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This article is about a military unit. For other uses, see Corps (disambiguation).
Typical units
Typical numbers
Typical commander
fireteam 2–4 lance corporal /
squad /
section 5–14 corporal /
sergeant /
platoon /
troop 15–45 second lieutenant /
first lieutenant /
battery /
squadron 80–150 first lieutenant /
captain /
battalion /
cohort 300–800 lieutenant colonel /
regiment /
brigade /
legion 1,000–5,500 colonel /
division 10,000–25,000 major general
corps 30,000–50,000 lieutenant general
field army 100,000–300,000 general /
army group /
front 2+ field armies field marshal /
general of the army /
region /
theater 4+ army groups field marshal /
Comparative military ranks in English
Navies
UK commissioned officers
Admiral of
the fleet Field marshal or
General of the Army Marshal of
the air force
Admiral General Air chief marshal
Vice admiral Lieutenant general Air marshal
Rear admiral Major general Air vice-marshal
Commodore Brigadier or
brigadier general Air commodore
Captain Colonel Group captain
Commander Lieutenant colonel Wing commander
commander Major or
Commandant Squadron leader
Lieutenant Captain Flight lieutenant
junior grade or
sub-lieutenant Lieutenant or
first lieutenant Flying officer
Ensign or
midshipman Second lieutenant Pilot officer
Officer cadet Officer cadet Flight cadet
Enlisted grades
Warrant officer or
chief petty officer Warrant officer or
sergeant major Warrant officer
Petty officer Sergeant Flight sergeant
Leading seaman Corporal or
bombardier Corporal
Seaman Private or
gunner or
trooper Aircraftman or
Talk·View
Army units and organization
Fireteam Ø
Squad / Crew ●
Section / Patrol ●●
Platoon / Troop / Flight ●●●
Company / Squadron / Battery |
Battalion / Cohort ||
Regiment |||
Brigade / Group / Wing x
Division / Legion xx
Corps xxx
Field army xxxx
Army group / Front xxxxx
Region / Theater XXXXXX
Detachment
Brigade group
Flying column
Field force
Combat command
Battlegroup
Regimental combat team
Corps (/kɔːr/; plural corps /kɔːrz/; from French corps, from the Latin corpus "body") is a term used for several different kinds of organisation. A military innovation by Napoleon, the formation was first named as such in 1805.
Within military terminology a corps may be:
an operational formation, sometimes known as a field corps, which consists of two or more divisions, such as the Corps d'armée, later known as I Corps ("First Corps") of Napoleon's Grande Armée);
an administrative corps (or mustering) – that is a specialized branch of a military service (such as an artillery corps, a medical corps, or a force of military police) or;
in some cases, a distinct service within a national military (such as the United States Marine Corps).
These usages often overlap.
Corps may also be a generic term for a non-military organization, such as the U.S. Peace Corps.
1 Military usage
1.1 Operational formation
1.1.6 Pakistan
1.1.7 Poland (1938–1939)
1.1.9.1 American Civil War
1.1.9.2 Spanish–American War
1.1.9.3 World Wars I & II
1.1.9.4 Cold War and 21st Century
1.1.10 Soviet Union
1.2 Administrative corps
1.2.1 Britain
2 Non-military use
Military usage[edit]
The standard NATO map symbols for a infantry field corps. The large cross signifies "infantry" and XXX signifies a corps-sized formation. (That is, XXXX represents a field army, XX represents a division and X represents a brigade).
Operational formation[edit]
In many armies, a corps is a battlefield formation composed of two or more divisions, and typically commanded by a lieutenant general. During World War I and World War II, due to the large scale of combat, multiple corps were combined into armies which then formed into army groups. In Western armies with numbered corps, the number is often indicated in Roman numerals (e.g., VII Corps).
Australia[edit]
The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was raised in 1914, consisting of Australian and New Zealand troops, who went on to fight at Gallipoli in 1915. In early 1916, the original corps was reorganised and two corps were raised: I ANZAC Corps and II ANZAC Corps.[1] In the later stages of World War I, the five infantry divisions of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF)—consisting entirely of personnel who had volunteered for service overseas—were united as the Australian Corps, on the Western Front, under Lieutenant General Sir John Monash.[2]
During World War II, the Australian I Corps was formed to co-ordinate three Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF) units: the 6th, 7th and 9th Divisions, as well as other Allied units on some occasions, in the North African campaign and Greek campaign. Following the commencement of the Pacific War, there was a phased withdrawal of I Corps to Australia, and the transfer of its headquarters to the Brisbane area, to control Allied army units in Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW). II Corps was also formed, with Militia units, to defend south-eastern Australia, and III Corps controlled land forces in Western Australia. Sub-corps formations controlled Allied land forces in the remainder of Australia. I Corps headquarters was later assigned control of the New Guinea campaign. In early 1945, when I Corps was assigned the task of re-taking Borneo, II Corps took over in New Guinea.
Canada[edit]
Canada first fielded a corps-sized formation in the First World War; the Canadian Corps was unique in that its composition did not change from inception to the war's end, in contrast to British corps in France and Flanders. The Canadian Corps consisted of four Canadian divisions. After the Armistice, the peacetime Canadian militia was nominally organized into corps and divisions but no full-time formations larger than a battalion were ever trained or exercised. Early in the Second World War, Canada's contribution to the British-French forces fighting the Germans was limited to a single division. After the fall of France in June 1940, a second division moved to England, coming under command of a Canadian corps headquarters. This corps was renamed I Canadian Corps as a second corps headquarters was established in the UK, with the eventual formation of five Canadian divisions in England. I Canadian Corps eventually fought in Italy, II Canadian Corps in NW Europe, and the two were reunited in early 1945. After the formations were disbanded after VE Day, Canada has never subsequently organized a Corps headquarters.
Royal Canadian Army Cadets: A Corps size in the RCAC is different everywhere, depending on the size, the Commanding Officer can be a Captain or Major.
China[edit]
The National Revolutionary Army (NRA) Corps (軍團) was a type of military organization used by the Chinese Republic, and usually exercised command over two to three NRA Divisions and often a number of Independent Brigades or Regiments and supporting units. The Chinese Republic had 133 Corps during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After losses in the early part of the war, under the 1938 reforms, the remaining scarce artillery and the other support formations were withdrawn from the Division and was held at Corps, or Army level or higher. The Corps became the basic tactical unit of the NRA having strength nearly equivalent to an allied Division.
The modern People's Liberation Army Group Army (集团军) is the closest equivalent of a Corps. After the military reforms of the early 2010s, a typical PLA Group Army consists of six infantry and armored brigades, plus additional artillery, air defense and army aviation assets. Each formation contains approximately 30,000 combat troops and several thousands more supporting personnel.
France[edit]
The French Army under Napoleon used corps-sized formations (French: Corps d'Armée) as the first formal combined-arms groupings of divisions with reasonably stable manning and equipment establishments. Napoleon first used the Corps d'armée in 1805. The use of the Corps d'armée was a military innovation that provided Napoleon with a significant battlefield advantage in the early phases of the Napoleonic Wars. The Corps was designed to be an independent military group containing cavalry, artillery and infantry, and capable of defending against a numerically superior foe. This allowed Napoleon to mass the bulk of his forces to effect a penetration into a weak section of enemy lines without risking his own communications or flank. This innovation stimulated other European powers to adopt similar military structures. The Corps has remained an echelon of French Army organization to the modern day.
Germany[edit]
Command flag of a commanding general (German: Kommandierender General) of an Army corps (1933-1945).
As fixed military formation already in peace-time it was used almost in all European armies after Battle of Ulm in 1805. In Prussia it was introduced by Order of His Majesty (de: Allerhöchste Kabinetts-Order) from November 5, 1816, in order to strengthen the readiness to war.
Pakistan[edit]
The paramilitary forces of Pakistan's two main western provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are the Frontier Corps (FC) founded in 1907 during British Rule as at least three various organizations before being combined together. They are charged with guarding the country's western borders as well as providing internal security including guarding important sites and participating in law enforcement activities. They are divided into two sub-organizations: FC Pakhtunkhwa and FC Balochistan.
Poland (1938–1939)[edit]
The Polish Armed Forces used Independent Operational Group's in the place of the Corps before and during World War II. An example would be Independent Operational Group Polesie. The groups, as the name indicates, were more flexible and showed greater capacity to absorb and integrate elements of broken units over a period of just a couple days and keep cohesion during the September Campaign than more traditional army units such as divisions, regiments, or even brigades.
United Kingdom[edit]
Wellington formed a "corps d'armee" in 1815 for commanding his mixed allied force of four divisions against Napoleon.
When the British Army was expanded from an expeditionary force in the First World War, corps were created to manage the large numbers of divisions. The British corps in World War I included 23 infantry corps and a few mounted corps. The word was adopted for other special formations such as the Officers Training Corps. Military training of teenage boys is undertaken at secondary schools through the Combined Cadet Force, in which participation was compulsory at some schools in the 1950s. Schoolboy jargon called the CCF simply "Corps."
The British Army still has a corps headquarters for operational control of forces. I Corps of the British Army of the Rhine was redesignated the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in 1994. It is no longer a purely British formation, although the UK is the 'framework nation' and provides most of the staff for the headquarters. A purely national Corps headquarters could be quickly reconstituted if necessary.
It took command of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan on 4 May 2006. Previously, it was deployed as the headquarters commanding land forces during the Kosovo War in 1999 and also saw service in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commanding the initial stages of the IFOR deployment prior to that in 1996. Otherwise, the only time a British corps headquarters has been operationally deployed since 1945 was II Corps during the Suez Crisis.
United States[edit]
The XVIII Airborne Corps command group returns home from Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009
The structure of a field corps in the United States Army is not permanent; many of the units that it commands are allocated to it as needed on an ad hoc basis. On the battlefield, the corps is the highest level of the forces that is concerned with actual combat and operational deployment. Higher levels of command are concerned with administration rather than operations, at least under current doctrine. The corps provides operational direction for the forces under its command.
As of 2014, the active field corps in the U.S. Army are I Corps ("eye core"), III Corps and XVIII Airborne Corps; their lineages derive from three of the corps formed during World War I (I and III Corps) and World War II (XVIII Airborne Corps).
American Civil War[edit]
The first field corps in the United States Army were legalized during the American Civil War by an Act of Congress on July 17, 1862, but Major General George B. McClellan had designated six corps organizations within his Army of the Potomac that spring. Previously, groupings of divisions were known by other names, such as "wings" and "grand divisions". The term "army corps" was often used at this time. These organizations were much smaller than their modern counterparts: they were usually commanded by a major general, were composed of two to six divisions (although predominantly three) and typically included from 10,000 to 15,000 men. Although designated with numbers that are sometimes the same as those found in the modern U.S. Army, there is no direct lineage between the 43 Union field corps of the Civil War and those with similar names in the modern era, due to Congressional legislation caused by the outcry from Grand Army of the Republic veterans during the Spanish–American War.[citation needed]
In the Confederate States Army, field corps were authorized in November 1862. They were commanded by lieutenant generals and were usually larger than their Union Army counterparts because their divisions contained more brigades, each of which could contain more regiments. All of the Confederate corps at the Battle of Gettysburg, for instance, exceeded 20,000 men. However, for both armies, unit sizes varied dramatically with attrition throughout the war. In Civil War usages, by both sides, it was common to write out the number, thus "Twenty-first Army Corps", a practice that is usually ignored in modern histories of the war.
Spanish–American War[edit]
Although the U.S. Army in the years following the Civil War lacked standing organization at the corps and division levels, it moved swiftly to adopt these during the mobilization for the Spanish–American War in the spring of 1898. On May 7, General Order 36 called for the establishment of seven "army corps" (repeating the nomenclature of the Civil War); an eighth was authorized later that month.[3] Two of these saw action as a unit: the Fifth in Cuba and the Eighth in the Philippines; elements of the First, Fourth and Seventh made up the invasion force for Puerto Rico (the Second, Third and Seventh provided replacements and occupation troops in Cuba, while the Sixth was never organized). The corps headquarters were disbanded during the months following the signing of the peace treaty (with the exception of the Eighth Army Corps, which remained active until 1900 due to the eruption of the Philippine–American War), and like the corps of the Civil War, their lineage ends at that point.
World Wars I & II[edit]
During World War I the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) adopted the common European usage of designating field corps by Roman numerals. Several "corps areas" were designated under the authority of the National Defense Act of 1920, but played little role until the Army's buildup for World War II. While some of the lower numbered Corps were used for various exercises the inter-war years corps serve mostly as a pool of units.[4] During that war, the Marine Corps organized corps headquarters for the first time, the I Marine (later III Amphibious Corps) and V Amphibious Corps. The Army would ultimately designate 25 field corps (I–XVI, XVIII–XXIV, XXXVI and I Armored Corps) during World War II.
Cold War and 21st Century[edit]
After the Korean War, the Army and Marines would diverge in their approach to the concept of the field corps. The Army, continued to group its divisions into traditional corps organizations in the Continental United States (CONUS), West Germany (V Corps & VII Corps), and South Korea (I Corps). However, during the Vietnam War, the Army designated its corps-level headquarters in South Vietnam as I Field Force and II Field Force to avoid confusion with the ARVN corps areas.[5] As of July 2016, the Army has deactivated all corps headquarters save three CONUS based corps (I Corps - Washington, III Corps - Texas, and XVIII Airborne Corps - North Carolina).
In the 1960s, the Marine Corps activated the I Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) on Okinawa (based in California since 1971) and II Marine Expeditionary Force (II MEF) in North Carolina, and re-activated the III Amphibious Corps (which had been deactivated in 1946) as III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF) in South Vietnam (re-deployed to Okinawa in 1971). In 1965 all three MEFs were subsequently re-designated as Marine Amphibious Forces or MAFs and in 1988 all three Marine Corps corps-level commands were again re-designated as Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF). The MEF had evolved into a self-contained, corps-level, Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) consisting of a MEF Headquarters Group, a Marine Division, a Marine Aircraft Wing, and a Force Service Support Group (re-designated as Marine Logistics Group in 2005).
Soviet Union[edit]
Find sources: "Corps" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (July 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
Main article: Formations of the Soviet Army
The pre-World War II Red Army of the former USSR had rifle corps much like in the Western sense with approximately three divisions to a corps.[6] However, after the war started, the recently purged Soviet senior command (Stavka) structure was apparently unable to handle the formations, and the armies and corps were integrated. Rifle Corps were re-established during the war after Red Army commanders had gained experience handling larger formations. Before and during World War II, however, Soviet armored units were organized into corps. The pre-war Mechanized Corps were made up of divisions. In the reorganizations, these "Corps" were reorganized into tank brigades and support units, with no division structure. Due to this, they are sometimes, informally, referred to as "Brigade Buckets".
After the war, the Tank and Mechanized Corps were re-rated as divisions. During the reforms of 1956–58, most of the corps were again disbanded to create the new Combined Arms and Tank Armies. A few corps were nevertheless retained, of both patterns. The Vyborg and Archangel Corps of the Leningrad Military District were smaller armies with three low-readiness motorized rifle divisions each. The Category A Unified Corps of the Belarussian Military District (Western TVD/Strategic Direction) and Carpathian Military District (also Western TVD) were of the brigade pattern.
The Soviet Air Forces used ground terminology for its formations down to squadron level. As intermediates between the Aviation Division and the Air Army were Corps—these also had three Air Divisions each.
Administrative corps[edit]
In many English-speaking countries and other countries influenced by British military traditions, a corps is also a grouping of personnel by common function, also known as an arm, service, mustering or branch.
Britain[edit]
In the British Army, an administrative corps performs much the same role – for personnel that otherwise lack them – as a ceremonial regiment. An administrative corps therefore has its own cap badge, stable belt, and other insignia and traditions.
Intelligence Corps
RAF Regiment
Royal Logistic Corps
Corps of Royal Marines
Royal Corps of Signals
In some cases, the term corps is also used informally, for looser groupings of independent regiments and other units – and without many or any unifying regalia, military traditions or other accoutrements – such as the Royal Armoured Corps or the "Corps of Infantry".
Main article: List of Australian Army Corps
In Australia, soldiers belong foremost to a Corps which defines a common function or employment across the army. The Australian Army has a system of coloured lanyards, which each identify a soldier as part of a specific Corps (or sometimes individual battalion). This lanyard is a woven piece of cord which is worn on ceremonial uniforms and dates back to the issue of clasp knives in the early 20th century which were secured to the uniform by a length of cord.
If a soldier is posted to a unit outside of their parent corps, except in some circumstances the soldier continues to wear the hat badge and lanyard of their Corps (e.g. a Clerk posted to an infantry battalion would wear the hat badge of the Royal Australian Ordnance Corps but would wear the lanyard of the battalion they are posted to.)
In Canada, with the integration of the Canadian army into the Canadian Forces, the British Corps model was replaced with personnel branches, defined in Canadian Forces Administrative Orders (CFAOs) as "...cohesive professional groups...based on similarity of military roles, customs and traditions." CFAO 2-10)[7] However, the Armour Branch has continued to use the title Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, the Infantry Branch continued to use the Royal Canadian Infantry Corps designation, and the Artillery Branch uses the term Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery.
When the Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force were merged in 1968 to form the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Dental Corps and Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps were deactivated and merged with their Naval and Air Force counterparts to form the Dental Branch (Canadian Forces) and the Canadian Forces Medical Service of the Canadian Forces Health Services Group (CF H Svcs Gp). The Royal Canadian Army Service Corps transport and supply elements were combined with the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps to form the Logistics Branch The Royal Canadian Army Service Corps clerical trades were merged with the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corps and the Royal Canadian Postal Corps to form the Administration Branch (later merged with the Logistics Branch) [8]
Other "corps", included: Canadian Engineer Corps, Signalling Corps, Corps of Guides, Canadian Women's Army Corps, Royal Canadian Army Veterinary Corps, Canadian For
New Zealand[edit]
Main article: List of New Zealand Army Corps
In New Zealand, soldiers belong foremost to a Corps which defines a common function or employment across the army.
If a soldier is posted to a unit outside of their parent corps, except in some circumstances the soldier continues to wear the hat badge of their Corps (e.g. a Supply Technician posted to an infantry battalion would wear the hat badge of the Royal New Zealand Army Logistic Regiment.
The U.S. Armed Forces use corps administratively in several ways.
1) In the title of the United States Marine Corps, Corps is used as a service-branch designator, in much the same way as Force and Guard are used for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard.
2) The U.S. Army (all components; Regular Army, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard) uses administrative corps, also known as Army Branches, to group personnel with a common function. These include the Acquisition Corps, Adjutant General's Corps, Chaplain Corps, Chemical Corps, Civil Affairs Corps, Cyber Corps, Dental Corps*, Corps of Engineers, Finance Corps, Judge Advocate General's Corps, Logistics Corps, Medical Corps*, Medical Service Corps*, Medical Specialist Corps*, Military Intelligence Corps, Military Police Corps, Nurse Corps*, Ordnance Corps, Psychological Operations Corps, Quartermaster Corps, Signal Corps, Transportation Corps, and Veterinary Corps.* Each of these corps is also considered a regiment for purposes of: "... affiliation, ... loyalty and commitment, ... sense of belonging, ... unit esprit, and ... war fighting ethos." However, these regiments have no tactical function. The six corps (annotated by an asterisk above after each applicable corps' name) of the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) are included in the AMEDD Regiment .[9]
3) U.S. Navy officers who are not Line officers (i.e., those who exercise general command authority and are eligible for operational command positions, as opposed to officers who normally exercise authority only within their own specialty[10]) are commissioned into various Staff Corps. These officers are specialists in career fields that are professions unto themselves, such as ministers, civil engineers, architects, dentists, lawyers, physicians, healthcare administrators, healthcare scientists, clinical care providers, nurses, financial managers, and logistics and supply specialists. These corps' include the Chaplain Corps, Civil Engineer Corps, Dental Corps*, Judge Advocate General's Corps, Medical Corps*, Medical Service Corps*, Nurse Corps*, and the Supply Corps. The Navy also has a Hospital Corps consisting of enlisted medical technicians. The Hospital Corps, along with the four Navy health services corps' listed above (indicated by asterisk), is one of the five corps' of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
4) The U.S. Air Force uses the title corps to designate several non-tactical organizations. These corps' include five distinct health services corps of the United States Air Force Medical Service (AFMS). The AFMS corps' are the Biomedical Sciences Corps, Dental Corps, Medical Corps, Medical Service Corps, and Nurse Corps. The Air Force also has its own Chaplain Corps and Judge Advocate General's Corps.
5) In the U.S. Armed Forces, the term corps is also used in a general sense to mean the collective membership of a specified military body. Those uses include: the Officer Corps and Noncommissioned Officer Corps (NCO Corps) of the armed forces, either collectively or individually by branch of service; the United States Corps of Cadets at the United States Military Academy and the United States Coast Guard Corps of Cadets of the United States Coast Guard Academy; the overall program title and aggregate collection of cadets and midshipmen enrolled in the Reserve Officer Training Corps’ (ROTC) of the several services (i.e., Army ROTC, Navy ROTC, and Air Force ROTC), as well as the cadet organizations of the six federally recognized United States Senior Military Colleges (The Citadel, Norwich University, Texas A&M University, the University of North Georgia, the Virginia Military Institute, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University); and the members of the Naval Sea Cadet Corps.
Non-military use[edit]
The Salvation Army calls its local units/church "corps" (e.g. The Rockford Temple Corps, The St. Petersburg Citadel Corps), echoing the pseudomilitary name and structure of the organization.
In the United Kingdom, the Royal Observer Corps was a civil defence unit from 1925 until disbanded in 1995.
In the US, there are non-military, administrative, training and certification Corps for commissioned officers of the government's uniformed services, such as the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps.[11][12]
Many volunteer municipal or university ambulance, rescue, and first aid squads are known as VACs (volunteer ambulance corps). Prominent examples are the Order of Malta (the largest in Ireland), Hatzolah (largest VAC network worldwide), Hackensack VAC. The usage of the term Ambulance Corps dates to Civil War Major General George B. McClellan's General Order No 147 to create an "ambulance corps" within the Union Army.[13] GO 147 used "Corps" in one of its standard military senses. However, subsequent formations of non-military ambulance squads continued to use the term, even where they adhere less to paramilitary organizational structure.
The Peace Corps was organized by the United States as an "army" of volunteers.
Some Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are known as corps. Examples include Global Health Corps and Mercy Corps.
A Patent Examiner in the US is a member of the Examiner Corps.
Corps area
Drum and bugle corps (classic)
Drum and bugle corps (modern)
List of corps of the United States
List of military corps
Signal Corps (disambiguation)
United States Army Corps of Engineers
^ Odgers, George (1994). Diggers: The Australian Army, Navy and Air Force in Eleven Wars. 1. Sydney, New South Wales: Lansdowne. p. 86. ISBN 978-1863023870.
^ Grey, Jeffrey (2008). A Military History of Australia (3rd ed.). Melbourne, Victoria: Cambridge University Press. p. 107. ISBN 978-0-521-69791-0.
^ Kreidberg, Marvin; Henry, Morton (November 1955). History of Military Mobilization (PDF). Washington, DC: Department of the Army. pp. 144–145. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
^ Clay, Steven. US Army Order of Battle 1919–1941: Volume 1 The Arms: Major Commands and Infantry Organizations, 1919–1941 (PDF). Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press. p. 170.
^ Eckhardt, George S. (1991). Vietnam Studies: Command and Control, 1950-1969. Washington, DC: Department of the Army. pp. 52–55. Retrieved 30 July 2014.
^ Eve of war Soviet structure
^ Sutton, Brigadier John, ed.," Wait For The Waggon". Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Leo Cooper, 1998.
^ Army Regulation 600-82: The U.S. Army Regimental System Chapter 2: Management of the U.S. Army Regimental System, 2–2. USARS purpose, p. 2. http://www.17thinfantry.org/documents/dmor/AR%20600-82%20US%20ARMY%20Regimental%20System.pdf. retrieved 14 December 2016.
^ "URL Unrestricted Line Officer". NavyReserve.com. Retrieved 2016-12-13.
^ "Mission of Public Health Service at USPHS Commissioned Corps". Usphs.gov. 2011-11-14. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
^ "NOAA Corps". Noaacorps.noaa.gov. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
^ "The Union Army Ambulance Corps".
Phisterer, Frederick, Statistical Record of the Armies of the United States, Castle Books, 1883, ISBN 0-7858-1585-6.
Tsouras, P.G. Changing Orders: The evolution of the World's Armies, 1945 to the Present Facts On File, Inc, 1994. ISBN 0-8160-3122-3
Warsaw Pact June 1989 OOB
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City of regional significance in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine
For other uses, see Kharkiv (disambiguation) and Kharkov (disambiguation).
City of regional significance
Counterclockwise: Assumption Cathedral (big image), Kharkiv city council, National University of Kharkiv, Taras Shevchenko monument, Kharkiv Railway station, Derzhprom
Nickname(s):
The First Capital,[1][a] Smart City
Show map of Kharkiv Oblast
Show map of Ukraine
Coordinates: 50°0′16″N 36°13′53″E / 50.00444°N 36.23139°E / 50.00444; 36.23139Coordinates: 50°0′16″N 36°13′53″E / 50.00444°N 36.23139°E / 50.00444; 36.23139
Kharkiv Oblast
Kharkiv City Municipality
List of 9[3]
Shevchenkivskyi Raion
Novobavarskyi Raion
Kyivskyi Raion
Slobidskyi Raion
Holodnohirskyi Raion
Moskovskyi Raion
Nemyshlianskyi Raion
Industrialnyi Raion
Osnovianskyi Raion
Hennadiy Kernes[4]
• MPs:
Oleksandr Feldman
Anatoliy Denisenko
Volodymyr Mysyk
Vitaliy Khomutynnik
Dmytro Svyatash
Oleksandr Kirsch (PF)
Valery Pisarenko
• City of regional significance
4,500/km2 (12,000/sq mi)
Kharkivite[5]
ХА, 21 (old)
Belgorod, Bologna, Cincinnati, Kaunas, Lille, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Nuremberg, Poznań, St. Petersburg, Tianjin, Jinan, Kutaisi, Varna, Rishon LeZion, Brno, Daugavpils
city.kharkov.ua/en/
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Kharkiv (Ukrainian: Ха́рків, romanized: Chárkiv, pronounced [ˈxɑrkiu̯]),[6] also known as Kharkov (Russian: Ха́рьков), is the second-largest city in Ukraine.[7] In the northeast of the country, it is the largest city of the Slobozhanshchyna historical region. Kharkiv is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion, though administratively it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion. Population: 2,139,036
The city was founded in 1654 and after a humble beginning as a small fortress grew to be a major centre of Ukrainian industry, trade and culture in the Russian Empire.
Kharkiv was the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, from December 1919 to January 1934, after which the capital relocated to Kiev.[8]
Presently, Kharkiv is a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine, with numerous museums, theatres and libraries.
Its industry specializes primarily in machinery and in electronics. There are hundreds of industrial companies in the city, including the Morozov Design Bureau and the Malyshev Tank Factory (leaders in world tank production from the 1930s to the 1980s); Khartron (aerospace and nuclear power plants automation electronics); the Turboatom (turbines for hydro-, thermal- and nuclear-power plants), and Antonov (the multipurpose aircraft manufacturing plant).
2.1 Establishment
2.2 Kharkiv Fortress
2.3 In the Russian Empire
2.4 Soviet period
2.5 German occupation
2.6 Post-World War II
2.7 In independent Ukraine
3.2 Cityscape
4 Governance
4.1 Legal status and local government
4.2 Politics
5.1 Ethnicity
5.1.1 Notes
7.1 International Economic Forum
7.2 International Industrial Exhibitions
7.3 Industrial corporations
7.4 IT industry
7.5 Finance industry
7.6 Trade industry
8 Science and education
8.1 Higher education
8.2 Scientific research
8.3 Public libraries
8.4 Secondary schools
8.5 Education centers
9.1 Theatres
9.4 Movies
9.5 Movies festival
9.7 Museums
9.8 Landmarks
10.1 Newspapers
10.2 Magazines
10.3 TV stations
10.4 Radio stations
10.5 Online news in English
11 Sport
11.1 Kharkiv International Marathon
11.2 Football (soccer)
11.3 Other sports
12 Sister cities
13 Nobel and Fields prize winners
14 Notable people
15.1 Local transport
15.2 Railways
15.3 Air
16 Recreation
17 Footnotes
The mythical Kharko or Chariton. 1890.
Some sources offer that the city was named after its near-legendary founder, Kharko (a diminutive form of the name Chariton, Ukrainian: Харитон,[2] or Zechariah, Ukrainian: Захарій).[9]
Among other names there are Charkow, Charkov, Zakharpolis.[10]
See also: Timeline of Kharkiv
19th-century view of Kharkiv, with the Assumption Cathedral belltower dominating the skyline.
Sumska Street is the main thoroughfare of Kharkiv
Cultural artifacts date back to the Bronze Age, as well as those of later Scythian and Sarmatian settlers. There is also evidence that the Chernyakhov culture flourished in the area from the second to the sixth centuries.[citation needed]
Establishment[edit]
The city was founded by re-settlers who were running away from the war that engulfed Right-bank Ukraine in 1654 (see Khmelnytsky Uprising).[2] The years before the region was a sparsely populated part of the Cossack Hetmanate.[11] The group of people came onto the banks of Lopan and Kharkiv rivers where an abandoned settlement stood.[12] According to archive documents, the leader of the re-settlers was otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk.[2]
At first the settlement was self-governed under the jurisdiction of a voivode from Chuhuiv that is 40 kilometres (25 mi) to the east.[12] The first appointed voivode from Moscow was Voyin Selifontov in 1656 who started to build a local ostrog (fort).[12] At that time the population of Kharkiv was just over 1000, half of whom were local cossacks, while Selifontov brought along a Moscow garrison of another 70 servicemen.[12] The first Kharkiv voivode was replaced in two years after constantly complaining that locals refused to cooperate in building the fort.[12] Kharkiv also became the centre of the local Sloboda cossack regiment as the area surrounding the Belgorod fortress was being heavily militarized. With the resettlement of the area by Ukrainians it came to be known as Sloboda Ukraine, most of which was included under the jurisdiction of the Razryad Prikaz (Military Appointment) headed by a district official from Belgorod. By 1657 the Kharkiv settlement had a fortress[12] with underground passageways.
In 1658 Ivan Ofrosimov was appointed as the new voivode, who worked on forcing locals to kiss the cross to show loyalty to the Moscow tsar.[12] The locals led by their otaman Ivan Kryvoshlyk refused.[12] However, with the election of the new otaman Tymish Lavrynov the community (hromada) sent a request to the tsar to establish a local Assumption market, signed by deans of Kharkiv churches (the Assumption Cathedral and parish churches of Annunciation and Trinity).[12] Relationships with the neighboring Chuhuiv sometimes were non-friendly and often their arguments were pacified by force.[12] With the appointment of the third voivode Vasiliy Sukhotin was completely finished the construction of the city fort.[12]
Meanwhile, Kharkiv had become the centre of Sloboda Ukraine.[13]
Kharkiv Fortress[edit]
View of Holy Assumption Orthodox Cathedral in Kharkiv
Intercession Cathedral with bell tower and Ozeryanskaya church (right) built in Kharkiv in 1689
View of modern pedestrian bridge over Kharkiv River in Kharkiv
The Kharkiv Fortress was erected around the Assumption Cathedral and its castle was at University Hill.[12] It was between today's streets: vulytsia Kvitky-Osnovianenko, Constitution Square, Rose Luxemburg Square, Proletarian Square, and Cathedral Descent.[12] The fortress had 10 towers: Chuhuivska Tower, Moskovska Tower, Vestovska Tower, Tainytska Tower, Lopanska Corner Tower, Kharkivska Corner Tower and others.[12] The tallest was Vestovska, some 16 metres (52 ft) tall,[12] while the shortest one was Tainytska which had a secret well 35 metres (115 ft) deep.[12] The fortress had the Lopanski Gates.[12]
In 1689 the fortress was expanded and included the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral and Monastery which was baptized[12] and became the center of local eparchy. Coincidentally in the same year in the vicinity of Kharkiv in Kolomak, Ivan Mazepa was announced the Hetman of Ukraine.[12] Next to the Saint-Pokrov Cathedral was located the Kharkiv Collegiate that was transferred from Belgorod to Kharkiv in 1726.[12]
In the Russian Empire[edit]
In the course of the administrative reform carried out in 1708 by Peter the Great, the area was included into Kiev Governorate. Kharkiv is specifically mentioned as one of the towns making a part of the governorate.[14] In 1727, Belgorod Governorate was split off, and Kharkiv moved to Belgorod Governorate. It was the center of a separate administrative unit, Kharkiv Sloboda Cossack regiment. The regiment at some point was detached from Belgorod Governorate, then attached to it again, until in 1765, Sloboda Ukraine Governorate was established with the seat in Kharkiv.[15]
Kharkiv University was established in 1805 in the Palace of Governorate-General.[12] Alexander Mikolajewicz Mickiewicz, brother of Adam Mickiewicz was a professor of law in the university, another celebrity Goethe searched for instructors for the school.[12] In 1906 Ivan Franko received a doctorate in Russian linguistics here.[12][16]
The streets were first cobbled in the city centre in 1830.[17] In 1844 the 90 metres (300 ft) tall Alexander Bell Tower was built next to the first Assumption Cathedral, which on November 16, 1924 was transformed into a radio tower.[12] A system of running water was established in 1870. The Cathedral Descent at one time carried the name of another local trader Vasyl Ivanovych Pashchenko-Tryapkin as Pashchenko Descent.[12] Pashchenko even leased a space to the city council (duma) and was the owner of the city "Old Passage", the city's biggest trade center.[12] After his death in 1894 Pashchenko donated all his possessions to the city.[12]
Kharkiv became a major industrial centre and with it a centre of Ukrainian culture. In 1812, the first Ukrainian newspaper was published there.[citation needed] One of the first Prosvitas in Eastern Ukraine was also established in Kharkiv. A powerful nationally aware political movement was also established there and the concept of an Independent Ukraine was first declared there by the lawyer Mykola Mikhnovsky in 1900.
Soon after the Crimean War, in 1860–61 number of hromada societies sprung up across the Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv.[18] Among the most prominent hromada members in Kharkiv was Oleksandr Potebnia, a native of Sloboda Ukraine.[18] Beside the old hromada, in Kharkiv also existed several student hromadas members of which were future political leaders of Ukraine such as Borys Martos, Dmytro Antonovych and many others.[18] One of the University of Kharkiv graduates Oleksandr Kovalenko was one of initiators of the mutiny on Russian battleship Potemkin being the only officer who supported the in-rank sailors.
Soviet period[edit]
View of renovated Derzhprom building
Memorial to the thousands of Ukrainian intellectuals murdered by the NKVD in 1937–38
When the Tsentralna Rada announced the establishment of the Ukrainian People's Republic in November 1917 it envisioned the Sloboda Ukraine Governorate to be part of it.[2] In December 1917 Kharkiv became the first city in Ukraine occupied by the Soviet troops of Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko.[19] The Bolsheviks in the Tsentralna Rada moved to Kharkiv shortly after to make it their stronghold and formed their own Rada on 13 December 1917.[19][20] By February 1918 Bolshevik forces had captured much of Ukraine.[21] In February 1918 Kharkiv became the capital of the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic; but this entity was disbanded six weeks later.[22] In April 1918 the German army occupied Kharkiv.[23] And according to the February 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Central Powers it became part of the Ukrainian People's Republic.[24] Early January 1919 Bolshevik forces captured Kharkiv.[13] Mid-June 1919 Anton Denikin's White movement Volunteer Army captured the city.[25] In December 1919 the Bolshevik Red Army recaptured Kharkiv.[26]
Prior to the formation of the Soviet Union, Bolsheviks established Kharkiv as the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (from 1919 to 1934) in opposition to the Ukrainian People's Republic with its capital of Kiev.[27]
Monument to the persecuted kobzars in Kharkiv
According to linguist George Shevelov, in the early 1920s the share of secondary schools teaching in the Ukrainian language was lower than the share of the Kharkiv Oblasts ethnic Ukrainian population,[28] even though the Soviet Union had ordered that all schools in the Ukrainian SSR should be Ukrainian speaking (as part of its Ukrainization policy).[29]
As the country's capital, it underwent intense expansion with the construction of buildings to house the newly established Ukrainian Soviet government and administration. Derzhprom was the second tallest building in Europe and the tallest in the Soviet Union at the time with a height of 63 metres (207 ft).[30] In the 1920s, a 150 metres (490 ft) wooden radio tower was built on top of the building. The Roentgen Institute was established in 1931.[31] During the interwar period the city saw the spread of architectural constructivism.[12] One of the best representatives of it was the already mentioned Derzhprom, the Building of the Red Army, the Ukrainian Polytechnic Institute of Distance Learning (UZPI), the City Council building, with its massive asymmetric tower, the central department store that was opened on the 15th Anniversary of the October Revolution.[12] The same year on November 7, 1932 the building of Noblemen Assembly was transformed into the building of All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee.[12][32][33]
In 1928, the SVU (Union for the Freedom of Ukraine) process was initiated and court sessions were staged in the Kharkiv Opera (now the Philharmonia) building. Hundreds of Ukrainian intellectuals were arrested and deported.[citation needed]
In the early 1930s, the Holodomor famine drove many people off the land into the cities, and to Kharkiv in particular, in search of food. Many people died and were secretly buried in mass graves in the cemeteries surrounding the city.[citation needed]
Memorial to the thousands of Polish officers executed by the NKVD in Kharkiv as part of the Katyn massacre
In 1934 hundreds of Ukrainian writers, intellectuals and cultural workers were arrested and executed in the attempt to eradicate all vestiges of Ukrainian nationalism in Art. The purges continued into 1938. Blind Ukrainian street musicians were also gathered in Kharkiv and murdered by the NKVD.[34] In January 1934 the capital of the Ukrainian SSR was moved from Kharkiv to Kiev.[8]
During April and May 1940 about 3,900 Polish prisoners of Starobelsk camp were executed in the Kharkiv NKVD building, later secretly buried on the grounds of an NKVD pansionat in Pyatykhatky forest (part of the Katyn massacre) on the outskirts of Kharkiv.[35] The site also contains the numerous bodies of Ukrainian cultural workers who were arrested and shot in the 1937–38 Stalinist purges.
German occupation[edit]
Memorial to 23 August 1943, the end of German occupation during World War II
During World War II, Kharkiv was the site of several military engagements (see below). The city was captured and recaptured by Nazi Germany on 24 October 1941;[36][37] there was a disastrous Red Army offensive that failed to capture the city in May 1942;[38][39] the city was successfully retaken by the Soviets on 16 February 1943, captured for a second time by the Germans on 15 March 1943 and then finally retaken on 23 August 1943. Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of the inhabitants were killed.[citation needed] Kharkiv, the third largest city in the Soviet Union, was the most populous city in the Soviet Union captured by the Germans, since in the years preceding World War II, Kiev was by population the smaller of the two.
The significant Jewish population of Kharkiv (Kharkiv's Jewish community prided itself with the second largest synagogue in Europe) suffered greatly during the war. Between December 1941 and January 1942, an estimated 30,000 people[citation needed] (slightly more than half Jewish) were killed and buried in a mass grave by the Germans in a ravine outside of town named Drobytsky Yar.
During World War II, four battles took place for control of the city:
First Battle of Kharkov
Second Battle of Kharkov
Third Battle of Kharkov
Fourth Battle of Kharkov (see also Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev)
Before the occupation, Kharkiv's tank industries were evacuated to the Urals with all their equipment, and became the heart of Red Army's tank programs (particularly, producing the T-34 tank earlier designed in Kharkiv). These enterprises returned to Kharkiv after the war, and continue to produce tanks.
Of the population of 700,000 that Kharkiv had before the start of World War II, 120,000 became Ost-Arbeiter (slave worker) in Germany, 30,000 were executed and 80,000 starved to death during the war.[13]
Post-World War II[edit]
In the post-World War II period many of the destroyed homes and factories were rebuilt. From the constructivism the city was planned to be rebuilt in the style of Stalinist Classicism.[12]
An airport was built in 1954. Following the war Kharkiv was the third largest scientific-industrial centre in the former USSR (after Moscow and Leningrad).
In 1975 was opened Kharkiv subway.
In independent Ukraine[edit]
Mirror Stream fountain
By its territorial expansion on September 6, 2012 the city increased its area from about 310 to 350 square kilometres (120 to 140 sq mi).[40]
A well-known landmark of Kharkiv is the Freedom Square (Ploshcha Svobody formerly known as Dzerzhinsky Square), which is the sixth largest city square in Europe, and the 12th largest square in the world.
There is an underground rapid-transit system (metro) with about 38.1 km (24 mi) of track and 29 stations. The new "Victory" underground station (no. 30) was opened in Kharkiv on 19 August 2016. All the underground stations have very special distinctive architectures.
Kharkiv was a host city for the UEFA Euro 2012, and hosted three group soccer matches at the reconstructed Metalist Stadium.
A large number of the Orthodox cathedrals were built in Kharkiv in the 1990s and 2000s.[citation needed]For example, the Myrrh Bringing Wives Orthodox cathedral, the St. Vladimir Orthodox cathedral, St. Tamara Orthodox cathedral, etc.
In 2007, the Vietnamese minority in Kharkiv built the largest Buddhist temple in Europe on a 1 hectare plot with a monument to Ho Chi Minh.[41]
The Gor'ky park was fully renovated in Kharkiv in the 2000s, having a big number of modern attractions, a lake with lilies and sport facilities to play tennis, football, beach volleyball, and basketball.
The Feldman park was created in Kharkiv in recent years, containing a big collection of animals, horses, etc.
Kharkiv and vicinities, LandSat-5 satellite image, near natural colors, 2011-06-18
Lopan-Kharkiv river spur
Kharkiv is located at the banks of the Kharkiv, Lopan, and Udy rivers, where they flow into the Seversky Donets watershed in the North-Eastern region of Ukraine.
Historically, Kharkiv lies in the Sloboda Ukraine region (Slobozhanshchyna also known as Slobidshchyna) in Ukraine, in which it is considered as a main city.
The approximate dimensions of City of Kharkiv are: from the North to the South - 24.3 km; from the West to the East — 25.2 km.
Based on Kharkiv's topography, the city can be conditionally divided into four lower districts and four higher districts.
The highest point above sea level in Pyatikhatky in Kharkiv is 202m, the lowest point above sea level in Novoselivka in Kharkiv is 94m.[citation needed]
Kharkiv lies in the large valley of rivers of Kharkiv, Lopan', Udy, and Nemyshlya. This valley lies from the North West to the South East between the Mid Russian highland and Donetsk lowland. All the rivers interconnect in Kharkiv and flow into the river of Northern Donets. A special system of concrete and metal dams was designed and built by engineers to regulate the water level in the rivers in Kharkiv.[citation needed]
Kharkiv has a large number of green city parks with a long history of more than 100 years with very old oak trees and many flowers.[citation needed]
Kharkiv's climate is humid continental (Köppen climate classification Dfb) with cold, snowy winters and dry and hot summers.
Kharkiv has rather sunny, warm summers which, however, are relatively mild compared to temperatures in South European regions, due to the region's lower elevation, proximity to the Black Sea, and the city's latitude.
Kharkiv has relatively long and cold winters.
The average rainfall totals 513 mm (20 in) per year, with the most in June and July.
Climate data for Kharkiv, Ukraine (1981−2010)
(103.6) 33.7
−2.2
(−32.1) −29.8
(−32.1)
Average rainy days
10 8 10 13 14 15 13 10 12 13 13 12 143
Average snowy days
19 18 12 2 0.1 0 0 0 0.03 2 9 18 80
Average relative humidity (%)
Mean monthly sunshine hours
51 65 108 162 238 263 273 247 185 124 47 31 1,794
Source #1: Pogoda.ru.net[42]
Source #2: NOAA (sun only 1961–1990)[43]
Cityscape[edit]
Panoramic view of central district in Kharkiv, showing the Northern building of V. N. Karazin National University, Kharkiv Palace hotel building, and Kharkiv hotel buildings.
Panoramic view of central district in Kharkiv, showing the Derzhprom building, multiple apartment buildings, and Northern building of V. N. Karazin National University
Governance[edit]
Legal status and local government[edit]
The Mayor of Kharkiv and the City Council govern all the business and administrative affairs in the City of Kharkiv.
The Mayor of Kharkiv has the executive powers; the City Council has the administrative powers as far as the government issues is concerned.
The Mayor of Kharkiv is elected by direct public election in Kharkiv every four years.
The City Council is composed of elected representatives, who approve or reject the initiatives on the budget allocation, tasks priorities and other issues in Kharkiv. The representatives to the City Council are elected every four years.
The mayor and city council hold their regular meetings in the City Hall in Kharkiv.
Main article: 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine § Kharkiv Oblast
The 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine affected Kharkiv but to a lesser extent than in neighbouring Donbass, where tensions would lead to armed conflict.[44] On 2 March 2014, a Russian "tourist" from Moscow replaced the Ukrainian flag with a Russian flag on the Kharkiv regional state administration building.[45] Five days later, pro-Russian protestors occupied the building and unilaterally declared independence from Ukraine as the "Kharkov People's Republic".[46][47] The next day, the building was retaken by Ukrainian special forces.[48] Doubts arose about the local origin of the protestors after they initially stormed an opera and ballet theatre believing it was the city hall.[49] On 13 April, some pro-Russian protesters again made it inside the Kharkiv regional state administration building.[50] Later, on 13 April, the building permanently returned to full Ukrainian control.[46][47][48][50][51][52][53][54] Violent clashes resulted in the severe beating of at least 50 pro-Ukrainian protesters in attacks by pro-Russian protesters.[50][53]
Kharkiv returned to relative calm by 30 April.[55] Relatively peaceful demonstrations continued to be held, with "pro-Russian" rallies gradually diminishing and "pro-Ukrainian unity" demonstrations growing in numbers.[56][57][58] On 28 September, activists dismantled Ukraine's largest monument to Lenin at a pro-Ukrainian rally in the central square.[59] Polls conducted from September to December 2014 found little support in Kharkiv for joining Russia.[60][61]
From early November until mid-December, Kharkiv was struck by seven non-lethal bomb blasts. Targets of these attacks included a rock pub known for raising money for Ukrainian forces, a hospital for Ukrainian forces, a military recruiting centre, and a National Guard base.[62] According to SBU investigator Vasyliy Vovk, Russian covert forces were behind the attacks, and had intended to destabilize the otherwise calm city of Kharkiv.[63]
On 8 January 2015 five men wearing balaclavas broke into an office of (the volunteer group aiding refugees from Donbass) Station Kharkiv.[64] Simultaneously with physical threats the men demanded to hear the political position of Station Kharkiv.[64] After having been given an answer, the men apologized and left.[64]
On Sunday 22 February 2015, there was a terrorist bomb attack on a march to commemorate people who died in the Euromaidan protests in 2014. The bomb killed two, and wounded nine. The authorities launched an anti-terrorist operation.[65] The terrorists claimed that it was a false flag attack.[66] Kharkiv has experienced more non-lethal small bombings since 22 February 2015 targeting army fuel tanks, an unoccupied passenger train and a Ukrainian flag in the city centre.[67]
On 23 September 2015, 200 people in balaclavas and camouflage picketed the house of former governor Mykhailo Dobkin, and then went to Kharkiv town hall, where they tried to force their way through the police cordon. At least one tear gas grenade was used. The rioters asked the mayor, Hennadiy Kernes, to come out.[68][69]
While Kharkiv is the administrative centre of the Kharkiv Oblast (province), the city affairs are managed by the Kharkiv Municipality. Kharkiv is a city of oblast subordinance.
Kholodnohirskyi District
Shevchenkivskyi District
Kyivskyi District
Moskovskyi District
Nemyshlyanskyi District
Industrialnyi District
Slobidskyi District
Osnovianskyi District
Novobavarskyi District
The territory of Kharkiv is divided into 9 administrative raions (districts), till February 2016 they were named for people, places, events, and organizations associated with early years of the Soviet Union but many were renamed in February 2016 to comply with decommunization laws.[3] Also, owing to this law, over 200 streets have been renamed in Kharkiv since 20 November 2015.[70]
The raions are named:[3][71]
Kholodnohirskyi (Ukrainian: Холодногірський район, Cold Mountain; namesake: the historic name of the neighbourhood[72]) (formerly Leninskyi; namesake: Vladimir Lenin)
Shevchenkivskyi (Ukrainian: Шевченківський район); namesake: Taras Shevchenko (formerly Dzerzhynskyi; namesake Felix Dzerzhinsky)
Kyivskyi (Ukrainian: Київський район); namesake: Kiev (formerly Kahanovychskyi; namesake: Lazar Kaganovich)
Moskovskyi (Ukrainian: Московський район); namesake: Moscow
Nemyshlianskyi (Ukrainian: Немишлянський район) (formerly Frunzensky: namesake: Mikhail Frunze[71]);
Industrialnyi (Ukrainian: Індустріальний район) (formerly Ordzhonikidzevskyi; namesake: Sergo Ordzhonikidze)
Slobidskyi (Ukrainian: Слобідський район) (formerly Kominternіvsky[71]); namesake: Sloboda Ukraine
Osnovianskyi (Ukrainian: Основ'янський район) (formerly Chervonozavodsky[71]); namesake: Osnova, a city neighborhood
Novobavarskyi (Ukrainian: Новобаварський район) (formerly Zhovtnevy[71]); namesake: Nova Bavaria, a city neighborhood
1941[76][80]
According to the 1989 Soviet Union Census, the population of the city was 1,593,970. In 1991, it decreased to 1,510,200, including 1,494,200 permanent residents.[84] Kharkiv is the second-largest city in Ukraine after the capital, Kiev.[85] The first independent all-Ukrainian population census was conducted in December 2001, and the next all-Ukrainian population census is decreed to be conducted in 2020. As of 2001, the population of the Kharkiv region is as follows: 78.5% living in urban areas, and 21.5% living in rural areas.[86]
Ethnicity[edit]
2001[89][90][dubious – discuss]
Ukrainians 25.9% 38.6% 48.5% 48.4% 50.4% 62.8%
Russians 63.2% 37.2% 32.9% 40.4% 43.6% 33.2%
Jews 5.7% 19.5% 15.6% 8.7% 3.0% 0.7%
1660 year – approximated estimation
1788 year – without the account of children
1920 year – times of the Russian Civil War
1941 year – estimation on May 1, right before German-Soviet War
1941 year – next estimation in September varies between 1,400,000 and 1,450,000
1941 year – another estimation in December during the occupation without the account of children
1943 year – August 23, liberation of the city; estimation varied 170,000 and 220,000
1976 year – estimation on June 1
1982 year – estimation in March
The St. Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral is one of the tallest Orthodox churches in the world, which was built in Kharkiv on October 2, 1888.
Kharkiv is an important religious center in Eastern Ukraine.
There are many old and new cathedrals, associated with various churches in Kharkiv.
The St. Assumption Orthodox Cathedral was built in Kharkiv in the 1680s and re-built in 1820s-1830s.[91]
The St. Pokrovsky Orthodox Monastery Cathedral was created in Kharkiv in 1689–1729.[92][93]
The St. Annunciation Orthodox Cathedral is one of the tallest Orthodox churches in the world. It was completed in Kharkiv on October 2, 1888.[94]
The St. Trinity Orthodox Cathedral was built in Kharkiv in 1758–1764 and re-built in 1857–1861.[95]
The St. Valentine Orthodox Cathedral was built in Kharkiv in the 2010s.[96]
The St. Tamara Orthodox Cathedral was built in Kharkiv in 2012.[97]
The St. Peace Bringing Wives Orthodox Cathedral was built in green park near Mirror Stream fountain in August, 2015.[98]
The Roman Catholic St. Mary Cathedral was built in Kharkiv in 1887–1892.
There is the old Kharkiv Choral Synagogue, which was fully renovated in Kharkiv in 1991–2016. The Jewish population is around 8000 people in Kharkiv.[99]
There are two mosques including the Kharkiv Cathedral Mosque and one Islamic center in Kharkiv.
The 2016–2020 economic development strategy: "Kharkiv Success Strategy", is created in Kharkiv.[100][101][102]
International Economic Forum[edit]
The International Economic Forum: Innovations. Investments. Kharkiv Innitiatives! is being conducted in Kharkiv every year.[103]
In 2015, the International Economic Forum: Innovations. Investments. Kharkiv Innitiatives! was attended by the diplomatic corps representatives from 17 world countries, working in Ukraine together with top-management of trans-national corporations and investment funds; plus Ukrainian People's Deputies; plus Ukrainian Central government officials, who determine the national economic development strategy; plus local government managers, who perform practical steps in implementing that strategy; plus managers of technical assistance to Ukraine; plus business and NGO's representatives; plus media people.[103][104][105][106][107]
The key topics of the plenary sessions and panel discussions of the International Economic Forum: Innovations. Investments. Kharkiv Innitiatives! are the implementation of Strategy for Sustainable Development “Ukraine – 2020”, the results achieved and plan of further actions to reform the local government and territorial organization of power in Ukraine, export promotion and attraction of investments in Ukraine, new opportunities for public-private partnerships, practical steps to create “electronic government”, issues of energy conservation and development of oil and gas industry in the Kharkiv Region, creating an effective system of production and processing of agricultural products, investment projects that will receive funding from the State Fund for Regional Development, development of international integration, preparation for privatization of state enterprises.[103][104][105][106][107]
International Industrial Exhibitions[edit]
The international industrial exhibitions are usually conducted at the Radmir Expohall exhibition center in Kharkiv.[108]
Industrial corporations[edit]
During the Soviet era, Kharkiv was the capital of industrial production in Ukraine and the third largest[citation needed]centre of industry and commerce in the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the largely defence-systems-oriented industrial production of the city decreased significantly. In the early 2000s, the industry started to recover and adapt to market economy needs. Now there are more than 380 industrial enterprises concentrated in the city, which have a total number of 150,000 employees.[citation needed] The enterprises form machine-building, electro-technology, instrument-making, and energy conglomerates.
State-owned industrial giants, such as Turboatom and Elektrotyazhmash[109] occupy 17% of the heavy power equipment construction (e.g., turbines) market worldwide. Multipurpose aircraft are produced by the Antonov aircraft manufacturing plant. The Malyshev factory produces not only armoured fighting vehicles, but also harvesters. Khartron[110] is the leading designer of space and commercial control systems in Ukraine and the former CIS.
IT industry[edit]
As of April 2018, there were 25,000 specialists in IT industry of the Kharkiv region, 76% of them were related to computer programming. Thus, Kharkiv accounts for 14% of all IT specialists in Ukraine and makes the second largest IT location in the country, right after the capital Kyiv.[111]
Also, the number of active IT companies in the region to be 445, five of them employing more than 601 people. Besides, there are 22 large companies with the workers’ number ranging from 201 to 600. More than half of IT-companies located in the Kharkiv region fall into “extra small” category with less than 20 persons engaged. The list is compiled with 43 medium (81-200 employers) and 105 small companies (21-80).
Due to the comparably narrow market for IT services in Ukraine, the majority of Kharkiv companies are export-oriented with more than 95% of total sales generated overseas in 2017. Overall, the estimated revenue of Kharkiv IT companies will more than double from $800 million in 2018 to $1.85 billion by 2025. The major markets are North America (65%) and Europe (25%).[112]
Finance industry[edit]
Kharkiv is also the headquarters of one of the largest Ukrainian banks, UkrSibbank, which has been part of the BNP Paribas group since December 2005.
Trade industry[edit]
There are many large modern shopping malls in Kharkiv.
There are a large number of markets:
Barabashovo market is the largest market in Ukraine and one of the largest markets in Europe.
Blagoveshinskiy market.
Konniy "horse" market.
Sumskoi market [113]
Raiskiy book market.
Science and education[edit]
Main building of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
Northern building of V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
Il'ya I. Mechnikov, Lev D. Landau, Simon A. Kuznets Nobel Laureates Monuments at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University.
Higher education[edit]
The Vasyl N. Karazin Kharkiv National University is the most prestigious reputable classic university, which was founded due to the efforts by Vasily Karazin in Kharkiv in 1804–1805.[114][115] On 29 January [O.S. 17 January] 1805, the Decree on the Opening of the Imperial University in Kharkiv came into force.
The Roentgen Institute opened in 1931. It was a specialist cancer treatment facility with 87 research workers, 20 professors, and specialist medical staff. The facilities included chemical, physiology, and bacteriology experimental treatment laboratories. It produced x-ray apparatus for the whole country.[31]
The city has 13 national universities and numerous professional, technical and private higher education institutions, offering its students a wide range of disciplines. Kharkiv National University (12,000 students), National Technical University "KhPI" (20,000 students), Kharkiv National University of Radioelectronics (12,000 students), Kharkiv National Aerospace University "KhAI", Kharkiv National University of Economics, Kharkiv National University of Pharmacy, Kharkiv National Medical University are the leading[citation needed] universities in Ukraine.
More than 17,000 faculty and research staff are employed in the institutions of higher education in Kharkiv.
Scientific research[edit]
The city has a high concentration of research institutions, which are independent or loosely connected with the universities. Among them are three national science centres: Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Institute of Meteorology, Institute for Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine and 20 national research institutions of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine, such as the B Verkin Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering, Institute for Problems of Cryobiology and Cryomedicine, State Scientific Institution "Institute for Single Crystals", Usikov Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics (IRE), Institute of Radio Astronomy (IRA), and others. A total number of 26,000 scientists are working in research and development.
A number of world-renowned scientific schools appeared in Kharkiv, such as the theoretical physics school and the mathematical school.
There is the Kharkiv Scientists House in the city, which was built by A. N. Beketov, architect in Kharkiv in 1900. All the scientists like to meet and discuss various scientific topics at the Kharkiv Scientists House in Kharkiv.[116]
Public libraries[edit]
In addition to the libraries affiliated with the various universities and research institutions, the Kharkiv State Scientific V. Korolenko-library is a major research library.
Secondary schools[edit]
Kharkiv has 212 (secondary education) schools, including 10 lyceums and 20 gymnasiums.[citation needed]
Education centers[edit]
There is the educational "Landau Center", which is named after Prof. L.D. Landau, Nobel laureate in Kharkiv.[117]
Kharkiv is one of the main cultural centres in Ukraine. It is home to 20 museums, over 10 theatres and a number of art galleries. Large music and cinema festivals are hosted in Kharkiv almost every year.
Theatres[edit]
The Kharkiv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre named after N. V. Lysenko is the biggest theatre in Kharkiv.[118][119]
Kharkiv Ukrainian Drama Theatre named after T. G. Shevchenko is popular among Ukrainian speaking people [120]
The Kharkiv Academic Russian Drama Theatre named after A.S. Pushkin was recently renovated, and it is quite popular among locals.[121]
The Kharkiv Theatre of the Young Spectator (now the Theatre for Children and Youth) is one of the oldest theatres for children.[122]
The Kharkiv Puppet Theatre (The Kharkiv State Academic Puppet Theatre named after VA Afanasyev) is the first puppet theatre in the territory of Kharkiv. It was created in 1935.
The Kharkiv Academic Theatre of Musical Comedy is a theatre founded on 1 November 1929 in Kharkiv.
In the 1930s Kharkiv was referred to as a Literary Klondike.[citation needed] It was the centre for the work of literary luminaries such as: Les Kurbas, Mykola Kulish, Mykola Khvylovy, Mykola Zerov, Valerian Pidmohylny, Pavlo Filipovych, Marko Voronny, Oleksa Slisarenko. Over 100 of these writers were repressed during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s. This tragic event in Ukrainian history is called the "Executed Renaissance" (Rozstrilene vidrodzhennia). Today, a literary museum located on Frunze Street marks their work and achievements.
Today, Kharkiv is often referred to as the "capital city" of Ukrainian Science fiction and Fantasy.[123][124] It is home to a number of popular writers, such as H. L. Oldie, Alexander Zorich, Andrey Dashkov, Yuri Nikitin and Andrey Valentinov; most of them write in Russian and are popular in both Russia and Ukraine. The annual science fiction convention "Star Bridge" (Звёздный мост) has been held in Kharkiv since 1999.[125]
There is the Kharkiv Philharmonic Society in the city.
There is the Organ Music Hall in the city.[126] The Organ Music Hall is situated at the Assumption Cathedral presently. The Rieger–Kloss organ was installed in the building of the Organ Music Hall back in 1986. The new Organ Music Hall will be opened at the extensively renovated building of Kharkiv Philharmonic Society in Kharkiv in November, 2016.
The Kharkiv Conservatory is in the city.
The Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I.P. Kotlyarevsky is situated in the city.[127]
Kharkiv sponsors the prestigious Hnat Khotkevych International Music Competition of Performers of Ukrainian Folk Instruments, which takes place every three years. Since 1997 four tri-annual competitions have taken place. The 2010 competition was cancelled by the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture two days before its opening.[128]
The music festival: "Kharkiv - City of Kind Hopes" is conducted in Kharkiv.[129]
Movies[edit]
From 1907 to 2008, at least 86 feature films were shot in the city's territory and its region. The most famous is Fragment of an Empire (1929). Arriving in Leningrad, the main character, in addition to the usual pre-revolutionary buildings, sees the Gosprom - a symbol of a new era.
Movies festival[edit]
The "Kharkiv Lilacs" international movie festival is very popular among movie stars, makers and producers in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and North America.[130][131]
The annual festival is usually conducted in May.[130][130][131]
There is a special alley with metal hand prints by popular movies actors at Shevchenko park in Kharkiv. [131][132]
Kharkiv has been a home for many famous painters, including Ilya Repin, Zinaida Serebryakova, Henryk Siemiradzki, and Vasyl Yermilov. There are many modern arts galleries in the city: the Yermilov Centre, Lilacs Gallery, the Kharkiv Art Museum, the Kharkiv Municipal Gallery, the AC Gallery, Palladium Gallery, the Semiradsky Gallery, AVEK Gallery, and Arts of Slobozhanshyna Gallery among others.
Museums[edit]
There is the Kharkiv History Museum named after M. F. Sumtsov in the city.[133]
The Natural History Museum at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University was founded in Kharkiv on April 2, 1807. The museum is visited by 40000 visitors every year.[134][135]
The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University History Museum was established in Kharkiv in 1972.[136][137][138]
The V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University Archeology Museum was founded in Kharkiv on March 20, 1998. [139][140]
The National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute" Museum was created in Kharkiv on December 29, 1972.[141][142][143][144][145]
The National Aerospace University "Kharkiv Aviation Institute" Museum was founded on May 29, 1992.[146]
The "National University of Pharmacy" Museum was founded in Kharkiv on September 15, 2010.[147][148][149]
There are around 147 museums in the Kharkiv's region.[150]
The Kharkiv Maritime Museum - a museum dedicated to the history of shipbuilding and navigation.[151]
The Kharkiv Puppet Museum is the oldest museum of dolls in Ukraine.
Memorial museum-apartment of the family Grizodubov.
Club-Museum of Claudia Shulzhenko.[152]
The Museum of "First Aid".
The Museum of Urban Transport.
Landmarks[edit]
National holiday's fireworks on Freedom Square
Of the many attractions of the Kharkiv city are the: Dormition Cathedral, Annunciation Cathedral, Derzhprom building, Freedom Square, Taras Shevchenko Monument, Mirror Stream, Historical Museum, Choral Synagogue, T. Shevchenko Gardens, Zoo, Children's narrow-gauge railroad, World War I Tank Mk V, Memorial Complex, and many more.
After the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea the monument to Petro Konashevych-Sahaidachny in Sevastopol was removed and handed over to Kharkiv.[153]
Media[edit]
There are a large number of broadcast and internet TV channels, AM/FM/PM/internet radio-stations, and paper/internet newspapers in Kharkiv. Some are listed below.
Newspapers[edit]
Vremya
Vecherniy Kharkiv
Segodnya
Khar'kovskie Izvestiya
Magazines[edit]
Guberniya [154]
TV stations[edit]
"Pershyi" channel
"Ukraine" channel
"Inter" channel
"Oblastne Telebachennya" channel
Radio stations[edit]
"Promin'"
"Ukrains'ke Radio"
"Radio Kharkiv"
"Kharkiv Oblastne Radio"
"Russkoe Radio Ukraina"
"Shanson" <r
"Retro FM"
Online news in English[edit]
The Kharkiv Times
Kharkiv Observer
Sport[edit]
Bicycles racing competition in Kharkiv at Bicycle Day on July 9, 2016
Kharkiv EURO 2012 host city emblem
Kharkiv International Marathon[edit]
The Kharkiv International Marathon is considered as a prime international sportive event, attracting many thousands of professional sportsmen, young people, students, professors, locals and tourists to travel to Kharkiv and to participate in the international event.[155][156][157][158]
Football (soccer)[edit]
The most popular sport is football. The city has several football clubs playing in the Ukrainian National competitions. The most successful is FC Dynamo Kharkiv that won eight national titles back in 1920s-1930s.
FC Metalist 1925 Kharkiv, which plays at the Metalist Stadium
FC Helios, which plays at the Helios Arena
FC Arsenal Kharkiv, which plays at the Arsenal-Spartak Stadium (participates in regional competitions)
FC Shakhtar Donetsk also play at the Metalist Stadium as of 2017, due to the War in Donbass.
There is also a female football club WFC Zhytlobud-1 Kharkiv, which represented Ukraine in the European competitions and constantly is the main contender for the national title.
Metalist Stadium hosted three group matches at UEFA Euro 2012.
Other sports[edit]
Kharkiv also has an Ice Hockey club, HC Vityaz Kharkiv who compete in the Ukrainian Vyscha Liga.
Avangard Budy is a bandy club from Kharkiv, which won the Ukrainian championship in 2013.
There is a men's volleyball team Lokomotiv Kharkiv which performs in Ukraine and in European competitions.
RC Olimp' is the city's rugby union club. They provide many players for the national team.
Tennis is also a popular sport in Kharkiv. There are many professional tennis courts in the city. Elina Svitolina is a tennis player from Kharkiv.
There is a golf club in Kharkiv.[159]
Horseriding as a sport is also popular among locals.[160][161][162][163] There are large stables and horse riding facilities at Feldman Ecopark in Kharkiv.[164]
There is a growing interest in cycling among locals.[165][166] There is a large bicycles producing plant in Kharkiv.[167] Presently, the modern bicycle highway is under construction at the "Leso park" district in Kharkiv.
Sister cities[edit]
See also: List of twin towns and sister cities in Ukraine
Kharkiv is twinned with:[168]
Belgorod, Russia (2001)[169]
Bologna, Italy (1966)[169]
Brno, Czech Republic (2005)[169][170]
Cetinje, Montenegro (2011)[171]
Cincinnati, United States (1989)[169][172][173]
Daugavpils, Latvia (2006)[169][174]
Gaziantep, Turkey (2011)[175]
Jinan, China (2004)[169]
Kaunas, Lithuania (2001)[169][176]
Kutaisi, Georgia (2005)[169][177]
Lille, France (1978)[169][178]
Maribor, Slovenia (2012)[179]
Moscow, Russia (2001)[169]
Nizhny Novgorod, Russia (2001)[169]
Nuremberg, Germany (1990)[169][180]
Poznań, Poland (1998)[169][181][182][183]
Rishon LeZion, Israel (2008)[169]
Saint Petersburg, Russia (2003)[169][184]
Tianjin, China (1993)[169]
Varna, Bulgaria (1995)[169][185][186]
Warsaw, Poland (2011)[187]
Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan (2015)
Nobel and Fields prize winners[edit]
Lev Landau – (originally from Baku) a head of the department of theoretical physics at the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, a head of the department of experimental physics and a lecturer at the department of theoretical physics at the Kharkiv State University, a head of the department of theoretical physics at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute 1932–37, Nobel Prize for Physics 1962
Simon Kuznets (economics)
Ilya Mechnikov (medicine)
Vladimir Drinfeld (mathematics)
The following people were born in Kharkiv or have lived there:
Nikolai P. Barabashov — astronomer, co-author of the first pictures of the far side of the moon
Pavel Batitsky — executed Lavrentiy Beria after Khrushchev's coup d'état in 1953, and commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Defense Forces from 1966 to 1978
Vladimir Bobri — illustrator, author, composer, educator and guitar historian
Inna Bohoslovska — lawyer, politician and leader of the Ukrainian public organization Viche
Sergei Bortkiewicz — Russian Romantic composer and pianist
Maria Burmaka – Ukrainian singer, musician and songwriter
Leonid Buryak - football coach and former Olympic bronze-medal-winning player
Leonid Bykov – Soviet actor, film director, and script writer
Adolphe Mouron Cassandre — Ukrainian-French painter, commercial poster artist, and typeface designer
Valentina Chepiga – female bodybuilder and 2000 Ms. Olympia champion
Juliya Chernetsky (Mistress Juliya) — television host, actress, model, and music promoter in the United States
Olga Danilov — Israeli Olympic speed skater
Alexander Davidovich — Israeli Olympic wrestler
Andrey Denisov — Russian diplomat
Vladimir Drinfeld — mathematician, awarded Fields Medal in 1990
Isaak Dunayevsky — Soviet composer and conductor
Konstanty Gorski — Polish composer, violist, organist, and music teacher
Valentina Grizodubova — One of the first female pilots in the Soviet Union
Lyudmila Gurchenko (Hurchenko) – Soviet and Russian actress, singer and entertainer
Mikhail Gurevich — (originally from Rubanshchina) Soviet aircraft designer, a partner (with Artem Mikoyan) of the MiG military aviation bureau
Mikhail Gurevich — Ukrainian chess player
Diana Harkusha — Miss Ukraine Universe 2014 and Miss Universe 2014's 2nd Runner-up
Leonid Haydamaka — bandurist, conductor, founder of first orchestra of Ukrainian folk instruments
Pavlo Ishchenko (born 1992), Olympic Ukrainian-Israeli boxer
Maksym Kalynychenko – Ukrainian football player
Vasily Karazin — founder of Kharkiv University, which now bears his name
Hnat Khotkevych — Ukrainian writer, ethnographer, composer, bandurist
Mikhail Koshkin — (originally from Brynchagi), chief designer of Soviet tank T-34
Olga Krasko — Russian actress
Mykola Kulish — Ukrainian playwright
Les Kurbas — Ukrainian dramatist
Simon Kuznets — Russian American economist
Evgeny Lifshitz — Soviet physicist
Eduard Limonov — writer, poet and controversial politician
Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy — lead developer of Soviet Shuttle Buran program
Aleksandr Lyapunov — Russian mathematician, mechanician and physicist. Inventor of motion stability theory
Boris Mikhailov — photographer / artist
Mykola Mikhnovsky — Ukrainian political leader and activist
T-DJ Milana (Julia Igorevna Rysina; born 1989), Ukrainian DJ, composer, dancer and model, lives in Kharkiv
Yuri Nikitin — fantasy and science fiction writer
Henry Lion Oldie (Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky) — science fiction and fantasy writers
Igor Olshanetskyi — Israeli Olympic weightlifter
Justine Pasek — Miss Universe 2002
Valerian Pidmohylny — Ukrainian poet
Irina Press — athlete who won two Olympic gold medals
Tamara Press — Soviet shot putter and discus thrower
Olga Rapay-Markish — ceramicist
Igor Rybak — Olympic champion lightweight weightlifter
Serafina Schachova – Nephrologist
Eugen Schauman – Finnish nationalist who killed Russian general Nikolay Ivanovich Bobrikov in 1904
Alexander Shchetynsky — composer
George Shevelov – Ukrainian and Slavic linguist, philologist, essayist, literary historian, and literary critic
Elena Sheynina — children's author
Lev Shubnikov — Soviet experimental physicist who worked in the Netherlands and USSR
Klavdiya Shulzhenko — singer of the Soviet Union
Alexander Siloti — Russian pianist, conductor and composer
Hryhorii Skovoroda – poet, philosopher and composer
Karina Smirnoff – professional world champion dancer, starring on Dancing with the Stars
Jura Soyfer — Austrian political journalist and cabaret writer
Otto Struve — Russian-American astronomer
Sergei Sviatchenko – artist
Elina Svitolina - professional tennis player
Mark Taimanov — chess player and concert pianist
Ievgeniia Tetelbaum — Israeli Olympic synchronized swimmer
Nikolai Tikhonov — Premier of the Soviet Union
Yevgeniy Timoshenko — professional poker player
Anna Tsybuleva — pianist, winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition
Anna Ushenina — women's world chess champion
Vladimir Vasyutin — Soviet cosmonaut of Ukrainian descent
Yury Vengerovsky — Olympic gold medal winning volleyball player
Vitali Vitaliev - journalist and author
Alexander Voevodin — biomedical scientist and educator
Igor Vovchanchyn – Mixed martial artist
Vasyl Yermylov – painter and designer
Serhiy Zhadan — poet, novelist, and translator
Oleksandr Zhdanov - professional Ukrainian-Israeli football defender
Irina Zhurina – opera singer, People's Artist of Russia
Alexander Zorich (Dmitry Gordevsky and Yana Botsman), science fiction writers.
Kharkiv Railway Station Main Entrance, August 2011
Historical building of Kharkiv Airport
The city of Kharkiv is one of the largest transportation centers in Ukraine, which is connected to numerous cities of the world by air, rail and road traffic. The city has many transportation methods, including: public transport, taxis, railways, and air traffic. There are about 250 thousand cars in the city.[188]
Local transport[edit]
Being an important transportation centre of Ukraine, many different means of transportation are available in Kharkiv. Kharkiv's Metro is the city's rapid transit system operating since 1975. It includes three different lines with 30 stations in total.[189][190] The Kharkiv buses carry about 12 million passengers annually.[citation needed] Trolleybuses, trams (which celebrated its 100 years of service in 2006), and marshrutkas (private minibuses) are also important means of transportation in the city.
Railways[edit]
The first railway connection of Kharkiv was opened in 1869. The first train to arrive in Kharkiv came from the north on 22 May 1869, and on 6 June 1869, traffic was opened on the Kursk–Kharkiv–Azov line. Kharkiv's passenger railway station was reconstructed and expanded in 1901, to be later destroyed in the Second World War. A new Kharkiv railway station was built in 1952.[191]
Kharkiv is connected with all main cities in Ukraine and abroad by regular railway trains. Regional trains known as elektrichkas connect Kharkiv with nearby towns and villages.
Air[edit]
Kharkiv is served by Kharkiv International Airport has been granted international status. Charter flights are also available. The former largest carrier of the Kharkiv Airport — Aeromost-Kharkiv — is not serving any regular destinations as of 2007[update]. The Kharkiv North Airport is a factory airfield and was a major production facility for Antonov aircraft company.
Recreation[edit]
Kharkiv contains numerous parks and gardens such as the Gor'ky park, Shevchenko park, Hydro park, Strelka park, and Feldman ecopark. The Gor'ky park is a common place for recreation activities among visitors and local people.[citation needed] The Shevchenko park is situated in close proximity to the V.N. Karazin National University. It is also a common place for recreation activities among the students, professors, locals and foreigners. The Ecopark is situated at circle highway around Kharkiv. It attracts kids, parents, students, professors, locals and foreigners to undertake recreation activities.[citation needed]
Footnotes[edit]
^ Kharkiv was a capital of the Soviet Ukraine for some 15 years in 1919–1934.
^ Первая столица. АТН, 19 декабря 2002 г. ‹See Tfd›(in Russian)
^ a b c d e What Makes Kharkiv Ukrainian, The Ukrainian Week (23 November 2014)
^ a b c ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) Another 48 streets and 5 districts "decommunized" in Kharkiv, Ukrayinska Pravda (3 February 2015)
‹See Tfd›(in Russian) Three districts renamed in Kharkiv, SQ (3 February 2015)
‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) It was decided not to rename the Zhovtnevyi and the Frunzenskyi districts in Kharkiv, Korrespondent.net (3 February 2015)
^ Kernes wins elections for Kharkiv mayor with over 65% of vote, Interfax-Ukraine (31 October 2015)
FC Metalist President Kurchenko to invest in Kharkiv’s preparations for EuroBasket 2015, Interfax-Ukraine (8 April 2013)
^ Ukraine's second Winter Olympics: one medal, some good performances, The Ukrainian Weekly (1 March 1998)
^ "Kharkiv on Encyclopædia Britannica - current edition". Britannica.com. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
^ Kharkiv "never had eastern-western conflicts", Euronews (23 October 2014)
^ a b Liber, George (1992). Soviet Nationality Policy, Urban Growth, and Identity Change in the Ukrainian SSR, 1923-1934. Cambridge University Press.
^ "Сторінка:Котляревський. Енеида на малороссійскій языкъ перелицїованная. 1798.pdf/175 — Вікіджерела". uk.wikisource.org. Retrieved 18 June 2017.
^ Grigory Savvich Skovoroda, Full collection of works, (Garden of Divine Songs), v. 2, in Teaching Thought, Kiev 1973.
^ Roman Solchanyk (January 2001). Ukraine and Russia: The Post-Soviet Transition. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7425-1018-0. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) Живий Харків. Нічна екскурсія містом-господарем (Living Kharkiv. Nightly excursion through the host-city) Ukrayinska Pravda. June 9, 2012
^ a b c Ukraine: A History 4th Edition by Orest Subtelny, University of Toronto Press, 2009, ISBN 1442609915
^ Указ об учреждении губерний и о росписании к ним городов, 1708 г., декабря 18 [Decree on the establishment of Provinces and cities assigned to them, December 18, 1708]. constitution.garant.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^ История административно-территориального деления воронежского края. 2. Воронежская губерния [History of the Administrative-Territorial Division of the Voronezh Region. 2. Voronezh Province.] (in Russian). Archive service of Voronezh Oblast. Archived from the original on 25 May 2013. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
^ У Харкові відкрили меморіальну дошку Івану Франку [A memorial plaque to Ivan Franko was unveiled in Kharkiv] (in Ukrainian). Istpravda.com.ua. 23 August 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ Харків і харків'яни XIX-го сторіччя [Kharkiv and Kharkiv denizens in 19th century photos] (in Ukrainian). Istpravda.com.ua. 24 January 2011. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ a b c "Hromadas". Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
^ a b Historical Dictionary of Ukraine (Historical Dictionaries of Europe) by Ivan Katchanovski, Scarecrow Press (Publication date: July 11, 2013), ISBN 0810878453 (page 713)
^ Literary Politics in the Soviet Ukraine, 1917–1934. Durham and London: Duke University Press. ISBN 0-8223-1099-6 (page 7)
^ World War I: A Student Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 1195. ISBN 978-1-85109-879-8
^ Ukraine: The Phony War?, The New York Review of Books (27 April 2014)
^ Spies and Commissars: The Early Years of the Russian Revolution. PublicAffairs. ISBN 1-61039-140-3.
^ Borderlands into Bordered Lands: Geopolitics of Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Vol. 98) (Volume 98), Ibidem Verlag, 2010, ISBN 383820042X (page 24)
^ The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7, page 97
^ The A to Z of the Russo-Japanese War. Scarecrow Press Inc. ISBN 978-0-8108-6841-0 (page 101)
^ "Донбас і Україна (з історії революційної боротьби 1917–18 рр.) (Donbas and Ukraine. (From articles and declarations of Mykola Skrypnyk))". Istpravda.com.ua. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ Games from the Past: The continuity and change of the identity dynamic in Donbas from a historical perspective , Södertörn University (May 19, 2014)
^ Language Policy in the Soviet Union by Lenore Grenoble, Springer Science+Business Media, 2003, ISBN 978-1-4020-1298-3 (page 84)
^ "Derzhprom statistics". Kharkov.ua. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ a b Khwaja, Barbara (26 May 2017). "Health Reform in Revolutionary Russia". Socialist Health Association. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
^ "Picture of the building in the Vsesvit magazine". Istpravda.com.ua. 2012-04-30. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ "Photos of the newspaper "Proletarian" for 1932-33". Istpravda.com.ua. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ Ukrainian minstrels: and the blind shall sing by Natalie Kononenko, M.E. Sharp, ISBN 0-7656-0144-3/ISBN 978-0-7656-0144-5, page 116
^ Fischer, Benjamin B., "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field", Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999–2000, last accessed on 10 December 2005
^ "Харків часів "дорослого дитинства" Людмили Гурченко (Kharkiv at times of "matured childhood" of Lyudmila Gurchenko)". Istpravda.com.ua. Retrieved 21 July 2012.
^ "Kharkiv through the eyes of Lyudmila Gurchenko". Andersval.nl. 2011-03-31. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
^ The Red Army committed 765,300 men to this offensive, suffering 277,190 casualties (170,958 killed/missing/PoW, 106,232 wounded) and losing 652 tanks, and 4,924 guns and mortars. Glantz, David M., Kharkov 1942, anatomy of a military disaster through Soviet eyes, pub Ian Allan, 1998, ISBN 0-7110-2562-2 page 218.
^ per Robert M. Citino, author of "Death of the Wehrmacht", and other sources, the Red Army came to within a few miles of Kharkiv on 14 May 1942 by Soviet forces under Marshal Timoshenko before being driven back by German forces under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, p. 100
^ "Про зміну і встановлення меж міста Харків, Дергачівського і Харківського районів Харківської області". Search.ligazakon.ua. 2012-09-18. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
^ In↑ «Сегодня»,21 December 2007.
^ "Weather and Climate - The Climate of Kharkiv" (in Russian). Weather and Climate (Погода и климат). Retrieved 3 December 2013.
^ "Har'Kov (Kharkiv) Climate Normals 1961–1990". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
^ "Ukraine crisis: Timeline". BBC News. 13 November 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
^ Roth, Andrew (4 March 2014). "From Russia, 'Tourists' Stir the Protests". The New York Times.
"Russian site recruits 'volunteers' for Ukraine". BBC News. 4 March 2014.
^ a b "Pro-Russia activists declare establishment of 'Kharkiv people's republic'". Focus Information Agency. 7 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
^ a b "Pro-Russian Protesters Declare 'People's Republic' In Kharkiv". LiveLeak.com. 7 April 2014. Archived from the original on 8 April 2015. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
^ a b "Kharkiv settles down, while pro-Russian separatists still hold buildings in Luhansk, Donetsk". Kyiv Post. 8 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
^ "Protesters Storm Kharkiv Theater Thinking It Was City Hall". The Moscow Times. 8 April 2014.
^ a b c "Kharkiv city government building infiltrated by pro-Russian protesters". Kyiv Post. 13 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
^ "Кернес пообіцяв допомогти звільнити затриманих сепаратистів | Українська правда". Pravda.com.ua. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
^ Kharkiv torn between Europe and Russia, Deutsche Welle (6 March 2014)
^ a b "После нападения антимайдановцев на митинг Евромайдана в Харькове пострадало 50 человек : Новости УНИАН". Unian.net. 14 April 2014. Retrieved 28 April 2014.
^ "Latest from the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine". Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. 14 April 2014. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2014.
^ "Latest from the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine – based on information received up until 29 April 2014" (Press release). Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. 30 April 2014. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
^ "Latest from the Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine based on information received until 23 June 2014" (Press release). Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. 24 June 2014. Archived from the original on 22 November 2015. Retrieved 22 August 2014.
^ "Latest from the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine based on information received until 18:00 hrs, 23 July" (Press release). Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. 24 July 2014. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
^ ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) Two liberty square rally, Status quo (17 August 2014)
^ Ukrainian Crowds Topple Lenin Statue (Again). Retrieved 29 September 2014.
^ Navalny, Alexei (23 September 2014). Соцопрос ФБК по Харьковской и Одесской областям. Европа, Россия, Новороссия [Survey of Kharkov and Odessa Oblasts] (in Russian). navalny.com. Archived from the original on 23 September 2014.
^ Лише 3% українців хочуть приєднання їх області до Росії [Only 3% of Ukrainians want their region to become part of Russia]. Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (in Ukrainian). 3 January 2015.
^ Seven recent blasts in Ukraine city stir fear of new Russian menace, Los Angeles Times (11 December 2014)
Mysterious spate of bombings hit Ukraine military hub, Agence France-Presse (10 December 2014)
^ SBU: Russian special services target Kharkiv, Odesa, situation difficult to control, Ukrainian Independent Information Agency (10 December 2014)
^ a b c Міліція з ясовує, хто напав на волонтерську "Станцію Харків" [Police finds out who attacked the volunteer-run "Station Kharkiv"] (in Ukrainian). ukrinform.ua. 9 January 2015. Retrieved 22 March 2015. "Станция Харьков" — первый пункт помощи переселенцам из зоны АТО ["Station Kharkiv" - the first point of assistance for displaced persons from the Donbass zone] (in Russian). 24tv.ua. 25 October 2014. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
^ UNIAN Anti-terrorist operation launched in Kharkiv due to fatal blast on Sunday – Turchynov, 22 February 2015.
En.Censor.Net, Anti-terrorist operation started in Kharkiv: four participants on the explosion detained, 22 February 2015.
Novorossia.Today, Turchinov announced start of the ATO in Kharkov. The highest level of terrorist threat had been introduced in the city, 23 February 2015.
^ Lada Ray (23 February 2015). "Urgent Statement of the Kharkov Partizans re. False Flag Terrorist Act". Futurist Trendcast. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
^ Bomb Attacks Increase In Ukraine's Second-Largest City, Kharkiv, NPR (6 April 2015)
Kharkiv explosion targeting Ukrainian flag classified as ‘terrorist act', Ukraine Today (7 April 2015)
Explosion In Ukraine's Kharkiv Targets National Flag Memorial, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (7 April 2015)
^ Unian, Over 200 men in balaclavas brawl at Kharkiv town hall, clash with police, 23 September 2015, 14:10.
^ Korrespondent, Появилось видео столкновений у горсовета Харькова [Video of riot at Kharkov City Council], 23 September 2015 17:40
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‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) Kharkiv city council renamed 173 streets, 4 parks and a metro station, RBC Ukraine (20 November 2015)
‹See Tfd›(in Russian) 50 streets renamed in Kharkiv: list, SQ (3 February 2015)
^ a b c d e ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian) In Kharkiv, five metro stations and fifty streets have been communicated, Korrespondent.net, 18 May 2016)
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^ Побратимські зв'язки між містами України та США ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
^ "OKI Sister City Coalition".
^ Міжрегіональне співробітництво між Україною та Латвією ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
^ Харків і Газіантеп - міста-побратими‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
^ Співробітництво між регіонами України та регіонами Литовської Республіки ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
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^ Partenariat et amitié existants еntre villes et régions de France et d‘Ukraine ‹See Tfd›(in French)
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^ Побратимські стосунки між містами та регіонами ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
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^ Побратимські зв'язки між містами України та Республіки Болгарія ‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
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See also: Bibliography of the history of Kharkiv
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Kharkivat Wikipedia's sister projects
Citynet UA — Official website of Kharkiv City Information Centre ‹See Tfd›(in English)/‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
Misto Kharkiv — Official website of Kharkiv City Council ‹See Tfd›(in English)/‹See Tfd›(in Ukrainian)
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Reading Khaled Hosseini (The Pop Lit Book Club)
READING KHALED HOSSEINI Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie Houston and Jenn...
Author: Rebecca Stuhr
READING KHALED HOSSEINI
Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie Houston and Jennifer Warren Reading Amy Tan Lan Dong Reading Cormac McCarthy Willard P. Greenwood
READING KHALED HOSSEINI Rebecca Stuhr
The Pop Lit Book Club
GREENWOOD PRESS An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC
Santa Barbara, California Denver, Colorado Oxford, England
Copyright 2009 by Rebecca Stuhr All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stuhr, Rebecca. Reading Khaled Hosseini / Rebecca Stuhr. p. cm. — (The pop lit book club) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-313-35511-0 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-313-35512-7 (ebook) 1. Hosseini, Khaled. I. Title. PS3608.O832Z87 2009 813’.6—dc22 2009026321 13
This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an eBook. Visit www.abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America
To the librarians and staff of the Free Library of Philadelphia in recognition of their hard work and dedication to the young people of Philadelphia
Preface Chapter 1
Khaled Hosseini: A Writer’s Life
Chapter 2 Khaled Hosseini and the Novel Chapter 3 The Kite Runner (2003)
Chapter 4 A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)
Chapter 5 Today’s Issues in Khaled Hosseini’s Work Chapter 6 Pop Culture in Khaled Hosseini’s Work Chapter 7 Khaled Hosseini on the Internet
Chapter 8 Khaled Hosseini and the Media
Chapter 9 What Do I Read Next? Resources Index
The purpose of this volume in the Pop Lit Book Club series is to introduce readers to the author Khaled Hosseini, his works, and their place in contemporary culture. Hosseini is a relatively new author. His first book, The Kite Runner, was published in 2003, and A Thousand Splendid Suns was published four years later in 2007. Both have enjoyed bestseller status and have been popular book club choices. Divided into nine chapters that examine Hosseini’s novels from a variety of perspectives, this book should be a valuable resource for schoolteachers, librarians, and book club and reading group facilitators. It is also a resource for independent readers, both those who are approaching Hosseini for the first time and those who are familiar with his works but who are interested in a deeper look at the author and his novels. The book begins with an overview of the author’s life and ends with suggestions for further readings. The first chapter presents experiences from Hosseini’s childhood in Afghanistan, to his immigration to the United States following the Communist coup in Kabul, through his education in American schools and universities to the launch of his writing career. Chapter 2 explores the structure of both novels. Although the plots of these novels are quite different one from another, the structures of these plots have shared elements. The chapter takes a close look at these elements and into the motivations that drive the characters to determine where these works of fiction can be placed within the complex genre that is the novel. Chapters 3 and 4 present a detailed look at the novels, providing for each novel an extensive plot summary, an analysis of the characters and settings, and a thorough examination of the themes.
In chapters 5 through 9, readers will find a variety of resources for learning more about Hosseini and his works, and explore popular and critical views of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Hosseini himself. In chapter 5, the focus is on issues of contemporary importance as represented by the author. Chapter 6 looks at elements of popular culture appearing in Hosseini’s novels and examines the impact his novels have had on current popular trends and culture. Additionally, this chapter looks at the film adaptation of The Kite Runner. Chapter 7 brings together and describes Web sites and other Internet resources, from Hosseini’s official Web site, to podcasts featuring the author, to interactive fan sites that inform and entertain. Finally, in chapter 8, readers will find a review of the critical reception of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns found in the many reviews that have appeared in journals, magazines, newspapers, and radio and television broadcasts. Along with this, I provide a look at the media treatment of Hosseini as an author and individual, as well as Hosseini’s public persona. Chapter 9 concludes with suggestions for readers who are wondering what to read next. This annotated list includes contemporary and classic works of fiction, history and memoirs, short stories, and poetry. Whether one is approaching this selection in hopes of discovering a new favorite novel, or with the desire to learn more about the people, history, and culture of Afghanistan, ‘‘What Do I Read Next?’’ is an interesting and useful resource. Following most chapters readers will discover a list of questions intended to stimulate discussion and to lead to a greater understanding of the author and his novels. In most of the chapters, readers will find sidebars that provide background and historical and social context to people, events, customs, and practices found in the pages of Hosseini’s novels. A final Resources chapter brings together all of the sources that were consulted to write this book. Many of the citations include URLs that can be used to take curious readers directly to a particular online source. My own experience in writing this book has led me to have a deep respect for Mr. Hosseini as both a writer and a humanitarian. Whether a devoted fan or someone with a passing interest in the writer and his works, my hope is that the materials within these pages make it possible to have a rich and informed engagement with the works of Khaled Hosseini. I’d like to thank Grinnell College and the Grinnell College Libraries for making it possible for me to take the time necessary to write this book; Mark Schneider who supported my efforts in multiple tangible and intangible ways; the Swarthmore College Library, The Free Library
of Philadelphia, Swarthmore Public Library, and, of course, Grinnell College Libraries for the use of their fine collections; my sister, Deborah Iwabuchi for her time and expert comments; editors George Butler and Kaitlin Ciarmiello at Greenwood Press for their generous and excellent guidance; Catherine, Jorge, Erma, Gretchen, and Tim, who are supportive beyond reason; and, finally, my beloved children and family, Martin, Helen, Bobbie, Wally, Philip, Yolanda, Victoria, Julian, PJ, Ikuo, Manna, and Hikari.
1 KHALED HOSSEINI: A WRITER’S LIFE
The details available to us about Hosseini’s life are significant and derive primarily from the many interviews in which he has participated since the publication and runaway success of The Kite Runner. The oldest of five children, Hosseini was born in Kabul in 1965. As noted at his official Web site, his mother taught Farsi and history at a girls’ high school in Kabul. His father was a diplomat for Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry, and when he was posted to Afghanistan’s embassy in Tehran, the family moved with him. The Hosseinis returned to Afghanistan in 1973, the year that King Zahir Shah was overthrown by Daoud Khan in a bloodless coup. From 1973 until 1976, Hosseini attended a French-styled high school in Kabul, the Istiqlal Lycee. In the same year, the family moved once again, this time to Paris, where his father took a new diplomatic post. Hosseini’s father was the second secretary to Afghanistan’s ambassador in Paris, or the third-ranking diplomat serving there. During his assignment in Paris, the Hosseini family received news, through their government connections and friends in Afghanistan and from French news sources, of the Communist coup and then the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Hosseinis heard stories of executions and learned of the deaths of friends and distant relatives and realized that they would not be able to return to Afghanistan. Hosseini told Terry Gross in a 2005 interview on her WHYY public radio program Fresh Air that when his father became aware that people connected with the ousted regime were in danger, he began secretly to arrange for political asylum for
himself and his family in the United States. Hosseini told Gross that it would be hard to find an Afghan who did not have friends or relatives in Afghanistan who had been ‘‘executed, imprisoned, or harmed in some way’’ following the Communist coup. In 1980, the Hosseini family left Paris for a new life in San Jose, California, knowing that they might never return to Afghanistan. There they joined a growing San Francisco Bay Area Afghan community. Hosseini attended high school in San Jose, graduating in 1984. He earned a degree in biology from Santa Clara College, and then went on to study medicine at the University of California, San Diego, completing his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He practiced medicine as a primary care physician at a large health management organization (HMO) from 1996 to 2004. He is married and has two children: a son Haris and a daughter Farah. His wife Roya was born in Bethesda, Maryland, and is a lawyer. Hosseini returned to Kabul in 2003, spending two weeks visiting the sites of his childhood and traveling more widely to learn firsthand about the current conditions and outlook of the Afghan people. He was named as a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in 2006 and has returned to Afghanistan and traveled to refugee camps in Chad as part of his UN assignment. Hosseini was interested in writing and storytelling from a young age. He told Tamara Jones of the Washington Post that he wrote plays as a child, ‘‘cajoling his younger brothers and cousins into performing’’ them. Later as an adult, he found writing a welcome change of pace from the hours he spent at his medical practice. Jones wrote, ‘‘[m]edicine was like an arranged marriage he grew fond of; writing was the grand romance between high school sweethearts’’ (Jones 2007). He told James Cowan of National Post that he started writing ‘‘suspense thrillers and Victorian tales of gothic horror, but soon moved on to short pieces of literary fiction’’ (Cowan 2003). Mir Tamim Ansary mentioned Hosseini in his
Zahir Shah was the king of Afghanistan from 1933 to 1973. He became king after the assassination of his father and was overthrown by his cousin Daoud Khan. Zahir Shah was out of the country at the time of the coup and he spent many years in exile in Italy. The current constitution of Afghanistan names Zahir Shah as The Father of the Nation. This title carries with it no political power and it cannot be transferred to an heir.
book West of Kabul, East of New York (2002) and described him as a ‘‘young Afghan doctor whose passion after work was writing—not ghazals, not quasidas, not even rubaiyat, but horror stories in the tradition of H.P. Lovecraft’’ (284). Hosseini began writing for publication in 1999, and started working on The Kite Runner in 2001. This novel evolved from a short story begun two years earlier. It sat on a shelf in the garage until his wife found it and read it and then gave it to her father to read. Hosseini’s father-in-law liked the story and told Hosseini that he wished it were longer. Hosseini wrote in a statement he prepared for Amazon.com that after looking at it again, he realized that it might work as a novel and began working on it that night. He continued to work on it, writing every morning between 5:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M. before going to his medical practice. He was two-thirds of the way through the book when the September 11 attacks occurred. Hosseini considered abandoning the novel believing that with such dire news out of Afghanistan his depiction of his childhood Kabul would not resonate with a world that now saw Afghanistan as the ‘‘bad guys’’ (Jones 2007). He thought he might be content to write his novel for his family only, but his wife Roya suggested that he now had the opportunity to ‘‘put a human face on the Afghan people’’ (Hosseini, Amazon.com). With this encouragement, he went on to finish the book and seek publication. In his 2006 dissertation on Afghan diasporic literary works, Mir Hekmatullah Sadat interviewed Hosseini. Hosseini told him that The Kite Runner began with a series of autobiographical episodes (164). But, he told Cowan that the novel is autobiographical only in ‘‘broad strokes . . . it is more fictional than most people realize.’’ Like Amir and his father, Hosseini immigrated to the United States after the Soviet invasion. Both Baba and Hosseini’s father were influential, had international careers, and lost everything as they sought refuge from the Communist takeover. The descriptions of Amir’s childhood in Kabul are based on Hosseini’s memories of his childhood there. Like Amir, a highlight of his childhood was the long winter vacation, kite flying, and kite fighting. In a 2003 interview with Razeshta Sethna in Newsline, Hosseini said that ‘‘I experienced Kabul with my brother the way Amir and Hassan do: long school days in the summer, kite fighting in the winter time, westerns with John Wayne at Cinema Park, big parties at our house in Wazir Akbar Khan, picnics in Paghman.’’ He went on to say that unlike the generation of Afghans growing up in the twenty-first century, his memories are ‘‘untainted by the spectre of war, landmines, and famine.’’ Other aspects of both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are based on Hosseini’s personal knowledge of and experience with Afghanistan during
his childhood, and from his return visit in 2003. Jones wrote that his twoweek visit ‘‘would provide much of the material for A Thousand Splendid Suns.’’ Hosseini told her that ‘‘[t]o my knowledge, everything I wrote was based on something I saw or heard.’’ But some of the things he saw there he was unable to write about. Hosseini told Jones that ‘‘some of the things were so cartoonishly heinous as to defy all comprehension.’’ Hosseini touches on the role of women in both of his novels, but it is the main theme of A Thousand Splendid Suns. He was raised at a time in Afghanistan when women were free to attend schools and seek professional employment. Many women in his family were professionals, and he was not raised with the worldview of protecting women from outside intrusion. He wrote in the BookBrowse interview that he hopes readers will develop a sense of empathy for Afghans and specifically for Afghan women, ‘‘on whom the effects of war and extremism have been devastating. I hope this novel brings depth, nuance, and emotional subtext to the familiar image of the burqa-clad woman walking down a dusty street.’’ He continued, asserting that under the Taliban, women were denied education, the right to work, the right to move freely, access to adequate healthcare, etc. Yet I want to distance myself from the notion, popular in some circles, that the West can and should exert pressure on these countries to grant women equal rights. . . . This approach either directly or indirectly dismisses the complexities and nuances of the target society as dictated by its culture, traditions, customs, political system, social structure, and overriding faith. (BookBrowse 2007)
Hosseini told Jones that he has received criticism for having portrayed women who wear and come to terms with the burqa. Both of his main female characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns at some point, as they are out in the streets clad in the garment, express a satisfaction with the anonymity and sense of protection they feel from wearing it. Hosseini claims no sympathy for this practice, and states that he wishes ‘‘every single woman in Afghanistan could lift the burqa and walk the streets freely,’’ but he also believes that this should be a choice that the women make. He points out that women wore them in Afghanistan for centuries before the Taliban came to power. ‘‘It is not quite the concern for women in Afghanistan as it is for us in the West. It’s not as urgent a matter as security, as food, as being able to get medical care for their kids. I’m just not sure,’’ Hosseini continued, ‘‘what a reliable gauge of women’s liberation in Afghanistan the burqa is’’ (Jones 2007).
Hosseini has received responses to his books from both Afghan and non-Afghan readers. He has received positive responses from most Afghan readers who feel ‘‘a slice of their story has been told by one of their own’’ (Sethna 2003). He has also heard from those who think that his writing is divisive. He is quoted in many interviews, including that of Sadat, as saying that those who found the book divisive objected to his bringing up issues of discrimination, racism, and ethnic inequality. But Hosseini has responded to them by saying that he believes these issues are important and should not be taboo. In fact, it is the role of fiction to take on these difficult subjects and open them up for debate (Sadat 2006, 166). He added in his interview with Sethna, ‘‘If this book generates any sort of dialogue among Afghans, then I think it will have done a service to the community’’ (2003). Non-Afghan readers have responded to the themes of friendship, betrayal, guilt, and redemption found in Western literary fiction. Hosseini wants readers to respond to his work as literature and storytelling; he also hopes that ‘‘the novel has provided Western readers with a fresh perspective.’’ He laments the fact that stories from Afghanistan ‘‘center around the various wars, the opium trade, and the war on terrorism. Precious little is said about the Afghan people themselves, their culture, their traditions, how they lived in their country and how they manage abroad as exiles’’ (Azad 2004). Hosseini considers himself to be a storyteller using both the elements of literary fiction and genre writing. In his interview with Azad in afghanmagazine.com, Hosseini said that The Kite Runner was not influenced by Afghan literature. He elaborated further, describing his style of writing as ‘‘rooted in a western style of writing prose.’’ However, he added, Afghanistan is full of great storytellers, and I was raised around people who were very adept at capturing an audience’s attention with their storytelling skills. I have been told that there is an old fashioned sense of storytelling in The Kite Runner. I would agree. It’s what I like to read, and what I like to write. (Azad 2004)
He told Jones that his writing is ‘‘spare, direct. My natural knack is for telling a story.’’ As a child, Hosseini read classical Dari poetry and some Western fiction translated into Farsi, including Mickey Spillane and Alice in Wonderland. Like his character Amir in The Kite Runner, Hosseini loved westerns as a child and his favorite film was The Magnificent Seven (Hansen 2003). He did not learn to read English until he moved to the
Dari is the Farsi or Persian dialect of Afghanistan spoken by the Tajiks, Hazara, and Farsiwan. The Uzbeks and Turkmen speak Turkic dialects; Pashtuns speak Pashtu or Pashto. Dari is one of forty languages and dialects spoken in Afghanistan and it is one of the country’s two official languages, with the second being Pashto. Uzbek, Turkmen, Balochi, Pashai, Nuristani, and Pamiri are all official third languages as of the 2004 constitution. (See Ludwig Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, and Kathryn M. Coughlin, Muslim Cultures Today: A Reference Guide.)
United States. He has said that the first book that he read and fully understood was Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. ‘‘Some of [what Steinbeck’s characters experienced] reminded me of Afghans and what they had gone through, and even my own family to some extent’’ (Weich 2007). He noted in his interview with Azad that being an indigenous writer gives his writing authenticity. ‘‘[I]f you write with honesty and integrity, then it may show on the pages’’ (Azad 2004). Hosseni is quoted as saying that he does his best to ‘‘represent a view that is culturally accurate and historically legitimate. . . . Good stories must ring true, and for me, it always goes back to story’’ (Sadat 165). Hosseini feels comfortable writing about what he knows. He lived through the final years of the monarchy, the formation of the republic, and the early years of Daoud Khan’s leadership. The Taliban portions of his books are taken from stories he heard directly from Afghans who were in Afghanistan during the Taliban years but who now live in the United States. He also relied on the media. He writes, ‘‘To my knowledge, everything I wrote was based on something I saw or heard’’ (Jones 2007). Still, he mentioned in the interview at BookBrowse, he feels that ‘‘it is quite a burden for a writer to feel a responsibility to represent his or her own culture and to educate others about it.’’ Hosseini writes that through Amir he represents important aspects of the Afghan immigrant, aspects that he himself shares. In particular, he mentions The Kite Runner protagonist Amir’s longing and nostalgia for his homeland. In his depiction of Amir’s childhood, Hosseini brings to life his own vivid memories of Kabul during the 1960s and 1970s, a period of time he refers to as a ‘‘Golden Era of sorts’’ (Azad 2004). Amir assimilates into American society, graduating from high school and attending college and beginning his career as a writer. His view of nang and namoos (the Afghan sense of honor and pride especially with regard to wives and daughters), as evidenced by his reaction to Soraya’s preengagement confession, is softened not only by the guilt that he carries
with him, but also by his exposure to different ideas and practices in the new country. After his father dies, Amir sells the van and stops attending the flea market, the social site of the Afghan community in the East Bay. Still, he marries an Afghan woman and relies on his connections with the extended Afghan community to bring Sohrab safely into the United States. This sense of belonging to the closely knit Afghan community can be attributed to Hosseini as well. He told Sadat that ‘‘after 25 years in the United States’’ he considers himself to be assimilated into American culture (Sadat, 164). He married an American-born Afghan woman, and he has raised his children to be bilingual. Hosseini told Terry Gross that maintaining the language is the most important way to preserve the culture and that food follows in importance. He and others in the Afghan community continue to practice traditional wedding celebrations, and the observation of Ramadan and its three days of feasts. Although Amir’s guilt is much more related to specific sins of commission and omission than what Hosseini describes as the survivor’s guilt that he and other diasporic Afghans experience, it may be the inspiration for Amir’s burden of memory. Hosseini described this lingering cloud that ‘‘many of us, particularly in sunny California, have felt at one time or another’’ (Azad 2004). He told Terry Gross that he carries an ‘‘undercurrent of guilt’’ about his own good fortunes and life. He thinks about people in Afghanistan who were poor and worked as cooks and gardeners, perhaps in his household, and he wonders how they have fared through the past twenty-five years of upheaval and bloodshed.
President Daoud was president of the Republic of Afghanistan from 1973 until 1978 when he was assassinated. Daoud came to power via a coup, which he staged. There was little resistance. Afghanistan was proclaimed a republic and a central committee was formed. This committee elected Daoud as president, prime minister, minster of foreign affairs, and minster of defense of the Republic of Afghanistan. Preceding this, Daoud had a long career in the military and in the political system of Afghanistan. As prime minister (1953–1963) he sought emancipation for women, encouraging them to give up the veil and to join the work force. The coup staged by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) on April 27, 1978, led to Daoud’s assassination and brought Marxist rule to Afghanistan. (See Amin Saikal, et al., Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival, and Ludwig Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan.)
The Afghan diaspora began in the 1970s with the advent of drought and famine. In these initial decades most Afghans leaving the country went to Pakistan or Iran. Later immigrants went to Western Europe and the United States. The largest populations in Europe are in Germany and the Netherlands with an estimated 200,000 in all of Europe and another 50,000 in the Russian Federation. Afghans began immigrating to the United States in the 1980s, moving through Pakistan and Germany. There are around 300,000 Afghans in North America with the highest concentration living in the San Francisco East Bay. Sadat writes that the city of Fremont is known as ‘‘Little Kabul.’’ Afghan communities have also formed in Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, and Orange County, California. In 1980 there were about 500 Afghan families in the United States. By the year 2000, there were nearly 38,000 families. (See Mir Hekmatullah Sadat, ‘‘The Afghan Experience,’’ and Eden Naby, ‘‘The Afghan Diaspora.’’)
Hosseini’s The Kite Runner was released as a film directed by Marc Forster during the winter of 2008. The film sparked controversy when the young actors received death threats due to their participation in the rape scene. Both they and their families were relocated before the film was released. Hosseini told Erika Milvy of Salon in a December 9, 2007 interview, that this scene was pivotal to the integrity of the film. He expressed surprise that there could be a suggestion that this scene somehow condoned rape: ‘‘How anybody can see this film and walk away with the conclusion that it supports rape is unfathomable to me. This is a film that denounces what happened in that alley, not one that endorses it’’ (Milvy 2007). He concluded his interview with Milvy by pointing out that the film is about what is good in human nature. I hope this controversy hasn’t overshadowed the fact that this is a film about good things—about the virtues of tolerance, friendship, brotherhood and love and harmony—and that it speaks against violence. There’s a lovely scene in the film where Amir, in a moment of distress and personal anguish, goes to a mosque and prays. How many times have we seen Muslim characters in a film pray—in that kind of very spiritual moment, piously? Usually when they do, in the next scene they’re blowing something up. And I’m proud of the fact that Muslims around the world will see this character performing this ritual exactly in the way that it was meant to be performed. (2)
IMDb (Internet Movie Database) and other sources note that a film version of A Thousand Splendid Suns is due out in 2009, written and directed by Stephen Zaillian and to be released by Columbia (see http:// www.imdb.com/title/tt0959353/; http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php? id=37415). Hosseini told Milvy that he believes the film based on this novel, despite its violence and cruelty, will be ‘‘more palatable. There are issues [addressed in the book] about women, but the issues about ethnic tension are the sensitive ones in Afghanistan. If that film is ever made, I don’t think we’ll be facing the same sort of controversy’’ (Milvy 2007).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • Hosseini expresses concern about the burden writers have to represent their culture and to educate others about it. What barriers do you imagine ethnic or multicultural writers face with publishers or the reading public in writing beyond their personal experience or about communities other than their own? How might this compare to an American of white, European descent writing about communities and subjects beyond his or her immediate personal experience? • Hosseini has a unique perspective as an Afghan and an American and a fluent speaker of both Dari and English. What strengths do these characteristics bring to his novels and how does knowing this about the author affect your reaction to Hosseini’s work? • Hosseini has said that medicine was like a good arranged marriage, but that writing was his grand romance. Imagine the discipline necessary to dedicate time to writing while pursuing a full-time career in a demanding field. What insight into Hosseini’s personality does this give you and does it shed light on his choice of topics or style of writing?
2 KHALED HOSSEINI AND THE NOVEL
Both of Khaled Hosseini’s novels, A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner, fit solidly within the Anglo-European literary tradition of the novel. The novel can be defined simply as an extended fictional account of the day-to-day events, tragic and comic, of everyday human beings. Within this broad definition of the novel, a fluid number of terms are used to describe subcategories, some of which include The bildungsroman (the novel of transformation) and its close cousin the k€ unstlerroman (the development of the artist), and the historical novel (in the tradition of Sir Walter Scott and Leo Tolstoy). Other subcategories include the novel of immigration, the ethnic novel, diasporic fiction, the autobiographical novel (for instance What Is the What by Dave Eggers), and the novel of manners, and domestic fiction (often attributed to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens). Other possible subcategories or genres within the novel tradition include experimental fiction, science fiction, romance fiction, the detective novel, the mystery novel, young adult fiction, and urban street fiction. Narrative styles include streamof-consciousness (James Joyce, William Faulkner, William Styron), firstperson narrative, the omniscient narrator, and combinations of the above. These descriptive terms are so fluid with varying and sometimes controversial definitions because a mythic or archetypal structure to the novel follows the everyday occurrences of the common person: issues of birth, death, love, hate, loss, and triumph. The novel was ‘‘novel’’ or new because the protagonist or hero was the common person as opposed
to the near-godly hero of the epic poem. It is possible to apply one or more of these descriptive terms or forms to Hosseini’s novels beginning with bildungsroman and ending with domestic and literary fiction.
FORMS OF THE NOVEL THAT CAN BE USED TO DESCRIBE THE KITE RUNNER AND A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS The bildungsroman, or novel of transformation, follows the life of the young man or woman as they become aware of the limitations imposed upon them by family and the inadequacy of their education opportunities. The protagonist in the bildungsroman breaks away, leaving behind family and town to find freedom and new opportunities in a new environment. The central character in this novel of transformation would not have to be, but generally is, a member of the middle class or perhaps the lower classes. It is important to the plot of the bildungsroman that the main character is somehow constrained, breaks the constraining bonds, goes elsewhere to learn and discover him or herself, finds freedom or emancipation, and returns home. In the domestic fiction of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, the family may be the center of the activities and most, although not all, of the action takes place in the setting of the home: the drawing room, the ballroom, the kitchen, the study, or sleeping quarters. Servants, characters on the street, and the commercial realm figure into these stories, but the main characters are brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, mothers, and fathers, and their children (whether or not they own the house or work in the house). The historical novel has elements of real people and actual events, but these people and events are settings within which the central characters of the novel are placed. The autobiographical novel similarly may be substantially based on the life of the author, but with enough fabrication or deviation from the basic facts to warrant calling it a novel rather than an autobiography. Finally, the ethnic or diasporic novel, or novel of immigration, are labels often used to describe novels written by authors who are from a diasporic or immigrant group, including European ethnicities. The author does not necessarily choose to have his or her works labeled or categorized in this way. Authors may consider such a categorization to be empowering or to diminish their work—relegating it to a subcategory of literature, whereas the work of white authors simply is considered to be ‘‘literature.’’ Publishers, though, may classify a novel in this way because they believe it will help sales. The novel of immigration is a classification that can be applied to European immigrant writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth
Khaled Hosseini and the Novel
century, or to writers from the contemporary waves of immigration. Novelists who find themselves classified as ethnic novelists are often first- or second-generation Americans. Their novels may be or may appear to be autobiographical, or they may at least deal in a significant way with ethnic communities and individuals who are seeking to establish a unique and meaningful identity and to be recognized and respected within the dominant population and culture. The dominant culture, of course, is shifting and changing as it absorbs and reflects new cultures with which it comes into contact. And so it evolves into something that is in truth all encompassing.
HOSSEINI
Hosseini places his novels into the category of storytelling. He often refers to himself as a storyteller. He may simply say this out of humility, choosing not to attribute higher literary motives to his writing. He, however, does mention in more than one interview that there are many good storytellers in Afghanistan and that he grew up listening to stories. He thus separates himself and his writing in part from the Western novel tradition and links himself instead to a tradition that is part of the greater Afghan culture, or an oral tradition (Afghanistan also has a rich written poetry heritage). The novel as we know it has its roots in England and Western Europe. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is considered to be the first English language novel, although, appearing centuries earlier, Petronius’s first-century literary work, The Satyricon, has also been described as the earliest example of the novel. The form went through enormous development and experimentation even in the early decades of its appearance as an English language genre with the epistolary novels of Samuel Richardson and the quirky prenatal narration and typographical hijinks of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Knowing that Hosseini’s own early reading interests were solidly within the realm of Western literature, we can look at the various forms and styles associated with the novel, the bildungsroman, the historical novel, and even that of domestic fiction, as homes in which to place The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Ray Conlogue, in a 2003 article about Hosseini, writes, Hosseini is not an admirer of the kind of self-conscious and artful fiction so admired in Western countries. ‘‘Don’t draw me into that,’’ he says, laughing. ‘‘I’m not a big fan of hard-core literary fiction. I like stories. I grew up with stories, and stories
are all I can write. I can’t write an amorphous plot.’’ Nor does he want to: He believes storytelling is more important. ‘‘And the art of storytelling is endangered.’’ (R1)
Storytelling, however, is an oral tradition. John Harrell writes in his 1983 book that the origins of story are in oral transmission, whether passing on stories learned as a child or forming tales from one’s own life or imagination. He cautions the would-be storyteller, ‘‘once an oral tradition is written down it ceases to be the one thing and becomes another’’ (29). He goes on to say that literate persons are unable to carry on the oral tradition of storytelling. ‘‘Literacy, with the sophistication that accompanies it, brings into play wholly alien criteria that affect one’s telling. . . . We never belonged to [this tradition] in the first place, and we cannot reenter it’’ (61–62). Elie Wiesel, who refers to himself as a storyteller, is another writer who relies on his own experiences and the history of his people for his novels. He makes use of religious and folk texts and sees himself as continuing the Jewish tradition of storytelling as an oral and a textual practice. In her 2006 book on Wiesel, Rosemary Horowitz emphasizes his role as a storyteller. She writes that Wiesel claims ‘‘the only role that suits him is the one, less presumptuous . . . of the storyteller who transmits what was given to him, as faithfully as possible’’ (8). Horowitz describes the storyteller as one who ‘‘does nothing but tell the tale: he transmits what he has received, he returns what was entrusted to him. His story does not begin with his own, it is fitted into the memory that is the living tradition of his people’’ (9). Hosseini may very well have approached the writing of his two novels from the point of view of a storyteller but, nonetheless, both novels can be described as falling into one or more of the categories of literary fiction described above. We can honor Hosseini’s wish to be seen as a storyteller and we can see that he fulfills some of that role by passing on stories and experiences both from his own experience and from his imagination. His narratives are straightforward tales centered on the daily events of his protagonists. But, we can also enrich our own understanding of Hosseini’s fiction by looking at it within the tradition of Western literary fiction.
HOSSEINI’S NOVELS
AND THE
EPIC TRADITION
In his 1995 book Telling Stories: Postmodernism and the Invalidation of Traditional Narrative, Michael Roemer specifies a number of elements
present in stories whatever form they may take. These elements come out of the epic tradition: the hero and the quest. Roemer notes that the story is always set in the past, the central figure must act, these actions are often imposed rather than taken up by choice, and the outcome of these actions may not be what the hero intends. Beset by a crisis, the hero must seek to resolve it without the luxury of waiting for time or a logical progression of steps to aid in the resolution of the crisis. The hero and other characters in the story are constrained by their context: the time and place of their existence and the story evolves out of a situation that is already in place as the story unfolds to the reader or audience. Roemer explains that they are tied to their particular context and there is no escape (1995, 29, 35). Certainly all of these elements described as being central to the epic are present in both of Hosseini’s novels. In each novel, we have two protagonists, one growing up with a sense of entitlement and privilege and the other growing up under conditions circumscribed by poverty and social expectation. In The Kite Runner, Amir is suddenly thrown back to his childhood when he receives a phone call. After years of struggling with a guilty conscience and a lifetime of finding a place for himself within a family and society in which he has not quite measured up to the status and expectations of his father, he is given a task or quest, a quest that will ‘‘make him good again.’’ While Amir has left the country, completed his education, and successfully launched his career as a writer (literate not only in his native Dari but also in his new language, English), Hassan has learned to read and write and has established a family. In the midst of his new life, Hassan is called on to return to his servant life and to protect Amir’s family home. This is his task, and, born into a class that has been restricted to positions of servitude, he accepts this task, taking it out of a sense of loyalty to his former masters. Neither Amir nor Hassan is aware of the risks they will confront, nor do they set out with the expectation of sacrificing their lives to their task. Yet, this is what is asked of them. Hassan defiantly puts himself in the way of danger, and ultimately loses his life and the life of his wife for the sake of the household of Baba and Amir. Realizing this, Amir reluctantly sets out on his quest to rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, to honor Hassan’s loyalty and to absolve himself of guilt. Unlike Hassan, Amir is fortunate and survives to accomplish his task. In Hosseini’s second novel, Laila and Mariam’s fates are connected through a tragic twist of circumstances. However, because of the status of women within the society, their decisions are made for them. Mariam must marry Rasheed because her father and his wives force her to do so. Her acceptance is merely a token act. Laila must marry Rasheed because
she is orphaned and pregnant. Both situations are untenable in her society. Furthermore women may not travel alone or work and thus, should Laila choose any other course, even if she were not pregnant, her chances of survival would be slim. Together, Laila and Mariam must survive their marriage to a brutal and controlling man and protect the children. In the end, Mariam faces a crisis. She must kill Rasheed or allow Laila to be killed. She cannot wait to make a decision and calculate the costs; she must act immediately. Later, when she has time to consider the consequences of her action, she makes a carefully considered decision and then takes the steps necessary to fulfill it. Mariam, like Hassan, loses her life for the sake of her friend. Though she is not Laila’s servant, unlike Laila, Mariam cannot envision a life different from the one she has been living. She is aware of having made life-changing decisions, and this is one more such decision. This time it is made in the interests of others, however, rather than out of self-interest. Laila, brought up to imagine a future, cannot imagine that Mariam is planning to give up her life, but in the end, she accepts Mariam’s sacrifice and lives, as closely as she can, the life that Mariam envisioned for her. Both A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner end on mixed notes. The chance of happiness is evident, but the characters have so much to overcome to reach that happiness. For Amir, his happiness is tied up in Sohrab’s well-being. Sohrab’s wounds are deep and the healing process is slow. Laila, with her new life with Tariq and the children, has all the promise of happiness, but the society—the same one that separated her from Tariq and that took from her Mariam, her brothers, her mother, her father, and her home—has all the same oppressive and violent elements waiting to resurface and she can have no real sense of safety.
The basic story elements surviving from the epic tale are also present in the bildungsroman. The bildungsroman, however, has as a focal point the development of the main character from childhood to maturity of mind and body. To gain this maturity, the character must leave home and family, learn about him- or her self through the experiences that life provides, rather than through formal schooling, and then return with newly acquired wisdom. In his book Season of Youth: The Bildungsroman from Dickens to Golding (1974), Jerome Buckley describes the bildungsroman as being the story of a sensitive child growing up with the pressure of social and intellectual constraints imposed on him or her by family or society. Finding schooling inadequate, the child eventually
leaves home and, in many cases, leaves the countryside for the city to become independent. The life experiences of the child constitute his or her serious education. Buckley adds that the character must have ‘‘at least two love affairs or sexual encounters, one debasing, one exalting, and demands that in this respect and others the hero reappraise his values’’ (17–18). By the time the character has gone through these affairs and life experiences, he or she has left childhood and adolescence behind to reach adulthood. The character then returns home. Pin-chia Feng, in The Female Bildungsroman by Toni Morrison and Maxine Hong Kingston: A Postmodern Reading (1998), summarizes bildungsroman as traditional historic literature derived from the quest, with the protagonist moving toward the completion of his or her quest (2). Feng quotes Wilhelm Dilthey as describing the genre as representing the regular course of development in the life of an individual. Each stage in the life of the individual has value and moves him or her along to the next stage of life. Feng finds that sexuality for the female protagonist in a bildungsroman is ‘‘more often debasing and handicapping than exalting’’ (7) and that women find it more difficult to leave their family behind than the male characters (8). They are even more constrained by their social environments. Feng goes on to quote Bonnie Hoover Braendlin to explain that the feminist bildungsroman places the emphasis on ‘‘repressive environmental factors, on the process of disillusionment for personality change and maturity, and on the possibilities for transformation offered by individual choices,’’ which lead to ‘‘female awakening and consciousness-raising and on proclaiming new, self-defined identities’’ (9). As we think about these descriptions of bildungsroman, it becomes evident how both of Hosseini’s novels fit into this rubric. Each novel is a dual bildungsroman. As stated earlier, each novel features two protagonists, one privileged and the other constrained by poverty and low status within the stratification of society. All four characters face an exile from their home. In this case, none of the four characters leave their home by choice. In The Kite Runner, Amir must leave with his father in the wake of the Soviet invasion, but this departure allows him to leave his past behind him and indirectly gives him a chance to begin anew. He is able to follow his own interests and ambitions in a new culture more friendly to his ambitions and to renew his relationship with his father. Amir and Baba are set on more of an equal footing as his father loses his status in the new country (although not within the Afghan community that has formed in that new country) and Amir is better than his father at negotiating the new language and customs. Hassan leaves the compound of Baba and Amir, forced out through Amir’s jealousy, guilt, and deceit. He leaves with his father for their ethnic homeland, Hazarajat, where
presumably they may live on an equal footing with other Hazaras, not in servitude as they do in a Pashtun-dominated city. Hassan’s life continues without the reader, but we hear about it in retrospect after Taliban soldiers have killed both Hassan and his wife. Hassan is killed protecting Amir and Baba’s house and grounds, and Hassan’s wife is killed as she protects Hassan. They leave behind a child whose rescue becomes the object of Amir’s quest. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila, neglected by her mother but nurtured and loved by her father, is forced out of her family after the death of her brothers and then the deaths of her mother and father. She only travels down the street, but it is as though she has arrived at another time and place. She goes from the child who plays in the streets, attends school, and has hopes and expectations for her future, to the wife of a man many decades her senior, confined to her home, and soon to be a mother. Mariam lives at home with her mother until she is fifteen. At that age, she walks the short distance from her small rural home to Herat to find her father. Once there, she learns for the first time that she is unwanted. This is what her mother has been telling her, but Mariam has never believed it. When she returns to her house, she finds that her mother has committed suicide. Although she is taken back to her father’s house, she is then forcibly ejected by him and forced to marry Rasheed, the same man who later will marry Laila. With Rasheed, she travels to the much bigger city of Kabul. After a brief time of happiness with Rasheed, she loses favor and is reduced to a role that is more servant than wife. As Mariam and Laila become closer through their shared love of Aziza, Laila’s daughter, and a common need to survive the brutal and tyrannical Rasheed, Mariam, for the first time, finds herself wanted and needed and part of a family. By virtue of this sense of belonging, she undergoes a transformation that is complete at the point she tells Laila to ‘‘[t]hink like a mother. I am.’’ After killing Rasheed to prevent him from killing Laila, Mariam, older and more accustomed to hardship, must form a plan to save them from the repercussions of her act. There is no possibility of convincing Talib authorities that she committed this act in self-defense. For women under the Taliban there is no self-defense, there is only obedience to the male authority, and punishment for failing to be obedient. Mariam, confident and in control, makes her decision to turn herself in. She is a mother sacrificing herself for her children. Laila, still young and still finding her way, cannot comprehend this decision, but follows Mariam’s orders. Eventually, after returning to normalcy and an equal and loving relationship with Tariq and her two children, Laila makes the decision for her family to return to Kabul to help
rebuild Afghanistan. She is pregnant again, and she and Tariq work with the Kabul orphanage to take care of the grounds and care for the orphans. Returning to The Kite Runner, Amir, safely situated in the United States, has become closer to his father and they are part of a close-knit Afghan community. Amir continues to feel intense shame over his betrayal of Hassan. He is unable to tell his story to Soraya who has trusted Amir with her own story of shame. But through his relationship to Soraya and with her support, he follows his dream of becoming a writer and succeeds in publishing his first novel. They both break away from the constraining ties of their families and cultures. Soraya does so by pursuing her dream of becoming a teacher despite her father’s desire that she choose a more auspicious career, perhaps returning to help rebuild Afghanistan. Amir chooses to be a writer rather than choosing a profession more acceptable to his father. He and Soraya move across the bay to San Francisco and are childless. Amir sees their childlessness as a curse arising from his mistreatment of Hassan. His quest or challenge is presented to him in the form of a phone call from Rahim Khan, his mentor and his father’s best friend, asking him to come to Pakistan, where Rahim now lives, and offering him the opportunity to ‘‘be good again.’’ Unlike Mariam who came firmly and unswervingly to her decision to save Laila and her children, with her two-word sentence, ‘‘I am,’’ conveying her strength and determination, Amir continues to make excuses as to why he cannot fulfill the task set before him by Rahim. As Rahim tries to convince Amir to go, Amir comes up with one excuse after another, even after he has heard how Hassan and his wife died protecting his property with no other compulsion but loyalty and a sense of duty. ‘‘Why me? Why can’t you pay someone here to go? I’ll pay for it if it’s a matter of money.’’ Insulted, Rahim is angry with Amir for perhaps the first time in his life. ‘‘[W]hy you? I think we both know why it has to be you, don’t we?’’ (222–223). For the first time Amir realizes his secret is not his own, but, still unwilling to take on the task of rescuing Sohrab, Amir claims that he is unfit for the task. Just as his father had once predicted, he has become ‘‘a man who can’t stand up to anything’’ (223). However, given some time to think about Hassan and the cycle of ‘‘lies, betrayals, and secrets’’ (226), Amir comes to a full recognition of Hassan’s unfailing love for him and, despite his fear and reluctance, Amir decides to go to Kabul and rescue Sohrab, Hassan’s son, and so his quest begins. It is through this quest that Amir reaches his full maturity. On the quest, Amir is nearly beaten to death by his old nemesis, saved by Sohrab in a way that mirrors Hassan’s own bravery and quick thinking, and after more
missteps and hesitation, returns successfully to the United States with Sohrab. Amir has moved beyond himself to think first and foremost of Sohrab. He has more time than Mariam, more resources to call on to help him complete his task, the accomplishment of which leads him to his transformation. Hassan’s transformation takes place away from the reader. Loved by his father (unlike Mariam), he is loved and wanted despite his illegitimate birth and nurtured as a child despite all hardships. He marries and has his own loving family. He even welcomes back the mother who abandoned him at birth and brings her into the fold of his family. When Ali decides that he can only save Hassan by taking him away from the household they have served their entire lives, he provides the means for Hassan’s transformation into a mature adult. Once away from the constraints of his servitude, Hassan flourishes. Significantly, he learns to read and makes sure that his own child is able to read.
Because of these journeys of transformation undertaken by Amir, Hassan, Laila, and Mariam, it seems proper to describe Hosseini’s two novels as bildungsromane. But both novels can be called historical novels as well because the reader learns so much about the history, culture, and customs of Afghanistan. This is especially true in A Thousand Splendid Suns, which takes place over several decades, predating the Soviet occupation and continuing into the U.S. invasion and occupation. In both novels, historical events and historical figures enter into the story. We can also view both novels as domestic fiction, although it is difficult to compare Hosseini’s works with those of Austen because of the brutal nature of A Thousand Splendid Suns and the twentieth-century graphic reality of both novels. Both novels deal primarily with the intimate relationships of the family within the confines of the family home. Dickens may be a better author with whom to compare Hosseini, as he was much more likely than Austen to let the events of the outside world seep in to his tales and to deal with the seedier, more brutal side of everyday life. Finally, we cannot ignore the fact that Hosseini, the author, is an immigrant and a member of a minority group within the United States.
OF IMMIGRATION
Hosseini is an American and considers himself to have assimilated into U.S. culture. But his novels are centered on his ancestral and natal home and illuminate that home country, by providing a broader picture of
Hosseini mentions and quotes from many singers and poets in A Thousand Splendid Suns. Ustad Mohammad Hussain Sarahang (1924–1983) was a famous Tajik classical musician from Afghanistan and known throughout Pakistan, India, and Iran. He was awarded the title Sarahang by the government of Afghanistan. Ustad Awal Mir (also Awalmir) was a Pashtun singer. One of his most popular songs was ‘‘Da Zamong Zeba Watan, Da Zamong Laila Watan’’ (This Is Our Beautiful Country, This Is Our Dear Country), which was recorded in the 1970s. Hafez (also Hafiz) was a poet from fourteenth-century Shiraz, now the capital of Fars Province in Iran. He is revered in Afghanistan and his poetry is considered to be divinely inspired. Ustad Khalilullah Khalili (also Khalil Allah Khalili) is one of Afghanistan’s foremost twentieth-century poets. He was born in 1908 and died in 1987. He was a poet and a scholar and an important voice in the resistance to the Soviet occupation. He was considered to be the ‘‘ablest living poet in the traditional Persian style.’’ Aabdullah Ansari was a poet from eleventh-century Herat. He died in 1089 and was best known for his Munajat or ‘‘Intimate Psalms.’’ Saib-e-Tabrizi was a seventeenth-century Persian poet. Nizami Ganjevi was a twelfth-century Azerbaijanian poet. He wrote in Persian. Jalal ad-Din Rumi was a thirteenth-century Sufi poet from Balkh. He is said to have created the whirling dance of the Mevlevi dervishes. This dance symbolizes the search for the Lost Beloved. Umar Khayyam (Omar Khayyam) is known to western hemisphere readers through Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of his Rubaiyat. The Rubai is a poetic form notable for having a consistent meter and fourline rhyming stanzas. His probable death date is 1132. Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami was born in Kharjird in 1414 and died in Herat in 1492. He was a Sufi poet and was one of the great poets of his day.
Afghanistan, to readers in his new home. He writes in English, but sprinkles both works with Farsi or the Afghan variant of that language, Dari. The Kite Runner, including as it does the story of immigration and adjusting to a new country, would be the more likely candidate of Hosseini’s two novels to be considered a novel of immigration or an ethnic novel; however, these issues are secondary to the main plot line of Amir’s
betrayal of his childhood friend and his quest to redeem himself. Amir and his father remain part of a cohesive Afghan community and within that community they share mutual respect and receive and provide protection and care as it is needed. Hosseini works into the story the struggles of the community in exile: the need to cope with a new language, the loss of status and material wealth, and the conflict of old ways amidst a population with vastly different values and customs. Rather than the comfortable homes and extravagant parties (e.g., Amir’s birthday party) of their lives in Afghanistan, members of the community meet and socialize at the flea market—the great leveler of the community in exile. Hosseini depicts the way that the younger generation adapts more quickly to the language and customs of the new country. Although these young Afghan Americans do not lose their connection to the Afghan community and its beliefs and customs, they are able to move beyond that community and accept their new country.
HOSSEINI WRITES LOVE STORIES Finally, Hosseini, the storyteller, told an audience at the Central Parkway Library of the Free Public Library in Philadelphia, that both stories are first and foremost love stories. Both are love stories, they are both stories of love found in the most unlikely places. In The Kite Runner it was these two boys who came from different ends . . . polar ends of society and yet they were like brothers. In [A Thousand Splendid Suns] it is the story of this unlikely love between these two very, very different women . . . somehow they find each other and there is this very special bond between them. The connection between these two novels is this unlikely and improbable and human connection that redeems these characters.
He further described these novels when responding to a question about the ‘‘overriding message’’ of the novels: I don’t think that The Kite Runner has appeal to people because it happens to be set in a country where there are American GI’s. I think the reason people respond to that novel is because it is about very human things . . . that novel is about forgiveness and love, and friendship and loss and [A Thousand
Splendid Suns] is about love and it is first and foremost a love story. And those are [universal] human experiences. And so I hope that people walk away with the sense that [Afghanistan] is a remote country, it is an impoverished country; [Afghans] have a different culture, they have a different faith, but at the end of the day, people are people, they want the same things. They want their children to be safe, they want a roof over their heads, they want to be able to feed their families . . . when they are sick they want to see a doctor, and they want an education . . . and people are not very different from each other when it comes right down to it. (Transcribed from the Free Library of Philadelphia podcast, Hosseini 2007)
Hosseini’s analysis of his work is straightforward. He looks to the tradition of storytelling and describes his novels as love stories, albeit uncommon love stories, with the universal theme of the power of love to bring redemption. The form of the novel is fluid. It evolved out of the unique human desire to tell and to hear stories—the old image of people sitting around a fire telling stories that explained who we were and where we came from. Stories once were predominantly tales of god-like heroes and gods. The novel emerged as an art form for the everyday, the antihero, the accidental hero, the man down the street, or the woman on the bus. Hosseini may be a storyteller and his stories may be at heart love stories, but they are squarely stories written within the Western novel tradition. Our understanding of Hosseini’s novels is enriched when we consider them within the literary tradition of novels of personal transformation; historical novels providing illumination to readers about country, time, and place; domestic novels providing insight into intimate family relationships taking place primarily within the four walls of the home; or ethnic and immigrant novels exploring the struggle of becoming part of the fabric of a new country.
The Ghazal comes directly out of the Persian literary tradition and is usually a poem of spiritual or personal love. (See Reuben Levy, An Introduction to Persian Literature, and Walid Ahmadi, Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan.)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • Which type of novel described above do you feel best fits either The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns? Talk about specific elements of the novel that lead you to make your choice. • Thinking about what Michael Roemer, John Harrell, and Rosemary Horowitz have to say about oral tradition, can you see Hosseini’s works within or at least emanating from that tradition? Talk about why and use examples from the novels. • In what ways are Hassan, Laila, Mariam, and/or Amir transformed as the novels in which they figure progress? Do these characters display heroic characteristics? Explain your point of view. • Talk about the quests of each character, how is the path of their life determined by their station within the social hierarchy? What were some of the life-changing decisions they made, and were they for good or ill?
3 THE KITE RUNNER (2003)
The Kite Runner is Hosseini’s first published novel. There are many ways to describe this novel, but Hosseini calls it a love story. It is not a conventional love story, however. It is the story of love between two friends who are also servant and master; the sins of commission and omission that tear the friendship apart; and the loyalty and altruistic love that survives in spite of everything. It is also the story of the love between father and son, husband and wife, and parent and child. The novel takes place across generations and continents, offers adventure, and provides a fresh look at the country and culture of Afghanistan. Page numbers cited for The Kite Runner are from the 2004 paperback edition (New York: Riverhead Books).
THE KITE RUNNER: A PLOT SUMMARY Hosseini’s The Kite Runner is divided into three major sections. The first part of the story takes place in Kabul. Amir, the main character and narrator of the novel, describes his childhood in the early to mid-1970s and, especially, his relationship with Hassan. This section includes the pivotal event of the narration. The second section begins in 1981 after Amir and his father leave Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. This part of the novel takes place in Fremont, California, a city south of 25
San Francisco in the East Bay. Here, they live as part of an immigrant Afghan community in the Bay Area. This section ends with the marriage of Amir to Soraya and the death of Amir’s father in 1989. In the final section of the novel, it is 2001 and Amir returns to Afghanistan by way of Pakistan. Amir receives a phone call from his mentor and his father’s best friend, Rahim Khan, who asks Amir to visit. He tells Amir that he is sick, and that he has something for Amir to do that will help Amir ‘‘to be good again.’’ It is with the remembrance of this phone call that the novel opens. Rahim Khan’s suggestion that Amir may have the opportunity to ‘‘be good again’’ brings the pivotal moment of Amir’s childhood vividly to his mind and he takes the call as a sign that his past is catching up with him. Amir then begins to tell the story of his childhood and the reader is introduced to the main characters of the novel. Hassan is the servant to Amir, but also his childhood companion. Ali is Hassan’s father, and, just as Amir has grown up with Hassan, Amir’s father, Baba, grew up ‘‘as brothers’’ with Ali. Hassan and Ali live in a mud hut on the property of Baba and Amir. Baba is a successful businessman and a powerful man in the community. He is known for helping those who are in need. His closest friend and associate, Rahim Khan is a gentle man and more sympathetic to Amir’s quiet ways than Baba. Hassan and his father both suffer from physical deficiencies. Ali’s face is paralyzed, making it difficult for him to show any expression, and Hassan was born with a cleft lip. According to Amir, Hassan’s beautiful mother, Sanaubar, abandoned Hassan shortly after his birth due to this condition. Although Hassan and Ali have grown up as ‘‘brothers’’ or ‘‘friends’’ to Baba and Amir, it is clear that their positions are those of servant and master. Amir and his father are Sunni Muslim Pashtuns and Hassan and his father are Shi’a Hazara. The Hazara are a minority in Afghanistan and the Pashtun are the ruling majority. This is an important aspect of the novel, because of the inflexibility of the social division between Baba and Ali and Amir and Hassan. Because of the nature of the culture within Kabul and Afghanistan, they are divided by economic status, religion, and ethnicity. Amir spends a good deal of time on his own or with Hassan. Neglected by his father, Amir feels responsible for the death of his mother who died in childbirth. He believes that his father has never forgiven him for this. While Baba is described as a physically imposing man, a bear wrestler in fact, as well as an important man in his community and nation, Amir is quiet and seemingly lacking in courage and determination. Hassan is intelligent, courageous, honest, and athletic. Amir notes that his father tends to favor Hassan. His desire for his
The Pashtuns are the ethnic majority in Afghanistan, and with the exception of the Soviet occupation and the present post–U.S. invasion era, it has been the Pashtuns that have ruled the country. Other major ethnic groups include the Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks. The population of Afghanistan, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, is divided as follows: 42 percent Pashtun, 27 percent Tajik, 9 percent Hazara, and 9 percent Uzbek. The remaining 13 percent of the population are Aimaks, Turkmen, Baloch, Nuristanis, Qirghiz, Farsiwan, Qizilbash, Hindus, and Sikhs.
father’s attention and approval is powerful. Amir admits that he is jealous of his father’s regard and affection for Hassan and he is not above lying to spend time on his own with his father or to place himself in a better light than Hassan. Amir overhears Baba telling Rahim Khan that he finds it hard to believe that Amir is his son and that he fears that Amir is missing an important character trait. ‘‘A boy who won’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything’’ (22). Rahim Khan is supportive of Amir. He suggests that Amir only lacks a mean streak, but later, Amir, who takes his father’s perception of his shortcomings to heart, takes his hurt feelings out on Hassan and notes to himself that Rahim Khan was wrong about ‘‘the mean streak thing’’ (23). As the story progresses, the reader learns more about Hassan’s role in Amir’s life. He works with Ali as a servant to the household. Each morning he prepares Amir’s breakfast, irons his clothes, and gets his books and things ready for school. Hassan is illiterate as is his father. When Amir leaves for school in the car with his father, Hassan walks into town with his father to run errands for the household. Amir and Hassan often read together, but Amir has been careful to keep Hassan from learning to read. Always jealous of Hassan’s physical superiority, he also worries that Hassan is smarter than him. He not only refuses to teach Hassan to read, but also makes fun of Hassan for not knowing certain things. Amir’s position as ‘‘master’’ empowers him to treat Hassan with very little respect and Hassan’s position as servant leads him to accept this treatment without overt comment or reaction. It is through these reading sessions, however, that Amir begins to dream up his own stories. After discovering that Hassan likes one of his stories, Amir returns home to write it up. Although his father shows little interest, Rahim Khan reads the story and praises Amir. While Amir navigates his relationship with Hassan and with his father, large events are happening in Afghanistan. Former Prime Minister
Daoud overthrows King Zahir Shah, his cousin, in a bloodless coup, and then changes Afghanistan from a constitutional monarchy to a republic. Amir and Hassan experience a run-in with the psychotic bully Assef, who represents the worst of Afghanistan. Blonde and blue-eyed from his German mother, he professes admiration for Hitler and expresses his desire to treat the Hazara as Hitler treated the Jews, with the goal of preserving Afghanistan for the Pashtun. During this confrontation, Hassan defends Amir and himself from Assef with his slingshot. Assef backs down but promises to repay both Amir and Hassan, foreshadowing the novel’s main crisis. Time passes and, in the winter of 1974, Baba provides Hassan with plastic surgery to repair his cleft lip as a surprise birthday present. Amir is filled with jealousy once again, going so far as to envy Hassan’s cleft lip wishing that he too could enjoy Baba’s compassion. Filled with insecurity and resentment, Amir continues to challenge Hassan, testing his loyalty. When Hassan says that he would rather eat dirt than lie to Amir, Amir asks him if he really would. As they look at each other, Hassan breaks away briefly from his role as servant to ask Amir if he would really ask him to do this. Despite these tensions, the two boys eagerly await the coming winter kite tournament. Amir’s father buys them kites and they prepare their strings, or tar, with the requisite glass for cutting the tar of competing kites. Hosseini provides information about the Afghan tradition of kite flying and kite running. Hassan is a champion kite runner. It is especially praiseworthy to capture the last kite cut down in a tournament. So, not only do Hassan and Amir hope to outlast all the other kite flyers, they also hope to run down the final kite. At the kite competition, Hassan assists Amir by controlling the tar. When it becomes clear that the two will cut down the last kite, Amir genuinely embraces Hassan, letting all his feelings of jealousy drop away. Hassan is momentarily an equal in their victory, but then remembers that he must run the kite for Amir. He calls out to Amir as he runs off, ‘‘For you a thousand times over’’ (67). Amir stays behind and contemplates the triumph of presenting this last kite to his father. He feels acutely that his father blames him for the death of his mother, and he pins all his hope on this one moment of glory to reverse the years of exile from his father’s love. Later, he sets out to find Hassan. As he asks different people if they have seen him, they respond with derogatory comments about Hazaras and question Amir’s concern for a mere servant and a Hazara servant at that. ‘‘Your Hazara?’’ and ‘‘What is a boy like you doing here at this time of the day looking for a Hazara. . . . What is he to you?’’ (68, 69). Amir never contradicts these abusive comments. When he finally finds
The traditional Afghan sport of kite fighting or gudiparan bazi was banned along with other activities and forms of celebration under the Taliban. Usually there is a kite flyer and someone who holds the drum with the wire and who advises the flyer on when to let out more wire. This wire is often coated with ground glass. The fight takes place when two kites come into contact. The victor in the fight cuts the wire of the opponent. A runner will then chase after the severed kite. The retrieved kite is kept as a trophy. (See David Sahar, ‘‘The Art of Gudiparan Bazi’’; David Korzon, ‘‘A Storyteller’s Story’’; and ‘‘Afghan Kite History’’ at planet.kite.matrix.)
Hassan, he sees that Assef and his friends are confronting him. Amir struggles briefly with the desire to interfere, but he also sees the kite waiting behind Hassan. Assef is demanding the kite, and Hassan is ‘‘eating dirt’’ rather than giving the kite to Assef. Amir stays long enough to see Assef rape Hassan, and then he runs off both fearful for his own safety and unwilling to risk the loss of his kite. Amir waits a safe amount of time before going back to find Hassan. Hassan is clearly in pain, but Amir does not ask him about it and Hassan says nothing. Hassan gives the kite to Amir who takes it to Baba. The friendship of Amir and Hassan deteriorates in the aftermath of the kite tournament and Assef’s brutal attack on Hassan. Amir feels excruciating guilt but says nothing to Hassan. Rather than comfort him or in any way help him, Amir becomes distant and harshly unkind. Though he has gained some attention from his father as a result of his kite tournament triumph, he finds that he is unable to enjoy it. Amir says, ‘‘Everywhere I turned I saw signs of [Hassan’s] loyalty, his goddamn unwavering loyalty’’ (89). Amir tries to provoke Hassan into getting angry or fighting with him, but Hassan, a loyal servant and friend, will never accept Amir’s bate. Amir’s anger is reminiscent of Assef’s attack on Hassan. He is able to take advantage of Hassan because of his lower social status. He is in a position to humiliate Hassan and Hassan is not in a position to retaliate. In effect, Amir is now asking Hassan ‘‘to eat dirt’’ on a daily basis. At the gala birthday party thrown for him by his father, Amir watches Hassan wait on Assef and his family. He later talks privately with Rahim Khan who tells him about his youthful love for a young Hazara woman. Rahim Khan was not allowed to marry her because of her servant status. He tells Amir, ‘‘you don’t order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them sister the next’’ (99). Later, Amir sets up Hassan by making it look as though he has stolen Amir’s
birthday watch and money. Hassan takes the blame, but he and his father decide to leave Baba and Amir’s household. Baba is devastated, but as Ali points out to him, they no longer work for him, and he cannot stop them. They leave for Hazarajat, the homeland of the Hazaras. This first section of the novel ends as Amir and his father escape the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. They go first to Pakistan before immigrating to Fremont. They have left everything but a few personal items behind. Even as they escape, Baba demonstrates his courage and heroism, while Amir suffers from motion sickness and fear. As the second section of The Kite Runner begins, Amir and his father are living in Fremont, California, part of an Afghan immigrant committee. The transition has been a welcome one for Amir. He is able to leave his past behind, but Baba mourns the loss of his past and he now works at a gas station. Amir graduates from high school at the age of twenty and chooses to go to community college to study creative writing. This does not please Baba, but he accepts it. Baba and Amir supplement their income and their social life by visiting garage sales and selling their merchandise at the Sunday flea market. The Afghan community has its own section, creating a small community. Afghan music plays, food and tea and gossip are shared. Amir explains that ‘‘mechanics and tailors’’ sell used goods ‘‘alongside of former ambassadors, out-of-work surgeons, and university professors’’ (138). It is at the flea market that Amir first meets General Taheri and his beautiful daughter Soraya. Amir is aware that there is some gossip associated with Soraya, but he is more intrigued by her beauty. Amir falls in love with Soraya, his flea market princess. He finds excuses to stop by her family stall until the general, her father, chastises him. The reader learns about the fragility of a woman’s honor, the delicate nature of courtship, and the effects of the Afghan community’s penchant for gossip. At about this same time, Baba becomes sick and is diagnosed with lung cancer. He refuses treatment. When it becomes clear that Baba has little time left to live, Amir asks his father to go khastegari for him and to ask the general for the hand of his daughter Soraya. Baba makes the ritual visit and his request is granted. Soraya has a secret to reveal to Amir first before the engagement is settled. Amir wishes that he could tell his own secret, but does not.
The official visit made by the suitor or a representative of the suitor to the prospective bride’s family is called khastegari. In The Kite Runner, Baba visits Soraya’s family to present Amir’s suit to the mother and father.
Amir and Soraya are married skipping the traditional engagement period because Baba does not have long to live. After the wedding, Amir and Soraya live with Baba. Soraya helps care for Baba and reads to him from Amir’s stories. After Baba dies, Amir and Soraya move to their own house. Amir notes that he never attends a flea market again, signifying his separation from the womb of the Afghan community and his identification with his new country. Amir attends San Jose State and Soraya joins him there to earn her teaching certificate. The general wishes she would choose a career with more prestige. He even imagines her taking part, as he hopes for himself, in a new Afghan government. Amir publishes his first novel in 1989. The details of Amir’s life, whether joyful and sorrowful are, once again, as in his youth, dwarfed by events in Afghanistan. Amir and Soraya celebrate his first novel as they struggle to have a child. They reject the option to adopt and Soraya’s father proclaims adoption as being unsuitable for Afghans. Amir secretly believes that his inability to have a child is punishment for his sins against Hassan. At this same time, the Soviets are pulling out of Afghanistan, the Soviet system is crumbling, and Afghanistan falls into a destructive civil war. The third section of the novel begins in June 2001 after Amir receives the phone call from Rahim Khan. Amir and Soraya are living in San Francisco. They have been married for fifteen years and are still childless. Amir has published several novels, and Soraya works as a teacher. Amir decides that he must go to Rahim Khan who is now in Pakistan. Rahim Khan lives in a section of Peshawar known as Afghan Town due to the concentration of refugees from Afghanistan living there. He talks to Amir about the devastation caused by the Soviet occupation and then the civil war that raged in Kabul following the Soviet withdrawal. He describes the happiness everyone felt when the Taliban drove out the Northern Alliance. The rejoicing was short lived, however, as the Taliban policies and practices turned out to be draconian. Rahim Khan then begins to tell Amir about Hassan, who, with his wife, moved from Hazarajat to Kabul to help Rahim Khan with Amir and Baba’s house. Their son is born there. There are many good parts to Rahim Khan’s story of Hassan. Hassan tells some of his own story in three letters that he has written to Amir and given to Rahim Khan to deliver. Hassan has learned to read and write. The story of Hassan has a tragic ending. Hassan and his wife stay on at the house after Rahim Khan leaves for Peshawar. They are murdered by the Taliban, who take over the house and send their son Sohrab to an orphanage. Rahim Khan tells Amir that one of the reasons he has asked him to come to Pakistan is that he wants Amir to go to Kabul to find Sohrab. Amir says that he cannot possibly go; he cannot risk everything
he has to do this. Of course, this is exactly what Hassan has done for Amir even in his final act. Rahim Khan is angry with Amir knowing full well all that Hassan has done and suffered for Amir and his family. It is at this point that he tells Amir that Hassan is Baba’s son. Amir is furious with his father for this deception and blames Rahim Khan for not telling him sooner. After thinking everything over, Amir realizes that his actions have had a grave effect on Hassan’s life. He now thinks of Hassan as his brother and he recalls the unqualified love Hassan has given him. Amir thinks about his father’s desire for him to stand up for something and to do his own fighting and realizes that this is the time to do it. He returns to Rahim Khan’s house and tells him that he is going to go to Kabul to find Sohrab. Rahim Khan hires Farid to drive Amir to Kabul. Farid questions the sincerity of Amir’s motives in returning to Afghanistan and suggests that Amir has always been a tourist in Afghanistan. They spend the night at the house of Wahid, who is Farid’s brother. Amir tells Wahid about his search for Sohrab. This softens Farid, who tells Amir that he will help Amir find Sohrab. Farid and Amir drive to the orphanage in Karteh-Seh, a district within Kabul. The orphanage director, Zaman, is reluctant to let them in, but Amir explains that he is Sohrab’s uncle and that he hopes to take Sohrab out of Afghanistan to care for him. The director lets them in and explains the meager resources he has to offer the children at the orphanage and the hardships they endure. He tells Amir and Farid that Sohrab has been taken from the orphanage by a Talib official; that, in fact, this official comes to the orphanage regularly to buy children. Farid goes into a murderous rage and tries to strangle the director. Amir stops Farid from killing the director and gives Zaman the chance to explain the impossible situation he is in. He receives no pay; he has sold everything he owns to support the orphanage; if he does not accept the money for one child the official will ‘‘take ten’’ (257). Zaman uses the money from the official to buy food for the children. Amir and Farid leave Zaman, with his glasses broken and the children clinging to him. Zaman has instructed Amir and Farid on how to make contact with the Talib official. They are to go to a soccer game at Ghazi Stadium in Kabul. They sit through the first half of a soccer game, the Afghan players wearing long pants, the Talib guards keeping the crowds from making too much noise. During halftime, a cleric presides over a public execution. The Talib official, appearing as described by Zaman, throws the first stone. Following this bloody and murderous interlude, the game resumes. Farid and Amir are able to connect with the entourage of the official and arrange an appointment.
Amir’s mother dies in childbirth. The infant mortality rates in Afghanistan for 1970, 1980, 2005, and 2008 are as follows: 1970 Total: 215 per 1,000 live births 1980 Total: 185 per 1,000 live births 2005 Total: 165 per 1,000 live births 2008 Total: 154.67 per 1,000 live births From United Nations Statistics Division, ‘‘Key Global Indicators, Infant Mortality, Afghanistan 1960–2005’’, and Central Intelligence Agency, 2008 World Factbook.
Amir makes the visit to the Talib official realizing this may be the last thing he does. He is not long into his interview before it becomes clear that the official knows Amir and it finally dawns on Amir that this is Assef. Hosseini portrays Assef unsparingly as a sadistic, psychopathic killer. Not only is he evil, but, as a Talib, his only principle seems to be one of eliminating the Hazara population. Assef taunts Amir, playing to Amir’s fears. He brings out Sohrab who is dressed and decorated as a dancer. He has the boy dance and continues to provoke Amir by handling Sohrab in a clearly sexual manner. Amir becomes emboldened by his disgust and horror for Assef, who has described his part in the massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif, and his belief that Afghanistan should be left to the Pashtuns. Hosseini points to many contradictions and hypocrisies, drawing comparisons to Hitler and other genocidal leaders and regimes. The treatment of Sohrab by Assef mirrors Assef’s treatment of Hassan and, to an extreme degree, Amir’s attempt to disgrace and humiliate Hassan. The boy and his father are in a social class that expects to be and can be exploited and degraded. Their society condones it. Finally, Assef tells Amir that he can take the boy, but they will fight to the death over him. As Amir’s teeth and bones are shattering, Amir feels the relief he has been looking for all these years. He is finally experiencing atonement. But, Sohrab is screaming in the background and he begs Assef to stop beating Amir. He threatens Assef with his slingshot as his father did nearly three decades earlier. This time, however, he follows through with the threat and he shoots a metal ball into Assef’s eye. Sohrab, just a child, calls to Amir to leave with him; he helps him up and together they leave the building. Assef is screaming in pain in the background, the ball lodged in his eye socket. Farid is there to help Sohrab and Amir into the car and they drive away as Amir drifts into unconsciousness. Farid has taken Sohrab and Amir back to Peshawar. Amir is in and out of consciousness as he is treated for his injuries, which include seven
broken ribs, a ruptured spleen, a broken eye socket bone, broken teeth, a punctured lung, and, most symbolically, a mouth split in two. His injuries have been addressed, his mouth has been sewn up. A small scar, not unlike that of Hassan’s repaired cleft lip, will be all that remains of that injury. It is now time to care for Sohrab and make arrangements for his well-being. Events and circumstances determine that Amir should take Sohrab with him to the United States, but it is not easy. Amir first promised Sohrab that he would not leave him in an orphanage, but he goes back on this promise thinking that he may need to leave Sohrab in Pakistan temporarily. This uncertainty leads Sohrab to attempt suicide. Amir discovers Sohrab just after hearing from Soraya that she has made arrangements to bring Sohrab into the country through her family connections. Amir reconnects with his Muslim heritage as he promises devotion to God in return for Sohrab’s life. Sohrab does recover physically, but his emotional mending takes much longer. He returns to the United States with Amir but accompanies him out of resignation rather than desire. Many months go by and Sohrab remains silent. He goes through the motions of his day without any engagement with others. The Kite Runner does not end with everything resolved, but Amir reports a tiny miracle. At a gathering in the park for the Afghan New Year, Soraya notices that Sohrab has taken an interest in the kite-flying contests. Amir buys a kite and tries to persuade Sohrab to fly it with him. Although Sohrab does not participate, he does follow Amir. After he successfully cuts a competitor’s kite, Amir offers to run the kite for Sohrab, telling him, ‘‘For you, a thousand times over’’ (371), recalling Hassan’s promise to Amir at the fateful kite competition so many years ago. The novel ends on a note of hope that Sohrab will recover and become a full part of Amir and Soraya’s family.
RECLAIMING AFGHANISTAN: THE SETTING OF THE KITE RUNNER
The Kite Runner begins and ends in San Francisco. As the novel opens, Amir is working as a writer, living with his wife in San Francisco. He is an American citizen, educated in American schools and universities, writing his novels in English. His boyhood in Afghanistan seems to be very far behind him until he receives the fateful phone call from Rahim Khan, a voice he has not heard since leaving his homeland. This phone call leads Amir to recall his boyhood in Kabul and the life-changing event that inevitably leads to this particular phone call. In this portion
of the novel, Amir describes a Kabul lined with trees, a Kabul where a child can roam the streets and fields without fear of land mines, where the appealing aroma of food fills the air, where kites are flown, and where movies are attended. Although he was not a particularly happy child, he had a life of material comforts. Hosseini frames his book with these locations as Amir leaves San Francisco for Afghanistan and then finally returns to San Francisco to end the novel. It is in the third section of the novel that Amir returns to Afghanistan by way of Pakistan. In his phone call, Rahim Khan has asked Amir to come to see him and offers him the ‘‘chance to be good again.’’ Amir first goes to Peshawar, the destination for many Afghan refugees, to visit Rahim Khan in what the taxi-driver calls Afghan Town. ‘‘Many of your brothers in this area, yar. They are opening businesses, but most of them are very poor’’ (196). From there, Amir sets out for his return trip to Afghanistan and Kabul to look for Hassan’s son, Sohrab. The Kabul of his return visit is nothing like the Kabul he grew up in. The Soviet occupation left Kabul mostly untouched, but the civil war following the departure of the Soviets has left Kabul in ruins and its population crippled and in extreme poverty. Additionally, the street presence of the Taliban means that it can be dangerous to move around openly in the streets. Amir revisits his home, visits an orphanage, and attends a public event at Ghazi Stadium. Amir sums up Kabul in three words, ‘‘Rubble and Beggars’’ (245). Following his rescue of Sohrab, Amir returns with him to Peshawar and then they go to Islamabad before returning together to San Francisco where the novel ends. Amir is returning to an established life, family, and routine, but Sohrab will be beginning the long process of adjustment and recovery from yet another traumatic episode in his life. It is another generation that is escaping from the disaster of war in Afghanistan. Sohrab has much more to overcome than did Amir upon his arrival in the United States, but there is hope that the stability and love that Amir and Soraya will provide eventually will give Sohrab what he needs to thrive. The hope for this transformation arises out of a kiteflying activity that is part of the celebration of the Afghan New Year. So, although Sohrab is in a country that is drastically unlike anything he has experienced in his short life, he finds familiar vestiges of his culture and its celebrations, languages, and food just as Amir and his father found comfort in the Afghan community in Fremont. In between the framing first and third sections to The Kite Runner, Amir and his father are living in Fremont, California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, and home to one of the largest Afghan communities in the United States. In this intermediate stage, Amir and his
father adjust to life in a new country, in a vastly different culture, and under reduced circumstances both in terms of their economic and social status. Their transition is cushioned, however, by the closely knit community of Afghans, many of whom knew or knew of each other before coming to the United States, and who share the same customs, religion, perspectives, language, and food. They also share the pain of exile and the longing for homeland. The Afghan section of the flea market is an interesting and colorful symbol of the changes that the immigrants have endured: the leveling off of social hierarchy and the loss of livelihood, as well as the importance and desire to maintain as much of a way of life as is possible in an alien country. In this transition segment, Amir loses his father and distances himself to a certain extent from the Afghan immigrant community. He has been shaped by the American education system and has chosen the unlikely career of writer. He has married an Afghan woman, but she has, in the same way as Amir, been influenced and shaped by her family’s adopted country. After his marriage and the death of his father, Amir gives up the flea market and he and his wife move to San Francisco, removing themselves from the midst of the community that has watched over them, but not leaving it behind entirely.
MAKING CHOICES: THE CHARACTERS
Amir and Hassan, Baba and Ali The central characters of The Kite Runner are Amir and Hassan and Baba and Ali. Amir is the main character and narrator of The Kite Runner. The reader sees everything from his perspective. As he looks back at his story, he has no kind words for himself. The strengths that Amir did have as a child, especially his knowledge of and ability to memorize the classic poetry of Afghanistan, are not appreciated by his father. Amir has not forgiven himself for his childhood betrayal of his servant and friend, Hassan, and so his view of his past is told through a lens of guilt and remorse. Conversely, Amir portrays Hassan as a saint. He not only is smart and athletic, but also is a loving, selfless, loyal, and patient friend. Hassan later returns to Kabul at Rahim Khan’s request to help care for Baba and Amir’s house, and in the end, he sacrifices his life in his attempt to protect the house from marauders. The fact of Hassan’s servitude colors both Amir’s attitude toward Hassan and Hassan’s toward Amir. In addition, Amir is from the dominant ethnic group and religious sect. He is Pashtun and Sunni. Hassan is Hazara and Shi’a, the ethnic group most discriminated against in Afghanistan and the minority
King Mohammed Nadir Shah ruled Afghanistan from 1929 until his assassination in 1933. Amir’s grandfather’s picture dates from 1931. It is at once a symbol of Amir’s family’s station in the Afghanistan social hierarchy and a symbol of the elusive nature of positions of power within that same hierarchy.
religious sect. When the bully Assef first expresses disgust toward Hassan because of his Hazaran ethnicity and then asks Amir how he can call Hassan his friend, Amir recalls nearly saying, ‘‘But he’s not my friend! . . . He’s my servant!’’ (41). Amir goes on to wonder why, if Hassan is truly his friend, he only plays with him when no one else is around. As if these barriers were not significant enough, Amir is also deeply jealous of Hassan because of the affection and attention Baba shows to him. Baba is Amir’s father and Ali is Hassan’s father. Baba is a wealthy and influential man. Well connected, he is used to speaking his mind and having his way. Baba is noted for fighting bears and Amir likens him to a bear. His physicality and outgoing nature are a clear contrast to the insecure and bookish Amir. Baba is worldly. He has traveled to other countries and has an extensive library of which Amir makes heavy use. Ali is the lifelong servant of Baba. As such, he is unassuming and quiet. He is an object of ridicule for many of the children in the district who mock his Hazaran features and the paralysis that affects his face and legs. But, like Hassan who perhaps learned this trait from him, Ali is patient and does not respond to his tormentors. Baba and Ali share a relationship similar to that of Amir and Hassan. Baba likes to talk about how he grew up playing daily with Ali as though they were brothers, and yet, Ali is clearly Baba’s servant. He lives in a mud hut in the yard and serves the needs of the household as did his parents and as does his son. He was raised to serve and Baba to lead. Despite this inequitable situation, Hassan’s childhood is possibly happier and more stable than Amir’s. Despite the traumatic events that play out and Amir’s betrayal, Hassan has the love and support of his father. When it becomes clear that it is an untenable situation for Hassan to continue to live near and to serve Amir, his father places loyalty to Baba’s household second to his loyalty to his son. This causes Baba both shame and sorrow. When Rahim Khan describes Hassan’s life after leaving Kabul for Hazarajat with his father, it is clear that he grew and prospered once out from under the limitations of his position of servitude.
Rahim Khan, Friend of the Family Although Amir’s father did not appreciate Amir’s interest in books and writing, Amir received encouragement and support from his father’s closest friend, Rahim Khan. Rahim stays behind in Kabul after Baba and Amir leave the country. He stays on at Baba’s family estate to care for and protect it. Later, he searches for Hassan to ask him to return to Kabul to help him care for the property. Hassan refuses at first, acknowledging that he is happy with his life in Hazarajat. He has married Farzana who is expecting their first child. He later, fatefully, changes his mind and returns with his wife to live with Rahim in his old home in Kabul. Although Rahim begs Hassan and Farzana to live in the house with him, they choose to live in the mud hut. Farzana gives birth to Sohrab, and Hassan and his family live happily for a time until, after Rahim leaves for Pakistan because of his health, militiamen murder Hassan and Farzana as they defend Baba’s house. Sohrab is sent to an orphanage in Kabul.
The Mothers Both Amir and Hassan lost their mothers at birth. Sanaubar is Hassan’s mother. It is said that Ali married her, his first cousin, as a favor to his uncle. Ali’s marriage to Sanaubar, beautiful and notoriously ‘‘unscrupulous’’ as a young woman, would be a way for his uncle to retain his honor. She runs off with a band of musicians and dancers a week after Hassan is born. As she despised her husband for his age and physical failings, she also expressed disgust with her newborn son. Later Sanaubar returns to the mud hut in Kabul and is forgiven and taken in by Hassan and Farzana. Sanaubar helps to care for their newborn child, Sohrab. As it turns out, Baba had a brief affair with Sanaubar, and Hassan is his biological son. If Ali knows this, he does not reveal that he does, nor does this knowledge lessen his devotion to his son. Amir’s mother, Sophia Akrami, died in giving birth to him. This fact is one of the major barriers between Amir and his father. Although Baba does not say so, Amir is sure that his father blames him for the death of his mother, and he feels his own sense of responsibility for her death. Sophia Akrami was ‘‘a highly educated woman universally regarded as one of
Hazarajat is the national homeland of the Hazaras within Afghanistan. It includes the provinces of Bamiyan, Daikundi, and Ghor. It is a mountainous region in the central part of Afghanistan.
In a May 25, 2003, article in the New York Times, Dr. Peter Salama, director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Afghanistan, is quoted as saying that Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world, with as many as 2,000 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. Afghanistan’s infant mortality rate is the fourth highest in the world. The United Nations cites 1,800 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in 2005 but also states that the statistics are derived from a model. (See Carlotta Gall, ‘‘Afghan Motherhood in a Fight for Survival,’’ and United Nations Statistics Division, Millennium Development Goals Database.)
Kabul’s most respected, beautiful, and virtuous ladies’’ (15). She taught classic Farsi literature at the university and was a descendant of the royal family. Sophia is an idealized ghost that haunts both Baba and Amir.
Three Bullies Although Amir claims that he only plays with Hassan when no one else is around, he does not mention any other friends. He seems to spend much of his time alone. The only other young people mentioned by Amir are the three bullies Assef, Wali, and Kamal. Assef is the ringleader, the psychotic bully who instigates the rape of Hassan in the novel’s pivotal scene. His hapless parents, father Mahmood, an airline pilot, and mother, Tanya, from Germany, appear to have no control over their Hitler-admiring son. Hosseini describes Assef as blonde, blue-eyed, and tall. His character might easily be seen as symbolic of the British and Russians who vied for Afghanistan in the nineteenth century in what historians call ‘‘The Great Game.’’ In fact, Assef could symbolize any country, including the Soviet Union and the United States, that has sought to lay claim to Afghanistan. Assef embodies the religious and ethnic intolerance that Hosseini sees as the dark side of Afghan culture. Wali and Kamal are followers, but they cannot bring themselves to participate in Assef’s brutality. Assef appears later in the third section of the novel as the ruthless and still psychotically violent leader of the Taliban who has taken Sohrab to be his child-slave.
The Taheris Amir’s bride-to-be and her mother and father are central characters in the second section of The Kite Runner. Amir catches sight of Soraya at
the flea market where he and his father have a booth for selling their garage sale finds. Amir is almost immediately smitten and nearly undermines his chances of formally courting her by not abiding by the strict social guidelines of the Afghan community. Within these guidelines, when Soraya tells Amir what she is reading after he has asked, she jeopardizes her good reputation. Soraya’s parents watch her closely because she has already disgraced the family by running off with a young man, thus causing them to move from Virginia to Fremont. Her father, Mr. Iqbal Taheri was a decorated general in Kabul and he worked for the Ministry of Defense. Unlike Baba, who works at a gas station and refuses any kind of aid, General Taheri accepts government assistance rather than work at a job beneath his status. He expects to be able to return to serve his country as soon as the Mujahideen defeat the Russians and the monarchy is restored. His wife and Soraya’s mother, Jamila, had been a well-known singer of folk songs, ghazals, and raga in Kabul, but the general does not allow her to sing in public, and this is, in fact, part of their marriage contract. Singing is for those with lesser reputations. When Amir begins to stop by the Taheri booth at the flea market, Jamila becomes hopeful that he may wish to marry Soraya.
Those Who Stayed Behind Several new characters are introduced in the final section of the novel. Rahim Khan arranges for an Afghan driver, Farid, to take Amir into Afghanistan. Farid clearly resents Amir. He sees him as one of the many who left Afghanistan during the hard times, only to return to profit from the misery they left behind. Amir sees some truth in Farid’s description, although he is not returning to Afghanistan to profit from the chaos. Farid stops for the night at Wahid and Maryam’s house. They are his brother and sister-in-law. That night, Amir experiences the typical Afghan hospitality, where the hosts serve the guests even though the family must go without food for them to do so. Amir tells Wahid about his search for Sohrab, and upon learning of this mission, Farid softens and offers to help Amir. Amir relies on Farid throughout his stay in Afghanistan. Amir and Farid’s search for Sohrab takes them to the orphanage in Karteh-Seh, where they meet the director, Zaman. Zaman informs them that Sohrab has been taken by a Talib leader, and not only that, this leader comes for children on a regular basis. Although Farid and Amir are appalled and disgusted with Zaman for allowing the children to be taken, it becomes clear that there is no obvious path for Zaman to take. Zaman illustrates the complexities and moral ambiguities that dire
conditions create. Sometimes, there are only evil solutions. In this case, it is the fate of the one child weighed against the fate of all of the children. Hosseini makes this clear when he portrays Amir watching Zaman as he and Farid drive away. Zaman’s glasses are broken from Farid’s attack, but the children cling to him. He is all they have, and Zaman has sacrificed all that he has for them.
AFGHANISTAN, FORGIVENESS, AND EXILE: THEMES IN THE KITE RUNNER Hosseini accomplishes three things with his novel The Kite Runner: he introduces the English-speaking reader to Afghanistan, he looks at the universal theme of transgression and forgiveness, and he explores the concept of homeland and exile. In his portrait of Afghanistan, Hosseini focuses on Kabul during the decades leading up to the Soviet invasion and under the Taliban. Hosseini presents not only the beauty and culture of the Afghanistan of his childhood but looks at its societal failings, including its religious divisions and ethnic discrimination. The theme of transgression and forgiveness is threaded throughout the entire novel. Primarily, Amir seeks forgiveness and redemption for his treatment of his childhood friend and servant Hassan, but other central and tangential characters in the novel also seek forgiveness and redemption. Finally, Hosseini follows his characters into exile in a strange country, the notso-glamorous city of Fremont, California. Most dramatically, Amir’s powerful and influential father is reduced to working in a gas station. The elite members of Amir’s father’s social network find their community at the local flea market. And although Amir breaks away from this community in some respects, he and his wife Soraya rely on this intricate familial and social network. This social network within Afghanistan, or more specifically Kabul, is apparent as Amir describes his father’s prominent and influential position in government and with members of the community. The oftmentioned photograph of Baba’s father with King Nadir Shah provides evidence of their importance among the ruling elite of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a small country and the ruling elite are centered in Kabul, creating a world of their own. Baba is known by all and has helped many in the community from all levels within the social structure of the city. Kabul is a bustling city and, through his characters, Hosseini describes abundance, beauty, and a socially vibrant environment. There are open markets, shops, and artisans; there are rich aromas; there is a sense of community and promise. Amir has everything and more than he
wants materially. Hassan has nothing beyond his loving father and their mud hut and the castoffs from Amir, but he benefits from the affection and generosity of Baba. The boys attend the movies and grow up thinking that Clint Eastwood speaks Farsi. This is a rich world, one in which people prosper and there is much to enjoy in daily life. This might be a different picture from what average news-watching Americans have in mind when they think of Afghanistan. Hosseini does not just present an idyllic Afghanistan. The crises presented by Hosseini in the novel stem from inherent weaknesses in Afghanistan’s social structure and its cultural prejudices. Amir and his father are Pashtun and Sunni Muslims, and their servants are Hazara and Shi’a Muslims. This is a typical servant-master arrangement. Hazara were often illiterate because they lacked education opportunities. They were seen as ethnically and religiously inferior to the Sunni Pashtuns. Although Baba loves Hassan and Ali, they will always be servants. Ali and Baba and Amir and Hassan might be ‘‘like brothers,’’ but a power dynamic makes it possible for Amir to treat Hassan as an inferior, and that allows him to humiliate Hassan without fearing retribution. This same power structure allows Assef to rape Hassan without fear of reprisal, and assures him that he is unlikely to be stopped by casual observers. It is starkly apparent later in the novel when Assef has become a Talib leader. Although Amir’s treatment of Hassan is not physically violent in the way that Assef’s is, it is spiritually damaging to Hassan. This Pashtun disdain for the Hazara carries over into the Afghan community’s exile in Fremont, California. As a child, Amir reads history and learns about the ways the Hazara people have been treated by the ruling Pashtun majority. He hears the slurs and knows that they are wrong, but he has never contradicted them. As an adult, and as he learns that Hassan was not just ‘‘like his brother,’’ but, indeed, was in all ways his brother, Amir is able to speak against expressed prejudice. Amir has a greet need for redemption. His betrayal and rejection of Hassan haunt him as a child and throughout his adult years. He sees his and his wife’s inability to have a child as his punishment for his history with Hassan. His antipathy to Hassan has roots in the neglect he feels from his father. Amir’s mother died giving birth to him, and he carries
The two branches of the Muslim faith are Sunni and Shi’a. Most Pashtuns are Sunni and they make up the majority religion in Afghanistan. Most Hazaras are Shi’a, and are thus further discriminated against by the ruling classes for their different religious practices.
this guilt with him. When his father shows so much interest in and affection for Hassan, Amir feels this intensely. He is jealous and resentful. These feelings drive him to cruelty. But it is also his youth, inexperience, and lack of guidance that mar his judgment. As Rahim Khan reminds him when they meet up again in Pakistan, he was just a child when all of these things happened. Amir achieves his redemption by rescuing Sohrab from Assef and, perhaps, even more important to him, through the brutal beating he receives at Assef’s hands. But Amir is not the only person seeking forgiveness in this novel. The character Zaman, the director of the orphanage, is a striking example. Almost a saint, Zaman has sacrificed all that he has to keep the orphanage afloat during the years of the Taliban. The children have very little food, and many are there because their mothers are unable to provide them with food. But Zaman, when pressed, allows some of the children to be sold. He defends his actions by pointing out that if he were not to comply, all the children would suffer. He receives a small amount of money that he uses to feed the remaining children. Amir’s guide, Farid, attacks Zaman physically, and Amir is disgusted with Zaman, but Zaman is in a complex situation, and there is no clear path to what is right. He can only choose from among bad choices. As Amir drives away, Zaman stands in front of the orphanage, his glasses smashed from Farid’s blows and the children clinging to him. Sohrab must learn to forgive himself and Amir. Like Amir, Sohrab feels guilty for events beyond his control. Amir blames himself for his mother’s death, and Sohrab blames himself for what Assef has forced him to do. Sohrab must also learn to forgive and trust Amir, who promises Sohrab that he will never go to an orphanage again, but within days, Amir retracts this promise. Sohrab’s road to forgiveness and healing is long, but it is not impossible. Amir, as well as the other characters, must come to terms with their failings and find forgiveness from within. Hosseini does not ask the reader to feel sorry for his characters; he portrays them as proud and, for the most part, self-sufficient. But they treasure their relationships and prosper through ingenuity and mutual support. Eventually, Amir moves away from his Afghan community, but it is through these close ties, developed through family and social networks, that Amir and Soraya are able to expedite Sohrab’s entrance into the United States. These familial and social networks, often intertwined, are all that the members of the Afghan exiled community have left after leaving their homeland. They arrive on American shores with severely reduced means, reduced influence, a language barrier to overcome, and an inability to find work that meets their training and expertise. Surrounded by a culture quite different from their own, the parents begin to lose authority
over their children as their children quickly adapt to their new surroundings. Amir’s father finds work as a gas station attendant, and he and Amir sell items they scavenge from garage sales at flea markets. Amir graduates from high school at the age of twenty and goes on to attend community college. Soraya’s father was a general and refuses to work beneath his station in the United States, holding out hope that he will be able to return to Afghanistan and resume his former responsibilities. As the children move away, customs become harder to maintain. Amir finds that when he returns to Afghanistan, he is barely welcome, and he is unfamiliar with the country he once considered home.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • In chapter 2, Hosseini sets the background of the novel, describing the main characters, the pertinent social history of Afghanistan, and the social context for the plot, including ethnic and religious divisions. He works these details into the narrative of the story. What are some of the techniques he uses to inform the reader of these details without abandoning the persona of the narrator? • How does the fact that Amir is looking back on his childhood color his narrative? Do you trust the character’s judgment and memory? For instance, Hassan is superior in every way to Amir. How would you interpret Amir’s memory of this? Is it realistic and how does it contribute to the plot and themes of the novel? • What do we learn about Hassan as a character in the very first chapter? • What do we learn about Amir in that same chapter and how does his personality or character contrast with Hassan’s? • Talk about the significance of Hassan’s illiteracy and the fact that after leaving Baba and Amir’s compound he learns to read and write. • How did you feel when Rahim Khan talks Hassan and his family into leaving their home to return to Kabul to take care of Baba’s compound? • Amir tells us that he and Hassan grew up together, were nursed by the same woman, and spent their days playing together. How do you react to the use of the term brother to describe their relationship? • How does the fact that Amir is telling the story affect what we know about the different characters in the book? • Think about Amir’s influence on the representation of the details of the story as you read through the novel. Is he honest with the readers? Does he protect himself?
• If you think he is being honest with the readers, what would motivate him to present himself in such a compromised light? • How are Ali and Baba different both physically and by personality? How are they different kinds of fathers? How have their personalities and paternal roles influenced their sons? • Can you see the physical descriptions of Ali and Baba as metaphorical? If so, to what purpose? • How do you react to Amir’s feelings about Hassan? • Hosseini sprinkles Dari words throughout the text. What effect does this have on the tone of the novel? • What is your reaction to Assef? Is he a realistic character? In what way can his character be seen as a metaphor? • How does the story of Hassan’s plastic surgery move the plot of the novel along? • When describing kite fighting and running, Amir says that ‘‘Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules’’ (52). Do the characters in The Kite Runner exhibit this characteristic? How do rules differ from customs? • Have Hosseini’s descriptions of Kabul and Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion changed how you think of the country? How would you describe the city and the country if all you knew about them was what you had read in this novel? • Racism in Afghanistan is very much like racism in America. Where do you see the similarities? How do you see this racism in the relationship of Ali and Hassan to Baba and Amir’s household? Is there any irony intended in the way Baba talks about Ali being ‘‘like a brother’’ or ‘‘like a son’’ to his own father? What are the differences between the way Baba professes to feel for Ali and Hassan and the way we interpret Amir’s feelings? • Do you blame Baba for not getting involved in the deterioration of Amir and Hassan’s ‘‘friendship’’? What might have been different if he had? Does Hosseini provide clues to Afghanistan’s culture that would explain Baba’s protective feelings toward Hassan but unwillingness to get involved or even to ask Ali about how Hassan is doing? • Amir describes Soraya the first time he sees her (140). What do you learn from this description? • Amir describes his and his father’s junking expeditions and flea market activities. What do we learn from his description of these activities and the flea market? Hosseini gives the reader extensive information about Amir and his father’s life in the United States as well as about Afghan refugees more generally. What do we learn about his description of this life?
• In the second half of the book, Amir’s relationship with his father seems to have changed. What accounts for this? • The Afghan community gravitates toward the flea market, and Baba does not want to give it up after he is diagnosed with cancer. What is it about the flea market that attracts Baba and the community? • Amir and Soraya have spent enough time in the United States to have adopted American ways. In her past, Soraya ran off with an Afghan man who did not respect her honor. She has defied her family but come back to them. Despite their more American ways and outlooks, they are still governed by the ways of their parents who live by the more rigid Afghan codes. Soraya’s future is at stake, but Amir has quite a bit of freedom. What are the good and bad aspects of maintaining a culture in a foreign country? What kind of upbringing would you expect the children of Soraya and Amir to have compared with their own upbringing? • Farid says Amir has always been a tourist in Afghanistan, but when Amir is finally back in Afghanistan he says, ‘‘After all these years, I was home again, standing on the soil of my ancestors’’ (240). How do you interpret this, and would you agree with Farid or Amir? Support your opinion. • Think about the difference in how Amir describes Kabul during his youth and what he sees upon his return. How does this serve the purposes of the novel? Do you think Amir’s memories are accurate? • Talk about the character of Zaman, the orphanage director. His situation is complex. Is he to be condemned or honored? • As Farid and Amir become closer, Farid questions Amir’s judgment in risking so much to rescue a Shi’a. Compare the elements of racism and cultural and religious discrimination latent in Afghanistan as described by Hosseini through Amir’s story with those of the United States.
4 A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS (2007)
In A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini returns to Afghanistan and once more offers his readers a love story. As in The Kite Runner, the relationships are complicated and diverse. There is first and foremost the love between two women, supporting each other in their marriage to the same man. There is also a more traditional love story—a childhood romance that at first seems hopeless and then becomes reality. All of this is set in the midst of war and famine over three decades in both the cities and countryside of Afghanistan. The two women are quite different from one another and were raised in completely different words, although within the same country. They nonetheless forge a strong bond of family and friendship. Page numbers cited for A Thousand Splendid Suns are from the 2007 hardcover edition (New York: Riverhead Books).
A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS: A PLOT SUMMARY Mariam is five years old when the novel opens. She is waiting for her father Jalil to arrive for his weekly visit. Mariam is Jalil’s illegitimate daughter. Her mother, Nana, was a servant in Jalil’s household when she became pregnant. The family was outraged and Nana and Mariam were thrown out of the house. Nana’s life is bitter. She has been discarded by Jalil and disowned by her father; Nana’s mother died when she was two. 47
She resents Mariam’s devotion to Jalil and is cynical about his kindnesses to her. Nana is very harsh with Mariam and tells her that she is an unwanted thing, a harami. Jalil may come only once a week, but he is kind and gentle and brings Mariam gifts. Nana warns Mariam not to have faith in her father or men in general. She tells her, ‘‘Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman’’ (7). This sentence comes back to haunt Mariam throughout the novel. Mariam and her mother live on the outskirts of her mother’s village of Gul Daman. They receive few visitors because Nana prefers to be left on her own. One of their regular visitors is Mullah Faizullah. He teaches Mariam to read and write, to read and recite the Koran, and to say her prayers. He is attentive and good to her. Mariam asks him to ask her mother if she can go to school. She has just heard that her father’s other daughters have begun school. When her mother hears about Mariam’s wish she responds harshly and tells Mariam that it is not her place to attend school. Nana tells her that she has only one skill to learn, and that is to endure (17). Mariam’s week is spent in anticipation of Jalil’s arrival. She imagines what it would be like to live in Herat with Jalil experiencing the excitement of the big city, caring for Jalil and attending to his needs. When he visits on her birthday, Jalil tells Mariam that she can ask for anything. She asks him to take her to his cinema. They negotiate on this point for some time until Jalil agrees to meet her the next day at noon. He does not come, and Mariam decides to walk to Herat to find him. She does this against her mother’s will. When Mariam arrives, she is enchanted with the bustle, the flowers and trees, the abundance on the streets. Everything is fantastic and lovely. A kindly taxi driver takes her to Jalil Khan’s house. When she arrives, Mariam is not admitted in. She is told that Jalil Khan is away. The family chauffeur urges her to go home and
Gul Daman is a small village just outside of Herat. Herat is one of the largest cities in Afghanistan with an estimated population in 2006 of 349,000. Compare this to Kabul’s 2006 population of 2,536,300. Afghanistan’s total estimated population according to a CIA 2008 estimate is 32,738,376. The last official census was taken in 2006. Hosseini writes in his acknowledgments that the village of Gul Daman is fictional. Gul means flower, Daman may be a term for the area spreading out around the foot of the hills. (See Europa Publications Limited, South Asia: 2008.)
offers to drive her, but she refuses and spends the night on the doorstep. In the morning, the chauffeur insists on taking her home and picks her up and puts her in the car, but not before Mariam catches a glimpse of Jalil Khan in the window. When she arrives back at her home, or kolba, Mariam discovers that her mother has committed suicide. After the funeral, Jalil Khan takes Mariam back to his house. She is given a guestroom. Although she is not encouraged to come out of the room, she also chooses not to. She receives visits from Bibi jo, a family friend, and Mullah Faizullah. Their genuine care and kindness for her contrast starkly with Jalil’s more cautious attention. Mullah Faizullah tries to comfort Mariam who is disconsolate. He tells Mariam that she need not feel responsible for her mother’s death. At the end of the week, Mariam is told by one of Jalil’s wives that she must go downstairs. Jalil and his wives are waiting for Mariam at the large imposing dining room table. At this meeting, she finds out that the wives have found her a suitor. His name is Rasheed and he is a Pashtun who lives in Kabul; he is forty-five and he is a shoemaker. Mariam is horrified, but when she begs her father to stop this from happening, the wives tell her that he has already given his consent. Mariam realizes that they not only want to marry her off to get her out of the house, but they also want her as far away as possible, because she is a symbol of shame to them. When Afsoon, one of the wives, walks Mariam back to her room, she also locks her in. Mariam has lost her freedom and has no say or power to determine the course that her life will take. Mariam will be engaged the next day, and she will leave on the bus for Kabul that same afternoon. As forewarned, the nikka takes place the next day. The mullah rushes through the ceremony so that Rasheed and Mariam can make the bus to Kabul. Looking in the mirror, part of the traditional ceremony, Mariam sees her own face and the face of her husband for the first time. Mariam must answer for herself that she will accept Rasheed, and, although she hesitates, she does answer affirmatively. At the bus, Mariam lets Jalil know that she is finished with him and that she never wants to see him again. The first year of Mariam’s life with Rasheed passes with its difficulties and rewards. Rasheed has moments of kindness and regard, but is also possessive and ill tempered. He requires Mariam to wear a burqa. It is heavy, awkward, and stifling, but she feels protected and shielded by it. She sees it as a one-way window from which she can view the world, but through which the world cannot see or judge her. She finds Rasheed’s desire to keep her away from other men as a sign of his regard and she feels both treasured and significant. During this first year she experiences her first restaurant, her first ice cream, sex with her husband, and she becomes pregnant. Mariam feels so much happiness when
she realizes that she is pregnant. She immediately imagines the blessings of motherhood. Rasheed is also pleased, but also determined to have a boy. Sadly, Mariam has a miscarriage, and with this miscarriage goes her happiness and Rasheed’s regard. After four years of marriage, Mariam learns that Rasheed’s moods and tempers are to be feared. She has suffered six more miscarriages and, with each one, Rasheed becomes more distant and abusive. It is 1978, and Mariam is nineteen. The Communists take over the presidential palace in Kabul and massacre President Daoud and his family. Down the street from Mariam and Rasheed, a woman named Fariba has given birth to a new baby, a daughter who she and her husband name Laila. In part two, the story jumps to 1987. Laila is nine years old and she has become fast friends with the boy next door, Tariq. Laila’s mother spends much of her time in bed, brokenhearted over the absence of her sons who are fighting in Panjshir with the Mujahideen. In her grief, Fariba has little time or thought for Laila. When Laila’s brothers are killed, a messenger comes to inform the family. Laila’s mother deteriorates further and now rarely gets out of bed. The household tasks, as well as the care for her mother, fall to Laila. Laila’s father, Babi, as she calls him, is a teacher, but he is fired by the Soviets and now works in the local bakery. He is quite loving to Laila and concerned for her education and her future. He points out how much better it has been for women under the Soviet rule. They have legislated a higher marriage age and require women to attend school. In fact, he points out, two-thirds of the students at Kabul University are women. But, the new laws providing equal opportunity to women have also angered those in the rural areas who are bound by their traditions and resent having the Soviets tell them how to treat their women. Babi takes Laila and Tariq on a day-long trip to Bamiyan to expose them to the heritage and rich culture of their country. On their way, they pass the varied Afghanistan landscape of mountains and deserts. They pass wheat fields, Koochi nomads, and burnt-out Soviet tanks. Laila realizes that the war has been going on around her while Kabul seems to be mostly at peace. When they arrive in Bamiyan, Babi points out Shahre-Zohak, or the Red City, built nine hundred years earlier and destroyed by Genghis Khan, evidence of the continuous plight of Afghanistan as a country that has suffered many invasions. He takes them to the two Buddhas, two thousand-year-old statues that served as a home to up to five thousand Buddhist monks and as a sanctuary to travelers. They see the rich Bamiyan countryside, fertile and prosperous, from the height of the Buddhas. As they look out over the countryside, Babi tells Laila that he dreams of moving to America, someplace near the sea, to open an
The Koochi are the largest group of nomads in Afghanistan. They are Pashtuns and speak Pashto. In Pashto, Koochi means nomad. The Koochi, as do the other nomadic groups, raise livestock, particularly sheep and goats. For more about Koochi nomads, and especially the women, see Ghazi-Walid Falah and Caroline Rose Nagel’s book, Geographies of Muslim Women: Gender, Religion, and Space. For a discussion of the condition of Koochi nomads forced into refugee camps in Pakistan and elsewhere, especially following Afghanistan’s devastating drought beginning in 1998, see Diana Davis’s article ‘‘How Can We Be Koochi?’’
Afghan restaurant that can be a center for the Afghan community in exile and to send Laila to school. They know that Laila’s mother will never leave Afghanistan, and Laila worries about leaving Tariq. It is not long after this trip, in April 1988, that Babi comes home announcing that the Soviets have signed a treaty and will be leaving Afghanistan over the next nine months. In 1989, the last of the Soviets leave and Kabul celebrates and looks forward to the new Islamic State of Afghanistan. The victorious Mujahideen is made up of factions of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Pashtuns with Arab connections. The plans are for a shared government gradually leading to democratic elections. Laila’s mother is revived and she plans a big party, but just as the party disintegrates into fighting over politics and ethnic loyalties, so does the new government of Afghanistan. Soon, the bombs are falling on Kabul, and instead of being outside the fighting, Kabul is the center of the conflict. Meanwhile, Laila and Tariq, now fourteen and sixteen, have fallen in love and their actions threaten to cross the lines of accepted behavior. Laila is warned by her mother to be careful. When the fighting in Kabul begins, however, Laila’s mother returns to her bed and no longer pays close attention to Laila. As the year progresses, Kabul is in a state of chaos. The various warring parties commit atrocities against each other and the civilian population, and bombs fall on Kabul. Laila stops attending school and is taught by her father instead. She spends more time with Tariq until the day he tells her that his family is leaving for Peshawar. He wants her to go with him and tells her that he wants to marry her. Although Laila wants to go with him she cannot abandon her father. As more and more of their neighbors leave Kabul, and militia men and other strangers move into the abandoned homes, Laila’s father finally convinces his wife that they should leave as well. But as they are in the process of packing up the house, it is hit by a shell. Laila is blown away from the house
and falls unconscious after slamming against a wall. Both of her parents are killed in the blast. Rasheed rescues Laila from the rubble of her house and she is nursed by Mariam. Shortly after she is able to leave her bed and participate in day-to-day life, a visitor comes to tell Laila that Tariq has died, the victim of a bomb blast. Before many days have passed, it becomes clear to Mariam that Rasheed intends to marry Laila. Mariam is devastated, but when Rasheed asks her to ask Laila for him, she does, and Laila says yes. Laila has become aware that she is pregnant with Tariq’s child and she knows marriage is the only option for her at this time. This baby, along with the few books that Rasheed grabbed from the rubble of her house, will be all she has to link her to Tariq and her past. Mariam keeps her distance from Laila whose marriage to Rasheed is the latest in a long string of humiliations for her. Mariam begins to soften toward her, however, when Laila’s baby turns out to be a girl and Laila loses favor with Rasheed. Mariam begins to pay attention to the new baby and soon bonds with her and then with Laila. Laila plans an escape and systematically steals money from Rasheed. However, the latest regime in Afghanistan is hard on women. They are not allowed to travel alone or to be out on the streets unaccompanied by a male family member. When Laila, Mariam, and Aziza (Laila’s daughter) attempt to escape, they find a man they believe will help them. However, he takes their money and turns them in to the police. They are returned to their home and Rasheed punishes them by locking Laila and Aziza into a room without fresh air, food, or water. Aziza nearly dies from dehydration before Rasheed lets them out again. As the Taliban come to power, Laila is again pregnant. By the time she needs to go to the hospital, only one hospital in Kabul will take women. It is horribly understaffed and lacking any of the necessary medicines or equipment. Laila must have a cesarean section, and she must have it without anesthetics or antibiotics. She and the new baby, Zalmai, a boy and the apple of his father’s eye, are lucky to survive the ordeal. A severe drought begins in 1998 and continues into 2000. The family is living on very little, but when Rasheed’s shop burns down, starvation becomes a real possibility. Mariam decides to call her father for the first time since she left on her wedding day more than two decades ago, but when she locates someone who knows her father, she discovers that he has been dead for thirteen years. After selling everything and still having no food to feed her children, Laila is forced to take Aziza to an orphanage. This is the same orphanage with the same director as the character in The Kite Runner. Zaman’s glasses are still broken from the beating he received from Farid.
Because the Taliban do not allow women out without a male relative, Laila must depend on Rasheed to accompany her to the orphanage to visit Aziza. When he decides he cannot do this anymore, Laila must figure out how to do this on her own. It is difficult and dangerous, and she experiences questions and beatings. After one trip to the orphanage, Laila returns home to find Tariq waiting outside the house. Laila is amazed and overjoyed to see Tariq. Mariam and Zalmai go upstairs, leaving Laila to talk with Tariq. Zalmai is jealous of his mother’s distraction and tells his father about the visitor. Rasheed goes into a murderous rage, and as his hands are around Laila’s neck, her body and face begin showing signs of lifelessness. Mariam gets a shovel from the shed and beats Rasheed over the head. She kills him. Mariam tries to comfort Laila, telling her that she will think of a way to take care of this new crisis. The next morning, Mariam has made her decision. She tells Laila to ‘‘Think like a mother, Laila jo. Think like a mother. I am’’ (319). Mariam has decided to sacrifice herself for the well-being of Laila and the children; they have been her loving family. She sends Laila off to visit Aziza, and, by the time Laila is back, Mariam has disappeared. Mariam goes to the Walayat Women’s Prison. Hosseini describes the conditions of the prison: the women wear their burqas because of the lack of privacy and the unwanted stares of the prison guards. They are given no food and are dependent on food being brought in from outside. Although Mariam is in prison for murder, the other women are primarily in prison for trying to run away. They look up to Mariam and help her with food. Mariam is tried with no legal counsel, no public hearing, no cross-examination, and no possibility of appeal. Her hearing is fifteen minutes long. Mariam is taken to Ghazi Stadium. The Talib guard offers her some comfort, telling her that it is not shameful to be afraid, but Mariam does not break down at the moment of execution. She imagines the pleasant moments of her life, the moments during
The Co-operation Centre for Afghanistan reported that there are several prisons with hundreds of women. In Kandahar at Karez Bazaar from 400 to 500 women are kept as prisoners. The prison at Welayat-e-Kabul has about sixty women prisoners. Women prisoners receive two loaves of bread a day and are not allowed access to their relatives. From Rosemarie Skaine, The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban.
Ghazi Stadium, the national stadium of Afghanistan, first opened in 1923 and seats 25,000 people. Buzkashi and other events were held here. Under the Taliban, it was the site of public executions as well as soccer games. Today it is still used for soccer.
which she experienced love and beauty. Hosseini writes that ‘‘One last time, Mariam did as she was told’’ (329). The last section of the novel focuses on Laila, Tariq, and the children. They go to Murree, a tourist site in Pakistan where Tariq had been living and working before coming back to Kabul to find Laila. Aziza is finally with a father who loves her, but Zalmai has difficulty adjusting and misses Rasheed. They all work together for the hotel until, after September 11, 2001, and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Laila begins to feel that they should return to Kabul to help with the reconstruction. Tariq agrees to return, and they stop in Herat to visit Mariam’s birthplace and to see whether anyone there remembers her. Back in Kabul, both children are in school. Laila and Tariq work with Zaman at the orphanage. Laila teaches and Tariq helps with repairs and other reconstruction work. Laila is pregnant again, but all this happiness is overshadowed by the return of the warlords to Kabul and evidence that Afghanistan continues to be an unstable country.
THE CITY AND THE COUNTRYSIDE: SETTING A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS
Hosseini’s novel takes place across Afghanistan, but primarily in the cities of Herat and Kabul. Mariam grows up just outside the fictional village of Gul Daman on the outskirts of Herat. Her home is set apart from the village and is alongside a stream. The rural simplicity of her life in the one-room kolba is quite different from that of her father and his large family. Hosseini provides ample description of the flowers and tree-lined streets of Herat. Kabul and Herat are directly east and west from each other in the northern half of Afghanistan. Between them is a fairly impassable mountainous region that includes Hazarajat. Herat is near Afghanistan’s borders with Iran and Turkmenistan, and Kabul is closer to Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan. Mariam takes the bus from Herat to Kabul with Rasheed. The farthest she has been from her home until this time is her walk to Herat to see her father. At that time she was overwhelmed with the bustle of the
big city. Kabul is the largest city in Afghanistan as well as the capital with more than 2 million people (as of 2003). Herat is probably the fifth largest city in Afghanistan with a 2003 population of 171,500. There is no direct route from Herat to Kabul. It is likely that they traveled southwest to Kandahar and then back north to Kabul, approximately 1,090 kilometers or 680 miles. It takes Mariam and Rasheed until the evening of the next day to reach Kabul by bus. Whichever route they took, Mariam would have been amazed by the activity and the crowds in Kabul. Later in the novel, Babi takes Laila and Tariq to Bamiyan, a province in the area known as Hazarajat because it has been the homeland to the Hazaras. It is there that the famous Buddha statues were located and the caves still remain. Babi’s trip with Tariq and Laila predates the Taliban, and so the Buddhas are standing, and Babi describes them and relates some of their history and purpose. On the way there, Laila notices the vestiges of war. Luckily for them, Kabul has not been at the center of the Soviet and Mujahideen conflict. All that changes after the Soviets withdraw and the different factions fight for control of the capital city. Tariq and his family emigrate from Afghanistan to Pakistan. When he returns for Laila, and after the death of Rasheed and the disappearance of Mariam into the prison, Tariq, Laila, and the children move to Murree, a popular tourist town in the Rawalpindi district and not far from Islamabad in Pakistan. This little town seems to be an anomaly in this novel of war-torn cities, refugee camps, and prisons; it is a little paradise, with a kind hotel manager, television (on which they see news of the September 11 attacks), a population with the time and luxury to be tourists (not just surviving from day to day), and a lovely and peaceful surrounding. Laila chooses to give up this oasis to return to Kabul.
Mariam grew up in a kolba. Hosseini describes it when Laila returns to Herat to pay homage to Mariam. Common domestic dwellings in northwestern Afghanistan include buildings made with mud and brick. Furnishings are minimal, and there is usually a common room where the whole family will sleep. Mattresses are laid out at night and are folded and moved to a corner during the day. Mariam and Rasheed live in a multistory house in Kabul and sleep on beds. Mariam’s father lives in a large compound style house in Herat. (See Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, Countries and Their Cultures, and Timothy Gall and Gale Research Inc., Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life.)
Through this variety of settings, cities of different sizes, rural countryside, the apparent bounty of the Bamiyan landscape, hustle and bustle of Kabul’s shop-lined Chicken Street, and the Titanic City bazaar in the dry riverbed of the Kabul River, Hosseini provides a rich setting for his novel. At the same time, he informs and educates his reader about the diversity in Afghanistan.
