A deeper view that unites instead of divides, connecting why the story matters to you.
Behind the news are values that drive people and nations. Explore them here.
This past weekend, I watched a trio of scintillating women’s college basketball games, capped by a long-awaited championship for Louisiana State University. The games were the most watched in the sport’s history, and we shouldn’t be afraid to admit one aspect that stirred attention – the specter of race.It drew the nation to Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Larry Bird in the finals of the 1979 NCAA men’s basketball championship. Nearly 15 years later, Duke and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas battled in back-to-back years – a predominantly white team against a predominantly Black team. This weekend saw a repeat, with mostly white Iowa against LSU and South Carolina, which are largely Black. When sports becomes a conduit to talk about social commentary and personal values, bias is inevitable. Yet the way the media and everyday people discuss race is largely crude, and double standards are a part of it. The big talking point after Sunday’s finale wasn’t the game, but when LSU’s Angel Reese playfully taunted Iowa’s tournament darling, Caitlin Clark, in the waning moments. Ms. Reese is Black. Ms. Clark is white.Ms. Reese’s gestures turned into a referendum on LSU’s team, and by association, Black female athletes. It was a questionable about-face from Ms. Clark’s reputation for “trash talk,” which reminded me of Mr. Bird, he of the legendary back-and-forth banter.I find that discussing race isn’t the problem – the challenge is unfairly attributing stereotypes and harmful narratives to players. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley painfully noted this after the previously undefeated Lady Gamecocks lost to Iowa Friday, questioning the way the opposing coach characterized her team’s physical style of play. “We’re not bar fighters,” she said. “We’re not thugs.”All parties involved want to be respected as basketball players. Racial and gender biases only deter us from appreciating generational talents in the present. Ms. Reese broke an NCAA record for scoring and rebounding; Ms. Clark broke the all-time tournament scoring mark.When we find the range and responsibility to address our own biases, we might experience a change in how we perceive sports – and our country overall.
A deeper view that unites instead of divides, connecting why the story matters to you.
We want to bridge divides to reach everyone.
Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor’s website.
Every Saturday
Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.
Occasional
Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift.
Every Weekday
An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.
Twice a Week
Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.
Every Tuesday
A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.
Every Thursday
Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.
Every Friday
A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.
Every Thursday
The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.
Every Monday
This follows threats from Pyongyang last week both to end the armistice and to ‘exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack.’
Loading…
• A daily summary of global reports on security issues.
As the United States and South Korea launched its two-week long “Key Resolve” war games today, North Korea followed through on two of its threatened responses – cutting off a hotline and “blowing apart” the armistice between North and South.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with the North, confirmed this morning that the hotline between Pyongyang and Seoul appears to have been cut off, reports Agence France-Presse. “The North did not answer our call this morning,” a ministry official said.
And Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Communist Party, wrote Monday that the Korean War armistice, which ended hostilities between North and South but did not entail a formal peace agreement, was at a “complete end.”
“With the ceasefire agreement blown apart… no one can predict what will happen from now on,” the newspaper wrote.
Neither of today’s moves are unexpected, or indeed new. AFP notes that the hotline has been cut off five times since its installation in 1971, most recently in 2010, and that the North has “voided” the armistice nearly a dozen times in the past 20 years, the last time in 2009.
But the moves follow days of hyperbolic language from Pyongyang, which threatened last week both to end the armistice and to “exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors” like the US and South Korea. The threats, made both in response to new United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons test last month and in anticipation of today’s war games, have increased tensions across the region. And with more than 10,000 South Korean and 3,500 American troops mobilizing for the annual “Key Resolve” simulations, there is concern about accidental escalation.
BBC News reports that there is a heightened sense of concern among portions of the South Korean population, particularly among older South Koreans, due to the newness of both North Korea’s recently ascended leader Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye, who was sworn in two weeks ago.
“I didn’t care about this issue until now,” one South Korean told the BBC. “But I do worry this time around. The young North Korean leader is not strong, and I don’t trust the new government here in the South.”
Get stories that
empower and uplift daily.
Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
Ms. Park’s new government has been particularly vocal in its threats against the North – it said it would target the North’s top command should any attacks be made against the South – in what John Delury, a professor of International Studies at Seoul’s Yonsei University, told the BBC was a kind of “pre-emptive rhetorical deterrence.”
The idea that strong words could act as a deterrent to North Korean actions has gained traction since the lethal shelling of South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island in 2010.
As a government, Prof Delury says: “You’re always fighting the last battle, and the last battle for South Korea was Yeonpyeong. The perception then was that North Korea had got away with shelling the island.”
By talking tough, he believes Park Geun-hye wants to avoid any initial attack by the North.
But, he said, “some South Koreans are worried that the wrong lessons have been learned, and that if something small happens, it could escalate because the South Korean government doesn’t want to be accused of doing nothing.”
But the Associated Press adds that despite tension over Pyongyang’s posturing, there were signs of “business as usual” on Monday.
The two Koreas continue to have at least two working channels of communication between their militaries and aviation authorities.
One of those hotlines was used Monday to give hundreds of South Koreans approval to enter North Korea to go to work. Their jobs are at the only remaining operational symbol of joint inter-Korean cooperation, the Kaesong industrial complex. It is operated in North Korea with South Korean money and knowhow and a mostly North Korean work force….
“If South Koreans don’t go to work at Kaesong, North Korea will suffer” financially, said analyst Hong Hyun-ik at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. “If North Korea really intends to start a war with South Korea, it could have taken South Koreans at Kaesong hostage.”
Already a subscriber? Login
Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.
Our work isn’t possible without your support.
Already a subscriber? Login
Link copied.
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
Subscribe to insightful journalism
Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.
A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor’s website.
Every Saturday
Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.
Occasional
Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift.
Every Weekday
An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.
Twice a Week
Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.
Every Tuesday
A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.
Every Thursday
Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.
Every Friday
A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.
Every Thursday
The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.
Every Monday
Follow us:
Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription.
Return to the free version of the site
If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.
This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.
Your session to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. We logged you out.
Return to the free version of the site
If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.
You don’t have a Christian Science Monitor subscription yet.
Return to the free version of the site
If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.