Melanie Reid

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ReflexionesSocial

Why didn’t she run away? Did she love him? Was she brainwashed? Can it possibly be true that, over 18 years, she never had the opportunity to escape? What role did the wife play?

Such questions will dominate the world media for weeks, as the story of Jaycee Lee Dugard is sensational and compelling. A blue-eyed, blonde child, snatched by a convicted child rapist and his wife from a bus stop nearly two decades ago, turns up alive, aged 29. And the reason it’s so compelling is that this appears to be the darkest possible fairytale, a distorted parable of child abuse and sexual slavery.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

If you are the mother of a soldier fighting in Afghanistan, who wakes up every day with a cold pit in your stomach, and listens to every news bulletin with a dry mouth, there are very few things you can console yourself with in this most dangerous of presidential election weeks.

In such circumstances, all parents rely on crumbs of received wisdom: the reassurance that their sons and daughters, in holding back terrorism, and restoring international stability and security, are doing something very noble. That there can be no greater cause than installing democracy, and in particular freeing women from the yoke of oppression.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Lazing around this Bank Holiday, we should raise a glass to Atta Sherpa, the Nepalese guide who has just broken all records and reached the summit of Everest for the 18th time.

For while we battle with bedding plants, Atta dallies in the death zone, hoisting a constant stream of fat, unfit, oxygen-starved Westerners into one of the most hostile environments on the planet. However reluctant the lobelia, they cannot really compete with that.

We may mourn the vulgar circus that Everest has become - with wealthy egotists queuing like ants to conquer it - but we should feel justifiably happy for 48-year-old Atta, who is fêted as a result of his exploits on the mountain.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

How many centuries of accumulated spite and misogyny, I wonder, went into the latest twist in the Madeleine McCann saga. Did the British television presenters feel the remotest twinge of conscience as they sensationally reported - second-hand via a Spanish television station - the leaks from the Portuguese police portraying Kate McCann in the worst possible light, as a mother who had left her children to cry?

And did Britain's tabloid editors, themselves presumably sons of mothers and husbands to the mothers of their own children, flinch even a jot as they ordered the devastating headlines “Mummy, why didn't you come when we cried?”…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesNaturaleza,

Another weekend of false hopes and broken promises. Oh, the weather bulletins hyped it up, the way they do these days, with talk of “high wind chill” and “blizzards”. Ever since forecasts became primarily designed for those seeking to plan a safe crossing of the supermarket car park, this has been the way of things.

So, even as the magic words sent a shiver of anticipation down my spine, I knew it would all come to very little. Blizzards! A bit of sleet perhaps, even a light covering of snow if we were lucky, but it would be transient: a fleeting strike of cold weather running fast before yet another warm front, which would serve only to make us fretful and nostalgic, yearning for the ice which will never come.…  Seguir leyendo »