“The Food Insecurity of North Korea” read the headline on the NPR website last summer. When I saw it, I was reminded of the reporting I did in the late 1990s, during North Korea’s last severe famine. As many as 2 million people might have starved to death in the 1990s; the true number -- … Continue reading Food insecurity still stalks North Korea

Question: Is extreme weather (sudden frosts, strong winds, high heat) brought on by climate change making commercial production of lettuce more vulnerable to E. coli bacteria contamination? Some researchers think so.

Br. Patrick Hart, the Cistercian (Trappist) monk who was the last secretary to the 20th century spiritual writer Thomas Merton, died Feb. 21. He was 93. Hart was also Merton’s literary executor, responsible for keeping Merton’s teaching and writing accessible for generations to come.

“Justice Elena Kagan’s stinging dissent last week (see below for details) backing an Alabama death row inmate who was executed despite an unresolved religious discrimination claim highlighted her evolving role as a key voice in religion-related cases at the U.S. Supreme Court,” writes Marcia Coyle at the National Law Journal.

Bangkok-based Union of Asian Catholic News, known as UCAN, has two compelling reports on the state of journalism in two of the toughest beats in Asia: Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Writing from Mandalay, Myanmar, John Zaw says that expectations were high that freedom of expression would improve when Aung San Suu Kyi’s government took office … Continue reading Media workers find journalism a dangerous profession in Myanmar and Sri Lanka

Historians are giving credence to W.E.B. DuBois's assertion that enslaved workers coordinated a general strike, which helped end the Civil War. Livia Gershon explains why in this blog post on JSTOR Daily ("Where news meets its scholarly match.")

The Temi editor. After reading this review of #transcribing app Temi.com (from JasonChicola of Rev.com) in Editor & Publisher, I gave the free trial a test run. I up loaded a 22-minute conversation between three people: one woman and two men, one of whom had a distinctly non-American accent. Temi performed pretty darn good as … Continue reading Need help transcribing tapes? Check out Temi

Thanks for joining me! Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton