Zahra’s Paradise: Helping Teens Relate to Everyday Iranians?

Regularly updated webcomics with over-arcing storylines have been popular for years. Jorge Cham’s Ph.D was such a hit with the geek set (my grad student husband included) that he’s successfully self-published four collections. Penny Arcade, brain child of  “Gabe” and “Tycho” has become review central for all things video game, and hosts an annual conference (PAX). But where Ph.D and Penny...

Baha’i Rights

Baha'i Universal House of Justice Image by Man United via Flickr April 17, 2008 Every morning, my husband makes a pot of coffee or tea and we sit down to check our email, messages, and catch up on the news. This morning, I stumbled upon The Muslim Network for Bahá’í Rights. Bahá’í s represent a religious minority in many parts of the world; believers are as far-flung as Iran, Egypt,...

A New Kind of Death Toll

May 29, 2008 We’ve all heard about the death toll in Iraq (~4,100 dead at the time of this writing), seen the footage of memorial services, the news reports about hidden casualties and the perceived unreality of what’s happening in the Middle East. But there’s a subset of war casualties we don’t hear much about—those returned soldiers who commit suicide, who attempt suicide, who suffer from...