Archive - February 4, 2015

Imagine you are on a plane to a destination you know very little about and you will be living there for two years. On top of that, you don’t know anyone else going on this adventure, you only have a vague idea of what you will be doing, and you are not sure if you even made the right decision to go in the first place. A major comfort, though, is you know that you aren’t the only person having this anxiety because this is just the beginning of a Peace Corps Volunteer’s service. Tales from a Muzungu by Nicholas Duncan tells of the highs and lows of his two-year experience in Uganda from 2010 to 2012 as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In his book, he details a variety of topics including: The atmosphere of Uganda. The the day-to-day life of a Volunteer. What his first impressions were of the . . .

Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto BY GEORGE PACKER (Togo 1982-83) Why did ISIS execute a second Japanese hostage? Before the beheading of the journalist Kenji Goto, Japan didn’t think that it was even in a fight with the Islamic State. All Japan had done was contribute a couple of hundred million dollars in humanitarian aid to countries fighting ISIS. Then the man who has come to be known as Jihadi John, the executioner with the London accent seen in several of the group’s videos, threatened death to every Japanese person on the planet as he prepared to slaughter Goto. As a result, a political scientist at the University of Tokyo told the Times, “The cruelty of the Islamic State has made Japan see a harsh new reality. … We now realize we face the same dangers as other countries do.” People in Japan are now calling Kenji Goto’s murder their 9/11. Why did ISIS allow its . . .