Listening to the Instant Karma CD, I started thinking about Darfur and how there were all kinds of Sudanese refugees all over Egypt, having been expelled from their country or left it willingly for a variety of different reasons. I remember, a friend of mine went down to help them learn English every weekend as one of her many community service projects. And then that reminded me of going down to Mokattam to see the orphanage.

Mokattam, colloquially called “Garbage City” sa pamamagitan ng everyone from residents of Mokattam to tour guides, is a place past the Cairo citadel where there are literally piles...

After my last article, and the discussion going on over at the link, I've been thinking a lot about the rights of a child, or a fetus as the case may be.

The phrase in the UN Declaration of Human Rights is “All human beings are born free and equal,” a modern rephrasing of the US Declaration of Independence’s “All men are created equal.” But what does the phrase “everyone” or “all human beings” entail? Does it really mean everyone? Immanuel Wallerstein points out the problems with being so absolute:

“… It is almost universally agreed that an infant does not have these rights,...