THE CHARACTERS
The narrative of A Thousand Splendid Suns alternates between Mariam’s story and Laila’s story. The novel opens with five-year-old Mariam waiting for her father, Jalil, and the climax occurs with her death. In the opening chapters of the novel, the reader is introduced to Mariam’s family and close neighbors. Mariam seems to be a happy child, eagerly awaiting the days of her father’s visits, an eagerness that is painful to her mother. Nana is Mariam’s mother. She was working in Jalil’s household until she was forced to leave after becoming pregnant with his child. Nana has remained unmarried. As a young girl, Nana was engaged to be married, but before the engagement could be finalized, she fell victim to a Jinn. This is how she describes it in the novel, and it is probably some kind of seizure. This malady made her unfit for marriage, and her bitterness, which has grown over the years, has only increased further with Jalil’s rejection. Although Nana has been forced from her employment in Jalil’s household, Jalil provides for her and Mariam. He operates the local cinema, and it is the lure of this cinema that leads to the initial crisis in A Thousand Splendid Suns. All Mariam wants for her birthday is to go to the cinema with her father; he is unwilling to be seen with her in public, but nonetheless promises to meet Mariam the next day on her birthday—a promise he does not keep. Mariam is strong-willed, and when Jalil does not appear, she goes against her mother’s wishes and walks into Herat to find him. Although she is not allowed into his house, she refuses to leave. Later, when she turns against her father, it takes a state of desperation for her to attempt to talk with him. Her father, however weak and selfindulgent, is indeed kind. He loves Mariam and has not failed to provide for her immediate needs and within the manner acceptable to his family and to the culture. He tries repeatedly to reconnect with Mariam after she leaves, even driving to Kabul to find her. He leaves a small sentimental gift for Mariam with one of the villagers in Gul Daman that Laila later retrieves after both Jalil and Mariam are dead. Jalil’s family is large. He has ten children from his three wives, and Mariam makes eleven. The members of Jalil’s household include Muhsin,
the eldest son, and two other sons, Farhad and Ramin. The boys deliver supplies to Nana and Mariam for their father. Nana usually treats them poorly, even throwing rocks at them. His daughters include Saideh and Naheed and eight-year-old Niloufer, who speaks with Mariam during the few days she stays with her father. We read that Saideh and Naheed are allowed to go to school. Mariam is envious of them. Jalil’s three wives are Afsoon, Khadija, and Nargis. Jalil’s family represents a middle ground in Afghan culture, with Rasheed and Laila’s father, perhaps, representing two opposite extremes. Jalil is the public presence of his family and he has three wives as allowed by Islam. However, the wives are not submissive or intimidated by Jalil. In fact, it appears as though it is Jalil who is intimidated by the wives and who must submit to their will. Jalil must move Nana out of the house, and Mariam may not live with him because this is what the wives wish. Their actions are socially acceptable, whereas it may not be socially acceptable and also cause for gossip if Jalil were to keep Nana nearby or allow his illegitimate daughter to live with him. Mariam’s friend and mentor from the village of Gul Daman, Mullah Faizullah, is a village elder. He teaches her to read and write and to memorize the Koran. He is one of the only positive relationships that Mariam has as a child. Mullah Faizullah, like Jalil, serves as a counter example to stereotypes associated with Islam and particularly Islam in Afghanistan. Contrary to what we read about conditions for women and girls under the Taliban, Mullah Faizullah is an Islamic teacher who is kind to and supportive of Mariam. In fact, he even attempts to convince Nana to allow Mariam to go to school. ‘‘If the girl wants to learn, let her, my dear. Let the girl have an education’’ (17). Although Mariam never sees him again after leaving for Kabul, Mullah Faizullah clearly has a lasting influence on her. Bibi jo and Habib Khan, a village leader, are two more characters from Mariam’s childhood who come from the little village of Gul Daman. Rasheed is the suitor chosen for Mariam by Jalil’s wives. The first time Mariam sees Rasheed is when she sees his reflection along with her own during the engagement ceremony. Rasheed takes Mariam away from Herat forever. Except for a few tender moments, Hosseini does not portray Rasheed with any positive strokes. The tender moments are transient. His one redeeming feature is that he adores Zalmai, his son with Laila, his second wife. Even this adoration for Zalmai is tainted by the fact that Rasheed is so brutal to Laila, Aziza, and Mariam. Rasheed was married before his marriage to Mariam, but both his first wife and son have died. Mariam feels sorrow for him because of this. She imagines that Rasheed’s sorrow is something that will create a bond between them; she ‘‘feels for the first time a kinship
A mullah is a term from the Persian meaning a leader or learned man. As used in this novel, the mullah is a preacher or spiritual adviser within the Sunni Islam tradition. Mullahs also teach in elementary schools. They preside at ceremonies, including weddings, births, and funerals. They are not clergy, because the Sunni tradition does not recognize the need for an intermediary between the supplicant and God. Individuals may attend schools and during his reign, King Amanullah established state-sponsored schools. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mullah Faizullah teaches Mariam privately and is Mariam’s closest friend and only mentor. In The Kite Runner, Amir’s father consistently refers to the mullahs in a derogatory manner. (See Ludwig Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan, and John Esposito, The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World.)
with her husband. She [tells] herself that they would make good companions after all.’’ Rasheed brings Mariam to Kabul from Herat and it is through him that she becomes acquainted with Laila. Laila, born in 1978, is an infant when Mariam is a newlywed. She is the daughter of Fariba and Hakim. Hakim is a schoolteacher and he and Fariba have a modern, Westernstyle household. Hakim is mild mannered and is devoted to Laila. Fariba is easygoing and attached to her sons, who after the Soviet occupation leave to join the Mujahideen. When Mariam goes to her neighborhood’s communal tandoor, Fariba befriends her. They are both wearing a hijab, a headscarf, in this case, probably covering their hair and necks, but not their faces. Fariba introduces herself to Mariam and extends an open invitation to her to visit and have tea. Later, Rasheed forbids Mariam from associating with Fariba. He points her out as a bad example. He accuses Hakim of having lost control of his wife, of spoiling his own ‘‘nang and namoos,’’ his honor and pride, by letting others see his wife. Rasheed intends to have Mariam wear a burqa, a complete head-to-toe covering, including hands and face, when she is out of the house. Rasheed may despise Hakim for his education, but it is through Hakim that Hosseini colors his novel with details about the history and culture of Afghanistan. Again, through one of his characters, Hosseini provides some balance to the widely publicized news about present-day Afghanistan’s low literacy rate, poverty, and desolation. Hakim shares with Laila and Tariq the richness of Afghanistan’s cultural past, and in so doing, shares it with Hosseini’s readers as well. When the shells
destroy Laila’s house, killing her parents, her father’s library is also destroyed and remnants of Afghanistan’s history along with it. Hakim and Fariba’s sons, Ahmad and Noor, are killed fighting the Soviet Union. The death of her sons sends Fariba to bed. Like many others in Afghanistan, Hakim, Laila, and Fariba had looked forward to the defeat of the Soviet Union by the Mujahideen. Even Fariba gets out of bed and celebrates with her neighbors when this happens. However, as the factions begin to fight over Kabul, Fariba returns to bed and the bloodshed is even worse than before. Ultimately, Hakim and Fariba die in the civil war that follows the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. Laila has a privileged childhood, especially when compared with Mariam’s. Although she suffers from the neglect of her mother, she has the love of her father and she has freedom to attend school and to play and to roam with her friends, including several girls her own age and Tariq. While Mariam is described as plain, Laila is remarkably beautiful. But Laila is not spoiled and must do much of the work around the house and prepare meals for her father. By the time her mother and father are killed in the bomb blast, she has lost her brothers and several of her girlfriends to the wars. She has also been separated from her childhood sweetheart, Tariq. In the wake of the civil war, Tariq’s family decides to leave for Pakistan. It is his imminent departure that rushes the two youngsters into sexual intimacy, and Laila is pregnant when she accepts Rasheed’s marriage proposal. Laila gives birth first to Aziza, who is really Tariq’s child, and then, to the great happiness of Rasheed, a son, Zalmai. Even when famine strikes and the family is destitute, Rasheed finds ways to indulge Zalmai. But, as conditions worsen, Rasheed insists that they send Aziza to an orphanage. Hosseini depicts the same orphanage and reintroduces the character Zaman, the orphanage director, from The Kite Runner. It is
Mujahideen are Afghan resistance fighters, waging a holy war against a non-Islamic government. The Mujahideen in Afghanistan were a loose alliance of seven Sunni groups and another alliance of eight Shi’a groups. The Sunni groups had the support of Pakistan. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the Mujahideen took over Kabul and declared Afghanistan an Islamic state. Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud was the primary leader in Kabul until the Taliban captured it in 1996. (See Amin Saikal et al., Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival, and Ludwig Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan.)
after visiting Aziza at the orphanage that Laila finds Tariq miraculously waiting for her in front of Rasheed’s house. His return leads to the second pivotal moment in Mariam’s life, the first culminating in the suicide of her mother. When Rasheed learns of Tariq’s return, he viciously attacks Laila, nearly killing her. In an effort to save her, Mariam kills Rasheed, and this leads to her fateful decision to urge Laila, Tariq, and the children to flee while she stays to take the consequences. They escape back to Pakistan and settle at the resort in Murree, Pakistan, run by the kind Sayeed. They later return to Kabul where Tariq works with Zaman to rebuild the school and Laila teaches the orphans.
THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN AND THE HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN: THEMES IN A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini tells the stories of Mariam and Laila, but he also tells the story of Afghanistan. Through his storytelling, he describes a changing Afghanistan, a country of social, cultural, and economic diversity, a country that has undergone destructive political upheaval, a country of beauty and history, and a country of desolation and deprivation. Through Babi, Laila’s schoolteacher father, Hosseini informs the reader about the history and literary traditions of Afghanistan. Babi takes Laila and Tariq to see the two giant Buddhas in Bamiyan. Many readers may be familiar with the story of these ancient structures, but Hosseini makes sure that the reader knows that there was a living history associated with these statues. They are not mysterious remnants of the past like the Sphinx; their purpose and use are known. They represent religious tolerance, hospitality to the stranger, and a place of learning. Babi also talks about Shahr-e-Zohak, the Red City, and it is through Babi that we hear about the Persian poetic tradition of Afghanistan. When a shell tragically strikes Laila’s house during the civil war, she loses not only her family, but also her father’s library. This loss symbolizes the loss of Afghanistan’s literary tradition, which Babi, through his love and devotion to the poets, had preserved through the occupation and the civil war. We read that the pages of Khalili, Pajwak, Ansari, Haji Dehqan, Ashraqi, Beytaab, Hafez, Jami, Nizami, Rumi, Khayyam, and Beydel are going up in flames. Most North Americans know about Afghanistan from what we have heard about the Taliban during the 1990s and from what we hear about the conflict and efforts to establish a new state in the early twenty-first century. Hosseini seems to want his readers to know about an Afghanistan that was productive and flourishing. From the heights of the
Buddhas, Laila and Tariq see a Bamiyan with ‘‘lush farming fields,’’ wheat, alfalfa, potatoes, poplars bordering fields and lining streets, streams, irrigation ditches, rice paddies, and barley fields; they see tea shops, barbers, small shops, horses, sheep, and cows. Babi tells them, ‘‘see your country’s heritage’’ and urges them to ‘‘learn of its rich past’’ (134). Earlier in the novel, Hosseini describes Mariam’s first visit to Herat. Mariam sees a bustling city, with cypress-lined streets and flowerbeds; people walk the streets and the street markets are abundant. Not only is the city beautiful, but it also is safe and friendly even for such a young girl as Mariam. Although she walks alone and is clearly of meager means, no one points or shouts at her, and no one questions the fact that she is walking alone or suggests that she has anything of which she should be ashamed. In fact, a taxi driver picks her up and takes her to her destination. This is in stark contrast to Mariam’s experience in the Kabul market and her sense of safe anonymity within her burqa, and to Laila’s terrifying trips to visit her daughter Aziza in the orphanage. The story of Afghanistan includes the story of the role and place of women in Afghan society. Hosseini touches on this in The Kite Runner, but he has clearly dedicated himself to examining the condition of women in this novel. Laila is the beloved daughter of her father, but her mother focuses primarily on Laila’s brothers. Laila is all but forgotten in her mother’s grief for the loss of her two sons. Mariam, in contrast to Laila, lives in poverty but has the rough love of her mother and the apparent doting of her father. Both girls’ lives change abruptly and clearly for the worst when they become connected to Rasheed through marriage. They each enjoy a brief honeymoon period with their husband, but they are ruled by his wishes and desires and defy him at great risk to their wellbeing, and in Laila’s case, the well-being of her children. It may pass through the mind of the reader to wonder whether Hosseini has overstated his case. Rasheed’s treatment of Mariam predates the Soviet invasion and the civil war, and his relationship with both Laila and Mariam predates the Taliban. At no time does it appear that Laila or Mariam have any legal rights. But Hosseini carefully portrays both Laila, whose parents raised her with a greater sense of entitlement and privilege, and Mariam, whose mother taught her to endure by taking control of the conditions under which they lived to the extent that they possibly could. When Mariam finally softens to the infant Aziza and reconciles herself to the presence of Laila in her household, they become allies. Rasheed’s marriage to Mariam and Laila is one representation of marriage in Afghanistan. However, Laila’s parents married for love. They were cousins, which is common and even preferred in Afghanistan, but their marriage was not arranged. Laila’s father is in the weaker
position in the marriage, with the mother influencing decisions and the tenor of domestic life. Nana, Mariam’s mother, had been engaged to a young man in the more typical manner of an arranged marriage. Her illness, perhaps epilepsy, or as she calls it, her Jinn, became apparent before the engagement was finalized, and the suitor’s family abandoned her. This abandonment was a stigma that Nana carried with her to her death. Mariam’s father, Jalil, has several wives in the same manner as Rasheed. The impression given is that his is a domestically peaceful arrangement. Jalil and his wives are compatible and all make decisions together. The wives together are able to influence Jalil to marry off Mariam, a decision that he accepts but soon regrets. Laila and Tariq are perhaps the fairy tale romance of the novel. They are neither cousins nor even of the same ethnic background. They are childhood friends who drift into a romantic attachment at an early age. Presumably parted for life, they find each other again, older, wiser, and painfully more experienced. Despite their experiences, they are resilient enough to love each other and to form a loving family for the children. The novel ends with the knowledge that another child is on the way. Mariam makes the ultimate sacrifice for the woman and children who have become her family and for the relationship she sees that Tariq and Laila might have. Although her final act is tragic, it is also heroic and a choice that she makes. Mariam lives out the final days of her life in the Walayat Women’s Prison. To the women in the prison, many of whom are imprisoned for attempting to run away from their husbands, Mariam, who has killed her husband, is a hero. She is honored and cared for by her cellmates and loved by their children until her final day. It is well to recognize that Hosseini’s characters are neither passive nor helpless, but they are abused and their lives are made tragic by social and religious mores and the political restrictions placed on them and the lack of any kind of support afforded them. Hosseini strengthens his case in pointing out the hypocrisy behind laws put into place by the Taliban who forbade women from working outside the home even when no males in the family could support them, who prevented females from attending school, and who endangered the lives of women and children by limiting the availability of health care for women to one severely understaffed and unfunded hospital in Kabul. Finally, Hosseini provides insight into the daily life within Afghanistan both in the city and in the rural areas. We hear about how meals are prepared and about the foods that are eaten; we learn about the interaction between males and females in public and within the home; we learn about celebrations and festivals, Tajiks and Pashtuns, dialects and languages.
Hosseini ends A Thousand Splendid Suns on a note of hope. There is no celebration—but there is hope and a desire for betterment. Interestingly, both of Hosseini’s novels end with a focus on children. Laila and Tariq are working with the orphanage in Kabul, and Hosseini ends his first novel, The Kite Runner, with news of the construction of a new pediatric unit near the Afghanistan–Pakistan border. Perhaps Hosseini is suggesting that it is with the children that there is a chance for a better more humane Afghanistan, and so his characters focus on the well-being of the children, the most vulnerable in times of war and famine, acting to protect them, nurture and care for them, and keep them safe.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • Hosseini tells a compelling story, and, in the process, teaches the reader about Afghanistan. How has your perception of Afghanistan changed since reading this book? • Laila’s father is a teacher. He serves two different purposes in the novel: he is a male who is counter to the stereotypical male Muslim and he provides his children, and thus the reader, with history lessons. How does his character defy stereotyping? What are some of the history lessons we learn from him? • Describe the character of Mullah Faizullah. Similarly to Laila’s father, he both presents a countermodel to stereotypes and he provides us with insight into religious beliefs and practices. What are your impressions of Mullah Faizullah and what does he tell us about Islamic beliefs and practices? • When Mariam travels to Herat she travels through the countryside and across the city by herself. Compare this with circumstances in Kabul when she first arrives, and later after the Soviets have withdrawn. • Through his storytelling, Hosseini describes the social stratification of Afghanistan. Think about the different characters in the novel, from Mariam and Laila and Nana and Jalil to Rasheed and Tariq and Laila’s friends. What do you learn about the social hierarchy and the ethnic divisions in Afghanistan through the characters’ relationships and attitudes? • How do rural and urban living differ one from the other as described by Hosseini? • Hosseini does not come out and tell us that life in Afghanistan was not always as it is now. How does he work in the details of Afghanistan’s varied geography, history, culture, and everyday life without making his novel read like a textbook?
• Can you imagine a story where, following Nana’s suicide, Mariam stayed in her own village with Mullah Faizullah or Bibi jo? What elements of Mariam’s life might have been different? • As Afsoon turns the key in the lock of Mariam’s bedroom after Mariam learns that she is to be engaged and sent to Kabul the next day, Mariam seems to have lost all agency in her own life. How does this play out through the rest of the novel? • Hosseini describes his characters through their actions and decisions and words. What kind of a person is Mariam and what events in the novel help us to see her characteristics? Contrast her with Nana, Jalil, and Laila. • In The Kite Runner, Hassan was always good and Assef was diabolically evil. In A Thousand Splendid Suns the characters are more complex. Talk about some of the characteristics and complexities of the central characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns and compare them with those in The Kite Runner. • Mariam’s decision to never see or speak with Jalil has consequences. What are they? • Mariam’s first impressions of Rasheed are not all bad. Does Rasheed set out to fool her or does Rasheed change? • Compare the difference between how Mariam’s husband lives and how Laila’s family—just down the street—lives. In particular, consider the party that Rasheed had when celebrating Mariam’s first pregnancy and the party that Laila’s family has when the Mujahideen begin to enter Kabul after the fall of the Communist government. • Mariam’s character goes through many changes. Trace those changes from her isolated childhood with her unhappy mother to her family life with Laila and the children. • Many elements go into setting the scene for Mariam’s execution and the conclusion of the novel. How does the execution sum up Mariam’s life? If we think of Mariam as a victim, of whom or what is she a victim? In what ways does Mariam defy her victimhood? • Similarly, Laila becomes an orphan and finds that her only recourse is to marry a controlling abusive husband nearly forty years older than her. How does Hosseini portray Laila as a powerful person despite these overwhelming tragic circumstances? • What difference does it make that the novel does not end with Mariam’s death?
5 TODAY’S ISSUES IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S WORK
Khaled Hosseini’s works are built around issues that are of importance in the twenty-first century. Although the issues present in his novels can be seen as particular to the country of Afghanistan, readers can extrapolate from Hosseini’s implicit commentary and see how they relate to United States society and culture. Hosseini tucks within the plots and narratives of his two novels events and details that address the state of civil strife and international hegemony in Afghanistan, including the U.S. involvement there beginning in 2001. Through the details of his plots and the interactions of his characters, Hosseini presents problems of racism and ethnocentrism, as well as exile and immigration. Hosseini explores issues of gender equality, gender stereotypes, and domestic abuse. Both novels illustrate to some extent the excesses and abuses of governments, and the novels include references to capital punishment, political and economic injustice, religious freedom, linguistic diversity, literacy and enfranchisement, and familial relationships. Hosseini’s books reflect a wide range of important current events and contemporary issues. Certainly, the wars in Afghanistan are all encompassing in both novels. Hosseini was in the middle of writing
The Kite Runner when al-Qaeda operatives committed their suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The novel appeared two years later, in 2003, with the United States immersed in wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Hosseini’s American audience was ready to learn about this country. With The Kite Runner, Hosseini provides to Western readers historical background to the thirty years of war and instability in that country and an intimate look at Afghanistan’s culture and people. With A Thousand Splendid Suns, readers learn even more about day-to-day life in Afghanistan, the urban and rural tensions that exist and that have some responsibility for the era of violence and upheaval there, and the devastating nature of each wave of war to Afghanistan’s people and culture. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Laila, Tariq, and family return to Afghanistan after the U.S. invasion with plans to rebuild the country. They work at the orphanage where Aziza stayed during the darkest times of drought and famine, and where The Kite Runner’s Sohrab is sent after his parents are murdered. They return there hoping for a new era for Afghanistan; however, the novel’s end suggests the instability of the country. Laila observes the transformation of Kabul as residents repair and rebuild, but she also knows that all is not well. It slays Laila . . . that the warlords have been allowed back to . . . live in posh homes with walled gardens, that they have been appointed minister of this and deputy minister of that, that they ride with impunity . . . through neighborhoods that they demolished. (363)
Readers coming to the novel know even more than Laila and Tariq. This novel, set in the early twenty-first century, becomes more tragic as the situation in Afghanistan worsens. In early 2009, the state of Afghanistan was increasingly uncertain. U.S. President Barack Obama called for more troops to be sent there and the Taliban continued to create havoc and to try to regain control of the country. Schools have been bombed, including perhaps orphanages like the one described in Hosseini’s novels, and readers know that innocent civilians, including women and children, continue to lose their lives as the country remains unstable. In The Kite Runner, Hosseini’s story of a troubled father-and-son relationship and friendship, betrayal, and reconciliation takes place within a deeper and more balanced view of a country of which few Americans had much knowledge. Usually, in a time of war, countries
Today’s Issues in Khaled Hosseini’s Work
vilify and dehumanize their enemies. But Hosseini takes his readers beyond the terrorist camps and madrassas to show a country where children fly kites and go to the cinema to see American Westerns. He portrays a man, Amir’s father, who is worldly and travels to other countries on business, who builds orphanages, and who cares for friends and acquaintances in need. Amir’s father, rather than in thrall to a religious viewpoint, is critical of the mullahs who teach Amir. He tells Amir, ‘‘You’ll never learn anything of value from those bearded idiots. . . . God help us all if Afghanistan ever falls into their hands’’ (17). Hosseini provides an even fuller portrait of Afghanistan in A Thousand Splendid Suns, taking the reader deeper into the country’s history. He sets the novel in several cities across thirty years of turmoil. The novel takes place not only in Kabul but also in Herat, Bamiyan, and Mariam’s small fictional village just outside of Herat. Hosseini fills out the outlines that he provided the reader in The Kite Runner, working into his second novel’s narrative the history of Afghanistan’s long series of conflicts. Through the character of Laila’s schoolteacher-father, the reader receives a history lesson along with Laila and Tariq as Laila’s father tells the two children about their heritage. Finally, with Hosseini’s depiction of Herat and Kabul before and during the Soviet invasion, the reader sees a much more modern Afghanistan than that described through media photographs and television coverage. Even so, Hosseini’s Afghanistan has a very different social and cultural environment from that of most people living in Europe or the United States. Social restrictions for young people are strong. As a rule, for example, girls and boys do not play together after a certain age without inviting gossip and criticism. Women take their bread to a communal oven for baking and shop at open markets. While Laila and her family live a life that is somewhat closer to one with which Hosseini’s Western readers might be familiar, another character, Rasheed, maintains strict gender segregation. When he has a party in honor of Mariam’s pregnancy, Mariam must stay apart from the male guests. Laila attends school with her girl friends, but she is not safe walking the streets alone. She and her friends wear Western-style clothing, but Mariam wears more traditional Afghan clothing, including a headscarf as a child, and then the full covering once she is married to Rasheed. Mariam observes the difference between women in the commercial, more prosperous areas of Kabul compared with those in her poor neighborhood, ‘‘These women were . . . modern Afghan women. . . . These women mystified Mariam. They made her aware of her own lowliness, her plain looks, her lack of aspirations, her ignorance of so many things’’ (68).
Along with the history of Afghanistan, Hosseini also creates characters who provide a range of personalities and types, and who break stereotypes with which readers may come to his novels. Rasheed is a terrible bully and oppressive husband. He certainly fits into the stereotype of the controlling, autocratic husband in a patriarchal society, which is exemplified later in the policies established for women by the Taliban. His character contrasts, however, with Mariam’s father who is the head of his household, the breadwinner, but who Hosseini does not describe as in any way dominating his wives. Rasheed also stands in sharp contrast to Laila’s father, Babi, and to Tariq who is portrayed as sometimes playful and teasing, but always gentle, loving, patient, and protective. Babi is intimidated by his wife, but more positively, he wants his daughter to be educated and to have a successful professional career. He imagines moving away from Afghanistan to America to open a restaurant or cafe. He tells Laila, ‘‘And you . . . would continue going to school . . . to get you a good education, high school then college’’ (136). Babi is a lover of poetry and he serves as a source of information about the cultural history of Afghanistan. He takes Tariq and Laila to Bamiyan to admire the Buddhas, to see the lush and fertile countryside, and to learn something about the greatness of their country. He explains to Laila and Tariq, ‘‘I wanted you to . . . see your country’s heritage . . . to learn of its rich past’’ (134). He quotes from the Persian poets and has a large library—all but a few volumes of which are destroyed in the bomb blast that kills him and Laila’s mother. As Babi and Laila pack for their departure, Babi grieves for the books he will leave behind. He tells Laila that he never thought he would leave Kabul or abandon his library. Babi’s library represents Afghanistan’s long tradition of the written word, especially poetry. Through Babi, Hosseini introduces his readers to many Afghan poets, most of whom wrote in Farsi. The bomb that destroys Hosseini’s library symbolizes the destruction of Afghan culture that has resulted from the warring and policies of the Soviets, the Mujahideen and the Taliban.
Hassan does not know how to read when he is a servant in the household of Amir and Baba. The United Nations reports that only 28 percent of the population of Afghanistan is literate. This is the lowest literacy rate in the world. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) statistics from 2007 show that adult women fifteen years and older have a 12.6 percent literacy rate and men fifteen years and older have a 43.1 percent literacy rate.
Literacy is a theme evident in both novels. It is a significant element in the plot of The Kite Runner. Amir exploits his position of authority, even as a young child, by consciously depriving Hassan the opportunity to learn to read, although it is clearly something that Hassan strongly desires. He does so to maintain the imbalance in their relationship. As soon as Hassan is free from his position of servitude in Amir’s household, he does learn to read and he makes sure that his own child learns to read. When Hassan reads to Sohrab from the same book that he and Amir used to read together, he does so with the expectation that Sohrab will soon read the book for himself. In his letter he tells Amir, ‘‘Sohrab and I still sit under [the pomegranate’s] shade and I read to him from the Shahnamah. . . . Soon he will be able to read from the book himself’’ (217). Afghanistan has a desperately low literacy rate. But this is also a serious problem in the United States. Although the United States claims a 99 percent literacy rate, the functional literacy rate, the level necessary to hold most jobs, is most likely much lower than 99 percent. In 2002, the National Center for Education Statistics determined that between 40 and 44 million U.S. adults performed at the lowest literacy levels (Kirsch 41). Of these more than 40 million individuals, 40 to 41 percent were living at or below the federal poverty level compared with 4 to 5 percent of those Americans performing at the highest literacy levels (Kirsch 85). Not surprisingly, those individuals with the lowest literacy rates were the least likely to be employed (Kirsch 87). Although the demands in the United States are different from those in Afghanistan, it is clear that literacy, whether the ability to read or to work with numbers, is required in most societies to rise above a certain socioeconomic level. Keeping a population illiterate is a time-tested way to keep a population subservient. Similarly to Hassan, Mariam desires an education and it is something that Laila takes for granted (although her father realizes that this is a gift to be valued). Mariam cannot go to school, but the village mullah teaches her to read. Hosseini’s mullah counters the representation of an Islam that is oppressive to women. Hosseini describes the seriousness and intensity with which Mariam and Mullah Faizullah approach these lessons, but he also makes clear the meagerness of Mariam’s education opportunities. Although Mariam does not have much, the skills she learns from the supportive mullah keep her from being completely powerless, and her ability to read and recite from the Koran provides her with comfort. The powerlessness or status of women in Afghanistan has been of great concern to Americans, and Hosseini addresses this directly in A Thousand Splendid Suns. He presents multiple aspects of women’s experience in Afghanistan at different points in recent history and in rural and urban Afghanistan through the characters of Laila and Mariam, as
well as through his more peripheral characters. Hosseini depicts Mariam’s narrow range of opportunities living with her single mother. This contrasts sharply with the opportunities available to her father’s legitimate children. Mariam cannot go to school, but that is because of her social condition and not because she is a girl. It is also because of her mother’s fear of losing her. In fact it is learning about her sisters attending school that raises Mariam’s hopes that she might also go to school. Despite pleas from the mullah on Mariam’s behalf, her mother is emphatically against it, telling Mariam that it is not her ‘‘lot in life. . . . We endure. It’s all we have’’ (18). Nana tells Mariam that the other children will laugh at her and call her harami and then tells the mullah, ‘‘There is nothing out there for her. Nothing but rejection and heartache’’ (18). Although Mariam’s life is constrained from the beginning, Laila is raised with the freedom to go to school, to play in the streets with her friends, and even to spend time alone with Tariq, although this begins to inspire gossip. Her life changes drastically after her parents are killed and Rasheed rescues her from the rubble of her house and then marries her. She enjoys a higher status than Mariam in the household because of her youth and because she eventually gives birth to a son. This is yet another sign of the deflated status of women in Afghan society as the birth of a daughter is no cause for celebration. But she, like Mariam, cannot go out alone; she is required by Rasheed, and later the Taliban, to wear the full-length burqa. To contradict her husband or to venture an opinion of her own is to risk severe physical punishment. In contrast, earlier in the novel, when Mariam enters the city of Herat looking for her father, she walks by herself. Readers hear nothing about head-to-toe covering or the need to be accompanied by a male relative until later in the novel when Mariam is married to Rasheed and living in Kabul. In Herat, the wives of Mariam’s father have autonomy and a strong voice in family matters. In fact, they are responsible for arranging Mariam’s marriage to Rasheed. Neither Laila nor Mariam enjoy anything like this kind of influence in their own marriage to Rasheed. Women do not figure largely in The Kite Runner, but Hosseini does not ignore them. Amir’s mother was a professor of literature at the university, and she and Amir’s father met when she was a student. Soraya, Amir’s wife, wants to be a schoolteacher, but her father wants her to consider returning to Afghanistan to work with a new government. Despite the strict code of behavior required of her by her father, he nonetheless has high expectations for her in terms of her education and choice of profession. Under the Soviet occupation, the government was supportive of women and ethnic minorities. Both were represented in the government
Mariam has a nikka, which is the ceremony in which the marriage contract is signed. It is presided over by a mullah, and there must be two witnesses. Usually these witnesses must be male. The nikka is often preceded by an engagement party and the engagement period can be very long. In The Kite Runner, Amir and Soraya decide to forgo the engagement period because of Amir’s father’s weak health. Mariam’s abrupt marriage is intended to get her out of her father’s house and far away from the family. She is an embarrassment. Her marriage is arranged for the convenience of the family and not with Mariam’s interest in mind. Still, the law requires that she go into the wedding voluntarily and so she is asked by the mullah whether or not she agrees to the wedding. Her hesitation makes Jalil and his wives nervous. Typically, marriages are arranged and the bride and groom spend little or no time together before the actual ceremony. Wedding celebrations are segregated by gender. The marriage contract usually includes a bride price given by the husband’s family to the bride’s family, and also a mahr. This is a form of social insurance for the woman in case her husband divorces her. In Kabul Beauty School, Deborah Rodriguez describes events surrounding a joyous wedding. In his 2006 dissertation, Mir Hekmatullah Sadat states that during the 1970s and 1980s, under the influence of the Mujahideen, weddings became somber events (195).
and in the professions. Girls were required to attend school, and the veil was discouraged. Babi tells Laila that providing an education for women was the one thing that the Soviets had done right, but ironically, it was also one of the causes for their downfall, ‘‘Of course, women’s freedom . . . is also one of the reasons people out there took up arms in the first place’’ (italics in original, 121). Through Babi’s observation, readers can begin to understand the complicated nature of ruling this wide land with little infrastructure for communication or for the centralized rule of law. The burqa has become within certain political and social-justice communities (both conservative and liberal) an especially pervasive symbol of the plight of Afghanistan’s women under the Taliban and within certain segments of Muslim society. Feminist scholars are starting to question the use of the burqa as a symbol of oppression (Ayotte and Husain; Whitlock). Hosseini examines the complexity of this item of clothing within Muslim culture, and in particular, within Afghanistan’s culture. Rasheed requires Mariam to wear the full-length burqa long before the Mujahideen or the Taliban require it. Hosseini first describes how awkward it is for Mariam as she tries it out; it is tight and heavy on her
Women have been at the center of political and civil unrest throughout the twentieth century in Afghanistan. In 1923, under King Amanullah, the constitution guaranteed equal rights for women and men. In 1953, as Daoud became prime minister, he encouraged women to participate in the government and workforce. In 1958, an Afghan woman attended the United Nations as a delegate from Afghanistan. In 1959, women began to work in public positions, including the national airline, without wearing veils. New policies encouraged women to work and to feel free to choose for themselves whether or not they would wear a veil. They were allowed to attend universities. In 1964, Afghan women received the right to vote. In 1977, Article 27 of the Afghan Constitution gave all Afghan men and women equal rights before the law. In 1978, civil war broke out, in some part due to the Communist government’s emphasis on female literacy. In 1979, the Soviets began to push emancipation for women, including more education opportunities and professional training. This was welcomed by some and deplored by many. More and more women joined the workforce and especially the professions over the next decade. In 1992, the Communist regime fell. Women continued to work but the government required women to cover their hair, and forbade them to wear makeup or to laugh in public. Conditions worsened going into 1996 and the Mujahideen forces targeted for assassination educated women and women in the professions. In 1993, Afghanistan’s Supreme Court declared that women should be completely covered by the veil outside their homes. In 1994, Taliban forces captured Kandahar. They forbade girls to attend school and women to work outside their homes. They captured Herat in 1995 and Kabul in 1996. In 1998, the last major area of Afghanistan, Bamiyan in Hazarajat, fell to the Taliban. (See Deborah Ellis, Women of the Afghan War.)
head, she cannot see clearly, and she trips over the hem. But later, Mariam finds it comforting and a sign that her husband wants her to be protected, ‘‘Inside it, she was an observer, buffered from the scrutinizing eyes of strangers’’ (66). Laila also sees her burqa as something that protects her and provides anonymity when she is out in the street. This item of clothing is a factor in Mariam and Laila’s daily existence but not threatening to their immediate well-being as is Rasheed’s socially condoned brutality, their inability to provide for their families, or their lack of access to health care for themselves and the children.
The issue of health care, especially for women, is apparent to a great extent in A Thousand Splendid Suns, and to a somewhat lesser extent in The Kite Runner. In The Kite Runner, Amir’s mother dies in childbirth. The fact of her death in this way, despite her relative wealth and privilege, underscores the fragility of life and lack of adequate health care available even in the city and during the relatively prosperous times in Kabul before the Soviet invasion. When Laila is ready to give birth to her son in A Thousand Splendid Suns, only one hospital in all of Kabul serves women. This hospital is severely short of staff and lacking in medicine and anesthetic. It seems extreme to portray a cesarean section without anesthetic, but this is historically correct. Kabul had only one hospital for women, few doctors were working there, and they had little or no medicine or means to anesthetize their patients. In her 2000 book, Women of the Afghan War, written while the Taliban were still in power, Deborah Ellis wrote of the health care available to women. The war and the chaos that comes with it has crippled the health-care delivery system. . . . Women who are trained and could be of use are largely forced to remain at home. Although some women are permitted to provide health care for other women, the hospitals and clinics set aside for female patients are few and ill equipped. (97)
She continued, ‘‘The rate of mothers who die while giving birth is the second highest in the world, after Sierra Leone. . . . Almost all births are home deliveries, without trained medical personnel being there’’ (97). Furthermore, she noted that 70 percent of those suffering from tuberculosis are women and that many patients are tortured by the guards and, as a result of this mistreatment, suffer broken bones and severe burns. Ellis also cited examples of husbands being beaten for trying to take their wives to a hospital. Two years later, Hafizullah Emadi wrote in her book Repression, Resistance, and Women in Afghanistan, ‘‘Gender ideology has greatly affected the status of women’s health. There are a limited number of health centers in the capital of every province, and women are generally neglected by their husbands and excluded from health care. . . . Even in cases of emergency, medical treatment is conducted in absentia when the medical doctor is a man and the patient is a woman’’ (Emadi, 47). As discussed above, issues of gender and ethnic discrimination are strong themes in both of Hosseini’s novels. When following the story of Amir and Hassan, it is easy to recognize parallels between the treatment
Zora Rasekh writes in her chapter on public heath in Women for Afghan Women, Of all the factors that have led to the failure of the health system in Afghanistan, the Taliban regime bears the greatest share of guilt, specifically in the areas of women’s and children’s health. In January 1997, Taliban officials announced a policy of segregating men and women into separate hospitals. (177) She cites that they reserved one hospital to serve a half-million women in Kabul. The Taliban also prevented women from working in any of the health care fields. According to Physicians for Human Rights, the Taliban later relented on this policy due to international pressure. Rasekh writes that the Taliban ‘‘reopened a few hospitals for women, and female medical personnel were allowed to return to their jobs’’ (177).
of the Hazaras in Afghanistan and America’s history of slavery and the continued limited opportunities for education and social advancement for many African Americans, Latinos, recent immigrant populations, and other ethnic minority groups. American slaveholders often thought of their human property as part of the family, but as property nonetheless. Black and white children may have been nursed by the same women and might have grown up playing together, but at a certain point, it was clear that only one of the children would grow up with privilege and opportunities, while the other would remain a slave, only welcomed through the back door if inside the house at all. In The Kite Runner, Baba grows up ‘‘like a brother’’ to Ali, and Amir grows up ‘‘like a brother’’ to Hassan. Hassan’s tasks include ironing Amir’s clothes, preparing and serving his breakfast, and making sure that Amir’s school materials are ready. When Amir leaves with his father for school, Hassan leaves with his father for the market. Hassan is loyal and devoted to Amir no matter how Amir treats him. Amir, with his jealousies and insecurities, taunts Hassan and fails to stand up for him. Amir refuses to teach Hassan to read and mocks him for his inability to do so. That Hassan would grow up illiterate like Ali and most Hazaras had been decided the minute he had been born . . . after all, what use did a servant have for the written word? . . . My favorite part of reading to Hassan was when we came across a big word that he didn’t know. I’d tease him, expose his ignorance. (28)
Hassan is the more noble and compassionate of the two; he has intelligence and athletic ability, but none of this will change his status within Pashtun-dominated Afghanistan. Additionally, just as it was common for slaveholders to father children with their slave women, Amir’s father has fathered Hassan with Ali’s wife. But this does not advance Hassan out of his state of servitude. ‘‘In the end, I was a Pashtun and he was a Hazara, I was Sunni and he was Shi’a, and nothing was ever going to change that. Nothing’’ (25). Amir reads for the first time of the mistreatment of the Hazara in a dusty book, written by an Iranian, that he finds in his father’s library. Amir is ‘‘stunned to find an entire chapter on Hazara history.’’ He discovers through the book that the Pashtuns ‘‘had persecuted and oppressed the Hazaras. It said the Hazaras had tried to rise against the Pashtuns in the nineteenth century, but the Pashtuns had ‘quelled them with unspeakable violence’’’ (9). Hazara slavery was officially ended by decree in 1921 and by the Afghan constitution in 1923. This had only a marginal effect on the wellbeing of the Hazara in Afghanistan, however, because at the same time, there was an effort to unite the country and move away from tribalism. This has been described as Pashtun nationalism rather than Afghan nationalism. Under Mahmud Tarzi, there was an official effort to make Pashto the official language of Afghanistan rather than Farsi, or its Afghan counterpart, Dari. In his book The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic, and Political Study, Sayed Askar Mousavi writes that Mahmud Tarzi believed that ‘‘Afghanistan must have its own unique language in order to preserve its independence and sovereignty, especially from its neighbour, Iran’’ (157). Hazara were Farsi speakers
The Hazara are the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, making up about 9 percent of the population. They are primarily Shi’a Muslims and, again, are in the minority with regard to their religious practices. The Sunnis make up 80 percent of the population and the Shi’a Muslims make up about 19 percent of the population of Afghanistan. The Hazara have been discriminated against throughout the twentieth century. King Amanullah abolished slavery in Afghanistan in 1929, a law that chiefly benefited the Hazara. The new constitution, written in 2004, again abolishes slavery, and once again, this law primarily affects the Hazara who were the group most likely to be enslaved within Afghanistan. (See Kathryn M. Coughlin, Muslim Cultures Today: A Reference Guide.)
and were among the groups most suppressed during this period of nationalization from the 1930s until the Soviet invasion. Mousavi cites examples of Pashtun oppression of the Hazara. He quotes a common Hazara proverb that translates as ‘‘even a Pashtun dog has a protector, but not a Hazara’’ (160). Mousavi uses two quotations to illustrate the continued low status of the Hazara in Afghanistan; one from the 1890s describes the Hazara as doing the ‘‘hardest, dirtiest, and most menial work . . . there is scarcely a house without its Hazara servant, in the form of slaves, stablemen, etc.’’ The other from the 1980s similarly describes the state of the Hazara: ‘‘Throughout the past years [before the 1978 coup d’etat] the most difficult and lowest paid jobs, poverty, illiteracy, social and nationalist discrimination were the lot of the Hazara people’’ (162). The Hazara not only are ethnic and linguistic minorities within Afghanistan, but as described in Amir’s history book, also are religious minorities. Mousavi writes that even into the 1970s ‘‘the killing of Hazaras was declared by Sunni Pashtun clerics as an accepted and sanctified means of gaining God’s favor and securing for oneself a place in Heaven’’ (Mousavi, 162). During the government of the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the climate changed for the Hazara as both the prime minister and deputy prime minster were Hazara. Through its constitution, the PDPA did not differentiate among tribes, language, or religion. Because of this, the Hazara fared much better under the PDPA than under previous Afghan governments. Later in the 1990s, after the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the fall of Najibullah and the PDPA government, Hazaras made up possibly half the population of Kabul and held most of the western portion of that city. The Hazara were excluded from the new Mujahideen government and thus took up arms against the ruling faction in the civil war that brought bombs down on the civilian population of Kabul, as experienced by Laila and Mariam. During this civil war, at the end of which the Hazara faction was defeated, the government forces massacred an estimated seven hundred Hazaran people in the Afshar district of Kabul, soldiers and civilians alike. This Hazara resistance was further weakened by the Taliban and completely defeated by 1995. The status of the Hazara and their enforced servitude and lack of education and political opportunities is apparent in The Kite Runner’s characters Hassan and Ali. Assef repeatedly refers to Hassan as Amir’s Hazara. Assef’s Pashtun-oriented nationalist attitude and hate for Hassan as a Hazaran is made directly analogous to Hitler’s anti-Semitic nationalism when he first extols the virtues of Hitler (40) and later gives a biography of Hitler to Amir as a birthday present (97). As a Talib leader, Assef speaks of his desire to remove
On August 8, 1998, the Taliban took control of Mazar-i-Sharif, giving them control of all major cities in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch reported that hundreds of civilians were ‘‘indiscriminately attacked’’ in the first few hours of fighting by the Taliban and perhaps also by retreating United Front forces. During the days that followed, the Taliban systematically went house to house to round up and execute men and boys from Tajik, Uzbek, and, in particular, Hazara ethnic groups. (See ‘‘Afghanistan: The Massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif,’’ Human Rights Watch.)
the Hazara completely from Afghanistan (284). This is further illustrated by Hassan’s murder at the hands of the Taliban soldiers. Discrimination and harsh, arbitrary punishment go hand in hand in Hosseini’s novels providing evidence of the abuse of power by the various Afghan governments. Laila’s father is a victim of political whim when the Soviet-backed government removes him from his teaching position. After that he works in a bakery. Later in the novel, Laila and Mariam are escorted back to their home by a police officer after attempting to escape from Rasheed and Kabul. The police officer refuses to let them go, claiming that the law requires that they be returned to their husband. Laila explains to him that he is endangering her and Mariam’s lives. The officer replies, ‘‘What a man does in his home is his business.’’ When Laila protests further, he remains unpersuaded: ‘‘As a matter of policy, we do not interfere with private family matters, hamshira’’ (238). Later, when Mariam is in prison she notes that her cellmates were all in prison for the ‘‘common offense of ‘running away from home’’’ (322). The Taliban government is portrayed as opportunistic, violent, and oppressive in both novels, and both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns portray public executions. In The Kite Runner, Amir goes to a soccer game at Ghazi Stadium as he seeks to find those who may know of Sohrab’s whereabouts. There he witnesses the public execution of a man and woman during the game’s halftime. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam is executed in a similar fashion: publicly in Ghazi Stadium after being condemned without legal advice, without a public hearing, and with no cross-examination or appeal. Hosseini writes compelling stories through which he questions assumptions and breaks apart stereotypes through the strengths and weaknesses of his characters. He interweaves into the action of his stories the details of history, culture, and daily life in Afghanistan. He challenges his readers to reflect on discrimination and political abuse within their own experience in light of instances of such abuses in a different
and unfamiliar country. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq are paramount to both novels. Readers bring to Hosseini’s novels their knowledge of current events and their emotions, fears, and hopes for the current state of the world. As Hosseini’s readers connect with the characters of both novels, they may begin to broaden their perspective of these events to see the repercussions of events beyond the borders of the United States and to see, as Hosseini often reminds his audiences, the interconnectedness of individuals no matter where or how they live.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • What were your views on the burqa before reading A Thousand Splendid Suns and have they changed since that reading? • How does Assef’s stark association with Hitler affect your view of Amir’s relationship with Hassan? • How does this association with Hitler inform your knowledge of the status of the Hazara in Afghanistan? • Compare the status of Mariam and Hassan. In what ways are they similar and how do they differ? • What did you know about the history of Afghanistan before reading either of Hosseini’s novels? Talk about the complexity of the issues of the various factions and warring parties as presented by Hosseini through the novels. For instance, Laila’s mother is opposed to the communists; Laila’s father sees some good in them. The Mujahideen are seen as heroes, but soon, they become responsible for the destruction of Kabul. • Think about the history of women’s rights in the United States over the past century. Do you see any parallels in the state of women in Afghanistan as represented by Hosseini in A Thousand Splendid Suns? • Hosseini provides a variety of religious viewpoints throughout the stories of both novels; compare these views with what you know about the variety of Christian or Jewish viewpoints in the United States. • A Thousand Splendid Suns is filled with cultural references to food, clothing, poetry, lifestyles, religion, and history. What one or two areas would you like to know more about and why? • Hosseini’s books focus on the harsh facts of war, domestic abuse, and discrimination, and yet readers find these books to be uplifting and inspiring. Explain your own reaction to these elements and describe your impressions to the overall message of these books.
6 POP CULTURE IN KHALED HOSSEINI’S WORK
Khaled Hosseini’s books have topped the New York Times Best Sellers lists. As of January 18, 2009, The Kite Runner was into its sixty-ninth week on the paperback best sellers list. A Thousand Splendid Suns was number one in January of 2008 after thirty-two weeks on the hardcover list and, by May 2008, after forty-nine weeks on the list, it was at number fifteen. In mid-January 2009 after coming out in paperback, A Thousand Splendid Suns was number two on the New York Times paperback best sellers list (New York Times Book Review 2009). The Kite Runner was awarded the Penguin/Orange Broadband Reader’s Prize as the most popular reading group pick in the United Kingdom in 2006, 2007, and 2008. In 2008, A Thousand Splendid Suns came in second to The Kite Runner. In August 2007, Library Journal noted that both of Hosseini’s novels were among the most borrowed library books, with A Thousand Splendid Suns coming in at number one and The Kite Runner coming in at number three. A Thousand Splendid Suns was still on the list in June of 2008. As of July 2008, The Kite Runner was at number eight on Publishers Weekly’s best seller list after 197 weeks on the list. With the paperback due out in November 2008, A Thousand Splendid Suns was on the Publishers Weekly list for forty-eight weeks, with eleven weeks at number one. On January 19, 2009, the paperback was at number ten on Publishers Weekly’s trade paperback list. In December 2007, Erika Milvy 79
wrote that The Kite Runner had sold 8 million copies and had been translated into forty languages. Boyd Tonkin of The Independent wrote that by April 2008, ‘‘The Kite Runner had been published in 138 countries, translated into 42 languages . . . and sold more than 10 million copies.’’
NOT POP
Khaled Hosseini’s book The Kite Runner has been a phenomenal success, A Thousand Splendid Suns has done well for the author and his publisher, and Hosseini fans are passionate about their love for this author’s works. Nevertheless, these books do not lend themselves to commercialization, spinoffs, clothing, or gift shop items. Even the film had a limited release and was not by any means a blockbuster. Its total worldwide gross, according to Box Office Mojo, came to $73,193,878 as of its closing date in April 2008. What is it about these books that has touched off such a torrent of reading and devotion from readers of all ages? When asked this question, Hosseini emphasizes the love story characteristics of both of his novels, and the universal appeal of stories about human connections. Along with the attraction of themes that ring true to a wide variety of readers, The Kite Runner is a novel that can be called a page-turner. Readers note that they stayed up all night reading it, or admit that they were never readers until they read this book and then read The Kite Runner five times in a row. Add to these two factors the fact that with both of his novels, Hosseini offers to his readers a rare and rich insight into Afghanistan during a time of U.S. military involvement in the country and you may begin to explain the popular and commercial success of these novels. The Kite Runner has become its own category of popular culture.
Nauroz, or Farmer’s Day, is celebrated according to the Afghan calendar on March 21. It is a celebration of spring and the beginning of the new year. A day of festivities, people dress up in colorful clothes, plant trees, men play Buzkashi (similar to a no-holds-barred polo match with a goat carcass instead of a ball), and children and adults participate in kite-flying competitions. Haft mewa, or seven fruits, is a traditional new year’s dish made up of walnuts, almonds, pistachios, dried apricots, red and green raisins, and sanjet (seeds from the mountain ash).
Pop Culture in Khaled Hosseini’s Work
CELEBRITY: HOSSEINI
Both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns deal with issues of war, discrimination, abuse, and good and bad family relationships. Hosseini’s official Web site and accompanying blog are good examples of the kind of atmosphere in which Hosseini fans find themselves immersed. Hosseini devotes a significant amount of space in his blog to discussing conditions in Afghanistan. His post of October 11, 2008, is titled ‘‘Optimism or Pessimism—Thoughts on Afghanistan’s Future.’’ In this entry he spells out the dire conditions in Afghanistan, including increasing death tolls of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians, and conditions of increasing poverty, unemployment, and homelessness. He calls for continued U.S. commitment and focus in Afghanistan. In March 2008, he blogs about the National Geographic Exhibition: Afghanistan, Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul. That same month, he refers to his Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he calls for amnesty for the young Afghan journalism student Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, who has been sentenced to death for downloading and distributing an article determined by the Afghan courts to be insulting to Islam. In his November 2008 post, Hosseini thanks his fans and in particular his publisher, Riverhead Press, for donating money to fund a new school. They donated money on behalf of all the booksellers, librarians, and educators who supported The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and built a primary school in Arababshirali, in northern Afghanistan. The school, which will benefit 270 students, will be a sanctuary of hope and happiness for many children.
Toward the bottom of this entry, Hosseini mentions the progress of the production of the film version of A Thousand Splendid Suns, but that is as ‘‘pop’’ as his blog gets. Hosseini has a unique place in American fiction and is perhaps the only author coming out of the Afghan diaspora writing fiction in English. He is immersed in both the culture of the United States and Afghanistan and is fluent in both languages. This, combined with Afghanistan’s place in world events, has contributed to Hosseini’s celebrity status and to the interest that the media has had in his books. The interviews and publicity have helped to spread word of his novels to a wide reading public. Named Humanitarian of the Year and appointed as Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Hosseini has
used his celebrity status to keep his reading public informed about and aware of issues related to the well-being of the country of Afghanistan and its people. Hosseini, with his thoughtful and informed vision, has done more than just draw attention to Afghanistan, he has provided a three-dimensional look at the country that is neither sentimental nor hysterical, that neither condones nor fully rejects the distinctive characteristics of the multiplicity of Afghan culture.
BEST SELLERS Western Interpretations of Afghanistan It is evident that many readers are thirsting to increase their understanding of Afghanistan. Since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the sudden emphasis on conditions there, especially that of girls and women, publishers have quickly sought to release books that respond to this interest. As of mid-October 2008, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time (2006) by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin was number one on the New York Times Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers list comfortably completing its eighty-eighth week there. This autobiography has generated an illustrated children’s book, Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and illustrated by Susan L. Roth (New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009) and a young readers edition, Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, and adapted for young readers by Sarah L. Thomson (New York: Puffin Books/Dial Books for Young Readers, 2009). Three Cups of Tea is the story of mountain climber Greg Mortenson and his work with Pakistani and Afghan villagers to build schools. Travel writer Rory Stewart’s The Places in Between (2006) was a best seller and chosen as one of the New York Times top ten books of 2006. It tells the story of Stewart’s walk on foot across Afghanistan just months after the fall of the Taliban. Stewart uses as his guide the fabled Moghul emperor Babur’s own account of his travels across the country. Deborah Rodriguez has written up her experiences working for an aid organization and independently as a cosmetologist in Kabul in her popular work Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil (2007). Rodriguez’s book was number ten on the New York Times list in April of 2007 and its film version is scheduled for release in 2010. ˚ sne Seierstad (2003) is another book that The Bookseller of Kabul by A has had wide appeal among U.S. readers and is an international
best seller. In October 2005, while The Kite Runner was at number two on the New York Times Paperback Fiction Best Sellers list for its fiftyfifth week, Bookseller was at number eight in its forty-third week on the Nonfiction Paperback Best Seller list. This book by Danish journalist Seierstad looks at Afghanistan through her interpretation of the home life and practices of one Afghan family. These books all look at Afghanistan and its culture through a Western lens. Some of the writers are more sensitive than others in acknowledging the cultural baggage that they bring to their interpretation. In fact, the subject of Seierstad’s book wrote his own story as a rebuttal to what he found to be her gross misrepresentation of him and his family. That book, Once Upon a Time There Was a Bookseller in Kabul by Shah Muhammad Rais and published by Rais in Kabul (2007), is, unfortunately, not widely available in the United States.
The Perspective of Afghan Emigr es Three works by writers with Afghan roots have appeared since the U.S. invasion. Published before Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, Mir Tamim Ansary documents his sojourn to rediscover the country of his birth and happy childhood. His father remained in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion, whereas Ansary, his mother, and siblings moved to the United States. As a young adult, Ansary set out to reconnect with his roots. After September 11 he endeavored to present a more balanced view of the country and so he wrote his memoir. His book, West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story (2002), is a book that will appeal to Hosseini fans. The Sleeping Buddha: The Story of Afghanistan through the Eyes of One Family (2007) is Canadian journalist Hamida Ghafour’s story of going to Afghanistan on assignment in 2003. This visit was her first return to her native country since leaving as a small child with her family in 1981. Ghafour tells the story of her Afghan heritage along with the history of the country itself. She provides one of the more balanced views of the chadari (or as it is usually referred to, the burqa) and its history and place in Afghan society. She notes, very much as Hosseini does, that the priorities for Afghan women are ‘‘safety and finding food to feed their families’’ (14) and that, without the anonymity provided by the chadari, women are not safe. Finally, although born in the United States, American teenager Said Hyder Akbar is a first-generation American whose family maintained close ties with important Mujahideen leaders throughout the period of Soviet occupation, ensuing civil war, and Taliban occupation. He details his time in Afghanistan as he accompanies his father who serves with
the post-Taliban, post-U.S. invasion government. Akbar’s book, Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story (2005), began as a radio documentary for the public radio program This American Life. Akbar arrives in Afghanistan ready to claim his identity as a citizen of Afghanistan.
Personal Testimony of Afghan Women Some discussion, primarily in academic circles, has been critical of the U.S. obsession with the burqa and the reliance on it as a pervasive symbol of women’s oppression in Afghanistan. In particular, some scholars have criticized what they see as Western feminists’ ethnocentric appropriation of the burqa as the defining feature of Afghan women’s oppression. Some would say that Western feminists and Western media are coaching or encouraging Afghan women to use the burqa as a symbol that will be especially riveting or appealing to Western audiences (Whitlock 2005). As is discussed in more detail in chapter 5 (‘‘Today’s Issues in Khaled Hosseini’s Work’’), Hosseini’s characters see both good and bad in the burqa. While it is a physically challenging garment to wear and to move about in, both Laila and Mariam find comfort in the anonymity it provides. Mariam, early in her marriage, sees it as a sign of Rasheed’s regard for her. The popular obsession with this particular item of clothing can be seen in some of the memoirs and films that have appeared since September 11. This representation of the head-to-toe covering known as a burqa is an essential feature in the marketing and content of some recent memoirs by Afghan women and to a lesser extent Afghan American women since 2001. In fact, the memoirs appearing on the shelves of bookstores and online shops are almost exclusively by women. Hosseini, Ansary, and Akbar are the few Afghan men making their voices heard at the present time. Nelofer Pazira is a filmmaker and journalist who grew up and lived in Kabul until 1989. Her memoir, A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of My Afghanistan (2005), covers her time growing up in Afghanistan, her family’s escape to Pakistan and then Canada, and her return to Afghanistan. She also documents the making of the film Kandahar, in which she starred and which is based on her return to Afghanistan to search for a childhood friend. This Iranian-made film makes extensive use of the visual imagery of the burqa, as worn by Pazira as she attempts to fit in and by local women as they walk from place to place. In An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey (1996; reissued 2004), Farooka Gauhari, a former teacher at Kabul University, tells the story of her carefree childhood, marriage, and family life before the Communist coup of 1978. Her husband was arrested following the coup and was never seen or
Some terms of common Afghan clothing: Hijab: Hijab is an Arabic term for body covering. In general, it is a headcover used by women in the Islamic world. Commonly mistaken as merely a veil, the hijab serves a larger purpose in representing a woman’s Islamic identity and morality. It can be compared in Christianity to the nun’s habit. The complex ways in which this headcover is worn can communicate social status and kinship. Burqa: The burqa is described in Hosseini’s novel as a complete headto-toe covering worn by Muslim women, by choice, religious custom, at the insistence of a husband, and during certain times, as required by law. During times of political and social modernization, women in Afghanistan were encouraged to refrain from covering their heads, either with a headscarf or with a burqa. Modernization that included more freedom for women to work outside the home or attend school and to go in public without covering has met with resistance and led to rebellion especially outside of the larger cities. Although Hosseini uses the word burqa, chadhari is the more common Afghan term for this item of clothing. Caracul cap: This is a hat made of the wool of the caracul (or karakul) sheep. Hosseini notes that Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, is known for wearing the caracul cap. The hat is peaked and looks something like a cadet’s hat or cook’s paper cap. Pakol cap: This is a cap commonly worn in Afghanistan and known outside of Afghanistan as an Afghan hat. It is a round wool cap, with the brim rolled to make an appropriate fit. Chapan: This is an Uzbek-style coat worn over clothing. It can be made in a variety of colors and is often decorated with elaborate embroidery.
heard from again. Her book documents the plight of her family and her search for her husband. She presents a counterrepresentation of the burqa (or the veil, as she calls it) in her memoir, which was published before the rise of the Taliban and before the burqa had become the iconic symbol of female oppression. Gauhari was a university-educated woman living in Kabul and she taught at Kabul University until her departure from Afghanistan. She describes the social significance of the burqa for Kabul women: ‘‘To an outsider, a veil looked like a veil, nothing important to it. But to those of us who wore it there were big differences. Some veils were chic and stylish, with special shorter cap designs. Veils also differed in the
fineness of the mesh, the quality of the material, and the way the numerous pleats were set, narrow pleats being considered more stylish than wide ones’’ (14). In fact, she and her friends ‘‘came to find it not so bad. Under cover, our inner childish feelings came out, released from outside social pressures’’ (14). She considered it to be ‘‘a sign of respect, of growing up and womanhood’’ (15). The cornucopia of publications by and about Afghan women appearing since September 11 evidences the popular interest in this topic and the rush of publishers to satisfy the reading public. Some of these recent publications include Masuda Sultan’s My War at Home (2006); Maryan Qudrat Aseel’s Torn Between Two Cultures: An Afghan-American Woman Speaks Out (2003); Farah Ahmedi’s (with Mir Tamim Ansary), The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky (2005); Siba Shakib’s Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep (2002); Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom written with John Follain and Rita Cristofari (2002); My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman’s Story, the Autobiography of Latifa written with Chekeba Hachemi (2001); and Melody Chavis’s Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan: The Martyr Who Founded RAWA, The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (2003). Some of these works are described in chapter 9, ‘‘What Do I Read Next?’’
THE MOVIES Forbidden but Popular Film is important in both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Although Afghanistan’s film industry has been tiny, producing, according to Tom Vick, ‘‘forty-odd movies between the early 1950s and the rise of the Taliban in the late 1990s’’ (245), it has an important place in Afghan popular culture. Hosseini’s The Kite Runner characters are fans of The Magnificent Seven, John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and Clint Eastwood. They spend afternoons at Cinema Park in Kabul. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam’s father runs the local cinema in Herat. On her birthday, Pinocchio is playing at the cinema and her father leaves a videotape of Pinocchio for Mariam, symbolizing his remorse and regret at having abandoned her. Later, Mariam and Laila find comfort, along with many others in Kabul, through watching the movie The Titanic (1997). In fact the market, located in the dry riverbed in Kabul is known as Titanic City. The Taliban banned this film along with other forms of visual representation and many forms of entertainment, including kite
Jalil tells Mariam that his cinema is showing Pinocchio. Later, even during the Taliban’s rule, The Titanic became an obsession, at least in Kabul. Mariam and Laila play Titanic games with the children. Although Afghanistan produces little of its own cinema, it is a popular form of entertainment. Videos were sold on the black market and passed along from person to person during the Taliban period.
flying. After the ban, many films were destroyed, but just as the citizens of Kabul sequestered televisions and videotapes, Laila and Mariam secretly own a television set and videos. They bury their television in the backyard and bring it out to watch The Titanic. In fact there was, and perhaps continues to be, a deep attachment for all things Titanic in Kabul. In November 2000, The Guardian reported, ‘‘Titanic fever has gripped Kabul.’’ Despite the fact that the Taliban had banned all movies, television, and music, underground video shops continued to thrive. Bollywood and action films were the usual top sellers, but suddenly Titanic was the runaway bestseller. In the dry Kabul riverbed, the bazaar, which came to be known as Titanic City, offered many items, including shoes, perfume, lipstick, and even rice, with the images from Titanic incorporated into the packaging (‘‘Taliban: No Subversive Gateaux’’). In January 2001, Melbourne’s Herald Sun reported that the Taliban religious police had arrested and jailed twenty-two barbers for offering Leonardo DiCaprio, or Jack, hairstyles. The hairstyle includes floppy bangs, known as ‘‘Titanics,’’ which were forbidden because hair on the forehead interferes with prayer (‘‘Barbers of Kabul Clipped’’). In June 2002, after the U.S. invasion and the removal of the Taliban from Kabul, Robyn Dixon reported that Titanic fever was in full gear, with Titanic cakes making their reappearance after having also been banned by the Taliban. Dixon said that even after film and television were banned by the Taliban government, ‘‘most people in the Afghan capital watched pirated copies of ‘Titanic’ at home on their illegal VCRs’’ (Dixon). Dixon reported seeing posters of Kate and Leo embracing in the windows of shops all over Kabul. She visited one bakery where a fourman team, including a cake engineer, completed a 132-pound cake designed to look like a ship. Besides cakes, said Dixon, ‘‘The bazaars are full of Titanic shampoo, Titanic perfumes, Titanic vests, belts, shoes, pants and chewing gum. Souvenir shops sell Titanic mosaics with the ship laid out in lapis lazuli. . . . Young women buy cheap postcards of the
‘Titanic’ stars, printed in Pakistan’’ (Dixon). Afghan film director Siddiq Barmak explains why he believes Titanic is so popular among Kabul’s residents: Titanic is a great human interest story. People here compare their fate to the story of the Titanic. There’s a ship which sails out and the passengers have a common grief which embraces all their lives. And the people on the ship want to save themselves from their misfortune. I think there is a lot in common with the fate of Afghanistan and the Titanic. We’re looking for a way to rescue ourselves. (Dixon, A:3)
In 2003, The Los Angeles Times’ Kim Barker was still able to report the presence of Titanic fever in Kabul. She noted that, in general, the film goers of Kabul prefer Indian- and American-made action films, but that Titanic continued to be a favorite, and in fact, she wrote that it is ‘‘a way of life’’ (Barker)—from Leo’s bangs to Celine Dion’s rendition of ‘‘My Heart Will Go On.’’ Barker noted the availability of such products as Titanic Mosquito Killer, Havoc on Titanic Perfume Body Spray, Titanic Making Love Ecstasy Perfume Body Spray, Just Call Me Maxi Titanic Perfume; Titanic brand toothpaste, facial powder, shampoo, and henna; clothing with Titanic images; and large items, from cucumbers to thick-soled shoes, designated as Titanic. Barker quoted Ali Ahmad who told her, ‘‘The story is good. It’s a real story. That’s why people still like it. And the love parts—that’s what we like’’ (Barker). Young Afghan actress Marina Golbahari has said that the only film she saw before starring in Siddiq Barmak’s film Osama was Titanic, explaining that she ‘‘liked the sinking scene’’ (Meo).
Filming The Kite Runner The Kite Runner film appeared in December 2007 after its release was postponed one month to make it possible to remove the two young male stars and their families out of Afghanistan and to another country. The filmmakers had reason to believe that there would be anger among some Afghans because of the rape scene in the film. All involved claim to have had no idea that violence against the children might be a problem. In a 2007 interview with Cynthia McFadden of ABC’s Nightline, Hosseini points out that his book had been out for several years and he has never received a death threat. Although he had heard some complaints about how he represented the condition of the Hazara in Afghanistan, he has received many more positive responses than complaints from members
The Kite Runner Film Details Director: Marc Forster Producers: William Horberg, Walter F. Parkes, Rebecca Yeldham, E. Bennett Walsh Screenwriter: David Benioff Actors: Khalid Abdalla (Adult Amir), Atoss Leoni (Soraya), Homyoun Ershadi (Baba), Zekiria Ebrahimi (Young Amir), Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada (Young Hassan), Shaun Toub (Rahim Khan), Nabi Tanha (Ali), Ali Danish Bakhtyari (Sohrab), and Said Taghmaoui (Farid). The two young male actors, Zekiria Ebrahimi playing Amir and Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada playing Hassan, both won Best Performance in an International Feature Film—Leading Young Performer from the Young Artist Awards. Mahmoodzada also won the Critics Choice Award for best young actor from the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards. The soundtrack was nominated for five awards, including an Oscar, and was awarded the Satellite Award for best original score. The film also received the Christopher Award for feature film.
of the Afghan community in the United States and abroad. Those involved with making the film have said they had no idea that the children would be endangered by their participation in the film. Forster and Hosseini also point out in the McFadden interview that Kabul is a violent place and people face violence and danger there everyday. It is possible to construe that the boys and their families are better off living elsewhere for the time being, but Forster and Hosseini hold out hope that the boys and their families will be able to return to Afghanistan at a future date. The film has been received with mixed reviews. Some reviewers have praised the film’s beautiful cinematography and the director’s careful attention to detail. The cast, which includes two native Afghan children with no previous acting experience, and the British Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla, who learned Farsi (one of the five languages used in the film) for his role as the adult Amir, has been lauded. David Benioff’s screenplay has received approval for its faithfulness to the plot and spirit of the novel. The two young male actors and the score have won international film industry awards. On the other hand, the film has been criticized for its slow pace and overly quiet presentation, sentimentality, and excessive villainy, and for the minor changes that were made to the
plot (despite its mostly faithful rendition). Hosseini, who claims to have left the filmmaking to the filmmakers, expresses deep satisfaction with the film. The film was released on digital video in March 2008.
Made in Afghanistan Few films have come out of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. Osama, directed by Afghan director Siddiq Barmak in 2002, was the first feature film to appear by an Afghan director after the U.S. invasion. It had wide release in the United States and received numerous awards. This film, set during the Taliban era, is a tragic drama about a young girl who is forced by her mother and grandmother to dress as a boy so that she can find work and feed the family. Kandahar (2001), another well-received feature film, was directed by Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. He also directed the documentary An Afghan Alphabet (2005), and his daughter Samira Makhmalbaf directed the film At Five in the Afternoon (2003), which was filmed in Afghanistan after the departure of the Taliban. Western directors have focused on the women of Afghanistan. Liz Mermin’s The Beauty Academy of Kabul (2006) follows a group of American women, including several Afghan emigres, who travel to Afghanistan to set up a beauty school. This film depicts the cultural barriers Westerners face rushing into a culture they know little about regardless of good intentions. Beth Murphy’s Beyond Belief (2006) is a film about two women whose husbands were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center and their mission to raise money for widows in Afghanistan. Robin Benger’s Daughters of Afghanistan (2004) is a highly politicized film about women in different walks of life in Afghanistan. This documentary is especially noteworthy for the special features included on the digital video, which includes an extensive interview with Nasrine Gross, an Afghan American woman knowledgeable and comfortable with both U.S. and Afghan culture, and interviews with the former and present ministers of women’s affairs, Dr. Sima Samar and Habibi Serabi. Motherland Afghanistan (2007) is directed by Sedika Mojadidi, an Afghan American filmmaker. Mojadidi travels with her father and mother to Afghanistan. Once there, she follows her father, filming him as he treats female patients at different medical clinics. Afghan Stories (2002), directed by Taran Davies and Walied Osman, candidly depicts the lives of a handful of individuals shortly after the U.S. invasion. In Davies’s film, men are given a voice as well as women. An outlier in this selection of films is the mainstream feature film, Mike Nichols’s Charlie Wilson’s War (2007). Based on the book
A Thousand Splendid Suns Film Details Expected release: TBA Director: Steven Zaillian Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian Executive Producer: Scott Rudin Distributor: Sony Pictures Production Company: Scott Rudin Productions Hosseini wrote in his blog, March 31, 2008, that the ‘‘matters of casting, location, and language have not been decided.’’ In his November 28, 2008, post he wrote, ‘‘A first draft of the script is done and the search is on for a director. When there are more updates, I will post them here.’’
by George Crile (2003), it tells the story of the Texas congressman Charlie Wilson, who during the early 1980s makes the case for the United States to arm the Afghan Mujahideen in their war against the Soviet Union.
CONCLUSION Although Hosseini began work on The Kite Runner long before the devastating and world-changing attacks on September 11, 2001, and, thus, was not intentionally part of the resulting rush to portray Afghanistan and its people, his novel has become part of this trend in film and publishing. Hosseini, though, offers one of the few independent Afghan perspectives and, at this time, he is the only Afghan writing in English to use fiction to convey his message. Conscious of his status as an immigrant and as a doctor and novelist, Hosseini is careful to point out his lack of expertise in foreign affairs or nation-building. He has, however, taken advantage of his high profile and continues to keep the condition and needs of Afghanistan, as well as the needs of refugees from other countries, at the center of his message to his many loyal fans. He has used his celebrity status to recommend books that present themes that are similar to those in his novels and that communicate messages consistent with his own message about the importance of human courage and the power of love.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • Describe what you think of as the appeal of Hosseini’s novels. How has he reached such a wide audience around the world? • What elements of plot and action do Titanic, the film, and The Kite Runner, the book, share? Why might they both be popular in Afghanistan and in the United States? • Laila and Mariam go to great lengths to keep their television safe. What place does this piece of equipment have in their lives and why? • How do you see Hosseini’s novels fitting into the books coming out on Afghanistan? In what ways do they stand out as unique? • How do Hosseini’s novels reflect contemporary American popular culture? • Can you imagine reading these books twenty-five years from now? What about 100 years from now? How might your impression of and reaction to these novels change over time? • Compare one or both of Hosseini’s novels to a novel written in the nineteenth century or the early part of the twentieth century that reflects the political and social situation of its time. For instance, compare Hosseini’s novels to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, or Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, or Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Why are these books still read today? • Talk about the movie The Kite Runner. Did you watch it in the movie theater or on video? What were your impressions? How well did it represent your interpretation of the novel? Did any of your thoughts about the plot or characters change after seeing the film? • What do you imagine will be the difficulties in creating a film adaptation of A Thousand Splendid Suns?
7 KHALED HOSSEINI ON THE INTERNET
Searching the name ‘‘khaled hosseini’’ on the Web produces more than two million results, including a Wikipedia entry, YouTube videos, radio broadcasts, print and online magazine and journal articles, book review sites, book store sites, and a literature map of what Hosseini readers read (they read everything from Ann Coulter to Rabindranath Tagore). Add the phrase ‘‘kite runner’’ to that search and the results narrow to just over 800,000. Swap out ‘‘kite runner’’ for the phrase ‘‘thousand splendid suns’’ and there are fewer than 600,000 results to sort through. Amidst this flotsam and jetsam on the Web, at least a few solid sites featuring Hosseini and his novels are worth exploring.
THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE Appearing high on the lists for ‘‘khaled hosseini,’’ ‘‘khaled hosseini kite runner,’’ and ‘‘khaled hosseini thousand splendid suns’’ is Hosseini’s official publisher-sponsored Web site (http://www.khaledhosseini. com/). This should be the first stop for any reader wanting to know more about the author and his books from the author’s point of view. In response to questions from readers, Hosseini has made a series of podcasts, which are linked on the first page of the official site (follow ‘‘Listen to Podcasts’’). There is also a link to information about the Khaled Hosseini Foundation. Delving more deeply into the official site, there are opportunities to purchase the novels, sign and leave comments 93
at Hosseini’s guest book, and read his blog or his latest newsletter. Hosseini takes the opportunity to recommend books and authors to his fan base. He has named What Is the What, a memoir-novel about one of the Lost Boys of Sudan by Dave Eggers, as his favorite book of the decade (March 2008 blog posting). The site is divided into pages that present a brief biography, a contact page, a sign-up page to receive news, and information for the media. The ‘‘Books’’ page includes links to ‘‘learn more’’ about each title. That link takes readers to a selection of reviews, a question and answer page with answers provided by Hosseini, and discussion questions. Perhaps the most valuable and interesting part of this site is Hosseini’s blog. As mentioned elsewhere in this book, Hosseini devotes a significant amount of space in his blog to discussing conditions and events in Afghanistan. A newsletter started during the ‘‘2nd quarter of 2009’’ includes Hosseini’s recommended books and films as well as news, ideas, and responses to readers’ questions.
REVIEW SITES
Further down the list of search results there are a variety of sites that provide book reviews, author interviews, and biographical or related information about Hosseini.
Academy of Achievement The Academy of Achievement (http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/ page/hos0pro-1) has prepared a nice site to recognize Khaled Hosseini. He was inducted into the academy as a ‘‘storytelling phenomenon’’ in 2008. This site was last updated in September 2008 and features a more extensive biography than that available at the official Web site, an interview, a profile of Hosseini’s novels, and a photo gallery.
New York Times The New York Times has a wonderful feature that creates an archive of selected articles on popular topics. It can be searched by a name or topic directly at the New York Times Web site (http://nytimes.com) or readers can go directly to the Hosseini archive (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/ reference/timestopics/people/h/khaled_hosseini/index.html). The archive includes articles and reviews from the New York Times and the ‘‘editor’s pick’’ of sites on the Web. New York Times articles cover both novels, as well as The Kite Runner film and its controversy. Most articles are fully
Khaled Hosseini on the Internet
available, but if not, readers are provided with the title, date, lead paragraph, and link to the full article, which is available for a fee or through local public or academic library collections. Outside resources include National Public Radio broadcasts and articles from other media sources such as Time magazine and Salon. All of these articles are linked for direct online access.
Time Time magazine includes a link to its 2008 one hundred most influential people (http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_ 1733752_1735971,00.html). Khaled Hosseini is No. 66 in this list and former First Lady Laura Bush has written the article on him. Former First Lady Bush commended Hosseini not only for his success as a published author but also for changing the world with his work. In particular, she emphasized, he has given a face to the women ‘‘under the burqas’’ and given his readers the means to ‘‘look beyond the post-9/11 stereotypes’’ of Afghanistan. In addition she believed his novels have universal appeal through their complex presentation of human nature. She wrote, ‘‘In more than 40 languages, readers everywhere can recognize the best and worst in humanity in his characters— often in the same person.’’
Word Press The Word Press blog (http://wordpress.com/tag/khaled-hosseini/) takes readers to a list of personal blog entries on Hosseini found throughout the Word Press site. Readers provide a wide range of comments from the trivial to the thoughtful, both positive and negative.
Fantastic Fiction Fantastic Fiction provides ‘‘bibliographies for over 15,000 authors’’ (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/khaled-hosseini/) and makes available basic information about the featured author. Fantastic Fiction has the unique feature of listing books recommended by their authors along with a brief justification. This site is updated on a regular basis. Hosseini’s recommendations reflect themes from his own works: war, the human spirit, rising above adversity. He recommends books that suit his taste for a good story. He recommends Anthony Flacco’s Tiny Dancer: The Incredible True Story of a Young Burn Survivor’s Journey from Afghanistan (2005), Erika Mailman’s Witch’s Trinity (2007), Dinaw Mingestu’s Children of the Revolution (2007), Abolqasem Ferdowsi’s Rostam: Tales of Love and War from Persia’s Book of Kings (2007),
Steven Galloway’s Cellist of Sarajevo (2008), a collection of stories by debut writer Sana Krasikov, One More Year (2008), and Nafisi Haji’s The Writing on My Forehead (2009).
ReviewsofBooks.com ReviewsofBooks.com (http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/kite_runner/; http:// www.reviewsofbooks.com/thousand_splendid_suns/) links to freely available reviews of substance. As of January 2009, the site listed eight reviews for The Kite Runner and ten for A Thousand Splendid Suns. Most of the reviews are from newspapers. ReviewsofBooks.com also provides a summary of the novel reviewed.
Barnes & Noble Hosseini’s page on Barnes & Noble: Meet the Writers (http://www. barnesandnoble.com/writers/writerdetails.asp?cid=1145572) includes a brief biography, fun facts or trivia, and, most interesting, a list of his top ten favorite novels and favorite films and his 2004 summer reading list. Each recommendation includes a brief reason as to why Hosseini has chosen it. Unlike the list at Fantastic Fiction, all of which are contemporary publications, the books at the Barnes & Noble site are ‘‘all time favorites.’’ Hosseini’s list includes the well-known classics Animal Farm by George Orwell, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. More contemporary works include The God of Small Things (1997) by Arundhati Roy, The Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel, I Know This Much Is True (1998) by Wally Lamb, which Hosseini notes explores themes of ‘‘[t]roubled love between brothers, regret, overpowering fathers, and the human need for redemption and freedom from the burden of one’s own past,’’ themes that are also central to The Kite Runner. His favorite films include The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Magnificent Seven, Fargo, Lawrence of Arabia, Godfather I and II, and Pulp Fiction. Hosseini is a reader as well as a writer and his long list of 2004 summer reading included thrillers, history, and literary fiction by, among other authors, Wally Lamb, Ha Jin, Mir Tamim Ansary, Jhumpa Lahiri, Stephen King, John Irving, and Z. Z. Packer.
FAN SITES Beyond the official Web site where it is possible to leave comments and questions for Hosseini, both MySpace and Facebook have fan sites.
MySpace MySpace.com has an extensive list of sites. If readers search ‘‘kite runner fan site’’ they get one hundred pages or more than seventy-five thousand possibilities ranging from video sites to a fan site for the lead actor from The Kite Runner film, Khalid Abdalla, to a site for Refugee International, and the usual spoofs and homegrown videos. At the top of the list are two sites for The Kite Runner fans that may warrant a visit. The Latino companion to this popular networking site features a fan site for The Kite Runner, http://latino.myspace.com/kiterunnerfansite, which includes some Spanish language information and excerpts (primarily in English) from reviews, a summary of the book and film, and some video. The U.S. MySpace.com site features the ‘‘The Official MySpace Kite Runner Fan Site’’ (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user. viewprofile&friendid=221979161), which includes, among other things, videos, a blog, and a fan space. As of January 2009, there appeared to be no fan sites specifically for Khaled Hosseini or A Thousand Splendid Suns on MySpace.com.
Facebook A search of Facebook, http://www.facebook.com, brings up three pages of Hosseini fan clubs. Facebook started out exclusively as a college site, but has since expanded to allow anyone to join. Because of its more selective origins, it is a uniform and orderly, consistent, and easy-to-navigate site. There is a standard appearance and arrangement for just about every site on Facebook, so readers do not have the garish colors, the slow-to-load videos, and flashing gimmickry that are at MySpace. There are 800 (and increasing) members of the ‘‘Khaled Hosseini Fan Club,’’ and the site offers some links to news stories and a discussion board. Another ‘‘Hosseini Fan Club’’ has 27 members, one called ‘‘Mr. Khaled Hosseini’’ has more than four hundred members, and another has over 8,000. Searching by the names of the novels will also bring up fan groups. Each of these groups allows readers to join and share comments with other fans. MySpace and Facebook are both social networking sites. To make the most of these sites, registration is necessary. Registration is free as is signing on to any fan group. Although younger Internet users frequent these sites, adults also use these sites and make use of the networking features offered.
THE KITE RUNNER FILM OFFICIAL SITE The official film site for The Kite Runner (http://www.kiterunnermovie. com/) provides information about the movie. It includes links for several
‘‘chapters’’ in the movie, although these are image-intensive pages that have more of an aesthetic appeal than substance. A page entitled ‘‘Fly Your Kite: Be Good Again’’ invites the viewer to reconcile or reconnect with someone from the past. When viewers click on one of the kites flying around the page, they see a message that someone has written to someone else. Readers can create their own kite messages by writing a message and include their e-mail address and the e-mail address of the person to whom they are sending the message. Messages are in multiple languages. Other pages at the site provide video segments of the film, the original trailer, a ‘‘behind the scenes’’ view of the film, a place to download wallpapers and icons, a link to a club with a group blog, and a link to ‘‘other groups.’’ Most of what is on the club site is no longer valid and was intended to create interest in the film.
Podcasts, videos, and interview transcripts are widely available on the Web for those with ample Internet access and a certain amount of patience for downloading.
FLP Podcast The Free Library of Philadelphia offers podcasts to their author events. On May 24, 2007, Khaled Hosseini was the guest author at the Free Library. The podcast for his presentation is available at http://libwww. freelibrary.org/podcast/index.cfm?podcastID=15. Podcasts for many interesting and well-known authors are available at this site. Readers can subscribe through iTunes at no charge.
Learn Out Loud Learn Out Loud (http://www.learnoutloud.com/Results/Author/KhaledHosseini/7029) provides access to free and fee-based audio resources. A search of Khaled Hosseini brings up opportunities to purchase audio versions of his novels and two free resources. These resources include a free podcast of ‘‘Understanding Afghanistan’’ (Sunday, September 26, 2004), which is a 54-minute presentation described as ‘‘a look into the sociopolitical climate in Afghanistan and the Afghan community in Northern California. See Afghanistan through the eyes of a native, and hear the stories that come from this ancient culture.’’ This event was recorded live at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The second podcast features a 50-minute interview of Hosseini with Susanne Pari, Iranian-American author, presented by FORA.tv.
Podcast from the Library of Congress Hosseini discusses his childhood and The Kite Runner on a podcast from the Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/2006/pod/hosseini pod.html).
Borders Media Book Cub Borders Media Book Club includes a 50-minute-plus video of a book club session with Hosseini (http://www.bordersmedia.com/bookclub/ hosseini). Book club members discuss the book with Hosseini, and he answers their questions. The entire video recording can be downloaded or watched chapter by chapter. There are eleven chapters in all. In this podcast, author and participants discuss both novels. Hosseini provides background, shares information about his family and his childhood, and elaborates on his view of the current and future state of Afghanistan. In all of his interviews and presentations, Hosseini presents himself consistently. He is frequently asked about whether or not his first novel is autobiographical. To this question, he responds that the Kabul he writes about is the Kabul of his childhood memories, but he and Amir are not the same person. Similarly, he is asked about his childhood in Afghanistan, and he elaborates to a greater or lesser extent on this, but will often tell the story of teaching his family’s Hazara cook how to read and his slow realization that some people were constrained to certain roles because of conditions beyond their control. He talks about his view of conditions in Afghanistan, always noting that his point of view is personal and that he is not speaking as an authority. He talks about his experience of beginning high school in Northern California with no understanding of English. He shares his literary influences, his writing practices, and the origins of his novels. He discusses his recent trips back to Afghanistan and describes his work with the United Nations. Hosseini focuses on the human aspects of his novels and, connected to this, encourages readers to look at the people and conditions of Afghanistan from a human and humanitarian perspective. He never deviates from his claim that he writes old-fashioned stories about love and relationships, and that this is the secret to his novels’ broad appeal. Afghanistan and its tragic past, however, are always at the center of all that Hosseini talks about. It is clear that he seeks to use whatever means he has to make sure that people are aware of the continuing crisis there and, in this way, as well as through his work with the United Nations, Hosseini strives to aid his native country in its recovery process. Finally, Hosseini often devotes time to talking about the condition of women in Afghanistan, which he has so graphically portrayed in A
Thousand Splendid Suns. Hosseini is quick to dispel notions that ‘‘all’’ Afghan men are Rasheeds or Taliban. He also points to the basic needs that many Afghan women have and that these needs—including health care, food, shelter, and safety for them and for their children—far outweigh any detrimental effects of the pervasive and strict social conventions under which Afghan women conduct their lives.
LEARNING MORE
Several Web sites provide readers with opportunities to learn more about Afghanistan.
Kabulpress.org This newsletter out of Afghanistan (http://kabulpress.org/my/spip.php? rubrique60) condemns censorship and has a prominent connection to Afghan PEN and Raha PEN. This site has stories printed in both English and Dari. Raha PEN is an association for independent writers from all parts of the globe. It supports the freedom to speak, read, and write in all formats and genres and about all creative and theoretical subjects without censorship (see http://rahapen.org). Afghan PEN was founded in Stockholm in 1997 as a means to organize and publish writers from Afghanistan without faction and under a common belief in the importance of the written word (see http://www.farda.org/english/index.html). Both PEN associations derive from International PEN, founded in 1921 as an international literary and human rights organization. It has consultative status at UNESCO and the United Nations and its published goal is to ‘‘engage with, and empower, societies and communities across cultures and languages, through reading and writing’’ (see http://www. internationalpen.org.uk/go/home).
Afghana! Afghan Web Directory The Afghana! Afghan Web Directory (http://www.afghana.com/) provides links to everything from postconflict reforms and the Soviet invasion, to flags, entertainment, photographs, and a live Web cam. The site features maps, links to chat rooms, and much more.
Afghanan.net Afghanan.net (http://www.afghanan.net/index.php) provides news, history, biography, cultural information, a networking site for the Afghan community, and entertainment.
Afghanistan’s Web Site The Afghanistan’s Web site (http://www.afghanistans.com/) provides encyclopedia style information about Afghanistan.
Afghan News Network and Afghan Online Press The Afghan News Network (http://www.afghannews.net/) and Afghan Online Press (http://www.aopnews.com/) both link to a variety of news sources and are updated multiple times a day. Afghan Online Press links to news in Pashto and Dari as well as in English.
The Culture Orientation Project—Afghans: Their History and Culture The Culture Orientation Project (http://www.cal.org/CO/afghan/index. html) provides an online booklet titled ‘‘Afghans: Their History and Culture’’ that looks at Afghan culture from the perspective of language, family, history, religion, and society. The booklet features chapters on festivities and food, cultural challenges, and music and literature. A final chapter offers a bibliography.
This Afghan American Life This Afghan American Life (http://www.thisafghanamericanlife.com/ SnapShots/Home.html) is the home of the project founded by writer Mir Tamim Ansary. The project aim[s] to explore the Afghan American cultural identity in Diaspora . . . by supporting and promoting Afghan American writers, collecting oral history, and conducting other projects to help make the Afghan-American experience—and the Afghan experience as a whole—visible to the world.
Hazara.net Hazara.net (http://www.hazara.net/hazara/hazara.html) provides information about the Hazara from a variety of sources. Separate pages focus on the atrocities committed against the Hazara by the Taliban as well as Taliban-enforced restrictions on women.
Afghan Cinema Afghanland.com (http://www.afghanland.com/entertainment/movies.html) provides information about Afghan actors and films produced from 1958 through 1999.
Afghancinema.com (http://www.afghancinema.com/history.html) provides information for films produced from 1968 through 2006. ‘‘Cinema of Afghanistan’’ on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Cinema_of_Afghanistan) focuses on Afghan film in the twenty-first century and provides links to other articles on actors and directors. A 2004 online article by Soutik Biswas, ‘‘Women Struggle in Afghan Cinema,’’ focuses on the career of Marina Golbahari who starred in the film Osama when she was fourteen (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_ asia/3995451.stm). Jasmin Mehovic’s 2004 article ‘‘Challenges and Promises of Afghan Cinema’’ for the South Asia Research Institute for Policy and Development (SARID) provides online access to a collection of news, reports, analyses, and reviews (http://www.sarid.net/sarid-archives/04/0404-afghan-cinema. htm).
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • What are the benefits of joining a club or visiting a fan blog? • In what ways will biographic information about Hosseini add to your enjoyment or understanding of his novels? • Web resources give you the opportunity to compare Hosseini’s point of view with other writers and sources of news and information. Has this enriched, or can you imagine that this will enrich, your understanding of Afghanistan’s very different culture? • We have access to a wealth of news reports and commentary derived from interviews with Hosseini and from his presentations on his novels because of the Web. Reading these documents helps to place The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns into a real-life historical and presentday context of war and fear of terror attacks. If your great-great-grandchild were reading these novels, which elements might they find interesting? Would the setting be of particular interest? Would the conditions of the women seem exaggerated? Would you say that the friendships, the child-parent relationships, and the love stories within the plots allow the novels to transcend the restraints of our present associations of time and place?
8 KHALED HOSSEINI AND THE MEDIA
BOOK REVIEWS The popularity of The Kite Runner has been phenomenal and, based on the passion readers have for the book, on a par with the popularity of Harry Potter. Hosseini’s first novel has a devoted fan base of readers of all kinds. Teens, adults, teachers, casual readers, serious readers, and nonreaders have all been attracted to this novel. A Thousand Splendid Suns has also done well, but may not have had the same impact had it not been written by the author of The Kite Runner. As mentioned elsewhere in this book, these novels present difficult issues and topics set within harsh conditions, and so they cannot have the same kind of commercial impact that goes along with a publishing phenomenon such as the Harry Potter books, but nonetheless, it is rare to run into someone who has not at least heard of The Kite Runner. Hosseini’s reception by the media has been overwhelmingly favorable. Hosseini is very much in the public eye, but he does not appear to seek out celebrity, and has used the celebrity that he has gained to further the cause of Afghanistan. Opinion on Hosseini’s books is not unanimous, although serious critics are few. One writer called Hosseini’s books ‘‘little more than exotic pot boilers’’ (Adams), another critic has pointed out Hosseini’s excessive reliance on coincidence and his use of simplistic parallels (Steyn), and still another critic points out Hosseini’s ‘‘taste for melodramatic plotlines; sharply drawn, black-and-white characters; and elemental boldfaced emotions’’ (Kakutani). But even the 103
harsher critics find something redeeming in Hosseini’s novels. Michiko Kakutani who criticizes Hosseini’s plots, comparing them to soap operas, finds reason to read Hosseini in the details Hosseini provides about life in Afghanistan. She concludes her New York Times review with, ‘‘In the end it is these glimpses of daily life in Afghanistan—a country known to most Americans only through news accounts of war and terrorism—that make this novel [A Thousand Splendid Suns], like ‘The Kite Runner,’ so stirring, and that distract attention from its myriad flaws’’ (Kakutani). Ian McGillis goes even further, suggesting that the melodrama and simplistic storytelling, or the ‘‘guileless storytelling manner,’’ is appropriate, even essential for Hosseini’s novels. McGillis writes, Melodramatic? In any other context, yes, but here such charges are easily countered by the non-fiction accounts of Afghani [sic] women themselves, whose world really was one where the line between right and wrong was clearly drawn. Similarly, complaints that the narrative is ploddingly linear simply get trampled in the momentum of the story and the need for its being told. This, one comes to see, is the key to Hosseini’s commercial appeal: he has the common touch. Armed with that gift, he is able, without downplaying or cheapening the horrors his characters suffer, to infuse their lives with the possibility of redemption. (McGillis)
Edward Hower similarly criticizes on the one hand, but praises on the other when he writes, ‘‘When Amir meets his old nemesis . . . the book descends into some plot twists better suited to a folk tale than a modern novel. But in the end we’re won over by Amir’s compassion and his determination to atone for his youthful cowardice’’ (Hower). He concludes his review explaining what he finds to be the compelling nature of Hosseini’s novel: ‘‘In ‘The Kite Runner,’ Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence—forces that continue to threaten them even today’’ (Hower). In a more colloquial style, Karen Sandstrom comes to the same conclusion as Hower: Despite a narrative misstep or two, The Kite Runner really is a hit [ . . . ] the kind of novel that will get book-club members yakking. Better yet, its engrossing human tale might inspire American readers to think about a culture that has become important faster to us than it has become familiar. (Sandstrom)
Khaled Hosseini and the Media
These are just a few examples from the hundreds of reviews of both The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, which can be easily retrieved from online newspapers and through databases such as LexisNexis Academic or Academic Search Premier (to name just two of a number of database possibilities). Most reviewers note the value of Hosseini’s more detailed and nuanced presentation of Afghanistan, its people, and its culture. They also note some of the same structural weaknesses of coincidence and melodrama.
INTERVIEWS Interviews with Hosseini are numerous. Using databases that provide indexing or full-text access to magazines and journals, newspapers, and broadcast transcripts, and that are commonly found in public and academic libraries, you can easily identify interviews that provide substantial information about Hosseini. Interviews with Hosseini each tend to cover similar ground. Hosseini always manifests a great deal of humility. Just as the critics comment on his old-fashioned storytelling, or straightforward plots, Hosseini, over and over again, refers to himself as a storyteller; he reiterates his love of writing. Interestingly, in an interview with Mark Mullen of NBC News, Hosseini provided some insight into why he chose a medical career rather than that of a writer despite his early interest in writing. He told Mullen, I became very goal oriented. When you’re an immigrant, there’s—there’s always this fear of—of failure, of ending up on the streets. And I decided early on I was going to go to medical school and become a doctor. And I pursued that. And then in the background of all that was this writing thing, which I was doing, once I picked up the English. (Mullen)
As the years go by and the popularity of Hosseini’s books remains high, Hosseini has become increasingly outspoken about issues related to Afghanistan. In 2008, he penned two op-eds, one in February in the Wall Street Journal and the other in October in the Washington Post. In his February 2008 op-ed, Hosseini pleaded for the release of a journalist imprisoned under threat of execution in Afghanistan. He also covered this subject at his official blog. The imprisoned journalist was arrested for downloading and distributing an article critical of the polygamous marriage practices of many in Afghanistan. In the latter op-ed from
October 2008, Hosseini criticized the heightened and violent attacks on Barack Obama by some of the McCain-Palin rally goers during the 2008 presidential campaign. He called for McCain, Palin, and those associated with their campaign to condemn the derogatory use of presidential candidate Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein. He pointed out the similarity of his own name to Obama’s and wonders whether the McCain-Palin campaign might also find him to be a ‘‘paraiah.’’ Hosseini began this op-ed by writing, ‘‘I prefer to discuss politics through my novels, but I am truly dismayed these days’’ (Hosseini, ‘‘McCain and Palin Are Playing with Fire’’). This statement in itself is enlightening to Hosseini’s readers. Hosseini usually stresses the love-story aspects of his novels. When he is asked about the more political aspects of his novels, for instance, whether his critique of Afghanistan is too harsh and whether his representation of social discrimination based on religious affiliation or ethnic heritage has angered his fellow Afghans, Hosseini consistently answers that it is his view that addressing difficult subjects is an important role of fiction. He told Mir Hekmatullah Sadat in interviews conducted for Sadat’s dissertation, ‘‘Some . . . have called the book divisive and objected to some of the issues raised in the book, namely racism, discrimination, ethnic inequality etc. Those are sensitive issues in the Afghan world, but they are also important ones and I certainly do not believe they should be taboo’’ (Sadat, 167). Similarly, he told Farhad Azad in an interview appearing in Lemar-Aftaab in 2004 that ‘‘Fiction is like a mirror. It reflects what is beautiful and noble in us, but also at time[s] what is less than flattering, things that make us wince and not want to look anymore. Issues like discrimination and persecution, racism, etc. are such things.’’ He went on to suggest that these issues must be confronted for Afghanistan to progress. He pointed specifically to the mistreatment of the Hazara people, who were all but banned from the higher appointments of society and forced to play a second-class citizen role. A critical eye toward that era is, I believe, as important as a loving eye, because there are lessons to be learned from our own past. (Azad)
It is because Hosseini raises these difficult issues that he has faced any negative publicity. Interviewers began to ask him more challenging questions in the weeks leading up to the release of the film version of The Kite Runner. The media covered the film’s controversy, which arose when rumors began to circulate that the lives of the child actors playing Hassan and Amir were being threatened for their part in the film’s
pivotal rape scene. The two young actors and their families publicly expressed fear and unhappiness over the inclusion of the rape in the film, and claimed that they had not known that the children would be filming this scene. When interviewed on this subject, Hosseini and film director Marc Forster expressed deep regret over the situation, and praised the film company (Paramount) for taking the threat seriously and moving the children and their immediate families out of Afghanistan to safety in a different country. When asked by Neal Conan, host of the NPR program Talk of the Nation, about the controversial scene and the situation of the children, Hosseini responded, The scene in the film is shot in such [an] impressionistic and subtle way that it’s quite suggestive rather than being explicit and graphic. You know, I don’t think it dishonors anybody. But, you know, some of the controversy around that scene has kind of overshadowed the message of the film as a whole. And although the scene is pivotal to the plot of the story, the film is not about that scene. The film is—the message of the story is really about tolerance. It’s about denouncing hatred and bigotry, and it’s really about friendship and forgiveness. (Conan)
Perhaps the harshest criticism of Hosseini came from a fellow Afghan-American author. Luke Burbank, host of the ‘‘Bryant Park Project’’ on National Public Radio, talked to Said Hyder Akbar about the film controversy. Burbank asked Akbar, who is co-author with Susan Burton of Come Back to Afghanistan (2005), to comment on the impact the rape scene and the ethnic division that it represents could have on the public in Afghanistan. He asked Akbar whether Hosseini can be blamed for the dangerous position in which the two child actors were placed and, specifically, whether he thought Hosseini was ‘‘selling out Afghanistan by writing a book that [depicted] this kind of thing?’’ Akbar responded, having previously suggested that Hosseini’s book was not being read widely in Afghanistan, [I]t’s difficult to say that he is selling out Afghanistan. I could not say about his intentions. But I know that he has defended himself in the past, saying that I felt like this is what literature is for. I agree with that, but I feel like he is writing for an international audience. He is not really writing for an Afghan audience. And in that sense, it does feel like he is perhaps, in a way, selling the Afghan tragedy to outsiders, I would say. (Burbank)
Akbar and Burbank’s challenge to Hosseini’s motives is one of the few truly negative comments he has received. Despite the general feeling that Hosseini’s books, especially his first, does not meet critical literary fiction standards, most reviewers and interviewers agree with the public that it is a book worth reading for its content. Hosseini appears to agree with the critical assessment of his book, consistently referring to himself as an old-fashioned storyteller. Rather than focusing on the phenomenal amount of positive publicity he has received for his books to glorify himself as a writer, Hosseini turns the attention to Afghanistan, the country and its people, and since 2008 has stepped out of his author role to address significant political issues. Hosseini has received an almost unanimous warm reception from a wide range of writers and journalists from many different countries. In his interviews he, without fail, presents himself with humility and gently prods his audience to keep Afghanistan in their thoughts; to remember that Afghanistan is a country of people, not unlike themselves, who have friendships and lovers, who have dreams, and who seek to care for their families in the best way possible.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS • A significant number of reviewers have commented on the melodramatic nature of Hosseini’s novels. Many of these reviewers go on to say that despite this drawback the books are important to read for their content and what the reader can learn from them. How would you weigh these two views of the book? In what ways do you agree or disagree with either assessment? • Burbank and Akbar suggest that Hosseini has sold out by writing a book that criticizes aspects of Afghan culture but that will likely not be widely read in Afghanistan. Do you agree or disagree with this opinion and what leads you to your conclusion? • What do you think about the way the media treated the problems that arose for the child actors in the filming of The Kite Runner? Were they too gentle with Forster and Hosseini or too harsh? • Do you feel that the focus on The Kite Runner controversy was sensational or were there serious issues to be raised and discussed? • From reading or listening to interviews with Hosseini, do you feel that you have an idea about what he is like and what is important to him? What are some aspects that you find most striking or interesting? • If you were interviewing Hosseini or had a chance to meet with him, what unanswered questions would you have to ask him?
9 WHAT DO I READ NEXT?
Hosseini’s multifaceted novels appeal to readers for a variety of reasons, whether it is for their epic depiction of Afghanistan, their poignant description of family relationships, their narrative of individuals who develop as they face grave decisions, or for their riveting stories. The suggestions below are just a selection of titles that share one or another of the qualities exhibited by The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns. Some of the titles appearing here have appeared elsewhere in this book, and, conversely, some titles spread throughout the book that may also be interesting to Hosseini’s readers do not appear here. A list of suggestions such as this list is naturally colored by the knowledge and reading habits of the compiler. The hope is that readers may rediscover old favorites, be introduced to new authors, and find sources of new knowledge as they choose and read from the following recommendations.
NOVELS, MEMOIRS,
Khaled Hosseini was one of the first writers to present a deep and meaningful view of Afghanistan to American readers. The number of such works published and intended for a general audience, including fiction, but primarily nonfiction, has greatly expanded since that time. Many, many works have been published exploring and examining the status of women in Afghanistan, both predating the Taliban and following the
U.S. invasion. In this segment of further reading, you will find works that provide a range of perspectives and that allow readers to have a deeper understanding of the complicated history of a country that is quite different from that of the United States or most of Europe. Reading a selection of these books will inform readers who may have developed a desire to learn more about Afghanistan, its people, and its culture. Although this is a generous selection of books, it is still only a selection. Most titles are suitable for a general audience.
Women of Afghanistan Ahmedi, Farah, with Mir Tamim Ansary. The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky. New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2005. This is the true story of a courageous Afghan girl, Farah Ahmedi. A Hazara, Farah was born during the Soviet occupation in the village of Ghazni outside of Kabul. By the time she was going to school, the Soviets had fallen and the Mujahideen were in power. Farah describes her mostly peaceful and happy younger days among a large affectionate family. One day, late for school, she takes a short cut to school and encounters a land mine. She is taken to a local hospital where she is kept alive long enough to be chosen by a German organization for medical treatment. Farah describes her two-year stay in Germany, her recovery and rehabilitation after having her leg amputated, her return to her family and the difficulty of her readjustment to life in an Afghan village, and finally the loss of her father, sister, and then brothers. She and her mother escape to Pakistan and are later selected to move to the United States. This story, intended for young adult readers, portrays, first hand, the extreme culture shock and hardship refugees must somehow overcome when they come to the United States. Brodsky, Anne E. With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: Routledge, 2003. Brodsky spent time with and interviewed members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) to chronicle its history and work. Founded in 1977, RAWA is a women-led underground organization fighting for the rights of Afghan women. Among other work, they run schools and orphanages, arrange medical care for women and children, and document fundamentalist activity and atrocities against Afghan women. Their work long predates the coming of the Taliban and continues following the U.S. invasion.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimated the adult literacy rate in Afghanistan in 2004 to be 28 percent of the population. According to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, 18 percent of females in Afghanistan completed primary school. In 2007, 12.6 percent of females fifteen and over were considered literate compared with 43.1 percent of males. Compare this with the averages provided by the World Bank for South Asia generally in 2004: males, 71.9 percent; females, 46.4 percent.
Doubleday, Veronica. Three Women of Herat. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990. Written before the Soviet invasion, this book provides an interesting look at three women in Afghanistan. At that time, even before the Taliban institution of restrictive policies toward women, many women stayed at home observing purdah. The three women Doubleday writes about in this book are her friends. They are not a representative crosssection of Afghan women. They are from Herat, and Doubleday notes that Herat has a distinct atmosphere within Afghanistan. Doubleday provides an ethnography of Afghan women written long before the discussion of the condition and status of women was as prominent and politically charged as it is in the early part of the twenty-first century. Ellis, Deborah. Women of the Afghan War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000. Ellis, author of The Breadwinner trilogy, presents an oral history of Russian women whose sons and husbands served in Afghanistan and Afghan women who are survivors of the ongoing warfare and, at that time, rule of the Taliban. She interviewed women in Russia and Pakistan to present the personal side to the news received by most Western readers. Lessing, Doris. The Wind Blows Away Our Words. London: Picador, 1987. Nobel Prize–winning author Doris Lessing offers a reflective and poetic view of the Mujahideen nearly twenty years before Rall’s travelogue (see below) during the time they were fighting the Soviet Union. Lessing is in Afghanistan to find out about an all-woman Mujahideen unit. She details many of the problems we are now aware of in the United States. She describes the hardships of the refugee camps, especially the difficulty of obtaining enough food or any kind of medicine for wounds, the prevalence of illnesses and disease, and the lack of education opportunities for the children. Among other objectives, Lessing and her group are
looking for educated or professional Afghan women to interview. An Afghan man explains how hard it will be to find such a woman because whatever their life was like in Kabul, life in the refugee camp requires veiling, sequestering at home, and leaving the house only with the escort of a male relative. Logan, Harriet. Unveiled: Voices of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Logan visits Afghanistan in 1997 and then again in 2001. Both times she visits the same women, allowing them to tell their story and, when possible, photographing them. The photographs are beautiful and present a multifaceted view of women in Afghanistan. Mehta, Sunita, ed. Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. This is a collection of essays from a conference of Afghan women scholars and activists held at the Graduate Center for the City University of New York in 2001. The essays presented ‘‘trace the history of Afghan women’s rights, the rights accorded women under Islam, the abuses perpetrated by the Taliban, and women’s priorities in post-Taliban Afghanistan’’ (x). Contributors are from Afghanistan, Egypt, Great Britain, India, Italy, Uruguay, and the United States. Many of the women have worked in Afghanistan as teachers, aid workers, and organizers. All are feminists. Pazira, Nelofer. A Bed of Red Flowers: In Search of Afghanistan. New York: Free Press, 2005. Written before the 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Pazira’s book is a memoir of her life with her family under the Soviet occupation from 1978 until their escape to Canada in 1989 when she is sixteen. Pazira describes her rebellious childhood, throwing rocks at Russian tanks and being a member of an armed resistance group. Her father was imprisoned at the time of the 1978 coup, but he was later released. The family decides to leave Afghanistan as her brothers become old enough to be drafted into the army. Pazira returns to Afghanistan to look for her friend Dyana. The movie Kandahar is based on this search and Pazira records the making of that film with Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. Rodriguez, Deborah. Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil. New York: Random House, 2007. Deborah Rodriguez shares her experience going to Kabul after the fall of the Taliban to work with a nongovernmental organization (NGO). She finds that her services as a cosmetologist are in demand. She arranges
for significant product donations and, on a second trip, joins forces with another organization training Afghan women to become cosmetologists (documented in Liz Mermin’s film The Beauty Academy of Kabul, 2006) but later sets up her own private shop in Kabul. Her story is slated to appear in a 2010 film adaption. Skaine, Rosemarie. The Women of Afghanistan Under the Taliban. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. This scholarly book includes statistics concerning women’s status and education from before and during the Taliban rule, with profiles based on interviews with thirty Afghan refugee women conducted by and translated by RAWA. The women interviewed had either recently fled or fled after the Soviet occupation. The interviews were conducted in March, May, and July of 2000. Smith, Mary. Before the Taliban: Living with War, Hoping for Peace. Aberdour, Scotland: IYNX Publishing, 2001. Smith has worked with a small health care NGO in Afghanistan. With this book she seeks to dispel the stereotype of Afghan women as ‘‘amorphous shapes shrouded in the burqa’’ (3). She developed close friendships with women in Mazar-i-Sharif and Hazarajat. These women wanted their stories to be told so that the world would know that not all Afghan women had lost their rights and freedoms. As Smith was writing her book, however, both cities fell to the Taliban. Her book had now become a ‘‘history book.’’ It is no longer representative of women’s lives in Afghanistan, but it does ensure that the voices of Afghan women will ‘‘never be completely silenced’’ (8). Zoya. Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom. Written with John Follain and Rita Cristofari. New York: William Morrow, 2002. Zoya lost both of her parents during the civil war that destroyed Kabul following the Soviet occupation. She left Afghanistan for Pakistan with her grandmother. While there, she became involved with RAWA and has traveled back and forth to Afghanistan on missions for that organization. In this memoir, she tells her story from her childhood in Kabul under the Soviets, through her work with RAWA.
History and Reporting on Current Events Akbar, Said Hyder and Susan Burton. Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. After the fall of the Taliban, Akbar’s father goes back to work with the new Afghan government. Born and raised in California, Akbar later
joins his father and keeps an audio journal of his experiences for National Public Radio’s This American Life. During the time covered by this book, his father becomes governor of Kunar Province. Akbar moves quickly from the life of a fairly typical high school boy to a life complicated through his intimate experience within an Afghanistan in a rocky transition. As a college student, Akbar formed his own NGO, Wadan Afghanistan, which facilitates the building of schools and pipe systems in Kunar Province. Ansary, Mir Tamim. West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. In hopes of representing Afghan citizens, Ansary sent an e-mail to his friends after the events of September 11, 2001, having heard calls to bomb Afghanistan ‘‘back to the stone age.’’ The letter was forwarded from person to person until it had become an Internet phenomenon. You can read a copy of the letter at http://tcotrel.tripod. com/afghanletter.html. Because of the popularity of the letter, Ansary decided to write this book in which he revisits his past, chronicles his travels to reconnect with his Afghan heritage, and recounts his youthful days during the American countercultural movement of the late 1960s. Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A Short History of the People and Politics. New York: HarperCollins, 2002. Ewans presents a concise history of the geography, politics, religion, and culture of Afghanistan from earliest recorded times through 2002. Gannon, Kathy. I Is for Infidel: From Holy War to Holy Terror: 18 Years Inside Afghanistan. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. Gannon was an Associated Press correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1986 until 2005. This book is her account of the Taliban’s rise to power, the paths that led to that rise, including the intentional and neglectful acts of countries and agencies outside of Afghanistan that contributed to the particular nature of the Taliban rule. Gauhari, Farooka. An Afghan Woman’s Odyssey. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. From April of 1978 when her husband disappeared during the Communist coup of Afghanistan through December of 1980, Gauhari searched for her husband while at the same time making arrangements to leave the country with her three children and extended family. Gauhari studied and taught at Kabul University, and, at the time she was writing her book, she worked in the department of biology at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She writes about growing up in Kabul and provides descriptions of the formal courtship process,
the Pashtun code of honor for their women, her impressions of wearing the veil, and the difference between life in Kabul and life in rural Afghanistan. Ghafour, Hamida. The Sleeping Buddha: The Story of Afghanistan through the Eyes of One Family. Toronto: McArthur & Company, 2007. Ghafour’s family left Afghanistan for Canada in 1981. Ghafour provides a history of the country through the perspective of her family history. She goes back after the U.S. invasion to report on progress and conditions. Like many others, she comes to the conclusion that U.S. policy has failed because of its inability to understand the Afghan culture, its failure to consider the true needs of the people, and its desire to impose a capitalist free market society as though this is the only good option. Interestingly, while in Kabul she meets with Deborah Rodriguez who is the author of Kabul Beauty School (see p. 112). Rall, Ted. To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue. New York: Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, Inc., 2002. Ted Rall is a journalist and cartoonist. In this book, he writes about his experience going to Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. invasion. He writes that he, his wife, and his agent went to ‘‘discover the results of our war upon ordinary Afghans. We never expected to find The Truth, because that’s impossible. We did, however, attempt to separate propaganda from reality…’’ (9). Rall’s narrative is represented in straight text and in graphic or comic strip form. Shah, Saira. The Storyteller’s Daughter. New York: Knopf, 2003. Saira Shah is the daughter of the Afghan-British writer and Sufi leader Idries Shah. Growing up in London, Shah romanticized her Afghan origins and sought to discover the country on her own. She travels to Afghanistan as a journalist during the time of the Soviet occupation. She later returns to Afghanistan to create the documentary Beneath the Veil, which explores the plight of women under the Taliban. Her book is written as a journal and, in it, Shah details her experiences in her ancestral homeland beginning in April 2001. Her story is one of danger and hope amidst a seemingly hopeless situation in a country that is war ravaged and steeped in poverty. Stewart, Rory. The Places in Between. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006 (originally published in Great Britain in 2004). Rory Stewart follows the path of the Emperor Babur across Afghanistan, relating Babur’s story as he passes through the different places on Babur’s journey. Stewart experiences danger and hardship along with generosity and friendship on his travels.
Tortajada, Ana. The Silenced Cry: One Woman’s Diary of a Journey to Afghanistan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004. Inspired by a lecture given by a member of RAWA, Tortajada, a journalist, travels to Afghanistan in 2000 to see conditions for herself. In her book, she reports on what she sees as the Taliban’s genocidal policies against the Hazaras and their brutally restrictive policies for women. Tortajada also reports on the courageous resistance of women helping each other by providing medical treatment and education within their sequestered communities. Wahab, Shaista and Barry Youngerman. A Brief History of Afghanistan. New York: Facts on File, 2007. Part of the Facts on File ‘‘Brief History of’’ series, Wahab and Youngerman tell the story of Afghanistan from 3000 B.C. to the present day. This series is intended for students and general readers.
Ahmad, Aisha and Roger Boase. Pashtun Tales: From the PakistanAfghan Frontier. London: Saqi Books, 2003. Ahmad brought together this group of traditional tales, which he collected from a Pashtun storyteller. Ahmad provides background to Pashtun code and beliefs and the place of stories and storytelling within the Afghan and, specifically, the Pashtun culture. Aslam, Nadeem. The Wasted Vigil. New York: Knopf, 2008. Aslam weaves the ancient and modern history of Afghanistan into his tale of life under the Soviet occupation and the Taliban. The characters in this novel are from Afghanistan, England, Russia, and the United States. Ellis, Deborah. The Breadwinner Trilogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 (available as a collection). The Breadwinner. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001. Parvana’s Journey. Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre, 2001. Mud City. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2003. (Juvenile/Teen Literature) In the Breadwinner and Parvana’s Journey, Ellis introduces the reader to life in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Parvana’s father is arrested and she must dress like a boy so that she can go to the market and find ways to earn money. She makes friends with a former schoolmate, Shauzia, who is also dressed as a boy in her attempt to earn money for her family. The family is separated in the chaos of war and in book two Parvana
seeks to find the surviving members of her family. She and Shauzia have agreed to meet in Paris in twenty years. In Mud City, Ellis tells the story of Shauzia. Like Parvana, she is a resourceful and fearless girl fighting for some kind of meaningful life under conditions in which others have understandably given up. Her hope is to make her way to the ocean (Afghanistan is landlocked) and then to travel to France to live in a field of lavender. Ellis concludes her novels with information about Afghanistan, the wars, and the conditions there, especially for women and children. The royalties from the sales of Parvana’s Journey go to Women for Women, an organization that helps women in Afghanistan. Ellis is donating the royalties from Mud City to Street Kids International, a nonprofit organization that works with children around the world who are living on the streets. Khadra, Yasmina. Swallows of Kabul. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2004. Khadra is the alias of an Algerian army officer who writes in French. This novel is set under the Taliban and in Kabul, as the title suggests. Khadra’s novel is a tale of unrelenting misery. Its unusual plot features two couples. The first couple has lived a life of relative privilege; the husband is from a successful family of shopkeepers and his wife is an educated teacher. When the wife accidentally kills her husband during an argument, she is taken to the women’s prison. There the husband of the second couple sees her when she removes her burqa. Having not seen a woman’s face other than that of his continuously ailing wife in years, he sees the prisoner as a vision and sets about devising a way to prevent her execution. Majrouh, Sayd Bahodine. Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women’s Poetry. Translated from the Pashtun into French. Adapted and introduced by Andre Velter and the author. Translated from the French by Marjolijn De Jager, New York: Other Press, 2003. Afghan poet Majrouh tells the story of Pashtun women from Afghanistan and the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan through their landays, two-line verses of nine and thirteen syllables. The verses represent experiences of love, war, passion, and desolation. Velter provides a brief biography of Majrouh, with whom he worked to publish his poetic works in French under the title Ego Monster (1989–1991). Majrouh was assassinated in Peshawar in 1988. Marciano, Francesca. The End of Manners. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. Maria Galante and Imo Glass are female journalists, Maria a photographer and Imo a writer. Maria reluctantly agrees to accompany Imo to
Afghanistan to photograph women who have attempted suicide rather than marry the older men chosen for them by their families. Imo is experienced but insensitive to the subtleties and restrictions for women within the Afghan culture. Maria is inexperienced but more open to the sensibilities of the people with whom she is working. Shah, Idries. Kara Kush: A Novel of Afghanistan. New York: Stein and Day, 1986. Shah, the leader of the Sufis and a scholar in the field, wrote this, his only novel, as recognition of the ongoing fight against the Soviet occupation in the land of his ancestry. It is written as an adventure novel with intrigue and action. Staples, Suzanne Fisher. Under the Persimmon Tree. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. This is the story of Najmah, a shepherd girl from Kundunz, and Nusrat, an American woman married to an Afghan doctor and living in Peshawar, Pakistan, near the Afghan refugee camps. The Taliban have taken Najmah’s father and brother away and her mother and small brother are killed in a shelling attack. She travels to Pakistan with neighbors and ends up leaving them only to find her way to Nusrat’s small school that she operates for refugee children. Nusrat’s husband has been away in Mazar-i-Sharif to work in a clinic and she has stayed in Peshawar to continue to work with refugee children. She takes Najmah under her wing. Later, Najmah’s brother appears and together they decide to return to their land in Kunduz to try to maintain the family farm. Nusrat goes to Mazar-i-Sharif to see what she can find out about her husband. Yermakov, Oleg. Afghan Tales: Stories from Russia’s Vietnam. Translated by Marc Romano. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Yermakov’s stories are all in some way about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Beautifully written, they present a seldom-heard voice in the tragic saga of modern-day Afghanistan.
FAMILIES, GENDER, DISCRIMINATION, AND IMMIGRATION
In this category, readers will find novels and, in one case, a memoir and collection of essays that explore familial relationships as well as issues of gender, discrimination, and immigration. Many of the suggested titles are well known and considered twentieth-century classics. Some are new
contributions to the rich literary tradition established by their critically acclaimed predecessors. Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Cather intertwines the lives of Bohemian immigrant Antonia and her childhood friend Jim Burden in this novel. Told mostly through the perspective of Jim, My Antonia represents the epitome of pioneer life with its sense of freedom, reinvention, struggles, and disappointments. Lamming, George. The Emigrants. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Lamming tells the story of a group of West Indians who immigrate to Great Britain. They leave their native countries in search of education opportunities but find that ‘‘the mother country’’ is not as welcoming or as easy to settle into as they had expected. The novel follows the stories of a range of characters who respond to their new surroundings in a variety of ways, but all of whom experience marginalization and isolation within their adopted country. This book was first published in the United States in 1955 by McGraw Hill. Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. This much-loved novel tells the story of strong family ties, and learning, through a father’s example, to see people for who they really are and not through the lens of ignorance and prejudice. Set in the Deep South that is defined by its racism, Lee’s novel tells the story of Scout’s coming of age, as her father takes on the defense of a black man who has been charged with rape. Nemirovsky, Irene. Suite Francaise. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Nemirovsky was born into a Jewish family in Russia and immigrated with her family to Paris in the 1920s. She began to record the chaos and disruption of the Nazi occupation of France in what she planned as a five-novel cycle. She had completed manuscripts for two novels and had begun notes for the third when she was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz where she was almost immediately sent to the Birkenau death camp. Nemirovsky had already achieved popularity as a writer before beginning her five-novel project. Her daughters kept the manuscripts and the first two novels were published together as Suite Francaise nearly seventy years after Nemirovsky completed them. Nemirovsky writes about events following the Nazi occupation as they were unfolding. She focuses on the details of her characters’ daily lives with the war and historical facts providing the backdrop. Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild writes, ‘‘Her remarkable work vividly takes the reader back to the early stages of the last major war in the heartland of Europe.
Her keen observations about the chaos of war, ruling class complicity and cowardice, individual heroism, collaboration, lies and rationalizations, and militarized, random violence unfortunately remain all too timely today’’ (23). Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez. Boston: David R. Godine, 1982. Rodriguez grew up in a Spanish-speaking household in California. He began to learn English as he entered school. He writes about the importance of learning English and becoming part of the culture of his parents’ adopted country. His immersion into the English-speaking world, however, causes him to feel a growing separation from his family. Rodriguez earned a doctorate in English studying at the University of California–Berkeley and in England. He finds that he questions the validity of his multiple job offers in light of the controversy of affirmative action and he turns them all down. Rodriguez’s autobiography was controversial when it first appeared because of his criticism of bilingual education and affirmative action; however, he notes in his prologue that it is the story of his life and thus reflects only his experiences. Rodriguez, Richard. Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father. New York: Viking, 1992. Rodriguez continues to explore issues of ethnicity and immigration in this collection of essays. R lvaag, Ole Edvart. Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. This novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century, presents the story of Per and Beret Hansa, immigrants from Norway to the Dakotas early in that area’s settlement by European immigrants. The intense solitude and a treeless open prairie drive Beret close to insanity and the hard work and harsh environment lead to Per’s death. Giants in the Earth is followed by two more novels, which continue the story of Beret and her children: Peder Victorious (1929) and Their Father’s God (1931). Saroyan, William. My Name is Aram. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991. This novel, a series of connected stories, is the fictional account of William Saroyan’s childhood, the son of Armenian immigrants in rural Fresno, California. Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis I and Persepolis II: The Story of a Return. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003 and 2004. This autobiographical graphic novel tells of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran growing up during the revolution in a family who first protested the
Shah’s regime and then the revolutionary regime. Satrapi has a tendency to get into trouble and so her parents send her out of the country. This turns out to be a disastrous step for Satrapi, and she eventually returns to her family in poor physical and mental health. When she regains her strength, she is determined to reject victimhood and attends university to study art. She eventually marries, although it does not lead to a happy ending. Satrapi’s novels were adapted into an animated film in 2007 by directors Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi. Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Francie Nolan grows up in the poor neighborhoods of Brooklyn. The tree growing outside her tenement apartment represents the persistence of beauty in a bleak landscape and the possibility of thriving even under harsh conditions. Francie’s imagination, love of reading, and determination to thrive under all circumstances are at the center of this novel. West, Dorothy. The Wedding: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1996. West writes about community, family, generational values and change, marriage, race, and discrimination in her novel about tensions within an aristocratic black family and community on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1950s.
EPIC NOVELS These historical novels depict significant events, in many cases across decades and generations. Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1984; revised edition, 1993. The Beet Queen. New York: Holt, 1986. Tracks. New York: Holt, 1988. The Bingo Palace. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Tales of Burning Love. New York: HarperCollins, 1996. These five novels make up Erdrich’s North Dakota cycle of novels. They share an interrelated set of characters from the Chippewa and non– Native American worlds of North Dakota and are set both on and off the reservation. The stories are told from the perspectives of multiple first-person narrators and evoke a world in which cultures and languages mingle in conflicting and enriching ways.
Esterhazy, Peter. Celestial Harmonies: A Novel. Translated by Judith Sollosy. New York: Ecco Press, 2004. Esterhazy is descended from the Esterhazys who were central figures in the Hapsburg empire. The book is divided into two sections, with the first portraying the Esterhazy men from the earliest days of the Hapsburg empire through to its disintegration in the early part of the twentieth century and on to the present. In the second section, Esterhazy tells the story of his own family from the time of the Russian Revolution through to his own generation. Hegi, Ursula. The Vision of Emma Blau. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000. This story covers one hundred years of a family’s history, beginning with Stefan Blau’s escape from his small village in Germany to Manhattan. He begins to work in the restaurant business, and after surviving a tragic fire, he becomes obsessed with fire safety. He builds a fireproof apartment complex as he begins to raise his family. After the loss of two wives, Blau returns to Germany to marry his third wife who raises his two surviving children and brings a third into the world. Emma is Stefan’s granddaughter and she absorbs his love for his apartment building in which everyone in the family has grown up. After the death of Stefan and his third wife, however, the apartment building drives the family apart. Lessing, Doris May. The Cleft. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Lessing explores relationships between men and women in this mythological history of a community of women known as The Cleft. The women have lived and reproduced successfully without knowledge of men. This all changes when a male child is born. Lins, Paulo. City of God. Translated by Alison Entrekin. New York: Black Cat, 2006. This novel tells the story of a family in Rio de Janeiro living in the poverty-stricken, drug-infested corner known as City of God. The story is told over two generations and three decades. Shih Shu-Ching. City of the Queen: A Novel of Colonial Hong Kong. Translated from the Chinese by Sylvia Li-Chun Lin and Howard Goldblatt. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. This novel traces the evolution of the colonial city of Hong Kong through the life of one woman and her family. Huang is kidnapped as a child and sold into prostitution. Through her ingenuity, she makes her way out of servitude to become a landowner. Her children prosper, but their children’s children are seduced by the pleasurable offerings of the
late-twentieth-century city. City of the Queen examines colonialism, the colonizers, and the colonized. Steinbeck, John. Grapes of Wrath. New York: Viking, 1989. Originally published in 1939, Grapes of Wrath tells the story of a family forced from their home by the dust bowl, their tortuous journey to California, and their continued hardships once they arrive. Tademy, Lalita. Cane River. New York: Warner Books, 2001. Red River. New York: Warner Books, 2006. Both of these books come out of Tademy’s research into her family’s history as slaves and slaveholders on the plantations of Louisiana. Cane River follows the lives of four generations of women from slavery, through the Civil War, and into Reconstruction and the early twentieth century. Red River focuses on the riots that dispossessed the newly freed African Americans in the town of Colfax, Louisiana. Once again, this novel traces the history of a family through its women and across generations. Torvik, Solveig. Nikolai’s Fortune. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005. Based on the story of her own family and its origins in Finland and Norway, author Torvik writes a multigenerational epic of love, hardship, emigration, and sometimes bitter survival. The younger generations adapt to the new land unable to fully grasp the history of their elders. She divides her novel into three parts, the first from the point of view of the grandmother, the second in the voice of the daughter, and the third narrated in the voice of the granddaughter.
Novels and Memoirs about Fathers and Sons Bower, Kenneth. Starship and the Canoe. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978. This is the story of a father, astrophysicist Freeman Dyson, and son George who have different interests but nevertheless have many shared characteristics as well. The senior Dyson is designing a nuclear-powered spaceship, while his son is building a giant seagoing canoe and living in a tree in British Columbia. Hijuelos, Oscar. Mr. Ives’ Christmas. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Mr. Ives’s son is murdered in a random robbery and Mr. Ives does not recover. Through a priest, the murderer has sought Mr. Ives’s forgiveness. Finally, thirty years later, Mr. Ives is ready to consider the possibility.
Lamb, Wally. I Know This Much Is True. New York: Regan Books, 1998. Hosseini recommends this novel whose characters deal with issues of mental illness, abuse, and neglect. The lives of twins Thomas and Dominic are chronicled in Lamb’s novel. Thomas suffers from schizophrenia and Dominic is recovering from a difficult divorce, trying to help his brother, and investigating their family history, including unearthing the identity of their birth father. Obama, Barack. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Times Books, 1995. Obama published his memoir more than a decade before he became a household name and the president of the United States. Obama’s story begins as he learns of his father’s sudden death in a car accident. Never having had the opportunity to spend much time with his father, Obama decides to explore the origins of both of his parents, his mother from a small town in Kansas, and his father from Kenya. His parents meet in Hawaii where Obama is born. Obama traces his education and career path through to 1995 and reflects on his identity in light of his bicultural heritage. Wideman, John. Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society. New York: Pantheon, 2004. Wideman considers his relationship with his father as he reflects on his relationship with his son.
Bildungsromane and Coming-of-Age Narratives and Memoirs Many novels that are classified as bildungsromane might also be considered epic novels because they span years, continents, and decades. Literature, like knowledge, rarely fits into one neat category. These novels are all in some way coming-of-age stories and follow the main character, whether through a first-person narrative or through an omniscient thirdperson narrative, through a lifetime, revealing the events and experiences that bring that character to a fuller understanding of him- or herself in relation to the world and to those important to them. Cheng, Terrence. Sons of Heaven. New York: William Morrow, 2002. Cheng constructs a life for the young man who stood before the tanks in the midst of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. In this novel, the young man goes to the United States for his education and returns to a China he no longer finds hospitable. His disillusionment leads him to join with other dissidents as they occupy the square. The young man’s
older brother is a dedicated soldier sent with his platoon to quell the demonstration at Tiananmen Square and then later to find and arrest his younger brother. Cheng also imagines the thoughts and motivations of Deng Xiaoping as he orders the army into Beijing and then experiences the consequences of having issued that order. Dickens, Charles. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of ’80, 1841. This lesser known novel by Dickens, with his characteristic intricate plot and complexity of characters, follows the course of the simpleton Barnaby Rudge who floats among the different events and households portrayed in the novel. Set in London at the end of the eighteenth century, the novel evolves around the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780. Dickens, in his preface, writes, It is unnecessary to say, that these shameful tumults [the riots], while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate, and unmerciful; all History teaches us.
These words are still valid and also evoke Hosseini’s sentiments as represented in his novels. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, 1844. This sprawling novel follows the fate of the young Martin Chuzzlewit, who looks for fame and fortune out from under the wing of his controlling and repressive grandfather. His travels take him to America, where he suffers hardship but returns to England humbled by the crass materialism and shallow hubris he has witnessed while away. Green, Hannah. The Dead of the House. New York: Doubleday, 1972 and Books & Co., Turtle Point Press, 1996. This is a novel based on the family history of the author. Vanessa, the main character, recalls the stories she heard from her paternal grandfather as a child and her own relationships with a complicated and eccentric extended family. The story ends as she and her siblings and cousins begin to deal with the issues of adulthood, the births of the next generation, and the death of their grandfather.
McEwan, Ian. Atonement. New York: Vintage, 2002. McEwan’s novel, one of Hosseini’s own recommendations, has many similarities to The Kite Runner. He tells the story of the developing writer Briony Tallis over six decades and two world wars. She commits an act for which she feels intense guilt and attempts to make up for it through her actions later in life. Rouaud, Jean. The Jean Rouaud Trilogy. Fields of Glory. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1992. Of Illustrious Men. New York: Arcade, 1994. The World More or Less. New York: Arcade, 1998. These are the first three in a series of five autobiographical novels through which the author portrays his family and his own journey to becoming a writer. The final two novels have not yet been translated into English. Rouaud’s rural family has been ravaged by the two world wars. The novels are written from a variety of perspectives: the first novel written from the perspective of his grandfather and the second from that of his father. In the third novel, Rouaud focuses on his own coming of age. In the final two novels, Pour vos cadeaux (1998) and Sur la scene comme au ciel (1999), Rouaud writes about his mother and his relationship with her. See, Lisa. Peony in Love: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2007. This historical novel is set in seventeenth-century China. See follows the development of Peony, a protected child, who nonetheless falls in love when she glimpses a handsome young man through a protective curtain. Much of the story takes place after her death. Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. New York: Knopf, 1967. Thomas is twelve years old in 1941 as he begins his memoir. It is just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He is a first-generation American, the oldest son in a large Puerto Rican family living in Harlem. His father has lost his job, but with the advent of war, the father finds work in an airplane factory. The family moves to Long Island and, in this predominantly white neighborhood, Thomas begins to become aware of the fact that he is the only child to have inherited his father’s African coloring and features. The other children take after their more European featured mother. Thomas’s anger continues to grow and divides him from his family. He leaves home to find his own way. Convicted of armed robbery, he spends time in prison, and, while there, begins to educate himself.
Abdullah, Farid. ‘‘Afghan Cinema Site ‘Bod na Bod’’’ http://www.afghan cinema.com/history.html (accessed June 30, 2009). Adamec, Ludwig. Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003. Adams, Lorraine. ‘‘Torch Song for Afghanistan.’’ New York Times, October 12, 2008, sec. Book Review Desk. ‘‘Afghan Kite History. ‘‘planet.kite.matrix (world kite project).’’ http://subvision. net/sky/planetkite/middle-east/afghanistan/ (accessed August 31, 2008). ‘‘Afghanistan.’’ In Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2008. http://search.eb.com/eb/article-21424 (accessed May 26, 2008). ‘‘Afghanistan: The Massacre at Mazar-i-Sharif.’’ Human Rights Watch 10, no. 7 (C) (November 1998). http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan (accessed May 3, 2009). ‘‘Afghanland Movie Review.’’ Afghanland.com. http://www.afghanland.com/ entertainment/movies.html (accessed January 12, 2009). Ahmadi, Walid. Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan: Anomalous Visions of History and Form. New York: Routledge, 2007. Ahmedi, Farah, with Mir Tamim Ansary. The Story of My Life: An Afghan Girl on the Other Side of the Sky. New York: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2005. Akbar, Said Hyder and Susan Burton. Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager’s Story. New York: Bloomsbury, 2005. Ansary, Mir Tamim. West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Aseel, Maryan Qudrat. Torn Between Two Cultures: An Afghan-American Woman Speaks Out. Sterling, VA: Capital Books, 2003.
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Ansari, Aabdullah, 21. See also poets Abdalla, Khalid, 89, 97. See also The Kite Runner, the film Afghan diaspora, 8; Hosseini, 2, 7, 81; in The Kite Runner, 7, 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31, 35; in literature, 3 (see also diaspora); Little Kabul, 8; in San Francisco Bay Area, 2; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 51; on the Web, 98, 100, 101 Afghan immigrant community. See Afghan diaspora Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs, 90 Afghanistan: Buddhas of Bamiyan, 55, 60; coups, 1, 2, 7, 28, 76, 84, 112, 114; drought, 8, 51; Hazaras, 42, 75; history, 58–60, 67, 84, 100, 101, 109, 110, 115, 116; Islamic State of, 51; languages, 6, 22, 62, 75, 76; laws concerning women, 50, 53, 62, 70, 72; literature, 60; Mujahideen, 59; Panjshir, 50; population, 27, 48, 55, 68, 75, 112; Republic of, 7; U. S. invasion of, 20, 27, 54, 65, 66, 80–84, 87, 90, 110, 115; wars, 67; women, 69, 110, 111, 113, 114 Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities, 6, 27, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77; Hosseini’s views on, 5, 106; in
The Kite Runner, 27, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42. See also Hazaras Akbar, Said Hyder, 83, 84, 107, 108, 113, 114 Amanullah, King, 58, 75 Amazon.com, 3 Amir, character in The Kite Runner, 8, 36–44; with bullies, 28; flea market (see also flea market), 30, 31, 36, 44; guilt, 15, 29, 38, 42, 43; as immigrant, 6, 7, 17, 19, 22, 30, 31, 36; kite flying, 28, love of Westerns, 5; in Pakistan, 19, 32, 35; the phone call, 26, 32, 35; quest, 15, 16, 18, 19; rape of Hassan, 28, 29; relationship with father, 6, 7, 17, 22, 27, 28, 30, 32, 38; relationship with Hassan, 15, 17, 19, 26–29, 74; relationship with Soraya, 19, 26, 30, 40; rescue of Sohrab, 20, 32–34; return to Afghanistan, 32, 35; similarities to Hosseini, 3, 6, 99; as writer, 19, 32 Ansary, Mir Tamim, 2, 83, 84, 86, 96, 101, 110, 114 Arababshirali, Afghanistan, 81 Assef, character in The Kite Runner, 28, 37, 39, 43, 76; compared to Hitler, 76; rape of Hassan, 29, 42; as metaphor, 33; as Talib officer, 33, 42 Austen, Jane, 11, 12, 20
Azad, Farhad, 5–7, 106 Aziza, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 18, 52–54, 57, 59, 60, 66 Baba, character in The Kite Runner, 15, 26, 29, 30, 31, 36, 37–42, 58, 74; compared with Hosseini’s father, 3; as immigrant, 17, 30; relationship with Ali, 26; relationship with Amir, 26, 27, 28, 37; relationship with Hassan, 17, 28, 30, 31, 37 Babi (also Hakim) character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 60, 61, 68, 71 Babur, Emperor, 82, 115 Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 39, 50, 55, 56, 60, 61, 67, 68, 72 best sellers, 79, 80, 82, 83, 103 Bibi jo, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 49, 57 bildungsroman, 12, 16, 17, 20, 124 BookBrowse, interviews with Hosseini, 4, 6 Braendlin, Bonnie Hoover, 17 Bryant Park Project, 107 Buckley, Jerome, 16, 17 Buddhas, 50, 55, 60, 61, 68 Burbank, Luke, 107, 108 burqa, 4, 49, 53, 59, 61, 70–72, 83–85, 95, 113, 117 chadhari. See burqa Chicken Street, Kabul, 56 childbirth, 16, 26, 33, 38, 39, 42, 50, 73 cinema: Afghanistan, 3, 86–89, 101, 102; in the novels, 35, 42, 48, 56, 79; Siddiq Barmak, 88, 90; Robin Benger, 90; Bollywood, 87; Charlie Wilson’s War, 90, 91; Taran Davies, 90; Clint Eastwood, 42, 86; Marina Golbahari, 88, 102; Magnificent Seven, 5, 86, 96; Liz Mermin, 90, 112; Sedika Mojadidi, 90; Beth Murphy, 90; Osama, 88, 90, 102; Walied Osman, 90; Nelofer Pazira, 84, 112
clothing, Afghan, 71, 72, 84, 85, 88; veil, 7, 71, 72, 85, 112. See also burqa Communist Party, 1–3, 7, 72, 76, 84. See also Afghanistan, coup Conan, Neil, 107 Conlogue, Ray, 13 Cowan, James, 2 Daoud Khan, 1, 2, 6, 7, 28, 50, 72 Defoe, Daniel (Robinson Crusoe), 13 diaspora, in literature, 3, 11–13, 20, 21 Dickens, Charles, 11, 12, 16, 20, 125 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 17 discrimination, 5, 36, 41, 42, 73, 75–77, 81, 106, 118, 121. See also Hazara; women domestic fiction, 11–13, 20, 23 Eggers, David (What Is the What), 11, 94 epic tradition, 12, 14, 15, 16, 109, 121, 124; hero in, 12, 15, 17 epilepsy, in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 62 Facebook, 96, 97 families and family life, 18, 20, 26, 27, 38, 43, 44, 50, 53, 56, 57, 59, 63, 70, 77, 83, 111. See also marriage and courtship Fariba, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 50, 58, 59 Farsiwan, 6, 27. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Farzana, character in The Kite Runner, 38 Feng, Pin–chia, 17 film. See cinema flea market, 7, 22, 30, 31, 36, 40, 41, 44 Forster, Marc, 8, 89, 107. See also The Kite Runner, the film Free Library of Philadelphia podcasts, 23, 98 Fremont, California, 8, 25, 35, 40–42 Fresh Air (NPR), 1–2
Gauhari, Farooka, 14, 15, 114 genre, literary, 5, 11–13, 17. See also bildungsroman; disaspora, in literature; domestic fiction; k€ unstlerroman; novel Ghafour, Hamida, 83, 115 Ghazi Stadium, 32, 35, 53, 54, 77 Gross, Nasrine, 90 Gross, Terry, 1–2, 7 Gul Daman, 48, 54, 56, 57 Habib Khan, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 69 Hafez (poet), 21, 60 Hakim, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns. See Babi Hansen, Liane, 5 Harrell, John, 14 Hassan, character in A Kite Runner, 15–20, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 36–38, 75–77; Baba’s son, 32, 42, 75; cleft lip, 28, 34; as epic hero, 15–20; as kite runner, 28; leaving Kabul, 30; and literacy, 15, 68, 69, 74; rape of, 29; relationship with Amir, 27–30, 42; as servant 26, 28, 29, 42, 74, 75 Hazarajat, Afghanistan, 17, 30, 31, 37, 38, 54, 55, 72; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 55 Hazaras: as ethnic minority in Afghanistan, 6, 26, 27, 38, 42, 51, 74, 76; in The Kite Runner, 18, 26, 28–30, 33, 36, 37, 75, 76; in The Kite Runner film, 88 health care, 4, 62, 72–74, 100, 113 Herat, Afghanistan, 18, 21, 72, 111; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 48, 54–58, 61, 67, 70, 86 Horowitz, Rosemary, 14 Hosseini, Khaled: Academy of Achievement, 94; Arababshirali, 81; blog, 81, 91, 94, 105; childhood, 3, 41, 99; Cinema Park, 3; education, 1–2; family, 1–2; Goodwill Envoy to United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 2, 81; Humanitarian of the Year, 81; immigration, 1–3, 6, 7,
65, 105; influences and inspirations, 4, 5, 17, 96, 124, 126; political and social views, 4, 5, 65, 67, 69, 71, 77, 81, 91, 94, 99, 100, 105, 106; views on The Kite Runner film, 8, 88–90, 107; as writer, 3, 5, 6, 13, 14, 22, 104, 105, 106 immigration, 3, 8, 11–13, 21, 30, 35, 42, 65, 118, 119, 120. See also Fremont, California; The Kite Runner, exile infant mortality, 33, 39. See also childbirth Iran, 8, 21, 54, 75, 84, 90, 98, 112, 120 Islam, 57, 58, 59, 69, 81, 85, 113. See Muslims Islamabad, Pakistan, 35, 55 Istiqlal Lycee, 1 Jalal ad–Din Rumi, 60 Jones, Tamara, 2–6 Kaambakhsh, Sayed Parwez, 93. See also Hosseini: blog; Hosseini: political and social views Kabul, Afghanistan, 26, 31, 35, 41, 51, 54, 59, 66, 67, 72, 76, 112–114; Chicken Street, 56; Hosseini’s childhood in, 1, 3, 6, 99; Kabul University, 50, 84, 85, 114; population of, 48, 55; Titanic City, 56, 86, 87 Kandahar, Afghanistan, 53, 55, 72 Kandahar, the film, 84, 90, 112 Karteh–Seh, 32, 40 Karzai, Hamid, 85 Kite Runner, The: adoption in, 31; Afghan immigrant community, 6, 25, 26, 30, 35, 36, 40–42; autobiographical aspects, 3, 6, 99; characters (see individual characters by name); exile, 5, 22, 28, 36, 41–43, 51, 65; flea market (see flea market); Fremont, California (see Fremont, California); forgiveness, 22,
36, 38, 41, 43, 107; friendship, 5, 22, 25, 26, 29; Hitler, 28, 33, 39, 76; Kabul (see Kabul, Afghanistan); khastegari, 30 (see also marriage and courtship); kites, 3, 28, 29, 34, 35, 67, 98; orphanage, 19, 31, 32, 34, 35, 38, 40, 43; San Francisco, 19, 26, 34–36; San Jose State, 31 Kite Runner, The, the film, 8, 80, 89, 94, 97, 106, 107 Koochi nomads, 50, 51 k€ unstlerroman, 11 Laila, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 15, 16, 53–55, 58–60, 66, 72; childhood, 18, 50, 51, 67, 68, 70; as mother, 18, 52, 53, 54, 57, 73; relationship with Mariam, 15, 18, 52; relationship with Rasheed, 15, 18, 52, 57, 77; relationship with Tariq, 51, 54, 62; and Titanic, 86, 87 Learn Out Loud, Web site, 98 Lemar–Aftaab/afghanmagazine.com, 106 Library Journal, 79 literacy, 14, 15, 27, 42, 44, 58, 65, 68, 69, 72, 74, 76, 111 Lovecraft, H. P., 3 Makhmalbaf, Mohsen, 90, 112 Makhmalbaf, Samira, 90 Mariam, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 15, 54–60, 68–77, 86; childhood, 18, 47–49, 54, 56, 57, 86; as heroine, 16, 19, 53, 54, 62; misscarriages, 49, 50; relationship with Aziza, 52, 61; relationship with Jalil, 18, 47–49, 52, 56, 86; relationship with Laila, 15, 18, 52, 53, 58; relationship with Rasheed, 15, 16, 49, 50, 53, 57, 58; and Titanic, 86, 87 marriage and courtship, 40, 50, 61, 71, 105; Ali, 38; Amir and Soraya, 26, 30, 31, 39, 40, 71; Farib and Hakim, 58, 61, 62, 68, 70; Laila and Mariam, 16, 38, 47, 50, 52, 59, 61; Nana, 56, 62; Rasheed, 57
Massoud, Ahmad Shah, 59 Mazar–i–Sharif, 33, 77, 113, 118 memoirs: Afghan men, 83–84; Afghan women, 84–86 Milvy, Erika, 8, 9, 79 miscarriage. See childbirth Mohammad Nadir Shah, King, 37, 41 Mortenson, David (Three Cups of Tea), 82 Mousavi, Sayed Askar, 75, 76 Mujahideen, 40, 50, 55, 58, 59, 71, 72, 76, 83, 91, 110, 111 Mullah Faizullah, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 48, 49, 57, 58, 69, 70 mullahs, 49, 58, 67, 71 Najibullah, 88 Nana, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 47, 48, 56, 57, 62, 70 National Public Radio, 95, 107, 114 New York Times, 39, 79, 82, 83, 94, 104 Nizami Ganjevi, 21, 60 novel (genre), 11–13. See also genre, literary Nuristani, 6, 27. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Omar (Umar) Khayyam, 21, 96 Paghman, Afghanistan, 3 Pakistan, 83, 84, 110, 111, 113, 114, 116–118; Afghan diaspora, 8, 51; Islamabad, 35, 55; in The Kite Runner, 19, 26, 30, 31, 33, 35, 34, 35, 38, 43, 63; Murree, 54, 55, 60; Peshawar, 31, 33, 35, 51, 118; Rawalpindi, 55; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 51, 54, 55, 59, 60 Pashtun, 6, 18, 26–28, 36, 42, 49, 51, 62, 75, 76, 114, 116, 117. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Pazira, Nelofer, 84, 112 Penguin/Orange Broadband Reader’s Prize, 79
People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, 7, 76 Peshawar, Pakistan, 31, 33, 35, 51, 118 Petronius (Satyricon), 13 podcasts, 93, 98 poets and poetry, 5, 13, 21, 36, 60, 68, 117, 118. See also names of poets prison, 53, 55, 62, 77, 117, 126 Qirghiz, 27. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Qizilbash, 27. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Rais, Shah Muhammad, 83 Red City (Shahr–e–Zohak, Afghanistan), 50, 60 religion, 26, 36, 37, 42, 51, 62, 67, 76, 101, 114. See also Shi’a Muslim; Sunni Muslim religious tolerance, 36, 39, 41, 42, 62, 75, 76, 106 Richardson, Samuel, 13 Robinson Crusoe, 13 Rodriguez, Deborah, 71, 82, 112, 115 Roemer, Michael, 14, 15 Sadat, Mir Hekmatullah, 3, 5–8, 106 Saib–e–Tabrizi, 33 Salon, 8, 95 Samar, Sima, Dr. (Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs), 90 San Francisco, California, 2, 8, 19, 26, 34–36 San Jose, California, 2, 31 Sanaubar, character in The Kite Runner, 26, 38 Sayeed, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 60 Seierstad, A˚sne, 82, 83 September 11, 2001, 3, 54, 55, 66, 78, 83, 84, 86, 91, 114 Serabi, Habibi (Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs), 90 servant–master relationship, 15, 25–29, 37, 42, 69, 74, 76 Sethna, Razeshta, 3, 5
Shi’a Muslim, 26, 36, 42, 59, 75, slavery, 38, 74–76, 123 soccer, 32, 54, 77 Sohrab, character in The Kite Runner, 7, 15, 16, 19, 20, 31, 32–35, 38–40, 43, 66, 69, 77 Soviets, 1 3, 21, 27, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 76, 83, 91, 100, 110–113, 115, 116, 188; in The Kite Runner, 17, 25, 30, 31, 35, 39, 41; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 20, 50, 51, 55, 58, 59, 61, 71, 77 Sterne, Laurence (Tristram Shandy), 13 Stewart, Rory (The Places in Between), 82, 115 storytelling and storytellers, 2, 5, 13, 14, 22, 23, 60, 94, 104, 105, 108, 116 suicide, 18, 34, 49, 60, 66, 117 Sunni Muslim, 26, 36, 42, 58, 58, 75, 76 Tajiks, 6, 27, 51, 62, 77. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Taliban, 4, 6, 29, 59, 60, 66, 72, 76, 83, 90, 101, 114, 116; in The Kite Runner, 18, 31, 32, 35, 39, 41, 43, 77; practices regarding women, 4, 62, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 85, 111, 113, 115, 116; in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 52–55; and Titanic, 86, 87 Talk of the Nation (NPR), 107 Tariq, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 16, 18, 50–55, 58–62, 66–68, 70 Tarzi, Mahmud 75 Thousand Splendid Suns, A, 3, 4, 11, 13, 16, 47, 104, 105; characters (see individual characters by name); drought, 8, 51, 52, 66; friendship and family, 18, 22, 23, 47, 51, 54, 61, 62, 66; history and life in Afghanistan, 20, 50, 58, 60, 66, 67, 77, 99, 100; Koochi nomads, 50; orphanage, 19, 52–54, 59–61, 66; plight of women, 50, 52, 53, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 68–71, 73, 81; Titanic, 86
Time magazine, 95 Titanic City, 56, 86, 87 Titanic fever in Kabul, 56, 86–88 Turkmen, 6, 27, 54. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities UNHCR, 5, 138 United Nations, 2, 23, 39, 68, 72, 81, 100, 111 United States, invasion of Afghanistan. See Afghanistan: U.S. invasion of Ustad Awal Mir, 21 Ustad Khalilullah Khalili, 21 Uzbeks, 6, 27, 77, 85. See also Afghanistan, ethnic groups and minorities Walayat Women’s Prison, 53, 62 Washington Post, 2, 105 Wayne, John, 3, 86 Weich, Dave, 6 Wiesel, Elie, 14
women, 4, 7, 15, 16, 50, 52, 62, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 83, 86, 90, 99, 100, 104, 110–117; in bildungsroman, 17; Koochi women, 51. See also Afghanistan: laws concerning women; Afghanistan: women; burqa; childbirth; health care; Khaled Hosseini: political and social views; Laila, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns; Mariam, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns; marriage and courtship; memoirs: Afghan women; Taliban: practices regarding women; A Thousand Splendid Sons: plight of women; Walayat Women’s Prison Zahir Shah, King, 1, 2, 28 Zalmai, character in A Thousand Splendid Suns, 52–54, 57, 59 Zaman, character in The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, 32, 40, 41, 43, 52, 54, 59, 60
REBECCA STUHR is an Associate Professor and Collection Development Librarian at Grinnell College.
Reading Joan Didion (The Pop Lit Book Club)
Reading Cormac McCarthy (The Pop Lit Book Club)
Reading Laurell K. Hamilton (The Pop Lit Book Club)
Reading Toni Morrison (The Pop Lit Book Club)
The Junior Officers' Reading Club
The Book Club Cookbook
The Speed Reading Book
The Polaroid Club Book Two
The Polaroid Club Book One
Night (Oprah's Book Club)
The Trophy Wives Club (The Trophy Wives Club, Book 1)
Easy Pop Melodies, Book 1
The Ultimate Pop Rock Fake Book
La Representacion De La Violencia Conyugal En La Lit Pop
Zamazpojscie Lit Lit
The Impostor (The Liar's Club, Book 2)
READING J OAN D IDION Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie Houston and Jennif...
R E A D I N G C O R M A C M C C A RT H Y Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie...
READING LAURELL K. HAMILTON Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie Houston and ...
R E A D I N G TO N I M O R R I S O N Recent Titles in The Pop Lit Book Club Reading Barbara Kingsolver Lynn Marie Hou...
The Book Club Also by Mary Alice MONROE SWIMMING LESSONS SWEETGRASS SKYWARD THE BEACH HOUSE THE FOUR SEASONS GIRL IN TH...
Report "Reading Khaled Hosseini (The Pop Lit Book Club)"
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Revisiting The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR)
The prospect for conflict in the Middle East, pending collapse of production in Venezuela, and turmoil in North Africa all remind us the world oil market still faces substantial threats of disruption. The North American petroleum renaissance, which has lifted U.S. oil production to the point where net exports are rapidly moving into positive territory, has also opened opportunities for Congress to sell off a substantial volume of strategic stocks to fund a range of domestic programs. EPRINC has argued that while some adjustments to the reserve size may be justified, on balance, it still plays a critical role in the security of the United States and decisions on the size of the SPR should take the long view. The SPR remains an important strategic asset.
Given the current geopolitical environment, we are highlighting some previous EPRINC papers published on this topic. In addition, our friend and colleague, Dr. Carmine Difiglio, has shared with us his insightful analysis of the value of strategic stocks in sustaining economic growth. Professor Difiglio, formerly with the U.S. Department of Energy, is Director of the Istanbul International Center for Energy and Climate (IICEC) at Sabanci Univerity.
For links to the reports on the SPR, click here
John Shages, former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategic Reserves, writes on Policy Challenges in Managing the Nation’s Strategic Oil Stock (July 2014).
For access to the report, click here
Lucian Pugliaresi of EPRINC and Fred Beach of UT, Austin debate the value of the SPR in the Wall Street Journal (November 2015).
Larry Goldstein and Lucian Pugliaresi of EPRINC comment on Congress’s initiative to fund health care by reducing the size of the SPR in Politico (July 2015)
Carmine Difiglio’s extensive analysis of the negative consequences of world economic growth from oil supply disruptions. Oil, economic growth and strategic petroleum stocks, Energy Strategy Reviews (2014).
Michael Lynch, EPRINC Distinguished Fellow and President of Strategic Energy and Economic Research, Inc. presents a retrospective on the 1979 oil disruption and the role uncertainty and hoarding can play is amplifying the cost of an oil supply disruption. The article was recently published in Forbes and can be found here
EPRINC Releases Report on the Role of Octane in U.S. Transportation Fuels
Over the course of the last forty years, automobile manufacturers have had to comply with a variety of increasingly stringent Federal and State requirements. CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) regulations were enacted in the 1970s to require higher fuel efficiency in motor vehicles. Beginning in 2005 through the passage of the RFS (Renewable Fuel Standard) increasing volumes of biofuel blending have been mandated. As both of these sets of regulations have created formidable compliance challenges, there has emerged an opportunity to link the two to bring some convergence to these two important public policy concerns and offer some resolution through requiring higher-octane fuel.
EPRINC’s Lucian Pugliaresi and Max Pyziur have written a report which presents an estimate of the cost of transforming the U.S. gasoline fuel system from one in which about 89 percent of sales can be characterized as “regular” and “midgrade” gasoline into a fuel system that, over time, nearly 100 percent of sales can be characterized as “higher-octane” gasoline. Several methodologies were used to estimate the cost of this transformation, and the merits and demerits of each system for calculating the cost are discussed in the report. The report can be found here.
Lucian Pugliaresi Presents at the Energy Mexico Oil Gas Power 2019 Expo & Congress
Photo: Panelists for the Session on Energy Implications of the new U.S. Mexico Canada (USMCA) Trade Agreement (Left to Right) Jesus Seade Kuri (Key NAFTA Negotiator for the Administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador), Ildefonso Guajardo (Former Minister of Economy and Chief Negotiator of NAFTA), Carlos Pascual (Senior Vice President, Global Energy, IHS Markit), Herman Franssen (Panel Chairman, Executive Director, Energy Intelligence Group), Lucian Pugliaresi (President, Energy Policy Research Foundation), Moisés R. Kalach Balas (Coordinator of the Strategic International Business Council, Consejo Coordinador Empresarial) Lucian Pugliaresi made two presentations in Mexico City at the Energy Mexico Oil Gas Power 2019 Expo & Congress, a key event for the entire value chain of the Mexican energy sector. He made presentations on a panel discussion on the new U.S. – Mexico – Canada (USMCA) trade agreement as well as a panel evaluating the implications of shifts in national energy policies. His two presentations can be found here and here.
London Argus Biofuels 2018 Conference
On October 8-11, 2018, Argus Media held their Biofuels 2018 Conference in London.
Offering a U.S. perspective, EPRINC’s Max Pyziur participated in a panel titled, “Political will for ethanol in transport fuels.” He also chaired a Roundtable themed “Ethanol Growth in the US markets.”
The pdf of his powerpoint slides used at the Roundtable can be found here.
IEEJ and EPRINC Release 2018 Assessment on the Future of Asian LNG
The Institute of Energy Economics Japan (IEEJ) and EPRINC have published a follow-on assessment to their 2017 joint report on the future role of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Asian power and fuel markets. This second year of our joint effort has taken a more in-depth evaluation of trends and longer-term uncertainties in Asian natural gas markets and the potential role of U.S. LNG exports in serving those markets. The joint research findings were presented at the 7th Annual Producer Consumer LNG Conference held in Nagoya, Japan on October 22, 2018. The event was attended by energy ministers, government officials, and industry representatives from the entire LNG value chain.
A copy of the 2018 joint report can be found here.
EPRINC and IEEJ Host Workshop: “Future of Asian LNG Part Two, The Road to Nagoya”
On September 5th, 2018, EPRINC co-hosted the third workshop in the 2018 “Future of Asian LNG” series at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington D.C. IEEJ and EPRINC are in the second year of a joint assessment of the future role of LNG in Asian power and fuel markets. Among the more important objectives of this joint effort are identifying recent trends and longer-term uncertainties in Asian natural gas markets and the potential role of U.S. LNG exports in serving those markets. The final workshop in the 2018 program included presentations and discussion on the U.S. LNG value chain, opportunities and challenges for financing the expansion of U.S. LNG exports and regasification receiving facilities in Asia, and prospects for expansion of natural gas storage and LNG bunker facilities, among other topics.
The workshop presentations and accompanying discussion will contribute to the final joint IEEJ-EPRINC report and recommendations. The findings and recommendations will be presented at the 7th Annual Producer Consumer Conference on October 22, 2018 in Nagoya, Japan.
Photos From the Event
Presentations from the Workshop
The Permian Basin Produces Gas, Too
This report by EPRINC Non-Resident Fellow Trisha Curtis is part of the Energy Policy Research Foundation’s multi-year research program evaluating the scale and scope of the North American petroleum renaissance. As U.S. producers expand production to meet domestic requirements and the rapidly growing market for pipeline exports and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), it is essential that policy makers have a full understanding of the sustainability of the U.S. natural gas production platform. This report addresses the range of challenges and opportunities for expanding U.S. production of natural gas for both domestic uses and export markets through an in depth look at North America’s most prolific oil and gas basin, the Permian. The report can be found here.
Lucian Pugliaresi and Max Pyziur Write Op-Ed on the RFS Program and Its Effect on Gasoline Prices
EPRINC’s Lucian Pugliaresi and Max Pyziur have crafted an op-ed that was published in InsideSources in response to a study published by the Renewable Fuels Association that was written by Philip Verleger which stated that the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has lowered U.S. gasoline prices. According to EPRINC’s analysis of the RFS, the problem with U.S. fuels policy is not ethanol, but the RFS mandate. And that is what drives the cost of transportation fuels up, not down as Philip Verleger contends.
The op-ed can be found on InsideSource’s website here and the unabridged version can be found in PDF format here.
EPRINC is excited to announce the addition of Rafael Sandrea as a Distinguished Fellow. Rafael is President of IPC Petroleum Consultants, Inc., a Tulsa based international petroleum consulting firm which specializes in oil and gas reserves appraisals and risk analysis for international upstream petroleum investments. He is very active giving Webinars, Masterclasses online, and speaking on the themes of reserves, IOR/EOR, shale oil and gas assessment, and global oil & gas supply, around the world. More of Rafael’s background can be found here.
Emily Medina Crafts Mexico Gasoline and Diesel Market Overview
EPRINC Non-Resident Fellow Emily Medina has crafted a primer on the Mexican Gasoline and Diesel Market as part of the EPRINC Mexico Initiative.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) contributes to both the strength and sustainability of the North American petroleum renaissance. North American cross-border energy trade is extensive and the movement of crude oil, refined petroleum products, and natural gas contributes to the expanding national economies in the USMCA.
An essential element to ensure efficient energy production throughout the production platform is allowing energy flows to move unimpeded. The expanding trade in petroleum products, especially gasoline and diesel, is a case in point. This trade has been beneficial to the U.S. refining industry by allowing processing facilities to operate efficiently at high volume. Mexican consumers benefit from product exports from the U.S. (and Canada) by gaining access to secure and competitively priced gasoline and diesel fuel. Some Mexican officials have raised energy security concerns arguing that Mexico is too dependent on U.S. supplies and that domestic production should be encouraged or subsidized as a substitute for imports.
Addressing energy security concerns is a complicated issue and will be the subject of a more in- depth treatment of the Mexican petroleum products market in a subsequent report. This policy brief presents an overview of the current gasoline and diesel market in Mexico.
Click here to access the paper.
A Report on Resource Pessimism by EPRINC Distinguished Fellow Michael Lynch
EPRINC Distinguished Fellow Michael Lynch has penned a report on resource pessimism. A summary of the report is as follows:
The modern era has seen two major threads of neo-Malthusian thought: fears that agriculture cannot sustain the future population and concerns about possible scarcity of nonrenewable resources like minerals and energy. This has caused various governments to undertake population control policies, crash programs to develop substitute fuels, and even suggestions that exploitation of asteroids for their mineral resources might soon be necessary. The proposed Green New Deal was seen to be motivated in part by a concern for the finite nature of resources.
But the various apocalyptic predictions based on these theories have virtually all failed, although proponents insist that only their timing is in error, not the concept. This report finds that most neo-Malthusian arguments are based on an incorrect understanding of resource estimates, including the nature and terminology, leading to the use of woefully conservative figures which then generate the apocalyptic warnings. Combined with the assumption that, since technological advances can’t be predicted, technological progress should not be assumed, arguments that consumption must be curtailed and even that economic growth should cease are based on fallacious notions.
This paper argues that neo-Malthusians suffer from an underspecified model, not just bad input parameters but omitted variables that guarantee the pessimistic, and invalid, predictions.
Correcting these errors results in a much better understanding of resources and a more optimistic outlook for the global economy and hopefully less economic waste.
The report can be found here.
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Contact Us: 02 6583 8277
Book A School Tour
Why Heritage
Why Christian Schooling
Our Strengths Focus
Staff / Employment
Heritage Timeline
As parents considering a Christian School there are important questions to ask yourself.
Does your child’s school help you to fulfil your God-given parental responsibilities?
Do they uphold the Christian values and principles you have in your own home?
Do they provide well-qualified, skilled, Christian teachers who are positive role models?
Do they encourage your child to think critically from a Biblical perspective?
Do they nurture, care and pray for your child?
Do they challenge your child to reach his or her God-given potential – academically, spiritually, socially, creatively and physically?
Do the parents of your children’s friends and peers share similar family values to yours?
As parents we need to recognise that all schools are faith based. Some schools are Christian, some associated with a particular religion, and others supposedly “neutral”. Yet the absence of a religious faith does not mean the teachers and staff are neutral. All teachers are people. Therefore they all have personal beliefs and values. It is natural for these to be expressed in their role. We believe it is important not just to have all of our staff with a strong Christian faith but for them to teach deliberately from a Christian worldview. The motto of Heritage Christian School is “Faith and Knowledge”. These two are inseparable.
The Christian believes that there are no neutral facts, that everything is related to God and has significance beyond this life. Christian education, therefore, has to do with every subject of knowledge. Adding a few courses in religion and Bible study to a school curriculum, or holding religious exercises and chapel services, does not make a school Christian. Christian education requires a Christian point of view for the whole curriculum; a God-centred program in every department. A Christian school seeks to be Christian every hour of the school day.
What is the difference between a ‘Christian’ school and other independent ‘Church’ schools?
This school is not run or supervised by a particular church. Heritage is a school established, maintained and directed by a society of Christian parents as a Christian community.
The School sees itself as an extension of your Christian home, and the Christian church; a school that is in harmony with the values and attitudes that parents would want to encourage in their children.
To that end, all staff in the school must be practising, committed Christians. In at least 60% of families associated with the School, at least one parent must be a practising Christian.
The teaching staff commit themselves to being part of a learning community which attempts to develop a broad and challenging curriculum that is distinctively ‘Christian’ in its approach. Not in a contrived or ‘forced’ manner, but as an expression of a Christian community which sees all of life as a gift from God to be explored and enjoyed. The Bible is taken seriously as the source of truth and a guide for all of life.
Are children at Heritage ‘closeted’ from the ‘real’ world?
Well “Yes” and “No”.
“Yes”, in the sense that Heritage has a nurturing, supportive, informal culture where strong relationships are built among students and staff. At Heritage other parents of your children’s friends are more likely to share your own family’s values of right and wrong. At Heritage, Christianity, even in all its diversity, is seen as normal.
“No”, in the sense we aim to prepare students for life. The educational environment is open, questioning and ecumenical in its approach. The students come from a wide variety of Christian homes and from different social and ethnic backgrounds. Many of our students move on from Heritage to University or some other tertiary institution and the experience of our graduates is that they are well prepared for their future places serving in society.
What does this Bible Based education mean in practice?
Teachers prepare much of their content running parallel with the state syllabus. The content is programmed from a Christian perspective. We endeavour to teach children how to think Christianly about each subject.
Biblical Studies is a prominent subject. Our program aims to teach children how to understand the main message of the Bible. We hope that students will be able to see the faithfulness of God, despite the continued unfaithfulness of humanity, especially in the person and work of Christ.
Each staff member is a committed Christian. Every staff member believes the Bible to be the authoritative word of God and seeks to live a life that brings glory to Christ.
Devotions are a daily feature in each classroom. Bible reading, shared prayer points, discussing issues, reading Christian literature are all a part of what happens in a typical day.
Heritage caters for the whole child. Whether your child excels or struggles academically, socially, physically or spiritually, programs and opportunities exist for each requirement.
What It Does Not Mean
The Bible is not used as a textbook. We do not use the Bible to study, say, Grammar. This is not its purpose. To do so would be counterproductive.
Not every lesson will have an overtly Christian theme. At times it is inappropriate to add a Bible passage to a lesson. A degree of sensitivity and discernment is required here.
Children are not forced to believe. Indoctrination is not a part of the way we teach, although we do hope that each child will come to love and obey Jesus Christ.
The children are not perfect. Discipline is still required from time to time and is actually seen as a part of the education process.
Children are not sheltered from the real world. There comes a time when it is appropriate to deal with the issues children face. Teachers will note this occasion and deal with issues sensitively.
Check out the front page in our local paper
33 Mumford St, Port Macquarie NSW 2444
Po Box 5598, Port Macquarie NSW 2444
E: admin@heritage.nsw.edu.au
Geoff Brisby
Geoff is the Principal at Heritage Christian School, Port Macquarie since December 2010. He is passionate to see students nurtured into their fullest potential.
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Home Newsletter FocusOn Television
FocusOn Television
Univision Launches Streaming Service for $5.99 a Month
Spanish language network’s streaming service debuts as company pursues IPO
Univision Communications Inc. is launching a $5.99-a-month streaming service dubbed “Univision Now” that will allow consumers to stream its Spanish-language broadcast networks Univision and UniMás live.
The launch comes at a crucial time for the company, which announced its intent to go public in July but hasn’t consummated the offering amid skittishness among media investors. Univision’s new streaming service could bring the company a new source of revenue as it continues to chart its course toward an initial public offering.
People can already watch both Univision and UniMás for free over the air with an antenna. But until now, any streaming of their content has largely been limited to people who log in to so-called “TV Everywhere” apps by proving they are pay-TV subscribers.
Now, cord-cutters can pay to stream telenovelas like “Antes Muerta Que Lichita” and soccer matches from Liga MX, the Mexican soccer league, on mobile devices and outside the home. Univision is also offering an annual subscription to Univision Now at $59.99.
“Consumers have come to accept that they can access their favorite content anywhere,” said Tonia O’Connor, president of content distribution and corporate business development at Univision. “We have not been able to deliver on that with our over-the-air viewers because we had committed to ‘TV Everywhere,’” the strategy of keeping streaming TV network content behind a cable-TV paywall. “This is all about focusing on our over-the-air viewers and providing them access to the content they already enjoy” on digital devices.
The new service will offer primetime programming for seven days after shows air and offer a three-day DVR functionality that will automatically record the prior 72 hours of content for playback. Viewers in New York, Los Angeles and Houston will also be able to watch local news. The company said it is looking to add on local news market-by-market to its streaming service.
Univision Now adds to the smorgasbord of streaming services TV networks are making available to consumers, including HBO Now, CBS All Access, NBCUniversal’s Seeso and Showtime. That’s in addition to online versions of pay TV like Dish Network Corp. DISH 3.54 % ’s $20-a-month Sling TV and Sony Corp. SNE 0.45 % ’s Vue service.
It’s unclear how many of these will garner a critical mass of subscribers. Including the price of a broadband connection, these services can add up for consumers. But TV networks are banking on incremental revenue from their new digital businesses as the traditional pay-TV business comes under pressure. Though the much-smaller UniMás is up 12.5% in primetime viewership this season compared with the prior-year period, Univision’s flagship network is down 22% (measuring live plus seven days of time-shifted viewing).
Univision initially had plans to launch its IPO shortly after Labor Day, but growing uncertainty among media investors about the health of the pay TV business caused the company to wait, people familiar with the company’s thinking said. The company continues to watch market events, and there’s a possibility the offering may not happen until 2016, one of the people said.
Univision says its streaming service is aimed at broadcast viewers—not cable customers. The company’s many cable networks won’t be included as part of the service, nor will the vast amount of its on-demand library, which will only be available to pay TV customers. Because of the targeted market size, Ms. O’Connor said she doesn’t expect the new service will impact negotiations with cable TV providers or new digital distributors over the fees they pay to carry Univision’s networks.
“We’re not making this content available for free,” she noted. Customers will subscribe to those bundles when they want a variety, whereas Univision’s app will only attract “viewers that are loyal and committed to…only those networks.”
Certain content, including some movies on UniMás, won’t be available for streaming, because those rights haven’t been cleared. But the company noted that none of its sports content will be restricted.
The Univision Blackout Is About Money
By Jon Healey, Los Angeles Tmes
The Spanish-language television network Univision is back on cable TV in Los Angeles after a two-day blackout, thanks to a temporary restraining order issued by a judge in New York.
Some consumer advocates argued that the blackout — caused by a contract dispute between Univision and cable TV operator Charter Communications — denied Latinos a news source they depended on to keep track of the developments in Washington that were dramatically affecting their communities. They wanted government to intervene because of, well, Trump.
There’s certainly a whiff of Trump conspiracy theories in the air. Witness this comment by 92-year-old Cypress Park resident Lorenza Muniz after she discovered Univision’s local channel, KMEX, had been blacked out on her Charter Spectrum cable service: “Is this Trump?” The Times quoted her saying to her son. “Is he doing this so Mexicanos don’t get any information?”
The ability to tune in TV signals isn’t an entitlement that government needs to protect somehow.
Local TV stations have long occupied a special place in American society. Their role as a conduit of information was seen as so important, they were granted the exclusive use of extremely valuable airwaves for free. But the ability to tune in those signals isn’t an entitlement that government needs to protect somehow. Television broadcasts are a product, competing with other products and trying to extract the best price from their customers.
There was a time when there were relatively few TV signals available — three major broadcast networks and a handful of local UHF stations — and a limited number of other news sources. (As a writer for a newspaper that went bankrupt not too long ago, I view those days as the Golden Age, and if making America great again meant restoring my industry to its pre-Internet dominance, I would have been all for it.) This is decidedly not that time.
It’s ridiculous to suggest that anyone “depends” or “relies” on Charter’s Univision feed for news. There is one other major Spanish-language network — Telemundo, owned by Comcast‘s NBC Universal subsidiary — and at least four independent local Spanish language broadcasters in Southern California. There are plenty of Spanish-language radio stations, two daily Spanish-language newspapers and an assortment of Spanish-language weeklies.
Add to that countless Internet feeds, including Univision’s $6-a-month Univision NOW, as well as at least two satellite-TV alternatives to Charter (AT&T’s DirecTV and Dish), and you’ve got an extremely healthy market for news and information.
It’s not in Univision’s interest to publicize this fact. The more it’s seen as vital or even irreplaceable, the more pressure there will be on Charter to pay higher fees to carry Univision’s stable of TV channels.
That, after all, is the real subject of this dispute, which began when Charter bought Time Warner Cable. Charter and TWC had different contracts with Univision — TWC, which had more customers, had negotiated lower fees. Univision insisted that the merged company negotiate a new deal, but Charter decided simply to pay the fees called for in TWC’s contract. Univision sued and set a Jan. 31 deadline; when the deadline passed without a deal, the network demanded that Charter stop retransmitting the two over-the-air and three cable channels it controls.
They play hardball in the TV business. That’s why blackouts happen across the country every few months; it’s why most Angelenos still can’t watch Dodger games on TV. This case is a little different because it boils down to how existing contracts should be interpreted, which is the kind of thing courts are often asked to resolve. But the core issue, as with every battle between pay-TV operators and networks, is how much the channel’s content is worth.
That’s something the market — that is, TV viewers — should decide, not the government. And if companies like Univision win every one of these disputes, cable bills will just keep going up and up and up. Which is not to say that Univision is wrong in this particular battle; that depends on whether Charter isn’t paying the price it agreed to pay.
The two sides have about a week to work out a deal before the restraining order lifts and the blackout resumes. Consumers shouldn’t stand idly by in the meantime. They can make their feelings known about Univision’s value by calling Charter and threatening to cancel their subscriptions unless it retains Univision — or tuning en masse to other channels.
Your Editor Comments: No confundan la magnesia con la gimnasia
Univision Communications Inc. to Host Conference Call Tomorrow October 27, 2015
Univision Communications will conduct a conference call to discuss its third quarter financial results at 11:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, October 27, 2015. A press release summarizing its third quarter financial results will be available on Univision’s website at http://corporate.univision.com/investor-relations/financial-information/ at the opening of business tomorrow, Tuesday.
To participate in the conference call, please dial (866) 547-1509 (within U.S.) or (920) 663-6208 (outside U.S.) fifteen minutes prior to the start of the call and provide the following pass code: 56357218. A playback of the conference call will be available beginning at 2:00 p.m. ET, Tuesday, October 27, 2015, through Tuesday, November 3, 2015. To access the playback, please dial (800) 585-8367 or (within U.S.) or (404) 537-3406 (outside U.S.) and enter reservation number 56357218.
TED Joins Vme TV to Produce “Soy TED”
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), a nonprofit organization that promotes “Ideas Worth Spreading,” has partnered with Spanish-language network Vme TV to create a 13-episodes series, “Soy TED.” Debuting September 25 the series seeks to influence Hispanics to shape the future.
“Soy Ted” will feature guest speakers including former NASA astronaut and record holder for most spaceflights, Franklin Chang Diaz, and Carlos Páez, one of 16 survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 who spent 72 days in the “Cordillera de los Andes.” Journalist and motivational speaker Ismael Cala is also among the list of influencers who will incorporate their own ideas and experiences to build on TED Talks.
“When we looked at new ways to channel ideas from TED speakers to communities most likely to shape American society over the next decade, we kept coming back to the Hispanic public in the U.S.,” says Deron Triff, TED’s director of global distribution and licensing.
He points out that Latinos’ power and potential to transform America are accelerating rapidly, and that by offering them new knowledge could deliver interesting ventures.
“Our hope is to eventually attach other media companies, corporations and organizations to TED’s collaboration with Vme, opening doors to share, promote and find ideas worth spreading from the Spanish-speaking population in the U.S.,” says Triff.
“Soy TED” will be hosted by Vme TV chairman Eduardo Hauser and will feature TED Talks and videos that promote out-of-the-box thinking around innovation, science, learning, food, success, and the human condition.
“At Vme TV, we believe that smart, thoughtful television content directed at a new generation of curious, upwardly mobile Latinos will influence important advancements in America,” says Hauser. “We have a unique opportunity to share the wisdom of TED’s speakers in Spanish.”
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The perfect is the enemy of the good
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Genocide, Justice and Denial
A selection of articles from the blog Greater Surbiton has been published in book format by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sarajevo, and can be downloaded in PDF format for free via its website. The following is the foreword to the book:
The articles in this volume were published on my blog, Greater Surbiton, since its launch in November 2007. Although Greater Surbiton was devoted to a number of different themes – including the southern and eastern Balkans, Turkey and Cyprus, Russia and the Caucasus, the meaning of progressive politics and the fight against Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and other forms of chauvinism – Bosnia-Hercegovina and the former Yugoslavia were at all times central to it. Twelve years after Dayton, when the blog was launched, the war over the former Yugoslavia was being waged as fiercely as ever – not on the battlefield, but in the realm of politics and ideas, both in the region and in the West. Genocide deniers and propagandists who sought to downplay or excuse the crimes of the Milosevic and Karadzic regimes of the 1990s – people like Diana Johnstone, Michael Parenti, David N. Gibbs, Nebojsa Malic, John Schindler and Carl Savich – continued their ugly work. Yet the ongoing struggle to counter their falsehoods was just one front in the wider war.
The period since 2007 has witnessed the rise of Milorad Dodik’s separatist challenge to the precarious Bosnian-Hercegovinian unity established at Dayton, and the consequent degeneration of the post-Dayton political order in the country; the declaration of Kosovo’s independence and Belgrade’s efforts to derail it; the struggle in Serbia between reformist and nationalist currents; the increasingly aggressive challenge of Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the West, manifested most starkly in the attacks on Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014, but also in support for Belgrade over Kosovo and for Dodik in Bosnia-Hercegovina; the increasingly apparent failure of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to punish adequately the war-criminals of the 1990s, despite the spectacular arrests of Radovan Karadzic in 2008 and Ratko Mladic in 2011; and the increasingly stark failure of Western leaders to confront murderous tyrants like Putin, Sudan’s Omar Hassan al-Bashir and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad – reminiscent of their failure in the 1990s over Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Today, the truth about the war in the former Yugoslavia is more widely known and understood than ever. The battle for the recognition of the Srebrenica genocide worldwide has largely been won; the remains of most victims of the massacre have been identified and reburied. The deniers and their narrative have been largely discredited. Yet the Bosnian question is further from a happy resolution than ever, while the West – the US, EU and their allies – look less likely to lead positive change in the region than they did a decade ago. Kosovo’s full international recognition is still being blocked by Serbia and Russia; Macedonia, kept out of the EU and NATO by Greek nationalist intransigence, is in crisis; not a single official of Serbia has yet been found guilty by the ICTY for war-crimes in Bosnia-Hercegovina, or is likely to be in the future; and leading former-Yugoslav war-criminals such as Biljana Plavsic and Momcilo Krajisnik have been released after serving short prison-terms in comfortable conditions.
The outcomes of the struggles tracked by my blog have therefore been far from unambiguously happy. Yet the politics and recent history of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the rest of the former Yugoslavia are much better understood than they were a decade ago; new generations of scholars, analysts and activists are discovering and explaining more all the time. I hope that the articles contained in this volume have made a contribution to this process of discovery.
Marko Attila Hoare, June 2015
Monday, 27 July 2015 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Balkans, Bosnia, Former Yugoslavia, Genocide, Serbia | Bashar al-Assad, Biljana Plavsic, Carl Savich, David N. Gibbs, Diana Johnstone, John Schindler, Michael Parenti, Milorad Dodik, Momcilo Krajisnik, Nebojsa Malic, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic, Vladimir Putin | 1 Comment
How can the Bosnian question be resolved ?
When we talk about solutions for Bosnia-Hercegovina, the emphasis is usually on what we would like Bosnia-Hercegovina to look like. This is very easy to say. I and many others would like Bosnia-Hercegovina to be a sovereign, unitary state of all its citizens, regardless of nationality. However, it is much more difficult to see how to achieve this. In this presentation, I am going to talk about a much more modest goal: the development of a Bosnian resistance strategy to prevent a greater misfortunate from befalling Bosnia-Hercegovina. And that will take the first steps toward restoring the state. I won’t engage in false optimism; this will be an analysis of the reality of the situation with a hard-headed analysis of what can realistically be achieved.
Bosnia-Hercegovina’s problems do not need explaining – we are all familiar with them. Bosnia-Hercegovina as a state exists only formally; on paper; in reality, Bosnia-Hercegovina has no functioning state. Bosnia-Hercegovina is divided into two entities. Of these, the Serb entity is the more homogenous one. It is the principal obstruction to Bosnia-Hercegovina’s functioning as a state. The Federation – some once expected – might have acted as the core around which Bosnia-Hercegovina could be reintegrated. So people have viewed the RS as the ‘bad’ entity and the Federation as the ‘good entity’. In fact, they are both bad entities, and the Federation is as much part of the problem as the RS. The Federation is crushed under the weight of its bureaucracy. Its division into cantons weakens both the administration and the economy. The Federation is plagued by the conflicts between Bosniak and Croat politicians. But reform of the system is impossible. It’s impossible to reform the state, because this would require consensus between the three nationalities. But the RS politicians will always veto any reforms that would make the state function. Reform of the Federation is also difficult. The Croats already feel marginalised within the Federation and view the system of cantons as a guarantee for at least a degree of autonomy.
The status quo is unsustainable
At one level, the status quo represents an acceptable compromise, or lesser evil. Bosniaks, and those Serbs and Croats who believe in a united Bosnia-Hercegovina, get at least the illusion of a united Bosnia-Hercegovina. They don’t get a real state, but they get a unified country that exists at least on paper. In return, those Serbs who don’t identify with Bosnia-Hercegovina get an entity with most of the attributes of statehood, but without the full right to secede. Those Croats who don’t identify with Bosnia-Hercegovina are perhaps the least satisfied, but they aren’t strong enough unilaterally to change the system. The status quo, some might feel, is better than any alternatives. However, there is reason to believe that it is unsustainable.
An entity such as the RS has a natural tendency to seek ever greater independence, and eventually full secession. That would be true even if Bosnia-Hercegovina were a relatively rich and successful country like Belgium, Spain or the UK, where there are strong tendencies toward separation in Flanders, Catalonia and Scotland. But the Serb political classes in the RS don’t just want greater autonomy. They wish to negate Bosnia-Hercegovina. Among the ordinary Serb people, the war has created a high level of bitterness that militates against acceptance of Bosnia-Hercegovina. International circumstances can give them hope that they will eventually be able to establish an independent Republika Srpska. Russia is acting as a Great Power in opposition to the European Union and NATO. The Russians have shown in Georgia and in Ukraine that they are fully prepared to dismember other European states, through support for secessionist regions, in opposition to Western wishes.
In the RS, Dodik has established himself as Russia’s ally through supporting Putin’s annexation of Crimea. If and when Dodik leaves office, the next president of Republika Srpska may pursue the same policy. It is entirely possible to envisage a scenario whereby the RS eventually secedes from Bosnia-Hercegovina, with support from Russia and Serbia. Right now, Serbia must behave itself in order to gain entry into the EU. But when Serbia joins the EU eventually, it will no longer need to behave well. The EU has shown that it won’t restrain a member that behaves badly toward a non-member. We have the example of how Greece and Bulgaria treat Macedonia. Or the example of five EU member states that won’t recognise Kosovo – three of them are recent members. Croatia joined the EU, and immediately the Croatian right-wing launched chauvinistic campaigns against gay marriage and the Cyrillic alphabet.
The likelihood is that Serbia will join the EU before Bosnia. So there will be a situation where the two states that tried to partition Bosnia-Hercegovina in the 1990s – Serbia and Croatia – will be in the EU and Bosnia will be outside. Should Serbia and Croatia then try again to partition Bosnia, it is difficult to see how the outside world will stop them. Even if Bosnia-Hercegovina joins the EU alongside Serbia, this will not necessarily help defend the country. Cyprus is in the EU, but the EU is not doing anything to try to end the partition of Cyprus, because Turkey is too strong. And Turkey does not even have the advantage of EU membership. If Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia and Croatia are all inside the EU and the RS secedes, the EU will find it very difficult to enforce sanctions against the RS. So Bosnians should be prepared for a possible new assault on Bosnian territorial integrity, involving the secession of the RS – particularly if and when Serbia joins the EU. So it is not necessarily a choice between the status quo and something worse. It may be a choice between an independent RS in its existing borders and something else.
Change won’t come from outside
In seeking to prevent this happening, and looking for a solution, there are two places we can look: from within the country of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and from the international community. Of course, we cannot ignore the outside world. International opinion is always crucially important. The Serb failure to achieve their full goals in the war of the 1990s, and the NATO bombardment of 1995, occurred in part because the Serbs lost the propaganda war – particularly following the Srebrenica massacre. So any attempt at change in Bosnia-Hercegovina has to be made with international public opinion in mind. But change will not come from outside. The wars of the 1990s demonstrated the unwillingness of the Western alliance to defend Bosnia-Hercegovina. Since then, the Western alliance has shown that it will not act to defend the territorial integrity of Georgia or Ukraine from Russian aggression. The excuse has been that these countries are not NATO members, so there is no legal obligation. Bosnia-Hercegovina is also not a NATO member.
So we cannot rely on the West to defend Bosnia-Hercegovina from the RS’s secession, backed by Russia, Serbia and maybe Croatia. Particularly if Serbia is already in the EU. There is no point expecting the international community to bring about a ‘Dayton 2’, and to re-establish a functioning Bosnian state. I recently visited Washington DC, where I met with State Department officials, and they made it clear that the US has no interest in any kind of Dayton 2. They also made it clear that they would only accept change on the basis of consensus. But positive change cannot be on the basis of consensus because of the Serb veto.
The high point of international intervention in Bosnia-Hercegovina, via the Office of the High Representative was in the years of Paddy Ashdown, up to 2006, when significant steps were taken to reintegrate Bosnia-Hercegovina. But since then, the momentum was lost, and the international community effectively stopped rebuilding Bosnia. So the process went into reverse, as Milorad Dodik dismantled the country again. Today the international community is happy provided Bosnia-Hercegovina remains quiet and is not a source of regional instability. This is a small-minded era in European politics. Public opinion in many European countries is increasingly hostile to the European Union. Anti-immigrant racism is very strong, and so is Islamophobia. Resistance to active foreign policy was revealed when the Western states refused to intervene to protect the people of Syria. So this is not a good era to expect constructive Western action to rebuild Bosnia. Only in the event of a major new crisis breaking out over Bosnia would the West feel moved to intervene – as was the case in 1992-95.
Change from within
So change in Bosnia-Hercegovina can only be expected to come from within. The question is how to build a movement for change that embraces Bosnians of all nationalities – Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats and others. Of the three principal Bosnian nationalities, only Bosniaks are overwhelmingly committed to Bosnia-Hercegovina as their homeland. Only a small minority of Serbs, and a slightly larger minority of Croats, identify with Bosnia-Hercegovina as their homeland. This was not always the case. Historically, Serbs and Croats identified with Bosnia-Hercegovina as their homeland in much greater measure than they do today. Before the 1990s, a political mobilisation based on shared Bosnian patriotism, embracing Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats and others, was still a possibility.
Serbs could go either way: toward Bosnian patriotism or toward Great Serbianism – or to a combination of them. But the effects of the war, and in particular the creation of a Bosnian Serb entity, have destroyed Serb identification with the common Bosnian homeland.
In effect – regardless of the extent of the brutality and genocide involved – there now exists a Bosnian Serb nation-state: Republika Srpska. Most Serb inhabitants of the RS identify with it and will not accept the loss of its autonomy. Of course, it’s possible to engage in bridge-building between people in the Federation and those in the RS, and that is positive. But this is not very different from what you would do with citizens of a foreign country, like Serbia or Croatia. Politicians, intellectuals and public figures from the Federation can establish links and projects with those from the RS, as they can with those from Serbia and Croatia. But good relations are not the same as national unification.
As regards the Croats, things are less bad because there is no Croat entity. My feeling is that if the RS could somehow be reintegrated with Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croats could accept the common homeland. But coexistence in the Federation as the smaller partner with the Bosniaks cannot have solid acceptance among the Bosnian Croats. As I said before, the Federation is not the solution; it is part of the problem. The dilemma is, that a reform that might lead to greater Croat acceptance of the Bosnian state – i.e. a third entity – would accelerate the division of the country. A Croat entity would pursue the same separatist policy as the Serb entity. With a Serb and a Croat entity, Bosnia-Hercegovina probably would not last long as a unified state. But the two-entity system alienates the Croats from Bosnia-Hercegovina.
What is to be done ?
It is not for me, as a foreigner, to lay down a precise resistance strategy for Bosnia-Hercegovina, so I’ll just say a few words for further consideration. When I talk here of Bosnians, I mean those citizens of Bosnia-Hercegovina who view the country as their homeland. Mostly Bosniaks, but also Serbs, Croats and others who identify with Bosnia-Hercegovina. Bosnians cannot rely on the international community to defend Bosnia-Hercegovina. So they must be prepared to defend it themselves. That means that if and when the RS does secede, Bosnians must be prepared – if necessary – to respond militarily. If nothing else, the readiness and ability to fight a war to defend Bosnian territorial integrity may act as a deterrence to any attempt at secession. It may also strengthen the hand of those in the international community who support a unified Bosnia-Hercegovina, against those who are prepared to let it break up. For this, it is important to have at least some elements of statehood capable of mobilising national resistance.
It can be valuable to learn from the experience of the 1990s. At the start of the war in 1992, there were two bases for resistance: there were the official organs of the republic, including the Territorial Defence and the MUP/police. But these were difficult to mobilise for defence, since they were partly controlled by Serb and Croat nationalists – agents of Belgrade and Zagreb. Drago Vukosavljevic, commander of the Territorial Defence, was a supporter of the SDS. Jerko Doko, Minister of Defence, was a politician of the HDZ. So Bosnia-Hercegovina’s official organs of defence were paralysed. On the other hand, there was also the Patriotic League. But this was essentially a Bosniak militia, and was not able to mobilise Serbs and Croats to defend a united Bosnia. This dilemma – between a Bosnian and a Bosniak resistance orientation still remains. The resistance should always be in the name of all Bosnian citizens, but realistically it will be Bosniak-majority.
The second dilemma is: how do you prepare to resist without accelerating Serb and Croat secession ? Reforming the Federation is a way of beginning the process of reform in a way that cannot be blocked by the Serb veto. But how do you reform the Federation in a manner that’s acceptable to the Croats, but without empowering Croat separatism ? If we abolish all the cantons, then that is unacceptable for many Croats. But if we reduce the number of cantons to two, then there is a danger that the cantons become entities, and we end up with a Croat entity that pursues the same separatist policy as the Serb entity. I think it is necessary to reduce the number of cantons – maybe to five. In any case, there should remain a central canton in the Federation based on Mostar, that would be ethnically mixed.
But a larger canton including, at least, Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zenica, Travnik and other towns, could act as the heart of a functioning Bosnia-Hercegovina, as the centre of national energy. Here, solid, functioning Bosnian national institutions could be build. Such a large central canton could prepare and mobilise an effective national resistance in the event of a new conflict arising from any attempt at secession. Bosnian citizens need to be psychologically prepared to fight, if necessary, to defend Bosnian unity. Such psychological preparation was lacking in 1992. With a more efficient administration, with a lighter bureaucracy and without any national key, such a large central canton could act as a more attractive magnet for the Bosnian periphery.
This could also mark the start of a more general process of change. It’s important to begin the process of constitutional change; to get the ball rolling. At the very least, such a strengthening of the heart of Bosnia-Hercegovina could put the Bosnians in a stronger position to react to any new state crisis. And this could serve as a deterrent to any attempt to break up the country altogether. And when the international community would see that Bosnians are ready to act independently and to resist, they will be less likely to appease those who seek to divide Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Based on a speech given at Krug 99, where this text was originally published.
Wednesday, 3 September 2014 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Balkans, Bosnia, Croatia, Former Yugoslavia, Marko Attila Hoare, Serbia | Krug 99, Milorad Dodik, Paddy Ashdown, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment
The West’s responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis
On the night of 11 March 2000, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie attended a performance in Moscow of the Prokofiev opera ‘War and Peace’, in the company of acting Russian president Vladimir Putin and his wife Lyudmila. This was part of a high-profile intervention in support of Putin’s presidential election bid that month. ‘He was highly intelligent and with a focused view of what he wants to achieve in Russia’, Blair gushed at the time. Meanwhile, Russia’s campaign of killing and destruction in Chechnya was in full swing. The contrast with Blair’s resolute opposition to the similar assault on the Albanian population of Kosovo by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia the previous year was glaring.
Those who have demonised Blair as a ‘warmonger’ over NATO’s Kosovo intervention, and particularly over his support for the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have been mostly silent over his Russian blunder. This is strange, for whereas the Kosovo war ended forever Milosevic’s military adventures, the West’s Russian strategy since the 1990s has been much more damaging to the cause of world peace. Putin claims his actions over Ukraine have been a response to longstanding Western mistreatment of Russia, but the truth is the opposite: the threat of war hanging today over Ukraine is the ugly offspring of the West’s longstanding enabling of Russian imperialism, of which Blair’s Moscow misadventure was merely an episode.
Continue reading at Left Foot Forward
Thursday, 24 April 2014 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Abkhazia, Chechnya, Crimea, Former Soviet Union, Genocide, Georgia, Marko Attila Hoare, Moldova, NATO, Russia, South Ossetia, Transnistria, Ukraine | Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Boris Yeltsin, Cherie Blair, George H.W. Bush, Lyudmila Putin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Sergei Lavrov, Sergei Prokofiev, Slobodan Milosevic, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment
Marko Attila Hoare in Dnevni Avaz: Parallels between Ukraine and Bosnia
This interview appeared in Bosnian translation in Dnevni Avaz on 2 April 2014
What parallels with Bosnia – if any – can you draw from the situation in Ukraine ?
Ukraine and Bosnia are both multinational states that until the early 1990s were members of larger multinational federations – the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia respectively. When these federations broke up, Serbia under Milosevic initially wholly rejected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the former Yugoslav republics as successor states, and waged a genocidal assault on Croatia and Bosnia in order to redraw the territorial borders in its favour. Whereas Russia under Yeltsin adopted an initially more moderate policy and largely accepted the sovereignty and borders of the former Soviet republics, though with some attempts to undermine them – above all in Georgia and Moldova. However, Putin’s policy is closer to Milosevic’s, insofar as he is openly tearing up the territorial integrity of other former Soviet republics – first Georgia, now Ukraine. Putin, like Milosevic, is head of a ‘soft dictatorship’ – meaning a regime that preserves the outward appearance of a democracy but is in reality a dictatorship. And like Milosevic, he wants to expand the borders of his state through violent, unilateral means. We do not yet know now far Putin will go; whether or not he will move from annexing the Crimea to a larger war of conquest against Ukraine that could involve bloodshed on the scale of Bosnia in the 1990s, or whether he will extend his aggression to another former Soviet republic such as Moldova. Either scenario is entirely possible.
Of which international agreements over Ukraine is Russia now in breach ?
Russia is in breach of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which it signed along with the US and the UK, whereby the three parties agreed to refrain from the use or the threat of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity, in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.
How do you view the appearance of Chetniks in Crimea ?
The presence of Chetniks in Crimea indicates the fact that extreme Serb nationalists view Russia’s confrontation with the West and with the new pro-Western regime in Ukraine as a continuation of their own national struggle against the West and against Serbia’s neighbours. It is comic, but it could also be tragic, if the Russians decide to engage in ethnic cleansing against ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea and the Chetniks participate.
Many Serbs from both sides of the Drina river support Putin’s action over Crimea? Why ?
Again, hardline nationalist Serbs view Putin’s confrontation with the West and with the new pro-Ukrainian regime as a continuation of their own national struggle. Putin is constructing a ‘Greater Russia’ through the annexation of the Crimea and other foreign territories, just as Milosevic sought to construct a ‘Great Serbia’ through the annexation of territory in Bosnia and Croatia. Putin’s actions open the door to possible territorial revisions in favour of Serbia as well. More generally, Putin is admired because he represents resistance to Western liberal values that hardline Serb-nationalists hate: tolerance, pluralism, respect for human rights and for ethnic minorities and gay people.
What should Sarajevo and the West do in order to prevent a Crimean scenario in Bosnia ?
If, as appears to be the case, Putin succeeds in annexing the Crimea without meeting serious Western opposition, it is entirely possible that he will eventually support the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia-Hercegovina. The argument used by opponents of Western military action in defence of Ukraine – that Ukraine is not a NATO member, therefore NATO should not defend it – applies equally to Bosnia. If Serbia joins the EU, it will be very difficult to restrain further aggressive actions on its part against Bosnia. Just as it has proven impossible to prevent Greece’s persecution of Macedonia, because Greece is in the EU as well as in NATO. If Republika Srpska declares independence and is recognised by Russia and by an EU-member Serbia, with the collaboration of EU-member and NATO-member Croatia (seeking to support Bosnian Croat separatism) it is difficult to imagine the West taking meaningful action to defend Bosnia’s territorial integrity.
There are many things the West should do to prevent this from happening. It should send troops to defend eastern Ukraine from possible Russian aggression. It should impose severe sanctions on Russia until Russia withdraws from the Crimea and recognises Ukraine’s territorial integrity. It should revise the Dayton settlement to restore a functioning Bosnian state, with a strong central authority and the powers of the entities and cantons at least greatly reduced.
However, I do not believe that the West will do these things, because it lacks the will. Therefore it is vital that patriotic Bosnians (primarily Bosniaks, but also other Bosnian citizens whose primary loyalty is to Bosnia-Hercegovina rather than to Serbdom or Croatdom) begin to develop a resistance strategy to prepare themselves for a possible conflict arising from the secession of the RS supported by Serbia and Russia. If and when the RS secedes, Bosnians must be in a position to respond militarily, even if the West fails to act. And they must have clear strategic goals.
Wednesday, 16 April 2014 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Balkans, Bosnia, Crimea, Former Soviet Union, Former Yugoslavia, Marko Attila Hoare, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine | Georgia, Moldova, Republika Srpska, Slobodan Milosevic, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment
Kosovo gets the Israel treatment
The ‘Israel of the Balkans’ was how journalist Michael J. Totten once described Kosovo. Well, Kosovo is certainly receiving the Israel treatment now: real or alleged crimes of its political and military leaders are being loudly trumpeted by the very states that would like to see it wiped off the map. The Putin regime in Russia, which for the past two years has blocked Kosovo’s full international recognition as a ploy to divide Serbia from the West and derail the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Western Balkans, has led demands for an international probe into allegations of organ trafficking on the part of Kosovar officials. This is the same Russia that ranks 154th out of 178 countries on Transparency International‘s corruption index – 44 places lower than Kosovo, at 110th place, and 63 places lower than Albania, at 87th place. Serbia’s President Boris Tadic has likewise been prominent in demanding an international probe. He has lambasted the role of organised crime in the Balkans, claiming that ‘It subverts politics. It corrupts economies’ and ‘it kills to steal parts of people’s bodies’, an unsubtle allusion suggesting that his statement had less actually to do with opposition to organised crime, and more with the ongoing Serbian campaign to undermine Kosovo’s independence.
Both Kosovo and its enemies are, however, agreed that an international investigation must take place. Both Prime Minister Sali Berisha of Albania and Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo – himself the most prominent Kosovar accused by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe’s report into organ trafficking – have called for an independent international investigation into the allegations. Such an investigation is indeed essential. If Thaci and other accused Kosovars are guilty, then they must be brought to justice. If they are innocent, they must be exonerated. Either way, it is in the interest of Kosovo and its people that the matter be resolved. Thaci was re-elected prime minister of Kosovo in December, and it would be a monstrous injustice to Kosovar democracy for a freely elected prime minister to carry the stigma of crimes of which he is innocent; equally, a democratic Kosovo founded on the rule of law requires that any war-criminals or other criminals from among its ranks be brought to justice, no matter how high-ranking they be. If Kosovo is the Israel of the Balkans, it is worth remembering that it is a tribute to the Israeli justice system that Israel’s former president Moshe Katsav was recently convicted of rape and sexual harassment by an Israeli court.
Since Thaci has accepted the need for a full and independent international investigation into the organ-trafficking charges and is not attempting to obstruct the course of justice, he is entitled to the degree of respect due to the democratically elected leader of a national government, and should be assumed innocent until proven guilty. Other high-ranking officials of former-Yugoslav states have been prosecuted for war-crimes but found not to be guilty – including Serbia’s former president Milan Milutinovic and Bosnia’s former chief of staff of the army, Sefer Halilovic. Earlier investigations having failed to uncover any evidence that members of the Kosovo Liberation Army were involved in trafficking the organs of their captives. There is therefore reason to give Thaci and his fellow accusees the benefit of the doubt – so long as they continue to cooperate with international investigations.
Were Marty’s report merely the result of an impartial investigation into allegations of war-crimes, it would be something that all Kosovars and all friends of Kosovo could welcome unequivocally. After all, the prosecutions of Serb and Croat accused war-criminals by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were welcomed by all Serb and Croat democrats, and opposed only by nationalists. Indeed, a previous sitting Kosovar prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, was indicted and prosecuted by the ICTY, and though acquitted, is now in the process of being re-tried.
What makes Marty’s accusations problematic is not the idea that a high-ranking official of Kosovo should be accused of war-crimes, but that they are linked to an anti-Kosovar political agenda. Marty was a sworn opponent of Kosovo’s independence, and chose to publish his report immediately after its principal target, Thaci, was victorious in Kosovo’s general election. The report is not limited to specific criminal allegations against individual Kosovars – such as might be found in an ICTY indictment – but also constitutes a critique of Western policy. Marty’s report pointedly states: ‘The NATO intervention had essentially taken the form of an aerial campaign, with bombing in Kosovo and in Serbia – operations thought by some to have infringed international law, as they were not authorised by the UN Security Council – while on the ground NATO’s de facto ally was the KLA.’ The strong implication is that the ‘some’ include Marty himself. The language used in the report, including the use of terms such as ‘frightful’, ‘horrendous’, ‘wicked’, ‘insane’, and references to Marty himself in the first person, including a reference to his own – ‘sense of moral outrage’ – suggest above all a personalised statement of opinion and value-judgement.
As Marty’s report presents it, international intervention in Kosovo has been unduly biased in favour of the Kosovo Albanians and against Serbia: ‘The appalling crimes committed by Serbian forces, which stirred up very strong feelings worldwide, gave rise to a mood reflected as well in the attitude of certain international agencies, according to which it was invariably one side that were regarded as the perpetrators of crimes and the other side as the victims, thus necessarily innocent. The reality is less clear-cut and more complex.’ And again: ‘All the indications are that efforts to establish the facts of the Kosovo conflict and punish the attendant war crimes had primarily been concentrated in one direction, based on an implicit presumption that one side were the victims and the other side the perpetrators. As we shall see, the reality seems to have been more complex.’ And again: ‘what emerged in parallel [to the crimes being carried out by Milosevic’s Serbia] was a climate and a tendency according to which led to all these events and acts were viewed through a lens that depicted everything as rather too clear-cut: on one side the Serbs, who were seen as the evil oppressors, and on the other side the Kosovar Albanians, who were seen as the innocent victims.’ Consequently, ‘The international actors chose to turn a blind eye to the war crimes of the KLA, placing a premium instead on achieving some degree of short-term stability.’; ‘International officials told us… that the approach of the international community could be aptly encapsulated in the notion of “stability and peace at any cost”. Obviously such an approach implied not falling out with the local actors in power.’ Marty’s unconcealed agenda is to correct this perceived pro-Albanian imbalance in international policy.
On another occasion, Marty said ‘Most of the facts mentioned were known … and there is a silencing of facts… Those things were known to intelligence services of several countries. They were known to police services, to many people who told us in private, “Oh yes, we know this,” but chose to remain silent for reasons of political opportunity.’ This represents an indictment of the international community as much as of members of the KLA. But it is not a fair one: the ICTY indicted sixteen individuals for war-crimes in Kosovo, of whom seven were Albanians and nine were Serbian officials. Albanians, responsible for less than a fifth of the killing during the Kosovo War, made up two-fifths of the ICTY’s indictees for war-crimes in Kosovo. A sitting Kosovar prime minister was, as noted above, himself indicted. Marty’s claim that only one side has been treated as guilty and the other as innocent by international bodies is therefore false.
Marty’s report complains that ‘the ICTY carried out an exploratory mission to the site of the notorious “Yellow House”, though proceeding in a fairly superficial way and with a standard of professionalism that prompts some bewilderment.’ He has not so much sought to complement and build upon the work of existing mechanisms for international justice, but to dismiss them in the service of his own political narrative, critical of the supposedly pro-Albanian policy of the international community. Rather then let his allegations against members of the KLA speak for themselves, Marty himself tells us what the conclusion should be: ‘The evidence we have uncovered is perhaps most significant in that it often contradicts the much-touted image of the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, as a guerrilla army that fought valiantly to defend the right of its people to inhabit the territory of Kosovo.’
None of this means that Marty’s allegations against Thaci and other Kosovars are necessarily untrue. But it does mean that they are not the accusations of an impartial investigator, but of someone with an unhidden political agenda. Marty is a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and as Denis MacShane writes, ‘the Council of Europe is not some disinterested gathering of Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch parliamentarians but a deeply conflicted politicised body where states mobilise to promote support for their current Weltanschauing.’ MacShane links Marty’s accusations to Russian machinations in the Council of Europe. In these circumstances, there should be no automatic assumption that Marty is right and that Thaci and his fellows are guilty. On the contrary, the onus should very much be on Marty and his collaborators to provide the evidence to substantiate their very serious allegations against the democratically elected prime-minister of a European state.
From Serbia’s Karadjordje Petrovic to Turkey’s Kemal Ataturk and beyond, leaders of national-liberation struggles have carried out massive atrocities but continued to be revered by subsequent generations of their respective nations, and often by outsiders as well. Today, we expect a higher standard of respect for human rights and human life from contemporary statesmen, and are ready to prosecute members of a national-liberation struggle guilty of war-crimes. Yet the crimes of Karadjordje and Ataturk do not invalidate the independence and statehood of Serbia or Turkey; nor do the crimes of Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman invalidate Croatia’s independence and statehood; nor does the Deir Yassin massacre invalidate Israel’s independence and statehood. Whatever the truth of Marty’s allegations, Kosovo’s struggle for freedom and independence from Serbian colonial rule was legitimate and just. Now, more than ever, the democratic world should rally round Europe’s newest democracy, and make clear that independent Kosovo will never, ever be wiped off the map.
This article was posted today on the website of the Henry Jackson Society.
Friday, 28 January 2011 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Albania, Balkans, Former Yugoslavia, Israel, Kosovo, Marko Attila Hoare, Serbia | Boris Tadic, Council of Europe, Deir Yassin, Deir Yassin massacre, Denis MacShane, Dick Marty, Hashim Thaci, Marko Attila Hoare, Michael J. Totten, Moshe Katsav, PACE, Ramush Haradinaj, Sali Berisha, Vladimir Putin | 1 Comment
Time to talk about Caucasian self-determination ?
Following Kosovo’s declaration of independence in February 2008 and its subsequent recognition by the US and most EU and NATO members, various Cassandras told us that this would provoke an avalanche of copycat independence-declarations by secessionist territories all over the world. This did not occur, so following the International Court of Justice’s ruling last month that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was not contrary to international law, the Cassandras then told us it was actually this ruling that would trigger the avalanche of secessions. We are still waiting, and I would advise readers not to hold their breath. But there has been one copycat response to our recognition of Kosovo’s independence: in August 2008, Russia retaliated by formaly recognising the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. However insincere this recognition of the ‘independence’ of what are effectively two Russian colonies may be, Moscow has at least formally broken with its traditional policy, pursued since Tsarist times, of suppressing the independence of the Caucasian peoples, as well as with its insistence that the borders of the former members of the Soviet Union should be respected. This may ultimately prove to be rather more of a trigger for further secessions than the case of Kosovo, which was the only such entity of its kind in the Balkan peninsula. Unlike Kosovo, the former autonomous republic of Abkhazia and autonomous oblast of South Ossetia are entities of a kind with the autonomous republics across the mountains in Russia’s North Caucasus region. One of these republics, Chechnya, already made a bid for independence in the 1990s that Moscow drowned in blood, and the armed insurgency that began there has spread to neighbouring North Caucasian territories. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s bloody-minded attempt to punish the West for Kosovo by formally sanctioning the dismemberment of the US’s Georgian ally may yet prove to be a spectacular own goal.
The main problem with the model of ‘independence’ for Abkhazia and South Ossetia as championed by Moscow is not that these entities should not enjoy the right to independence in principle. A reasonable case could be made that all autonomous entities of the former Soviet Union should be able to exercise the right to self-determination, irrespective of whether they are located in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan or elsewhere. The problem is that Moscow only recognises the right for such entities that have seceded from its enemy, Georgia, but not those that have attempted to secede from Russia, or that may wish to do so in future. Such double-standards cannot be justified on any democratic grounds.
The democratic case for Abkhazia’s independence is highly problematc, given that the ethnic Abkhaz constituted only 17.8% of the territory’s population before the war of the 1990s, whereas ethnic Georgians comprised a plurality of Abkhazia’s population of 45.7%, with Russians, Armenians and other smaller groups comprising the balance. On 17 March 1991, Abkhazia’s electorate actually voted against independence; 52.3% participated in a plebiscite on the preservation of the Soviet Union, of which 98.6% voted in favour. This undoubtedly represented a vote against inclusion in an independent Georgia on the part of the ethnic Abkhaz and of some of the minorities, and a conservative vote in favour of the Soviet status quo on the part of some ethnic Georgians, ethnic Russians and others, but it scarcely represented an unambiguous mandate for independence. Since the war of the early 1990s, the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Georgians from Abkhazia, and the emigration of many of the rest of the territory’s inhabitants, have reduced the population to 215,972 according to the last (2003) census, down from 525,061 in 1989. The number of ethnic Georgians from Abkhazia who remain dispossessed is not much less than the total population remaining in the territory. In such circumstances, whether self-determiantion can have any meaning is a moot point. Certainly, there can be no possible grounds for granting self-determination to Abkhazia while denying it to Chechnya – a country with the same former constitutional status (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic – ASSR) and two and a half times the population, which in 1991 declared independence on the basis of a solid demographic majority in favour.
Moscow’s double-standard over South Ossetia represents a still more interesting case. Its population of just under a hundred thousand in 1989 was split mostly between ethnic Ossetians and ethnic Georgians roughly 2:1 in favour of the former, giving it a respectable demographic majority in favour of independence, though in terms of viability, a rather weaker case than Abkhazia, Chechnya or Kosovo (the South Ossetians are a community approximately one thirtieth the size of the Kosovo Albanians, and smaller than the Bosniaks/Muslims in Serbia or the Albanians in Macedonia). However, Moscow is paradoxically recognising the right to independence of the autonomous oblast of South Ossetia, but not of the Autonomous Republic of North Ossetia – Alania within its own borders – despite the fact that North Ossetia has a higher constitutional status (autonomous republic as opposed to autonomous oblast) and a population of ethnic Ossetians that was five times as high as South Ossetia’s in 1989 and possibly as much as ten times higher today. It is as if the US and its allies would recognise the independence of the Albanians in Macedonia, but not of Albania itself.
This represents a degree of hypocrisy simply inconceivable for democratic Europe. The international community did not exactly cover itself in glory in its reaction to the break-up of Yugoslavia. Nevertheless, under the leadership of the EEC/EU, it applied the principle of self-determination consistently. Thus, in the early 1990s, the right to independence was recognised for all the republics of the former Yugoslavia (and for the former Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia) equally. The recognition of Kosovo in 2008 meant that the right was extended to all the former members of the Yugoslav federation; in most respects, Kosovo possessed all the rights of the f0rmer-Yugoslav republics, therefore recognition of its independence was ultimately a matter of consistency. And in contrast to Kosovo, which was a member of the former Yugoslav federation, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not members of the former Soviet federation, therefore Western leaders are not being hypocritical in rejecting any parallel between the two cases.
For all Moscow’s opportunistic attempts at equating its support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia with the West’s support for Kosovo, there really is no parallel. In contrast to the Western alliance’s reluctance acceptance of the break-up of Yugoslavia and reluctant intervention in the conflict, Russia’s constant intervention in the Caucasus since the 1990s has represented the efforts of a colonial power at retaining at least some grip on its former colonies, and at punishing one of them – Georgia – for its rejection of Russian colonial rule. Moscow’s support for Abkhazian and South Ossetian nominal ‘independence’ is a figleaf for its policy of limiting as much as possible the real independence of the entire region. Meanwhile, its colonisation of the two countries is proceeding rapidly. Those looking for a parallel in the West’s own neo-colonial past should not look to the former Yugoslavia, but rather to the policies that France has sometimes pursued in parts of Africa, or that the US sometimes pursued until recently in Latin America. US collusion in the Guatemalan genocide in the 1970s and 80s, or French collusion in the Rwandan genocide in the 1990s, represent episodes of a shameful legacy that we should continue to repudiate. And we have every right and reason to expect Russia similarly to abandon its own colonial legacy in the Caucasus.
Rather than allowing Moscow to paint us as the hypocrites vis-a-vis Kosovo, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it is time for Western leaders to call Putin’s bluff; to show that, unlike the Putin-Medvedev regime, we stand for the consistent application of universal principles. Let us state, loudly and clearly, that the principle of self-determination for the peoples of the Caucasus, and for the former Soviet autonomous entities, cannot be selectively applied. Let us invite Moscow to discuss with us whether a set of principles can be agreed upon to determine whether and on what basis these entities should be able to exercise the right to self-determination. But this would require that all such entities be treated on an equal basis, irrespective of whether they are located within the borders of Russia, Georgia or any other former member of the Soviet Union. In principle, there is no reason why we should fear such a discussion, provided it is held without prejudice to the final outcome, and the voices of all interested parties are heard – including both the existing post-Soviet independent states, their autonomous entities – whether they are currently attempting to secede or not – and representatives of any refugees.
Such a discussion could consider recognising the right of all such entities to full independence, or other options that fall short of this, such as granting them the right to complete autonomy – virtual independence – within the borders of their parent states. The latter option, indeed, would not amount to a very great departure from the status quo, in which Tbilisi has lost control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Moscow has effectively ceded control over Chechnya to its president and despot, Ramzan Kadyrov. Were Moscow to agree to such a discussion, it would open the door to a solution of the remaining national conflicts in the European and Caucasian parts of the former Soviet Union – including the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. But if, as seems inevitable, Moscow rejects such a discussion out of hand, its hypocrisy over Abkhazia and South Ossetia will be exposed for all to see.
This article was published today on the website of the Henry Jackson Society.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Abkhazia, Caucasus, Chechnya, Former Soviet Union, Georgia, Marko Attila Hoare, Russia, South Ossetia | Armenia, Azerbaijan, Dmitry Medvedev, Kosovo, Marko Attila Hoare, Nagorno-Karabakh, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vladimir Putin | Leave a comment
Against the sale of Mistrals to Russia
The following petition was published by the Centre for Geopolitical Studies on 3 December. Although it speaks in the name of ‘European citizens of the countries neighbouring Russia’, all concerned individuals are invited to sign it irrespective of citizenship.
We, European citizens of the countries neighbouring Russia, wish to express our misgivings about the French government’s intention of selling “Mistrals” to Russia.
According to Vladimir Vysotsky, the commander of the Russian Navy « A Mistral-type vessel will significantly increase the fighting and maneuvering capabilities of the Russian navy. During the events of August 2008 (the Russo-Georgian war), this ship would have enabled the Russian fleet in the Black Sea to carry out its mission in 40 minutes instead of 26 hours».
We want to remind the French government that, in violation of an agreement signed with the President of France, Russia is still occupying parts of Georgia.
The Russian leaders have repeatedly threatened to dismember the Ukraine and to intervene in neighbouring states in defence of “Russian-speaking” citizens. Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Kremlin’s Security Council, has recently stated that
“in critical national security situations, one should not exclude a preventive nuclear strike against the aggressor”,
and that Russia is revising the rules for the employment of nuclear weapons to repel conventionally armed attackers,
“not only in large-scale, but also in a regional and even a local war.”
This year Russia simulated an air and sea attack on Poland and Lithuania during military exercises.
Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Putin openly stated his intention to annex Georgia to the Russian Federation.
Taking into account these worrying developments, as well as the fact that the Russian leaders are not subjected to any control from their citizens, and that an arbitrary regime is always dangerous for its neighbours, we ask the French government to remember its responsibility for peace and to renounce the sale of “Mistrals” to Russia in the name of European solidarity.
The petition can be signed here.
Friday, 11 December 2009 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | Georgia | Kremlin, Lithuania, Mistral, Nicolas Sarkozy, Nikolai Patrushev, Poland, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Vysotsky | Leave a comment
Why David Cameron is right to break ranks with Sarkozy and Merkel
David Cameron, the British Conservative leader and probable next British Prime Minister, has been coming under harsh criticism for his decision to take the British Conservatives out of the conservative Euro-federalist bloc in the European Parliament, the European People’s Party, and to form a new anti-federalist group: the European Conservatives and Reformists, whose most prominent other members are Poland’s Law and Justice Party and the Czech Republic’s Civic Democratic Party. Critics have pointed out that the new group includes racists, homophobes, climate-change-deniers and politicians with far-right backgrounds. The European Conservatives and Reformists is chaired by Michal Kaminski, an admirer of Augusto Pinochet and opponent of Polish moves to apologise for the Polish massacre of Jews at Jedwabne during World War II. They have argued that Cameron is marginalising Britain within the EU.
So far as Cameron’s critics from the ranks of the Euro-federalist wing of the Conservative Party and of Britain’s Labour Party are concerned, it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The European People’s Party, supposedly the voice of moderate, centre-right conservatism, includes the ruling Italian party, Silvio Berlusconi’s ‘People of Freedom’. The latter, formally founded this spring, includes the heirs to Italy’s Fascist movement, including Gianfranco Fini’s National Alliance and Alessandra Mussolini’s Social Action. Poland’s homophobic Civic Platform is also a member of the European People’s Party. Stefan Niesiolowski, deupty speaker of the Polish Sejm and a member of Civic Platform, has described lesbians as ‘sickening‘ and as a ‘pathology‘. The European People’s Party includes also as observers or associates Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which denies the Armenian Genocide and flirts with anti-Semitism, and Serbia’s Democratic Party of Serbia, whose leader Vojislav Kostunica presided over the burning down of the US embassy in Belgrade last year.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party’s members in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe sit in the Socialist Group, which includes Russia’s fascist Liberal Democratic Party, headed by the overtly racist and anti-Semitic Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who called publicly for the ‘preservation of the white race’ and warned that ‘it’s all over for you once you’re Americanised and Zionised’. The Socialist Group also includes ‘Just Russia’, which incorporates the racist, far-right Rodina party – several of whose members in the Russian Duma have called for all Jewish organisations in Russia to be closed. Another member of the Socialist Group is Turkey’s anti-Kurdish Republican People’s Party, which not only denies the Armenian Genocide but opposed even the Turkish government’s own measures to lift restrictions on the Kurdish language.
This sort of point-scoring is very easy. Geopolitical alliances are not equivalent to domestic political alliances, in which there can be no excuse for allying with bigots or fascists. The reality of geopolitics is that the majority of the world’s states have not achieved Western-democratic standards of democracy, tolerance and human rights. Consequently, even democratic states are frequently forced to have unsavoury allies. We had to ally with Stalin to defeat Hitler; with Saudi Arabia and Hafez al-Assad’s Syria to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991; with the Northern Alliance to defeat the Taliban in 2001. NATO has long included the highly chauvinistic states of Turkey and Greece, which discriminate against their national minorities in a manner that is wholly at odds with the standards of democratic Europe. The UK shares membership of the EU with states, such as Italy and Poland, that tolerate fascism or bigotry to an extent that would be unacceptable to the UK’s politically conscious public. We share membership of the Council of Europe with states whose democratic credentials are still more flawed, such as Turkey and Russia. A British party sitting in the European Parliament or the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, that does not wish wholly to isolate itself, has little choice but to join blocs that include some highly unsavoury members.
Of course, one could take the principled position that international isolation would be preferable to any alliance that includes bigots or extremists. Yet this is the opposite of what Cameron’s critics, such as Denis MacShane and Nick Cohen are saying, which is that he should have kept the British Conservatives in the European People’s Party in order to preserve British influence through membership of the dominant mainstream centre-right bloc, as represented by Angela Merkel’s German Christian Democrats and Nicolas Sarkozy’s Union for a Popular Movement.
I have great respect for both Denis MacShane and Nick Cohen, but I must beg to differ. The biggest internal threat to the EU is not the homophobia or anti-environmentalism of Polish and Czech rightists – disgusting though these are. A rather bigger threat comes from the Euro-federalist project that, with only slight oversimplification, can be defined as follows: forge a strategic partnership with Russia at the expense of Eastern Europe; undermine the Western alliance in the interests of ‘independence’ from the US; keep Turkey out of the EU, at whatever cost to Western strategic interests; keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO, consigning them to the status of buffer zone vis-a-vis an appeased Russia; and build a narrow, inward-looking ‘Fortress Europe’ that would certainly not pull its weight in the global struggle with the enemies of freedom and human rights. Such is the policy of the dominant Franco-German bloc in the EU, currently led by Merkel and Sarkozy.
Sarkozy hardly scores higher in terms of political correctness than does Kaminski. He is on record for opposing Turkey’s entry into the EU on the grounds that ‘Turkey is in Asia Minor’ and that ‘I won’t be able to explain to French school kids that Europe’s border neighbors are Iraq and Syria.’ (This from the head of a state that, via its overseas department of French Guiana, shares a land border with Brazil). Treating Turkey, which was part of the Ancient Greek world and the Roman Empire and whose largest city was for a time the Roman capital, as an Asian ‘other’ with no right to be part of Europe, scarcely marks Sarkozy out as a respectable centre-right statesman free of bigoted views. Nor does his vocal support for the Greek-nationalist campaign to force the Republic of Macedonia to change its name, motivated as this is by the racist belief that a Slavic-speaking people has no right to use the Macedonian name of the ‘Greek’ Alexander the Great, and that the Macedonian nation has no right even to exist.
Sarkozy and Merkel were responsible in April 2008 for the failure to grant a NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine, effectively announcing to Moscow that the Western alliance was not standing by these countries – a message that Vladimir Putin took to heart when he attacked Georgia soon after. Sarkozy and Merkel were then in the forefront of the appeasers who pushed to ensure that Moscow’s aggression would not be allowed to stand in the way of EU-Russian collaboration. At the height of Russia’s aggression against Georgia, while France held the EU Presidency, Sarkozy travelled to Moscow to reassure the Russians that ‘It’s perfectly normal that Russia would want to defend the interests both of Russians in Russia and Russophones outside Russia.’ Sarkozy’s negotiations, in Toby Vogel’s words, ‘yielded a badly drafted ceasefire agreement and provided space for numerous Russian violations that the EU was in no position to counter’. Merkel, meanwhile, is in coalition with the German Social Democratic Party – the champion of collaboration with Russia, whose former leader Gerhard Schroeder described Putin as an ‘impeccable democrat’.
The Franco-German policy of excluding Turkey permanently from the EU – an integral element in the Euro-federalist strategy – has borne bitter fruit. The once reformist government of the AKP in Turkey, persistently disappointed in its ambition to join the EU, is turning away from the West and toward an increasing alignment with Russia, Iran and other tyrannical states of the Islamic world. For the current leaderships of France and Germany, cementing strategically crucial Turkey’s membership of the Western alliance is simply less important than their goal of an introverted federalist Fortress Europe that they would dominate. Meanwhile, Poland, the Czech Republic and other NATO members from the former Communist bloc are increasingly apprehensive at the possibility of a Western rapprochement with Russia that would see their security interests sacrificed – as the recent open letter to the Obama Administration from a stellar panel of Eastern and Central European statesmen makes clear. We can be certain that it will not be Sarkozy and Merkel who will be reassuring our Eastern and Central European allies.
In sum, Sarkozy and Merkel are taking the EU down the wrong path – a path, moreover, with which British public opinion is deeply uncomfortable. The policy of Gordon Brown’s government so far has been to keep rank with the French and Germans. This policy has not achieved results.
It would be wrong to read too much into Cameron’s move, which is apparently the result principally of internal Conservative Party politics rather than geostrategic considerations. Despite promises to the contrary made at the time of the Georgian war last summer, the Conservatives are continuing to sit with Putin’s United Russia party in the European Democrat Group in the Council of Europe. But in principle, Cameron’s formation of the European Conservatives and Reformists shows a welcome readiness to shake up EU politics and power structures and break ranks with elements that are taking Europe down the wrong path. The European Parliament is not where power lies in the EU, but in principle, the new group – small as it currently is, and containing as it does some undeniably unsavoury elements – could grow to provide a powerful voice for Europeans, particularly East and Central Europeans, who are uncomfortable with the federalist project and with the Franco-German preponderance in the EU, and who staunchly support the US alliance. It is to be hoped that this new group will serve as a building block for a new, alternative European project in keeping with Cameron’s professed vision of ‘progressive conservatism’, and not as a haven for European reactionaries.
Update: Stephen Pollard has written a convincing defence of Kaminski from the charge of anti-Semitism.
Hat tip: Dave Weeden, Aaronovitch Watch.
Hat tip:
Friday, 31 July 2009 Posted by Marko Attila Hoare | European Union | AKP, Alessandra Mussolini, Angela Merkel, Augusto Pinochet, Christian Democratic Union, Civic Democratic Party, Civic Platform, Council of Europe, Czech Republic, David Cameron, Democratic Party of Serbia, European Conservatives and Reformists, European Parliament, European People's Party, Fair Russia, Fortress Europe, Georgia, Gerhard Schroeder, Gianfranco Fini, Gordon Brown, Greece, Hafez al-Assad, Italy, Jedwabne, Just Russia, Justice and Development Party, Kurds, Law and Justice Party, Macedonia, Michal Kaminski, NATO, Nicolas Sarkozy, Northern Alliance, Poland, Rodina, Russia, Silvio Berlusconi, Social Democratic Party, Socialist Group, Stefan Niesiolowski, Taliban, Turkey, Ukraine, Union for a Popular Movement, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Vojislav Kostunica | Leave a comment
A blog devoted to political commentary and analysis, with a particular focus on South East Europe. Born in 1972, I have been studying the history of the former Yugoslavia since 1993, and am intimately acquainted with, and emotionally attached to, the lands and peoples of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia. In the summer of 1995, I acted as translator for the aid convoy to the Bosnian town of Tuzla, organised by Workers Aid, a movement of solidarity in support of the Bosnian people. In 1997-1998 I lived and worked in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Hercegovina. In 1998-2001 I lived and worked in Belgrade, Serbia, and was resident there during the Kosovo War of 1999. As a journalist, I covered the fall of Milosevic in 2000. I worked as a Research Officer for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2001, and participated in the drafting of the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic.
I received my BA from the University of Cambridge in 1994 and my PhD from Yale University in 2000. I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the British Academy in 2001-2004, a member of the Faculty of History of the University of Cambridge in 2001-2006, an Associate Professor at Kingston University in 2006-2017, and am currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, affiliated with the University of Buckingham. This blog was launched while I was living in Surbiton in the UK. I am based in Sarajevo and London.
I am the author of four books: The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War: A History (Hurst and Oxford University Press, London and New York, 2013), The History of Bosnia: From the Middle Ages to the Present Day (Saqi, London, 2007), Genocide and Resistance in Hitler’s Bosnia: The Partisans and the Chetniks, 1941-1943 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006) and How Bosnia Armed (Saqi, London, 2004). I am currently working on a history of modern Serbia and leading the SSST’s Bosnian Genocide research project.
markohoare AT hotmail DOT com
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« Ethiopia | Main | America again »
A short primer on the Ethiopian banking system
Because this is what I do.
Ethiopia's banking system is weird. It's like a throwback to an earlier Africa, the Africa of the 1970s or 1980s. Three reasons.
First, the system is dominated by two big state owned banks. One of them -- the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia -- accounts for almost 50% of all lending, by itself. Throw in the other one (the Development Bank of Ethiopia) and the majority of lending in the country is being done by state-owned banks. That was pretty common in Africa thirty years ago, when almost everyone had a big state-owned bank or two that dominated the sector. But in 2012, state-owned banks are an endangered species. About half of all African countries don't even have them any more. In those that do, the SOB is usually small and specialized, either a "development bank" or focused on some neglected sector like agriculture.
There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that, historically, SOBs in Africa generally didn't work very well. Another is that the big multinational lenders -- the World Bank and the IFC -- dislike SOBs, and have encouraged African countries to break them up and privatize them, or at least shrink and marginalize them. (For the record, I think this was mostly a positive thing -- but like a lot of World Bank/IFC policies, it's been applied in a rather ideological and ham-handed way. A lot of bad, corrupt, ineffective old SOBs needed to go, but a lot of babies got thrown out with that particular bathwater.)
Ethiopia, though. Ethiopia is run by a bunch of former revolutionaries who are very nationalistic and not inclined to trust or listen to the World Bank and its ilk. So they're keeping their big state-owned banks. But at the same time, they've allowed -- no, encouraged -- the growth of a vibrant private banking sector. There are about fifteen private banks in Ethiopia today, and they account for about 40% of lending and about 60% of deposits. They're a vital part of the economy already, and they're growing by leaps and bounds. So the banking sector is a true public-private hybrid.
The second odd thing about the sector is that it's closed and protected: no foreign banks are allowed. Ethiopia has no Barclays, no Bank of Africa, no Citi or HSBC. That's also weird and unusual, because in 2012 most African countries have opened up their banking sectors to foreign competition. Among other things, you can't join the World Trade Organization unless you agree to do this -- and everyone wants to join the WTO. Out of 54 African countries, all but seven or eight are already WTO members. (The ones that aren't are either oil-rich -- Libya, Sudan, Equatorial Guinea -- or weird recluse states like Eritrea, or tiny places like the Comoros. Oh or Somalia, which doesn't really have a functioning government.) So pretty much everywhere in Africa, from Botswana to Senegal, you'll encounter a bunch of international banks. But not in Ethiopia.
The third weird thing: the Ethiopian Central Bank? The guys who regulate the banks, control the money supply, set interest rates and all that? The Central Bank is not independent. Doesn't even pretend to be. It's an arm of the executive branch. It's there to do all the normal central bank stuff, but it's also there to carry out government policy.
Here's an astonishing example. Couple of years back, the Ethiopian government wanted to build a hydroelectric dam. Huge, huge thing. Going to light up half the country. Also going to displace tens of thousands of villagers and do untold ecological damage, including possibly wiping out Lake Turkana, but do you want electricity or not? -- So they want to build a dam, but for various reasons nobody wants to lend them money to build it. (Ethiopia's credit is not good: Dagong rates them CCC, and Moodys and Standard & Poors don't even bother.) Where to get the money, then?
Well, the government of Ethiopia simply followed the Willie Sutton principle. The Central Bank told the private banks that they needed to start buying dam bonds. Lots of them. In fact, the Central Bank announced that for every dollar lent by a private bank, they would have to buy twenty-seven cents worth of bonds. Since commercial loan rates in Ethiopia are around 12% to 15%, and dam bonds pay just 3%, the banks were not very happy about this. But they had no choice: if they didn't comply, the Central Bank would shut them down. So they've been buying dam bonds -- millions and millions of dollars of them. And now the government has money to build its dam.
So, a mixed public-private banking system that's protected from international competition, run by a non-independent central bank with a history of brutal intervention. How's that working out?
Surprisingly well. But this may need another post.
Posted by Douglas Muir at 02:08 PM in Economics, Travel | Permalink
Say on, Doug!
By the way, what is the risk-free rate of return in Ethiopia? Is there such a thing if government bonds are CCC?
Posted by: Nich | January 22, 2012 at 07:44 AM
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Review: Fit For A King’s “Slave to Nothing” just might be metalcore’s album of the year
October 14, 2014 darcyrumble Leave a comment
Solid State Records’ new top dogs, Fit For A King released their newest album today, Slave to Nothing.
When Solid State released FFAK’s Creation/Destruction last year, it broke the label’s record for highest first week sales of a debut album, topping even albums like Underoath’s The Changing of Times, and one of my all-time favourite albums, Norma Jean’s Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.
Slave to Nothing shows an amazing growth and maturity in songwriting for the band. In an interview with HM Magazine, vocalist Ryan Kirby explained, “We have grown a lot as musicians over the past year and a half of touring. When Creation/Destruction was written, we were just a local band. Got signed, went to the studio. Whereas this one, we’ve actually been playing 200 plus days out of the year and have learned so much on the road about being a musician and songwriting. I think you can really hear the growth that we’ve all had over the past year on this new record.”
He also said that it was nice to be able to spend more time in the studio on this recording so everything is for real: natural drums, and natural guitar tones. The production is amazing, and the overall sound of the band is so much tighter. But I don’t want to draw too much comparison to Creation/Destruction, or even Descendants (reissue included), because this record is a whole new beast of its own.
This is partly due to FFAK’s new bass player Ryan “Tuck” O’Leary. He brings an awesome new element with his powerful clean vocals, giving a rich depth to many of the songs. O’Leary also contributed a great deal to the songwriting. When speaking with Anchor Music News, Kirby said, “Ryan’s voice is different … We gave him free reign and aren’t hiding him. He is able to write what he’s passionate about.”
Musically, we see the band expanding their style a bit. There is an unpredictability in the songs, a flawless mix of cleans and screams, and some really cool and creative guitar parts. I totally love the sludgey bass on “Young and Undeserving”, and I can just imagine the pit busting wide open at the beginning of “Hooked.”
Ryan Kirby’s are more devastating than ever on Slave To Nothing, proving he is surely one of metalcore’s finest frontmen. About 20 seconds into “Kill the Pain” I knew that he was going to crush it. This is definitely his best work so far.
Lyrically, this album doesn’t hold back. I love the honesty in the lyrics and the way they tackle some serious subject matter. STN addresses issues like substance abuse, addiction, and the darkness of the pursuit of happiness. “Young and Undeserving” talks about the struggle of a Christian handling the idea of a non-Christian friend going to hell and “Cleanse My Soul” addresses the feelings of doubt. Kirby explains that “It needs to be brought up that not all Christians are happy and praise God without ever questioning anything. We do struggle with faith. I feel like a lot of the songs talk about real world issues to show that not every Christian band needs to be a praise and worship band.”
I can’t possibly write about this record and not mention the title track, “Slave to Nothing.” Featuring guest vocals by Mattie Montgomery of For Today, this song is a four minute metal onslaught that easily has become one of my favourite songs of the year.
Front to back, this is a solid album that had me reaching for the repeat button after every track. This album will certainly rocket FFAK onto bigger stages, and make them a household name in the metal world. I am dying to see these songs performed live.
album reviewAugust Burns RedBless the Martyr and Kiss the ChildChristianCleanse My SoulCreationDescendantsDestructionFIt For A KingFor TodayGodHM MagazineHookedImposterMattie MontgomerymetalmetalcoreNorma JeanreviewRyan KirbyRyan O'LearySlave to NothingSolid State RecordsThe Changing of TimesYoung and Undeserving
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Home » Articles » History of Life Insurance
By Mike Elman • March 23, 2011
Throughout history, mankind has not known what the future would bring and the unpredictability created a sense of vulnerability; we needed to find a way to help us to cope with such uncertainty in our lives. This need for protection against the possibility of catastrophic losses gave rise to the concept of insurance.
Gradually, the concept of insurance evolved and came to be understood as a contract that offered the purchaser protection against financial loss due to a specific incident. Since the risk of financial loss was to be spread among a large group of people, the extent of financial loss, in the event a mishap occurred, became less devastating to individuals. Unfortunately, history reveals that not everyone understood this basic principal. Consequently, policy purchasers had to be made to understand that the purpose of insurance was restoring the financial position of the insured in the event they incurred a loss, and having insurance was not to be considered a method of making a profit.
Insurance Means Tangible Caring
Although some people have made comparisons between purchasing insurance and gambling, the only real similarity is, both entities consider probability and financial odds over risks. However, the intention of gambling is not the reason people purchase life insurance; instead, the history of some forms of insurance, such as burial insurance, shows that the buyer is unselfish, and its purchase is synonymous with the emotion of caring. Indeed, although there are other benefits for the purchaser while alive, historically, the major focus on the act of buying insurance implies making provision for insuring the protection of those who may be financially dependent, such as life-partners and/or children.
Relieves Anxieties over Life's Uncertainties
The desire for a peaceful state of mind, free from worrying over the things we cannot control has existed in civilizations for thousands of years. For example, according to historic accounts, in China, as early as 5000 BC, when ships were commonly lost at sea, farmers made use of boats as a means of shipping their crops to purchasers or to markets where their produce was to be put on sale. Without a doubt, accidents occurred, boats sank, the harvests were lost, and the farmers faced financial devastation. These farmers, using common sense, conceived the idea of not "putting all their eggs in one basket," or in this case, boat. Instead, farming families relieved their anxieties about their shipments by using multiple boats to ship their merchandise. Therefore, this primitive form of insurance was utilized for situations where one or more shippers could avoid being financially buried by the catastrophic consequences that occurred whenever a boat or boats sank. Because of the distribution of the merchandise, the loss would have been minimized. Moreover, according to history, during the 13th century, the ancient Babylonians also devised a system that protected both the merchants and their customers against theft or loss, and this is one of the earliest recorded examples of insurance. The system involved wealthy people guaranteeing that they would pay for the loss of any ship that might sink, in exchange for receiving an agreed amount of money from ship owners.
Wine was Part of the Initiation Dues for Burial Clubs
The history of both life insurance and health insurance goes all the way back to ancient Rome when a system was devised to assist the families of injured or ill members, or if family members were in need of financial assistance to pay for the burial of their loved one. This basic form of insurance coverage was utilized by poor- free people, slaves, members of the military and average citizens who were not wealthy enough to be sure they could afford to be buried when they died. The people formed and joined burial clubs called Fratres that originated with the intention of paying for the funerals of those people who belonged to the clubs, and financially helping surviving family members. The club members met every month and at festival times. During their meetings, it was expected that the insured would pay fees towards their continued membership. Other rules required that new members, in addition to paying an entrance fee, would have to contribute an agreed amount of wine to the group. And during the meetings, after performing sacrifices, everyone shared a meal that presumably included the donated beverage. There were also other stipulations:
For example, members who hadn't paid their dues for six months were not permitted to make claims for burial. Moreover, members who committed suicide could not be buried in the same cemetery as the other residents of the community, and their survivors could not make claims against the burial clubs for financial assistance.
First Organizers were Traders, Ship Owners and Merchants
The history of organized insurance dates back to medieval Europe. During the 14th century, commerce was a growing entity and trade began to expand. As a result, it was common for traders to have marine insurance. However, the concept of insurance, as we understand it today, began in England in the late 1600's where it became popular for traders. Eventually, traders, along with ship owners and merchants, became the organizers. These business people met at The Lloyds Coffee House, which is a predecessor to the famous Lloyds of London. Of course, Lloyd's of London saw the growing need for marine insurance and became one of the first established insurance companies. Ship owners and "underwriters" or backers who met to formulate insurance contracts conducted the transactions. The origin of the word, "underwriter" is Italian, and is derived from the ancient practice of signing contracts for marine insurance in order to share in the profit or loss of a venture. The participants in the contracts signed their names underneath the contract, writing at the same time the amount of the risk that would be assumed by each businessman.
Insurance Concept Came To New World
Later, the concept of insurance traveled across the Atlantic, to the new world, where an understandingly insecurity about their safety was commonplace. The origin of specific insurance coverage, including fire or burial, was conceived as the need arose. The first American insurance company, which only provided fire insurance, was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1732. And the first life insurance company in the United States began in 1735, for the benefit of the families of Presbyterian ministers. However, the insurance movement was growing, and in 1752, Benjamin Franklin was instrumental in helping insurance, especially fire insurance, become commonly established. Soon, other insurance companies were founded. Between 1787 and 1837, more than two-dozen life insurance companies were started, but less than six of them prospered and survived. During these times, anyone could purchase an insurance policy on anyone else, even a complete stranger. As a result, the strangers being insured sometimes wound up murdered. Therefore, a governing rule of insurance stated that the purchaser of the policy must have a legitimate interest in the preservation of the insured.
Insurance eventually evolved to where its basic premise came to be thought of as spreading the risk among others, so that individuals could trust that they or their survivors would be financially compensated in the event of loss.
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Gene editing, or genome editing, is a new type of genetic engineering that is revolutionizing human medicine and agriculture. These techniques give scientists the ability to more precisely modify the genome of almost any organism. Scientists can pinpoint and remove genes that cause rare diseases in humans or insert desired traits like drought and disease-resistance already found elsewhere in a plant species [For more, read the GLP’s FAQ on gene editing in agriculture here].
Although gene editing can involve transgenics—the moving of genes from one species to another—it usually does not, diminishing the criticism from some anti-biotechnology experts who believe transgenics violate the ‘natural order’.
Some types of gene editing, such as the popular CRISPR-Cas9 system, have been likened to a “biological word processing system” that allows scientists to cut and paste DNA almost as easily as if they were editing a journal article. The gene editing revolution has just begun, and already it’s led to innovations. Many scientists believe gene editing has the potential to solve some of the world’s most pressing disease and agricultural challenges. Others worry that this new technology could be co-opted for malevolent purposes or that unintended consequences could arise.
What is “CRISPR”?
The CRISPR system has garnered much attention for its ability to more accurately and efficiently insert and turn off desired traits, curing genetic diseases and increasing crop yields. It is also heralded as the cheapest, quickest and easiest to use form of genetic engineering to date. CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a natural bacterial defense system. In popular usage, “CRISPR” (pronounced “crisper”) is shorthand for “CRISPR-Cas9.” Found in a range of bacteria, CRISPR defends cells by identifying the DNA of invading viruses and, together with a protein made by bacteria (Cas9), slicing parts out of the virus to deactivate it—like a pair of DNA-cutting scissors.
Scientists have successfully “programmed” CRISPR to target and edit DNA at precise locations. The technique can be used to alter the genome of almost any organism. CRISPR allows scientists to delete and replace genes. When the DNA strand is broken, the cell’s repair systems kicks in to repair the break. Scientists can take advantage of this process by inserting new sequences of DNA at the repair site, thereby changing the gene sequence.
Credit: Vox
In the video below, Feng Zhang, a neuroscientist at MIT who played a central role in the development of CRISPR, explains how it works:
Recent breakthroughs include an entirely new CRISPR-based gene editing tool that targets RNA, allowing for transient changes to genetic material, and a more refined type of CRISPR gene editing that can alter a single DNA base letter. Other CRISPR systems, such as CRISPR-Cas1, are also being developed.
What other types of gene editing are there?
Other popular forms of gene editing include zinc finger nuclease (ZFN), transcription activator-like effector-based nucleases (TALEN), and meganucleases. ZFNs are artificial restriction enzymes that can be engineered to target specific DNA sequences. TALENs are restriction enzymes that can be engineered to cut specific sequences of DNA. Meganucleases are homing endonucleases that can be used to replace, eliminate, or modify target sequences of DNA. Investigation of these systems predates CRISPR by years, but CRISPR has grabbed the spotlight because it is so much more efficient.
How could gene editing be used in human medicine?
With gene and genome editing systems, researchers can permanently modify genes in living cells and organisms, including in human embryos, and, in the future, may make it possible to correct mutations at precise locations in the human genome in order to treat genetic causes of disease. Studies using laboratory and animal models of human disease have demonstrated that the technology can be effective in correcting genetic defects linked to single gene mutations that are correctable. Examples include cystic fibrosis, cataracts and Fanconi anemia.
Around 20 trials in humans have already begun or will start soon. Almost all of these remove cells from an individual’s body, editing the DNA and then putting the cells back into the body. In August 2017, researchers used CRISPR to correct a disease-causing mutation in dozens of viable human embryos for the first time. The researchers targeted a mutation in a gene called MYBPC3, which thickens the heart muscle—a type of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy that can cause sudden death in young people, especially athletes. The experimental procedure—the embryos were never implanted into a woman’s uterus—controversially changed the human germline. Many gene editing skeptics on the religious right and the activist left are openly critical of making changes that impact future generations.
In November 2017, the first human was injected with a gene-editing tool. Scientists infused the person’s blood with ZFNs, aiming to treat a rare metabolic disorder called Hunter syndrome.
CRISPR has also been used in the quest to transplant livers, hearts and other organs from pigs into humans. Researchers used CRISPR to create gene-edited piglets cleansed of viruses that might cause disease in humans.
[For more, read the GLP’s FAQ on gene therapy here].
How could gene editing be used in agriculture?
Plant geneticists have used CRISPR to create a variety of novel changes to crops and farm animals, including virus-resistant pigs, disease-resistant cassava, low-gluten wheat (that people with celiac disease could eat), non-browning mushrooms, low-fat pigs that better regulate heat (which would better protect piglets from cold weather, a common cause of death) and oilseed crops with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Scientists have used another gene editing technique, TALENs, to create hornless cows (which make it less likely that cows harm each other and their handlers), soybeans with higher quality oil and disease-resistant rice.
Gene editing is similar to conventional breeding, but faster, cheaper and more precise. One of gene editing’s main advantages in agriculture is that it may be less strictly regulated than “first generation” genetic engineering, commonly referred to as GMOs.
This is because gene editing is more accurate, causing fewer “off-target effects,” and because it allows researchers to move genes from within the species, while GMOs often rely on genes from other species.
What are “gene drives”?
A gene drive is a natural phenomenon whereby the inheritance of a particular gene or set of genes is favorably biased, resulting increasing its frequency in the population. Gene drives can arise through a variety of mechanisms, and scientists have proposed using gene editing to engineer gene drives for specific purposes. These include preventing the spread of insects that carry pathogens, such as mosquitoes that transmit malaria, dengue, Zika and other diseases.
Here is how it works: This system uses genetically modified male mosquitos to deliver new genes along with a mechanism for copying the new sequences from one member of a chromosome pair to the other. In other words, a mosquito larva has a gene that came only from its father, yet has it as both a paternal and maternal copy. Thus, even a recessive gene will manifest its trait in all offspring. Furthermore, the offspring will spread the gene and trait to their own offspring. Since mosquitoes have a short life cycle, this means that in the course of just a summer, we could alter almost the entire population of a particular mosquito species in say the Brazilian rain forest, possibly wiping out the Zika disease. In August 2016 the U.S. Food And Drug Administration (FDA) issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact” to biotech company Oxitec’s plan to release genetically modified male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes into the Florida Keys.
Engineered gene drives have also been proposed to control invasive species, such as rodents that eat the eggs of endangered bird species in New Zealand, and for eliminating herbicide and pesticide resistance in crops.
Concerns about gene drives include the possibility that a mutation could happen during the engineered gene drive, which could spread unwanted traits with the drive. The spread of some other disease could be unexpectedly facilitated. Or the elimination of a link in the food chain could harm the local ecology. It’s also plausible that something could happen akin to the introduction of rabbits in 19th century Australia, where the population exploded, due to lack of predators, with major consequences for the ecosystem. There are also worries that an engineered gene drive could move beyond its target population, causing unintended impacts on other species and ecosystems.
Anti-biotechnology activists including Vandana Shiva, Jane Goodall and David Suzuki have advocated against the use of gene drives. In August 2017, they joined with other radical environmental groups to issue a well-publicized opposition statement to gene drive technology, writing:
Given the obvious dangers of irretrievably releasing genocidal genes into the natural world, and the moral implications of taking such action, we call for a halt to all proposals for the use of gene drive technologies, but especially in conservation.
In 2016, the National Academy of Sciences issued its wide-ranging review of dozens of studies, Report on Gene Drives in Non-Human Organisms, which outlined a number of potential risks but urged more research and gave a cautious green light to “highly controlled field trials.” Some studies have come to different conclusions, among them: researchers at the University of California, San Diego and colleagues at Harvard created a mathematical model for CRISPRs likely success, concluding the a gene drive could be remarkably aggressive in the wild, spreading a new gene beyond its targeted population—possibly meaning that experiments in the real world are too risky on a case by case basis at this stage in the technology’s development.
What is “biohacking” and “DIY bio”?
Do-it-yourself biology, also called “biohacking” or “DIY bio,” is a movement in which people are experimenting with biotechnology research and development methods outside of traditional research institutions. Some “biohackers” are trying to make these methods easier and more accessible, so that even non-scientists can use them. Because of its relative ease to deploy, CRISPR experiments can be performed even by high school students.
One central aspect of the DIY biology movement has been the sharing of laboratory space and equipment, as well as data and methods. One of the most accessible forms of biohacking is through engineering microorganisms or plants. Experiments range from using plasmids to create fluorescent bacteria, controlling gene expression using light in bacteria and even using CRISPR to engineer the genomes of bacteria or yeast. Some biohackers have begun selling kits that allow you to use CRISPR at home. One kit, created as part of an Indiegogo crowd-funding project, was sold for $130 by biohacker Josiah Zayner.
What are “off-target effects”?
There are concerns that CRISPR might inadvertently alter regions of the genome other than the intended ones. These are called “off-target effects.” The worry is that CRISPR could change a beneficial gene, such as disabling a tumor-suppressing gene or activating one that causes cancer. Another concern is that because no two people’s genomes are identical, identifying off-target effects in individuals may be impossible. Researchers attempt to predict where in the genome off-target effects might occur using web-based algorithms, but there are concerns that this approach is not accurate enough.
In May 2017, an article published in the journal Nature Methods reported an alarming number of off-target mutations in mice whose genomes had been edited using CRISPR. However, experts voiced skepticism of the finding because only two mice were edited and unusual methods used. Scientists are attempting to address these concerns by developing more precise variants of the Cas9 enzyme used in the CRISPR system. Some of these enzymes have been shown to improve targeting in human tissue in the lab. Researchers have also focused on developing methods to more efficiently locate off-target mutations in the animals they study.
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Meet Xenoceratops: Canada’s Newest Horned Dinosaur
Posted by fossilpro2 on January 21, 2014 · Leave a Comment
Nov. 8, 2012 — Scientists have named a new species of horned dinosaur (ceratopsian) from Alberta, Canada. Xenoceratops foremostensis (Zee-NO-Sare-ah-tops) was identified from fossils originally collected in 1958. Approximately 20 feet long and weighing more than 2 tons, the newly identified plant-eating dinosaur represents the oldest known large-bodied horned dinosaur from Canada
Research describing the new species is published in the October 2012 issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.
“Starting 80 million years ago, the large-bodied horned dinosaurs in North America underwent an evolutionary explosion,” said lead author Dr. Michael Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “Xenoceratops shows us that even the geologically oldest ceratopsids had massive spikes on their head shields and that their cranial ornamentation would only become more elaborate as new species evolved.”
Xenoceratops (Xeno + ceratops) means “alien horned-face,” referring to the strange pattern of horns on its head and the scarcity of horned dinosaur fossils from this part of the fossil record. It also honors the Village of Foremost, located close to where the dinosaur was discovered. Xenoceratops had a parrot-like beak with two long brow horns above its eyes. A large frill protruded from the back of its skull featuring two huge spikes.
“Xenoceratops provides new information on the early evolution of ceratopsids, the group of large-bodied horned dinosaurs that includes Triceratops,” said co-author Dr. David Evans of the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto. “The early fossil record of ceratopsids remains scant, and this discovery highlights just how much more there is to learn about the origin of this diverse group.”
The new dinosaur is described from skull fragments from at least three individuals from the Foremost Formation originally collected by Dr. Wann Langston Jr. in the 1950s, and is currently housed in the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada. Ryan and Evans stumbled upon the undescribed material more than a decade ago and recognized the bones as a new type of horned dinosaur. Evans later discovered a 50-year-old plaster field jacket at the Canadian Museum of Nature containing more skull bones from the same fossil locality and had them prepared in his lab at the Royal Ontario Museum.
This dinosaur is just the latest in a series of new finds being made by Ryan and Evans as part of their Southern Alberta Dinosaur Project, which is designed to fill in gaps in our knowledge of Late Cretaceous dinosaurs and study their evolution. This project focuses on the paleontology of some of the oldest dinosaur-bearing rocks in Alberta, which is less intensely studied than that of the famous badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park and Drumheller.
“This discovery of a previously unknown species also drives home the importance of having access to scientific collections,” says co-author Kieran Shepherd, curator of paleobiology for the Canadian Museum of Nature, which holds the specimen. “The collections are an untapped source of new material for study, and offer the potential for many new discoveries.”
Xenoceratops was identified by a team comprising palaeontologists Dr. Michael J. Ryan, curator of vertebrate paleontology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History; and Dr. David Evans, curator, vertebrate palaeontology of the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum; as well as Kieran Shepherd, curator of paleobiology for the Canadian Museum of Nature.
Filed under Fossil Information, Fossil News · Tagged with dinosaur fossil, fossil, palaeontology, paleontologist
How Could Dinosaurs Weigh Up to 80 Tons? New Research On Sauropod Gigantism
Jan. 14, 2014 — Sauropods, the largest land animals in Earth’s history, are still mightily puzzling the scientists. These plant-eating dinosaurs with their long necks and small heads could reach a height of 10 meters or more and dominated all other land vertebrates in terms of size. They could weigh up to 80 tons, more than any other known land vertebrate. One question that has been intensely debated is how these giants of the animal kingdom regulated their own body temperature.
According to the calculations of the Mainz-based ecologist, the body temperature of these animals did not increase with body weight. Her estimates indicate that sauropods may have had an average body temperature of some 28 degrees Celsius. The upper limit for the body temperature that can be tolerated by vertebrate species living today is 45 degrees Celsius. The body temperatures that Griebeler postulates for the sauropods are thus well below those of today’s endothermic vertebrates but consistent with those of ectothermic monitor lizards. Her calculations of sauropod body temperature take into account the relationship between the maximum rate of growth and the basal metabolic rate of an animal, whereby the latter is largely determined by body temperature.
Griebeler’s work is part of a collection that brings together the results of recent research into sauropod gigantism. The gigantism of these vertebrates, unique in the history of Earth, raises many questions, such as why no other land creatures have ever achieved this size and what their bauplan, physiology, and life cycle would have been like. The collection put together by the leading open access journal PLOS ONE consists of 14 contributions from the fields of ecology, morphology, animal nutrition, and paleontology that all address the fundamental question of how the sauropods managed to become so extraordinarily massive.
“We are pleased that this new research is freely accessible not only to other scientists, but also to sauropod fans,” said PD Dr. Eva Maria Griebeler. She and Dr. Jan Werner are members of the research group “Biology of the Sauropod Dinosaurs: The Evolution of Gigantism (FOR 533),” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The collection was initiated as a result of a related international conference on this subject. Both scientists from the Ecology division at the Institute of Zoology at Mainz University have been working for more than six years within this research group. They have written three of the 14 contributions in the collection.
In one article, Jan Werner and his colleague Koen Stein of the University of Bonn describe a new method of determining the density of bone tissue and juxtapose sauropod data and results extrapolated for comparable endothermic mammals. Although the bone structure and the density of certain tissues of sauropods were similar to those of today’s mammals, the results do not conclusively demonstrate that sauropods were also endothermic animals. Other functional aspects, such as similar weight-bearing stresses, could have resulted in the development of convergent forms of bone tissue.
Another article looks at the reproductive biology of sauropods. Here Werner and Griebeler discuss the hypothesis that a high rate of reproduction contributed to the gigantism of the large dinosaurs. They discovered that the reproductive pattern of most dinosaurs was similar to that of modern reptiles and birds. The reproductive pattern of theropods, i.e., ancestors of the modern birds, turned out to be comparable with that of birds, prosauropods, and sauropods rather than reptiles. However, contrary to the assumptions of previous studies, the calculations of the Mainz scientists did not corroborate the hypothesis that the large dinosaurs would have laid a particularly large number of eggs. In terms of total eggs produced annually, this number could not have exceeded 200 to 400 eggs for a sauropod weighing 75 tons. Today’s large sea turtles are known to lay clutches in this range.
Filed under Fossil Information, Fossil News · Tagged with dinosaur fossil, dinosaurs, palaeontology, paleontologist, prehistoric life
Iconic Australasian Trees Found as Fossils in South America
Jan. 9, 2014 — Today in Australia they call it Kauri, in Asia they call it Dammar, and in South America it does not exist at all unless planted there. But 52 million years ago the giant coniferous evergreen tree known to botanists as Agathis thrived in the Patagonian region of Argentina, according to an international team of paleobotanists, who have found numerous fossilized remains there.
“These spectacular fossils reveal that Agathis is old and had a huge range that no one knew about — from Australia to South America across Antarctica,” said Peter Wilf, professor of geoscience, Penn State.
Agathis trees currently grow thousands of miles from Argentina, ranging from Sumatra to New Zealand. They often prefer mountain rainforests, where it is wet and warm all year round. They can grow as tall as 200 feet, but are usually between 130 and 150 feet at maturity. Economically, they are prized and heavily cut for their soft, workable wood. In the past, the Agathis resin, known as manila copal, was exploited for linoleum and varnishes, but synthetics replaced most of that use.
The researchers report in the current issue of American Journal of Botany that “Agathis was a dominant, keystone element of the Patagonian Eocene floras, alongside numerous other plant taxa that still associate with it in Australasia and Southeast Asia.”
“There is a fossil record of Agathis in Australia and New Zealand, where it still lives,” said Wilf. “However, Agathis fossils have never been found anywhere else until now, and they have never been as complete as these.”
Wilf and his colleagues work at two sites in Patagonia, Argentina: Laguna del Hunco that dates to the early Eocene at about 52.2 million years ago, and Río Pichileufú dating to about 47.7 million years ago.
“These sites were discovered in the 1920s and 1930s, but the remoteness of the locations and the hardness of the rock are why they hadn’t been investigated in detail before we started in 1999,” said Wilf. “Now, with modern amenities — satellite phones for example — and especially the presence of our partner institution, the Egidio Feruglio Museum, in the same region as the dig sites, recovering these fossils becomes much easier.”
Agathis grew in Patagonia when South America was part of the remainder of the southern supercontinent of Gondwana, composed of South America, Antarctica and Australia. Much earlier, India, Madagascar, New Zealand and Africa separated and moved north, but around the time of these fossils, South America was just beginning to part from Antarctica, which was not ice covered at the time.
“Agathis probably existed in all three areas, Australia, Antarctica and South America, at that time,” said Wilf. “Climate change in Antarctica — the cold and ice — killed them there, and a change to seasonal dryness in southern South America put an end to them in Patagonia.”
Subsequently, the trees, which are wind dispersed, moved away from the cooling south, and some left northward-moving Australia for southeast Asia, where they thrive except for human interference, but they no longer grow in cold, often dry, Patagonia.
Wilf ‘s team recovered not only leaves, but also numerous branches, pollen cones, seed cones and even a winged seed still attached to the cone. The various species of Agathis are usually identified by their pollen cones, so this is the first time that a fossil Agathis could be directly compared to trees growing today.
“We also went to Borneo and studied the most similar living relative of the fossil Agathis, a threatened species there,” said Wilf. “We collected DNA samples to better understand the fossil-modern relationship.”
According to the researchers, the Argentinian fossil Agathis clearly belongs to the same natural group as those living today up to almost 10,000 miles away in the tropical West Pacific.
“Agathis is a very dramatic example of survival via huge range shifts, from the far south to the tropics, in response to climate change and land movement over millions of years,” said Wilf. “It is not clear that Agathis can adapt to the severely more rapid human-induced pressures it is experiencing now from deforestation, selective logging and climate change.”
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First Dinosaurs Identified from Saudi Arabia
Posted by fossilpro2 on January 9, 2014 · Leave a Comment
Jan. 7, 2014 — Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula. An international team of scientists from Uppsala University, Museum Victoria, Monash University, and the Saudi Geological Survey have now uncovered the first record of dinosaurs from Saudi Arabia.
What is now dry desert was once a beach littered with the bones and teeth of ancient marine reptiles and dinosaurs.
A string of vertebrae from the tail of a huge “Brontosaurus-like” sauropod, together with some shed teeth from a carnivorous theropod represent the first formally identified dinosaur fossils from Saudi Arabia, and were found in the north-western part of the Kingdom along the coast of the Red Sea.
The remains were discovered during excavations conducted by a team of scientists working under the auspices of the Saudi Geological Survey, Jeddah.
The dinosaur finds were recently published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE and jointly authored by participating researchers from Sweden, Australia and Saudi Arabia.
“Dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in the Arabian Peninsula, with only a handful of highly fragmented bones documented this far” says Dr Benjamin Kear, based at Uppsala University in Sweden and lead author of the study.
“This discovery is important not only because of where the remains were found, but also because of the fact that we can actually identify them. Indeed, these are the first taxonomically recognizable dinosaurs reported from the Arabian Peninsula” Dr Kear continues.
“Dinosaur remains from the Arabian Peninsula and the area east of the Mediterranean Sea are exceedingly rare because sedimentary rocks deposited in streams and rivers during the Age of Dinosaurs are rare, particularly in Saudi Arabia itself” says Dr Tom Rich from Museum Victoria in Australia.
When these dinosaurs were alive, the Arabian landmass was largely underwater and formed the north-western coastal margin of the African continent.
“The hardest fossil to find is the first one. Knowing that they occur in a particular area and the circumstances under which they do, makes finding more fossils significantly less difficult” says Dr Rich.
The teeth and bones are approximately 72 million years old.
Two types of dinosaur were described from the assemblage, a bipedal meat-eating abelisaurid distantly related to Tyrannosaurus but only about six metres long, and a plant-eating titanosaur perhaps up to 20 metres in length.
Similar dinosaurs have been found in North Africa, Madagascar and as far away as South America.
Filed under Fossil Information, Fossil News · Tagged with dinosaur fossil, dinosaurs, fossils, palaeontology, paleontologist
Fossil Pigments Reveal the Colors of Ancient Sea Monsters
Jan. 8, 2014 — During the Age of the dinosaurs, huge reptiles, such as mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs, ruled the seas. Previously, scientists could only guess what colours these spectacular animals had; however, pigment preserved in fossilised skin has now been analysed at SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and MAX IV Laboratory, Lund University, Sweden. The unique soft tissue remains were obtained from a 55 million-year-old leatherback turtle, an 85 million-year-old mosasaur and a 196-190 million-year-old ichthyosaur. This is the first time that the colour scheme of any extinct marine animal has been revealed.
“This is fantastic! When I started studying at Lund University in 1993, the film Jurassic Park had just been released, and that was one of the main reasons why I got interested in biology and palaeontology. Then, 20 years ago, it was unthinkable that we would ever find biological remains from animals that have been extinct for many millions of years, but now we are there and I am proud to be a part of it,” said Johan Lindgren about the discovery of the ancient pigment molecules.
Johan Lindgren is a scientist at Lund University in Sweden, and he is the leader of the international research team that has studied the fossils. Together with colleagues from Denmark, England and the USA, he now presents the results of their study in the scientific journal Nature. The most sensational aspect of the investigation is that it can now be established that these ancient marine reptiles were, at least partially, dark-coloured in life, something that probably contributed to more efficient thermoregulation, as well as providing means for camouflage and protection against harmful UV radiation.
The analysed fossils are composed of skeletal remains, in addition to dark skin patches containing masses of micrometre-sized, oblate bodies. These microbodies were previously interpreted to be the fossilised remains of those bacteria that once contributed to the decomposition and degradation of the carcasses. However, by studying the chemical content of the soft tissues, Lindgren and his colleagues are now able to show that they are in fact remnants of the animals’ own colours, and that the micrometre-sized bodies are fossilised melanosomes, or pigment-containing cellular organelles.
“Our results really are amazing. The pigment melanin is almost unbelievably stable. Our discovery enables us to make a journey through time and to revisit these ancient reptiles using their own biomolecules. Now, we can finally use sophisticated molecular and imaging techniques to learn what these animals looked like and how they lived,” said Per Uvdal, one of the co-authors of the study, and who works at the MAX IV Laboratory.
Mosasaurs (98-66 million years ago) are giant marine lizards that could reach 15 metres in body length, whereas ichthyosaurs (250-94 million years ago) could become even larger. Both ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs died out during the Cretaceous Period, but leatherback turtles are still around today. A conspicuous feature of the living leatherback turtle, Dermochelys, is that it has an almost entirely black back, which probably contributes to its worldwide distribution. The ability of leatherback turtles to survive in cold climates has mainly been attributed to their huge size, but it has also been shown that these animals bask at the sea surface during daylight hours. The black colour enables them to heat up faster and to reach higher body temperatures than had they instead been lightly coloured.
“The fossil leatherback turtle probably had a similar colour scheme and lifestyle as does Dermochelys. Similarly, mosasaurs and ichthyosaurs, which also had worldwide distributions, may have used their darkly coloured skin to heat up quickly between dives,” said Johan Lindgren.
If their interpretations are correct, then at least some ichthyosaurs were uniformly dark-coloured in life, unlike most living marine animals. However, the modern deep-diving sperm whale has a similar colour scheme, perhaps as camouflage in a world without light, or as UV protection, given that these animals spend extended periods of time at or near the sea surface in between dives. The ichthyosaurs are also believed to have been deep-divers, and if their colours were similar to those of the living sperm whale, then this would also suggest a similar lifestyle, according to Lindgren.
Filed under Fossil Information, Fossil News · Tagged with fossils, Icthyosaur, palaeontology, paleontologist
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Posted by fossilpro2 on June 20, 2019 · Leave a Comment
A new study shows how marine life around Antarctica returned after the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
A team led by British Antarctic Survey studied just under 3000 marine fossils collected from Antarctica to understand how life on the sea floor recovered after the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction 66 million years ago. They reveal it took one million years for the marine ecosystem to return to pre-extinction levels. The results are published today (19 June 2019) in the journal Palaeontology.
The K-Pg extinction wiped out around 60% of the marine species around Antarctica, and 75% of species around the world. Victims of the extinction included the dinosaurs and the ammonites. It was caused by the impact of a 10 km asteroid on the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, and occurred during a time period when the Earth was experiencing environmental instability from a major volcanic episode. Rapid climate change, global darkness, and the collapse of food chains affected life all over the globe.
The K-Pg extinction fundamentally changed the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Most groups of animals that dominate modern ecosystems today, such as mammals, can trace the roots of their current success back to the aftermath of this extinction event.
A team of scientists from British Antarctic Survey, the University of New Mexico and the Geological Survey of Denmark & Greenland show that in Antarctica, for over 320,000 years after the extinction, only burrowing clams and snails dominated the Antarctic sea floor environment. It then took up to one million years for the number of species to recover to pre-extinction levels.
Author Dr Rowan Whittle, a palaeontologist at British Antarctic Survey says:
“This study gives us further evidence of how rapid environmental change can affect the evolution of life. Our results show a clear link in the timing of animal recovery and the recovery of Earth systems.”
Author Dr James Witts, a palaeontologist at University of New Mexico says:
“Our discovery shows the effects of the K-Pg extinction were truly global, and that even Antarctic ecosystems, where animals were adapted to environmental changes at high latitudes like seasonal changes in light and food supply, were affected for hundreds of thousands of years after the extinction event.”
Materials provided by British Antarctic Survey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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The quest to discover what drove one of the most important evolutionary events in the history of life on Earth has taken a new, fascinating twist.
A team of scientists have given a fresh insight into what may have driven the “Cambrian Explosion” — a period of rapid expansion of different forms of animal life that occurred over 500 million years ago.
While a number of theories have been put forward to explain this landmark period, the most credible is that it was fuelled by a significant rise in oxygen levels which allowed a wide variety of animals to thrive.
The new study suggests that such a rise in oxygen levels was the result of extraordinary changes in global plate tectonics.
During the formation of the supercontinent ‘Gondwana’, there was a major increase in continental arc volcanism — chains of volcanoes often thousands of miles long formed where continental and oceanic tectonic plates collided. This in turn led to increased ‘degassing’ of CO2 from ancient, subducted sedimentary rocks.
This, the team calculated, led to an increase in atmospheric CO2and warming of the planet, which in turn amplified the weathering of continental rocks, which supplied the nutrient phosphorus to the ocean to drive photosynthesis and oxygen production.
The study was led by Josh Williams, who began the research as an MSc student at the University of Exeter and is now studying for a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.
During his MSc project he used a sophisticated biogeochemical model to make the first quantification of changes in atmospheric oxygen levels just prior to this explosion of life.
Co-author and project supervisor Professor Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute said: “One of the great dilemmas originally recognised by Darwin is why complex life, in the form of fossil animals, appeared so abruptly in what is now known as the Cambrian explosion.
“Many studies have suggested this was linked to a rise in oxygen levels — but without a clear cause for such a rise, or any attempt to quantify it.”
Not only did the model predict a marked rise in oxygen levels due to changes in plate tectonic activity, but that rise in oxygen — to about a quarter of the level in today’s atmosphere — crossed the critical levels estimated to be needed by the animals seen in the Cambrian explosion.
Williams added: “What is particularly compelling about this research is that not only does the model predict a rise in oxygen to levels estimated to be necessary to support the large, mobile, predatory animal life of the Cambrian, but the model predictions also show strong agreement with existing geochemical evidence.”
“It is remarkable to think that our oldest animal ancestors — and therefore all of us — may owe our existence, in part, to an unusual episode of plate tectonics over half a billion years ago” said Professor Lenton.
Materials provided by University of Exeter. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
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The specter of Newby Church
"Perhaps one of the most famous ghost pictures in the world, both because of its 'perfection' and the fact that it is allegedly genuine."
In 1963, Reverend K.F Lord Was taking pictures of the church's interior. He took a picture of the church alter of which he was particularly fond of. However, After the picture had developed a Semi-Transparent figure was visible.
The creature was semi-transparent, it was standing on the first step to the alter but still towered higher than the alter. It was completely cloaked in a black robe that covered where its feet supposedly were. There was no suggestion of any hands and the face was covered in a white sheet with two depressions were the eyes would be on a face and the hood covering its head had a delicate pattern on its edges. In relation to the alter one can decide that this specter was at least nine feet tall. The figure was looking directly at the camera.
Reverend Lord himself was confused by this, he was completely alone in the church at the time. And the church had absolutely no history of paranormal activity. Once he made the picture public it was almost immediately scrutinized by skeptics. It certainly did look too good, the creature was looking directly at the camera, the building was not haunted. and the creature was conveniently completely cloaked. Skeptics believed the photo was a hoax, produced by means of double exposure.
The idea of the photo being a fake itself came under attack, K.F Lord felt annoyed by this. Especially since he was an honest Reverend. The ghost was also nine feet tall and from this arose some trouble in finding out how Lord would have made his image so large. The picture was eventually sent away to be examined, and scientists of the period believed that the photo had not been tampered with whatsoever and was assumed genuine. This made the photo one of the most famous ghost pictures in the world, both because of its 'perfection' and the fact that it is allegedly genuine.
The specter has since not been seen at all, and had not been seen before the photo had been taken either. This raises more mystery as to what the specter was and why it has never appeared (Save one photo). Because of its dress, many people believe that this creature was the ghost of a monk.
The Church of Christ The Consoler can be found in the grounds of Newby Hall and dates from 1870.
Newby Church, Ripon North Yorkshire HG4
Have you seen a Ghost?
Add your own The specter of Newby Church report
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Read: 1996 Aug 02, Confidentiality and Spiritual Assemblies
The Universal House of Justice
The Bahá'í World Centre
Mr. Eric D. Pierce
Dear Baha'i Friend,
Your email message of 4 June 1996, concerning a statement attributed to Abdu'l-Baha regarding the confidentiality of Baha'i Assemblies' deliberations, was received at the Baha'i World Centre and referred to the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice for further study. That Department has now completed its work, and we enclose a copy of the memorandum it produced, with one attachment, in response to your queries. We hope that this information will be of assistance to you in your endeavors.
With loving Baha'i greetings,
Department of the Secretariat
Enclosure with one attachment (follows)
M E M O R A N D U M
From: Research Department
To: The Universal House of Justice
Date: 2 August 1996
Confidentiality of Assembly's Deliberations
The Research Department has studied the questions raised by Mr. Eric D. Pierce in his electronic mail message of 4 June 1996 to the Universal House of Justice. Mr. Pierce cites the following excerpt from a letter dated 5 July 1950 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States:
The Guardian regrets that, in the light of the Master's statement that the deliberations of Assemblies must be secret and confidential, it is not possible to have a non-Assembly member in the National Spiritual Assembly meeting.
Mr. Pierce wishes to know the source of the Master's statement referred to above, and he asks for additional general information on the subject of the confidentiality of the Assembly's deliberations. We provide the following response.
It is not possible to determine which specific Tablet of Abdu'l-Baha's the beloved Guardian might have had in mind. One reference to the confidentiality of the deliberations of a Spiritual Assembly is found in a Tablet revealed by the Master, which is published in the Persian language in Makatib-i-Abdu'l-Baha, volume IV, page 152-53. While this particular statement has not, as yet, been translated into English, it forms part of the Tablet containing the very familiar words: "The prime requisites of those who take counsel together...". Sections of this Tablet are published in Baha'i Administration: Selected Messages 1922-1932 (Wilmette: Baha'i Publishing Trust, 1974), pages 21-22.
With regard to the general question of confidentiality, we attach a short compilation of extracts from the letters written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi and from the communications written by and on behalf of the Universal House of Justice. We call attention to the following general points which, we believe, provide a context for understanding the guidance of Abdu'l-Baha mentioned in the letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, cited above:
Information of a highly personal nature, "damaging to the honour and happiness of others" (see extract [3]), and other matters private to the Faith, e.g., contributions to the Funds, must be held in the strictest confidence by the Assembly and its members. Disclosure of such information destroys the "confidence of the believers in the Assembly and its members" [4].
Only "a small portion of the business of any Baha'i institution" is concerned with such sensitive matters [5]. "Most subjects dealt with are of common interest and can be discussed openly with anyone" [5].
"Where no confidentiality is involved the institutions must strive to avoid the stifling atmosphere of secrecy" [5].
Confidentiality of Assembly Deliberations
Extracts from Letters Written on Behalf of Shoghi Effendi
He very deeply regrets the tragic circumstances in which you find yourself, and he feels that you should turn to your Local Assembly, in the strictest confidence, and seek their aid and advice. These bodies have the sacred obligation to help, advise, protect, and guide the believers in every way within their power when appealed to -- indeed they were established just for the purpose of keeping order and unity and obedience to the law of God amongst the believers.
You should go to them as a child would to its parents, and the Guardian will pray that God will guide them to aid you in righting this wrong, in protecting the Cause, and in helping you to strengthen your life to become a better and nobler Baha'i.
(28 September 1941 to an individual believer) [1]
The Spiritual Assembly minutes are strictly confidential and must not be shared with non-members.
(24 February 1950 to an individual believer) [2]
The Guardian regrets that, in the light of the Master's statement that the deliberations of Assemblies must be secret and confidential, it is not possible to have a non-Assembly member in the National Spiritual Assembly meeting. You must always remember that, in matters of principle, there can be no deviation; in America it may be possible for you to find a wholly trustworthy believer; but if your Assembly is permitted to have non-Assembly secretaries present, then the same privilege must be accorded oriental and Latin American Assemblies; and can these other countries be assured of finding people of the calibre you have found? Highly personal subjects, damaging to the honour and happiness of others, are often taken up by National Assemblies, and the danger that confidence will be betrayed is already great enough with the 9 chosen representatives of the whole Community, let alone introducing non-Assembly members. You will just have to make your minutes a little more compact and sacrifice, if necessary, a certain amount of efficiency in order to follow this very important principle.
(5 July 1950 to a National Spiritual Assembly) [3]
Extracts from Communications Written by or on Behalf of the Universal House of Justice
We reviewed your letter of July 23, 1968 regarding the extent to which confidential information about believers may be shared with other believers for their protection, and we offer in reply the following considerations:
1. Any information which comes to the notice of an Assembly member, solely by reason of his membership on that Assembly must not be divulged by that member, even though the Assembly itself may later decide to share it.
2. The Assembly must itself carefully consider which information should rightly fall in the category of confidential information and which should not be shared with others, and which information may be divulged under special circumstances, and how such information may be divulged. Should confidential matters regarding personal problems be freely shared with others, upon application, the confidence of the believers in the Assembly and its members will obviously be destroyed.
3. It must be remembered that individuals can reform, and a reprehensible past does not necessarily disqualify a believer from building a better future.
Within the general framework of these principles, we feel you should be able to handle each case as it may come to your attention. No hard and fast rule should be laid down in such cases, as each case requires careful handling, sound judgement and utmost discretion.
(18 September 1968 by the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly) [4]
In response to your letter of 9 October 1983 seeking guidance from the Universal House of Justice with regard to the extent to which information concerning your decisions may be shared with the members of your community by individual members of the Assembly, we are asked to convey the following.
Every institution in the Faith has certain matters which it considers should be kept confidential, and any member who is privy to such confidential information is obliged to preserve the confidentiality within the institution where he learned it. Such matters, however, are but a small portion of the business of any Baha'i institution. Most subjects dealt with are of common interest and can be discussed openly with anyone. Where no confidentiality is involved the institutions must strive to avoid the stifling atmosphere of secrecy; on the other hand, every believer must know that he can confide a personal problem to an institution of the Faith, with the assurance that knowledge of the matter will remain confidential.
Within the above general guideline, National Assemblies are free to adopt whatever provisions they deem necessary, suitable to the needs of their community, without creating unnecessary censorship on the channel of communication with the friends.
(1 January 1984 on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly) [5]
MEMBERS ASSEMBLY BOUND BY BAHA'I LAW NOT TO DISCLOSE CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OBTAINED IN THE COURSE OF THE WORK OF THE ASSEMBLY UNLESS RELEASED BY INDIVIDUALS OR INSTITUTIONS PROVIDING IT.
(25 January 1988 telex from the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly) [6]
It is within the discretion of a National Spiritual Assembly to decide whether to notify the community when a believer has been deprived of his administrative rights; the Assembly is also free to decide how such a notification is to be made, and whether or not the reasons for the deprivation are to be disclosed. Such decisions might be made with regard to the purposes which would be served by such an announcement, and the benefit to the community of this knowledge. If a believer advises you of an appeal to the Universal House of Justice against your decision to withdraw his voting rights, he remains without these rights while the merit of his appeal is being assessed by the House of Justice; it would generally be preferable not to make an announcement to the community about his loss of voting rights while the appeal is being considered, but special circumstances, such as the imperative need to protect the Baha'i community from his actions, could compel you to do otherwise.
(9 December 1991, from a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to a National Spiritual Assembly) [7]
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OJ Simpson Speaks Out About Being Khloe Kardashian’s Dad on Father’s Day
in World Buzz
MT June 18, 2019, 12:39 pm
OJ Simpson has spoken out about rumours he’s Khloe Kardashian’s real father after years of whispers.
The former football star, who was infamously acquitted of the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, used to have a very close friendship with Khloe’s parents, Robert Kardashian and Kris Jenner.
Despite repeated denials from all involved, rumours have swirled for years that Robert – who defended OJ at his murder trial – isn’t Khloe’s biological father, and that she’s actually the product of an affair between Kris and OJ.
Now that OJ, 71, has joined Twitter, he’s set the record straight.
Now that OJ, 71, has joined Twitter, he’s set the record straight (Photo: Courtesy)
Talking to the camera, he told his followers that he’s never had any sexual attraction to Kris and that there’s no way he could be Khloe’s real father.
Speaking on Father’s Day, he said: “My life has always been involved in the sports world and I suspect as the weeks go on that’s pretty much what I’ll be talking about, but once in a while I’m going to go off topic and talk about something else and this is one of those times.
“You know, Bob Kardashian, he’s like a brother to me, he’s a great guy. He met and married Kris and they really had a terrific time together when they were together.
OJ Simpson has spoken out about rumours he’s Khloe Kardashian’s real father (Photo: Courtesy)
“Unfortunately that ended, but never, and I want to stress, never in any way, shape or form have I ever had any interest in Kris, romantically, sexually, and I never got any indication that she ever had any interest in me.
“So all of these stories are just bogus, bad, and tasteless. Khloe, like all the girls, I’m very proud of, just like I know Bob would be if he was here, but the simple fact of the matter is she’s not mine.
“Now, one of the people spreading this rumour is a guy the media loves to say is my manager.”
OJ said the only manager he’s had his whole life was a man named Chuck Barnes, who signed him after he came out of USC.
Rumours have swirled for years that Robert – who defended OJ at his murder trial – isn’t Khloe’s biological father (Photo: Courtesy)
Chuck died 45 years ago, and ever since then, OJ says he’s managed his own affairs.
OJ ends the message by wishing his followers a “Happy Father’s Day”.
He captioned the video: “The first thing I want to set straight is this story Pardo (who was not my manger) is talking about all over the media regarding me & @ KrisJenner”
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OJ Simpson Claims His Deceased Ex-Wife Confessed She Was Having A Romantic Affair With His Friend
in Entertainment, Sports, World Buzz
O.J. Simpson Says ‘Trust Me’ About Not Being Khloe Kardashian’s Dad
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9 Signs You’re Not Consuming Enough Water
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McDonald’s is Partnering with the IAP to Bring Untold Stories to Life
By Idi Gonzalez • 5 months ago
By Idi Gonzalez • Blog, Featured
McDonald’s is partnering with the Immigrant Archive Project to share the stories of the fast-food chain’s Latino owners and operators.
Immigrant Archive Project is an organization founded in 2008 to document, preserve and share the stories of multicultural American immigrants.
Tony Hernandez, co-founder and producer at Immigrant Archive Project (IAP) explained that while the organization has partnered with companies in the past, including Farmers Insurance, the collaboration marks the organization’s first partnership of this magnitude. He said it was a natural fit since the Immigrant Archive Project has already documented the stories of McDonald’s franchise owners and their impact on local communities.
“McDonald’s has a proud history of supporting our communities across the country and around the world,” McDonald’s head of cultural engagement and experiences, U.S. marketing Lizette Williams told Adweek. She pointed to McDonald’s Hispanic Operators Association (MHOA), which was founded in 1977 by 10 Hispanic franchisees “as a national partnership with the company to build our community support and provide a direct link to our customers.”
Williams called the partnership “a perfect fit for the president of the MHOA, Ana Madan, IAP, new-gen Latinos, McDonald’s corporate and our owners and operators at large,” since “the stories of owners and operators, many of whom emigrated to the U.S, opened a McDonald’s restaurant and built a legacy of generational wealth for their families and their communities” is “at the heart of MHOA.”
According to Hernandez, pre-production on the videos will be over the course of the next month, with production taking place in April and May. The project will then launch with eight stories of McDonald’s owners and operators across the country shared widely across social media platforms in June.
He explained that the partnership began developing over four months ago. “As luck would have it, we recorded the stories of two McDonald’s owners and operators several years back. What they gave us on camera was so rich, so touching and so real,” including the story of one of the earliest Latino McDonald’s owners and operators, Roberto Madan.
That helped the organization show McDonald’s the potential benefit of such a partnership.
“It’s really important for an oral and visual history project such as this that it’s seen by as many people as possible,” Hernandez said. The hope is that McDonald’s platforms will enable them to be viewed by potentially “millions of people.”
“For us, that is absolutely invaluable,” he said, “to be able to see immigrants presented in a true light and one that will help break myths and misconceptions” about immigrants and their contributions to society.
Hernandez said these stories were “more important than ever to tell right now, because there is so much misinformation being shared out there widely, so many misconceptions and so many falsities being accepted for truths.”
“I’ve always felt the best way to combat some of this is to share actual real human stories,” he added. “Once people connect with these stories … you can’t help but realize that on the human level we are so much more alike than we are unalike.”
For McDonald’s, the partnership helps the fast-food giant highlight a long history of contributing to local communities.
“Our long history with our Latino owners and operators is the very backbone of this project and a major part of our history. It’s what makes telling these stories so important and so powerful,” Williams said. “They are everyday heroes in their communities and have worked tirelessly to not only build their businesses but to truly transform the communities they serve.”
One example of this, she explained, is the McDonald’s Hispanic American Commitment to Educational Resources scholarship program (HACER) established in 1985 by Hispanic owners and operators, which awards $500,000 in scholarships to Latino students across the country annually.
“Stories inspire people to think bigger, act bolder and connect with everyday leaders in their communities. It’s often easy to forget that, as a company with a presence in communities all across the country, we’re truly comprised of individuals,” Williams said. “These owners and operators are the men and women who have pursued their American Dream and are now lending a hand to the next generation.”
While it’s unclear if this initial partnership will spark further initiatives, the potential for a long-term relationship between McDonald’s and Immigrant Archive Project certainly exists.
“There are hundreds of McDonald’s owners and operators,” Hernandez said. “I certainly hope it does become a long-lasting relationship because it has the potential to be just that. There are so many compelling stories.”
While the brand didn’t directly address the question of whether there are plans for such a long-term partnership, it did hint that future projects may be in the works.
Immigration Archive Project also recently entered into a partnership with Cadillac, which launched around the Oscars and sees the automotive brand sponsoring around 10 Immigration Archive Project segments aligned with the Oscars, March Madness and the PGA Championship.
Hernandez hopes the partnership with McDonald’s can open doors to other future brand partnerships.
“I think others will see the value in what they’re doing with us and see how it can align organically with their brand as well,” he said.
Erik Oster
@ErikDOster
Erik Oster is a staff writer for Adweek.
mcdonald's partner
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May 17, 2019 / 5:01 PM / 2 months ago
Brookfield CEO counts on Oaktree's Marks to carry on investing
Tomo Uetake, Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO (Reuters) - Brookfield Asset Management’s (BAM) chief executive wants Howard Marks, the veteran distressed debt guru and co-founder of Oaktree Capital, to continue his investment work, including his letters to clients, for years to come.
Bruce Flatt, Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield Asset Management (BAM), poses in front of the company's logo in Tokyo, Japan, May 16, 2019. REUTERS/Hideyuki Sano/File Photo
BAM announced that it will take a majority stake in Oaktree in March, with the surprise move sparking speculation that Brookfield’s chief executive Bruce Flatt could become an heir to Oaktree’s 73-year-old investing “legend”.
Known in investment circles for his “memos to Oaktree clients”, which he has been writing since the 1990s, Marks counts Warren Buffett as one of his most avid readers.
“We want Mr. Marks to keep doing what he does, we want him to keep writing his letters. He didn’t quite commit to 25 years but I told him 25 years would be helpful,” Flatt told Reuters in an interview during a visit to Tokyo.
Flatt said Toronto-based BAM, which agreed to buy a 62% stake in Los Angeles-headquartered Oaktree Capital for $4.8 billion to creating a rival to players like Blackstone, has no plans to buy other asset managers for now.
The Canadian financier also said he does not plan to increase BAM’s stake in Oaktree to 100%, although the deal allows it to do so after 2022.
“We weren’t interested in a 100% of the company because we wanted them to run the business and we wanted them to remain with the business to keep their stake. Our goal is to keep the Oaktree brand to continue those strategies within Oaktree and differentiate them in that way,” he said.
Brookfield is a leading global alternative asset management firm and has total assets of $365 billion under management in more than 30 countries, with a focus on real estate, renewable power, infrastructure and private equity.
Asked if there would be more acquisitions in the coming year, Flatt said “we have no intentions of doing more. Our business is quite complete for what we want to do.”
“But you never say never,” Flatt added.
Flatt flagged close investment philosophies at Oaktree and BAM, which he said was growing fast in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Our Asian business is modest compared to the total scale of our build today but will grow significantly in the next 10 years. Longer term, I think 25% of our business will be in Asia. Currently its about 10% for the Asia-Pacific,” he said.
Reporting by Tomo Uetake; Editing by Alexander Smith
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Bunnings one step closer to launching full e-commerce offering
Bunnings Warehouse is getting closer to having a “fully transactional” website.
In a presentation to investors on Wednesday, the hardware chain revealed it expects to be selling its full range of products online within the next 18 months.
Bunnings has the fourth most visited shopping and classified website in Australia, but until recently, it didn’t sell any products online.
In June last year, the retailer, which is owned by Wesfarmers, enabled online ordering for approximately 20,000 select products, labelled Special Delivery, which ranged from kitchen, bathroom, lighting, to outdoor products, and saw 80 per cent of orders picked up in-store.
Now, the retailer is expanding its click-and-collect offering. On Wednesday, Bunnings revealed it is trialling click-and-collect for all products at its Craigieburn, Australia location, with a further test planned in Tasmania later this year before a nationwide roll-out.
Managing director Michael Schneider has previously said he was pleased with the initial response to the sale of selected products online, and that click-and-collect was a logical next step for the hardware chain.
The business on Wednesday also signalled an understanding that it is trading within a shifting landscape – which provides both instability and opportunity.
Changing demographic and societal trends have affected the way consumers spend their money, and millennials, who are making up a greater proportion of the company’s customer base, have less DIY aptitude, but greater digital awareness, Bunnings said.
As such, the hardware chain said it would shift some of its focus toward first-time DIY customers and begin targeting the “next generation of customers”.
The growth of high-density living and rise of long-term renters is driving a focus on products and services for smaller dwellings, as opposed to larger-scale home renovations.
Bunnings also signalled a desire to capitalise on growth opportunities in “low market share categories”, such as kitchens, bathrooms, window furnishings, and flooring, as well as an expansion of its smart home range, and storage, in order to better capitalise on a more digitally aware customer, who doesn’t have an excess of space.
News, Top Stories, Uncategorized
Bunnings, click and collect, E-commerce, online
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Will WR Allen Hurns Have A Role On Cowboys In 2019?
While most Cowboys-focused memories of their Wild Card victory over the Seahawks are positive ones, those surrounded Allen Hurns are rather brutal. Hurns had to be carted off of the field early in that playoff game with a lower leg injury, and looked like he'd be out for quite some time.
Somehow, Allen Hurns is expected to be ready for training camp and should be healthy and ready to go for week one in the Fall.
Just because he'll be ready to go, however, doesn't mean the Cowboys will be eager to have him on the field. Hurns wasn't too productive during his first year in Dallas, and saw his playing time decreased heavily after the Cowboys traded for wide receiver Amari Cooper. As of right now you'd expect Hurns to be in the WR4 role for the Cowboys, backing up Cooper/Michael Gallup as an outside receiver.
Stephen Jones spoke differently about his potential role, however, stating that he thinks Hurns can help in the slot for the Cowboys in 2019. Especially since Cole Beasley is moving onto a new team.
Replacing Beasley with Hurns is not exactly an improvement at the position, and you'd still like Dallas to bring in a player from the outside to compete for reps in the slot, whether that be through free agency or the NFL Draft. Either way, Hurns' value to the receiving corps in 2019 should be in question, even if the Cowboys' staff continues preach about how much of a leader and positive locker room guy he is.
I have no doubt that Hurns is a great dude worthy of a training camp spot with the team and a chance to compete. But a player's mentality and leadership should not valued over actual on-field ability, especially when you are trying to improve your passing attack in the modern NFL.
When Hurns was signed last offseason, fans hoped he could replace some of the production which would be lost with Dez Bryant being released. In Jacksonville there were examples of him filling that "Dez-like" role, but nothing he did with Dallas in 2018 should give you confidence he can do so going forward.
The answer to the title of this piece, at least at this point, is "I don't know." Nobody really knows. The Cowboys like Hurns enough to pick up his option for 2019, but I'd be shocked if they came away from the draft without a player who could serve as a direct replacement with a higher talent ceiling.
Related Topics:Allen HurnsDallas CowboysWide Receiver
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Grouping the 2019 WR Draft Class by Position and Fit for Cowboys
Die-hard Cowboys fan from the Northeast, so you know I am here to defend the 'boys whenever necessary. Began writing for a WordPress Cowboys Blog, and have been with ITS since 2016.
Does Jon’Vea Johnson Have a Realistic Shot of Making Cowboys Roster?
The Cowboys duo of young linebackers took the NFL by storm in 2018.
Rookie Leighton Vander Esch and former second round pick Jaylon Smith played well above expectations, as for the first time in years Dallas did not face a significant drop off in defensive production when Sean Lee was out and injured.
These young linebackers are the cornerstone of a run defense which should be among the league's best going forward, and Pro Football Focus agrees. Well, somewhat agrees.
PFF ranked all 32 run defenses heading into the 2019 season, slotting the Cowboys 13th overall. Better than half the league, but not quite top 10.
https://twitter.com/PFF_Cowboys/status/1151155572059717632
PFF's reasoning behind this ranking certainly makes sense, as they credit the young linebacker duo without mentioning much of what will be in front of them helping to stop opposing running games.
"The Cowboys’ run defense begins and ends with the league’s best young linebacker duo. Leighton Vander Esch ranked third in run-stop percentage as a rookie while Jaylon Smith checked in at 29th."
The playoff loss in Los Angeles has left a bad taste about the Cowboys' interior defensive line in a lot of mouths, but I do think they've improved the unit this offseason. Signing Christian Covington and drafting Trysten Hill was a nice start to do so, but having Maliek Collins healthy and Antwaun Woods back for a full season will also go a long way.
Interestingly enough, two of the Cowboys divisional foes came in ranked above them on this list. Washington was slotted as the 12th best run defense, while Philadelphia was placed at number 8. Both teams' units deserve respect, of course, but this further highlights how difficult it could be to run the ball in the NFC East this season.
While I hate simply throwing this term around, analytics suggest that passing is what wins games in the NFL. Passing and stopping the pass, I should say.
With strong run defenses in their division, the Cowboys will need to maximize their passing game efficiency if they want to repeat as NFC East champions.
Matthew Lenix
Amari Cooper changed life for the entire Dallas Cowboys offense in 2018. Finally, Quarterback Dak Prescott has the number one option at wide receiver he's desperately needed since his rookie campaign. Now, after half a season and multiple playoff games under his belt in Dallas, Cooper is set to have a monster year. Here are three specific reasons why.
Head Coach Jason Garrett has established a certain way of doing things in Dallas since taking over in 2010. His constant search for the RKG or "Right Kinda Guy" as he puts it has the culture in the locker room at a very positive and productive place. As criticized as he is, justifiably or not, he has his team all on the same page. This is something Cooper has been trying to find since he entered the league in 2015. An organization with the right mindset in order for him to perform and maximize his skill set. After being traded to Dallas, Cooper opened up in November about being unhappy during his days in Oakland.
"I wasn't really happy in Oakland or anything like that. But when I sat and thought about it [Monday} night, I thought about the fact that they traded me away. I don't know how to feel about it," Cooper told Yahoo Sports.
This may seem small to others considering these players make millions of dollars right? Well, it doesn't change the fact that they're human. When you feel unappreciated you don't play to the best of your abilities. Shortly after the trade, Cooper talked about how he's been different since putting a star on his helmet. "I feel like it did change me, as far as having that chip on my shoulder. Not that I wasn't passionate before, but playing with more passion, trying to intentionally have fun out there. It definitely has changed me, in terms of me going out there and just having fun with it," Cooper said. A change of scenery was just what the doctor ordered for Cooper and the Cowboys.
2. The other weapons around him
The Cowboys aren't just Amari Cooper or bust at the wide receiver position. Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb provide more challenges for defenses on a weekly basis. Gallup has firmly locked down the number two spot on the depth chart. It took a while for him to establish chemistry with Dak Prescott, as they would misfire on several big plays during the first half of the season. Nonetheless, by seasons end things started to pick up, and he finished with 33 receptions for 507 yards and 2 touchdowns. In the playoffs, he scored a touchdown in the Cowboys Wild Card win over Seattle. The next week against the Rams he performed well even in defeat, with 6 receptions for 119 yards. He's got speed, size, and versatility. Now with a full season and two games of playoff experience under his belt, I look for even more production from Gallup, as a possible breakout star.
Randall Cobb is a much-needed upgrade in the slot for the Cowboys. Unlike former receiver Cole Beasley, Cobb can line up inside or outside. Giving new Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore a bigger bag of tricks at his disposal. Now, he can lineup Cooper inside or outside and play with a plethora of different looks, keeping defenses off balance because of the uncertainty of how the Cowboys will attack through the air.
Then, of course, there's Ezekiel Elliott. The two-time rushing champion is the tone-setter on offense and dictates how defenses will attack. With Cooper being such a threat in the air you basically have to pick your poison. 8-9 man fronts against the run can make you vulnerable to play action down the field or quick slants with Cooper's exceptional route running. The more productive Elliott is the more honest it keeps opposing defenses, opening up more opportunities in the passing game. Averaging 101.2 yards per game for his career, second all-time to Hall of Famer Jim Brown, Elliott can make create even more opportunities for Cooper in 2019 with a full season of playing time together.
Amari Cooper is currently looking to sign a long-term deal with the Cowboys. Preferably, both sides would like to get this deal done before the season starts considering he's in the last year of his rookie contract that is set to pay him 13.9 million in 2019. However, it isn't just a new deal that motivates Cooper heading into the new season.
"It's kind of a weird situation, just being that I've never been in this situation before, talking about a contract. But also, I'm under a fifth-year option, so I'm not too familiar with it. I really don't ask my agent many questions. I'm not really worried about it that much. I'm more focused on actually playing and really earning the respect and then the contract," Cooper said.
Being motivated by earning respect is a very mature approach from Cooper. Now, add that to the fact that I'm sure he wants to firmly put his name alongside Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Odell Beckham Jr, and Michael Thomas as the best receivers in the game, you have a fully motivated number one option heading into the new season.
Amari Cooper has already made three pro bowls, but now there's another level for him to reach. In just nine games last year with the Cowboys he caught 53 passes for 725 yards and 6 touchdowns. Also, he caught another 13 on 18 targets in the playoffs for 171 yards and a score. He's in the right culture, he has a number of other weapons around him and he has multiple reasons to be motivated heading in the new season. With a full offseason of building chemistry with Dak Prescott, I see Cooper taking that leap to the All-Pro level in 2019.
How good is La'el Collins?
This is a question that Cowboys fans have disagreed on since his rookie season. Collins, who originally joined the team as their left guard replacing an injured Ronald Leary in 2015, moved out to right tackle in 2017, starting all 32 games there the last 2 seasons.
Collins' play has been somewhat up-and-down, as should be expected when a lineman not only switches from guard to tackle, but from the left side to the right side as well. Still, he's been a solid right tackle and a stable presence for a Cowboys offensive line which has struggled with major injuries at other positions over the last couple of years.
While Collins has not been the "elite" level player fans had hoped for when signed after the 2015 draft, he's been a solid player nonetheless. Dak Prescott has faced more pressure from the right side of the line than the left, but a good portion of that pressure has to do with him struggling to sense pressure from that right side.
The Dallas Cowboys seem rather undecided about La'el Collins' future with the team themselves, though. Dallas went out and draft guard Connor McGovern in the third round of the 2019 draft, starting the whirlwind of rumors that McGovern will be the starting left guard in 2020. This would kick second year player Connor Williams out to right tackle, allowing Dallas to let Collins walk without too much worry.
While this is well and good on paper, on the field the transition will likely not be as smooth. We've already seen how tough it is to move from left guard to right tackle in just one offseason, even if you were a college tackle once upon a time. Connor Williams could face these same struggles, despite possibly even anticipating the change a year out.
Regardless, La'el Collins is now in a contract year and is playing for that new deal come 2020. Dallas may not be looking to extend him, mostly due to the plethora of new deals they'll be handing out to other players, but he will be a hot commodity come free agency if and when he hits the open market.
Collins could very well be playing for a new contract elsewhere this season, as his days in Dallas look to be numbered.
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Kaleidoscopic Morocco
CASABLANCA, Morocco — When I started thinking about this Jewish Africa photographic survey project in 2011, I thought I’d begin in Morocco. I figured that its rich Jewish history was a logical place to start. But I quickly came to the realization that I’d likely face logistical obstacles and challenges that might just put me off getting to a second leg. So I started in South Africa (which was incorporated into the first 5 legs of this odyssey).
Finally, nearly 4 years after first thinking about it, leg #6 (of 8) landed me in the Maghreb (also, Maghrib). It was a wild 25-day ride that resulted in 6,852 archived images including some three dozen cemeteries, a couple dozen synagogues, and dozens more miscellaneous items such as old Jewish schools, mellahs (Jewish Quarters), shops, and Purim holiday events in Casablanca.
Purim party, Chabad-Lubavitch of Casablanca
My time in Morocco was intense in a few ways: the hectic pace (for most of the time), the amount of driving (including being hit by a construction digger machine), and an inordinate amount of stress I faced in dealing with the person with whom I was traveling for the first 18 days. Per the last of those things, I will leave it at that except to say that I very nearly had to quit after the first week. I persevered simply because there literally was no one else who could guide me on such a journey.
The crash, complete with blown-out driver and backseat windows
Jews have been in Morocco for thousands of years. Today, there are an estimated 5,000 Jewish souls remaining. For those in Casablanca (where the majority reside), at least, life appears to be dynamic and vibrant. There are a goodly number of active synagogues, Jewish schools, social clubs, functions, and Jewish businesses including kosher butcheries and bakeries, not to mention Jews who are active in government and international business. I found all of this bustle inspiring.
But the most common sound I heard in Morocco (besides the muezzin’s tinny loud-speaker calls to prayer from the minarets) was that all of the Jewish activity is in peril.
“There’s no future,” some would say. “Who’s going to look after all the Jewish cemeteries and synagogues?” others would ponder.
The community is simply not sustainable on its current demographic trajectory. The bulk of the community across Morocco is getting on in years (in Meknes, for instance, there are only about 40 Jews remaining, all of them elderly), and not many of the youngsters see much of a future here. They are enticed by the prospects of a life in Israel, Europe, and the United States and many already have relatives in those places who can facilitate a move.
On the one hand, I was surprised by the vibrancy of the community today, but not at all surprised by its apparent fate. Just how long a meaningful Jewish community will endure in Morocco is anyone’s guess. But I doubt it will fall into oblivion in my lifetime as has happened in neighboring Algeria.
Shalom Botbol, caretaker, Talmud Torah Jewish School and Synagogue, Meknes
For most of my Moroccan journey, I was removed from community life. In fact, it wasn’t until my third week that I finally photographed a living, breathing Jew (Shalom Botbol, the caretaker the defunct Talmud Torah Jewish School and Synagogue in Meknes).
South-central Morocco
I was on the road, crisscrossing what I have long considered the second-most beautiful country in the world (the first being Namibia). The topography rotates like a world-sized kaleidoscope with twists of desert and the snow-capped Atlas Mountains. The scenery is simply awesome, the colors rich, the moods palpable. The Jewish communities, past and present, are equally alluring.
Midst all the geographical treats, Jewish communities of varying sizes thrived all across this impressive land. They were traders, craftsmen, and smelters among other skilled work. Today, the remnants of that life is found mainly in decaying cemeteries (though, with rare exception, they all had well-maintained walls and a local guardian, some of whom live on site).
Aerial view approaching Agadir
Many villages and towns still have synagogues that are rarely, if ever, used today. In some seemingly random places, the synagogue has been recently restored by a former resident of the town or a descendant of a relative from the town or village. In almost all cases, the cemeteries and synagogues are looked after by Muslims who are paid a meagre stipend by the Moroccan Jewish Community in Casablanca for the task.
Under used Synagogue at Talmud Torah Jewish School, Sefrou
My driver/guide did his best to insure that each day included anywhere from 2 to 5 sights for me to photograph, not to mention some days with long drives. Our days usually started at 8:00 or 8:30 a.m. and lasted till late afternoon. But for me, that was only half a work day. My evenings on the road are filled with editing the day’s photos. Daily editing is essential to keep things in order, or it can all quickly become overwhelming. As such, my day didn’t really end till as late as midnight. It was the most intense burst of Jewish photographing that I can recall, though some work in South Africa comes pretty close.
Easily, the most intense day was a 20-hour marathon that took me to my first-ever Hiloula, a celebration of a “Jewish saint”. I had been given this golden opportunity on the invitation of Vanessa Paloma, a dynamic and driven woman who is, among other things, a polyglot, a musician/singer and the founder/director of KHOYA Jewish Moroccan Sound Archive. I had made contact with her via Facebook a few months prior to my arrival. Also in the car were her brother-in-law and a young woman who makes independent documentaries.
Hiloula of Rabbi Isaac Ben Walid, Tetouan
The day started at 4:30 a.m. in Casablanca with a 5-hour drive to Tetouan. By 3:30, I thought I was going to be on my way back to Casa when we took a turn to Tangier to drop Vanessa off there (she was flying out from there to the US the next day). We didn’t get there till nearly 5:30. But, oh, what a treat it turned out to be.
Jewish Cemetery, Tangier
Vanessa was staying the night at the beautifully (and enviable) restored home of a friend of hers on the edge of the Medina (old town) which overlooked the impressive Jewish Cemetery. Despite my exhaustion and my eagerness to get on the road to Casa, I was exhilarated at both the cosiness of the house and the views from the rooftop. No way did I even consider entering the cemetery as exhausted as I was (and entry at that time of day was probably out of the question anyway). But that didn’t stop me from taking some photos from the rooftop terrace. If I do get back to Tangier on my second Morocco trip next year, I certainly am not going to have access to that vantage point again. So I fired away. Finally, by 6:30ish, we started the 5-hour drive back to Casa where we arrived by 11:30, completely and utterly spent. I needed another hour to wind down to sleep.
With all that photo work and milage behind me, however, I merely scratched the surface of Jewish Morocco. While some might think 6,852 photos is a lot, it doesn’t feel like much from my point of view. It is said there are some 300 cemeteries and 200 synagogues in the country. At most, I photographed just 10% of those numbers. From the outset of my project, I planned to make two journeys to Morocco: one to cover the southern-central regions, another to cover more of the northern areas and to get more people/social images. I also hope to include the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla on the far northern reaches of Morocco.
After completing my Morocco trip, I realized just how spot on my planning and projections have been in approaching my project. For the most part, everything has worked out and fallen into place. I still have many destinations to get to on the last two legs (from one end of Africa to the other), but in my mind, the plans seem right and reasonable.
I hope you’ll continue to join me for the ride.
FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT ME and MY JEWISH PHOTO WORK (see the following links): my website, HaChayim HaYehudim Jewish Photo Library / ABOUT / MISSION/ BIO / PUBLICATIONS, EXHIBITIONS, EVENTS / PRESS / STORE / VIDEOS / MY JEWISH GEOGRAPHY APP QUIZ GAME iTUNES STORE / FACEBOOK / TWITTER /INSTAGRAM / SUPPORT / CONTACT.
1 thought on “Kaleidoscopic Morocco”
I should maybe consider morocco instead of Tunisia . . . tho am not making any travel plans right now . . . will see what happens in the next few months.
I want to get back to Israel.
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India’s lowest caste fights discrimination with mustache selfies
Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong talks to TIME about life behind bars, by Kevin Lui (MJ 2015)
Hong Kong Police stress accuracy in media at HKU talk
Published by JMSC at 27 October 2017
By Suhas Bhat
A senior inspector from the Hong Kong Police spoke to students at the University of Hong Kong on Thursday, 26 October 2017, and stressed the importance of accuracy in the media.
At an event organized by the Journalism & Media Studies Centre, Simon Tsui Siu-Man, a senior inspector from the Hong Kong Police Public Relations Branch, briefed students from the Master of Journalism programme at the University of Hong Kong on the activities of the Police and answered some of their queries.
Tsui was joined at the talk by John Tse Chun-chung, Senior Superintendent of Police (Media Liaison and Communication), and three other colleagues.
Tsui, an alumnus of HKU and former captain of the university football team, spoke on behalf of the police force at Meng Wah Complex. Tsui was part of the investigation unit in the narcotics bureau that nabbed 570 kilograms of cocaine worth more than HK$600 million in 2011.
Nearly 50 students from 14 different countries attended the talk and were briefed on multi-dimensional efforts by the Police to curb serious crime, supervise public events, monitor online media, and provide timely and accurate information to the general public.
The police spokesperson explained the importance of providing verified and accurately sourced information to the public much in the same way journalism professionals operate.
“Everyone can access newspapers and websites on their phone now, but accuracy is important,” Tsui said. “If the wrong information is accessed then the consequences could be tragic.”
Tsui said the Hong Kong Police aims to strike a balance between “privacy and prevention”.
Fielding queries from the students on police behaviour during Occupy Central in 2014 that saw the city come to a standstill due to a civil disobedience movement that lasted over 70 days, the police spokesperson stated that systems are put in place to ensure the impartiality of law enforcement. Tsui said the duty of police officers is only law enforcement and they “are not there to judge” at any public gathering.
“Police officers are not happy to see police officers breaching the law,” Tsui responded when Singaporean student Priscilla Lee enquired about the beating of activist Ken Tsang that saw seven police officers jailed for two years earlier this year.
“These police officers were not experienced at handling such an event. The Police have high standards to uphold in Hong Kong,” Tsui added. “Integrity was a major issue in the past. We have worked on this with better education and governance.”
Master of Journalism student Joanne Ma enquired about how the police derived crowd figures during public demonstrations but could not get a clear answer. She talked to the senior inspector following the event and found that police officers estimate crowd size through visual observation on footbridges.
“He said that the Police have no intention of lowering the number,” said Ma. “Maybe he assumed that we always think the Police are trying to make the number smaller.”
According to the official website of the police, overall crime has dipped in the current decade as nearly 200 crimes were reported daily in the period 2007-2012 while that figure has fallen by 22% to 154 in the first half of the year.
The government has, however, taken a firm stance on independence activists, and Occupy Central leader Joshua Wong was released on bail earlier in the week after two months in custody.
Suhas Bhat, a former sports reporter at FOX Sports Asia, is currently enrolled in the Master of Journalism programme at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong. A long-term expat in Southeast Asia, he writes on race, migration, expatriate life, poverty, human rights and minorities in Asian settings.
Photography by Ryan Heng Chang (MJ 2018).
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 29: Queen’s Brian May and inductee Phil Collen of Def Leppard perform at the 2019 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony - Show at Barclays Center on March 29, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images For The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
Classic RockJoey
Brian May Would Like To Do A Live Aid-Style Benefit For Climate Change
“Bohemian Rhapsody” reminded everyone that QUEEN was at Live Aid back in 1985 . . . and now, BRIAN MAY thinks there should be a similar festival to benefit CLIMATE CHANGE.
He said, quote, “It probably would take the younger generation to take that bull by the horns. We’d help in any way we can, but I think that’s what it’d require . . .
“People have seen so many concerts since Live Aid purporting to be solving the problems of the world, so it’s not quite as easy as it seems.” Of course, Al Gore did the Live Earth shows 12 years ago, but Queen was not a part of that.
bohemian rhapsody Brian May Classic Rock CLIMATE CHANGE Concert KFOX Live Aid Queen
Is Extra Sleep The Best Mothers Day Gift?
Pavelski Is A Game-Time Decision For Game 7
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KEEP CALM AND GET READY FOR CARE PLANS jump to downloads
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Omaha Quartermaster Depot Historic District
Address: Roughly bound by Hickory Street, 22nd Street, Woolworth Avenue, 20th Street, and the northwesterly line of the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way
Year Built: 1881-1958
Style: Vernacular, with Italianate and Richardsonian Romanesque features
Listed in the National Register of Historic Places: 07/26/1979
The Omaha Quartermaster Depot Historic District encompasses a seven-acre site in southwest Omaha, which lies adjacent to the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad. Historically and architecturally significant buildings on the site date from as early as the 1880s with some built in the 1890s and late 1930s. Those from the 1880s and 1890s are imposing brick buildings designed in the Italianate and Romanesque styles and defined by their symmetrical facades, arched window and door openings, and low pitched rooflines. The Quartermaster Depot was first used in the late 19th century as a storage supply and distribution center for nearby military outposts associated with the Department of the Platte. In succeeding years, the depot was most heavily used during times of national and international turmoil. After World War II, the depot became the base for the Iowa-Nebraska National Guard before acquiring its present use as the headquarters for a unit of the U.S. Army Reserve.
National Register Nomination Document
Click HERE to Visit the Omaha Historic Properties GIS Map Story
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Cast Album of Dear Evan Hansen to Be Released on Vinyl
June 19th, 2017 | By Broadway.com Staff
The Atlantic Records cast album of 2017 Tony-winning Best Musical Dear Evan Hansen will be released as a vinyl record on July 21. The album that was first released in February features a Tony-winning score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
Dear Evan Hansen, playing the Music Box Theatre, is the winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Book for Steven Levenson, Best Orchestrations for Alex Lacamoire, Leading Actor winner Ben Platt and Featured Actress winner Rachel Bay Jones. The musical's cast album debuted at #8 on the Billboard 200, making it the highest charting debut position for an original cast album since 1961.
The vinyl version of the album is currently available for preorder. Check out Tony winner Platt's moving Tonys performance of "Waving Through a Window" below.
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Mark Campbell and Julia Udine Will Star in New National Tour of The Phantom of the Opera
February 26th, 2014 | By Jesse North
Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera has found its stars. Mark Campbell and Julia Udine will light up the stage as The Phantom and Christine Daaé, respectively, with Ben Jacoby completing the love triangle as Raoul. The tour will kick off at Providence Performing Arts Center in Rhode Island on November 27 and is scheduled to hit 12 more cities in the first year of tour, including Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Boston.
Campbell has been seen in the national tours of Mamma Mia! and Guys and Dolls. Udine is making her tour debut and has been seen regionally in West Side Story and on TV in Law & Order: SVU. Jacoby has performed regionally at the Marriott Theatre, Milwaukee Rep and Main State Music Theatre.
They will be joined by Jacquelynn Fontaine as Carlotta, Craig Bennett as Monsieur Firmin, Edward Staudenmayer as Monsieur Andre, Linda Balgord as Madame Giry, Frank Viveros as Piangi and Hannah Florence as Meg Giry.
The ensemble will include Adam Bashian, Nick Cartell, Dan Debenport, Amy Decker, Mark Emerson, Cooper Grodin, Michael Thomas Holmes, Celia Hottenstein, Christopher Howard, Merritt David Janes, Amy Justman, Edward Juvier, Dustin Layton, Luke Lazzaro, Jay Lusteck, Katie McCreary, Grace Morgan, Christy Morton, Quinto Ott, Eric Ruiz and Marguerite Willbanks. The Corps de Ballet includes Morgan Cowling, Anjelica Bette Fellini, Ramona Kelley, Abigail Mentzer, Lily Rose Peck, Tara Sweeney and Micki Weiner.
Following an acclaimed sold-out tour of the United Kingdom, Mackintosh’s spectacular new production of The Phantom of the Opera arrives in the U.S., featuring a brilliant new set and staging. Based on the classic novel Le Fantôme de L’Opéra by Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera tells the story of a masked figure who lurks beneath the catacombs of the Paris Opera House, exercising a reign of terror over all who inhabit it. He falls madly in love with an innocent young soprano, Christine, and devotes himself to creating a new star by nurturing her extraordinary talents and by employing all of the devious methods at his command. Lloyd Webber’s score includes the beloved songs “Music of the Night,” “Think of Me” and “All I Ask of You.”
The production is directed by Laurence Connor, with choreography by Scott Ambler, set design by Paul Brown, costumes by Maria Bjornson, lighting by Paule Constable and sound design by Mick Potter. The production is overseen by Matthew Bourne and Mackintosh.
The Phantom of the Opera made its world premiere in London’s West End in 1986, where it still plays today. Lloyd Webber’s musical thriller has been running on Broadway since 1988, where it has grossed over $890 million and recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.
For a sneak peek at the new stage spectacle, check out scenes from the tour below!
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Since 1975 Sibline has been a key players in the Lebanese cement industry. Owing to key acquisitions in 2013, Sibline decided to expand in order to serve the needs of the construction field more effectively.
Kite was assigned to prepare the new business units for their future launch by re-addressing the brand identity of the group and equipping the new divisions with the needed communication material. The Brand was first audited by Meacomm, that proposed to Sibline a go-to-market strategy. Meacomm’s strategy suggested to replace the previously used brand name “Ciment de Sibline” by its actual appellation, since in addition to its existing divisions of Cement and Readymix, Sibline launched two new business entities providing construction materials: Lightweight Construction Solutions and Construction Chemicals. In line with this decision and the new proposed strategy, Kite researched further a potential brand positioning and developed the new brand architecture.
The logo was developed based on the Glocal and functional brand attributes. By studying the anatomy of the letter “S" in Latin and in Arabic, the sketches explored the abstraction of these letters and led to create an emblem representative of the enterprise while being at once bold and dynamic. The final result also suggests the notions of construction and building materials represented through the blocks designed to perfectly fit together and create a harmonious unit that reads in both its positive and counter form.
A well articulated identity system was created to allow for differentiation between the main divisions and their offerings. An extensive colour palette in addition to a wide library of visual element were conceived to facilitate the repartition of products into families and cater for a clear communication scheme. Thus, a clear brand architecture.
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Outpouring of support as Chris Duncan continues cancer fight
Posted 5:48 pm, January 8, 2019, by Andy Banker
ST. LOUIS – There’s been an outpouring of messages of hope and support for former St. Louis Cardinals player and radio personality Chris Duncan.
His co-workers announced he's leaving his radio show on 101 ESPN to focus on his cancer fight. St. Louis wants him to know he’s not alone.
There have been a lot of signs on social media and the radio.
In parts of five seasons with the Cardinals, 2006 was Duncan’s best with the club. He hit 22 homers and Cardinals went on to win the World Series. He later became a sports radio co-host with 101 ESPN.
Within a year of his mother, Jeanine, being diagnosed with brain cancer in 2011, Chris was too.
She lost her fight in 2013.
Duncan fought cancer like he fought for a chance in the big leagues. He beat it the first go around, returning to his radio post, only to have cancer return.
In April, he took a leave of absence from his radio job. Now his co-workers have announced he’s leaving the job permanently to focus on his second brain cancer battle.
“The update basically is that he’s still fighting. He’s still fighting brain cancer. He’s still fighting this tumor,” co-host Anthony Stalter said, struggling with his emotions on the show he co-hosted with Duncan, “The Turn.”
The Cardinals tweeted a call for fans to keep Chris in their thoughts.
Duncan’s former manager and Hall of Famer Tony LaRussa tweeted that Duncan saved the 2006 season and that “his on field courage is with him off the field as well.”
Dr. Therese Cash, a psychologist who works with cancer patients and their loved ones at the Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis, said outpourings of support often meant more than people realize.
“Those types of experiences for the average patient are really meaningful. I think that rally of support, by and large, really does a lot of good … that presence is often what’s helpful,” she said.
She reminded people to not only remember patients but also their loved ones, especially their caregivers. Simply listening could turn out to be the most critical form of support.
“He beat it (the first time),” Duncan’s co-worker, Randy Karraker, told the radio audience. “Now we’re almost seven years beyond where he’s been. He’s beaten it once. There’s no doubt in my mind he can beat it again.”
“I know we have so many listeners that are praying for “Dunc” and thinking about him and keeping him up and keep him going … we’re doing the same. We love him,” said Brad Thompson, one of Duncan’s former Cardinals teammates and now co-worker at 101 ESPN.
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State Rep. Bruce Franks to leave Missouri House
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Unity Pictures Group Inc.
Unity Pictures is a globally recognized Vancouver-based production, finance and distribution company whose main focus is to create high quality, engaging and entertaining film and television for the domestic and international market.
Ron French
President & CEO / Executive Producer
One of Canada's most prolific television producers, Ron French has worked with every major Hollywood studio - Fox, NBC Universal, Warner Bros., MGM and Disney. A graduate of the Wilfred Laurier University, Mr. French has spent his entire career in the film and television industry as a producer and before that as a production manager and assistant director. Ron has wrapped the first season of "Shut Eye" for Hulu, "Fear the Walking Dead" for AMC, a fourth season of “The Killing” for Netflix, "Wayward Pines" for FOX, and "The Whispers" for ABC. Founded by Mr. French in 2009, Unity Pictures develops, finances and produces TV series and MOW's such as Hallmark Channel's first scripted television series, the family-friendly “Cedar Cove” on which Ron serves as Executive Producer. Ron’s other notable credits include “Defying Gravity”, “Battlestar Galactica”, “Underfunded” and “Stargate SG1”.
STEPHEN HARMATY
VICE PRESIDENT / EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Stephen Harmaty is responsible for all development and business affairs activities at Unity Pictures, which includes acquiring, developing, packaging and securing financing for the company's growing slate of feature film and television projects for Canadian, US and international partners. Over the last 11 years, he has applied his experience in development, production, business affairs, financing, and Canadian content to more than 35 completed TV and feature film projects for production and broadcast partners including ABC, Lifetime, Hallmark Channel, CTV, Space, ProSieben, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network (US), CBC, OLN/Rogers Media, The Comedy Network, W Network/Corus Entertainment, HGTV, Movie Central/Corus Entertainment, ACI and PorchLight Entertainment. Stephen is Executive Producer of Hallmark Channel’s first scripted series, “Cedar Cove” which wrapped its third season. Stephen received a B.A. (Hons.) in English from McGill University.
Craig Forrest
Craig was Co-Producer of Defying Gravity as well as Joy Ride 2 and Mr Troop Mom. He has many credits as a Production Manager on a variety of shows including Dr. Dolittle 2 , 3 and 4, Slap Shot 2, Underfunded, and Wrong Turn 2. A graduate from the Trinity College in London, England in 1984 with an A.T.C.L. Teaching Diploma in Drama, he followed that up in 1988 with a B.F.A. in Film Production from York University Film School in Toronto, Ontario. Mr. Forrest began his career as a Location Manager for such companies as: Turner Entertainment, TNT, FOX, Paramount Studios, UPN, Lifetime, ABC, NBC, Cannell Films and CBS. His experience in locations lead to the creation of Location Inc., an online scouting and location management service for the commercial sector, that is now being used by the film and television industry. As an experienced Production Manager, Craig has worked with Universal Studios, USA Network, ABC Television, VH1, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox Television.
Annie Storey
Production Finance
Annie is a chartered professional accountant with over 15 years of experience in the entertainment industry and as a result has acquired extensive knowledge of the various tax credit programs. She works closely with the production team to ensure available tax credits are maximized and is involved in all aspects of production from the budgeting stage, to production financing, to monitoring cash flow and monitoring day to day production accounting, through to final tax credit claims and audit.
In her past life, Annie spent over 25 years in public practice, the most recent as an audit partner at a large national public accounting firm. She has also held teaching positions with BCIT and CPA Canada, and currently sits on the board of a large non-profit focused on providing emergency services to the disadvantaged.
Hannah Lenahan
Business Affairs & Development MANAGER
Hannah is responsible for coordinating all aspects of business affairs for current productions and managing the development of the company's growing slate of feature film and television projects for Canadian, US and international partners. She also heads up Unity Pictures social and new media projects.
Cedar Cove, Shut Eye, Imaginary Mary, Fear the Walking Dead, Wayward Pines, The Killing, Battlestar Galactica, The X-Files, Dark Angel, Stargate SG-1: just a few of the productions in which Ron French and the Unity Pictures Group team have held senior management positions. Our expertise is extensive and we offer talent in all areas of project development, production and distribution.
3171 Lake City Way
V5A 3A3
info{at}unitypicturesgroup.com
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Mobile leapfrogging and digital divide policy
By John Wihbey
The “digital divide” is a well-established concept that describes the differences of access to Internet technologies along class and racial lines. Although this gap is closing in the United States, new questions have arisen about a parallel divide in digital literacy and the ability to use the Internet effectively when seeking information. For example, children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more likely to spend large amounts of unfocused time on the Web and other media engaged in activities that may not be meaningful in terms of education or growth.
Around the developing world, different technological dynamics are at work. Because many countries do not have established broadband infrastructure and do not offer Internet access through traditional telephone services, many of the world’s poor are first gaining access to the Web through mobile phones. These phones frequently have usage plans with data limits and many are simple “feature phones” that lack touchscreens. Despite such technological limits, a 2012 report for the World Economic Forum notes that “mobile broadband growth is particularly accelerating in emerging countries, rising from 61% of all broadband connections in these regions in 2011 to 84% in 2016…. At this pace, emerging regions will surpass the developed world in terms of the number of mobile broadband connections in first half of 2013.”
This astonishing growth in mobile Internet access is often seen as a way for the developing world to catch up — scholars have called it “technology leapfrogging” — without having to build out expensive broadband networks. But this leap forward may come with missed opportunities and little-understood costs, as mobile-only access can offer a less robust Web experience and narrower possibilities for economic and social productivity. Organizations such as Wikipedia are attempting to find technical solutions — including texting articles to mobile-phone users — but this area is still in its infancy.
A 2013 paper from Jonathan Obar at Michigan State and the University of Toronto and Philip Napoli at Fordham University, “Mobile Leapfrogging and Digital Divide Policy,” highlights the developing world’s patterns of Internet access and examines the tradeoffs in them. Published by the New America Foundation, the study notes that “most research on mobile Internet access and usage to date has lacked comparative analyses of any type in which the characteristics or usage patterns of mobile platforms are assessed relative to PC-based platforms.” The scholars comprehensively survey relevant studies to provide a critical framework for evaluating the mobile “revolution” globally.
Key findings include:
Mobile devices are simply not able to store or process as much data as PCs, and this has a variety of consequences: “Mobile-ready Web sites often represent streamlined or watered down versions of the standard Web site. Thus, mobile users often find themselves with access to less information and less functionality than PC-based users when forced to rely on mobile-tailored Web sites.”
Because mobile devices are typically a much less open platform for Internet access — they often create a “walled garden” environment of apps and design a more constrained experience — the “opportunities, therefore, for mobile users to tap into the full economic potential of the Internet are much more limited. Consider, for instance, the dramatic entrepreneurial opportunities that have been facilitated by PC-based Internet access to develop and launch new online applications, platforms, and services that simply cannot be approximated if a user is limited to access via a mobile device.”
“One usage study of mobile users in six countries concluded that information gathering was not a common task among mobile device users. Another usage study that examined the nature of mobile Internet users’ information-seeking activities found that PC-based users habitually access an average of 8.64 categories of Web sites, whereas mobile-based users habitually access an average of 3.58 categories of Web sites.”’
Performance of complex tasks and the production of large documents is rare among mobile users: “Perhaps the extent to which mobile devices are less conducive to substantive content creation and dissemination is contributing to the fact that more recent Internet adopters (who are predominantly mobile users) are producing less content than previous waves of Internet adopters. This would seem to be a fundamental behavioral distinction that, if accurate, should factor prominently into any discussions about the extent to which mobile devices are eradicating the digital divide and creating an even playing field for users to take full advantage of opportunities for social, economic, and political advancement afforded by the Internet.”
A revealing 2010 study, “After Access: Challenges Facing Mobile-only Internet Users in the Developing World,” found that “low-income residents of Cape Town, South Africa faced a variety of technical challenges, related to issues such as device set-up, security settings, menu navigation, and the dearth of mobile-ready online content in their native language.”
The scholars conclude that they are hoping to “inject into the policy conversation a more thorough understanding of how effective such efforts can really be in terms of providing mobile users with the same kind of opportunities to access, produce, and disseminate information as PC users; and to raise a note of caution about the implications of abandoning efforts to promote PC diffusion in light of the potential for mobile leapfrogging. It is important to recognize the potentially significant compromises and shortcomings that come from a policy approach to the digital divide that emphasizes mobile access and largely abandons any emphasis on PC-based access, particularly in light of the fundamental requirement for technology leapfrogging discussed at the outset — that the leapfrogging technology be clearly superior to available alternatives.”
Tags: technology, telecommunications, Africa
Citation: Napoli, Philip; Obar, Jonathan. "Mobile Leapfrogging and Digital Divide Policy," New America Foundation, April 2013.
Development, Global Tech, Globalization, Internet, Social Media technology, telecommunications
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Child and adolescent deaths decreased by half worldwide since 1990
Global warming has worsened economic inequality and made some rich countries richer
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Conspiracy 365 Black Ops Missing - Gabrielle Lord New softcover book 1 in the trilogy
Explosive new book! Don't blink, don't forget to breathe! Callum Ormond has been warned. He has 90 d...
Store Home > Conspiracy 365 Black Ops Missing - Gabrielle Lord New softcover book 1 in the trilogy
BLACK OPS Book 1: MISSING
by GABRIELLE LORD
See other children's fiction click here
New softcover book, 192 pages, published 2013. Suitable for children aged 9 and older
Callum Ormond has been warned. He has 90 days. The countdown begins ...
Ryan has disappeared and Cal's suspicions are raised when he receives a cryptic message: 90 days.
Cal agrees to work as an undercover agent for SI-6 to discover the whereabouts of his twin. But at an island getaway for troubled teens, Cal quickly discovers things are not as they seem. With secret hideouts, underground training camps, dangerous clues and treacherous terrain, Cal has to face his most heart-stopping challenges yet. Will he find Ryan? Or will his first secret mission be deadly?
The clock is ticking. Any second could be his last.
Don't blink, don't forget to breathe.
Gabrielle Craig Lord (born in Sydney on 26 February 1946) is an Australian writer who has been described as Australia's first lady of crime. She has published a wide range of writing including reviews, articles, young adult fiction, short stories and non-fiction, but she is best known for her psychological thrillers.
Gabrielle went to school at Kincoppal Rose Bay School at Rose Bay, and university at the University of New England in Armidale where she did her Honours degree in Victorian Literature. She worked as a teacher, and as a public servant with the Commonwealth Employment Service. In 1978, with the support of a New Writer's Fellowship, she took a year off work to write full-time. The novel she wrote during the majority of that time, A Death in the Family received a bad reader's report so Lord put it aside and in the remaining three weeks of her year off wrote Fortress, which was an instant success and, with the money from the film rights, she was able to leave paid employment in 1983 and return to full-time writing.
Lord's other interests include animal welfare, and a type of spirituality that is manifested in appreciation of the music of the Taizé Community, a spiritual community in France. Ms Lord likes cats. She lives in a Sydney beach-side suburb. She has one daughter and 4 grand daughters.
See other Conspiracy 365 books - click here for more information
Conspiracy 365 Black Ops Book 1 Missing by Gabrielle Lord
Conspiracy 365 The First Collection Code Black - Gabrielle Lord Set of 6 new softcover books in box
Callum Ormond has been warned. He has 365 days. The countdown has begun.. New set of the first 6 books in the Conspiracy 365 Code Black series
Stock Info: Out Of Stock
Conspiracy 365 July - December The Second Collection - Gabrielle Lord 6 new softcover books
Callum Ormond has been warned. He has 365 days. The countdown has begun.. The next 6 books in the Conspiracy 365 series
Conspiracy 365 Revenge - Gabrielle Lord New softcover book
Don't blink, don't forget to breathe. Callum Ormond has been warned. He has 30 days. The countdown has begun..
The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins 3 new softcover books Catching Fire, Mockingjay
Winning will make you famous, losing means certain death. Shrinkwrapped set of the 3 books in the Hunger Games trilogy - The Hunger Games, Catching Fire & Mockingjay.
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The Observatory: Deeper, Darker & Louder
By Alia Azmi • Aug 8th, 2014 in Interview
From folk to electronic and prog to avant rock, Singapore’s The Observatory is best known for their continuous exploration in the experimental sonic sphere. Their last record Catacombs explores a deeper, heavier sound than their previous works, and upcoming release Oscilla is likely to do the same, which the band has attributed to touring with Norwegian noise rock band MoE over the years. We managed to speak with members of The Observatory on their creative process, influences, and the origins of their band name before they got ready to perform alongside MoE for their Transitions Tour.
Every album sees some form of change and it’s become pretty unpredictable for fans. Could you guys describe the creative process?
Leslie Low There’s a lot of emphasis on trying to get everyone to write and contribute to the music, so we try to do that. And very often every member will come up with a song idea, and the rest will then feed off that idea. So, in that way, we try to get as much as possible to become varied with our music so we don’t become like one baggage.
So, it’s more of a collaborative effort, from songwriting to studio production.
Vivian Wang Yeah, sometimes it goes on until we go inside the recording studio. We’re still kind of rearranging stuff, trying to make it more interesting and maybe more coherent for the final product. We never stop until the album is released. Even with the creative design of the packaging, we very much have a hand in it. Like Yuen Chee Wai is helping us with designing the album this time. So, it’s a lot of us in every aspect of it. Not just the music but how it’s going to be presented, how it looks, how it sounds, and how it’s ultimately sold to fans.
What are your influences? Do you guys have disparate influences and combine them all together or do you guys share mutual influences when making a record?
L I think there are some crossovers definitely, but each of us will have our own influences. We try to share our influences so as to understand each other better. Over the years a lot of bands have gone by that have influenced us. For this latest record, there are some elements of John Coltrane (the improvisation, the solo-ing) and Neil Young & Crazy Horse (that kind of very rough and raw sound).
V It’s getting harder and harder to pin down our influences. We can listen to anything from ‘60s folk to ‘70s progressive to techno/electronic. We try not to ape it like any particular style, but we try to capture the essence and the spirit of any one musician or band that we admire like MoE. For example, when we went on the road with them last April, we were so influenced by their heavy sound that it has kind of seeped into this new album as well, so it could be anything.
The Observatory has been around for quite a while, with members coming in and going. How has the band changed over time?
V We got darker maybe, a lot heavier, louder, more experimental. We got more practical, I think, because we’ve toured a lot more, so we’ve gotten a lot more realistic. When we first started touring we brought the whole house including the kitchen sink with us, bringing any instrument we could think of like an acoustic guitar, lots and lots of sh!t. Now we just bring as little as possible. We try to make do on the road and just focus on the music rather than [bringing] the kitchen sink (laughs).
Finally, tell us about the origins of the band name. Where did that come from?
L Well, it just means the observatory, like a space to observe ourselves in society, political situations, social situations, that sort of concept.
V It’s a bit of a looking glass to which you examine society, things about humanity. The stuff that we cover kind of sound serious but that’s what really matters to us. We really are interested in what’s happening to people in Malaysia, in Singapore, whether young people have the same right to the freedom of speech and expression — all those things matter to us. We want to not just sing it in lyrics but we want to express it in music, the collective energy that we give out. Even if the music is dark we still want to empower people and let them know that there is hope for them to move humankind in a better direction than it is going at the moment. Right now, it’s pathetic. What’s happening is very worrying, not just in Asia. It’s very important for us that people feel that they will keep their freedom of speech, thought, that kind of stuff.
The Observatory performed at Free Space @ Kakiseni with MoE for The Transitions Tour 2014 on Thursday 19 June ’14.
New album Oscilla launches on Friday 15 August ’14.
theobservatory.bandcamp.com
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2019 Montana Legislature
Additional Bill Links PDF (with line numbers)
SENATE BILL NO. 331
INTRODUCED BY T. RICHMOND, D. ANKNEY
A BILL FOR AN ACT ENTITLED: "AN ACT REVISING ELECTRIC UTILITY COST RECOVERY FOR CERTAIN COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNITS AND TRANSMISSION; ESTABLISHING THE MONTANA ENERGY SECURITY ACT OF 2019; REQUIRING ALLOWING THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION TO INCLUDE CERTAIN RETURNS AND COSTS IN UTILITY RATES; ALLOWING FOR UTILITY COST RECOVERY FOR CERTAIN ACQUISITIONS; ALLOWING FOR AN INCREASED INTEREST, BASED ON A TRANSFER, IN CERTAIN COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNITS; PROVIDING EXCEPTIONS; ESTABLISHING CONDITIONS FOR A TRANSFER; REQUIRING INFORMATION TO BE FILED WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY; ESTABLISHING A FEE; AND PROVIDING AN IMMEDIATE EFFECTIVE DATE."
WHEREAS, the Colstrip generating complex consists of four different generating units, with six joint owners, each holding different ownership shares of the various units; and
WHEREAS, four of the joint owners are public utilities with significant service territories in the state of Oregon and Washington and no significant service territory in Montana; and
WHEREAS, one of the joint owners is a merchant generator with no service territory; and
WHEREAS, Colstrip Units 1 and 2 are currently scheduled to be closed by July 1, 2022, under a settlement agreement signed by its joint owners; and
WHEREAS, there is a difference of opinion between the states of Washington, Oregon, and Montana as to the desirability of maintaining the operations of the Colstrip units, and the closure of the Colstrip units disproportionately affects Montana; and
WHEREAS, baseload coal-fired electrical generating resources are important to Montana and Montana customers; and
WHEREAS, the continued operation of Colstrip Unit 4 and the interconnected 500-kilovolt transmission line are in the economic best interests of Montana; and
WHEREAS, the importance of continuing the operation of Colstrip Unit 4 and the interconnected 500-kilovolt transmission line requires a clear expression of certain electric utility ratemaking principles to be applied to the operation of that unit and the transmission line.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MONTANA:
NEW SECTION. Section 1. Short title. [Sections 1 through 3] may be cited as the "Montana Energy Security Act of 2019".
NEW SECTION. Section 2. Investment -- cost recovery for certain coal-fired generating units and transmission resources -- DEFINITIONS. (1) (A) Except as provided in [section 3(3)] [SECTION 3(3) AND (4)] AND SUBSECTION (1)(C) OF THIS SECTION, if a coal-fired generating unit is retired before the expected life used for depreciation purposes, the electric utility's PRUDENTLY INCURRED undepreciated investment in the coal-fired generating unit, together with any PRUDENTLY INCURRED AND required decommissioning and site remediation costs FOR AN INCREASED OWNERSHIP SHARE OF A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT ACQUIRED ON OR AFTER [THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS ACT], NOT TO EXCEED 150 MEGAWATTS, must MAY be included in rates by the public service commission as a long-term amortization, not to exceed 30 years. RETIREMENT BEFORE THE EXPECTED LIFE USED FOR DEPRECIATION PURPOSES MUST BE APPROVED BY THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.
(B) RETIREMENT OF A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT BEFORE THE EXPECTED LIFE USED FOR DEPRECIATION PURPOSES MUST BE APPROVED BY THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION.
(C) COST RECOVERY FOR AN UNDEPRECIATED INVESTMENT AND REQUIRED DECOMMISSIONING AND SITE REMEDIATION COSTS ATTRIBUTABLE TO AN ELECTRIC UTILITY'S SHARE IN A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT ACQUIRED BEFORE [THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS ACT] ARE SUBJECT TO PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION REVIEW AND APPROVAL.
(D) ON OR BEFORE JANUARY 1, 2020, THE COMMISSION SHALL DETERMINE THE CURRENT ANNUAL MARKET VALUE OF AN ELECTRIC UTILITY'S SHARE IN A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT AND THE ESTIMATED AND ASSUMED COSTS INCLUDED IN THE ORIGINAL VALUATION OF THE COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT ACCRUED ANNUALLY.
(E) BASED ON THE DETERMINATION MADE IN SUBSECTION (1)(D), THE COMMISSION SHALL REVISE THE CURRENT AMORTIZATION PAYMENT SCHEDULE FOR A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT AND REVISE RATES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE DETERMINATION.
(2) For the purposes of [sections 1 through 3], "coal-fired generating unit" THE FOLLOWING DEFINITIONS APPLY:
(A) "COAL-FIRED FOR THE PURPOSES OF [SECTIONS 1 THROUGH 3], "COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT" means a unit of a coal-fired generating station located in Montana in which an electric utility that has restructured in accordance with Title 69, chapter 8, holds an ownership interest on or before [the effective date of this act].
(B) "COSTS" FOR THE PURPOSES OF [SECTION 3], "COSTS" MEANS CAPITAL INVESTMENTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL, REGULATORY, AND SAFETY COMPLIANCE AND RELIABILITY.
NEW SECTION. Section 3. Acquisition cost-recovery for certain coal-fired generating units AND TRANSMISSION RESOURCES. (1) (a) Except as provided in subsections (1)(b) through (1)(d) AND SUBJECT SUBJECT TO THE CONDITIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS SECTION, the commission shall MAY allow the full recovery of costs incurred by an electric utility in acquiring and owning an increased ownership share of a coal-fired generating unit, not to exceed 150 megawatts and subject to the conditions and limitations of this section, AND THE PRUDENT INVESTMENT IN ANY INTERCONNECTED TRANSMISSION FACILITIES OF 500 KILOVOLTS OR MORE, NOT TO EXCEED BOOK VALUE.
(b) Costs incurred by an electric utility in accordance with subsection (1)(a) must be capped at a total of $40 $75 million over a consecutive 5-year 10-YEAR period following the date of transfer. The date of transfer may not be later than December 31, 2021.
(c) Operational, maintenance, repair, or improvement costs COSTS that exceed the limitations or time constraints of subsection (1)(b) are subject to commission review. The commission may review the prudency of those costs.
(d) Operational, maintenance, repair, or improvement costs COSTS do not include decommissioning and site remediation costs in accordance with [section 2(1)].
(2) An acquiring electric utility must be provided the increased ownership share of the coal-fired generating unit at a nominal transfer price of $1, regardless of the book value of that ownership share to the transferring utility.
(3) (a) A transferring utility remains liable for its share of the ownership costs and liabilities that existed by virtue of its ownership on and before the date of transfer, including but not limited to any required decommissioning or site remediation costs imposed by federal, state, or local government.
(b) Prior to an acquisition, the acquiring electric utility shall file information with the department of environmental quality verifying the continued acceptance of liability by a transferring utility as established in subsection (3)(a).
(c) The information must be accompanied by a $100 filing fee. The fee is not recoverable in an acquiring electric utility's rates.
(4) COST RECOVERY ESTABLISHED IN [SECTIONS 1 AND 2] [SECTIONS 2 AND 3] IS PROVIDED FOR IF AN ELECTRIC UTILITY ACQUIRES AN INCREASED OWNERSHIP SHARE OF A COAL-FIRED GENERATING UNIT ON OR BEFORE DECEMBER 31, 2021.
NEW SECTION. Section 4. Codification instruction. [Sections 1 through 3] are intended to be codified as an integral part of Title 69, chapter 3, and the provisions of Title 69, chapter 3, apply to [sections 1 through 3].
NEW SECTION. Section 5. Effective date. [This act] is effective on passage and approval.
Latest Version of SB 331 (SB0331.04)
Processed for the Web on April 13, 2019 (10:47am)
New language in a bill appears underlined, deleted material appears stricken.
Sponsor names are handwritten on introduced bills, hence do not appear on the bill until it is reprinted.
See the status of this bill for the bill's primary sponsor.
Status of this Bill | 2019 Legislature | Leg. Branch Home
All versions of this bill (PDF format)
Authorized print version of this bill w/line numbers (PDF format)
[ NEW SEARCH ]
Prepared by Montana Legislative Services
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45-5-206 Partner or family member assault -- penalty
TITLE 45. CRIMES
CHAPTER 5. OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON
Part 2. Assault and Related Offenses
Partner Or Family Member Assault -- Penalty
45-5-206. Partner or family member assault -- penalty. (1) A person commits the offense of partner or family member assault if the person:
(a) purposely or knowingly causes bodily injury to a partner or family member;
(b) negligently causes bodily injury to a partner or family member with a weapon; or
(c) purposely or knowingly causes reasonable apprehension of bodily injury in a partner or family member.
(2) For the purposes of Title 40, chapter 15, 45-5-231 through 45-5-234, 46-6-311, and this section, the following definitions apply:
(a) "Family member" means mothers, fathers, children, brothers, sisters, and other past or present family members of a household. These relationships include relationships created by adoption and remarriage, including stepchildren, stepparents, in-laws, and adoptive children and parents. These relationships continue regardless of the ages of the parties and whether the parties reside in the same household.
(b) "Partners" means spouses, former spouses, persons who have a child in common, and persons who have been or are currently in a dating or ongoing intimate relationship.
(3) (a) (i) An offender convicted of partner or family member assault shall be fined an amount not less than $100 or more than $1,000 and be imprisoned in the county jail for a term not to exceed 1 year or not less than 24 hours for a first offense.
(ii) An offender convicted of a second offense under this section shall be fined not less than $300 or more than $1,000 and be imprisoned in the county jail not less than 72 hours or more than 1 year.
(iii) Upon a first or second conviction, the offender may be ordered into misdemeanor probation as provided in 46-23-1005.
(iv) On a third or subsequent conviction for partner or family member assault, the offender shall be fined not less than $500 and not more than $50,000 and be imprisoned for a term not less than 30 days and not more than 5 years. If the term of imprisonment does not exceed 1 year, the person shall be imprisoned in the county jail. If the term of imprisonment exceeds 1 year, the person shall be imprisoned in the state prison.
(v) If the offense was committed within the vision or hearing of a minor, the judge shall consider the minor's presence as a factor at the time of sentencing.
(b) For the purpose of determining the number of convictions under this section, a conviction means:
(i) a conviction, as defined in 45-2-101, under this section;
(ii) a conviction for domestic abuse under this section;
(iii) a conviction for a violation of a statute similar to this section in another state;
(iv) if the offender was a partner or family member of the victim, a conviction for aggravated assault under 45-5-202 or assault with a weapon under 45-5-213;
(v) a conviction for strangulation of a partner or family member under 45-5-215;
(vi) a conviction in another state for an offense related to domestic violence between partners or family members, as those terms are defined in this section, regardless of what the offense is named or whether it is misdemeanor or felony, if the offense involves conduct similar to conduct that is prohibited under 45-5-202, 45-5-213, or this section; or
(vii) a forfeiture of bail or collateral deposited to secure the defendant's appearance in court in this state or in another state for a violation of a statute similar to this section, which forfeiture has not been vacated.
(4) (a) An offender convicted of partner or family member assault is required to pay for and complete a counseling assessment with a focus on violence, controlling behavior, dangerousness, and chemical dependency. An investigative criminal justice report, as defined in 45-5-231, must be copied and sent to the offender intervention program, as defined in 45-5-231, to assist the counseling provider in properly assessing the offender's need for counseling and treatment. Counseling providers shall take all required precautions to ensure the confidentiality of the report. If the report contains confidential information relating to the victim's location or not related to the charged offense, that information must be deleted from the report prior to being sent to the offender intervention program.
(b) The offender shall complete all recommendations for counseling, referrals, attendance at psychoeducational groups, or treatment, including any indicated chemical dependency treatment, made by the counseling provider. The counseling provider must be approved by the court. The counseling must include a preliminary assessment for counseling, as defined in 45-5-231. The offender shall complete a minimum of 40 hours of counseling. The counseling may include attendance at psychoeducational groups, as defined in 45-5-231, in addition to the assessment. The preliminary assessment and counseling that holds the offender accountable for the offender's violent or controlling behavior must meet the standards established pursuant to 44-7-210 and be:
(i) with a person licensed under Title 37, chapter 17, 22, or 23;
(ii) with a professional person as defined in 53-21-102; or
(iii) in a specialized domestic violence intervention program.
(c) The minimum counseling and attendance at psychoeducational groups provided in subsection (4)(b) must be directed to the violent or controlling conduct of the offender. Other issues indicated by the assessment may be addressed in additional counseling beyond the minimum 40 hours. Subsection (4)(b) does not prohibit the placement of the offender in other appropriate treatment if the court determines that there is no available treatment program directed to the violent or controlling conduct of the offender.
(5) In addition to any sentence imposed under subsections (3) and (4), after determining the financial resources and future ability of the offender to pay restitution as provided for in 46-18-242, the court shall require the offender, if able, to pay the victim's reasonable actual medical, housing, wage loss, and counseling costs.
(6) In addition to the requirements of subsection (5), if financially able, the offender must be ordered to pay for the costs of the offender's probation, if probation is ordered by the court.
(7) The court may prohibit an offender convicted under this section from possession or use of the firearm used in the assault. The court may enforce 45-8-323 if a firearm was used in the assault.
(8) The court shall provide an offender with a written copy of the offender's sentence at the time of sentencing or within 2 weeks of sentencing if the copy is sent electronically or by mail.
History: En. Sec. 1, Ch. 700, L. 1985; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 480, L. 1989; amd. Sec. 257, Ch. 800, L. 1991; amd. Sec. 2, Ch. 425, L. 1993; amd. Sec. 51, Ch. 18, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 10, Ch. 350, L. 1995; amd. Sec. 2, Ch. 245, L. 1997; amd. Sec. 5, Ch. 484, L. 1997; amd. Sec. 8, Ch. 432, L. 1999; amd. Sec. 6, Ch. 503, L. 2001; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 438, L. 2003; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 161, L. 2013; amd. Sec. 1, Ch. 228, L. 2013; amd. Sec. 3, Ch. 104, L. 2017; amd. Sec. 6, Ch. 394, L. 2017.
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Gareth May September 14, 2013 0
For many, communication with the dead seems an utter waste of time. They simply don’t believe it is possible. But who hasn’t whipped out the Ouija board in their teenage years and had a go? Is it just pomp and circumstance, or something more?
10The Rock ‘n’ Roll Séance
Inspiration for music can come from all manner of places. Ask the band “The Mars Volta” where they got their inspiration for the album Bedlam in Goliath, and they’ll tell you it came from beyond the grave. One of the band, Omar Rodriguez Lopez, bought a Ouija board while traveling through Jerusalem. The band had a few sessions and decided to write a song or two about their experiences with “contacting” the dead. Hitting the studio, they felt good about the new album. But then weird stuff started to happen. First the studio flooded, and then one of the studio’s engineers suffered a nervous breakdown. When singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s foot was injured, that was the final straw. The band burned the Ouija board and buried it where nobody could ever find it. Even rock stars, it seems, have their limits.
9 The Poet’s Vision Séance
William Butler Yeats was always keen on the paranormal and the occult. At only the age of 20, he was one of the co-founders of the Dublin Hermetic Society. He attended his first séance in the same year. He was also a member of a secret society called the Order of the Golden Dawn, and it was at one such meeting where he would meet Georgie Hyde-Leees, whom he would go on to marry in 1917.
Hyde-Lees was a keen medium, and their love sprouted through their joint interest in all things occult. Yeats asked her to use her abilities to help him write a poem through one of her visions. One night, Yeats’ wife sent a spirit into the Irish poet’s hand. Yeats started to perform “automatic writing”—the process by which somebody writes without thinking what it is they’re writing. When Yeats’ hand had stopped moving he realized he’d written a poem. He called it Vision.
8The Televised Séance
Derren Brown is a world-respected illusionist. In 2004, he pulled off one of his most remarkable stunts to date: a live televised séance. Shown on Channel 4 in Britain, the show involved Brown inviting 12 students to link hands and contact one or more members of a historical teenage suicide pact. The pact, and the story behind it, was completely fictionalized, as was the séance. But even so the show attracted well over 700 complaints from viewers shocked by the paranormal.
7The Séance That Inspired Twelve Steps Programs
Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson had a bit of a thing for the spooky things in life. He even had a room in his house dedicated to the paranormal and mystical which he called the “spook room.” He once claimed that this room, and the contact he made with spirits there, helped him to get over his alcoholism. One of the spirits he claimed to have chatted with was a 15th-century monk named Boniface. Wilson claimed in his autobiography that Boniface and the other spirits he contacted via the Ouija Board were responsibly for his creating of Alcoholics Anonymous’s world-famous Twelve Steps.
6The Harry Houdini Séance
Up until the 1920s, legendary escape artist Harry Houdini was quite into his spiritualism. In fact, in his pre-fame years, Houdini himself would make money from bent séances. But after the passing of his mother and his failed pursuit of a genuine medium in order to converse with her once again, Houdini turned against what he believed to be con-artist spiritualists and went on a crusade to expose as many mediums as he could find.
The most famous case of Houdini’s righteous campaign came in 1924. Houdini had dressed up in a disguise to attend a séance conducted and judged by none other than the Scientific American magazine. The mediums were all vying for a prize—the first one to produce genuine paranormal phenomena would take home $2,500. Boston-based medium Mina Crandon was the odds-on favorite and widely respected for channeling the spirit of her dead brother, Walter. Houdini had made quite a habit of following Mina, more commonly known as Margery, and debunking her séances wherever they would be. In this case, with Houdini in the audience, the judges found too many faults with Margery’s channeling, known as “indications of fraud” and no one took home the prize.
In a bizarre twist, Houdini told his wife he would try to contact her after he died in one final attempt to prove or disprove the validity of séances. Around Halloween each year, a séance is held in memory of Houdini, and fans attempt to contact him. To date, Houdini has not popped by from the afterlife for a chat.
5Pulitzer Prize–Winning Séance
Poet James Merrill’s 560-page epic poem entitled “The Changing Light at Sandover” was published over three volumes from 1977. Sandover brought together two decades’ worth of messages Merrill had recorded from Ouija board sessions held by Merrill and his partner, David Noyes Jackson. Over the years, the various spirits Merrill communicated with included that of poet W.H. Auden and the Archangel Michael. After the success of this first set of work, it received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1983. According to Merrill, the spirits ordered him to write and publish two more installments. Mirabell: Books of Number was published in 1978 and Scripts For The Pageant in 1980. He received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1982.
4The White House Séance
Mary Todd Lincoln, the wife of President Abraham Lincoln held séances in the White House while grieving the death of her son. In the years following her son’s death, Mrs. Lincoln couldn’t let her son go, so she would organize spiritualists to visit the presidential residence and communicate with the dead in the hope of speaking once again with Willie, her son.
3 The ‘Levitating In The Face Of Science’ Séance
Daniel Dunglas Home made his name levitating at séances for the best part of 40 years. Although Home’s contemporaries Henry C. Gordon and Stainton Moses were two other mediums to also frequently experience the phenomena of levitation, Home’s levitations were more remarkable for the simple fact that he did them in well-lit rooms, as opposed to the usual darkened settings. He was also never revealed as a fraud.
Some might say that Home’s most famous séance occurred in 1857. On this particular occasion, five witnesses reported that Home levitated while sitting in his chair some four or five feet off the ground, an account recorded by Arthur Conan Doyle in his book A History of Spiritualism.
But Home’s most remarkable séance was certainly one he conducted in 1871. This time around, Home’s levitation was witnessed by one Sir William Crookes. But Crookes wasn’t just any old bum off the street. The revered man of science would go on to become the president of the British Society for the Advancement of Science.
2 The Italian Séance
Politicians can do the strangest things. Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi did perhaps the strangest when he was asked, under oath in an Italian court, how he knew where previous Prime Minister Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades, the Marxist-Leninist paramilitary group. He said that during a séance held in 1978, with some professors from the University of Bologna, the “ghost” of former Florence mayor Giorgio La Pira had told Prodi the hideout where Moro was being held. Of course, no one believed Prodi for a minute; the truth was that Prodi didn’t want to reveal the identity of his left-wing source. No matter, the information garnered from “Prodi’s Ghost,” as his source has become known, proved a waste of time. Moro was found some weeks later. He’d been shot 10 times in the head. But to swear under oath that a séance saved a member of society is either mad, brave, or both.
1 The World’s First Recorded Séance
Kate and Margaret Fox were pretty odd sisters. While other siblings of the 1840s were off running through cornfields or playing hopscotch (or whatever girls of the 1800s did), Kate and Maggie were hanging out with ghosts. In fact, the Fox sisters play an important part in the history of spiritualism, as they’re recognized as conducting the first ever séance officially recorded in text.
By 1848, in the small town of Hydesville, New York, Kate and Margaret had created a code—a simple system of table raps which they used to communicate with the dead. Eventually, the pair started inviting friends over to witness the phenomenon. One particular séance was attended by family friends John and Susanna Moodie who had expressed an interest in the spiritualism reported by the girls. Kate Fox started the séance by asking the spirit if it minded speaking with the Moodies. After instructing the spirit to rap three times for a yes, the spirit did indeed rap three times. Susanna Moodie recorded her experience in a letter and so this reciprocated rap sound is the first-ever recorded “successful” communication with a spirit. The next test involved Kate Fox going through a list of friends, alive and dead, which she had asked Susanna Moodie to compile. Kate Fox asked the spirit to knock three times for a living friend and five for a dead one. The ghost got all knocks correct.
In summing up the séance, Susanna Moodie was clearly conflicted about what she had experienced: “I do not believe that the raps are produced by spirits that have been of this world,” she said. “But I cannot believe that [Kate Fox], with her pure spiritual face is capable of deceiving.”
10 Chilling Theories Regarding The Dyatlov Pass Incident
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10 Peculiar Revenge Rituals From Around The World
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Milton Tort Lawyers
Find the right Litigation attorney in Milton, MA
Litigation Lawyers in Milton
A "tort" is specified in Milton, Massachusetts as a legal wrong, not criminal in nature, for which the law provides compensation to the victim.
In Milton, Massachusetts, when a tort is committed, and the victim of the tort is vested with a right to sue the individual who committed the tort, they are said to have a "cause of action."
The law in Milton, Massachusetts recognizes dozens of different torts. Some of them are fairly obscure, and don't come up frequently, and are largely relics of the common law. The torts that a person is most likely to deal with at some time in his or her life are negligence, fraud, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Types of Torts in Milton, Massachusetts
Negligence: In Milton, Massachusetts, negligence is, far and away, the most prevalent tort that the civil litigation system has to deal with. Negligence is a failure to exercise the level of caution that's necessary in a particular situation, and causing harm (physical injury or property damage) as a direct result of this failure. An obvious example is drunk driving. If a person is drunk behind the wheel, and causes an accident, they are clearly going to be required to compensate the victim for whatever harm they cause, since driving while intoxicated is very careless, and everybody should know this. Of course, there are many other cases, most of them far less apparent, where negligence can occur.
Fraud: Fraud is an intentional tort, unlike negligence. It is also dealt with fairly frequently by courts in Milton, Massachusetts. Fraud is a lie that one person tells to another, with the intent to harm the other person, typically by inducing them to give money or property to the person committing the fraud. Fraud can occur in a wide number of different contexts. For instance, suppose a jeweler tries to sell a fake diamond to a customer, by passing it off as the real thing. If the customer believes the jeweler's lie, and bases his buying decision on it, the jeweler has committed fraud. If the customer discovers this fraud, he will be able to sue the jeweler, and recover, at the very least, the difference between the value of the fake diamond, and what he paid for it.
harmful or offensive, and non-consensual. For example, slapping someone on the face would be a clear case of battery, because that contact is harmful, and probably offensive as well. Unwanted physical conduct, especially of a sexual nature, is considered offensive by just about everyone, and would also be considered battery even if it causes no physical injuries. Sometimes, a doctor will operate on the wrong body part, which the patient did not consent to be operated on. And, sometimes, doctors have performed entire operations while the patient was unconscious, which the patient didn't consent to. This is also battery, and can result in a very costly lawsuit for the doctor, though such cases are quite rare.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress: Also known as IIED in Milton, Massachusetts, intentional infliction of emotional distress is a fairly new cause of action, having not been recognized until the 20th century. In order to succeed in an IIED lawsuit, the plaintiff has to establish that the defendant engaged in some kind of "outrageous" conduct, which was severe enough to "shock the conscience" of a reasonable person. They must also prove that the defendant directly intended to cause emotional distress, and did, in fact, cause severe emotional distress. Proving that the plaintiff suffered trauma or distress as a result of the defendant's conduct is not as easy as it may sound, and usually requires the testimony of a psychiatric professional who has examined the plaintiff.
How Can A Milton, Massachusetts Tort Lawyer Help?
If you think that someone might have committed a tort against you in Milton, Massachusetts, you can sue the alleged wrongdoer to seek compensation for your injuries. And, of course, if you are being sued for a tort (or anything else), you are completely entitled to put up the best legal defense you can.
In either case, a Milton, Massachusetts attorney who is efficient in handling tort cases will be able to help. Your lawyer can advise you on the best trial strategy, should the case go to trial, and negotiate with the other side, to try and reach a resolution that both parties can live with.
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Women often received micronutrient supplements during antenatal and postnatal care (13, 35–42, 51, 60), and, as such, supplementation was often targeted to pregnant and lactating women. The delivery of micronutrient supplementation commonly occurred in health care settings for at-home consumption. Community-based antenatal care that involved home visits by community health workers was also a common delivery platform for supplementation delivery. There were some studies that reported micronutrient supplementation to adolescents, women of reproductive age, pregnant women, and women with young children outside of the antenatal care setting. These included primary health care clinics, home visits, community centers, pharmacies, and workplaces (32, 38–43, 45, 52, 53). Adolescent girls were also reached by community- and school-based programs (26, 41, 46). School-based programs were more efficacious in reducing rates of anemia among adolescent girls, compared with the community-based interventions (26, 46). However, many of the reported studies to date involved small samples of adolescents in controlled settings, and additional research is needed on the effectiveness of these programs (59, 62).
Progress has been made but girls 14 and younger represent 44 million of those who have been cut, and in some regions 50% of all girls aged 11 and younger have been cut.[84] Ending FGC has been considered one of the necessary goals in achieving the targets of the Millennium Development Goals,[83] while the United Nations has declared ending FGC a target of the Sustainable Development Goals, and for February 6 to known as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, concentrating on 17 African countries and the 5 million girls between the ages of 15 and 19 that would otherwise be cut by 2030.[84][85]
You can get calcium from dairy products like milk, yogurt and cheese, canned fish with soft bones (sardines, anchovies and salmon; bones must be consumed to get the benefit of calcium), dark-green leafy vegetables (such as kale, mustard greens and turnip greens) and even tofu (if it's processed with calcium sulfate). Some foods are calcium-fortified; that is, they contain additional calcium. Examples include orange juice, certain cereals, soy milk and other breakfast foods. Talk to your health care professional about whether you should take calcium supplements if you don't think you're getting enough calcium from food sources.
But then, class instructors started leaving, cockroach bodies started appearing, the bath stalls didn't appear to be cleaned (I swear I saw the same goop of body wash on the wall for weeks), the morning crew started being late most mornings (one day I waited for about an hour and no one showed), the overnight lockers are more child sized cubbies (to be fair, I can't speak to the sizes of lockers elsewhere), bath towels smell like chemicals, some towels were scrunched up (like what cheap towels tend to do after a while they start to shrink up) which is fine but they should be replaced! A handful of times they don't care about music, either there's no music on at all or it's the same song on loop. I've seen staff members argue with each other in front of customers making it awkward for everyone.
Evaluations of protein-energy supplementation were limited to specific situations and contexts, and few studies evaluated national-scale programs (14, 33). National-level protein-energy supplementation programs for women and adolescent girls are expensive and challenging to implement compared with other efficacious interventions (33). Procuring, preparing, and distributing food and appropriately targeting women most in need (e.g., women below the poverty line, women who have or are at high risk of malnutrition, etc.) present challenges to protein-energy supplementation interventions (33).
Systematically report and evaluate women's nutrition outcomes in research and program evaluation documents in low- and middle-income countries, including outcomes for adolescents, older women, and mothers (as opposed to reporting on women's nutrition as child nutrition outcomes alone). When possible, report and evaluate differences by setting (e.g., rural compared with urban) and socioeconomic status.
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Jim Graham
Unidad Kennedy
HomePolitics— Jim GrahamBusinessART & LIFE— Unidad KennedySource
GALA Dances the Night Away With Last Show of the Season: GALA Theatre concludes its 43rd season with the U.S. premiere of a bilingual version of the unforgettable FAME, The Musical. Conceived and developed by David De Silva, with book by Cuban writer José Fernández, music by Steve Margoshes and lyrics
5th Annual 'Diversity in Construction GALA' at the E&SA: For Immediate ReleaseFebruary 3, 2019 5th Annual 'Diversity in Construction GALA' at the E&SA Metro DC Hispanic Contractors Association (HCA) presents its traditional, 'Diversity in Construction GALA' for the fifth straight year, this time at the newly built Entertainment& Sports Arena
The Wizard from Walla Walla; A lifetime defending the Latino Press: David Cortinas seems like he has spent his entire life in defense of small, family owned publishing businesses who make up the bulk of the Spanish language press in the United States. A four time Secretary on the Board
Gloria Rodriguez a Communications Dynamo and Industry Leader: Seated at her favorite table at ‘La Taberna del Alabardero’ restaurant in Washington DC, it is with great relish that Gloria Rodriguez tells the story of her 5 minute interview with Ronald Reagan, a seminal moment in the hugely successful
The Hidden Mexican Legacy of my Father: I recently returned from a visit to Mexico City (CDMX) for the first time in over 40 years. I'd lived there for an extended period during my adolescence with my father, Jose 'Pepe' Sueiro. My father emigrated to the
Como agua para chocolate || Like Water for Chocolate: Washington, D.C. – GALA opens its 43rd season with the U.S. premiere of Como agua para chocolate/Like Water for Chocolate, adapted for the stage by Garbi Losada based on the internationally best-selling novel by Laura Esquivel. Directed by Olga Sánchez,
A pinch of Kafka & a Twist of Joe Cuba: Think the energy of West Side Story, the language of the Nuyorican poets with a pinch of Kafka and a twist of Joe Cuba and you get an idea of what the new play at GALA Theatre, "Dancing in my
NAHP Hires Jose Sueiro as Executive Director: The National Association of Hispanic Publications (NAHP) has entered into an agreement with Jose Sueiro to serve as the organization's Executive Director headquartered at the National Press Building in Washington DC. The non-profit NAHP. Inc is under the new leadership
Dancing in My Cockroach Killers: Think the energy of West Side Story, the language of the Nuyorican poets with a pinch of Kafka and a twist of Joe Cuba and you get an idea of what the new play at GALA Theatre, "Dancing in
The Truth Is Like a Piece of Paper in the Wind: GALA Theatre is presenting its most overtly political play in a very long time. Political in as much as it deals with the real life events of three martyrs of modern Dominican Republic history and their battle against the tyrant
The Truth Is Like a Piece of Paper in the Wind
Written by Jose Sueiro
Published in ART & LIFE
GALA Theatre is presenting its most overtly political play in a very long time. Political in as much as it deals with the real life events of three martyrs of modern Dominican Republic history and their battle against the tyrant Rafael Trujillo. The play 'In the Time of the Butterflies' is based on the novel by Julia Alvarez adapted for the theatre by Caridad Svich. It is the story of the three most famous Dominican women in modern history, the Mirabal sisters, brutally assassinated in November of 1960 on the way back from a visit to their jailed husbands. Months later, after more than 30 years in power, the Trujillo dictatorship would fall as the 'caudillo' was murdered in an ambush.
Caridad Svich has made a most faithful adaptation of this very famous material. Not only did Julia Alvarez write the novel in 1994 upon which the play is based, but later it was adapted as a movie with Salma Hayek in the starring role as the mercurial Minerva. In his famous novel, "The Feast of the Goat", Mario Vargas Llosa dedicated a chapter to the events surrounding the Mirabal sisters assassination and Dominicans of all ages know the story as a turning point in the history of their country's struggle against the dictatorship.
The Svich adaptation attempts to capture and synthesize four different perspectives into this one play making it a bit complicated, albeit fascinating, to follow. A Dominican 'DJ' opens the show as if speaking for the 'pueblo' and the popular beliefs of the time. He pops in every so often during the show as if a rollicking Greek chorus to this Dominican tragedy.
Scenes of the 3 sisters as young girls highlight the activism of middle sister Minerva (stunningly played by Alina Robert in her first turn on the GALA stage), known for her fiery activism and how these three women of privileged background ended up martyrs to the cause.
At some point in the play a young female author appears questioning an older Dedé (the 4th sister who did not die in the assassination plot) decades later about all that happened. This portion of the play seems to suggest Julia Alvarez herself researching for her book, making these scenes somewhat of a play within the play.
The people, the young sisters, the older sister recounting her past and then a cameo, if you will, of the evil dictator himself (exquisitely performed by the multifaceted Delbis Cardona) complete a whirlwind drama that moves in and out of time and portrays various characters over long periods.
What most remained for this viewer was the charming, determined and intense portrayal of Minerva by Alina Robert that emphasized the pain and tragedy of the Mirabal sisters. It is Minerva who provokes the radicalization of her two sisters and marries a leader of the resistance. It is Minerva who's relationship to Trujillo is most conflicted (she refuses to bed him) and who suffers the inability to practice law due to Trujillo's prohibition.
The work is featured at GALA until May 13th Thursdays through Sundays. If you have any interest in this subject go see this remarkable piece of historical drama ably personified and portrayed in GALA's version of the story. Once again GALA has performed an important production with verve and excellence. Check out the details at www.GALA.org and go see this absorbing and excellent theatre piece.
http://en.galatheatre.org/
Last modified onSunday, 22 April 2018 23:00
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Arab Gates
African Horn
Eع
The Tuareg Denominator
Jay Radzinski
Since the downfall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya early last year, weapons proliferation throughout the Middle East and North Africa is on the rise and of primary concern. It is now widely known that masses of Libyan weaponry have made their way into the hands of such militant groups as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, and Somalia’s al-Shabaab. Libyan weaponry has traveled as far as the Gaza Strip and appeared in hand of militant groups there.
With the recent unrest in Somalia and Nigeria, the above-mentioned groups have been deeply reported on. However, one tribe, heavily active in Africa’s Sahel desert region is operating under the radar in comparison. The Tuareg tribe, composed of 1.2 million people, is historically nomadic. They have long roamed northwest Africa, primarily through the nations of Algeria, Libya, Mali, and Niger. Today, the group has become sedentary, the result of which has seen the Tuaregs actively engage such countries, particularly the Malian government, for stakes in power sharing and wealth benefits from the country’s natural resources.
The ongoing battle for the Tuareg’s perceived rights most recently manifested in the two-year Tuareg Rebellion in Mali and Niger from 2007-2009. This rebellion was ended through a series of peace talks and amnesty allowances; however, the conflict persists to this day as the Malian government regularly takes on the Tuareg militants along the Nigerian border.
The Tuareg activity does not end there. Since Gaddafi’s ouster, the tribe has capitalized on the nascent Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) and its failure to reign in the country’s domestic Misrata and Zintan tribal elements. The two aforementioned tribes were prominently instrumental in the overthrow of Gaddafi, and because of the NTC’s failure to appease these groups with power sharing; Libya’s borders have become porous and permeable.
Tribal allegiance is, first and foremost, to itself. After that, it goes to whatever entity has the money and the power. So when Libya’s borders opened amidst a deteriorating security situation, the Tuareg exploited the conditions on the ground to get their hands on Gaddafi-era weaponry that was now in essence up for grabs. To be sure, the Tuareg would keep much of this weaponry for itself. That said, a great amount would then be offloaded to their most attractive customers; al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The relationship between the Tuareg and AQIM is not a new phenomenon. The cooperation between the two groups can be seen as recently as the Tuareg Rebellion when it was alleged that elements from each group coordinated the abductions of two Canadian diplomats and four European tourists in Niger over the span of a few weeks in late 2008. With a relationship in tact, AQIM was a more than willing customer for the now Tuareg owned Libyan weaponry as the group is now shepherding other emerging Islamist militant groups in Africa.
The enhanced cooperation between the Tuareg and AQIM caused leaders from Sahel states to come together in recent weeks to discuss how best to combat this unrelenting threat. They were joined, however, by a non-Sahel country in Nigeria, which has seen a major breakdown in security throughout its northern Muslim states. Nigeria's involvement is now of importance as Boko Haram militants, that now, according to findings of the aforesaid Sahel conference, have confirmed links to AQIM, and therefore the Tuareg tribe.
AQIM, with Tuareg tribe assistance, is now able to inflate its realm of sway and influence. Such influence is not moving only south from the Sahel and into Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, but it is also making its way east towards the Horn of Africa, specifically to al-Shabaab, who continues to control large swaths of Somalia, despite a coordinated African Union mission there.
The United States and its allies in the War on Terror have claimed to have all but eliminated the threat from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda. However, it is the group’s offshoots that now pose the greatest threat to security and stability in many of the nations throughout northern and western Africa. The United States expressed its desire to aid in the combat of such groups in the region; however, the targeting of al-Qaeda subsidiaries will likely not address the problem at its core.
The Tuareg tribe persists as the common denominator that acts as the channel of livelihood for the various militant groups that are now operating throughout Africa’s north. Without the benefit of the Taureg’s unfettered mobility and access to weaponry, Africa’s Islamist militancy will find itself without a significant foundation for resources.
As previously mentioned, tribal allegiance beyond the tribe goes to that which has the money and the power. Therefore, any real effort to stem the rise of Islamist militancy in Africa, will have to include the recruitment of the Tuareg through promises of support and power - demands the group has called for from the onset of its involvement in its ongoing conflicts. Without such enlistment, the abolishment of Islamist militancy in Africa will be an insurmountable task. Jay Radzinski is an intelligence manager specializing in sub-Saharan African affairs at Max Security Solutions, a geo-political risk-consulting firm based in the Middle East.
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Category: Kurt Andersen
Netherland Discussion at TPM
July 29, 2008 by Mark Athitakis, posted in Dale Peck, Joseph O'Neill, Kurt Andersen
Talking Points Memo has chosen Joseph O’Neill‘s Netherland as the first novel featured in its book club. Great idea: I finished the book a couple of weeks back, and I was deeply impressed with how steadily the book balances a clear-eyed picture of New York’s crudeness and chaos alongside such elegant writing. Mobsters and cricket; seedy hotels and top-tier brokers—O’Neill’s city is full of contrasts, but he never presents it as an easy tale-of-two-cities squabble. O’Neill pulls that off partly by refusing to invent cookie-cutter portraits of immigrants and ethnic enclaves—you’ll run into a lot of novels these days (especially New York-set novels), that revel in using such people as comic relief or as cheap reiterations of the Magical Black Man. O’Neill’s characters, by contrast, are ambitious, emotional, self-contradictory, given to statements of ethnic pride, but never strictly for the sake of character detailing.
At any rate, the matter of American-ness in an increasingly global world is very much on O’Neill’s mind in his opening post, in which he questions what globalization might spell for the American novel:
[T]hese days you don’t have to station yourself in America, or even take a particular interest in the American consumer, in order to prosper on an ‘American’ scale. As a result, the traditional preoccupation of American novelists–in essence, to do some kind of justice to the American dream narrative, with all of its assumptions and concerns–threatens to become as anachronistic as Chuck’s plan to Americanize cricket. To what extent, then, is the American narrative viewpoint, globally dominant since World War II, now losing its preeminence?
Given the lively (if often gassy) responses in the comments, it’s a subject folks want to engage in. Joining in on the discussion for the remainder of the week will be Dale Peck, Kurt Andersen, Mia Carter, and Will Buckley. Should be fun. (via)
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Ms. Miller completed her Undergraduate studies at Loyola College where she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration with a Concentration in Accounting. She worked in the financial sectors of major corporations such as Toyota headquarters and McCormick spice company before attending law school. Ms. Miller was accepted into the University of Baltimore School of Law where she graduated ahead of schedule with dual concentrations in Public Interest Law and Criminal Law.
While attending law school, she was offered a prestigious Judicial Clerkship in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. She worked with the Honorable Christopher Panos to initiate a new pilot program in the Circuit Court for pro se domestic litigants. During her Clerkship, Ms. Miller was recruited by the Office of the State’s Attorney where she worked with the top two state prosecutors on some complex criminal matters, including one of Maryland’s most notorious homicide case, which resulted in the successful prosecution of three Defendants for the homicides of five women. Following the trial of that high profile case, Ms. Miller was advanced to the head office where she worked as a Legal Analyst with the Director of Communications, the State’s Attorney, prosecutors and the Media on the City’s high profile cases.
After that, Ms. Miller was offered a position at the Maryland Judiciary in Annapolis, where she was responsible for training District and Circuit Court Judges, writing the Clerk’s Manual for the Clerk’s of the Courts and overseeing and implementing Maryland Court Policies. She also managed legal services Court Programs and addressed and resolved legal issues impacting the public and Maryland’s Courts. She provided guidance and resources to the State’s Legal Services providers, law enforcement and other governmental agencies.
Ms. Miller is a Mediator certified in Basic Mediation and Conflict Resolution. She is also Certified in Collaborative Law. Now, in private practice, she manages the Firm and offers experienced and aggressive legal representation in a personable environment for persons who have been injured due to the negligence of others. Ms. Miller’s education in medical malpractice cases began in law school under the teaching of one of Maryland’s most successful and prominent medical malpractice lawyers. She is personally involved in the medical profession from her father, who is a Doctor of Internal Medicine and retired Professor from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, her mother, who is a retired Nurse, and her two sisters, a Psychiatrist, and a Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
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November 10, 2016 November 27, 2016 Matthew Jakubowski
This essay of mine originally appeared at the Broad Street Review. It’s about public art and personal loss. (With thanks to Inga Saffron and Timothy Duffield.)
“The Family,” by Timothy Duffield. (Photo by Christopher William Purdom / philart.net)
I walked past 1835 Market Street one afternoon and saw the sculpture was gone.
It had been there since I moved to Philadelphia from Chicago in 2008, a tall bronze sculpture about a dozen feet high depicting the naked forms of a woman and man, arms stretched upward, holding aloft a young girl and boy.
I’d felt mildly shocked by their nudity, but I liked seeing them doing something wild and joyous together, and felt proud of the artist and the building’s owners for presenting those bare elbows, bellies, knees, and rear ends among the corporate towers. Their nakedness was brave, flaunting the capacity of the natural, daring body. Two adults working hard, literally lifting up the next generation, vulnerable to anything and everything under the sun.
Looking for clues
I searched online to find out where they went, when they had been removed, and why.
I found a Philadelphia Inquirer article from December 2015 by Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Inga Saffron about planned changes along east Market Street. In it, Saffron mentioned 1835 Market: “The angled facade of that tower, designed by Kling Lindquist in 1986, creates a triangular plaza. The only purpose seemed to be to play host to the Timothy Duffield sculpture The Family. That piece is now in storage, as the owners contemplate erecting a small pavilion for a café.”
The sculpture was installed in 1981, near the corner of 18th and Market Streets, and later moved to 1835 Market. I didn’t find anything detailing where the piece was stored, if it had been scrapped, or where it might be reinstalled.
The sculpture was there for decades — why would anyone decide after more than 30 years the piece should just disappear one day without any notice? I’d recently suffered four losses: my grandmother, an uncle, my father, and a close friend, all in short time. People and things do just disappear. Friends and relatives are lost. It’s no different with art. But I didn’t feel right just leaving it at that.
When I called the Redevelopment Authority they said The Family was not a Percent for Art project. The sculpture was first commissioned by Sunoco. It changed hands as 1835 Market was bought and sold; even though it was right along the sidewalk in Center City for more than 30 years, it was always private property.
Public vs. private
The Nightingale Group now owns 1835 Market Street. They’re a “privately held, vertically integrated commercial real estate investment firm,” with property in 22 states. According to the Inquirer, they paid $100 million for the building in December 2014 and Duffield’s sculpture was part of the deal, theirs to preserve, move, donate, or scrap. The building’s previous owners maintained the sculpture, at some cost. Bronzes must be waxed regularly or they deteriorate. Nightingale seemed to have decided it wasn’t worth it.
The empty plaza at 1835 Market St. where the sculpture once stood. (Photo by M. Jakubowski)
Nightingale’s 1835 property manager wouldn’t comment on the sculpture, and directed me to call someone higher up the chain. When I finally reached Brenton Hutchinson, vice president of property management, he also declined to comment. I pressed a little. “It’s been removed and that’s it?” He had no comment.
If art isn’t deemed valuable or popular to private owners, it’s cheaper to remove it and be done. Is that what happened to The Family? After decades of maintenance, was it was sold for scrap to pay country club fees? Was it still in storage?
Everything passes
“Nothing is permanent,” Duffield said when I asked him about the sculpture’s disappearance. He divides his time between Philadelphia and Utah. He and the Nightingale Group discussed the sculpture in 2015, but they couldn’t reach a solution — moving a sculpture of that size is not cheap, of course, and finding a new home is a complicated, time-consuming project.
“Had they been cooperative and wanted to make an effort, I would have done everything I could to make it work,” he said. “But I live in two different places. I’m 75 years old, and I had to ask myself, ‘Do I really want to fuss with it?’ Sometimes it’s just better to continue working than to fuss with people.”
He estimated that to create the sculpture today it would cost around $350,000. Not a bad write off if the owners found a way to donate the piece, but perhaps that wasn’t incentive enough. Duffield wasn’t told where the sculpture is. That fact, together with Nightingale’s “no comment” seems to indicate it won’t be back, if it even exists anymore.
Despite Nightingale’s removal of The Family, they still have photos of it on the building’s webpage, maybe to add virtual curb appeal, or as a gesture to posterity.
I emailed Saffron to see what she thought the loss meant for that particular block.
“I don’t have particularly strong feelings about the sculpture,” she said. “Certainly it’s been a familiar part of my urban landscape for most of my time in Philly, and I liked its verticality. My main fear is that the new owners will not follow through on their plans to activate the space, and then we’ll lose twice.”
For me, losing the sculpture was disappointing. I needed to see those four vulnerable figures every so often. Their absence now reminds me of a pattern of other disappointments and empty places in my life. A person no longer alive in a room, a fear come true, four faces I loved fading from memory. Nothing is permanent, as Duffield said. True, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore loss, or pretend it’s fine and stay silent. Silence would — to borrow Saffron’s phrase — make us lose twice for each loss we are dealt.
Art, Uncategorizedart, Inga Saffron, Market Street, Philadelphia, public art, sculpture, Timothy Duffield
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Asia Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka April tourist arrivals slide after Easter bombings
COLOMBO (Reuters) – Tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka tumbled 7.5 percent in April from a year ago, as travelers shunned the island nation after the deadly Easter Sunday bombings, a senior official of the state tourism bureau said.
“This is a direct impact of the attacks. There were a lot of cancellations,” said Kishu Gomes, chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority told Reuters.
Foreign visitors in April fell to 166,975 compared with 180,429 in the same month a year ago, marking the single biggest monthly slump since the end of a civil war a decade ago.
More than 250 people were killed, including 42 foreign nationals, when suicide bombers attacked churches and luxury hotels across the Indian Ocean Island on April 21.
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See Other Contributors[remove]23
Filmed operas.15
Filmed ballets.5
Live sound recordings.3
Art music.1
Ballets (Music)1
Cook Music Library, Jacobs School of Music Performances22
Music Library23
No linguistic content7
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1. Adventures in Brass : Anthony Plog, composer. (2:39:45)
A note from College Audition Preparation: Adventures in Brass is a project by the College Audition Preparation (CAP) of the Jacobs School of Music. The project was prompted by a lack of brass reper...
2. Carmen : opéra comique in four acts (2:44:13)
6. Florencia en el Amaconas = (Florencia in the Amazon) : opera in two acts (1:42:12)
7. Florencia en el Amazonas = (Florencia in the Amazon) : opera in two acts (1:41:58)
10. Indiana University Philharmonic Orchestra, Federico Cortese, conductor (2016-12-07). (1:11:33)
11. Jazz celebration : IU Jazz Alumni Hall of Fame (2016-04-34). (1:29:48)
12. La fille du régiment = (The daughter of the regiment) : opéra comique in two acts (2:01:19)
16. Madama Butterfly (2:20:46)
19. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The nutcracker : ballet in two acts (1:37:47)
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A note about Chinese-Americans, immigration and the role of Chinese immersion schools in looking hard at history
This thoughtful take on the President’s immigration executive order comes from the head of the Chinese American International School, the nation’s oldest Chinese immersion school, based in San Francisco. Too few programs teach about the history of Chinese-Americans in the United States and the terrible racism and bigotry that the community was subject to, especially the heinous Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
I applaud Jeff for speaking out about an issue that is too often ignored in our programs – and which is newly relevant today.
Dear CAIS Community,
On Friday, January 27, not long after all our kids had been picked up from the Mass Greeting celebration, President Trump signed an executive order that indefinitely barred Syrian refugees from entering the United States, suspended all refugee admissions for 120 days and blocked citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries, refugees or otherwise, from entering the United States for 90 days.
Since that time protests have broken out at airports around the country, and a legal challenge to parts of the executive order has been sustained. This morning, Sunday, I find myself wondering, “what is our role, as parents and educators, in the face of all this?” I’d like to share some of my thoughts.
Over a year ago, in December of 2015, I read a piece in the Washington Post comparing the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to then candidate Donald Trump’s call for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the United States. Is this a valid comparison? In 1882 the United States Congress passed, and the President of the United States signed into law, the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting Chinese laborers from immigrating to the United States.
Successive federal laws made Chinese immigration to the US increasingly exclusive until its repeal some 61 years later in 1943 when China became an ally to the US in its fight against Japan in WWII. However, Chinese immigrants still faced restrictive quotas for more than two more decades. It was not until 2012 that both houses of the US legislature passed a resolution expressing regret, “for the passage of laws that adversely affected the Chinese in the United States, including the Chinese Exclusion Act.”
Here at CAIS, nearly three-quarters of our students and half of our faculty and staff claim some Chinese ethnic heritage. We claim this heritage in our school name: Chinese American International School, and in our mission: “Embrace Chinese.”
Think about it, the vast majority of our school community members are descendants of people who were or could have been excluded from the US under the Chinese Exclusion Act.
If nowadays, as a part of our children’s education, we talk about the Chinese Exclusion Act, or about systematic discrimination against any historically marginalized group, would anyone in our community feel offended that we were criticizing their political party of preferred presidential candidate? Would anyone think that we were indoctrinating our students and preventing them from being free thinkers?
How many people reading this are even familiar with which president signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law or his party affiliation? It was President Chester Arthur, and he was a Republican, the party of Abraham Lincoln who had been selected as president 22 years earlier (for comparison, 22 years ago it was 1995, and Democrat Bill Clinton was president).
At CAIS our work on curriculum is and should be a process of ongoing revision and improvement. As your head of school, I believe there is a new urgency in our curriculum work around citizenship education. This means continuing and improving our emphasis on thinking critically about historical instances during which groups of people were marginalized, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, or historical movements in which engaged citizens organized and took a stand to claim their Constitutional rights, such as the Civil Rights movement.
It means continuing and improving our efforts to learn from our history of immigration and systematic discrimination in our country. It means continuing and improving our commitment to provide our students with the tools they need to examine critically contemporary political events and make up their own minds. I am talking about tools like an understanding of the US Constitution–separation of powers, the Bill of Rights, the history of important legislation and judicial interpretations of constitutional law. And it means a greater emphasis on questioning–critically–the actions of our leaders today, actions such as the President’s executive order titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”
This is not partisan education, it’s citizenship education. It is not political indoctrination, it’s critical thinking. I encourage you as parents to engage in similar conversations with your children at home, in conjunction with our zoomed in study at school, challenging your children to become engaged citizens.
For a long time as your head of school I have been applying a great deal of my energy and focus on the Chinese piece of Chinese American. It is time that I apply equal energy to the American piece of Chinese American. It’s patriotic, it’s inclusive, it’s respectful of a diversity of perspectives, and it’s grounded in the Constitution of our country.
If I am completely honest, I do not know exactly what citizenship education will ultimately look like in the different grades given the new sense of urgency we now feel. But I do know that we need to adjust to a changing world if we want our kids to be able to create their places in it.
Finally, if there is anyone in our school community whose family has been impacted by the President’s executive order limiting immigration, please regard our community and our school as a resource and share any concerns you have so that we can support your children.
It is an honor to be able to serve as your head of school. Equipping your children to become their best selves is a responsibility that I and all of my colleagues take very seriously. Best,
Jeffrey Bissell | 毕杰夫
Head of School, Chinese American International School, San Francisco
← Happy Year of the Rooster!
Kansas getting its first Mandarin immersion program →
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How To’s & Guides
Storage & NAS
Tablets & Slates
Movies Games and Tech
Huawei completes Schubert’s famous Symphony No. 8 using the power of AI
Chris Hare
Huawei for the first time ever – combined the power of AI and human expertise to compose the final two movements of Schubert’s famous Symphony No. 8. commonly known as the ‘Unfinished Symphony.’ Symphony No. 8 has remained incomplete for 197 years and despite numerous attempts, it remains one of the most intriguing pieces of unfinished symphonic music of all time.
Myleene Klass, Arne Herkelmann, Lucas Cantor and Andrew Garrihy attend the reveal of Huawei’s, Unfinished Symphony at Cadogan Hall on February 4, 2019 in London, England.
Pic credit: Dave Benett
The London event was hosted by musician, Myleene Klass at the iconic, Cadogan Hall and saw the 66-piece English Session Orchestra perform to an audience of over 250 guests featuring models, Erin O’Connor, Laura Whitmore and Daisy Lowe, actor, Luke Pasqualino and singer, Nicola Roberts showcasing for the first time this unique ending to Schubert’s Symphony No. 8.
Huawei’s completed version of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 was created by running an Artificial Intelligence model benefitting directly from the processing power of the dual NPU (Neural Processing Unit) in the Huawei Mate 20 Pro smartphone – designed specifically with AI-based tasks in mind. Analysing the timbre, pitch and meter of the existing first and second movements of the symphony, the AI model then generated the melody for the final, missing third and fourth movements. Huawei then worked with Emmy award-winning composer Lucas Cantor, to arrange an orchestral score from the melody that stayed true to the style of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8.
The English Session Orchestra perform the reveal of Huawei, Unfinished Symphony at Cadogan Hall on February 4, 2019 in London, England.
“At Huawei, we are always searching for ways in which technology can make the world a better place. So, we taught our Mate 20 Pro smartphone to analyse an unfinished, nearly 200-year-old piece of music and to finish it in the style of the original composer” commented Walter Ji, President CBG, Huawei Western Europe. “We used the power of AI, to extend the boundaries of what is humanly possible and see the positive role technology might have on modern culture. If our smartphone is intelligent enough to do this, what else could be possible?”
Lucas Cantor, Composer said “My role was to draw out the AI’s good ideas and fill in the gaps to ensure the final output was ready to be played by a symphony orchestra. The result of this collaboration with AI proves that technology offers incredible possibilities and the significant and positive impact it can have on modern culture.”
Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor is considered to be the archetypal ‘Unfinished Symphony’. Musicologists are still in disagreement as to why Schubert failed to complete the piece, some cite his ill-health, others claim that he was distracted by his follow-up piece of work, but what is agreed upon is that he was charting new musical terrain with the piece.
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A True Tech Geek at Heart, I Started my life of being a Tech Geek at the age of 5 with the BBC Micro. Went on through most of Nintendo stuff and now a Xbox and PlayStation fan. I also leaked the information about the leaked Hotmail passwords story from October 2009 that went World Wide. I Started writing tech articles at the beginning of 2011, most of my articles are about Android phones and Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and other gaming news. When Chris has free time its with the family.
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey – Fate of Atlantis DLC Episode 3 Out Now
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Review: Creative Outlier Air Wireless In-Ear Headphones
Andrew Edney - Jul 6, 2019
It's time for our review of the Outlier Air Wireless In-Ear Headphones from Creative.
Review: Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth
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Where does WHEATFALL rank in the most common names in the U.S.?
WHEATFALL is identified by the U.S. Bureau of the Census as a surname with more than 100 occurrences in the United States for the year-2000 U.S. Census. In "Demographic Aspects of Surnames from Census 2000", the Census Bureau tabulated the surnames of all people who had obtained Social Security Numbers by the year 2000.
WHEATFALL ranks # 75695 in terms of the most common surnames in America for 2000.
WHEATFALL had 237 occurrences in the 2000 Census, according the U.S. government records.
Out of a sample of 100,000 people in the United States, WHEATFALL would occur an average of 0.09 times.
For the last name of WHEATFALL the Census Bureau reports the following race / ethnic origin breakdown:
Insignificant percent, or Less than 100 total occurrences, were "Non-Hispanic White Only"
94.51 percent, or 224 total occurrences, were "Non-Hispanic Black Only"
0 percent, or None reported total occurrences, were "Non-Hispanic Asian and Pacific Islander Only"
0 percent, or None reported total occurrences, were "Non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaskan Native"
Insignificant percent, or Less than 100 total occurrences, were "Non-Hispanic of Two or More Races"
Search the web for more on the name WHEATFALL :
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Reports: NFL-NFLPA meetings cut short two days 1 hour ago
McIlroy: Open’s return to Northern Ireland ‘bigger than me’ 1 hour ago
Report: Broncos QB Lock agrees to terms 1 hour ago
Falcons sign LB Jones to four-year, $57M extension 1 hour ago
Pats suspended WR Gordon works out with Brady
Suspended New England Patriots wideout Josh Gordon and quarterback Tom Brady got together for a workout this week.
Brady posted a GIF on Instagram on Wednesday showing him throwing to Gordon, with the caption “Practice makes perfect.” ESPN reported the photo came from a workout on Tuesday.
Brady regularly connects with teammates for workouts during the offseason, but Gordon’s future is murky after he was suspended indefinitely by the NFL in December for violating the terms of his reinstatement from a yearlong ban for substance abuse. According to The Athletic, the league does not have an update on Gordon’s status, with the preseason less than two months away.
The Patriots have supported Gordon since the suspension, offering him a restricted free agent tender, which Gordon signed in April. If he is able to play this season, New England would welcome him back.
Gordon, 28, played one game for the Cleveland Browns last year before being traded to the Patriots in September. In 12 games, he caught 41 passes for 737 yards and four touchdowns.
After breaking into the NFL with the Browns in 2012 and making the Pro Bowl after the 2013 season, Gordon missed the entire 2015 and 2016 seasons due to suspensions related to substance abuse.
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How Nuclear Explosions Were Used to Save the Environment
Posted By Amos Zeeberg on Jul 01, 2018
In the 70s and 80s, nuclear power made a dramatic flip in the public mind, changing from a futuristic miracle to an environmental disaster.Photograph by U.S. DOD / Wikipedia
In the late spring of 2010, the world watched, often in real time, a new kind of environmental disaster unfold: An oil rig operating deep under the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico exploded, and the well under it began spewing oil copiously into the waters above. BP’s Deepwater Horizon had previously drilled the deepest oil well in the world, through nearly a mile of water and seven miles of rock. After the explosion, the rig’s impressive reach became its greatest flaw, as the well proved impossible to seal under such depths. It became the biggest marine oil spill in history.
As BP cycled through various unsuccessful fixes, some observers quietly discussed a different, rather unconventional approach: setting off an underground nuclear bomb to seal the gash with rubble. “Seafloor nuclear detonation is starting to sound surprisingly feasible and appropriate…I never thought I would hear myself write that out loud,” wrote University of Texas engineer Steven Webber. But the nuclear option seems to have never become a serious possibility. An explosion might have destroyed the well without sealing it, making closure a permanent impossibility. A task force assembled by energy secretary Steven Chu dismissed the possibility out of hand; a senior official said, “It’s crazy.”
The idea may not have been as crazy as it seemed—or, at least, its craziness was not altogether unprecedented. The Soviet Union had successfully used underground nuclear explosions to snuff out fires at out-of-control natural-gas wells four times in the 60s and 70s. This was just one part of a large Soviet program to use nuclear explosions for a variety peaceful ends; the U.S. had a similar yet smaller program. Much of the information about these Cold War-era efforts was little known until 1998, when Milo Nordyke, a former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, put out an authoritative report on this historical curiosity.
One plan involved using a string of bombs to carve out a replacement for the Panama Canal.
It seems strange to us now to think of nuclear bombs as just another tool for engineers to shape our environment. We have to think back to the post-War mindset, enthusiastic for all things nuclear, when people on both sides of the Iron Curtain thought our cities, cars, and lives would soon draw their power from splitting or combining atoms. The Soviet representative to the UN channeled this nuclear boosterism when he proclaimed, “The Soviet Union did not use atomic energy for the purpose of accumulating stockpiles of atomic bombs…it was using atomic energy for purposes of its own domestic economy: blowing up mountains, changing the course of rivers, irrigating deserts, charting new paths of life in regions untrodden by human foot.” President Dwight Eisenhower sounded similar notes in his “Atoms for Peace” speech, also at the UN: “It is not enough to take this weapon out of the hands of their soldiers. It must be put into the hands of those who will know how to strip its military casing and adapt it to the arts of peace.” Of course, at the time, the U.S. and USSR were also accumulating stockpiles of atomic bombs big enough to wipe out humanity many times over.
The first concrete step toward the use of peaceful nuclear explosions came in 1957, when the U.S. carried out the world’s first underground nuclear explosion, 900 feet (270 meters) below the Nevada desert. The test went exactly according to plan, producing little damage or radioactivity above ground, giving a “tremendous boost of enthusiasm and confidence that a variety of peaceful uses for nuclear explosions were possible and could be implemented safely.” Over the next 16 years, the U.S.’s Plowshare Program set off 12 more explosions, most to test the use of nukes for extracting natural gas or excavating the Earth’s surface. One plan involved using a string of bombs to carve out a replacement for the Panama Canal.
The Soviets came to the game later but with more enthusiasm. In 1965, they set off their first civilian nuclear explosion, this one placed much closer to the surface in order to create a crater near a river in Kazakhstan. The idea was to divert water into the crater to create a reservoir that could be drawn upon for irrigation in dry seasons. The test was successful, and the project’s director, Efrim Slavskiy, reportedly hopped into the new lake, proudly becoming the first person to swim in it.
A year later, Soviet engineers found another creative use for the bomb. At the time there was an out-of-control gas well in Uzbekistan that had been burning for almost three years, spewing out 420 million cubic feet (12 million cubic meters) per day, enough to supply all of St. Petersburg. To make matters worse, the gas had a high concentration of poisonous hydrogen sulfide, making it dangerous for workers trying to seal the well and for nearby residents should a botched attempt send the gas their way. After every conventional approach failed, the decision was made to use a nuclear bomb to try to pinch the well closed far underground. A new hole was drilled down near the borehole, a specially designed bomb was put in place, and the hole was filled with concrete. Twenty-three seconds after the bomb went off, 33 months after it ignited, the inferno was finally extinguished. A contemporary video captured the build-up and dramatic conclusion:
These early successes kicked off an active program that included 122 nuclear explosions and stretched all the way through late 1988, as the Soviet Union started crumbling. Engineers used nuclear bombs to not only seal gas fires and create lakes, canals, and dams, but also to increase oil extraction, create underground cavities, find geological resources, and create new elements. Perhaps the most surprising use was creating large underground spaces where especially toxic waste was disposed of, isolated from the biosphere and water sources. In the post-Soviet years, Russian scientists have suggested getting rid of waste from nuclear plants by putting it in a chamber deep underground and detonating a bomb there, fusing the waste and rock together in a stable block whose radioactivity would safely dissipate over the course of millennia. Funny to think that nuclear bombs might actually be the most effective way to get rid of nuclear waste.
In the 70s and 80s, nuclear power made a dramatic flip in the public mind, changing from a futuristic miracle to an environmental disaster. The U.S. and Soviet Union wound down their programs, which had come to be seen as politically radioactive. This helps explain the visceral resistance to even the peaceful use of nuclear bombs. The invention that once symbolized humanity’s world-beating ingenuity had become an emblem of our abiding hubris.
Amos Zeeberg is a freelance science journalist based in Tokyo.
This classic Facts So Romantic post was originally published in October 2014.
061: Coordinates
Self location
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5 Things That Sound, Move, or Smell Like a Nuclear Explosion
The Licorne (“Unicorn”) thermonuclear test; Fangataufa, French Polynesia; 1970Photograph courtesy of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization…
Dear iPhone—It Was Just Physical, and Now It’s Over
I can’t count the number of times I pulled out my phone just for the feeling of unlocking the screen and swiping through applications, whether out of…
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Ravel: Daphnis and Chloé
Orchestral Excerpts | Mark Sparks, Flute
Demonstration of excerpt 00h:00m:29s
Regular pulse in accompaniment 00h:02m:30s
Search for your entire range of dynamics, color and expression without disturbing rhythmic pulse 00h:02m:44s
Expressive nuances based on progress of chromaticism 00h:03m:07s
Add crescendo to measure before Reh. 177 to C-sharp 00h:03m:30s
Don't start too softly, play scale melodically with lots of support and air pressure 00h:03m:42s
Meas. before Reh. 178 keep pitch up by moving lower lip forward slightly 00h:03m:52s
Alternate fingering for D-natural at Reh. 178 00h:04m:32s
In French music, expression is about the search for the right color and sound 00h:05m:15s
Mark Sparks, Principal Flute of the Saint Louis Symphony, demonstrates and discusses the flute solo from Ravel's Daphnis and Chloé, Suite No. 2.
DAPHNIS ET CHLOE
Recorded Date: 05-09-2013
Mark Sparks
Mark Sparks was appointed Principal Flute of the St. Louis Symphony by the late Hans Vonk in 2000. He is a frequent soloist with the Symphony and other orchestras and has performed in the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, South America, and Asia. He has appeared as Guest Principal Flutist with many ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and the Bergen (Norway) Philharmonic.
Prior to his appointment in St. Louis Sparks was Associate Principal Flute with the Baltimore Symphony under David Zinman, and Principal Flute of the San Antonio Symphony and the Memphis Symphony. He began his career as Principal in the Canton Ohio Symphony and in Venezuela with the Caracas Philharmonic.
In the summer of 2013 Sparks returned to the Aspen Music Festival and School where he is an artist-faculty member and Principal Flute of the Aspen Chamber Symphony. He also taught his fourth annual master class at Missouri's Innsbrook Institute, and joined the faculty of the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan.
Sparks is an enthusiastic teacher and maintains a private studio in St. Louis. He is a former full-time faculty member of the Peabody Institute, and frequently presents clinics and recitals in the U.S. and abroad. Sparks has recorded two solo albums, appearing on the Summit and AAM labels, and a new recording of French repertoire for flute and piano is planned for release in 2013. Sparks is also an avid writer about flute playing, and is a regular contributor to Flute Talk magazine's feature "From the Principal's Chair."
Born in 1960 and raised in Cleveland and St. Louis, Sparks graduated Pi Kappa Lambda from the Oberlin Conservatory as a student of Robert Willoughby, winning the 1982 Oberlin Concerto Prize.
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The Essential Billy Joel is the most inclusive Billy Joel compilation, following him from his early years through to his foray into classical music. It has a flow that helps an album recorded over many years sound natural, telling the story of Joel's career as one of the 20th century's most popular and accomplished songwriters. "Piano Man" sounds as if it had always existed. "Captain Jack" details a time and place now long past. "New York State of Mind" has become an anthem. "Just the Way You Are" shows a touch of gentleness from a rough character. "My Life" and "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me" prove that Joel can rock. "An Innocent Man," "Uptown Girl," "The Longest Time," and "Tell Her About It" gave Joel a second wind in the '80s, with a sound that recalled old-time rock 'n' roll at a time when many rockers were looking out of place.
The Essential Billy Joel Billy Joel
Say Goodbye To Hollywood
Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out On Broadway)
She's Always a Woman
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
Only the Good Die Young (Single Version)
It's Still Rock and Roll To Me
You May Be Right
She's Got a Way (Live)
Goodnight Saigon
Uptown Girl
The Longest Time
Tell Her About It
Leave a Tender Moment Alone
Baby Grand (with Ray Charles) [duet with Ray Charles]
I Go To Extremes
We Didn't Start the Fire
The Downeaster "Alexa"
The River of Dreams
All About Soul (Remix)
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)
Waltz no. 1 (Nunley's Carousel)
Invention In C minor
℗ This compilation (P) 2001 Sony Music Entertainment
More By Billy Joel
12 Gardens Live
Glass Houses
Greatest Hits, Vol. 3
The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning
So Weit - Best Of
Live At 25
Long Hard Look
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The Essential Mahalia Jackson 1991
How I Got Over
The Original Apollo Sessions 2003
Trouble of the World
How I Got Over (Live)
I Will Move On Up a Little Higher
The Best of Mahalia Jackson 1963
What a Friend We Have In Jesus
Gospels, Spirituals, & Hymns 1991
His Eye Is On the Sparrow
16 Most Requested Songs: Christmas 1992
About Mahalia Jackson
General critical consensus holds Mahalia Jackson as the greatest gospel singer ever to live; a major crossover success whose popularity extended across racial divides, she was gospel's first superstar, and even decades after her death remains, for many listeners, a defining symbol of the music's transcendent power. With her singularly expressive contralto, Jackson continues to inspire the generations of vocalists who follow in her wake; among the first spiritual performers to introduce elements of blues into her music, she infused gospel with a sensuality and freedom it had never before experienced, and her artistry rewrote the rules forever. Born in one of the poorest sections of New Orleans on October 26, 1911, Jackson made her debut in the children's choir of the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church at the age of four, and within a few years was a prominent member of the Mt. Moriah Baptist's junior choir. Raised next door to a sanctified church, she was heavily influenced by their brand of gospel, with its reliance on drums and percussion over piano; another major inspiration was the blues of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
By the time she reached her mid-teens, then, Jackson's unique vocal style was fully formed, combining the full-throated tones and propulsive rhythms of the sanctified church and the deep expressiveness of the blues with the note-bending phrasing of her Baptist upbringing. After quitting school during the eighth grade, Jackson relocated to Chicago in 1927, where she worked as a maid and laundress; within months of her arrival, she was singing leads with the choir at the Greater Salem Baptist Church, where she joined the three sons of her pastor in their group the Johnson Brothers. Although other small choir groups had cut records in the past, the Johnson Brothers might have been the first professional gospel unit ever; the first organized group to play the Chicago church circuit, they even produced a series of self-written musical dramas in which Jackson assumed the lead role. Her provocative performing style -- influenced by the Southern sanctified style of keeping time with the body and distinguished by jerks and steps for physical emphasis -- enraged many of the more conservative Northern preachers, but few could deny her fierce talent.
After the members of the Johnson Brothers went their separate ways during the mid-'30s, Jackson began her solo career accompanied by pianist Evelyn Gay, who herself later went on to major fame as one half of gospel's Gay Sisters. During the week, Jackson also went to beauty school, and soon opened her own salon. As her reputation as a singer grew throughout the Midwest, in 1937 she made her first recordings for Decca, becoming the first gospel artist signed to the label; curiously, none of the tracks she recorded during her May 21 session was by Thomas A. Dorsey, the legendary composer for whom she began working as a song demonstrator around that same time. (He even wrote "Peace in the Valley" with her in mind.) While her Decca single "God's Gonna Separate the Wheat from the Tares" sold only modestly, prompting a lengthy studio hiatus, Jackson's career continued on the upswing -- she soon began performing live in cities as far away as Buffalo, New Orleans, and Birmingham, becoming famous in churches throughout the country for not only her inimitable voice but also her flirtatious stage presence and spiritual intensity.
Jackson did not record again until 1946, signing with Apollo Records; although her relations with the label were often strained, the work she produced during her eight-year stay on their roster was frequently brilliant. While her first Apollo recordings, including "I Want to Rest" and "He Knows My Heart" fared poorly -- so much so, in fact, that the label almost dropped her -- producer Art Freeman insisted Jackson record W. Herbert Brewster's "Move on Up a Little Higher"; released in early 1948, the single became the best-selling gospel record of all time, selling in such great quantities that stores could not even meet the demand. Virtually overnight, Jackson became a superstar; beginning in 1950, she became a regular guest on journalist Studs Terkel's Chicago television series, and among White intellectuals and jazz critics, she acquired a major cult following based in large part on her eerie similarities to Bessie Smith. In 1952, her recording of "I Can Put My Trust in Jesus" even won a prize from the French Academy, resulting in a successful tour of Europe -- her rendition of "Silent Night" even became one of the all-time best-selling records in Norway's history.
Jackson's success soon reached such dramatic proportions that in 1954 she began hosting her own weekly radio series on CBS, the first program of its kind to broadcast the pure, sanctified gospel style over national airwaves. The show surrounded her with a supporting cast which included not only pianist Mildred Falls and organist Ralph Jones, but also a White quartet led by musical director Jack Halloran; although her performances with Halloran's group moved Jackson far away from traditional gospel towards an odd hybrid which crossed the line into barbershop quartet singing, they proved extremely popular with White audiences, and her transformation into a true crossover star was complete. Also in 1954 she signed to Columbia, scoring a Top 40 hit with the single "Rusty Old Halo," and two years later made her debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. However, with Jackson's success came the inevitable backlash -- purists decried her music's turn toward more pop-friendly production, and as her fame soared, so did her asking price, so much so that by the late '50s, virtually no Black churches could afford to pay her performance fee.
A triumphant appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival solidified Jackson's standing among critics, but her records continued moving her further away from her core audience -- when an LP with Percy Faith became a smash, Columbia insisted on more recordings with orchestras and choirs; she even cut a rendition of "Guardian Angels" backed by comic Harpo Marx. In 1959, she appeared in the film Imitation of Life, and two years later sang at John F. Kennedy's Presidential inauguration. During the '60s, Jackson was also a confidant and supporter of Dr. Martin Luther King, and at his funeral sang his last request, "Precious Lord"; throughout the decade she was a force in the civil rights movement, but after 1968, with King and the brothers Kennedy all assassinated, she retired from the political front. At much the same time, Jackson went through a messy and very public divorce, prompting a series of heart attacks and the rapid loss of over a hundred pounds; in her last years, however, she recaptured much of her former glory, concluding her career with a farewell concert in Germany in 1971. She died January 27, 1972. ~ Jason Ankeny
Shirley Caesar
Bessie Jones
Clara Ward
Marion Williams
Marian Williams
The Angelic Gospel Singers
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Co-Founder of Woodstock Says a 50th Anniversary Concert Is On The Way
Daniel Green November 19th, 2018 - 10:35 PM
As the 50th anniversary of Woodstock draws near, the original co-founder of the event is promising that there will be a celebration of the iconic festival. Michael Lang, who helped arrange the original event in 1969, has been hinting that an announcement is coming soon.
Per the Brooklynvegan, Lang’s plans to celebrate the festival’s 50th anniversary go back to 2016, when he discussed the event with the Poughkeepsie Journal. In it, he says that “These are plans. This is not a done deal yet. But it’s very close.”
The original music festival happened on August 15 –18, in Bethel, New York, northwest of New York City. The three-day festival drew around 400,000 concertgoers and became a symbol of the counterculture in the sixties featuring legendary acts such as Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix.
While the original intent was to listen to music, Lang has a more ambitious vision of what the 50th anniversary can be. According to a Campaign article from October, “Woodstock 2019 will feature live performances from renowned artists spanning multiple genres and decades. Festivalgoers can also expect TED-style talks and presentations.”
In his interview with the Poughkeepsie Journal, Lang went on to say that his goal for the festival is to focus on “sustainability, activism and social justice.” He went on to say that he hopes to use the original message of the pivotal event. “We’re hoping to inspire people to speak up and get involved and get out and vote and help us save the planet,” Lang said, “We are in trouble and it seems like we’ve been brought back in time in a lot of ways. It’s eerie how similar a lot of things are to the way it was in the late ‘60s. Lessons we thought we learned seem to be coming back, unlearned. The progress we learned in social justice seems to be going backwards.”
Previous anniversaries have not always worked out well for Woodstock in the past. In 1994, a 25th anniversary was held in Saugerties, New York. The show drew a variety of performers, ranging from Nine Inch Nails, Sheryl Crowe, The Allman Brothers Band and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Unfortunately, for all the love the original Woodstock received, the following festival, Woodstock ’99, was marked in controversy. The event’s image was tainted by poor planning, sexual assaults and the crowd setting parts of the fairgrounds on fire.
Despite his optimism, Lang’s goal seems to be far-fetched. Lang tried to organize the 40th anniversary in 2009, but the event never happened. Another problem seems to be a location for the festival. The original location, a dairy farm in upstate New York, is now Bethel Woods Center for the Art.
Another mystery is the lineup for the festival. As of now, Lang has not announced the musical acts or the dates. With so much still left in the air, it will be interesting to see if he can pull it off.
[READ FULL BIO]
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Kayla Bolton
2019 Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship Area Qualifier and Regional Championship Dates Announced
by: Kayla Bolton
TimeWednesday, November 21, 2018 | 4:30 PM
Kayla Olliver
2019 Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross
Championship Area Qualifier and Regional Championship Dates Announced
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (November 21, 2018) – MX Sports, producer of the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship, presented by Lucas Oil, is pleased to announce the 2019 Area Qualifiers and Regional Championships schedule. The qualifying program will start up mid-February with Area Qualifiers followed by Regional Championships taking place in late May through the month of June.
As qualifying starts in Arizona, the program will take place in 30 different states throughout the country beginning with over 50 Area Qualifiers where riders must finish in the top positions listed in the supplemental rules depending on their region. After qualifying through an area, riders will move onto the 13 Regional Championships that run through eight major geographical regions in the United States.
“This is one of the most exciting days of the year for AMA motocross organizers and racers. The day the AMA Amateur National Qualifying schedule comes out is much anticipated,” said MX Sports Director, Tim Cotter. “Receiving a qualifier or a regional put the organization in an elite status. A reward for hard work and dedication to our sport. This year nearly 100 tracks applied for events on the schedule. This year’s schedule is highlighted with several new venues and many traditional tracks and organizers.”
Area Qualifiers serve as the first step in qualifying for the world’s largest and most prestigious amateur motocross championship. The Regional Championships then serve as the next step to seed riders into the National Championship. Only riders who finish in a qualifying position at a Regional Championship are eligible to race the week of July 29 through August 3.
Click HERE to view and download the 2019 Area Qualifier and Regional Championship Schedule Ad. Ken Hill
“The AMA is proud of our amateur motocross program,” said AMA Motocross Manager, Alex Hunter. “The Area Qualifiers and Regional Championships are often the largest races of the season for our organizers. They always do a great job.”
Once again this year’s lineup includes many National-caliber tracks that have become a crucial part of the Road to Loretta’s. From historic tracks including Budds Creek Motocross Park and High Point Raceway in the Northeast to Washougal in the Northwest, these National tracks offer amateur racers a chance to race on the same track as the professionals in the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross circuit. The program also returns to many other favorites such as the RedBud MX in the Mid-East, and Muddy Creek Raceway along with WW Ranch Motocross Park in the Southeast. Oak Ridge MX and MC Moto Park both return in the North Central region, while Underground MX is back on the schedule in Kemp, Texas for a South Central qualifier.
Brand new additions to the 2019 Area Qualifier schedule include The Wick 338 hosting an Area Qualifier in April for the Northeast, while Diamond Back joins the lineup for the Southeast Region. Big Air Motocross will host an Area Qualifier in the Mid-East, while Archview Motocross Park comes into the North Central lineup. Oklahoma Motorsports Complex will host an April qualifier for the South Central, with Ridge Motorsports Park hosting a Northwest qualifier. Porterville OHV in Porterville, California will host a Mid-West and Southwest Area Qualifier on April 6 and 7.
Jessica Patterson is the proud owner Traveler’s Rest MX, and is one of the newest additions for the lineup for 2019. Patterson is one of the most accomplished female racers in the history of Women’s Professional Motocross Championship, and after hosting a WMX round in 2018 her track joins the lineup for a Southeast Area Qualifier.
Kevin Windham’s Farm14 joined the Loretta Lynn program back in 2017 as an Area Qualifier, but has now made the return to the schedule after a successful 2018 season to host the South Central Regional on May 25 and 26 in Centreville, Mississippi. “When I got the call about hosting a Regional Championship it was like Christmas in November,” said Kevin Windham. “I’m very honored to be a part of the AMA program.”
To view and download the entire 2019 Area Qualifier and Regional Championship schedule ad, click HERE.
The 38th annual Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship, presented by Lucas Oil, will take place Monday, July 29 through Saturday, August 3 at Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
For more information on the AMA Amateur National, visit the series official website at www.mxsports.com or call (304) 284-0101. Join the conversation on the event’s social media channels, along with receiving the most up-to-date news and exclusive content.
Facebook: @LorettaLynnMX
Instagram: @LorettaLynnMX
Twitter: @LorettaLynnMX
About the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship
The Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship is the world's largest and most prestigious amateur motocross racing program. The national qualifying program consists of 54 Area Qualifiers (February through May) and 13 Regional Championships (May through June), hosted at select motocross facilities across the country. The qualifying system culminates in the National Final (first week in August) hosted annually since 1982 at the home of country music star Loretta Lynn in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. Nearly 22,000 racers attempt to qualify in 35 classes for the 1,446 available positions at the National. Christened "The World's Greatest Motocross Vacation", the National event serves as a launch pad for some of the biggest names in professional motocross and supercross, including Ricky Carmichael, James Stewart, Ryan Villopoto, and Ryan Dungey. The national program is produced by MX Sports, Inc., a West Virginia-based race production company and sanctioned by AMA. For more information, please visit www.mxsports.com.
About the American Motorcyclist Association
Founded in 1924, the AMA is a not-for-profit member-based association whose mission is to promote the motorcycle lifestyle and protect the future of motorcycling. As the world's largest motorcycling rights and event sanctioning organization, the AMA advocates for riders' interests at all levels of government and sanctions thousands of competition and recreational events every year. The AMA also provides money-saving discounts on products and services for its members. Through the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in Pickerington, Ohio, the AMA honors the heroes and heritage of motorcycling. For more information, visit www.americanmotorcyclist.com. Not a member? Join the AMA today: www.americanmotorcyclist.com/membership/join.
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2018 U.S. Am Champ Hovland Claims Low Am Over Wu
2018 U.S. Am Champ Hovland…
There are few events in a person’s life that can top graduating from college, especially if your college is a top university like Stanford. If you are going to miss your college graduation ceremony to participate in another event, it had better be a pretty big deal.
Stanford Men’s Golf standout senior Brandon Wu found himself in that position on Sunday as he skipped his graduation ceremony for another event that is kind of a big deal for golfers–the final round of the United States Open at Pebble Beach.
After rounds of 71, 69, and 71, Wu, who went 3 and 0 in the Cardinal’s NCAA Championship victory last month, came into the final round of our national championship leading the race for low amateur honors at 2-under, pursued by OSU Cowboy Viktor Hovland, of Norway. Hovland, who won the 2018 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach last August, was at even par, two strokes behind Wu, going into the final round; Duke University junior Chandler Eaton was a further two strokes back, at +2.
Playing with 2016 U.S. Open Champion Dustin Johnson, Wu got off to a shaky start, opening with bogeys at holes 1 and 2. He missed a three-foot putt for par at #1 after a 11-1/2-foot downhill birdie putt tasted the edge of the cup and lipped out. After his approach shot at #2 landed in the rough left of the hole, his chip-out raced across the green to the far side; two putts from there and he was in with a bogey.
While his tee shots and approach work were solid, near-misses on birdie putts at Holes 4 and 5 yielded only pars for Wu. In the meantime, Hovland, playing six groups ahead of Wu, had birdies at the par-4 third hole, a pair of birdies at #5 and #6, then another at #8, pulling ahead in the amateur standings at 4-under, two strokes up on Wu.
Wu had a heart-stopping moment at hole #6, the long par-five on Arrowhead Point, when his drive went left, and left some more, bouncing twice or three times on the cart path before coming to rest in the trampled scrub left of the path. Playing an heroic iron shot to the runup area short and right of the green, he chipped close and tapped in for birdie.
After a pretty routine par on #7, Wu’s stellar approach shot work came into play again at #8. With 200+ yards to the hole, he lofted his second shot high and tight, landing it 5-1/2 feet below the hole, straight down the fall line, stroking it in for another welcome birdie.
Hovland gave back a stroke at #12, the long inland par-3, but recovered from that minor gaffe with another birdie three holes later, on 15. Backing up again with an untimely bogey at the famous hourglass-shaped par-three 17th green cut his lead over Wu to a stroke. Wu still had six holes to play catch-up.
Wu opened his back nine with a string of four pars, then a pair of late bogeys, at 14 and 15, effectively ended his run at the amateur title. On 17 he lagged a 50-foot putt from the front lobe of the green to two feet, rolling that in for par.
A conservative, 211-yard drive from the tee and a 218-yard second shot left Wu 86 yards from the flag on 18, but he overcooked his approach, flying the green, chipping back and two-putting for bogey.
Before Wu had finished his round, Hovland had closed with a birdie on 18, carding a 67 in the final round to post 69-73-71-67–280; the lowest 72-hole total ever posted by an amateur at Pebble Beach, not to mention breaking the U.S. Open amateur scoring record set by Jack Nicklaus at Cherry Hills in 1960.
Asked if he is looking forward to coming back to Pebble Beach in February for the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Hovland responded, “I don’t know quite what my schedule is going to be looking like. But I can’t wait to come back here already.”
The disappointment of falling short of the Low Amateur title was eased somewhat for Wu when he was handed his Stanford diploma at the 18th green after finishing his round, celebrating two proud accomplishments at one of the most beautiful locations in golf.
Knowing in advance that the scheduling conflict was coming, Wu was sanguine about the prospect when interviewed after Saturday’s round, “We knew Sunday of the U.S. Open was going to be graduation. So it became more of a realization when I qualified in Ohio; if I make the cut, I’ll probably miss graduation. In previous years, Stanford kids playing, it’s almost always this Sunday, so it’s always kind of a conflict. This is a pretty cool experience, too. I wish I could graduate with my classmates, but I think they’ll understand and be cheering for me.”
Category: NCGA Blog June 16, 2019
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Pacific Women’s Golf Association and Women’s Golf Association of Northern California Join NCGA
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Home Movie-Actor English English Movie-Actor
TV-Actor
Movie-Actor
REVIEWS - 3
The Good Neighbor Movie Review
Altman Movie Review
Middle Men Movie Review
James Edmund Caan is a well- known actor in U.S.A. He took birth on March 26, 1940 in New York. Although he appeared in movies from 1960’s, he became more well-known during 1970’s. His mother is Sophie and father is Arthur Caan, both emigrated from Germany and are of Jewish blood. His father was a dealer of meat as well as the butcher. He was brought up in Sunnyside, Queens in New York City. He got the education in New York City and after then attended Michigan State University. Later he took admission in the Hofstra University of Hempstead but did not graduate from there. When he was studying at Hofstra University, he got fascinated by acting.
He went for an interview in Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, and after clearing it; he got graduated from this school and studied there for five years. Caan started his career with television series such as Kraft Suspense Theatre, Dr. Kildare, The Untouchables, Alcoa Premiere, Naked City, etc. In 1964, in the show of "My Son, the All-American", he has performed the role of Jewish athlete. In 1965, he did his first acting role in Howard Hawks. In 1966, he appeared in movie El Dorado, while in 1968 appeared in film Countdown.
In 1969, James performed the role of "Rupert of Rathskeller" on Getting Smart, which is a spy sitcom. Even in 1969, he got praise for acting in The Rain People, where he performed the role of the football player, who was brain damaged. He became more known in 1971 when he did the movie Brian's Song in which he performed the role of a football player. In 1972, he played the role of Sonny Corleone in the movie Godfather. He was even selected for the role of supporting actor in Academy Award.
From 1971-1982, he did many films. Some of them are: Comes to A Horseman, T.R. Baskin, The Godfather Part II, Rollerball, etc. From 1982 to 1987, he was in depression due to death of his sister who was suffering from leukemia and did not go for acting in any movie. In 1987, he again started starring with the film Gardens of Stone. In 1988 and 1990, he performed in film Dick Tracy, Misery and Alien Nation. In 1992, he did movie Honeymoon in Vegas, in 1996 he did movie Bottle Rocket and Eraser while in 1998, he did movie Poodle Springs. Some of his recent films include- Mickey Blue Eyes in 1999, The Yards in 2000, The Way of the Gun in 2000, the City of Ghosts in 2002. In 2002, he did another movie Night at the Golden Eagle, Elf and Dogville in 2003. In 2008, he appeared in movie Get Smart, while in 2012, he appeared in Hawaii Five-0 as a guest star.
In 2013, he acted in Starz TV drama Magic City, while in 2014, he appeared in comedy Preggoland. Even in 2010, he became the chairman of internet company Openfilm. Besides being an actor, he is well skilled in martial arts and even got training for around 30 years with Takayuki Kubota. While considering his personal life, he married Dee Jay Mathis in 1961 and both got divorced in 1966. The couple had a daughter Tara, who was born in 1964.
After then, he got married to Sheila Marie Ryan in 1976, which was short lived and both had broken up in the year following it. Then he married Ingrid Hajek in September 1990 and got divorced in March 1994. The couple gave birth to a son in 1991 named Alexander James Caan. On 7th October in 1995, he got married once again with Linda Stokes and the couple is having two children, named James Arthur Caan, who was born in 1995 and Jacob Nicholas Caan, who was born in 1998. Caan is having five children and four grandchildren, one from Scott and three from Tara, who was his eldest daughter.
James Brolin was born in California of America on 18th July 1984. By occupation, he is an actor. Besides being an actor he is a producer as well as a director. He is known very well for roles in movies like soap operas, sitcoms, etc. Barbra Streisand is his wife, who by profession is a film star and a singer too. Name of his father was Hurst Bruderlin, who was a contractor of building and Helen Sue was his mother, who was not a professional worker. But after his birth, the family migrated to Westwood. Being the youngest kid in the house, he was very keen about airplanes and animals, which he started flying and building at the age of just 10. After then his interest shifted in acting. In his teenage, he was very attracted by actor James Dean. He pursued his graduation from University High School, which was in West part of Los Angeles. Before taking these classes, he was already working as a character star in a Bus Stop episode in 1961. During 1960’s, he made three appearances as a guest in a popular series of Batman, Burt Ward, and Adam West. Even he had done recurring act in The Monroes, which was a television series of short duration. He changed his surname to “Brolin” from "Bruderlin" when he was 20. In his school time, when he was working hard, he got a chance to meet actor Clint Eastwood. He has even done small roles in many films including Dear Brigitte in 1965, Fantastic Voyage in 1966, Take Her, She's Mine in 1963, etc. In 1967, he got a chance for a crucial role in movie “The Cape Town Affair” in 1967, but in the box office, he did not achieve any success. He even signed an agreement with 20th Century Fox. Continuing with his film work, from 1970’s he started to appear in movies like The Car, Night of the Juggler, Gable and Lombard, The Amityville Horror, etc. are some of his films of 1970’s period. He was in a leading act in all of these movies. While talking about his recent works, he has been doing supporting roles in many movies. Description of some of his movies is: In 2000 movie Traffic, which was directed by Steven Soderbergh, he acted as outgoing director of Office of National Drug control Policy, then in 2002 in film Catch Me If you Can written by Frank Abagnale and Stan Redding he did the role of Jack Barnes, again in 2003 in a comedy film A Guy Thing released on January 17,2003 ,in this movie he appeared in the role of a young guy less than of the age of 18 while in 2006 in a comedy movie The Alibi he played the role of Robert Hatch, a philandering husband and in 2007 in movie " The American Standards" directed by Joe Wehinger, he acted as Jack Jennings. In further years, as in 2008, he starred in the film Law & Order: SVU and in 2009 he appeared in the movie The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard. In 2009, he also appeared in episode Psych. In 2013 and 2014, Brolin acted in 2 episodes of ABC's Castle. Currently, he is acting as John in a comedy named Life in Pieces. While talking about his married life, in 1966 he married Jane Cameron Agee. They both had two children Josh born in 1968 and Jess born in 1972. There 12 days of meeting resulted in their successful marriage. Jane Cameron Agee was an actress at 12th Century Fox. Both had a divorce in 1984. In 1985, on the set of Hotel he met with actress Jan Smithers and both married in 1986. They both gave birth to a daughter Molly Elizabeth in 1987 and got divorced in 1995. In 1996, through a friend he met with Barbra Streisand, professionally who is a film star and sings songs and both got married on July 1,1998. Presently, both are living in Malibu of California.
James Coburn was a well - known actor in America. He was born on 31st August in 1928. He has done more than 70 films, while the majority of movies he acted in are action-oriented. With that, he had done 100 appearances on television, during a total of 45 years of career. In 1997, he won the Academy Award for supporting role in the movie named Affliction. His appearance was of a stong guy in various movies that he has done including Our Man Flint, You Sucker, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Cross of Iron, etc. In Hollywood, he had the image of strong looking and cool guy. While talking about his life in early stages he was born in Laurel, Nebraska in 1928. His mother was an immigrant from Sweden while his father was from Scots-Irish ancestry. He was brought up in Compton of California, and he went to Compton Junior College there. During 1950, he also got himself enlisted in Army of United States. There he was working as a truck driver and even sometimes worked as a disc jockey in the Texas on radio stations of Army. He had also worked to narrate training movies of Army in Mainz of Germany. He also attended City College of Los Angeles and studied action there. Then in La Jolla Playhouse he made a debut for his stage in Herman Melville's Billy Budd. Even he also got selected for razor commercial of Remington Products. In this, he was able to shave beard growth of 11 days in duration which was less than sixty seconds. While talking about his early work, his debut came in 1959. He also came in many television roles, like he appeared in Butch Cassidy in the episode of Wells Fargo tales. In the NBC series of Adventure and drama, he was a co-star with Joi Lansing. In Perry Mason of CBS, he appeared two times as the guest and in these two roles John was the victim of murder. During 1960’s and 1970’s, in some action and western films he got great fame for his tough guy looks and roles. Some of these movies includeThe Great Escape, Charade, Major Dundee, The Americanization of Emily, etc. In 1966, he was seen as a genuine star. In the year followed by 1966, he was chosen as 12th biggest star in Hollywood and in 1973 he got the honour of the most famous star. Due to rheumatoid arthritis, during 1980’s, he appeared in very fewer movies, but still he kept his work continue until he got died in 2002.Even he was very fond of writing songs and has written many songs with Lynsey de Paul, who is a British singer as well as writes songs. The credit of fond of cars goes to his father’s garage, and this interest remained with him throughout his whole life. Even in 1960’s,he owned the car Ferrari 250 GT Lusso and Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California SWB, which was just 13 of 56 constructed. On November 18, 2002, he died because of heart attack. At the time of his death, at Beverly Hills, he was hearing the music
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Heartbreak for Toyota as late failure hands Le Mans win to Porsche
Scott Collie
Victory celebrations for Porsche at Le Mans
Modern endurance racing is a tough, tough game, especially if you're Toyota. Leading Le Mans with just over three minutes remaining, the #5 TS050 Hybrid looked certain to make Toyota just the second Japanese brand to win at Circuit de la Sarthe, only to suffer a catastrophic power failure. The #2 Porsche 919 streaked past the stranded Toyota, in what was a heartbreaking finish to a heart-stopping race.
There's no such thing as a quiet day at Le Mans, but this year's race was full of drama from the get-go. With the rain absolutely lashing down, teams started under safety car conditions for the first time in the race's 84-year history.
When the drivers were finally let loose, Audi showed the pace that has helped it win 13 times since 1999. Just two hours into the race, however, the #7 R18 being driven by Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer was forced to pit for a replacement turbocharger, all but ending their chances of taking out the overall win.
It wasn't just the #7 R18 struggling with reliability issues. Although it came home in third place, the #8 R18 was hampered by a brake disc issue which left it 12 laps behind the eventual winners.
Audi's success at Le Mans has been built on the back of unshakeable reliability, so the fact its campaign was again derailed by mechanical faults will be cause for concern at Audi Sport HQ.
With Audi spending plenty of time in the pits, Porsche and Toyota settled into a back-and-forth battle for the overall race lead. After an impressive stint from Anthony Davidson, the Japanese giant found itself 30 seconds clear of the second-placed #2 Porsche. That lead stretched to over a minute, and it looked as if Anthony Davidson, Kabuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi would be the men to bring the Le Mans trophy to Toyota on its 18th attempt.
But, in one of the starkest reminders that you need to run the perfect race to claim victory, a power failure left the #5 TS050 stranded in front of the pit wall. The distraught team could only watch as its hard work, and the lead accrued after 1437 minutes of hard graft, evaporated. Heartbreaking doesn't even begin to describe it.
It wasn't all doom and gloom for the team at Toyota, though. The TS050 driven by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin crossed the line in second place, having battled cooling issues through the race's closing stages. Even with the podium finish, the result clearly had the whole team feeling flat afterwards.
"Unfortunately our second position was not what we wanted," said Kamui Kobayashi. "We are here to win so I am not really happy. We showed the car has strong performance and our car set the fastest lap of the race. I feel really sorry for car #5, all the crew, drivers and engineers. They did a great race. They fought back through difficult moments and deserved to win."
Anthony Davidson was more circumspect, but still extremely disappointed with the result.
"That was an unbelievable end to such a difficult race. You couldn't have written the way it ended; no-one would ever have believed a movie if it ended like this," he said. "So to actually live through the experience is pretty hard to take, but it will make us stronger and we'll be back."
The flipside of Toyota's heartbreak was elation in the Porsche camp. The highly-fancied #1, piloted by Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley struggled with a damaged fuel pump and could manage just 13th position. But over in the #2 car, Marc Lieb, Neel jani and Romain Dumas found themselves in the right place at the right time.
With the leading Toyota stricken by the pit wall, the 919 Hybrid streaked past and crossed the line in first place, bringing Porsche the biggest prize in endurance racing for the second consecutive year.
"First of all I would like to express my respect for the sensational performance which Toyota gave in this race," said Fritz Enzinger, Vice President of Porsche's LMP1 program. "It was a great fight with them. Shortly before the finish we had settled for second place until we suddenly claimed our second Le Mans victory in a row. I would like to thank our great team in Weissach, our team here in Le Mans and all Porsche employees and fans which have supported us here."
Forgetting about the LMP1 big boys for a moment, Ford managed to get one-up of Ferrari exactly 50 years after the GT40 claimed an historic 1-2-3 victory at the very same race. The #68 GT being run by Chip Ganassi Racing overtook the #82 Ferrari with four hours left in the race, and managed to hang on for a win in the LM GTE Pro class.
The win comes after a whirlwind development period, which kicked off just last year. It's also got us even more excited for the road-going GT; a car designed to show us how Detroit thinks the modern supercar should look (and drive).
The full standings for the race can be found at the Le Mans website.
The Audi R18 on its way round Le Mans
Audi has finished on the podium 18 times since entering Le Mans
Spending time in the pits was the issue for the Audi
The Audi R18 was hampered by reliability issues for the second year in a row
The R18 showed good in-race pace, but didn't have the reliability to back it up
Victory fell into Porsche's lap at Le Mans
The #1 919 Hybrid had a water pump issue
The 919 Hybrid in the pits at Le Mans
The #2 919 Hybrid on its way to victory at Le Mans
The 919 has won the past two Le Mans 24 hours
Porsche was quick to acknowledge Toyota's bad luck in its post-race interviews
A quick driver change for the #2 919 Hybrid
Porsche was sitting 2nd until a Toyota failure handed them first place
The Toyota TS050 Hybrid sits stranded, just 3 minutes from completing an historic win
The Ford GT took out its class at Le Mans
The #68 Ford GT in the pits on its way to class victory
The GT was developed over just a year
The GT sitting in the pits
Ford won Le Mans 50 years ago
The GT flies through the night at Le Mans
The GT sits on its air jacks
Ford crossing the line at Le Mans
#Audi
#Ford GT
#Le Mans
#Porsche
#Turbo
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Delighting in detail
By Sonia Furtado Neves
A bundle of nerves that relays information from touch receptors on the skin to the spinal cord and ultimately the brain, imaged with the new technique. IMAGE: EMBL/L.CASTALDI
The skin seems almost designed to thwart established microscopy techniques, but a new approach by scientists at EMBL Monterotondo overcomes such challenges, showing mouse neurons as never before.
“Already we’ve been able to see things that we couldn’t see before. Structures such as nerves arranged around a hair on the skin; we can now see them under the microscope, just as they were presumed to be,” says Paul Heppenstall of a new technique developed by his lab.
Already we’ve been able to see things that we couldn’t see before
The technique, called SNAP-tagging, relies on a small protein that binds to a specific small chemical structure – and once bound, it won’t let go. Guoying Yang and Fernanda de Castro Reis in the Heppenstall lab genetically engineered mice so that their cells would produce that SNAP protein. They then used fluorescent probes that contain the small chemical that SNAP binds to, and injected them into the mice. SNAP acts like an anchor, glueing the probes in place for researchers to follow under the microscope. The approach had been used for about a decade in studies using cell cultures – cells grown a lab dish – but Heppenstall’s group is the first to apply it to neurons in living mice. Very often, expanding a technique from lab dish to live animal presents a whole host of challenges, as a mouse is much more than just a group of cells. But with SNAP, the scientists found, mice actually eliminate a significant hurdle themselves.
Nerves arranged around a hair on the skin, “just as they were presumed to be.” IMAGE: EMBL/L.CASTALDI
“If we’d gone straight for the mouse, there would have been fewer challenges!” Heppenstall says with hindsight. “But we tried to do everything step-by-step. So we started with cell culture, and found that the probes are very sticky – you have to wash the cells repeatedly to get rid of tags that are floating around, not attached to SNAP, before you can see anything. Then we took tissue from animals, and tried to label that, and they were still sticky. And then finally we got around to injecting into the mouse – and it just worked! It turns out that the mouse is very good at washing out what it doesn’t need – so all the probes get washed out, except the ones bound to SNAP.”
finally we got around to injecting into the mouse – and it just worked!
The will to keep trying to find ways to make the strategy work was driven by the Heppenstall lab’s particular interest: the nerves in the skin. Even though they are all over our bodies, and skin samples are relatively easy to maintain in a lab dish, these nerves are actually incredibly difficult to study under the microscope. The skin has properties that almost seem designed to thwart conventional microscopy approaches. Under blue light, it naturally glows green, so attempting to label any structures – like nerves – in the skin with fluorescent proteins has an obvious hitch: it’s hard to distinguish between the glow from your labels and the skin’s own. The alternative approach would be to use antibodies – molecules our immune system uses to identify invaders, and which can be co-opted to home in on and tag particular structures. But the skin’s main function is to be a barrier, to protect us from the outside world. So it is very impermeable, which means it’s very difficult to get large molecules like antibodies through.
Previous approaches that relied on antibodies had difficulty penetrating the skin.
IMAGE: EMBL/R. DHANDAPANI
SNAP-tag overcomes these problems, as it allows researchers to use virtually any labels they want, including artificial dies of different colours that stand out from the skin’s background glow, and are small enough to make it into the skin. And because these are artificial, custom-made probes, they can be designed to do more than just highlight particular structures. You can have probes that destroy certain structures or cells, for instance. As Heppenstall puts it, “with SNAP-tag you can do almost anything, as long as the chemistry to make the probe is possible.”
Researchers can now use custom-made artificial labels, obtaining much more detailed images of the skin’s nerves. IMAGE: EMBL/F. C. REIS
That joining of forces between experts in biology and in chemistry is essential to develop and expand approaches like SNAP. Chemical biologist Kai Johnsson and his lab at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland, were instrumental in this work. And Yang’s postdoc position is shared between the Heppenstall lab and Carsten Schultz’s group at EMBL Heidelberg, which focuses on chemical biology. The two EMBL groups are continuing to explore SNAP-tagging’s potential, looking to develop tags to see the unseen.
Ultimately, Heppenstall wants to record activity in individual neurons. He’d like to move a hair on a patch of mouse skin, or change the skin’s temperature, and watch that information flow through the nerve, to the next nerve, tracking it throughout the whole network. In principle, he speculates, you could do this in a whole brain, or a whole animal. It would be like a taking a scan and zooming in to see what’s happening inside each nerve cell.
“This is my favorite image – we’d never seen anything like this until we used this technique,” says Heppenstall. “It shows that free nerve endings [red] in the skin split into an incredible number of branches.” IMAGE: EMBL/S. MORLEY
Right now, Heppenstall and colleagues are simply delighting in their new-found detail. “The first thing we’re doing is just exploring in more detail – going to higher resolution and just looking to see which nerves go where. In the future we hope to use this as a map when assigning functions to different neurons, to understand more about how our sense of touch works.”
Yang, Reis et al. Nature Methods, 8 December 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nmeth.3207.
EMBL Press Release on this work
More on the images
The EMBL Interdisciplinary Postdoc Programme
The Johnsson lab at EPFL
InterdisciplinaryMethodsmicroscopyMonterotondoNeurobiologyPostdoc
Roktim Gogoi says:
We need more information about gene transfer and human genome project.
Mary Todd Bergman says:
Hi Roktim – Glad to hear you’re interested in the Human Genome Project, which has grown and changed considerably since it first launched. Scientists all over the world have been adding knowledge to the reference human genome created in that project, and the latest version was published last year (see http://news.embl.de/science/1408_human-genome/).
There is so much to explore in this area of science. You might find YourGenome, a free website from the Wellcome Genome Campus, to be an excellent source of information about lots of things relating to the Human Genome Project: http://www.yourgenome.org
Programming: language
10 Jul 2019 - Josh Tapley
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Paula Patton on Producing ‘Traffik’ and the ‘Great Possibilities’ for Women Behind the Camera (Exclusive)
“The world blew up last year and the truth was revealed,” Paula Patton tells ET, describing how Hollywood has changed since allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced against multiple powerful men in the industry. We have been discussing the Time’s Up movement and an initiative to create gender parity behind the camera that grew out of these revelations, the airing of which she says she hopes will finally allow healing and greater opportunities for inclusion moving forward. “Whether it’s genuine or not, the doors are opening and we should run right through them. I don’t know, I just see great possibilities.”
While the 42-year-old actress is taking on her own behind-the-camera role as producer on her latest film, Traffik, which is in theaters April 20, she didn’t deliberately set out to be a part of a specific movement. She says women taking the reins is just “what’s happening” now.
In Traffik, Patton plays Brea, a woman who embodies the film’s “refuse to be a victim” tagline. Though the thriller about human trafficking, in which a couple is terrorized by a motorcycle gang during a romantic getaway, is grounded in a real-life issue, it’s not a “message” movie. “In my mind, nobody goes to the movies to go to school,” Patton says, adding: “I think that people need to make up their own minds. You give them the information, and then they can decide.”
Producing the film brings Patton’s career somewhat full circle. She started out at the University of Southern California producing student short films and documentaries before transitioning into acting as a 27-year-old with her small but head-turning debut role in Hitch. Patton graduated to leading lady status opposite Denzel Washington in 2006’s Déjà Vu and followed it with the Oscar-winning film Precious, before landing blockbusters like the Mission: Impossible franchise and 2 Guns. She most recently garnered attention for her turn as a mother trying to prevent the murder of her 8-year-old daughter on ABC’s time-twisting drama Somewhere Between.
The opportunity to return to producing came after Codeblack Films president Jeff Clanagan brought her the script and suggested she star and produce, knowing, Patton says, of her desire to be in films that entertain but also “impart some new knowledge.” She likens it to Mary Poppins’ famous “spoonful of sugar” strategy. “I guess that’s the kind of movies I want to make, and I felt like I saw that opportunity in Traffik.”
But producing also offered Patton a chance to get involved more deeply in decisions about the script and casting, taking greater creative control in a way that was a natural extension of her instincts. “I feel like I did, in many ways, what I would have tried to do on many films but I didn’t really, necessarily, have the right to do,” she recalls. “I would always just push my way in and say, ‘Hey, have you thought about this?’”
Scott White, Codeblack Films
She continues: “Oftentimes, I would just say, ‘I don’t care whose idea it is. You can take the credit, I just think it might help the film.’ I think this was the first time they actually had to listen to me a little bit.”
The freedom to flex her creative muscles is obviously sitting well with the newly cropped and blonde-haired Patton, who wears a pendant emblazoned with “Julian,” the name of her 8-year-old son, around her neck. She says she’s “never been more happy” with both her personal life and work life. “I think what my 42 years of life has given me is just how important it is to live your own life. You can’t care what anybody else thinks — even though your life is out there maybe for a bit of public consumption,” she says, perhaps alluding to her public split and custody battle with ex-husband Robin Thicke.
“I used to probably say the work is what would drive my happiness, and I don’t even know what my normal life was,” she adds. “But now I love my life, and then I love work, too.”
As seen on ETonline
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Analysis Shows Blacks Have Poorer Diabetes Control than Whites
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – An analysis combining 11 separate research studies found that blacks with diabetes have poorer control of blood sugar than whites, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.
“This lower level of control may partly explain why blacks have disproportionately higher rates of death and complications from diabetes,” said Julienne Kirk, PharmD, lead author of the study published on-line today (Aug. 25) in Diabetes Care.
Kirk said the findings point to the need to determine why the difference in control exists and to identify ways to prevent or reduce the resulting health problems. Poor blood sugar control can result in long-term complications such as blindness, amputation and end-stage kidney failure.
The researchers analyzed studies that measured sugar control among blacks and whites using a blood test for glycosylated hemoglobin – hemoglobin that has linked with glucose, or blood sugar. The lower the amounts of glycosylated hemoglobin, also called A1C, in the blood, the better the body is controlling blood sugar.
By combining the data from the 11 studies into a “meta-analysis” involving a total of 42,273 white and 14,670 black patients, they were able to detect differences that may not have shown up in each individual study. This was the first meta-analysis of racial and ethnic differences in blood sugar control among patients with diabetes.
Most of the studies included patients over age 50 with type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes in which the body does not produce enough insulin or cells ignore the insulin. As a result, glucose, or sugar, builds up in the bloodstream.
The analysis focused on studies between 1993 and 2005 because the A1C measurement became more standardized during that time. Measuring A1C provides information about average blood sugar control for the previous three months and gives health care providers and patients a good idea of well how their diabetes treatment plan is working.
The researchers found that whites had about 0.65 percent less A1C than blacks. Previous research has shown that for every 1 percent reduction in A1C, there is a 21 percent reduction in any complication of diabetes. So whites in this study had a risk of complications that was 15 percent lower than blacks.
Previous studies have suggested that blood sugar control may be poorer among minority populations. Possible reasons include differences in quality of care, including the intensity of treatment; socioeconomic differences, such as being less likely to have prescription drug coverage, and genetic differences. The researchers were not able to examine these factors in their study, and said additional research is needed.
“Although A1C control among blacks likely contributes to their elevated risk of complications, it accounts for only a portion,” said Kirk, an associate professor of family and community medicine. “We need to understand more fully why this disparity exists and to eliminate factors that may be changeable, such as improving access to care.”
Funders of the research included the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine.
Kirk’s co-researchers were Ralph B. D’Agostino Jr., Ph.D., Ronny Bell, Ph.D., Leah Passmore, M.S., and Denise Bonds., M.D., M.P.H., all with Wake Forest, Andrew Karter, Ph.D., with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif., and K.M. Venkat Narayan, M.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., previously with the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and now at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.
Media Contacts: Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu; Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, at 336-716-4587.
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center is an academic health system comprised of North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Wake Forest University Health Sciences, which operates the university’s School of Medicine. U.S. News & World Report ranks Wake Forest University School of Medicine 18th in family medicine, 20th in geriatrics, 25th in primary care and 41st in research among the nation's medical schools. It ranks 32nd in research funding by the National Institutes of Health. Almost 150 members of the medical school faculty are listed in Best Doctors in America.
New Diabetes Center Created at WFUSMView Previous
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Frontpage Arctic Winter Games Recreation centre a showcase for community
Recreation centre a showcase for community
It was a low-key opening for a building that has been awaited by the community since the summer of 2016, when demolition began on the town’s old rec centre.
Hay River’s new recreation centre opened on March 13 with no ceremony, just an open house which allowed visitors a look around the facility.
Visitors enter the new recreation centre as it opens on March 13. Paul Bickford/NNSL photo
Mayor Brad Mapes said roughly 350 people turned out for opening and he said the reaction was pretty well all positive.
As for his own reaction to finally having the rec centre open just days before the beginning of the Arctic Winter Games, Mapes said it was a relief.
“It’s going to be something that showcases our community and it’s going to give an opportunity for us to hold a lot of events,” he said. “And I guess the Arctic Winter Games is a great way to showcase to everybody in the North.”
The response from the people wandering around the building on opening night was positive.
“I think it’s a real, real beautiful building,” said Larry Dragon. “I think it’s worthwhile waiting for.”
Sue Warren also described the new building as beautiful.
“I think it’s a great facility for our community,” she said.
Warren noted the ice surface – NHL regulation size – looks big and state of the art.
Six-year-old Annalee Monkman also likes the new rec centre, especially the “really high” walking track above the ice surface.
Paulette Broekaert looks at the ice surface during the March 13 opening of the new rec centre.
“You can get exercise on it,” she said.
Gary Hoffman likes the fact that the complex is brand new.
“Our other one was getting pretty old. It was time for a replacement,” he said. “It’s nice and bright. It’s new. It’s a good location. It’s right downtown in the same place.”
Hoffman, a curler, also welcomed the new curling rink, which was not open on March 13 for people to explore.
It was unfortunate that a couple of seasons of curling were lost during the construction project, he said. “But hopefully we can get all the members back. It’s a brand-new facility.”
After the opening to the public – from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on March 13 – the facility was turned over to the Arctic Winter Games for the duration of the international event.
The recreation centre’s opening was just five days before the games’ opening ceremonies on March 18.
The $23.5-million project was completed by major contractor Clark Builders.
Mapes said some seasonal deficiencies will be taken care of over the summer, and other items will be dealt with after the Arctic Winter Games.
When the demolition and rebuild project began in the summer of 2016, the target was to have the work completed by October of last year.
That target was changed to just before Christmas last year, then late January and then mid-February before the town stopped giving target dates.
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NEW AMBASSADOR Johan Ernst Nilson
Global Non-Violence Ambassador Johan Ernst Nilson and his knotted gun sculpture One World – to unite the world in peace.
Swedish explorer, philanthropist and adventure activist Johan Ernst Nilson becomes Global Non-Violence Ambassador thanks to his strong engagement in The Non-Violence Project Foundation (NVPF) work globally.
Johan Ernst’s motto in life - “Everything is Possible - the Impossible just takes more time!” has made him one of the world’s leading explorers having accomplished 52 expeditions in 172 countries. Johan Ernst has embarked on a journey from the North Pole to the South Pole, has climbed the Seven Summits, has flown a boat across Europe, cycled from Sweden to the Sahara Desert, and a lot more. He is an advocate against global warming and poverty, and now a strong supporter and activist for nonviolence and peace in the world.
“I know that people always will disagree. We are 7 billion people and there will always be disagreements in our world. But I am certain that we are able to find a balance in the world, and the key is information, education and communication.
Our next generation needs to learn the moral and ethics grounds; we need to start understanding and respect one another better. I am proud to be a global Non-Violence Ambassador and will use all my power to engage people I meet to support the important mission – to inspire, motivate and engage young people to learn how to solve conflicts peacefully.”
As a Non-Violence Ambassador Johan Ernst has designed his own knotted gun sculpture, originally created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd. Johan’s sculpture has been named One World, is decorated with all UN member states flags and illustrates Johan’s vision for the peaceful world. The UN recently released three Non-Violence stamps under their definitive collection, the One World sculpture design being one of them.
“The Non-Violence Ambassador plays an important role and enables us to spread the awareness about our educational programs and activities around the world. We are very grateful and happy that Johan Ernst joins the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr and Muhammed Ali (RIP) as a Global Non-Violence Ambassador” says Jan Hellman, Co-Founder NVPF.
The knotted gun sculpture One World is available on the international market in the size of 30cm, in a limited edition.
Part of the revenues from the One World sales supports the foundations global educational work.
Order the One World sculpture
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Print El reto de la Garantía Juvenil
The challenge for the Youth Guarantee
A solution to a structural problem?
Almudena Moreno, Professor of Sociology,
University of Valladolid
Youth unemployment presents a very diverse profile by age and educational level, as well a being a structural phenomenon that has persisted in the Spanish labour arena since 1995. This article reflects on the effectiveness of employment policies designed to reduce youth unemployment, focusing attention on the Youth Guarantee, which is a European Council Recommendation.
The increase in youth unemployment as a consequence of the economic crisis, especially marked in Spain, has led to intense academic and institutional debate regarding contributing factors and the most appropriate measures for reducing it (García, 2011; Garrido, 2012; Dolado, 2015; Moreno Mínguez, 2015). However, the numerous diagnoses made have had no clear impact in terms of transfer into the design of policies for promoting youth employment, or at least, the results that could have been expected are not being obtained.
Answers as to why the policies designed are not functioning adequately should be sought in the diversity shown by unemployed young people. As a general rule, their status has been qualified as “youth unemployment” as if this were a uniform phenomenon. Employment policies have been defined based on this unidimensional concept, overlooking in part the numerous dimensions linked to the structural weaknesses of Spain’s labour market, as well as to age, to young people’s education level and, to a lesser extent, to their sex.
In Spain, the ratio between youth unemployment and general unemployment surprisingly shows relative stability since 1995, in contrast with other European countries.
In this sense, in reports and academic documents what appears to be missing is a critical reflection that offers a response to the possible ineffectiveness of employment policies designed for young people. In this article, we will focus on the Youth Guarantee (YG), a European Union Recommendation with a substantial budget allocation whose objective is to stimulate youth employment in all European countries. Specifically, the aim of the article is to analyse the effectiveness of the YG based on the diversity that characterises youth unemployment. For this purpose, it will include a descriptive analysis of the data available from sources such as Spain’s Economically Active Population Survey (EAPS) and data provided by the PES and the European Commission.
2. The peculiarities of youth unemployment
The reports consulted raise the question of whether the youth population is substantially different to the adult population with respect to its motivations and qualifications for finding and holding down employment, or whether youth unemployment is rather the result of a dysfunctional economic model that has affected youth and adult populations alike, but is more highly visible among young people during times of economic crisis. To offer an approach to answering this question, we present two indicators: the youth/adult unemployment ratio and the combination of age and education level from a longitudinal perspective.
Graph 1 reflects the historical evolution of the ratio between general unemployment and youth unemployment in Spain since 1995, comparing it with other European peer countries. Surprisingly, in the case of Spain a certain stability is observed from the mid 1990s, which seems to indicate either that the impact of the crisis has affected youth unemployment and total unemployment equally, or alternatively that youth unemployment is a structural phenomenon accentuated by the destruction of employment generated by the economic crisis.
In other countries, for example the Nordic countries, Germany and the United Kingdom, the crisis does indeed seem to have had a clear incremental effect on youth unemployment compared with the total unemployment ratio. These results could be an indication that unemployment in Spain is a structural phenomenon maintained over time that affects all ages, which points to the Spanish labour market having deficiencies associated with the productive structure.
Nonetheless, the fact that youth unemployment can be explained partly by a dysfunctional production model does not explain why employment policies are not functioning adequately to combat it. In this respect, the data in Graph 2 provide evidence of the well-known phenomenon whereby the lower the age and the lower the education level, the higher the youth unemployment rate; this tendency has been accentuated during the crisis (Requena, 2016). However, unemployment has not only affected the youths (16-29 years) with low education levels, but also slightly older young adults without qualifications.
It is usual to talk about unemployment among youths who have dropped out of the education system without formal qualifications and basic competencies, but the group of slightly older young adults with lower levels of education are referred to less commonly. This has significant social implications, as it alerts to the difficulties that these young people aged over 25 years are going to face in securing employment if no investment is made in their training. It should be added that these young people are at a typical age for finding a long-term partner and forming a family, therefore non-reduction of unemployment for this age group may have consequences in terms of the economic vulnerability, fertility rates and possible situations of poverty for these families.
The data point towards the diversity characterising young unemployed people, beyond the qualification of “youth unemployment”. Although unemployment rates are consistently higher in the 15-24 age group, the difference according to education levels is very significant and shows a similar evolution in the two groups over the course of time.
3. The role of active youth employment policies: the case of the Youth Guarantee
To tackle the high rate of youth unemployment, numerous Active Employment Policies (AEPs) have been developed, with uneven and in some cases disputable results, due – among other reasons – to the fact that they omitted to take into account the diversity characterising youth unemployment.
The measures, managed by Public Employment Services (PES), consist of training policies, job search advice policies, hiring incentives and the development of training programmes. International studies highlight a proportionally lower number of young unemployed people participating in the AEP programmes in Spain than in other European countries with lower youth unemployment rates, for example France, Germany and Austria (Caliendo and Schmidl, 2015). This may be an indicator of the poor visibility of these types of policies among young people, or alternatively, point to AEP programmes designed for adults not being operational to the same extent for young people (Caliendo and Schmidl, 2015).
According to the European Commission 2016 report on the functioning of the PES, despite advances taking place, access to these services by the most vulnerable young unemployed people remains insufficient. In fact, as shown in Graph 3, it is precisely those young people who have less training and are therefore more likely to experience situations of poverty and social exclusion, that register least as job-seekers together with young people with higher education, although perhaps for very different reasons: the former, because they have fewer skills and competencies for job-seeking, in addition to being demotivated; and the latter, because they have no faith that they will find employment through these services.
As can be seen in Graph 4, the young people who use employment offices most are those who completed secondary education. Moreover, it has been shown that this group has benefited most from the implementation of the YG in those European countries where these policies have been evaluated, such as Finland (Hämäläinen et al., 2015).
The European Council adopted the Recommendation known as the Youth Guarantee on 22 April 2013. The aims of the AEPs are aligned with the proposals of the YG but are different in the fact that the former are funded by national budgets and the latter by the European Union. Within the framework of this Recommendation, all the Member States committed to guaranteeing that young people aged under 25 years (29 years in the case of Spain) would have an offer of employment or training within four months from completion of their studies or their registration as unemployed.
The application of the Youth Guarantee is set within the framework of the European Youth Strategy (2010-2018). This programme, supported financially by the European Union, seeks to promote training and employment opportunities for young people aged under 29 years, as well as their social inclusion and active citizenship. The PESs are the institutions charged with implementing the employment and training programmes defined in the YG through the autonomous communities and local government authorities. France and Spain have intensified partnerships with non-governmental organisations working in local spheres for the purpose of registering those young people who do not use the PESs.
The Nordic countries were the first to implement these measures in the 1980s and 1990s (Sweden in 1984; Norway in 1993, Denmark and Finland in 1996). The measures contemplate improving training and public employment services, as well as developing enterprise and start-up programmes. In Spain, this initiative started to be implemented in 2014; 80% of the YG actions have been funded through the European Youth Employment Initiative, with an assignment of 943,496,315 euros for the 2014-2020 period. One of the main problems with the application of these measures in Spain is the limited participation of young people, despite the increase experienced since their commencement.
Graph 5 presents three indicators: 1) the percentage of young people aged 16 to 29 years registered with the YG with respect to the total number of young people seeking employment and registered at the employment offices, 2) the percentage of individuals registered with respect to the total number of unemployed young people accounted for by the EAPS and 3) the percentage of young people who neither work nor study registered with the YG with respect to the total number registered, calculated based on data from the EAPS.
First of all it can be seen that the percentage of people registered has increased considerably since August 2015 (the month in which the age range was extended to 29 years), but it is still limited. In the case of people registered as job-seekers, the percentage of people registered for the YG was 52.9% in the third quarter of 2016. Taking as a reference the number of young people unemployed according to the EAPS, barely 30% had registered. Finally, the percentage falls to 14% of young NEETs, a number calculated based on data from the EAPS by combining the sum of NEETs and that of young unemployed people in the same situation. These data appear to confirm the YG’s limited capacity for reaching young NEETs and unemployed people.
The possible reasons for this apparent ineffectiveness in attracting young people may lie, firstly, in the limited visibility of the advertising campaigns among the population of young people and, secondly, in the limited administrative, budgetary and personnel capacity that the PESs have available for effective outreach among young people in Spain (European Commission, 2016). Proof of this, as can be seen in Graph 6, is that only 25% of young Spanish people were aware, in April 2016 (date of the interview) of the European Youth Guarantee initiative to combat unemployment, in comparison with 51% of young Finnish people.
In 2015, only 32% of young people in Spain had secured employment after six months registered with the Youth Guarantee, as opposed to 87% of their peers in France and 71% in Sweden.
Prior experiences in other countries conclude that success of the Youth Guarantee is based on the effective functioning of the PESs on a local level (European Network of Public Employment Services, 2016). According to the European Commission Report of 2016, one of the problems with its application in Spain is the inefficiency of these public services in tackling youth unemployment. The Report also indicates that these services do not have sufficient resources for contacting young people who have dropped out of the education system without any basic secondary education qualification, among other reasons because generally the latter are not registered with the services. Finally, it is worth highlighting the lack of indicators and measures for evaluating and monitoring the efficiency of the PESs and of the YG, despite these being contemplated in their initial design (Cabasés and Pardell, 2014; Dolado, 2015).
Taking into account that we do not yet have any data on the monitoring of the YG in Spain, the evaluations effected in this first phase in other countries highlight the fact that the young people most benefited by employment policies and specifically by the YG are aged between 15 and 24 years and have completed secondary education; women to a greater extent than men and young unemployed people to a greater extent than inactive people with lower levels of education (European Commission, 2016; Hämäläinen et al., 2015). The groups that have registered least with the YG are precisely the most vulnerable ones. They run the greatest risk of ending up in situations of poverty, therefore these results should serve as a lesson learned in order to avoid committing the same errors in Spain.
Finally, an indicator that could account for the relative ineffectiveness of the YG actions is that referring to the percentage of young people who, six months following registration, have found employment or a place on a training action geared towards employment. Graph 7 shows that only 38% of young people registered with the YG in Spain in 2015 (last data available), had, six months later, either found employment or were participating in a training action, against 71% of Irish young people and 68% of their Italian counterparts. In the specific case of Spain, the distribution of that 38% of young people who had met with success was as follows: 30% had found employment after six months registered with the YG, 55% were in training, 12% were apprentices and 1% were doing work experience.
These data contrast with those of France, Finland and Sweden, where the YG is more effective (see Graph 8), and alert us to the need for a reformulation of the YG application criteria before 2020, the year when it should, in principle, come to an end.
4. Conclusions
The reflection contributed here highlights, firstly, the structural nature of youth unemployment, and secondly, how age and education level attained influence unemployment. Active employment policies and specifically the application of the YG do not seem to be obtaining the results expected. Among other reasons this is due to the heterogeneous profile of young unemployed people not being taken into account by the YG and the difficulties of the PESs in reaching young people who could benefit from it. The data show that unemployed and inactive young people with limited training have a reduced participation in the programmes designed by the YG, with Spain being one of the EU-28 countries with the poorest performance by the YG (European Commission, 2016).
This reduced participation in registration with the YG and in PESs programmes alerts us to the need to develop coordinated actions with the public and private spheres, such as promoting meetings between youth experts from the different municipalities, youth associations and private enterprises, with the aim of informing and advising unemployed young people about the possibilities that registering with the YG offers. This is a vulnerable group of young people that requires special attention to neutralise the negative effects of the precarity and poverty that they are heading towards.
In relation with Spain, the different European reports highlight the limited functionality of both its Public Employment Services and intermediary organisations to fulfil the objectives proposed in the YG’s initial design. They also highlight the slow process of modernisation of these services, as well as the lack of the human and financial resources needed to achieve successful implementation of the actions.
Therefore, imminent modernisation is required based on greater professionalisation of their staff, a larger assignment of financial resources and ongoing evaluation of the results obtained. The delay in the introduction of evaluation and monitoring systems for youth employment policies and specifically the YG scheme in Spain alerts to the need to develop coordinated mechanisms between local authorities and private organisations (enterprises and non-governmental organisations) to correct possible deficiencies and optimise as far as possible the results of youth employment policies.
Almudena Moreno, Professor of Sociology
Cabasés, M.A., and A. Pardell (2014): Una visión crítica del Plan de Implantación de la Garantía Juvenil en España, Madrid: Bomarzo.
Caliendo, M., and R. Schmidl (2016): “Youth unemployment and active labor market policies in Europe”, IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 5(1).
Dolado, J. (ed.) (2015): No country for young people? Youth labour market problems in Europe, London: CEPR.
European Commission (2016): The Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative, SWD (2016) 323 final, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
European Network of Public Employment Services (2016): Report on PES implementation of the Youth Guarantee, September 2016.
García, J.R. (2011): “Desempleo juvenil en España: causas y soluciones”, BBVA Research, Documentos de Trabajo, 11/30.
Garrido, L. (2012): “Para un diagnóstico sobre la formación y el empleo de los jóvenes”, Cuadernos Empleo Juvenil, 2.
Hämäläinen, K., U. Hämäläinen and J. Tuomala (2015): “The labour market impacts of a youth guarantee: lessons for Europe?”, VATT Working Papers 60, Helsinki: Government Institute for Economic Research.
Moreno Mínguez, A. (2015): “La empleabilidad de los jóvenes en España: explicando el elevado desempleo juvenil durante la recesión económica”, Revista Internacional de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales, 11(1).
Requena, M. (2016): “The social elevator. To what degree does education improve social mobility?”, Social Observatory of ”la Caixa”.
unemployment, economic crisis, economic hardship, economy, education level, loss of employment /loss of work, education policy
The labour market’s role in increasing inequalities during the economic crisis
Does the phenomenon of the "working poor" spread? Among other effects of the economic crisis, temporary and part-time jobs have increased and wages have been reduced.
Women and men, consumption and production over the life course. An unequal relationship
Social Inclusion September 2017
A large difference exists between the productive activity of men and women, especially when the latter are mothers and devote considerable time to managing the household and caring for children and dependent elders.
In what types of housing does the Spanish population live?
Social Inclusion June 2019
Some 45.6% of the population lives in a flat in a building with more than 10 homes. Is this the same in the rest of Europe?
"la Caixa" Foundation's Affordable Rental Programme
A programme that offers quality housing for the most vulnerable groups: young people, families and elderly people.
Social Inclusion July 2019
What social challenges does decent housing represent in Spain? This report analyses three challenges in this field: access, conditions and energy needs.
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Jessica Kern Leaves Mississippi Valley To Become Head Women’s Basketball Coach at Tennessee State
NASHVILLE --- Tennessee State University Director of Athletics Teresa Phillips has announced that Jessica Kern has been hired as the head women’s basketball coach. She becomes the 11th head coach in the program’s history. Kern
“Jessica Kern is a high-energy and enthusiastic young coach who has successful experience in coaching, recruiting and playing basketball at an elite level,” commented Phillips. “The more I learned about her, the more convinced I became that she was the right fit for our university. She is committed to excellence in the classroom and on the court. A coach's daughter, with the headiness and toughness to flourish in the Big Ten and as a professional athlete, Jessica is a proven leader, proven winner and proven recruiter that will help us be successful in the OVC. Perhaps most importantly, she understands the special nature of working at Tennessee State. I look forward to welcoming her to the TSU family.”
Kern most recently served as the head women’s basketball coach at Mississippi Valley State University. During her stint, MVSU was ranked in the Top 25 of most improved Division I women’s basketball programs. She also established the Kern’s Korner Community Outreach/Mentorship Program while formulating the largest recruiting class in school history.
"It is with great excitement that I join the Tennessee State University family,” said Kern. “I consider it an honor and a privilege to bring my experience and passion for coaching to Nashville. While winning should be noted as the standard goal, please know that my ultimate priority is to teach students, nurture young women and return the spirit of a champion to such a prestigious program."
Prior to taking over the program at MVSU, Kern was an assistant coach at Furman University following a four-year stretch as head coach at NCAA Division II Lincoln (Pa.) University.
In 2014-15, she was named Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) Coach of the Year after leading her squad to a 22-9 mark and a share of the CIAA Northern Division title.
Taking over a Lincoln program in 2011 that had won just three games the previous season, Kern coached the Lady Lions to seven wins in her first season, 10 victories the following year, and to a 12-16 mark in 2013-14 before posting a 22-9 record in her final season.
The 22 wins was a school record and carried Lincoln to a CIAA Tournament championship game appearance. She also guided Lincoln to the program's first win over a Division I opponent, a 94-86 triumph over Morgan State.
Before accepting the head coaching position at Lincoln, she served as an assistant coach and media specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, immediately following a two-year period (2008-10) as an assistant coach/recruiting coordinator at Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
A standout student-athlete as an undergrad, Kern was a four-year letterwinner at Penn State University, where she was a three-time All-Big Ten selection and team captain for the Track and Field team. After completing a stellar career at Penn State, she returned to the game of basketball and played professionally for the next seven years in Australia, Germany, Switzerland, Romania and Poland.
During the off-seasons, she taught at various Milwaukee high schools and assisted girl’s basketball and track & field teams.
A three-sport athlete in high school, Kern enjoyed one of the most successful prep careers in Milwaukee City Conference history, earning a combined 11 letters in basketball, volleyball and track & field at Washington High School. In basketball, she played in four state Final Fours and won a pair of state championships. She claimed 11 individual conference championships in track & field and was a three-time all-conference performer in volleyball.
A native of Milwaukee, Wisc., Kern graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Penn State in 2002. She has one son, Bobby Lee Collins, Jr.
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C /
Castaneda, Jose L. /
Notice of Hearing: In the Matter of Jose L. Castaneda
IN THE MATTER OF THE SECURITIES ACT,
R.S.O. 1990, c. S.5, AS AMENDED
- and –
JOSE L. CASTANEDA
(Section 127)
TAKE NOTICE that the Ontario Securities Commission (the “Commission”) will hold a hearing pursuant to sections 127 and 127.1 of the Securities Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.5, as amended (the “Act”), at the offices of the Commission, 20 Queen Street West, 17 th floor, Toronto, Ontario, in the Large Hearing Room on July 26 th, 2005, at 2:30 p.m. or as soon thereafter as the matter may be heard.
TO CONSIDER whether, pursuant to sections 127(1) and 127.1 of the Act, it is in the public interest for the Commission to make an order:
under clause 2 of s. 127(1) of the Act, that trading in securities by the Respondent cease permanently or for such other period as specified by the Commission;
under clause 3 of s. 127(1) of the Act, that any exemptions contained in Ontario securities law do not apply to the Respondent permanently or for such a period as the Commission may order;
under clause 6 of s. 127(1) of the Act, that the Respondent be reprimanded;
under clause 9 of s. 127(1) of the Act, that the Respondent pay an administrative penalty s for each failure to comply with Ontario securities law;
under clause 10 of s. 127(1) of the Act, that the Respondent disgorge to the Commission any amounts obtained as a result of non-compliance with Ontario securities law;
under s. 127.1 of the Act, that the Respondent pay the costs of Staff’s investigation and the costs of, or related to, the proceeding that are incurred by or on behalf of the Commission; and
such further orders as the Commission considers appropriate.
BY REASONOF the allegations set out in the Statement of Allegations, and such additional allegations as counsel may advise and the Commission may permit;
AND FURTHER TAKE NOTICE that any party to the proceeding dated July 26 th, 2005 may be represented by counsel;
AND FURTHER TAKE NOTICE that upon the failure of any party to attend at the time and place aforesaid, the hearing may proceed in the absence of that party, and such party is not entitled to any further notice of the proceeding.
DATED at Toronto this 20 th day of June, 2005.
“Christos Grivas”
per/John Stevenson
A/Secretary for the Commission
TO: JOSE L. CASTANEDA
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Imad Fakhoury, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation: Interview
JordanEconomy
Interview: Imad Fakhoury
How is the ministry working with other countries to reduce the burden of the Syrian crisis on Jordan?
IMAD FAKHOURY: The Syrian crisis is now in its sixth year and becoming one of the most tragic humanitarian crises since the Second World War in terms of scale and impact. It has obviously distorted Jordan’s development schemes, increased public debt and hampered the country’s sustainable development. About 89% of Syrians are living outside the camps, which puts immeasurable pressure on the kingdom’s host communities, as well as on social and physical infrastructure.
Jordan has been pioneering a resilience-based approach with the international community to deal with the impact of the Syrian crisis, and has developed response plans as a result. The latest one is the Jordan Response Plan 2016-18, a rolling plan that effectively links short-term coping mechanisms with longer-term initiatives aimed at strengthening local and national resilience capacities. The plan was also based on a comprehensive vulnerability assessment and developed to ensure that the proper priorities are identified, be it for refugees in and out of camps or for host communities.
In 2016 we realised that, despite our staunch efforts, the response has not been good enough. While we are grateful for the support we have received so far, unfortunately it has not mitigated the burgeoning impact of the crisis. At the London conference in February 2016, Jordan, in coordination with its partners, proposed a holistic approach as a paradigm shift and response to the protracted nature of the crisis. We came up with a comprehensive framework to help bridge the divide between the short-term needs of refugees and host communities, and the long-term development responses that are required for Jordan to move forward without jeopardising its hard-earned development gains and sustainable development trajectory.
To this end, Jordan achieved the Jordan Compact in London and secured simplified rules of origin for free trade with the EU until December 31, 2026, enabling us to attract new investments, access the EU market and help reconstruct the region. The deal will also help sustain our macroeconomic stability, which has been re-enforced by a programme with the IMF. With increased aid support, these factors can assist in creating a sustainable path for our prosperity and development, thus maintaining our ability to implement Jordan 2025; a 10-year socio-economic roadmap that details our commitment to continuous improvement of the business environment and to human resources development. Furthermore, we have launched a series of investment opportunities worth over $25bn, which are to be implemented as public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the water, transport, energy, urban development, infrastructure, tourism, and ICT sectors.
In what ways is the country progressing towards achieving the structural reforms demanded by the new IMF Extended Fund Facility programme?
FAKHOURY: The new programme with the IMF focuses on fiscal consolidation and structural measures. The main financial aim is to bring the gross debt-to-GDP ratio to 77% by 2021. This is vital, and is in line with Jordan 2025. These reforms are really home-grown and are key measures that need to be taken to increase Jordan’s competitiveness, prosperity and resilience. Regarding the structural changes, we are focusing on promoting investment and employment, so we aim to enhance the energy, water and financial sectors, the business environment, and the labour market.
In addition, we plan to improve public investment and strengthen the way Jordan uses PPPs to deliver public services and infrastructure. We have also adopted a new public investment management framework with the World Bank, and created a unit in the ministry that will conduct cost-benefit analyses for public spending projects and decide whether they should be funded by the Treasury or via a PPP model. This is intended to make our system more transparent and effective.
Anchor text:
Imad Fakhoury
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Exports to Europe to grow as Jordan signs new trade deal
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Prime Minister Hani Al Mulki: Interview
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The Dead and Those Forever Changed: Gettysburg and the Human Cost of War
“Ashes of soldiers South or North, As I muse retrospective murmuring a chant in thought, The war resumes, again to my sense your shapes, And again the advance of the armies. Noiseless as mists and vapors, From their graves in the trenches ascending, From cemeteries all through Virginia and Tennessee, From every point of the compass out of the countless graves, In wafted clouds, in myriads large, or squads of twos or threes or single ones they come, And silently gather round me…”
From Walt Whitman- Ashes of Dead Soldiers
Too often we look at distant battles and campaigns in terms of strategy, operations, tactics, leadership and the weaponry employed. Likewise we might become more analytical and look at the impact of the battle or campaign in the context of the war it was fought, or in the manner in which the tactics or weapons used revolutionized warfare. Sometimes in our more reflective moments we might look at individual bravery or sacrifice, often missing in our analysis is the cost in flesh and blood.
Admittedly the subject is somewhat macabre. But with the reality being that very few people in the United States, Canada or Western Europe have experienced the terrible brutality of war it is something that we should carefully consider any time the nation commits itself to war. By we, I mean all citizens, including the many soldiers, sailors and airmen who never see people they kill, at least in person, or walk among the devastation caused by the highly advanced, precision weapons that they employ from a great distance, sometimes thousands of miles. In some parts of our military we have men and women who have the mission of targeting and killing enemies and then walking home to their families, to have a nice dinner and read their children a bedtime story. But in the Civil War the acts of killing and being killed in combat “remained essentially intimate; soldiers were able to see each other’s faces and to know whom they had killed.” [1]
While the words of William Tecumseh Sherman that “War is Hell” are as true as when he spoke them. The tragic fact is that for most people war is an abstract concept, antiseptic and unreal; except for the occasional beheading of a hostage by Islamic militants or the videos shot by the perpetrators of crimes against humanity on the internet. Thus the real, brutal and devastating cost of war and its attendant cost in lives, treasure and to the environment are not real to most people in the West.
We use words to describe the business of war which dehumanize the enemy, and we describe their deaths in words more palatable to us, to shield our souls from the evil in which we partake. Military ethicists and philosophers from time immemorial describe even the most just wars as having some sense of evil to them. Dave Grossman, the army infantry officer who has spent his post military life writing about the psychology of war and killing wrote:
“Even the language of men at war is the full denial of the enormity of what they have done. Most solders do not “kill,” instead the enemy was knocked over, wasted, greased, taken out, and mopped up. The enemy is hosed, zapped, probed, and fired on. The enemy’s humanity is denied, and he becomes a strange beast called a Jap, Reb, Yank, dink, slant, or slope. Even the weapons of war receive benign names- Puff the Magic Dragon, Walleye, TOW, Fat Boy, Thin Man- and the killing weapon of the individual soldier becomes a piece or a hog, and a bullet becomes a round.” [2]
We can now add the terms “Haji” and “Raghead” and “Camel Driver” to Grossman’s list of dehumanizing terms that we label our opponents from our most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The very insightful words of Guy Sager in his classic work The Forgotten Soldier about World War Two on the Eastern front are lost on many that study war:
“Too many people learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. They read about Verdun or Stalingrad without comprehension, sitting in a comfortable armchair, with their feet beside the fire, preparing to go about their business the next day, as usual…One should read about war standing up, late at night, when one is tired, as I am writing about it now, at dawn, while my asthma attack wears off. And even now, in my sleepless exhaustion, how gentle and easy peace seems!” [3]
In an age where so few have served in the military and even few have seen combat in some way shape or form many who study war are comfortable experts who learn about war with no inconvenience to themselves. When I hear men and women, the pundits, politicians and preachers; that Trinity of Evil who constantly exhort governments and peoples to go to war for causes, places or conflicts that they have little understanding of from the comfort of their living rooms or television studios I grow weary. I fully comprehend the words of Otto Von Bismarck who said: “Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.” [4]
As a historian who also is a military chaplain who has seen war I struggle with what Sager said. Thus when I read military history, study and write about particular battles or engagements, or conduct staff rides as like the Gettysburg trip that we are embarking on, the human cost is always present in my mind. The fact that I still suffer the effects of PTSD including night terrors and chronic insomnia keeps what I do in good focus, and prevents me from being a comfortable expert.
Thus, it is my view, to conduct a staff ride, to walk the battlefield; especially in somewhat uncomfortable weather is a good thing. It connects us more in at least a small way to the men that fought there, died there, or brought home wounds that changed them forever.
To walk a battlefield where tens of thousands of men were killed and wounded is for me a visit to hallowed ground. I have felt that at Waterloo, Verdun, Arnhem, Normandy, the Bulge, the West Wall, the Shuri Line on Okinawa, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Stone’s River, and of course the battlefield which I have visited more than any in my life, Gettysburg. There are times when I walk these fields that I am overcome with emotion. This I think is a good thing, for as an American who has family ties to the Civil War, Gettysburg in particular is hallowed ground.
Sisters of Charity on the Battlefield
In doing this I try to be dispassionate in how I teach and while dealing with big issues that my students will face as Joint Staff Officers. Some of them will become Flag or General Officers, with the responsibility of advising our nation’s leaders as well planning and conducting the military operations on which the lives of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people depend. Thus I do feel a certain responsibility to teach not only the strategy and other important military aspects of this campaign, but also the cost in human lives and ethical considerations. I take this work seriously because it forces us to remember what war is about and its nature, which Clausewitz wrote is “a paradoxical trinity-composed of primordial violence, hatred and enmity…” [5] which William Tecumseh Sherman so rightly understood without the euphemisms that we so frequently use to describe it: “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it….”
As the sun set on the evening of July 3rd 1863 the battered Army of Northern Virginia and the battered but victorious Army of the Potomac tended their wounds, buried their dead and prepared for what might happen next. On that afternoon it was as if “the doors of Hell had shut” and the next day, the Glorious 4th of July “The heavens opened, and a thunderstorm of biblical proportions drenched the battlefield, soaking dead, wounded and able-bodied men equally.” [6]
Following the disastrous attack aimed at the Union center, Lee and his surviving commanders prepared for an expected Union counter attack. However, George Meade, the commander of the Army of the Potomac who had correctly anticipated Lee’s assault decided not to gamble on a counter attack, though it was tempting. He knew too well the tenacity and skill of the Confederate commanders and soldiers on the defense and did not want to risk a setback that might give Lee another chance, thus “the two sides stared at each other, each waiting for the other to resume the fighting, neither did.” [7]
Federal Field Hospital
As the Confederate army retreated and Meade’s army pursued another army remained at Gettysburg, “an army of the wounded, some 20,350 in number, a third of them Confederate….” Just 106 surgeons were spared from the Army of the Potomac and “the comparatively few overburdened surgeons and attendants now on duty still labored every day to the point of exhaustion.” [8] These overworked men were aided by local volunteers as well as members of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, the Christian Commission and the Sisters of Charity. These men and women “brought organization to the hospitals, relief to the medical staffs and the local volunteers, and immense comfort to the wounded, whether blue or butternut.” [9]
The dead and wounded littered the battlefield and the sights and smells were ghastly:
“Wherever men gazed, they saw dead bodies. A New Yorker thought they “lay as thick as the stones that is on father’s farm.” A stench smothered the field, moving John Geary to tell his wife, “My very clothes smell of death.” A Regular Army veteran exclaimed, “I have seen many a big battle, most of the big ones of the war, and I never saw the like.” [10] A resident of Gettysburg walked up to Little Round top and wrote of what she observed from the peak of that rocky hill:
“surrounded by the wrecks of battle, we gazed upon the valley of death beneath. The view there spread out before us was terrible to contemplate! It was an awful spectacle! Dead soldiers, bloated horses, shattered cannon and caissons, thousands of small arms. In fact everything belonging to army equipments was there in one confused and indescribable mass.” [11]
At Joseph Sherfy’s farm, scene of some of the heaviest fighting on the second day, his barn “which had been used as a field hospital, was left a burnt ruin, with “crisped and blackened limbs, heads and other portions of bodies” clearly visible.” [12] When the rains came, the wounded suffered terribly. Many of the field aid stations were set up next to the creeks that crisscrossed the battlefield, and those streams quickly flooded as torrents of rain water caused them to overflow their banks. “A New Jersey soldier watched in horror as the flood waters washed over and carried away badly wounded men unable to move to safety….” [13]
Major General Oliver Howard of the Union XI Corps took his escort to do a reconnaissance of the town on July 4th, and one of the cavalry troopers of his escort described the scene:
“The battle field was the Awfulest sight I ever saw…The woods in front of our men the trees were riddled with Cannon ball and bullets evry limb shot off 20 feet high. Some say the Rebel dead lay six deep in the grave yard where we lay. Nearly evry grave stone was shattered by shots and everything was torn to pieces. I went through the town on the 4th of July with the General. The streets were covered with dead. Evry frame house were riddled with balls the brick ones dented thick where shot had hit.” [14]
Field hospitals were often little more than butcher shops where arms and legs were amputated by overworked surgeons and attendants while those with abdominal wounds that could not be easily repaired were made as comfortable as possible. Triage was simple. If a casualty was thought to have a reasonable chance at survival he was treated, if not they were set aside in little groups and allowed to die as peacefully as possible. Churches were requisition for use of the surgeons. A volunteer nurse noted: “Every pew was full; some sitting, some lying, some leaning on others. They cut off the legs and arms and threw them out the windows. Every morning the dead were laid on the platform in a sheet or blanket and carried away.” [15]
Chaplains were usually found with the doctors, caring for the physical as well as the spiritual needs of the wounded. Protestant chaplains might ensure that their soldiers “knew Jesus,” while Catholics administered the Last Rites, often working together across denominational lines to care for their soldiers.
A Union chaplain described the ministry in the field hospitals and aid stations:
“Some of the surgeons were posted well up toward the front to give first aid. More of them were in the large field hospitals of division in more secure places at the rear. The chaplain might be at either place or at both by turns. Some made a point of watching for any wounded man who might be straggling back, who perhaps could be helped up into the saddle and ride back to the hospital. When the demand for help became urgent the chaplains were nurses. As the rows of wounded men grew longer, chaplains went from man to man to see what could be done to relieve their pain, perhaps to take a message or letter. All day into the night this work would continue. A drink of water, a loosened bandage on a swollen limb, a question answered, a surgeon summoned, a whispered word of comfort marked their course. Each night at sundown the men who died during the day were buried, with a short prayer, side by side in a common grave, each in his uniform with canvas wrapped around his face and a strip of paper giving his name and regiment in a bottle buttoned under his blouse.” [16]
The war would challenge the theology of the clergy who served as chaplains on both sides, as “individuals found themselves in a new and different moral universe, one in which unimaginable destruction had become a daily experience. Where could God belong in such a world? How could a benevolent deity countenance such cruelty and suffering? Doubt threatened to overpower faith….” [17] That sense of bewilderment is not lacking today among those of faith who return from war.
Some men, clergy and laity alike would attempt to find a theological meaning to the suffering. Many would do so in the theology of John Calvin which emphasized the Providence and foreknowledge of God. That theological frame of reference, of the results of battles and the death or wounding of men in war and the attendant suffering was found in the will, or providence of God was quite common among men of both sides who grew up during the Second Great Awakening, and it can still be found today; and for some, like Stonewall Jackson, it was carried to fatalistic extremes. However, others like Colonel William Oates of the 15th Alabama, who considered himself a believing Christian, saw things differently, he wrote that he believed God:
“endowed men with the power of acting for themselves and with responsibility for their acts. When we went to war it was a matter of business, of difference of opinion among men about their temporal affairs. God had nothing to do with it. He never diverted a bullet from one man, or caused it to hit another, nor directed who should fall or who should escape, nor how the battle should terminate. If I believed in such intervention of Providence I would be a fatalist….” [18]
The carnage around the battlefield was horrifying to most observers. Corporal Horatio Chapman of the 20th Connecticut Volunteers wrote about the sight on Cemetery Ridge on the night of July 3rd following the repulse of Pickett’s Charge:
But in front of our breastworks, where the confederates were massed in large numbers, the sight was truly awful and appalling. The shells from our batteries had told with fearful and terrible effect upon them and the dead in some places were piled upon each other, and the groans and moans of the wounded were truly saddening to hear. Some were just alive and gasping, but unconscious. Others were mortally wounded and were conscious of the fact that they could not live long; and there were others wounded, how bad they could not tell, whether mortal or otherwise, and so it was they would linger on some longer and some for a shorter time-without the sight or consolation of wife, mother, sister or friend. I saw a letter sticking out of the breast pocket of one of the confederate dead, a young man apparently about twenty-four. Curiosity prompted me to read it. It was from his young wife away down in the state of Louisiana. She was hoping and longing that this cruel war would end and he could come home, and she says, “Our little boy gets into my lap and says, `Now, Mama, I will give you a kiss for Papa.’ But oh how I wish you could come home and kiss me for yourself.” But this is only one in a thousand. But such is war and we are getting used to it and can look on scenes of war, carnage and suffering with but very little feeling and without a shudder.” [19]
Colonel William Oates of the 15th Alabama whose brave troopers assaulted Little Round Top on July 2nd wrote:
“My dead and wounded were nearly as great in number as those still on duty. They literally covered the ground. The blood stood in puddles in some places on the rocks; the ground was soaked with the blood of as brave men as ever fell on the red field of battle.” [20]
Another Confederate soldier described the scene west of the town on July 4th:
“The sights and smells that assailed us were simply indescribable-corpses swollen to twice their size, asunder with the pressure of gases and vapors…The odors were nauseating, and so deadly that in a short time we all sickened and were lying with our mouths close to the ground, most of us vomiting profusely.” [21]
The burial of the dead was too much for the soldier’s alone to accomplish. “Civilians joined the burial of the dead out of both sympathy and necessity. Fifty Confederates lay on George Rose’s fields; seventy-nine North Carolinians had fallen on a perfect line on John Forney’s farm.” [22]
Those tending the wounded recalled how many of the wounded soldeirs selflessly asked medical personnel to tend others more badly wounded than themselves; a volunteer nurse wrote her sister: “More Christian fortitude was never witnessed than they exhibit, always say-‘Help my neighbor first, he is worse.’” [23] The Confederate wounded were the lowest priority for the badly overwhelmed Union surgeons and Lee had not done much to help, leaving just a few surgeons and attendants to care for the Confederates left on the battlefield. The Confederate wounded housed in the classrooms of Pennsylvania College were left in dire straits:
“All the rooms, halls and hallways were occupied with the poor deluded sons of the South,” and “the moans prayers, and shrieks of the wounded and dying were everywhere.” Between 500 and 700 wounded Confederates were jammed in with “five of our surgeons” and “no nurses, no medicines no kinds of food proper for men in our condition….” [24]
Across the battlefield the wounded were being treated in a variety of makeshift aid stations and field hospitals:
“Sergeant Major David E. Johnson of the Seventh Virginia was taken to the Myers house after the bombardment, suffering from a shrapnel wound to his left side and arm. “The shed in which I was placed,” he recalled, “was filled with the wounded and dying….I spoke to no one, and no one to me, never closed my eyes to sleep; the surgeons close by being engaged in removing the limbs of those nearby to be amputated….I heard nothing but the cries of the wounded and the groans of the dying, the agonies of General Kemper, who lay nearby, frequently being heard.” [25]
The suffering was not confined to the hospitals; John Imboden commanding the cavalry brigade protecting the Confederate wounded being transported home and supply trains described the horror of that movement:
“Scarcely one in a hundred had received adequate surgical aid, owning to the demands on the hard working surgeons from still far worse cases tat had to be left behind. Many of the wounded in the wagons had been without food for thirty-six hours. Their torn and bloody clothing, matted and hardened, was rasping the tender, inflamed, and still oozing wounds….From nearly every wagon as the teams trotted on, urged by whip and shout came such cries and shrieks as these:
“My God! Why can’t I die?” “My God! Will no one have mercy and kill me?” “Stop! Oh! For God’s sake stop for just one minute; take me out and leave me to die on the roadside.” “I am dying! I am dying! My poor wife, my dear children, what will become of you?” [26]
Eventually, by July 22nd with most of the wounded evacuated a proper general hospital was set up east of the town and the remaining wounded taken there. That hospital, named Camp Letterman grew into “a hundred –acre village of cots and tents, with its own morgue and cemetery, and served more than 3,000 wounded before it was finally closed in November.” [27]
As for the families of the dead, many never found out the details of their loved one’s deaths, which caused their losses to be “in some sense unreal and thus “unrealized,” as the bereaved described them, recognizing the inhibition of mourning that such uncertainty imposed.” [28] Much was because of how overwhelmed the field hospital staffs were, and how inadequate their records of treatment and the dispositions of bodies were sketchy at best. “Reports from field hospitals were riddled with errors and omissions, often lacked dates, and were frequently illegible, “written with the faintest lead pencil.” [29]
Among the killed and wounded were the great and the small. John Reynolds who died on day one, Winfield Scott Hancock, the valiant commander of the Union II Corps was severely wounded during Pickett’s Charge. Dan Sickles, the commander of Third Corps who had nearly brought disaster on the Federal lines by advancing to the Peach Orchard on July 2nd had his leg amputated after being grazed by a cannon ball at the Trostle Farm. Sickles, who survived the wound and the war, would visit the leg, which had carefully ordered his surgeons to preserve. The leg is now displayed at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington D.C.
The Army of the Potomac lost a large number of brigade and regimental commanders including Strong Vincent, the young and gallant brigade commander who helped save Little Round Top; George Willard who brought redemption to his Harper’s Ferry brigade on Cemetery Ridge stopping Barksdale’s charge on July 2nd; Colonel Augustus Van Horne Ellis who before being killed at Devil’s Den told his staff “the men must see us today;” and the young Elon Farnsworth, who had been promoted from Captain to Brigadier General just days before his death in a senseless ordered by his division commander Judson “Kill Cavalry” Kilpatrick, against Hood and McLaw’s dug in divisions as the battle ended.
The Confederates suffered grievous losses. Divisional commanders like Dorsey Pender and Johnston Pettigrew were mortally wounded, John Bell Hood was severely wounded, Isaac Trimble, wounded and captured while Harry Heth was wounded. Casualties were even higher for commanders and the brigade and regiment level, the list included excellent commanders such as Paul Semmes and William Barksdale, while Wade Hampton, Stuart’s best brigade commander was seriously wounded and would be out of action for months. The toll of brigade and regimental commanders who were killed or wounded was fearful. “At the regimental level approximately 150 colonels, lieutenant colonels and majors had been killed, wounded or captured. Of that number nineteen colonels had been slain, the most in any single battle in which the army had been engaged. Captains now led regiments.” [30]
In Picket’s division alone all three brigade commanders, Kemper, Armistead and Garnett were killed or wounded while twenty-six of forty Field Grade officers were casualties. Forty-six percent (78 of 171) of the regiments of the Army of Northern Virginia suffered casualties at the command level. The Confederate casualties, especially among the best leaders were irreplaceable and Lee’s Army never recovered from the loss of seasoned leaders who were already in short supply.
Private Wesley Culp CSA
For some like Private Wesley Culp of the 2nd Virginia it was a final trip home. Culp had grown up in Gettysburg and had taken a job in Virginia prior to the war. In 1861 he enlisted to serve among his friends and neighbors. He was killed on the morning of July 3rd on Culp’s Hill on the very property owned by his uncle where he grew up and had learned to hunt.
One witness, Frank Haskell looked in at a field hospital in the Union II Corps area and wrote:
“The Surgeons with coats off and sleeves rolled up…are about their work,… “and their faces and clothes are spattered with blood; and though they look weary and tired, their work goes systematically and steadily on- how much and how long they have worked, the piles of legs, arms, feet, hands, fingers…partially tell.” [31]
All told between 46,000 and 51,000 Americans were killed or wounded during the three days of Gettysburg. Busey and Martin’s Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg list the following casualty figures, other accounts list higher numbers, some as many as 53,000. One also has to remember that many of the missing soldiers were killed in action, but their bodies were simply never found.
Union 3,155 14,531 5,369 23,055
Confederate 4,708 12,693 5,830 23,231
Total 7,863 27,224 11,199 46,286
To provide a reference point we need to remember that in 8 years of war in Iraq the United States suffered fewer casualties than during the three days of Gettysburg. It was the bloodiest single battle in American history, and it was a battle between brothers not against foreign enemies. Robert E Lee testified to Congress following the war “the war… was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forbearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.” [32] Lee’s “Old Warhorse” James Longstreet asked “Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?” [33]
The carnage and death witnessed by survivors of Gettysburg and the other battles of the war changed Civil War soldiers as much as war has before or after. James Garfield, who served as a general in the Union army and went on to become President of the United States noted: “at the sight of these dead men whom other men killed, something went out of him, the habit of a lifetime, that never came back again: the sense of the sacredness of life and the impossibility of destroying it.” [34]
Grand Army of the Republic Veterans
Others, like veterans of today had trouble adjusting to life after the war. “Civil War veterans had trouble finding employment and were accused of being drug addicts. Our word “hobo” supposedly comes from homeless Civil War veterans- called “hoe boys” – who roamed the lanes of rural America with hoes on their shoulders, looking for work.” [35] Following the war, during the turmoil of Reconstruction and the massive social change brought about by the industrialization of society and rise of “industrial feudalism” numerous veterans organizations were founded, for those that belonged to them they were “one of the principle refuges for old soldiers who had fought for a very different world than the one they found around them.” The Grand Army of the Republic was the most prominent of these organizations. “In more than 7,000 GAR posts across the United States, former soldiers could immerse themselves in a bath of sentimental memory; there, they established a ritualized camp geography, rekindled devotion to emancipation and preached the glories of manly independence.” [36]
At the end of the war, Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Little Round Top who was well acquainted with the carnage of war suffered immensely. His wounds never healed fully, and he struggled to climb out of “an emotional abyss” in the years after the war. Part was caused by his wounds which included wounds to his sexual organs, shattering his sexuality and caused his marriage to deteriorate. He wrote his wife about the “widening gulf between them, one created at least in part by his physical limitations: “There is not much left in me to love. I feel that all too well.” [37]
Gouverneur Warren, who had helped save the Union at Little Round Top wrote to his wife while on Engineering duty after the war: He wrote in 1866 “Indeed the past year…was one of great despondency for me…I somehow don’t wonder that persons often remark how seldom I laugh, but it is really seldom that I do.” He wrote again in 1867 “I wish I did not dream that much. They make me sometimes dread to go to sleep. Scenes from the war, are so constantly recalled, with bitter feelings I wish to never experience again. Lies, vanity, treachery, and carnage.” [38]
The killing at Gettysburg and so many other battles “produced transformations that were not readily reversible; the living into the dead, most obviously, but the survivors into different men as well, men required to deny, to numb basic human feelings at costs they may have paid for decades after the war ended, as we know twentieth and twenty-first-century soldiers from Vietnam to Iraq continue to do; men who like James Garfield, were never quite the same again after seeing fields of slaughtered bodies destroyed by me just like themselves.” [39]
Joshua Chamberlain asked the most difficult questions when viewing the devastation around Petersburg in the final days of the war:
“…men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man, and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order–do we call it?–fraught with such ruin. Was it God’s command that we heard, or His forgiveness that we must forever implore?” [40]
Chamberlain’s questions should always be in our minds as we send young men and women to war.
[1] Faust, Drew Gilpin, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War Vintage Books, a division of Random House, New York 2008 p.41
[2] Grossman, Dave On Killing: The Psychological Costs of Learning to Kill in War and Society. Back Bay Books, Little, Brown and Company New York 1995, 1996 p.92
[3] Sager, Guy The Forgotten Soldier originally published as Le Soldat Oublie Editions Robert Laffont 1967, Translation Harper and Row Inc 1971, Brasey’s Washington D.C 2000 p.223
[4] Bismarck, Otto von Speech, August 1867
[5] Clausewitz, Carl von. On War Indexed edition, edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret, Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1976 p.89
[6] Wittenberg, Eric J, Petruzzi, David and Nugent, Michael F. One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia July 4-14 1863 Savas Beatie LLC New York NY and El Dorado Hills CA 2008,2001 p.27
[7] Ibid. Wittenberg One Continuous Fight p.28
[8] Sears, Stephen W Gettysburg Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston and New York 2003 p.508
[9] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg p.510
[10] Wert, Jeffry D. The Sword of Lincoln: The Army of the Potomac Simon and Schuster, New York and London 2005 p.303
[11] Schultz, Duane The Most Glorious Fourth: Vicksburg and Gettysburg July 4th 1863. W.W. Norton and Company New York and London, 2002 p.357
[12] Faust This Republic of Suffering p.81
[13] Ibid. Wittenberg One Continuous Fight p.30
[14] Ibid. Wittenberg One Continuous Fight pp.32-33
[15] Ibid. Sears Gettysburg. p.508
[16] Brinsfield, John W. et. al. Editor, Faith in the Fight: Civil War Chaplains Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA 2003 pp.121-122
[17] Ibid. Faust. This Republic of Suffering p.267
[18] Oates, Willam C. and Haskell, Frank A. Gettysburg: The Confederate and Union Views of the Most Decisive Battle of the War in One Volume Bantam Books edition, New York 1992, originally published in 1905 p.138
[19] Chapman, Horatio Civil War Diary of a Forty-niner pp.22-24 Retrieved from http://www.dbappdev.com/vpp/ct20/hdc/HDC630703.htm 8 April 2014
[20] Oates, William C. Southern Historical Papers, April 6th, 1878 retrieved from http://www.brotherswar.com/Civil_War_Quotes_4h.htm 18 July 2014
[21] _________ What Happened to Gettysburg’s Confederate Dead? The Blog of Gettysburg National Military Park, retrieved from http://npsgnmp.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/what-happened-to-gettysburgs-confederate-dead/ 18 July 2014
[22] Ibid. Faust. This Republic of Suffering p.81
[23] Catton, Bruce The Army of the Potomac: Glory Road Doubleday and Company, Garden City New York, 1952 p.333
[24] Guelzo, Allen C. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion Vintage Books a Division of Random House, New York 2013 p.469
[25] Brown, Kent Masterson Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics and the Gettysburg Campaign University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 2005 p.56
[26] Imboden, John D. The Confederate Retreat from Gettysburg in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Volume III, The Tide Shifts. Edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel Castle, Secaucus NJ p.424
[27] Ibid. Guelzo Gettysburg: The Last Invasion pp.469-470
[30] Wert, Jeffry D. A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee’s Triumph 1862-1863 Simon and Schuster, New York and London 2011
[31] Sears, Stephen W. Gettysburg Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, New York 2004 p.466
[32] Flood, Charles Bracelen, Lee: The Last Years Houghton Books, New York 1981 p.124
[33] Longstreet, James in New York Times, July 24, 1885, retrieved from the Longstreet Society http://www.longstreetsociety.org/Longstreet_Quotes.html 18 July 2014
[35] Shay, Jonathan Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming Scribner, New York and London 2002 p.155
[36] Guelzo Allen C. Fateful Lightening: A New History of the Civil War Era and Reconstruction Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York 2012 p.523
[37] Longacre, Edward Joshua Chamberlain: The Soldier and the Man Combined Publishing Conshohocken PA 1999 p.259
[38] Jordan, David M. Happiness is Not My Companion: The Life of G.K. Warren Indiana University Press, Bloomington Indiana 2001 pp.248-249
[40] Chamberlain, Joshua Lawrence, The Passing of the Armies: An Account of the Final Campaign of the Army of the Potomac, Based on the Personal Reminisces of the Fifth Corps G.P Putnam’s Son’s 1915, Bantam Books, New York 1993 Amazon Kindle Edition p.41
Filed under civil war, faith, History, mental health, Military, philosophy
Tagged as ashes of dead soldiers, attle of gettysburg, civil war chaplains, civil war hospitals, Culp’s Hill, daniel sickles, dave grossman, dorsey pender, elon farnsworth, frank haskell, general dick garnett csa, george meade, gettysburg casualties, guy sager, harry heth, hobo, horatio chapman, isaac trimble, james a garfield, james kemper, james longstreet, john bell hood, john imboden, john reynolds, johnston pettigrew, joshua chamberlain, lewis armistead, pickett's charge, PTSD, robert e lee, strong vincent, the forgotten soldier, walt whitman, wesley culp, william oates, winfield scott hancock
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NEWJERSEYONLINEus
Paramus GUIDE
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Vornado Completes the Sale of Its 25% Interest in 330 Madison Avenue
NEW YORK, July 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- VORNADO REALTY TRUST (NYSE:VNO) announced today that it has completed the previously announced sale of its 25% interest in 330 Madison Avenue to its partner at a $900 million valuation. Net proceeds to Vornado, after deducting the existing $500 million mortgage loan, is approximately $100 million. The financial statement gain, which will be recognized in the third quarter, is estimated to be $159 million. The tax gain is estimated to be $138 million.
Vornado Realty Trust is a fully integrated equity real estate investment trust.
JOSEPH MACNOW
Certain statements contained herein may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of factors that could materially affect the outcome of our forward-looking statements and our future results and financial condition, see “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A, of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. Such factors include, among others, risks associated with the timing of and costs associated with property improvements, financing commitments and general competitive factors.
Top Cities of New Jersey
Read More About paramus.newjerseyonline.us
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Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals’ Cannabinoid-Derived Compound Beneficial in Parkinson’s, Mouse Study Finds
by Patricia Inacio, PhD
Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals investigational EHP-102 (previously known as VCE-003.2), a patented compound derived from the non-psychotrophic cannabinoid called cannabigerol, has shown anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease.
The study “Benefits of VCE-003.2, a cannabigerol quinone derivative, against inflammation-driven neuronal deterioration in experimental Parkinson’s disease: possible involvement of different binding sites at the PPARγ receptor” was published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
Cannabinoids are the active chemicals that give the cannabis plant its medical and recreational properties. Researchers evaluated the anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties of EHP-102 in cellular models of neuroinflammation and in mice that, after injection of a specific molecule (LPS) directly into a brain region called corpus striatum, developed the inflammatory symptoms characteristic of Parkinson’s disease.
LPS induces the reactivation of microglia cells and increases the expression of proinflammatory markers in the brain striatum, including iNOS, which has been found to contribute to the loss of neurons observed in Parkinson’s disease.
Mice treated with the cannabinoid EHP-102 showed a reduction in the reactivation of microglia cells in the brain, accompanied by a marked reduction in the levels of pro-inflammatory markers, attenuating the loss of neurons.
Importantly, EHP-102 also was efficient in attenuating inflammation in mouse and rat microglia cell lines treated with LPS.
Researchers confirmed that the therapeutic activity of EHP-102 is not mediated by its effects on the cannabinoid receptors, but rather via activation of a different type of receptor that belongs to the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) family.
“More than 10 million people worldwide are living with Parkinson’s disease and many do not have access to effective therapies to treat symptoms of the disease,” Eduardo Muñoz, PhD, said in a press release. Muñoz is EHP’s chief scientific officer and professor of immunology at the University of Córdoba,
“We believe these findings will help advance preclinical studies and clinical trials of cannabinoid-derived medicines and add to the experimental evidence that shows this pharmaceutical agent may preserve neuronal integrity in Parkinson’s disease,” he added.
“We congratulate Drs. Muñoz and Bellido [Mari-Luz Bellido, PhD, EHP’s vice president of European Operations] for their publication in a prominent scientific journal,” said Jim DeMesa, MD, CEO of Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals. “These outstanding scientists have been pioneers in cannabinoid science for over fifteen years and we are proud to be working closely with them as we develop our two novel cannabinoid drugs targeting life-threatening neurodegenerative and auto-immune diseases.”
This team has shown previously that many of its patented cannabidiol and cannabigerol derivatives also affect other disease-modifying targets, and is currently developing two drug candidates from its portfolio of cannabinoid analogs, one derived from cannabidiol for multiple sclerosis and scleroderma.
Tagged anti-inflammatory, cannabigerol, cannabinoids, EHP-102, Emerald Health Pharmaceuticals, neuroprotection.
Patricia Inacio, PhD
Previous: 4 Possible Causes of Parkinson’s Disease
Next:Medical Cannabis Helps Older People with Parkinson’s, Other Diseases, Study Finds
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Speak Easy, B
Directed by Becca Park
14 min 40 sec • Experimental • United States
During a therapy session, a young woman struggles to vocalize the source of her depression stemming from heartache. She embarks on a tender journey inside her mind, with the desert serving as the stage for poetic confrontation. Through dream-like vignettes, the film weaves together her struggle to balance gender, sexuality, and identity.
About director
Becca Park is a director and producer based in Los Angeles, who is always searching for authentic ways to share untold stories. Originally from Boston, she went to New York University where she organically found her way to film at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study; there, she centered her concentration at the intersection of mental health, personal narrative, the arts, and the power of creative expression. She has been a full-time producer for major companies like Bain & Company and Disney, and is currently a Creative Producer for Branded Content at BuzzFeed. Outside of her day job and at her core, she remains committed to creating collaborative spaces and projects for POC artists and womxn. She's a big fan of bodies of water, hearty laughs, and tender hugs.
A is for artist →
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$2.6M Climate Change Adaptation Research Grants
The Government today announced $2.6 million in grants for priority research into the social, economic and institutional dimensions of climate change across Australia. The research projects funded under the Climate Change Adaptation Research Grants program will explore adaptation measures to prepare people and institutions from the unavoidable impacts of climate change.
Some of these research projects will focus on disadvantaged groups in society providing government with the information needed to assist these groups in preparing for future climate change. The funding will support nine research projects investigating the impacts of climate change and practical adaptation options to support the community, as well as public and private institutions.
Grants awarded include:
University of Adelaide receive $250,000 to investigate the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of disadvantaged groups in society to assist in enhancing their resilience.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies will use a $440,000 grant to assist native title bodies develop best practice approaches to climate change and support communities to adapt on native title lands.
A $200,000 grant will support Sydney University’s work on preventing heat-related premature deaths in aged care facilities.
The research will be managed by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research.
For more information on these research projects visit the NCCARF website at: http://www.nccarf.edu.au
By nicole| 2011-07-06T11:08:18+10:00 July 6th, 2011|Climate Grants, Manufacturing Grants|Comments Off on $2.6M Climate Change Adaptation Research Grants
About the Author: nicole
Clean Technology Programs Closure
Grant Cancellations
Clean Technology Grants
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Optical Solutions: Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye
William Joseph White
Division of Arts & Humanities (Altoona)
This article traces the reception of a “science comic book” by various audiences including readers and reviewers after publication as well as grant application review committees vetting the proposed project in its conceptual stage. Specifically, the work is a biology textbook containing comics-style visual explanations couched in the form of an imaginative story interwoven with and supplementing traditional text-based explanations of the same ideas. The analysis uses Genette’s concept of “paratexts” (i.e., a class of speech genres comprising those supplementary texts that contextualize and inform readers’ interpretations of the primary text that they accompany) to examine the rhetoric of the visual in the discourse of science education. This analysis observes that the stigmatization of comics as a medium played some role in how readers, critics, and reviewers responded to the text. The implications of this stigma for cultural conceptions of science and their relationships to other knowledge domains, including the arts and humanities, raise a concern for the mediation of public impressions of science as an institution.
