recently I met Juliette Godot on Twitter and asked if she'd mind letting me pick her thoughts a bit on the subject.

ThrillWriting: Hug-a-Tree: Keeping Our Youngest Characters (and our real-life kiddos) Alive in the Woods with Jacquie Beveridge

ThrillWriting: Hug-a-Tree: Keeping Our Youngest Characters (and our real-life kiddos) Alive in the Woods with Jacquie Beveridge:

Now, I know that this is a writers' blog. But I have always felt that we fiction writers have a great opportunity to educate. By writing a scene correctly into a novel - a mother or father might learn something that could save their family from the devastation of losing a child. This is why I invited Jacquie to visit with us - so we can teach writers how to write it right and keep our youngest characters and our real-life kiddos safe.