On April 7, 2010, Andrew Sullivan cited the Slate.com review of heaven on The Atlantic’s Daily Dish: Johann Hari reviews Lisa Miller’s new book: The heaven you think you’re headed to–a reunion with your lost relatives in the light–is a very recent invention, only a little older than Goldman Sachs. Most of the believers in heaven across most of history …
John Lennon urged us: “Imagine there’s no heaven/ It’s easy if you try/ No hell below us/ Above us only sky …” Yet Americans aren’t turning to Lennonism any faster than Leninism. Today, 81 percent say they believe in heaven—an increase of 10 percent since a decade ago. Of those, 71 percent say it is “an actual place.” Indeed, 43 …
Thanks, Bono, but No Thanks
Photos of celebrities with poor African children don’t ‘help me raise a child who believes she can be a doctor or an engineer.’
Dambisa Moyo is having her moment. The beautiful Zambian economist, formerly of Goldman Sachs and educated at Harvard and Oxford, arrives in New York this week to launch her new book, “Dead Aid.” The billionaire publisher Steve Forbes is throwing her a party at the Four Seasons. She is scheduled to appear on “Charlie Rose.” These titans of the media establishment are not pursuing Moyo for her beauty or her résumé (though these don’t hurt). What attracts them is her provocative argument. “Dead Aid”—a tiny volume, forcefully written—insists that foreign aid (a trillion dollars over the past 60 years) is a waste: it’s bad for Africa, she says—and for Africans. Aid, Moyo argues, keeps Africa in a supplicant’s role when its governments need to become self-sufficient. She recommends shutting off all foreign aid to African within 10 years.