The abortition ministry of dr. Willie Parker (Esquire)

In Mississippi, there is only one clinic where a woman can go if she needs an abortion. The state is trying to close it down. At that clinic, there is a doctor who tends to the needs of these women, and he has to fly in from out of state to do it. There is no shutting him down.

http://www.esquire.com/features/abortion-ministry-of-dr-willie-parker-0914?src=soc_fcbks

The Destruction of Mecca (New York Times)

The dominant architectural site in the city is not the Sacred Mosque, where the Kaaba, the symbolic focus of Muslims everywhere, is. It is the obnoxious Makkah Royal Clock Tower hotel, which, at 1,972 feet, is among the world’s tallest buildings. The initial phase of Mecca’s destruction began in the mid-1970s. Innumerable ancient buildings, including the Bilal mosque, dating from the time of the Prophet Muhammad, were bulldozed. The old Ottoman houses, with their elegant mashrabiyas — latticework windows — and elaborately carved doors, were replaced with hideous modern ones. Within a few years, Mecca was transformed into a “modern” city with large multilane roads, spaghetti junctions, gaudy hotels and shopping malls.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/opinion/the-destruction-of-mecca.html?_r=1&referrer=

A 9-Year-Old at a Shooting Range, a Spraying Uzi and Outrage (NYT)

The four-hour tours offered by one of the big gun ranges here are a popular tourist attraction. Starting at $200 a person, a bus will pick up visitors at their hotel in Las Vegas, 25 miles to the north, show them Hoover Dam and bring them to a recreational shooting range called Last Stop, where they can fire the weapons of their dreams: automatic machine guns, sniper rifles, grenade launchers. A hamburger lunch is included; a helicopter tour of the nearby Grand Canyon is optional.

But on Monday, one family’s adventure went horribly wrong.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/us/arizona-firing-range-instructor-killed-by-girl-9-in-accident.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=US_A9Y_20140827&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=2&referrer=

Thailand’s Full Moon Party is debauched, depraved, and increasingly deadly. If only it were fun.

Koh Phangan’s Full Moon Party long ago lost its original innocence, devolving into a mess of drunken foreigners cramming onto a once-beautiful beach to celebrate nothing more than the party itself. But in recent years, things have gotten much worse. There have been rapes, fatal accidents, suicides, and gang-related murders. 

It wasn’t always like this. [...] Later came Ecstasy and electro, Lonely Planet, and what friends back in England called gap-year “wow-yeahs”—Trustafarian types who couldn’t stop muttering about “the experience.”

 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2014/06/thailand_s_full_moon_party_on_koh_phangan_is_debauched_depraved_and_increasingly.html

A former apartheid leader is seeking redemption—by washing the feet of those he wronged. But... (The New Republic)

A person like Adriaan Vlok poses a threat. Someone who would willingly debase himself and suggest Afrikaners still have something to apologize for is working at cross-purposes to much of the Afrikaner community’s goal at this moment in history: to resist more sweeping change. And thus, when the news of his foot-washing episode went public after Chikane talked about it in a sermon, Vlok became not an Afrikaner hero but an object of withering hate and contempt. One white op-ed writer called Vlok “ridiculous”; another, a “quivering dog.” An Afrikaner friend of mine pronounced him a “traitor.”

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118135/adriaan-vlok-ex-apartheid-leader-washes-feet-and-seeks-redemption

-un ex-leader Afrikaner cerca la sua redenzione - lavando i piedi di coloro che un tempo aveva tentato di uccidere-

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food (New York Times)

What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. What follows is a series of small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, are extremely vulnerable to the intensity of these companies’ industrial formulations and selling campaigns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

-la straordinaria scienza del cibo spazzatura-

In Lagos selling the african dream (Roads and Kingdoms)

Ten years ago motivational speaking barely existed here, but practitioners say demand is growing. Nigeria’s economy averaged seven percent annual growth in the last decade, but roughly 60 percent of the country’s people still live in poverty. In Lagos, a city of hustlers, there is a feeling that dreaming bigger and working harder will help bridge the gap between potential and performance, and motivational speaking is becoming big business.

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/in-lagos-selling-the-african-dream/

-a Lagos, vendendo il sogno africano-

Why India's sanitation crisis kills women (BBC)

The two girls were going to the fields to defecate when they went missing on Tuesday night.

Nearly half-a-billion Indians - or 48% of the population - lack access to basic sanitation and defecate in the open.

The situation is worse in villages where, according to the WHO and Unicef, some 65% defecate in the open. And women appear to bear the brunt as they are mostly attacked and assaulted when they step out early in the morning or late in the evening.

Women in one slum said when they went out in the open to defecate, local boys stared at them, made threats, threw bricks and stabbed them. Others said they faced "lewd remarks, physical gestures and rape when they relieved themselves in the bushes"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27635363

-perché la crisi sanitaria indiana uccide le donne-

South African mother refuses to hand back switched baby (Guardian)

Two children mistakenly swapped at birth four years ago at centre of painful dispute between families over future custody

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/28/south-african-mother-switched-baby

- madre sudafricana rifiuta di "restituire" il figlio scambiato nella culla -