Keith Schneider | ModeShift

Newtown Massacre Is Part of Global Trend: Protect The Rich, Crush The Children

by Keith SchneiderDecember 16, 2012June 18, 20143

In Sichuan Province, southwest China, boys leave classrooms at the end of the day in a country where school can be hazardous. Photo/Keith Schneider RAIPUR, Chhattisgarh, India — News of the Newtown massacre reached this city of jammed streets and honking bedlam as part of the shock wave that struck the United States, and then swept around the world. As the ritual of sorrow and weeping commenced in America and here, the next thought that …

Rice, Wheat, and Water Serve Up Equal Helpings of Punjab’s Wealth and Risk

by Keith SchneiderDecember 14, 2012December 14, 20120

Haryana, in northeast India, has one of the highest per capita incomes among India’s 28 states. Neighboring Punjab also ranks at the top. The most important reason: the huge wheat and rice harvests, the latter processed and stored in this mill in Naraingarh. Photo/Keith Schneider NARAINGARH, Haryana, India — The first rain in six months, and a stout and cold wind whipped at the black plastic covering stacks of grain Thursday morning at the Shivshakti …

Haverford and Shabbat Service in New Delhi

by Keith SchneiderDecember 8, 2012December 17, 20120

Abigail Wacker, a Fulbright scholar and fellow Haverford alum, class of 2010, with me at the Judah Hyam Shabbat evening service in New Delhi. Photo/J. Carl Ganter NEW DELHI — Abigail Wacker’s red Haverford College sweatshirt was the second thing I noticed early Friday evening at the Judah Hyam Synagogue here in India’s capital city. The first was the group of students sitting next to her earnestly listening to Ezekiel Isaac Malekar, the congregation’s spiritual …

Teeming Life in New Delhi’s Slum Hut Neighborhoods

by Keith SchneiderDecember 6, 2012December 6, 20120

Bribery, payoffs, cuts of the action, under the table — the steady flow of cash to get things done in India, big and small, is itself an economy of opportunity for the rich and the poor. Corruption is a social and political issue rising in priority, as this sign in East Delhi shows. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI — Across the street from the dirt entrance to Vasant Kunj men and boys worked the many hoses …

Delhi’s Jews

by Keith SchneiderDecember 5, 2012December 20, 20122

Next to the Judah Hyam Synagogue, New Delhi’s only Jewish temple, lies an 80-year-old cemetery. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI — When I was a kid growing up in White Plains, New York it seemed my whole world was Jewish. At the time there were about 5 million Jews in the United States (there are 6.5 million today) and about half lived in and around New York City. Most of my friends were Jewish. Rosh Hashanah …

New Delhi Is Mongrel City

by Keith SchneiderNovember 30, 2012December 3, 20120

Gone to the dogs is an understatement in India’s capital city. Strays live on every corner, on every street, roaming at will. Photo/Keith Schneider NEW DELHI – — It was already dark when we made our way from Indira Gandhi International Airport to Nizamuddin East, one of this capital city’s safest neighborhoods. Electricity is erratic and expensive so New Delhi’s authorities don’t spend a lot to light the highways and boulevards. But through the smudged …

In Time of War, Petraeus Affair Did More Damage To U.S. Leadership Than Anything al-Qaeda Has Done

by Keith SchneiderNovember 16, 2012November 16, 20120

Have we forgotten that the United States is at war? Â Well, we just lost one commander at the Central Intelligence Agency for being unfaithful to his spouse. And we are damaging the credibility of a second general, who actually is Commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, for the suspicion of being unfaithful to his spouse. And weâ€™re doing this at a time when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is leaving and other members of our …

In Obama Election Victory A New Test of “Governmental Progress Of Humanity”

by Keith SchneiderNovember 8, 2012November 8, 20121

In 2008, on the eve of his election to the presidency, Barack Obama greeted a huge and bouyant crowd in Chicago with this invocation to unity: “This is our time â€“ to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth â€“ that out of many, we are one; that while …

President Obama’s Hard Victory and Momentous Challenge: “A Country That Moves With Confidence”

by Keith SchneiderNovember 7, 2012November 8, 20124

Maybe, for just a moment last night, like when the early returns from Virginia put Mitt Romney well ahead of President Obama, I wondered whether we’d have a new White House occupant. Then fresher election results from Virginia, and from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio, Iowa, and finally Florida showed Obama earned a clear victory. The president’s supporters, very plainly, are thrilled, as they should be. But there is no glee for the …

Election Day 2012 in Benzonia, Michigan

by Keith SchneiderNovember 6, 2012November 8, 20127

It takes a transcendant candidate — a Bill Clinton, a Ronald Reagan — to beat an incumbent president. Mitt Romney, who’s repudiated his signal achievements as a governor and shifted views as often as the game plan strategy required, certainly is not that. So I anticipate that Barack Obama will win a second term today, an honor that he has earned and deserves. Still, we are a dangerously immature country. How does a president govern …