General and concise thoughts, comments and notions from the author
Last week the FBI officially warned news organizations that it has received “credible information” that a splinter group of the Islamic State has been ordered to kidnap journalists in the Mideast and take them to Syria.
I am not surprised by this news. It is, after all, a well-known tactic of Islamist terrorists to kidnap and murder journalists.
Beyond the obvious political reasons for kidnapping and murdering journalists is another less apparent motive.
When Doctors Without Borders Ebola nurse Kaci Hickox vowed to fight a state-imposed quarantine in Maine, I was reminded of a case of another woman who also fought against being quarantined and who became infamous for doing so.
Her name was Mary Mallon, but she was better known as Typhoid Mary–the first person in the United States recognized as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever.