THROUGH THE MANY YEARS THAT I REPORTED ON SOUTH AFRICA, I had recurring appointments with Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) to interview him for whichever media outlet I happened to be working with at the time. We called them our ‘catch-up interviews.’   Here below is a condensed version of one such exchange, conducted this century, plus a reflection on another from the last century.

—000—

From 2008, published in Maryknoll magazine:

SOUTH AFRICA‘s ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS DESMOND TUTU looked momentarily disturbed at my question: “President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has called you an embittered, evil little bishop. What’s your reaction?”

JUST AS THE WORLD KEEPS TURNING, so does the huge glass box. In the newly reopening production (tonight) of The Lehman Trilogy on Broadway, all the action takes place inside that box, perched on a massive turntable.

LET’S STEP AWAY awhile from our own society’s chaotic divisions. I know a orphanage in Africa, to adapt Karen Blixen‘s famous opening sentence. It’s for young elephants, and it’s one of the many, though not enough, that are scattered across the continent. 

AN EXISTENTIAL CHOICE faces America in these final days before November 3rd.

And how are the nation’s media rising to this epochal challenge?

AS BEFITS OUR FRACTURED TIMES – and especially during the seemingly endless Trumpathon that is the 2020 Republic National Convention – we can and should turn our critical attention to the dark arts of disinformation. And how to fight them.    Continue reading “Necessary Onslaught Against Disinformation” »