*Name withheld It’s 10am on a Tuesday morning, and routinely, I browse through the web for the morning news. I know that I will come across the article soon, because my partner texted me late the night before saying: “Have you heard about Mars1? They’re making a reality show … and after eight years, whoever […]
Boston
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Boston, media bias and problem with quantifying life and death
Invariably when a tragedy such as the Boston bombing occurs in the US, UK or any other “western” nation, the bloodshed is compared, quantitatively, with the violence in Iraq, Syria, or any other nation that is not in the “west”. Within minutes of the detonation of the bombs in Boston, my Facebook feed was producing […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Boston bombs refuel the trauma tank
I’ve been reading the horrific spate of bombings just this week, and recounting with terror, the images of bombings that have penetrated our consciousness through much of the past two decades at least, some in recollecting Hiroshima, lest we forget, but most notably in recent times, the never ending images from 07/07, 9/11, and in […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Who is the Boston bomber?
By Rich Brauer I was born in Boston, and spent the vast majority of my first 32 years there, before moving to Pretoria/Tshwane in 2007. With the recent bombings at the marathon, I wanted to give readers a bit of context on what has happened. The Boston Marathon occurs on the third Monday in April, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Boston’s loss of innocence
“Tonight I write the saddest lines”, so begins a poem by Pablo Neruda, in it he talks of a love lost, but for me, I mourn the lost innocence of the city I love. Boston gave me back my life. When I arrived here in late 2010 I was sick, physically and emotionally. I was […]