David Quigg
Recent Activity
What Will Vietnam Think of Army Combat Photographer's New My Lai Revelation?
The story by Evelyn Theiss of The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer has been online since Friday and I can't stop wondering how Vietnam will react to it. The headline: "My Lai photographer Ron Haeberle admits he destroyed pictures of soldiers in the act of killing." The story also ran on the Ohio paper's front page. Unless I'm Googling wrong, America seems to have shrugged off or simply missed this brand-new footnote to 1968's slaughter of hundreds of men, women, and children by U.S. soldiers. … Read More
November 22, 2009 | In World
The new Atlantic magazine has an intriguing dispatch about how "Iranians line up daily to cross the Astara River to buy and sell jeans, chickens, bras, laptops—and often sex and schnapps and heroin." Their destination -- the Azerbaijani town of Astara -- amounts to "the Tijuana of the Caspian," according to journalist Peter Savodnik, who wrote the piece. … Read More
November 19, 2009 | In World
Losing the North Korea Nuke Talks in Translation
Maybe everyone else already knows this, but I was stunned to learn that an utterly pedestrian detail -- the reliability of translation services -- has hurt America's efforts to negotiate an end to the turmoil over North Korea's nuclear weapons. According to a report released this month by the Center for a New American Security, "uncertainty over translations has often derailed negotiations and undermined potential agreements." … Read More
November 16, 2009 | In World
Pakistani Fashionistas Through the Lens of a War Photographer
My own presumptions about Pakistan did not prepare me for the sight of this, this, this, or any of Kate Brooks' other photos from Karachi's "fashion week" -- a glitzy event that, in the words of its organizer, can be seen as a "gesture of defiance to the Taliban." … Read More
November 16, 2009 | In World
What Does Growing Up in Gaza Mean for Peace?
Knowing full well that I tee myself up for easy, Whitney-Houston-themed ridicule, I'm here to say that the children are our future, and that childhood in the Gaza Strip -- a radicalized, blinkered, deprived existence, according to Lawrence Wright's humane report for The New Yorker -- bodes very badly for the future of peace. … Read More
November 9, 2009 | In World
David Quigg is a writer and photographer. Before quitting newspaper journalism in 2003 to stay home with his newborn son and toddler daughter, David covered the World Trade Organization riots, politics, local government, and all things Seattle for The (Tacoma) News Tribune. In addition to Big Think, he now writes for The Huffington Post and his own blog, which he describes as "an undignified glimpse of the scattershot passions that, with any luck, will conspire to prevent me from ever serving as an expert panelist." He is the author of an unpublished novel, Void Where Prohibited.
