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AP/Press Association Images
Members of the Children of God cult, pictured in 1971
# up to speed
Catch-up Wednesday: 3 midweek longreads
Get up to speed with the latest news, opinions and insights with our hand-picked in-depth reads.
IT’S MIDWAY THROUGH the week and you want to get up to speed on the latest news topics and catch up on opinions and insights.
We’re here to help you do just that, with our three midweek longreads:
For the first 15 years of her life, Flor Edwards lived in an ‘clandestine cult with 20 children to a room… and no contact with the outside world. She was a member of a cult that believed in the apocalypse, and doomsday. Here, she writes about growing up thinking this life was normal.
(Narratively, approx 34 minutes reading time, 6992 words)
We called ourselves “The Children of God.” I wasn’t allowed to leave without permission. If I did, I would be banned from ever returning and doomed to eternal hell and condemnation in the afterlife. My parents and the other adults I lived with told me that I was allowed to leave, but if I did I’d be giving up my birthright as one of God’s 144,000 chosen and would forfeit my spot in heaven come the apocalypse in 1993.
Jane Kramer looks at vegetarian books for carnivores (or rather, omnivores), and in doing so tracks how the tastes of her friends (and her own tastes) have changed over the years.
(New Yorker, approx 21 minutes reading time, 4324 words)
Worse, on the night of that final party, four of the remaining carnivores carried their plates to the kitchen table, ignoring the cubes of beef and pancetta, smoky and fragrant in their big red bean pot, and headed for my dwindling supply of pasta. “Stop!” I cried. “That’s for the vegetarians!” Aggrieved, they replied, as in one voice, “But we’re kind of vegetarian now.”
20 years ago, the Rwandan genocide occurred, leaving a lasting legacy in the country. Karen Power remembers the horrific events but says that the atmosphere today is both sombre and hopeful.
(TheJournal.ie, approx 4 minutes reading time, 911 words)
Twenty years on from the genocide – despite all the advances made by Rwanda since these bleak days – huge challenges exist. Poverty is still a problem, with nearly half the population living in poverty and a quarter in extreme poverty. As a result malnutrition is a significant issue and 44 per cent of children are affected by stunting. In the region affected by extreme poverty, this figure is as high as 65 per cent.
Want some more longreads? Then check out Sitdown Sunday>
