A familiar face was in the news today. Not that I knew her personally, but I remember the intern who was murdered about the time I joined the Foreign Service. With my only daughter in college at the time I understood how devastating the loss must have been for the parents. The hopes and dreams […]

I have been living in Beijing for the last two years and this is the driest place I have ever lived. Beijing is located near the edge of a desert and normal weather patterns rarely bring us rain. The city has adapted to the dry conditions and seems to get along just fine without it.

Joseph Stalin said, “When one person dies it is a tragedy, but when a million die it’s a statistic.” As the numbers rise, our minds go numb. We can’t process large scale death. The individual gets lost in the crowd, even in death. Why is the attack in Nice getting so much news coverage? Is

That is what the man told a negotiator. He fired on Police during a peaceful protest, wounding seven and killing five. Knowing the end is coming, how could he be so foolish? Because of his own anger and hatred, he threw away the life and chances he had left. He didn’t surrender and his end

That was how a witness described the scene at the airport in Istanbul, Turkey after the terrorist attack. The suffering and death were more than they could describe, so they compared it to the worst place they could think of. I understand what they were trying to say, but they were oh so wrong. I’m