Technical Communication Quarterly
Published - Apr 3 2017
stigmatization
White, W. J. (2017). Optical Solutions: Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye. Technical Communication Quarterly, 26(2), 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2017.1285962
White, William Joseph. / Optical Solutions : Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye. In: Technical Communication Quarterly. 2017 ; Vol. 26, No. 2. pp. 101-115.
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White, WJ 2017, 'Optical Solutions: Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye' Technical Communication Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2017.1285962
Optical Solutions : Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye. / White, William Joseph.
In: Technical Communication Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2, 03.04.2017, p. 101-115.
T1 - Optical Solutions
T2 - Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye
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N2 - This article traces the reception of a “science comic book” by various audiences including readers and reviewers after publication as well as grant application review committees vetting the proposed project in its conceptual stage. Specifically, the work is a biology textbook containing comics-style visual explanations couched in the form of an imaginative story interwoven with and supplementing traditional text-based explanations of the same ideas. The analysis uses Genette’s concept of “paratexts” (i.e., a class of speech genres comprising those supplementary texts that contextualize and inform readers’ interpretations of the primary text that they accompany) to examine the rhetoric of the visual in the discourse of science education. This analysis observes that the stigmatization of comics as a medium played some role in how readers, critics, and reviewers responded to the text. The implications of this stigma for cultural conceptions of science and their relationships to other knowledge domains, including the arts and humanities, raise a concern for the mediation of public impressions of science as an institution.
AB - This article traces the reception of a “science comic book” by various audiences including readers and reviewers after publication as well as grant application review committees vetting the proposed project in its conceptual stage. Specifically, the work is a biology textbook containing comics-style visual explanations couched in the form of an imaginative story interwoven with and supplementing traditional text-based explanations of the same ideas. The analysis uses Genette’s concept of “paratexts” (i.e., a class of speech genres comprising those supplementary texts that contextualize and inform readers’ interpretations of the primary text that they accompany) to examine the rhetoric of the visual in the discourse of science education. This analysis observes that the stigmatization of comics as a medium played some role in how readers, critics, and reviewers responded to the text. The implications of this stigma for cultural conceptions of science and their relationships to other knowledge domains, including the arts and humanities, raise a concern for the mediation of public impressions of science as an institution.
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White WJ. Optical Solutions: Reception of an NSF-Funded Science Comic Book on the Biology of the Eye. Technical Communication Quarterly. 2017 Apr 3;26(2):101-115. https://doi.org/10.1080/10572252.2017.1285962
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American nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen warns: “There is a possibility that now in Fukushima recontamination is occurring.”
CCTV (Channel 17 in Burlington, Vermont), published Jun 20, 2016
Maggie Gundersen, Chiho Kaneko and Caroline Phillips of Fairewinds Energy Education discuss the nuclear risk concerns for children not only near the nuclear disaster sites of Fukushima-Dai-ichiin Japan and Chernobyl in Ukraine, formerly the Soviet Union, but globally where areas near all nuclear power plants are contaminated with radiation. Since mothers in Japan especially bear the responsibility to protect children, they experience greater hardships in an environment where just expressing one’s concern about radiation is seen as a treasonous act. Even 30 years later, the Belarus government recognizes the merits of relocating children away from radiation contaminated areas but the children of Japan are socially forced to stay put in highly contaminated areas.
Margaret Harrington, host: I know you mentioned Arnie Gundersen, the chief engineer at Fairewinds, and he said that he measured the radiation there, too. Could you talk about that a little bit?
Maggie Gundersen, Fairewinds Energy Education founder and CEO: He’s working with some other scientists who are studying — both Japanese scientists, the samples that they took, and the US scientists who are evaluating the samples — and they’re finding astronomical amounts of radiation, even in downtown Tokyo outside of METI’s door. METI is the regulatory agency over nuclear power… When he and others were downtown in Tokyo, they took samples right there in a garden right outside the door and on the front doormat, and these are really, really high samples. Frightening, because people walking in Tokyo will then be inhaling that dust. What was the film we saw from Japan that had the mothers who were in an area where kids play and run from middle school?
Caroline Phillips, Fairewinds Energy Education: It’s a fantastic video… it’s a mothers organization, they live in the Fukushima Prefecture and they’re actually using Geiger counters that have been issued by the government. They’re walking along the river [in Fukushima City.]
Maggie Gundersen: What’s so tragic about it – kids are running along dirt paths doing gym class and track and things like that and the mothers are right down in areas that are not posted and the kids can go after school and play, and people do nature hikes and stuff. And the radiation readings are horrific.
Gendai Business Online’s top ranked article is an exclusive interview with Fairewinds Chief Engineer Arnie Gundersen titled, American nuclear expert warns: “There is a possibility that now in Fukushima recontamination is occurring.” With more than 10,000 likes on Facebook, this Japanese article delves into the truth about nuclear contamination from Fukushima Daiichi as uncovered by Arnie Gundersen during his most recent trip to Japan. Fairewinds, with the help of Japanese translators, provides you with an English translation:
On a mid-February morning, just before the 5th anniversary of the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi, a group of young girls in the city of Minami-Soma rode their bikes to school past a shocked and saddened pedestrian. That upset observer was Arnie Gundersen, nuclear reactor expert and Chief Engineer with Fairewinds Associates. Mr. Gundersen has 45 years of experience as a design, operations, and decommissioning nuclear engineer. He has engaged in research of the effects of the meltdown at Three Mile Island (TMI) and conducts independent research of the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi. Mr. Gundersen is in ongoing conversations with both the US and Japanese media concerning the dangers of nuclear reactors and nuclear power operation. Invited by “Peace News Japan” and several other civil groups, Mr. Gundersen visited the Fukushima prefecture five years after the catastrophe at Fukushima Daiichi.
“What surprised me at this visit to Japan [his third since the meltdowns] is that the decontaminated area is contaminated again,” Mr. Gundersen said while explaining why it was such as sad shock to witness the girls on their bicycles. “This was not what I had expected. I had thought that we would not find such high doses of radiation in the decontaminated area. But, sadly, our results prove otherwise.”
During his Japan visit, Mr. Gundersen collected samples of dust from the rooftop of Minami-Soma city town hall, the floor mat of a 7-Eleven convenience store, and the roadsides of Minami-Soma city. Although the official data cannot be released before the publication of formal scientific papers, it is evident that high doses of radiation, usually found in nuclear waste, was detected from these samples.
“This means that highly radioactive dust is flying around the city. In other words, the decontaminated land is contaminated again. Little girls are affected by the radiation 20 times as much as adult men. The Japanese government’s standard of 20 mSv is based on exposure assessments for adult men. The girls on their bicycles are actually being affected by a radiation dose equivalent to as much as 400 mSv.”
Mr. Gundersen also pointed out that human lungs are heavily affected by internal exposures to radiation.
“At this visit, I wore a radiation proof mask that can filter out 99.98% of radiation for six hours. I sent my filter to the lab, and they found a high dose of Cesium. But, unfortunately, the Japanese government only cares about the number on a Geiger counter and does not consider the internal exposure. This has resulted in a hazardous downplay of this kind of data and human lungs are affected by the serious internal exposure.”
Why is the recontamination happening? One of the reasons is that the government did not decontaminate thoroughly. Mr. Gundersen witnessed first-hand the poor decontamination of the prefecture.
“In the house I visited, only half of the garden area was decontaminated because only that half fell into the category of a contaminated area. It should not be like that. The other half would be contaminated too. Furthermore, one person discovered highly radioactive dust in their driveway where decontamination had occurred. So, of course, this person notified the related offices but the related offices told them that it was not necessary to decontaminate the driveway again because it had already been done once. It’s unbelievable. This person’s house is located near a ravine and the opposite side of the ravine is designated a non-habitable zone.”
Another reason for recontamination is that the radiation from the mountains are coming back to the city by way of wind and rain. Mr. Gundersen noted the extreme radioactive contamination of the mountains.
“We tracked wild monkeys in the mountains and found a high dose of radiation in their feces. I received the meat of a wild pig as a gift and since I could not bring it back to the US [it is illegal to bring meat back to the United States from Japan], tested the meat on a Geiger counter. The meat showed 120 counts/min. I think that the Japanese government should spend more money to decontaminate the mountains but they don’t appear to have that kind of political will. I also worry that contamination in the rivers is not monitored as rain from the mountains flow down into the rivers.”
Due to the heavy radiation contamination of the mountains, vegetables grown in that area exceed the government’s standard by 1500 Bq. These vegetables were sold at the MichinoEki in Tochigi prefecture, and the bamboo shoot grown in this contaminated region was used for elementary school lunches in Utsunomiya. These school lunches contained more than twice as much radiation as the government’s standard.
Recontamination is happening due to poor decontamination and residents of Kawauchi village in Fukushima prefecture claim that the decontamination in the forests is not enough. However, the government continues to push for the end of people’s relocation and force the return to recontaminated areas.
“If I had a little child, I would never let them live there,” Mr. Gundersen pointedly states.
Mr. Gundersen also found that Tokyo remains contaminated. He measured dust collected from the sidewalk in front of MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) and found a high dose of radiation. That dust is in the air that will be inhaled by the visitors and athletes of the 2020 Olympic Games. Needless to say, the current residents are inhaling it every day. “Mr. Abe should not take the advice from IAEA, MITI and TEPCO seriously,” Mr. Gundersen insists. “Instead, he should have an independent organization conduct research and listen to the advice from them.”
http://www.fairewinds.org/nuclear-energy-education//fairewinds-in-the-news-gendai-business-online-feature-article
August 22, 2016 - Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2016 | Arnie Gundersen, Contamination, Fukushima continuing, radiation
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Public funds earmarked to decontaminate Fukushima’s ‘difficult-to-return’ zone
The so-called “difficult-to-return” areas are colored in grey
The government is set to inject some 30 billion yen in public funds into work to decontaminate so-called “difficult-to-return” areas whose annual radiation levels topped 50 millisieverts in 2012 due to the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant disaster, it has been learned.
While the government had maintained that it would demand plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) cover the decontamination expenses based on the polluter-pays principle, the new plan effectively relieves TEPCO from the hefty financial burden by having taxpayers shoulder the costs.
The new plan is part of the government’s basic guidelines for “reconstruction bases” to be set up in each municipality within the difficult-to-return zone in Fukushima Prefecture from fiscal 2017, with the aim of prioritizing decontamination work and infrastructure restoration there. The government is seeking to lift evacuation orders for the difficult-to-return zone in five years.
However, the details of the reconstruction bases, such as their size and locations, have yet to be determined due to ongoing discussions between local municipalities and the Reconstruction Agency and other relevant bodies.
The government is set to obtain Cabinet approval for the basic guidelines on Dec. 20 before submitting a bill to revise the Act on Special Measures for the Reconstruction and Revitalization of Fukushima to the regular Diet session next year. The 30 billion yen in funds for the decontamination work will be set aside in the fiscal 2017 budget.
In the basic guidelines, the government states that decontamination work at the reconstruction bases is part of state projects to accelerate Fukushima’s recovery and that the costs for the work will be covered by public funds without demanding TEPCO to make compensation. The statement is also apparently aimed at demonstrating the government’s active commitment to Fukushima’s restoration.
Under the previous guidelines for Fukushima’s recovery approved by the Cabinet in December 2013, the government had stated that it would demand TEPCO cover the decontamination expenses of both completed and planned work. However, it hadn’t been decided who would shoulder the decontamination costs for the difficult-to-return zone as there was no such plan at that point.
Masafumi Yokemoto, professor at Osaka City University who is versed in environmental policy, criticized the government’s move, saying, “If the government is to shoulder the cost that ought to be covered by TEPCO, the government must first accept its own responsibility for the nuclear disaster, change its policy and investigate the disaster before doing so. Otherwise, (spending taxpayers’ money on decontamination work) can’t be justified.”
http://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20161219/p2a/00m/0na/015000c
December 19, 2016 - Posted by dunrenard | Fukushima 2016 | Decontamination Funds, Difficult-to-return-zones, Fukushima continuing
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Phantom Thread review: A riveting romance with gothic undertones
Culture, Film
by Kasia Kwasniewska
Phantom Thread (2018)
Bringing us a love story with a darker tinge, Paul Thomas Anderson teams up with an excellent trio of actors to deliver a sharp, alluring film about desire and manipulation.
The House of Woodcock dresses the most prominent characters in England and beyond: even royalty turns to him when they need garments for the most important days of their lives. Reynolds Woodcock is renowned for his eye and sense of style; many women would love to die in clothes he designed. And they flock to him, hoping he’ll fall in love with him after they become his inspirations, but they’re quickly replaced by a new muse when he grows tired. When Reynolds meets Alma, however, the tension grows from the very first minute: Reynolds sees through the shy waitress, becoming enthralled with her and letting her into his world.
The art of a perfect one-liner is reserved for a few, and Paul Thomas Anderson can nail the moment with a sharp sentence. With his quick retorts, he finds humour in dramatic situations, and the depth of feeling when there’s space for just a few words in the scene. Every character gets a tasty nugget of sarcasm at some point, but some of the best punchlines belong to Lesley Manville’s Cecil, who delivers them with unflinching confidence. “I don’t want to hear it because it hurts my ears,” she retorts confidently, with a stern face expression. In another scene, there’s even more of brutal honesty from her. “Don’t pick a fight with me, you won’t come out alive,” she utters, unfazed, sipping tea seconds after. And these are just some of the examples of Manville’s well-weighed delivery. She oozes with charisma and can be icy at times but brings a certain warmth to her character in the way she cares for his brother. Cecil is a lady made of steel, but she’s able to reveal much more than we expect her to, never falling prey to clichés.
The Englishness, gallantry and elegance that dominates the screen rehearses the dynamics between the pair and sets a lush background. Be it in the production design or in the way camera is in love with its richness, Phantom Thread transports us into a completely different era. The film is in love with the slickness of the interiors and haute-couture fashion, captured by the director himself.
Sewn into the fabric of the film is the story of a creative process, which could be considered in two completely different dimensions. It’s easy to compare Phantom Thread to a creation story like George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (or its adaptation My Fair Lady) – largely because of the power balances that are essential to the plot development. Reynolds transforms Alma but surrenders to her feelings afterwards. He takes her into his world, but unleashes her darker side, too.
Living with an artist is no easy task; exposure to their neuroses and ego can be straining. Considering this, Paul Thomas Anderson is interested in diving into the dynamics of the connection between Reynolds and Alma and understanding why they work for each other. Some of the events in the game the couple play with each other act as a slick metaphor for one party supporting the other and providing them with the fuel to go on. The loneliness of the creative act overlaps with the desolation of the other person. That, however, is never ultimate. It becomes a cycle that keeps the flame alive. They’re tangled in the game only the two of them understand; their environment is quick to jump to conclusions when it comes to their social setting, but both of them, eccentric in their own right, dispose of it in the name of their affection.
As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that Reynolds craves Alma’s admiration in a toxic way. He tries to take control of her life and forces her to make choices that are mostly self-serving. He imposes his peculiar routines on her, gets annoyed even by the sounds of cutlery buttering a toast over breakfast, scorns the little gestures of love she tries to arrange and cares little about what she wants to do – whether it’s a fabric choice for a dress, or plans to go out on New Year’s Eve. Daniel Day-Lewis crafts this persona carefully, seamlessly slipping into the nature of the unconventional fashion designer. The quirks he enraptures, the mood swings he depicts and the crises he goes through give us an insight into his head without justifying his behaviour. We become enamoured with his presence: filling the entire screen, he charms us with his total absorption into the character. The theatricality he purposefully employs serves his character without a shadow of artificiality. It’s just right for his character, and he knows how to control every single gesture to suit his vision.
However, the story of emotional abuse takes an unexpected turn, swiftly making it obvious that no party in this relationship is faultless. Alma becomes more than his previous muses because she’s not afraid to put her foot down and do whatever she desires. Her partner needs her admiration, but as much as she’s ready to support him, she doesn’t give in to his manipulations. She loves him, and she tries to make herself useful to him by doing whatever it takes to lock in his attention. Her much stronger character emerges from what we’ve been introduced to initially. She sets her own terms and doesn’t submit to his caprices while everyone else glorifies him. As a reaction to his “my way or the highway” behaviour, she develops her own sinister tactics, giving Reynolds a taste of his own medicine – in a very literal way. Vicky Krieps is a perfect match for the role. She leads us on with her innocence, hiding darker thoughts in the expressions we can’t see through. But when it comes to a confrontation, she knows perfectly well how to hit the right notes too, driving us in with her uncontainable anger.
Phantom Thread dashes with its characters, delivers burning lines without looking back at the audience and fascinates with its dedication to details. It provides us with a delightful love story based on changing dynamics between the trio who know how to put their special mark on the characters – and an admirable logistic effort from Paul Thomas Anderson which resulted in an intimate, engaging, dark film true to its character from the beginning to an end.
Phantom Thread opens in the UK on the 2nd of February 2018.
Tags: daniel day-lewis, film, film review, lesley manville, oscars 2018, paul thomas anderson, Phantom Thread, vicky krieps
Kasia Kwasniewska
Loves reading, watching films, eyeing (and producing) good design, listening to music and stuffing her face with chocolate whenever the opportunity arises. Cooks from time to time, and drinks far too much coffee to be a normal human being. Liked my work? Buy me a coffee!
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LFF 2018 Mandy review: A psychedelic, rock-and-roll-fuelled joyride
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Jewish Museum plans a new street art trail dedicated to Amy Winehouse – help to make it happen
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Does The World Need Another B-School Ranking? | Page 3 of 4
Does The World Need Another B-School Ranking?
by: Neelima-Mahajan-Bansal on June 02, 2011 | 7 Comments 12,440 Views
Publishing a research paper can take years. If a professor moves before the paper is published, who gets the credit?
Let’s say I worked on an article while I was here at University of Texas at Dallas. The next year I am at the University of Washington and the paper gets accepted and is published. University of Washington will get the credit.
But isn’t there a bias there as the wrong university gets the credit?
There is no bias because people move all the time and chances are when that faculty moves away, some other faculty moves in their place. There is no way you can capture what percentage of the article was written in one school versus the other school. This we believe is the most accurate because the faculty member belongs to that school at the time the article appears.
A school might be doing a lot of practitioner-oriented research. It might be doing great work in, say, entrepreneurship with immense practical application, but it could be publishing very few papers on the subject. Does the ranking factor that in at all?
Practitioner research is not captured in journals. Some of it is. I don’t see it as a shortcoming. We can’t solve everybody’s need and desires. Someone else can start this ranking.
When you look at schools outside North America and Europe, do you factor in regional peer-reviewed research journals? After all, good B-schools in Asia-Pacific publish a significant amount of research in regional research journals as well as global ones and it would be wrong to ignore that.
I have talked to Asian B-schools and they recognize that these are the top journals in the world. It is true that a lot of their publications have come out in journals are US-based. That’s because business education is dominated by the U.S.
A school might be prolific in its research output but another one might be publishing less research but having greater impact. C.K. Prahalad came up with a winning idea that had widespread impact for a decade. But at the end of the day, it was just one article.
Here’s the beauty of research. No one really knows what the impact will be next year or five years from now. My colleagues try to measure research impact as short-term impact. Our position is that we are measuring output in research journals. Each article goes through a process of refereeing by the leading academics of our time. Citations and impact will be highly correlated to the publications in these journals because the academicians that review what gets in are the leading minds of our times. In general, the research appearing in these journals will have the right kind of results in the short term. Some of it gets immediate impact in terms of thousands of citations. This can be used as an excellent proxy of what the citations will be five years from now and what the impact will be. But it is very difficult to do a ranking based on citations.
Doesn’t the ranking lack credibility because UT-Dallas comes out so high, above Berkeley, UCLA, Dartmouth, Cornell and Yale?
A person who is not up on leading business school research might have that question. However, the main audience, faculty members in business schools are in a position to appreciate the quality of the journals and hence the credibility of the ranking. I suggest that you do your own investigation with regards to these journals and you will see that by and large these are the leading journals in various business disciplines. Also we have not always been ranked so high. In early days, UTD was ranked in the 40s and was far behind schools like Berkeley, UCLA etc. We have invested in research active faculty and have improved our position over time. By the way, we are not the only school which has made a significant move. I will point out Robert H. Smith School of Business at University of Maryland as another. Also, please note that we are not only a research school, those who are following business schools would know that we are a top 40 US News and World Report MBA School and top 25 BusinessWeek Executive MBA and Professional MBA school. I hope these facts help put things in perspective.
(See next page for the top 50 business schools on the research ranking.)
DON’T MISS: RANKING B-SCHOOLS ON INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL or RANKING B-SCHOOLS ON STUDENT SATISFACTION
Tagged: Business School Rankings, Business Schools, Hasan Pirkul, ranking business schools by academic journals, research ranking of business school, UT-Dallas, UT-Dallas ranking
Previous: Columbia’s New Conflict-of-Interest Policy
Next: A Dean’s Summer Reading List for MBAs
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LIES AND ATTACKS ON SOTOMAYOR "UNBELIEVABLE"
Quotes of the week:
A shift in consciousness. By replacing thoughts and dwelling on goodness, truth and beauty, one can achieve full-blown miracles.
"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed."
-Michael Pritchard
"Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape."
"The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness."
ATTACKS ON SOTOMAYOR "UNBELIEVABLE" *
SENATOR LEAHY: SHE CAN'T SPEAK OUT SO I WILL
WASHINGTON — AP Senator Leahy, who plans to meet Wednesday with Sessions on a schedule for the hearings, said he's eager to give Sotomayor the chance to respond to "unbelievable attacks" by Republican critics like radio host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who have branded her a racist because of remarks she made in 2001 that her experiences as a "wise Latina" would allow her to make better decisions than a white male.
Leahy called the criticism against Sotomayor "among the most vicious attacks that have been received by anybody," and lamented that as a nominee she's unable to directly answer them.
So he asked the judge whether he could repeat publicly what she told him privately about how her personal experiences -- she is the New York-born daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was reared in a Bronx housing project and went on to Princeton and Yale on her way to the highest echelons of the legal profession -- would shape her rulings.
Leahy quoted Sotomayor as saying, "There's not one law for one race or another; there's not one law for one color or another; there's not one for rich and one for poor; there's only one law."
Leahy is pushing for a swift series of hearings on Sotomayor's confirmation, and has said the harshly worded criticism of her necessitates a quick timetable.
"Because the defacto leader of the Republican Party equated her to the head of the Ku Klux Klan pretty well demands that she have a hearing earlier than later," Leahy told reporters on his way to meet with Sotomayor. He's planning to meet Wednesday with Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Judiciary Committee Republican, to discuss the schedule.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh and former House Speaker New Gingrich have both branded Sotomayor a racist, and Limbaugh went on to compare choosing her for the high court to nominating former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Leahy defended Sotomayor on Tuesday, saying he was proud of his own Irish-Italian background and his wife's French-Canadian background. "Does that make us racist?" he said. "She is not a racist." Read the rest at HuffingtonPost.com
Prop 8: The Ban on Gay Marriage
OUTRAGEOUS!! I have a comment on the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold a ban on gay marriages. This is exactly equivalent to Rosa Parks being required by law to sit at the back of the bus because she was black. This is an outrageous violation of the Civil Rights. The rights of a minority should never be determined by the tyranny of the majority. ARE YOU SAYING THAT AN ENTIRE GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS IS NOT EQUAL TO ANOTHER NON-GAY GROUP OF HUMAN BEINGS? Gays exist; they serve in the military, they pay taxes, they have driver's licenses and gun permits. Why aren't they "allowed" to sanctify their monogamous unions the way other human beings are? THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS. It is illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of color. Why was Prop. 8 even on the ballot? Why do we allow a slight majority of morally intolerant bigots to take away the equal right to happiness of a minority? This is discrimination, plain and simple. Imagine if being gay was a choice, which it isn't. Religious people of all stripes choose their religion no matter how wacky it seems, yet they are protected against discrimination under the constitution. I am deeply ashamed of California for this horribly archaic, bigoted, intolerate bozo of a decision.
FEAR OF PROSECUTION CAUSED CHENEY TO STUMP FOR TORTURE, DAUGHTER SAYS
May 24, 2009 (ChattahBox) — Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s vocal offensive defending the Bush legacy on the war on terror has raised a lot of eye brows as to what purpose it serves. During his service as VP he worked behind the scenes avoiding the media mostly, where as now he has been front and center criticizing Obama, which has surprised many as a break in protocol and very poor form for a previous administration to speak out against the new President.
Last night on CNN, Liz Cheney, perhaps inadvertently, revealed that part of the reason we’ve seen her dad come out of his bunker to defend the torture regime that he authorized, is that he is anxious to head off any investigation of future prosecution. To me this is not a big revelation, it’s just another instance where Dick Cheney is exercising poor judgment in knowing when NOT to go to war. Apparently though conservative circles are loving what Liz Cheney has to say, as she is becoming so popular some want her to run for office.
President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Of course, the Right is already fighting against her confirmation—so we need to get the facts out about her impressive qualifications and background.
First, I must clear up the lie that everyone keeps repeating about Sotomayor.
During the May 26 edition of MSNBC Live, NBC News chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd falsely asserted that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor "is on tape saying, I'm not supposed to say this, but guess what, we legislate from the bench." Todd added, "I think that's going to compel a lot of Republicans on principle; that they will actually be sort of -- they would be lying to their own principles if they somehow supported her." In fact, in the "tape" Todd was apparently referring to -- from a February 25, 2005, Duke University School of Lawforum -- Sotomayor did not say that "we legislate from the bench." Rather, responding to a student who asked the panel to contrast the experiences of a district court clerkship and a circuit court clerkship, Sotomayor said that the "court of appeals is where policy is made." Moreover, as NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams noted earlier in the broadcast, "[E]ven some conservatives and followers of strict constructionism have said that [Sotomayor] was only stating the obvious: that trial judges, district court judges, decide only the cases before them, and that appeals courts, because they are the, you know, above the other courts, do set policy; they do make precedent that governs the other courts."
Indeed, the Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (2005) notes that federal appellate courts do, in fact, have a "policy-making" role.
AND HERE IS WHAT SHE ACTUALLY SAID:
SOTOMAYOR: The saw is that if you're going into academia, you're going to teach, or as Judge Lucero just said, public interest law, all of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people with court of appeals experience, because it is -- court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know -- and I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. OK, I know. I'm not promoting it, and I'm not advocating it, I'm -- you know. OK. Having said that, the court of appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating -- its interpretation, its application. And Judge Lucero is right. I often explain to people, when you're on the district court, you're looking to do justice in the individual case. So you are looking much more to the facts of the case than you are to the application of the law because the application of the law is non-precedential, so the facts control. On the court of appeals, you are looking to how the law is developing, so that it will then be applied to a broad class of cases. And so you're always thinking about the ramifications of this ruling on the next step in the development of the law. From http://mediamatters.org/research/200905260037
Below is a list of 10 key things about Sonia Sotomayor that you might not know. Can you check it out and send it to 10 friends today? If each of us forwards the list, we can start to get the word out about Judge Sotomayor, and help to ensure that she gets a speedy and fair confirmation process.
Ten Things To Know About Judge Sonia Sotomayor
1. Judge Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the bench than any Supreme Court justice in 100 years. Over her three-decade career, she has served in a wide variety of legal roles, including as a prosecutor, litigator, and judge.
2. Judge Sotomayor is a trailblazer. She was the first Latina to serve on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and was the youngest member of the court when appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. If confirmed, she will be the first Hispanic to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.
3. While on the bench, Judge Sotomayor has consistently protected the rights of working Americans, ruling in favor of health benefits and fair wages for workers in several cases.
4. Judge Sotomayor has shown strong support for First Amendment rights, including in cases of religious expression and the rights to assembly and free speech.
5. Judge Sotomayor has a strong record on civil rights cases, ruling for plaintiffs who had been discriminated against based on disability, sex and race.
6. Judge Sotomayor embodies the American dream. Born to Puerto Rican parents, she grew up in a South Bronx housing project and was raised from age nine by a single mother, excelling in school and working her way to graduate summa cum laude from Princeton University and to become an editor of the Law Journal at Yale Law School.
7. In 1995, Judge Sotomayor "saved baseball" when she stopped the owners from illegally changing their bargaining agreement with the players, thereby ending the longest professional sports walk-out in history.
7a. Sotomayor made a ruling allowing the Wall Street Journal to publish Vince Foster's suicide note. In 1997, she was nominated by Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
8. Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the environment in a case of protecting aquatic life in the vicinity of power plants in 2007, a decision that was overturned by the Roberts Supreme Court.
9. In 1992, Judge Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate without opposition after being appointed to the bench by George H.W. Bush.
10. Judge Sotomayor is a widely respected legal figure, having been described as "...an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind," "highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character would be assets," and "a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity."
Judge Sotomayor is an historic, uniquely qualified nominee to the Supreme Court. Let's get the word out and make sure we get a prompt, fair confirmation on her nomination.
Here’s Blogger Mike's take on this nomination: "I think she is a textbook replacement for Souter and the Far Right Wing should be kissing Obama’s shoes for appointing a moderate cut from the same cloth as Souter and NOT appointing a hardcore liberal to balance out Allito and Scalia who lean so far to the hard Right that they are hanging off the right edge of the earth by their fingernails.
That said I think she is a very good pick with excellent credentials that certainly brings diversity to the court although I don’t think hardcore partisan ideologues from EITHER party should ever have been nominated to the SCOTUS. But unfortunately that door’s already been opened with Alito and Scalia so I feel the far and central lefts pain on this and strongly hope a hardcore liberal IS nominated to balance out the far Right Wing extremist Conservatives we have that are currently dominating the Supreme Court.
One last point I keep hearing the far Right Wing extremists like Rove, Limbaugh, Hannity, et al screech about “liberal activist judges” legislating from the bench or “radical activist liberal judges”
legislating their own personal views from the bench.
Please enlighten me here but isnt that EXACTLY what hardcore far Right Wing radical extremist activists like Scalia and Alito do, how many time do THESE corporatist stooges just legislate from the bench and inject their own personal bias’s by ALWAYS siding with the big corporations or wealthy while they and their Right Wing idealogues constantly accuse the left of siding with the poor or the little guy. It’s hipocrisy plain and simple just like when the Right says ONLY they are patriotic and love their country while the left is treasonous and hates their country. It’s high time we stop letting them lie and frame the issues without being rebutted by THE TRUTH.
* Sources for each of the 10 things:
1. White House Statement, May 26, 2009.
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51451&id=16226-3820792-wx2vdwx&t=1
3. Cases: Archie v. Grand Cent. Partnership, 997 F. Supp. 504 (S.D.N.Y. 1998) and Marcella v. Capital Dist. Physicians' Health Plan, Inc., 293 F.3d 42 (2d Cir. 2002).
4. Cases: Flamer v. White Plains, 841 F. Supp. 1365 (S.D.N.Y. 1993), Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 382 (2d Cir. 2003), and Campos v. Coughlin, 854 F. Supp. 194 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).
5a. "Sotomayor's Notable Court Opinions and Articles," The New York Times, May 26, 2009.
5b. Cases: Bartlett v. N.Y. State Board, 970 F. Supp. 1094 (S.D.N.Y. 1997), Greenbaum v. Svenska Hendelsbanken, 67 F.Supp.2d 228 (S.D.N.Y. 1999), Raniola v. Bratton, 243 F.3d 610 (2d Cir. 2001), and Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, 195 F.3d 134 (2d Cir. 1999).
6. "Sonia Sotomayor: 10 Things You Should Know," The Huffington Post, May 26, 2009.
7. "How Sotomayor 'Saved' Baseball," Time, May 26, 2009.
8. "Sotomayor's resume, record on notable cases," CNN, May 26, 2009.
10a. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit.
10b. "Sotomayor is Highly Qualified," The Wall Street Journal, May 9, 2009.
10c. Honorary Degree Citation, Pace University School of Law, 2003 Commencement.
Labels: DARK LORD Cheney's fear of prosecution, Prop. 8 outrage; Sonia Sotomayor
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← Reconciliation through Poetry
Diaspora Lanka Report : 28 September to 31 December 2013 – Part 5 →
Deutsche Welle – Colombo ‘failing to engage’ with Tamil minority
Five years after the end of Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war, there are few signs of a government-led reconciliation, MP Rajiva Wjesinha tells DW, arguing that mistrust and suspicion have only grown stronger.
Shortly after the Sri Lankan army defeated the separatist “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam” in May 2009, President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared an end to the country’s bloody civil war which had lasted more than 25 years during that period claimed the lives of at least 100,000 people.
Five years after the end of the separatist conflict, Sri Lanka is still struggling with reconciliation between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil minority. International human rights organizations hold the army as well as the LTTE-separatists responsible for crimes committed during the civil war. UN High commissioner Navi Pillay has repeatedly criticized the government in Colombo for having failed to establish a “credible national process to address abuses.” As a result the UN Human Rights Council recently decided to launch an independent international investigation of human rights violations during the war.
In a DW interview, Rajiva Wijesinha, a member of the Sri Lankan parliament for the ruling coalition, says the government is not paying enough attention to the needs of people in the former war zones and welcomes advice from countries “which have not been unfairly critical” of the Sri Lankan government’s reconciliation approach.
Wijesinha: ‘The government isn’t focused on reconciliation’
DW: How do you assess the reconciliation process between the majority Sinhala community and the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka?
Rajiva Wijesinha: It is not going well at all, largely because the government isn’t focused on reconciliation. In the Draft National Reconciliation Policy prepared in my office in 2012, we noted the need for establishing a multi-stakeholder institutional mechanism charged with promoting and monitoring the reconciliation process. A Parliamentary Select Committee should review the work of this mechanism which should cease to exist at the end of three years unless parliament decides otherwise.
Far from this being done, I had no response whatsoever to the draft. Colombo thus ignored what the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission had clearly stated in 2011. It said: “…despite the lapse of two years since the ending of the conflict, the violence, suspicion and sense of discrimination are still prevalent in social and political life. Delay in the implementation of a clearly focused post conflict peace building agenda may have contributed to this situation.”
After five years, the situation has become much worse. Polarization has increased in the absence of clearly focused efforts at peace-building, while the negotiations between the government and the main Tamil political party broke down. The government thought that reconciliation would come automatically through development, and focused on infrastructural development.
This approach is astonishing, however, as the president understands one cannot rely on a “trickle-down effect” to promote national prosperity through pure capitalism. His general approach is in line with modern Liberal philosophy as expressed through the Maxi-Min principle of John Rawls who stressed the need for state intervention to maximize benefits to the worst off.
Could you elaborate on this?
While working on rural development, the president does not apply similar practices to the areas or people decimated by the war. He has failed to pay special attention to the worst off and to promote job opportunities. For instance, the government could have recruited more people for the public sector based on a quota system. This would have introduced a sense of involvement.
Colombo has engaged in much development work in the predominantly Tamil-populated north by building roads, schools, hospitals and by providing electricity, all of which the government believes should promote reconciliation.
However, Colombo has failed to engage in consultation with the people. Guidelines laid down by the president have been ignored by those to whom he entrusted the job. Although the government has achieved much in terms of infrastructure, there has been too little attention paid both to the people and the development of local institutions. Both factors are necessary to involve the population in the development process.
International human rights organizations criticize that the government has not implemented a convincing truth and reconciliation process. In March this year, the Human Rights Council decided to launch an international investigation of human rights violations committed during the civil war. What is the government’s position on this resolution?
The government is right to criticize the proposed international investigation because it has seen how issues have been prejudged by those pushing for such an investigation, in particular certain Western governments.
Sadly, the government has not pursued its own investigations in a transparent and convincing manner. Doing that properly, with advice from countries that have not been unfairly critical, would do much to promote reconciliation. In that regard, those promoting the resolution – first and foremost the United States and the United Kingdom – should have adopted the approach of countries that have more principles with regard to conflict such as India, Japan and South Africa.
Colombo considers implementing a truth and reconciliation commission following the example of South Africa’s post-apartheid body. What does the government expect from this initiative?
The road to reconciliation in Sri Lanka is long, say experts
I have no idea as to what government expects because it itself has been very confused about this. It has sent two delegations to South Africa thus far. The first achieved nothing as it failed to provide a report on the way forward with regard for instance to local government. The second delegation didn’t seem serious as Nimal Siripala de Silva, the second most senior member of the ruling party in Parliament and the best person to bring the discussions forward, wasn’t accompanied by any other senior colleagues.
Other ministers should have taken part in the delegation, especially those who enjoy the trust of all communities, such as the Minister of Human Resources Development or the Minister of National Languages and Social Integration. This could have led to serious discussions leading to a proposal to the president after the South Africa visit.
With the support of such people we could make maximum use of the South African government’s willingness to help. But unless the president puts some solid structures in place, this initiative, too, will be without purpose.
Rajiva Wijesinha is a member of the Sri Lankan parliament for the ruling coalition United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) and Advisor to President Mahinda Rajapaksa on reconciliation. He was Secretary to the human rights ministry from 2008 to 2010.
The interview was conducted by Ana Lehmann.
Deutsche Welle 15 May 2014 – http://www.dw.de/colombo-failing-to-engage-with-tamil-minority/a-17633917
By admin Posted in Points of View Tagged consultation, Human rights, LLRC, local government, LTTE, National Reconciliation Policy, Rajiva Wijesinha, reconciliation, Sinhala, Tamil
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Billy Graham archives to move from Wheaton College to his North Carolina library
Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, speaks during a funeral service at the Billy Graham Library for Billy Graham on March 2, 2018, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Adelle M. Banks AMBankstw
(RNS) — The archives of the late evangelist Billy Graham will be moved from their location in Illinois to the library named after him in North Carolina.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association announced the decision about the transfer of the evangelist’s papers and the association’s archives on Thursday (March 28).
“This is part of our continuing consolidation in Billy Graham’s hometown,” said evangelist Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the BGEA and son of Billy Graham.
“Some 214,000 people visited the Billy Graham Library here in Charlotte last year alone, and it makes sense for my father’s archives to be housed and maintained here for visiting scholars to conduct research, and for our guests to see when they come visit our ministry headquarters, the Library and my parents’ gravesites.”
Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, on the campus of Wheaton College, where they met and courted. RNS file photo
The Billy Graham Center was dedicated in 1980 at Wheaton College, the older evangelist’s alma mater in the Chicago suburb of Wheaton, Ill.
The Billy Graham Center Archives and the rest of the center are housed in an on-campus building that bears the evangelist’s name. The archives include materials in addition to those related to Graham, who died last year, and the center serves as a networking hub for evangelism and missions for churches, ministries and scholars.
At the time the center was dedicated, the BGEA was located in Minneapolis. After the association announced the relocation of its headquarters to Charlotte in 2001, it began to consolidate its operations on a 63-acre campus that now includes the 40,000-square-foot Billy Graham Library.
The BGEA said records that will be moved after June 1 include sermon transcripts, personal correspondence, and radio and TV recordings.
Wheaton College acknowledged the BGEA’s request in a statement.
“College leaders are in communication with the BGEA regarding its planned consolidation,” the statement reads. “Wheaton College affirms its longstanding respect for the BGEA and looks forward to continuing the positive relationship that the College and the BGEA have enjoyed for decades.”
The school said the evangelistic vision of Graham, who was also a longtime trustee of the college, continues through programs and events of Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center.
“More than 19,000 scholars, journalist and other researchers have spent 67,000 hours in the Billy Graham Center Archives since it opened, producing dozens of books, articles and papers annually,” it said.
The center will continue to house other archives including those of evangelist Billy Sunday and evangelical organizations such as InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and the Lausanne Movement.
A webpage of Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center Archives lists a wide range of resources about Graham and his association. It also includes links to oral histories of Wheaton alumni who recalled his personality and preaching style during their college days.
Billy Graham speaks during the Billy Graham Crusade at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in New York City on June 25, 2005. RNS photo by John O’Boyle/ The Star-Ledger
RELATED: Timeline of the life of Billy Graham
The most recent blog post about the Billy Graham Library’s archive collection is a reposting of an article from Wheaton’s From the Vault blog that included images of a yellowed, creased 1941 sermon by Graham and a newspaper article from the same year about his appointment as the pastor of a local church.
Messiah College history professor John Fea expressed concern about future access to the elder evangelist’s archives and said its move could represent “a larger manifestation of evangelical anti-intellectualism.
“By taking the papers away from Wheaton, where access is open, Franklin Graham and the BGEA can now control access and can thus control the narrative of his father’s life in terms of who gets to read them,” Fea told Religion News Service. “Evangelicals must come face to face with both the good side and bad side of their history by taking an honest look at people like Billy Graham. I am not sure this will happen in Charlotte. The Billy Graham Library in Charlotte is not a library.”
Asked what will be publicly accessible after the transfer, BGEA Executive Vice President Ken Barun told RNS that final decisions will be made over the next several weeks.
“Discussions are continuing between BGEA and Wheaton College about the transfer of archives, including decisions on the breadth and scope of the collection, future accessibility and online opportunities for research,” he said.
Tagsarchives Billy Graham Billy Graham Center Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Billy Graham Library Franklin Graham homepage featured
Millennial Catholics go ‘biking for babies,’ raise funds for crisis pregnancy clinics
Adelle M. Banks
Adelle M. Banks, production editor and a national reporter, joined RNS in 1995. An award-winning journalist, she previously was the religion reporter at the Orlando Sentinel and a reporter at The Providence Journal and newspapers in the upstate New York communities of Syracuse and Binghamton.
Man sentenced to life in prison for murder of Muslim teen Nabra Hassanen
Judge vacates former youth minister’s sex abuse convictions
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AMGEN, DNA Bridge
Posted by Mike on September 28, 2009
They built a nice DNA shaped bridge for $10 million, but now what?
When Immunex wanted to build a new company campus on cheap property located in an under-utilized area of Seattle’s waterfront they were granted a building permit with a couple quid pro quos that the city would build them an off ramp for $19 million and the the company would build a foot bridge. Otherwise, the property was going to cut off from the public a waterfront park… As a practical matter Immunex employees who wanted to ride the bus would have to dodge railroad trains at the busy grain terminal where ships load grain from railcars and silos.
The deal was the foot bridge had to remain open to the public….
So today while I am photographing a “public place” (a bridge on a public right of way required by the city of Seattle) and buildings visible from a “public place” on all four sides the AMGEN (owner of Immunex) security guard comes running up and tells me to stop taking pictures that “she can’t allow that sort of thing”. I handed her my business card and informed her that she no such authority. The buildings were visible from a public place and to leave me alone. She began jabbering into her radio and walked off.
PR Calls 9-28…. Sorry… Our guard was just doing her job (maybe not as she should have been) and we know it’s a public place but we need to protect our intellectual property… (which as, explained, is all inside the building and not visible). Please remove the “horse’s ass of the week” denotation on your blog…
Ok, so we will.. for now.
Lets see what happens on a return visit at a future unannounced date.
Amgen’s website has photos both inside and outside the building that can tell you corporate espionage types a lot more than my photos can…
Beat the Guard back to the car…. I think she outweighs me so I am safe…
This next image is 3 exposures (at ISO 200 at around 10 seconds or more) processed by Photomatix into an HDR image. Then the image is reimported to Lightroom and processed more as a 16 bit Pro-Color Space Tiff… Then exported as a sRGB jpeg in 8 bit color for the web. The rest below are hand held single exposures… processed to sharpen and reduce noise in 1600 ISO exposures down to 1/8th second.
UPDATE: AMGEN STEALS $500 MILLION FROM TAXPAYERS:
EDITORIAL NY TIMES
For a disheartening example of how intense lobbying and financial contributions can distort the legislative process in Washington, consider what happened to the “fiscal cliff” bill approved three weeks ago by Congress.
Senators who play a major role in federal health care financing were happy to help Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company, evade Medicare cost-cutting controls by delaying price restraints on a class of drugs used by kidney dialysis patients, including Sensipar, a drug made by Amgen. That provision was inserted into the final fiscal bill by Senate aides. Many members of Congress did not know it was in the bill until just hours before it was approved.
Although other companies will benefit financially from that delay, Amgen, which has 74 lobbyists in Washington, was the only company to lobby aggressively for the provision. The delay will cost the Medicare program up to $500 million over a two-year period.
The disturbing details were revealed in a report by Eric Lipton and Kevin Sack of The Times on Sunday. The maneuvering to exempt these drugs undercuts a five-year effort to change the incentives used to pay for kidney dialysis care. Previously, Medicare had paid providers separately for the drugs and for administering dialysis treatment, a system that often encouraged overprescribing.
But, in 2008, Congress reversed the incentives by requiring Medicare to pay a single, bundled rate for a patient’s dialysis treatment and related medications, starting in 2011. But certain oral drugs, including Sensipar, were given a two-year reprieve, to expire in 2014, from being included in that more cost-effective bundled system. The fiscal bill has now extended that exclusion for an additional two years.
Supporters of the delay — notably, Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat of Montana, who leads the Senate Finance Committee, and Orrin Hatch, of Utah, the ranking Republican on that committee — say it is needed to give the Medicare system and dialysis providers time to absorb other complicated changes in federal reimbursements for kidney care. But there is good reason to suspect other factors were involved as well. Both senators have political and financial ties to Amgen, as does Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who exerted great influence over the fiscal negotiations and praised the Medicare provisions.
A top aide to Mr. Hatch, who was involved in negotiating the dialysis delay, previously worked as a health policy analyst for Amgen. The current lobbyists for Amgen include former chiefs of staff for both Mr. Baucus and Mr. McConnell. And the three senators have received substantial contributions from Amgen’s employees and its political action committee since 2007 — almost $68,000 to Senator Baucus, $59,000 to Senator Hatch, and $73,000 to Senator McConnell.
Amgen’s strong influence prevailed even though it had pleaded guilty just weeks ago to marketing an anti-anemia drug illegally and agreed to pay criminal and civil penalties of $762 million, a record settlement for a biotechnology company.
This dreadful episode is a classic example of the power of special interests to shape legislation and shows how hard it may be to carry out the reforms needed to cut health care costs.
Posted in Architectural Photography, Photojournalism | Tagged: buildings' rights to privacy, photos from a public space | 5 Comments »
Old Lady versus the Corporation….who won?
By Nick Perry and Charles E. Brown
Seattle Times staff reportersBy Nick Perry and Charles E. Brown
The strange and inspiring tale of the Little Ballard House That Could took another bizarre twist Tuesday.
The cottage once owned by Edith Macefield, an elderly woman who turned down an offer of $1 million to sell her home to developers, has been sold to a company run by a motivational speaker who says he intends to raise the home into the air — both literally and philosophically.
King County property records show the home — now hemmed in on three sides by the five-story Ballard Blocks retail and office complex — was sold Tuesday to Reach Returns for $310,000. The seller was Barry Martin, the construction supervisor who became Macefield’s friend and caregiver before her death last June at age 86. Macefield left Martin the home in her will.
Greg Pinneo, the co-founder of Reach Returns, said he intends to remodel the interior of the home and then raise it to the height of the surrounding building, using a steel supporting structure. Underneath the home would be a two-level open space accessible to the public called “Credo Square,” Pinneo said, where for $250 to $5,000, people could etch their credo into tiles to be installed at the site. The home, meanwhile, would become the offices for Reach Returns.
“This endeavor is much more philosophical in nature than it is about real estate or construction,” Pinneo said. “It’s continuing to think deeply about what’s important. That’s what Edith put out there … to consider the great questions in life.”
The home was recently used to promote the Pixar movie “Up” — in which an elderly man ties thousands of balloons to his home to escape encroaching development and fulfill a lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America.
Barry Martin said one thing Edith didn’t want was for the home to become a memorial or shrine. He said that after talking to Pinneo, he felt the project was suitable.
“I like the fact that the house is going to stay,” Martin said. “It’ll make me feel good every time I drive by there. It will remind me of Edith. She’s been gone a year now, but she still touches me.”
Martin said he got to know Edith by being friendly when working on the project. Soon he found he was running her to hair appointments, and then making her three meals a day, taking her laundry out and doing whatever else she needed.
He said her legacy has sometimes been misinterpreted.
“Everyone liked to think she wanted to stick it to the man,” Martin said. “But she really just wanted to do what she wanted to do, and money didn’t mean anything.”
Martin said that when Macefield told him she was leaving him the house, she said he’d need it to put his two kids through college. With a son and daughter both in college now, Martin said, that’s where the money will go.
Posted in Architectural Photography, Photojournalism | Tagged: ballard, hemmed in house | Leave a Comment »
Portrait retouching…
I got lazy the other day!… lazy eye…
I made this picture (picture 1 RAW)… then worked it over in “lightroom” and delivered it since it looked pretty good (picture 2)… then the art director calls and says “… ya know… I know you can do better.. this looks like crap… fix it!”
Lightroom does not have the capabilities to fix this photo. So into Photoshop… 4 layers to start, defocus one, darken it, do shape shifting of the face on another layer, haircut on another layer, skin smoothing on another, sharpen eyes on another…. Then paint them layer masks until something happens…. Oh yeah I forgot the big one “lighting effects” on a layer saved the day from too flat a light… and the wrong color… the light was bouncing off a red wall totally queering the whole picture… take a look. (pictures 3, 4, 5, and 6 for the final).
You will notice on the bottom of the final picture I have included a gray scale. This is because most people have PC’s and have no clue as to how to calibrate the color, adjust themonitor or whether they have a 6 bit or 8 bit monitor. So I ask them how the grayscale looks if there is some kind of argument. I usually get a silent response…. and probe some more to find out the gray has turned green (out of whack 6 bit monitor) and it’s too dark to see separation in the lower shades… So I say it looks perfect on my end that;s as good as we can do… adjust your computer… see here too: browsers and photography
Posted in Portrait Photography, Public Relations Photography | Tagged: portrait retouching | Leave a Comment »
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Does Nigeria really have a future?
Niran Adedokun
For someone who became deaf and blind at 19 months, the late American political activist and intellectual, Hellen Keller, stood in a good place to lecture the world about optimism.
Years after she defied her handicaps to become a political and leading campaigner for women’s suffrage, labour rights, socialism and such other interests, Keller offered the world the following words on the idea of optimism: “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”
Of course, that Keller would say that should be little wonder. Denied of two of the vital senses that make living meaningful, only a passionately positive attitude could produce the magic that this lady’s life turned out to be. Optimism worked for her as it has worked for men and women all through the ages. Yet, this principle, like most others fed by the psychology of men, could be a double edged sword.
For instance, Nigerians are some of the most positive people in the world, yet the country has remained an uninspiring example of what a modern nation state should not be. So, while optimism is a commendable attribute, exercising it without reason and moderation could lead to a potentially harmful denial of reality and pain.
Things are a bit worse in Nigeria because the people’s optimism is not necessarily borne out of any obvious strategy to arrive at the future that the people anticipate. Most of the time, the excessive hope expressed by Nigerians is based on some unseen spiritual convictions rather than concrete and infallible proofs of actions that change the fortune of nations.
That is not to say that there is anything wrong with being spiritual but the truth is that religion itself recognises the place of work and reward. Every religion is guided by a set of principles by which its adherents could access the blessings that it promises them and it would be foolhardy to hope for reward when work has not been done.
A good example is the Christian proclamation that salvation is free while that is not exactly so. It is free to the extent that someone had paid for it with his shed blood ahead of beneficiaries. And that is the same way that great nations are built. The vision of founding fathers and the disciplined sacrifices that they make are the waters of the seeds of greatness that some countries can currently lay claim to. Such vision and discipline are plainly rare on the leadership landscape in Nigeria so you wonder what the pervasive hope that “it will be better” is anchored on.
Every waking day, Nigeria is reminded of its status as the nation with some of the worst developmental indices anywhere in the world. The country is said to have the highest number of the poorest of the poor in the world. This suggests that the majority of Nigerians are unable to feed three times daily, access affordable and quality healthcare or send their children to schools or aspire for any meaningful future.
Now, the country’s disposition to education is particularly worrisome. Every nation aspiring for greatness knows that education, which aids the expansion of the mind and vision of people and grows their capacities to identify right from wrong as well as understand the importance of peace, justice and fairness is an irreducible minimum demand for national development. But no one seems to pay attention to the needs of the nation in this area.
But for Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State who launched a revolutionary reassessment of the quality of primary education in addition to seeking creative ways of improving the enrolment, retention and completion of basic education by Nigerian children, not much attention is being paid to the about 15 million children of primary school age who are out of school in the country.
The state of public health and the administration of health in general is as parlous as education such that you wonder how a people who do not care about planning for the education of their children or ensuring that its human capital is in good physical and mental well-being.
Neither do the activities of political leaders in the country suggest a break from these grim circumstances. Starting from the absence of the free atmosphere required for democracy to thrive, the Nigerian political class have turned the nation into an enclave for the achievement of their own selfish ambitions to the neglect of the people they claim to represent. Not even any of political divides they claim to associate with makes any difference.
The ruling All Progressives Congress has for the best part of the last couple of weeks been involved in multiple level muscle-flexing that has left the people more distraught than happy.
The leaders of today are redefining the essence of democracy through their win-by-all-means philosophy which subverts the will of the people and leave those who should work for the progress of the nation struggling for their own interests. Last week re-run of the governorship election in Osun State is a typical example of leadership forcing their will on the people and damning the consequences.
The Peoples Democratic Party, which has the opposition status, does not present any comforting alternative. Just last week, River State Governor, Nyesom Wike, threw caution to the winds and told the whole world in no uncertain terms that the PDP has remained a party where internal democracy is alien. His insistence on hosting the party’s national convention and threats of the fate that would befall the party in the event that the party did not toe his line suggested an ulterior motive that could be of no interest other than his own. Nigerians are therefore left with little or no option than to choose between the hard rock and the deep blue sea.
However, what is most pathetic in all of us is that the people who are at the receiving end of the treachery of the political class are themselves becoming collaborators in the perpetuation of their own suffering. The political class is bereft of ideas that would move the country forward and the people are contended with the crumbs fed them by their oppressors.
While it is the democratic right of every citizen to affiliate with political interests of his choice, a citizenry with the future in mind come together when issues that affect the development of their country is concerned. But not Nigeria. People of this country are too drawn by their partisan interests to come to a consensus about developmental issues. You are then forced to wonder where the hope that Nigeria has a glorious future is hinged.
So, here is the truth, as it currently stands, praying, fasting and staying optimistic until thy kingdom come, will leave Nigeria in its state of development. The only prospect for a change is that the people wake up to their reality of the deprivations that binds them together in spite of their political and other affiliations, put the politicians to task and demand a change for the country with all their might.
Twitter @niranadedokun
Internally generated poverty (2)
Citizen Atoyebi as hope for Nigerian youths
Presidential mis-communication, Aso Rock rodents and other matters
Parents, watch out for your girls during this long vacation (2)
Nigeria’s legislature: A den of robbers?
Defection: Why denialism won’t salvage APC
Disability Act should not be a paper tiger
Why higher crude oil prices won’t save Nigeria’s economy
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Tag Archives: women in public sphere
Chukkat: Obituary for Miriam the Prophetess and one of the leadership triumvirate
Posted on June 28, 2017 by sylviarothschild
We have learned this week of the death of Miriam bat Amram v’Yocheved of the tribe of Levi. Born in Egypt, the oldest child in the family with two younger brothers Aaron and Moses, Miriam kept faith with the religious tradition of her ancestors in the darkest times, even prophesying the birth of her youngest brother Moses and predicting that he would be the one who would deliver their people to freedom (BT Sotah11- 12b). Along with her brothers she was part of the leadership that brought the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt and into the desert. Sadly she has not lived to see the end of the journey, but her leadership – particularly of the women – was critical to its success.
Miriam had a particular affinity with water. Even her name reminds us of it, variously translated as ‘bitter seas’ (Mar Yam) or even “doubled water” (depending on whether one sees the letters mem reish as deriving from bitterness or of water. We first meet her at the water’s edge, saving her little brother Moses adrift in the Nile reeds. (Exodus 2:4-9) She is a powerful figure at the Sea of Reads and her song of praise became the basis for the rather more famous (and more fully recorded in bible) song of her brother, Shirat haYam. (Exodus 15) Luckily the Dead Sea Scrolls have recorded more of her verses than the biblical editor thought fit to include.(4Q365). And of course we must not forget Miriam’s well which followed her in the wilderness and which provided much needed refreshment for the Children of Israel, was a miracle provided because of her merit. (Ta’anit 9a).
Bible called her a prophet and indeed Miriam was a great prophet of Israel, though sadly she has no book named for her prophesies, an oversight to be much deplored.
Her name might also allude to the idea of rebellion – a role model for all Jews, Miriam thought for herself and did not acquiesce to the ideas of others without challenge. It was this characteristic that gave her the will to challenge her parent’s decision (and that of the other Jewish adults) to no longer have relations in order that no children would be born – some say that they all divorced so as to prevent a new generation being born into slavery. But Miriam’s refusal to be party to this pessimistic arrangement meant that not only did she and her brother Aaron dance and sing at the remarriage of their parents, but that other families followed suit. Her rebellious spirit was vital in keeping the people alive and hopeful. (BT Sotah 12a; Mekhilta de-Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai 6). Indeed such was her role in preserving the last generation to be born in Egypt, there are some who say that the midwife Puah was in fact Miriam herself. In part this connects to her rebellious nature. There are those who say that she was insolent (hofi’ah panim – lifted her face) toward Pharaoh when she heard his edict to kill all baby boys born to the Hebrew women, and looked down her nose at him. She told him: “Woe to you on the Day of Judgment, when God will come to demand punishment of you.” Pharaoh was so enraged at her behaviour that he wanted to kill her. She was saved only because Yocheved intervened, saying “Do you take notice of her? She is a baby, and knows nothing” (Ex. Rabbah, 1:13). Miriam found it hard to keep her mouth shut at that, but luckily she did so.
While it is not clear who Miriam married – indeed if she married at all – there are some who say she married Caleb and other who say she married her uncle Uzziel. Clearly these marriages were unimportant in the public sphere in which she worked, but it is said that her children were sages and kings because she had stood up to the evil decree of Pharaoh and also persuaded the Hebrews to continue to procreate. Bezalel is said to have descended from her, as is King David.
While this writer does not see the need to describe family for Miriam – either to explore whether she married or had children – it is gratifying that the midrashic tradition felt, in its own terms, that she deserved to be rewarded for her integrity and willingness to speak truth to power. We note that the sons of Moses walk out of history and that two of Aaron’s sons offer strange fire to God, with only the younger two continuing into priesthood, with its ultimately difficult and chequered history.
Miriam was musical, a great timbrel player, and a wonderful song leader and dancer who lifted the spirits of all who saw her. Her liveliness and optimism, coupled with a strong character and a willingness to speak out, make her a superlative role model for Jews everywhere. Her association with water, the living waters from which everything can draw its sustenance, is no accident. Water flows where it will, as did Miriam.
Even when Miriam criticised the fact that her brother Moses had married a Cushite woman and apparently put away Zipporah, the wife of his youth and mother of his two sons, she did so from a position of integrity, challenging her younger brother’s autocratic behaviour and as a result of her good and close relationship with Zipporah, a Midianite woman married into the Israelite leadership family (Sifrei on Numbers 12). She was concerned that Moses was no longer visiting Zipporah who was thus condemned to having no marital comfort and would not be able to bear more children.(Avot de R.Natan ch 9; Sifrei Zuta 12:1; sifra Metzorah 5).
While she was smitten with a skin disease as punishment for the harshness of her words, it must be noted that the whole camp waited for her to heal before moving on. For seven days even the Shechinah, as well as the priests and the Israelites stayed in camp while her tzara’at took its course (Mishnah Sotah 1:9) and it is well understood that this exceptional treatment was a reward for her work supporting Moses as a baby and enabling him to be reunited safely with is mother as his wet nurse, as well as helping in the leadership of the people in the many desert years.
While Miriam died on tenth of Nisan in Kadesh in the wilderness of Tzin, (Sifrei on Devarim 305) her death is recorded here in Chukkat along with that of Aaron. All three of the siblings are buried on the heights of Avarim close to the land of Israel, and Miriam, like her brothers would later, died by the kiss of God as her soul was gently drawn back from her body (BT baba batra 17a), an ending known as the death of the righteous.
She will not be forgotten. In modern times she is remembered at the Pesach seder with a Cup of Miriam filled with water, and a special prayer; while others add a piece of fish to the seder plate to reference her particular affinity with water.
Sadly however the characteristics of Miriam are sometimes hidden from view or even actively ignored – her prophecy and the determination she had to make her voice heard by people more senior than her are a fundamental part of her character. She spoke out, her voice was heard and followed – in both her capacity to advise and in her song leading, even if her brother then took credit for some of her best works. She was not quiescent in the face of a community that didn’t want change, or that was prepared to put up with injustice and oppression. She was active in both the birth and the rearing of Moses, keeping faith with her idea that here was a child who could be a leader and redeemer of the people. She was an equal partner in leadership, she had her own ideas and her own way of going about things. She was nobody’s ‘yes woman’. Her integrity, her strength of character, her fluidity, her determination to keep life happening, all meant that Miriam’s was a voice that shaped the people, she was heard in the public space, she was respected even when she sometimes said things in a less than careful way, she was warm and caring and people knew it. Moses could be distant, his shyness and insecurities causing him to hide away sometimes. Aaron could be arrogant in his priestly garments and status. But Miriam was accessible to the people and they loved her for it, as she spoke out on their behalf and fought for their rights.
Both the editors of the received text and the creators of midrash have not always dealt kindly with her. There is a rabbinic propensity to see her as bitter or as rebellious to the established order, her voice (already edited at the song of the sea) is not heard again in bible after the episode of the tzara’at; her death is reported without ceremony or sadness. There are some notable exceptions to the blurring of Miriam in history. The prophet Micah tells us of God’s comment “I sent before you Moses, Aaron and Miriam” (6:4). I cannot help but think that her gender was a problem to later commentators and redactors, something that sadly continues to this day. Yet Miriam is described in bible as a prophet, she sings her own song, she leads the people and she keeps her brothers safe and in relationship with the people. She is patently a popular leader. When we lose Miriam we lose a righteous and able leader. When we lose the stories of her we risk losing the participation of modern women in the public sphere, rebellious, sassy, open, fluid, willing to speak truth to power and to challenge both adversaries and relatives who would rather we were quiet.
Some women have suggested fasting on the tenth of Nisan as her yahrzeit. That is fine should women want to do this, but I would suggest that we would do her greater honour by speaking out, by rebelling against injustice and against the desire to push women into the private and domestic sphere where they might more easily be controlled, and by bringing the swirling waters of justice and of challenge into the society in which we live.
Posted in Feminist bible, Not remaining silent, parashat hashavua, Women and Judaism | Tagged Aaron, characteristics, chukkat, cup of Miriam, Cushite woman, dancing, death of miriam, equal leadership, equal partner, hidden, hope, Hukkat, integrity, leadership, midrash, Miriam, Miriam the prophet, miriam's well, Moses, music, parashat chukkat, parashat hashavua, parsha, Pharaoh, prophecy, rebellion, singing, speak truth to power, spirited, story of miriam, tenth of Nisan, timbrel, Tzipporah, water, waters, women in bible, women in biblical leadership, women in leadership, women in public space, women in public sphere, yahrzeit | 1 Reply
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A guide to the key figures in the Henry V episode:
Henry V – the King!
Thomas, 1st Duke of Clarence – the eldest of Henry’s three younger brothers. A hot-headed soldier. Killed in 1420 at the Battle of Bauge (the podcast incorrectly says this was Bedford!)
John, 1st Duke of Bedford – the middle brother, a capable soldier and statesman.
Humphrey, 1st Duke of Gloucester – the youngest brother, a less able soldier but still fought at Agincourt and idolised Henry.
Catherine de Valois – Henry’s wife, daughter of King Charles VI of France.
Henry IV – Henry V’s father and the previous monarch who seized the throne from Richard II in 1399 and faced rebellions throughout his reign.
Richard II – King from 1377-99 and deposed by his cousin, Henry IV. Overthrown following years of promoting a narrow clique of nobles at the expense of the Lancastrians.
Edward III – heroic 14th century king and Henry V’s great-grandfather who started the Hundred Years War and won great victories over France. The 1360 Treaty of Bretigny gave him rights to extensive French territories which Henry V used as a cause for war.
Charles VI – king of France and suffering from a mental illness that left him unable to govern and the French in civil war.
John the Fearless – the Duke of Burgundy, chose to ally himself with Henry V in order to defeat the rival Armagnacs.
The Dauphin – Charles of Valois, son of Charles VI and the rival to the Burgundians who hoped to inherit the French throne.
We haven’t quite got there yet, but we’re moving towards the Wars of the Roses, the dynastic struggle between the Houses of Lancaster and. It all stems from the many children of Edward III and this is it’s shaping up…
Descended from the first marriage of the third son of Edward III, John of Gaunt.
Henry V was the Lancastrian king and his line passes on to his only son and heir, Henry VI.
None of Henry V’s brothers leave legitimate heirs, meaning Henry VI is the last of the main Lancastrian line
The Beaufort’s (pseudo-Lancastrian)
Descended from John of Gaunt’s third marriage. As he married after the birth of these children, their legitimacy was questioned
Most powerful descendant is Edmund Beaufort (Duke of Somerset) in the reign of Henry VI
The Tudor’s (pseudo-pseudo Lancastrians)
Owen Tudor: sent to the English court at the age of 7 during reign of Henry IV; promoted to squire in household of Catherine de Valois
Marriage: 1429, marries Catherine de Valois and later knighted by Henry VI
Children: Jasper and Edmund Tudor made earls by Henry VI
The Mortimer’s
Descended from Edward III’s second son, Lionel of Antwerp
Lionel’s only child was a daughter who married into the Mortimer family
The last of the line was Edmund Mortimer (5thEarl of March) – he had no children so his inheritance went to his nephew, Richard Plantagenet
The Yorkists
Descended from Edward III’s fourth son, Edmund of Langley
Edmund has two sons: Richard of Conisburgh and Edward of Norwich
Richard of Conisburgh is executed for his part in the Southampton plot and succeeded by his son, Richard Plantagenet
Edward of Norwich (Duke of York) is killed at the Battle of Agincourt and leaves no heir, meaning his estates pass to his nephew, Richard Plantagenet
The Neville’s (Yorkist sympathisers)
Powerful noble family who joined the royal elites when Ralph Neville married Joan Beaufort, a daughter of John of Gaunt
Ralph and Joan have many children, most notably Cecily and Richard Neville
Cecilly Neville: betrothed to Richard Plantagenet in 1424 (marrying in 1429)
Richard Neville: became Earl of Salisbury and major player in Wars of the Roses; son, also called Richard Neville, became Warwick the Kingmaker
(And yes, that is the same Richard Plantagenet – now Richard, Duke of York – throughout. He is, therefore, pretty powerful. So powerful, in fact, that he could even stake a claim to the throne…)
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Home » Blog » Music » Burna Boy Announced As Apple Music Up Next Artist
Apple Music today announced African superstar Burna Boy as its latest Up Next artist. As the credited creator of the enigmatic new genre “Afrofusion” – the rich blend of Afrobeats, hip-hop, dancehall and R&B – the Nigeria-born singer and songwriter is among contemporary African music’s biggest stars and Apple Music is thrilled to be propelling his music to the world.
Burna Boy has released a long series of EPs, singles, mixtapes, and albums including his 2018 acclaimed U.S. breakthrough Outside, which debuted at #3 on Billboard’s ‘Reggae Albums’ chart, fueled in part by the blockbuster single/video, “Ye”. In 2019 Burna Boy achieved impressive milestones in the U.S. with a debut performance at Coachella, a BET Award for Best International Act, and now a coveted spot in Apple Music’s prestigious Up Next program. His new single “Anybody” will be featured on his highly anticipated forthcoming new album African Giant, available July 26th and available to pre-add on Apple Music HERE.
On Apple Music, Burna Boy’s music has been spotlighted on an array of popular playlists, including The Plug, New Fire, Up Next, The Beats 1 List, and The A-List: African Music. He has been featured on Beats 1 multiple times, with reoccurring spins by Apple Music hosts Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga as well as on artist-led led shows Ramona Radio with Vince Staples and Play Dirty Radio with Krept & Konan. Burna Boy’s music has been Shazamed around the world and his collaboration with Zlatan on “Killing Dem” was the most Shazamed song in Nigeria throughout February of this year. His feature on Dave’s “Location” peaked at No. 4 on Shazam in the UK this past April and his song “On The Low” is the most added track on Apple Music in Nigeria. Burna Boy has received over 100 million streams to date on Apple Music globally.
“I’m super excited to be part of the Apple Music Up Next campaign,” said Burna Boy. “Apple continuously comes up with new initiatives to support artists globally and push the African culture. It’s an honor to be a part of this and with my African Giant album coming out soon, the timing is perfect.”
“Burna Boy has built his brand his way and has been on fire all over Africa and the UK,” said Ebro Darden, Apple Music’s Global Editorial Head of Hip-Hop and R&B. “He does things his way and Apple Music is honored to be able to connect with Burnaboy on this moment and help make the name even more well known!”
“My granddad was a DJ in Lagos; all the records would come to him first,” Burna Boy tells Apple Music in the exclusive Up Next short shot entirely on iPhone XS and available on July 16th. “I would find myself being inspired by things that I’ve heard as a kid: Nigerian music or African music, some French music or some Jamaican music.” That education is reflected in the rich and adventurous Afrofusion that he makes today – not that he wants to take all the credit for it. “When it’s time for music to be made, it’s almost like my ancestors just come into me and then it’s them,” he says.
On July 23rd, Burna Boy will make his late-night U.S. debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as part of Apple Music’s Up Next program.
The latest Burna Boy music, along with that of his Up Next peers, is available now on the Apple Music Up Next playlist.
Check out a sneak peek of the Apple Music Up Next Burna Boy short film:
Watch the Burna Boy Beats 1 interview with Julie Adenuga:
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Michael Mitchell November 28, 2018
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Canada reverses position on asbestos
Tue, Sep 18, 2012
Asbestos, In the media, Misc.
Radio Canada International, 17 september, 2012 http://tinyurl.com/8onebsp
The Jeffrey mine in Quebec had mostly shut down but was to be revived with a $58-million loan from the Quebec government. It is looking more and more likely that Canada’s last remaining asbestos operation will never resume.
Canada has will stop defending asbestos internationally. The federal government announced it will no longer block international efforts to add the cancer-causing mineral to a United Nations list of hazardous substances. In addition, the provincial government in the province of Quebec will cancel a multi-million dollar loan it promised to revive an asbestos mine there. RCI’s Lynn Desjardins spoke with jubilant activists.
“I was extremely pleased by this decision that the Canadian government will no longer be an enemy of public health around the world on the asbestos issue,” said Kathleen Ruff. She has, for years, lobbied to get the Canadian government to stop promoting asbestos, most lately in her role as human rights advisor to the Rideau Institute, an independent research and advocacy group.
“After 130 years of Canada being the major propagandist pushing the lies that asbestos is safe when we know it kills,” said Ms. Ruff, “Canada’s role as asbestos propagandist seems finally to be ended.”
“We were surprised and very pleased with the decision,” said Jim Chauvin, director of policy at the Canadian Public Health Association. His association has for several years been lobbying the Canadian government to stop blocking the listing of chrysotile asbestos in the Rotterdam Convention list of hazardous materials. “What it means is that countries that import Canadian asbestos, for instance, will be informed prior to the importation that they are importing a hazardous product and that they have to take means to ensure the protection of people who will be handling it.”
There’s more Canada should be doing at home and abroad to reduce the risk that people will be exposed to asbestos, believe both activists. “We would like to see the asbestos industry shut down period,” said Mr. Chauvin. That is likely to happen but not by any government decree. Three asbestos mines in the province of Quebec have closed over the years. The previous Quebec government offered a $58 million dollar loan to help revive the Jeffrey mine. However a new government was elected earlier this month which has vowed to withdraw the loan and the mine is not likely to re-open.
This development was cited as the reason the federal government decided to stop blocking the listing of asbestos as a hazardous material. The government may also have come under pressure from the European Union with which it is negotiating a free-trade agreement. Whatever its motivation, the Canadian government appears to have yielded only grudgingly and it’s not clear whether it plans to take any further action on asbestos.
“Canada should ban asbestos,” said Kathleen Ruff. “It should create a registry of all the buildings that contain asbestos across Canada. It should provide help and support to asbestos victims and it should play a role on the world stage to let people know about the hazards of asbestos and to stop the use of asbestos.”
More work needs to be done on asbestos, agrees Mr. Chauvin but he calls this step a small victory from which Canada can move forward.
LISTEN 4:28 minute interview at http://tinyurl.com/8onebsp
Canadian government, Canadian Public Health Association, Jeffrey Mine, registry, Rotterdam Convention
One Response to “Canada reverses position on asbestos”
James Mullins Says:
The Canadian government continues to deny its own employees with access to information concerning exposure risk in its own buildings. As an employee I was refused access by the union health and safety representative and the employer themselves. I was only given a link five months after I left, to a network I did not have access to.
I was repeatedly told if I had concerns I “would know asbestos when I breath it”. That was the safety procedure at Industry Canada 2014.
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[URGENT] South Africans Voting - Register by tomorrow!
12 Mar 2019 10:11 | Katsura Ogishima (Administrator)
Fellow South African,
South Africans living or travelling abroad will be able to cast their votes at one of the 121 foreign missions around the world on Freedom Day, 27 April 2019.
To vote abroad you need to complete a VEC10 form by 13 March.
You will not be able to vote at a diplomatic mission overseas on Saturday, 27 April if you have not submitted a VEC10 form on the IEC's website by 13 March at midnight (UTC+02:00).
It only takes 2 minutes!
The VEC10 is an important form that all South Africans abroad will have to submit to the IEC to tell them that they plan to vote overseas and at which voting station they plan to vote.
Even as submissions of the VEC10 forms continue to be received by the IEC on their website, it is concerning to note that only 16,597 VEC10 forms have been submitted by South Africans to notify the IEC that they intend to vote out of the country.
This is considerably lower than the voter turnout in 2014 and especially low considering the number of South Africans that live abroad. We know it isn't easy to vote, but we also know that there are hundreds of South Africans living around the world who are eligible to vote, but don't know that they can vote and that they have to complete the VEC10 form.
Please share this message with your friends and family abroad to ensure they don't miss this unique opportunity to make their voices heard.
Together, we can build One South Africa for All but this starts with voting for an honest and caring government.
If you registered abroad to vote, you must still complete the VEC10 form.
If you completed a VEC10 form in a previous election, you must complete it againin order to vote in the 2019 election.
Finally, in order to vote you must be on the voters’ roll, and must have BOTH a valid SA ID book/temporary ID/smart ID card and an SA passport. You can only vote in person at your nearest South African foreign mission on 27 April.
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SALFORD SCHOOLS COME TOGETHER AS HEADS URGE PARENTS TO HELP FIGHT SCHOOL FUNDING CUTS
Salford City Council
Head teachers across Salford are urging parents to back a new campaign for fairer funding for schools.
They have written to all parents condemning the government’s current funding for schools and showing their support for the head teachers’ national Worth Less? campaign.
City Mayor Paul Dennett and Deputy City Mayor Councillor John Merry, who oversees the children and young people portfolio, are giving their backing to the move.
In the strongly worded letter the Salford heads lay blame with vicious government cuts which have seen school budgets for under 16s cut by eight per cent since 2010 whilst class sizes are quickly rising at the same time which is increasingly making it harder to maintain the range of sports and experiences currently offered.
They also say that the cuts making it harder for schools who are struggling to maintain support for children’s emotional well-being and to support the most vulnerable children and young people in schools.
Mayor Dennett said,
“We’ve seen national protests by head teachers about inadequate funding for schools and from parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities who feel their children are not getting the support they need.
“Head teachers nationally asked three times for a meeting with the Secretary of State for Education. The last time they asked, in January, the response was that the minister was too busy though, given the level of anger we are seeing nationally, he has now made time to see them.
“Unfortunately that has not resulted in any changes to school funding and that is just not good enough. I fully support the head teachers who launched the Worth Less? campaign which is now supported by 64 local authorities, thousands of schools and millions of families nationwide. I’d like to see every parent in Salford write to the government to demand fairer funding for schools.
Councillor Merry added,
“We stress the importance of life-long education to children and young people yet the schools and colleges they are being taught in are scraping round for every penny and what they can provide is being eroded by funding cuts.
“We tell our children and young people they are the future of this country and yet the government is not willing to invest properly in funding their education and the support they need. It’s disgraceful and a national scandal and we need to make our voices heard to get schools the funding they need.”
Head teacher Daniel Gauld of River View primary school, Salford, said,
“The last six years have seen continuous increasing pressure on school budgets. Austerity across local authority services has added to that pressure. Rising costs have meant that schools have to deliver much more with the same funding. This amounts to real cuts that ultimately have an impact on children’s education.
“Put simply – there is not enough money to deliver core services to an increasing school population made up of increasingly complex children – this is unsustainable and in the long term will have an impact on society.”
The letter which was sent out on the 21st of June, reads,
Dear parent/carer
I wanted to contact you to about school funding. Many Headteachers in Salford are sending out the same letter. Across the county over 7000 schools have also sent a similar letter.
Sadly, I have to confirm that despite intense lobbying of the Government and Department for Education, school budgets remain extremely challenging. In short, schools are still not getting the right funding to deliver the level of education and support that is expected and that our families and children deserve.
Current concerns
Since 2010 school budgets have been reduced in real terms by 8%.
Class sizes are rising and it is getting harder to maintain the range of experiences and sports currently offered
Schools support children’s emotional well-being, this support is being eroded due to poor levels of funding. Schools are struggling to maintain the level of support currently offered
Often, the most vulnerable students in our schools are bearing the brunt of cuts and schools are struggling to provide the levels of support that they are entitled to.
These issues are not simply affecting a few schools. They are common in schools up and down the country. Headteachers are so concerned that we are all working together on this issue.
In September 2018, over 2000 Headteachers campaigned at Westminster in order to underline the seriousness of the current situation. The ‘Worth Less?’ campaign group now has 64 Local Authorities and Boroughs, covering thousands of schools and millions of families. This gives a clear indication of the levels of concern felt by reasonable Headteachers in England.
We know that there is not a ‘bottomless pit’ of money and also know that many local MPs are taking a supportive approach. We must make clear, however, that the current response from the Department for Education is inadequate.
Headteacher colleagues and I, feel fortunate that we have been so strongly supported by parents and carers as we campaign for a better level of funding for our schools and pupils. We urge you to send messages to your local MP and to the Department for Education and wider Government to ensure that matters improve.
We will continue to inform you of the facts and to campaign vigorously over coming weeks and months. In the meantime, be assured [our school's] ‘can-do’ spirit will continue and we remain committed to offering the best education we can to our young people.
However, some have also highlighted that the considerable housing boom and population increase over the past few years has added to the problem and had a huge effect on the availability of school places in some areas. With more homes come more children and those children will put even more pressures on an education system that is already being hit hard. With plans to build hundreds of thousands of new homes across the whole of Greater Manchester in the coming years some argue that it is only a matter of time before the bubble burst and the whole system collapses.
It is estimated the bill across the country would come to at least £2.8 billion in order to just maintain funding in the face of inflation, increasing costs and the rise in pupil numbers.
Those hardest hit have been schools that deal with the most vulnerable students, many of which have special educational needs and disabilities. Support for them has been chipped away over a long period with funding becoming increasingly hard to access.
Photo: Buile Hill Visual Arts College, Salford.
Written by KARL on June 25
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© James Fortune. All rights reserved.
Johnny and Edgar Winter
TAGS: California, Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Los Angeles Forum, United States
Ashland, Virginia, United States of America
© James Fortune.
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Date Uploaded: Feb. 3, 2016, 8:54 a.m.
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No Border Sewage | Posted 02.01.10
Toxin probe eyes link to Tijuana
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Nearly six years ago, environmentalists and government officials on both sides of the border cheered as cleanup efforts began on the site of Metales y Derivados, a notorious former American-owned lead smelter in Tijuana whose neighbors long had complained of health problems, including birth defects, that they blamed on the toxic-waste site.
As part of an agreement, roughly 2,000 tons of lead-contaminated soil and other waste removed from the site was trucked north to the United States for disposal. As it turns out, some of it wound up in a Central California toxic-waste dump that is now at the center of controversy over a suspected cluster of birth defects in families living nearby.
The waste trucked in from Tijuana, about 20 tons in all, constitutes a minute fraction of the toxic materials deposited in a landfill just outside Kettleman City, an agricultural community off Interstate 5 halfway between Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Still, news of the health concerns there, which have prompted a state investigation, have those who pushed for the cleanup in Tijuana shaking their heads.
“We feel terrible,” said Amelia Simpson, director of the border environmental justice campaign with the Environmental Health Coalition in San Diego, which worked with the U.S. and Mexican governments on the cleanup. “It is another low-income community, and in this case, Latino.”
On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the California Department of Public Health and the state’s Environmental Protection Agency to send experts to Kettleman City to expand their investigation into what could be causing a higher-than-normal percentage of birth defects.
The state health department’s study is under way, with analyses of medical records for birth defects, cancer and asthma and monitoring of drinking water. The probe will include interviews with residents and reviews of soil samples, with initial findings expected to be made public Feb. 9.
According to a health survey that activists conducted in the small town, five of the 20 infants born between September 2007 and November 2008 to Kettleman City residents had a cleft palate or lip, and three of them have died.
“The question is, is there a cluster, and is there an environmental link?” said Al Lundeen, a spokesman for the state health department.
There was never an official study linking birth defects in Tijuana’s Ejido Chilpancingo, a poor residential area, to the adjacent Metales y Derivados site that sat exposed for years, long after the plant was closed.
“People never made a formal complaint because in our community, it is a stigma,” said Magdalena Cerda, a community organizer with the Environmental Health Coalition. “All of the cases we knew of, they kept them a secret.”
Cerda, who worked directly with residents near the Tijuana site, said health problems in the Chilpancingo community included cases of children born with hydrocephalus, an abnormal buildup of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain, and spina bifida, a defect in which the spinal canal and backbone do not close before birth.
Lead poisoning also interferes with development of the central nervous system and can cause learning and behavioral difficulties in children, who are particularly susceptible to the toxin.
Environmental activists have filed suit to stop a planned expansion of the Kettleman City site, which is owned by Chemical Waste Management Inc. and is believed to be the largest toxic-waste dump in the West.
While no one can say with certainty what is causing birth defects there, the director of the San Francisco-based environmental group Greenaction, which is involved in the lawsuit, said more monitoring of the site is needed.
“Monitoring is not what it needs to be, and we think the dump should never be expanded,” said Bradley Angel, executive director of the group.
Helen Herrera, a spokeswoman for Chemical Waste Management, said that the company supports the state’s health study but that there is no evidence linking the site to birth defects.
Metales y Derivados, which recycled vehicle and boat batteries brought in mostly from the United States, operated during the 1980s. The contamination was discovered in the early 1990s; in 1994, owner José Kahn moved to San Diego to avoid arrest after Mexican authorities shut down the business and tried to charge him with breaking environmental laws. Kahn has since died.
For years afterward, the property remained littered with 55-gallon drums and other containers filled with lead waste. More than a decade’s worth of efforts on behalf of environmental organizations on both sides of the border resulted in an agreement between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and its Mexican counterpart, Semarnat.
In June 2004, a portion of the waste from Metales y Derivados was sent to Kettleman City, according to a federal EPA report. As part of the binational cleanup deal, because Metales y Derivados was a U.S. company operating in Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the waste had to be removed to the country of origin. The rest of the roughly 2,000 tons of waste taken from the site and exported north went to a toxic-waste dump in Nevada.
More toxic waste would have been shipped back to the United States had it not been for the cost, said Saul Guzman, an official with Semarnat in Tijuana.
“That was the first solution, but it cost too much money,” Guzman said. “There was enough to move the first 2,000 tons, but there wasn’t enough money and we had to do what was most economically feasible.”
The alternate solution was to entomb an estimated 42,000 tons of remaining contaminated soil and waste beneath a concrete cap; about a year ago, a ceremony was held reopening the 4-acre site for use as a public park. The final cleanup cost was about $2 million, with the federal EPA contributing about $80,000.
By Leslie Berestein, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
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Anti-flu antibodies can inhibit two different viral proteins, NIH study reveals
Credit: Kosik et al., 2019
Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have discovered that antibodies that may form the basis of a universal flu vaccine inhibit a second viral protein in addition to the one that they bind. The study, to be published January 25 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, reveals that antibodies that recognize the viral surface protein hemagglutinin can also inhibit the viral neuraminidase, and that this enhances antibody neutralization of the virus and the activation of innate immune cells with anti-viral activity.
Hemagglutinin and neuraminidase are yin-yang proteins present on the surface of the influenza virus. The former mediates virion attachment and fusion with host cell membranes, while the latter is an enzyme that releases budding progeny virions from the cell surface that remain attached via the hemagglutinin binding.
Hemagglutinin consists of a head domain that contains the receptor binding site that attaches to host cell membranes and a stem domain that connects the head to the virion membrane. Current flu vaccines induce antibodies that recognize the hemagglutinin head and inhibit its ability to mediate viral entry. But the hemagglutinin head undergoes rapid mutation to escape existing antibodies. This generates vaccine-resistant strains of the influenza virus each year, necessitating the yearly mad dash to create a matched vaccine.
The hemagglutinin stem domain, in contrast, is far more resistant to mutations, providing a target for universal flu vaccines, as has been shown by dozens of studies in animal models.
“Hemagglutinin stem-specific antibodies are perhaps the most promising approach for improving the duration and effectiveness of influenza vaccination,” write the authors of the study, which was led by Jonathan W. Yewdell, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health. “It is therefore critical to better understand how anti-stem antibodies provide protection from the virus.”
Stem-binding antibodies can block viral entry into host cells by inhibiting hemagglutinin cell fusion activity, but as Yewdell’s lab reports, they also inhibit the release of newly replicated virions by blocking neuraminidase molecules in close proximity to hemagglutinin on the virion.
Experiments in mice confirmed that the ability of anti-stem antibodies to inhibit neuraminidase enabled animals to better survive a severe influenza infection. Yewdell and colleagues think that this effect may be largely due to the role that neuraminidase normally plays in preventing the activation of innate immune cells with anti-viral activity. In support of this idea, the researchers found that the FDA-approved neuraminidase inhibitor oseltamivir (Tamiflu) further boosted the ability of anti-stem antibodies to activate immune cells exposed to influenza virus.
“The ability of neuraminidase inhibitors to enhance… immune cell activation [by anti-stem antibodies] bound to viruses or infected cells suggests the possible clinical synergy between neuraminidase inhibitors and [anti-stem antibodies] in humans,” the authors write. In addition, this new understanding of how anti-stem antibodies exert their protective effects should aid the design of universal flu vaccines targeting the hemagglutinin stem domain.
Kosik et al., 2019. J. Exp. Med. http://jem.rupress.org/cgi/doi/10.1084/jem.20181624?PR
About the Journal of Experimental Medicine
The Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM) features peer-reviewed research on immunology, cancer biology, stem cell biology, microbial pathogenesis, vascular biology, and neurobiology. All editorial decisions are made by research-active scientists in conjunction with in-house scientific editors. JEM makes all of its content free online no later than six months after publication. Established in 1896, JEM is published by Rockefeller University Press. For more information, visit jem.org.
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Ben Short
http://dx.doi.org/10.1084/jem.20181624
Immunology/Allergies/AsthmaInfectious/Emerging DiseasesMedicine/HealthPublic HealthPulmonary/Respiratory MedicineVaccinesVirology
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HHG3-58
Main Page The Household of God Volume 3 HHG3-58 ← Chapter →
58,1. After, however, Lamech had fully recognized the Lord in the wise Man, he wanted to begin to shout to all the people to announce to them the most holy presence of the Lord of heaven and earth.
58,2. But the Lord said to him: "Lamech, don’t do what you want to do but think for yourself: If it would be good and necessary to do this, I would certainly not refrain from doing it Myself!
58,3. But it would cost the already very excited people their life, what could not be avoided under the present order of things.
58,4. Therefore we want to safe such useless work for more favorable times; in time, however, if I have to leave you again, you can announce Me to the people and refer to this My presence.
58,5. But for now I'll stay only as a wise Man for a short time among you, so that no one should have a killing judgement in Me in his free soul.
58,6. But what you can do now consists therein that you go out and ask the people to get up, so that they do not have to lie for longer on the ground and keep worshiping in their still strong blindness the image of the radiant heart, as if it was a figurative presentation of the highest, all-wisest God.
58,7. Explain to them this image as revealed to you in truth and the people should understand you and in a completely sober state, give Me, God the Lord, in their hearts an equitable praise!
58,8. See, this is a righteous task; go and do it and then come back again, and after the work is done one can rest well! Amen."
58,9. And Lamech went to carry out what the Lord advised him to do. But when he started in his own way to instruct the people to rise from the ground, behold, no one moved and all remained rigidly lying on the ground as before when he had not instructed them to rise from the ground.
58,10. This occurrence made Lamech anxious and he thought by himself: "What shall I do now, so not to return inside the temple to the Lord empty-handed and be a major embarrassment? - I want to grab each one under the arms and will raise him before the Lord and will then tell him what I have to tell him!"
58,11. Thought and done! But unfortunately to no avail; for as many he rose, as many fell to the ground again in their previous positions like deep sleepers.
58,12. This second occurrence made Lamech feel even more embarrassment; but he thought: "I want to go to my own family members; they will follow my words if they are still alive!"
58,13. He did so; but also there his efforts were in vain. But now he ran out of options, except for going straight back into the temple to the Lord and to Enoch empty-handed; but Lamech was in for a major surprise when he could not find neither Enoch nor the Lord anymore!
58,14. This was just a little too much for our Lamech. At first he was near to despair; but after quite a while he said to himself: "So it will be the Lord's will, and therefore let it be how He wants it!
58,15. That I was not able to accomplish anything I can’t help it; for what I did, I did to the best of my ability. But that I can work no wonder the Lord certainly also knows.
58,16. But I nevertheless want to do something and go and look for them among the sleeping people! If I find them there, I want indeed praise and laud God henceforth; and if I don’t find them anymore, I will sacrifice everything to the Lord and then also go to bed!"
58,17. And so he went out and sought for the two - but also in vain; for they were not among the people.
58,18. Lamech was now seriously frightened so that he began to weep. Saddened he went into the temple and was lying down beside the altar and tried to fall asleep; but he was not able to do so because of his great fear and sadness.
58,19. And so seven long hours passed; but no one woke up and neither the Lord nor Enoch reappeared.
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Travesties
1227 seat photos, 2063 reviews
Travesties has closed
The smash hit production of Travesties, which enjoyed a hugely popular sold out run at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2016, transferred to the Apollo Theatre in London’s West End for a strictly 12 week run which ran from 3rd February 2017.
After breaking box office records, becoming the quickest selling play ever at the Menier Chocolate Factory, entirely selling out even before it had its first preview, this revival of Tom Stoppard’s classic play received a welcomed move to the West End in 2017.
Travesties was first performed at the Aldwych Theatre in 1974 and featured John Wood and John Hurt in the lead roles before transferring to New York. The play received rave reviews, winning the New York Drama Critic’s Circle Award for Best Play, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy.
The play tells the story of Henry Carr, an old man who recollects his time in Zurich in 1917 during the First World War and his meetings with James Joyce during the writing of Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada and Lenin in the build up to the Russian Revolution, all of which were living in the city at that time.
Travesties featured Tom Hollander in the lead role of Henry Carr. Hollander is one of the country’s most prolific actors, having a hugely varied career that has encompassed everything from comedic roles such as in the Hollywood blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean and British political satire In The Loop to having leading roles in period dramas such as Pride and Prejudice and Gosford Park.
Hollander’s career is not only confined to the screen however having first made his name winning the 1992 Ian Charleson Award for his performance as Witwoud in The Way Of The World at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. His other acclaimed roles have also included George Feydeau in A Flea in Her Ear at the Old Vic and Khlestakov in The Government Inspector at the Almeida Theatre.
The cast also featured Amy Morgan (Red Velvet, The Beaux Stratagem and The Broken Heart) as Gwendolen Carr and Freddie Fox (Romeo & Juliet, The Judas Kiss and Hay Fever) as Tristan Tzara.
This production marked over twenty years since Tom Stoppard’s work was last seen on the West End stage. Stoppard is often thought of as one of the greatest dramatists of our generation, having won four Tony Awards, an Academy Award and even a knighthood in recognition of his work. His career has spanned over fifty years and have included a range of hugely popular plays such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Rock N Roll and Arcadia.
Travesties was one of the most exciting West End transfers of 2017, giving fans who missed out on the original run of this hugely popular revival of Stoppard’s classic play the opportunity to see it. Travesties opened at the Apollo Theatre on 3rd February 2017 for a strictly limited 12 week run and closed on 29th April 2017.
Travesties is highly recommended for anyone who wanted to see it at the Menier Chocolate Factory after reading the rave reviews it received, however could not get tickets for its spectacular sold out run. Stoppard fans may want to make a double bill of this Stoppard revival with another, as Daniel Radcliffe will also star in a new version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Old Vic in early 2017.
Age Recommendations: Not recommended for young children
Opened: 03 Feb 2017
Press night: 15 Feb 2017
Booking from: 28 Apr 2017
Booking until: 29 Apr 2017
London, W1D 7EZ
37 Reviews Add review
This intelligent but baffling play is Tom Stoppard at his finest. I have mixed feeling towards Stoppard as his quality of work can... More
braintree 155cm, 64 reviews, 6 helpful votes
Stellar performances from Tom Hollander and Freddie Fox as the muddled Henry Carr and flamboyant Tristan Tzara. It definitely helps... More
susannahrosemn 5"3, 145 reviews, 6 helpful votes
Fantastic play. Stoppard's writing is incredibly fast paced and hilarious. Despite being about Lenin, Joyce and Tzara it doesn't fall... More
shaun 5"10, 146 reviews, 4 helpful votes
I really enjoyed this show. I wasn't really sure at first and it took until just before the interval for me to get what was going on... More
fifilou 5"7, 175 reviews, 6 helpful votes
A stunning production of a masterpiece of a play. Hilarious in parts, poignant in others, and constantly brilliant performances from... More
jgblunners 6'2", 188 reviews, 4 helpful votes
Excellent. Very surreal, but wonderfully funny in places. The cast and direction were superb. Very enjoyable afternoon.
dickymail121 6'0, 23 reviews, 0 helpful votes
Outstanding revival of a great play, masterfully directed and performed by a sensational cast.
sondheimkid 170, 173 reviews, 25 helpful votes
Complex, intelligent play: you have to pay attention but you're amply rewarded. Oh, and it's very funny.
palelylaura 5'10", 140 reviews, 10 helpful votes
The first 10 minutes appear completely nonsensical but stick with it and it is both brilliantly hilarious and politically astute. A... More
emilydiver 5"0, 261 reviews, 16 helpful votes
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Archive for american horror story
Dark Musings: Queer Contributions in Horror Fiction (An Incomplete Thesis)
Posted in Dark Musings with tags american horror story, bram stoker, clive barker, dark musings, fw murnau, henry james, horror, james whale, lgbt, mary shelley, oscar wilde, penny dreadful, smucky's grave, social commentary on February 22, 2016 by smuckyproductions
I’ve rattled this notion around in my head for some time, and though I don’t have a fully-formed argument yet, I have mused long enough to know that I’m not wrong. There is not enough conversation about queer contributions to the horror genre.
Perhaps because there isn’t a blatant, obvious, easy connection. But if one looks under the surface, there are lines drawn everywhere. Historically, an impressive number of contributions have been made to the horror genre by rumored or open queer people.
Mary Shelley – with encouragement from her husband, known to be bisexual, and who may have been bisexual herself – wrote “Frankenstein,” the tale a repulsive creature who just wants love. Bram Stoker, rumored to be gay, brought “Dracula” – an undeniably sensual monster who sucks the blood (by penetrating their flesh! Come on!) of other men. Oscar Wilde created what must be the first openly bisexual devil, Dorian Gray, in a novel about the excess of desire. Even Henry James, long rumored to be bi- or even a-sexual, weaved the horrific story of a governess battling morally deviant spirits to save the innocence of her wards.
It doesn’t stop at classic literature. Two of the best horror films from the early days of cinema, “Frankenstein” and “Nosferatu,” were directed by gay men. Is it any coincidence that both films adapt works mentioned above? With one monster hunting blindly for love that is never returned, and the other a pestilential nightmare that sucks people’s vitality while they sleep (predating the terror of contaminated blood during the AIDs epidemic), I think it’s hard to deny the connection. The trend continues into modern culture – with Clive Barker’s “Books of Blood” and the revolutionary “Hellraiser,” which is a dark hymn to ‘unnatural’ sex; even to popular TV shows, like “Penny Dreadful” and “American Horror Story,” which explore queer identities in a much more open light.
These sexually ‘aberrant’ individuals, forced into hiding because of the prejudiced societies in which they find themselves, created works of fiction about beings seen as abject and dangerous, as freaks. In the confines of those stories, they are undoubtedly monsters. But the idea transfers to the way societies project gay identities. As unnatural, as other, and perhaps as deadly. In one way or another, gay people become monsters.
Authors and filmmakers tell stories for many reasons, but a major one is the need to purge emotions – often devastating, unstated. It makes sense that artists who grapple with identity would write about monsters. The ‘heroes’ who battle the beast are not created in the artist’s own image – it is the beast itself that becomes the mirror.
Horror, too, is one of the most unconsciously cathartic genres in all of fiction. It engages a part of the brain that no one wants to activate in reality – primal instincts of terror, danger, and flight from death – but it does so in a controlled environment where no danger is actually present. Thus, it releases emotion that otherwise would boil and rage unchecked.
So, is it an accident that these queer artists gravitated toward horror? Of course it isn’t a universal trend. It is present enough, though, that I think it deserves recognition. In a community that struggles with self-loathing and self-disgust even today, in our supposedly liberated world, these releases of emotion are necessary. To see a monster on screen or in print and understand its origin, its heart, is to find a piece of one’s self, and give it a name.
Best TV Shows to Binge Watch in October
Posted in Halloween with tags american horror story, binge watch, cartoon network, courage the cowardly dog, fox, fx, Halloween, hbo, horror, october, penny dreadful, review, showtime, smucky's grave, tales from the crypt, television, the x files, tv on October 10, 2015 by smuckyproductions
We’re in full swing this month, gathering costumes and setting out the queue for dreadful movie nights to celebrate the spirit. With an influx of horror on TV now, there’s much more content to explore this season – but how to do pick out the true terror from the trend-following bile?
From classic chills to modern grotesqueries, here are a few spine-tingling shows to immerse yourself in as the autumn winds rise.
HBO, beloved still for Game of Thrones and True Detective, still made a killing in the 90s with this nasty, grimy, and hilarious anthology. Introduced by our favorite pun-loving corpse, the Crypt Keeper, each episode told a different story of bad people meeting worse ends – and always with a crazy twist. The celebrity cameos from actors soon to be famous (think Steve Buscemi) are also gloriously fun. This show set the tone for gory comedic horror, and its black humor still resonates just as disturbingly now.
This one might be a little controversial – but it’s undeniably perfect for October. Full of grand Gothic castles, baroque camerawork and a legion of legendary creatures, not to mention literal buckets of gore, “Penny Dreadful” holds its own. It’s a lot of fun for its faithful adaptations of classic Victorian horror (I’ve rarely seen a more authentic, brooding Frankenstein’s monster), but it’s also intelligent, and packs an emotional punch with its characters. For a bit of high-brow horror that doesn’t skimp on gore, this show is perfect.
I know, I know. Many self-respecting horror fans despise this show for its soap opera tendencies and complete lack of plot. But it’s hard to deny that this is a veritable funhouse of different horrors. Watching a season is like walking through a sprawling haunted house attraction – there’s aliens, ghosts, devils, mutants, zombies, witches, everything under the moon. On top of that, the camerawork is stunning, and the acting… it’s hard to find a better ensemble on television. Don’t expect pure horror, but on many other levels, this show delivers.
We all got nightmares from this one as kids. And now that it’s on Netflix, we can have nightmares again. This show is amazing for its bold animated vision, and its willingness to show its young audience something far darker than most shows dare to try. It’s truly disturbing, but in such a wacky way that you can laugh… or can you? Childhood traumas aside, this show proves that you don’t need to be R-rated to be scary.
Not all of the episodes are suitable for Halloween, but this show goes down in history as one of the most consistently frightening on television. There are several episodes that made me afraid of the dark. Whether you want alien conspiracies or just a good monster of the week, Mulder and Scully always stumble upon something chilling, and often the horror goes unresolved – as any fans of Lovecraft know, that is the surest way to keep your audience scared. With the revival coming next year, it’s a must to watch this one. The truth is still out there.
There are a few honorable mentions – The Twilight Zone, Twin Peaks, American Gothic, and Gravity Falls – that don’t quite say ‘Halloween’ to me, or that I haven’t seen yet, but are worth bringing up as genius genre television. If I missed any others, let me know. And happy horror viewing, ghouls.
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Medieval, Early Modern and Colonial Hispanic Studies Research Group
Medieval, Early Modern and Colonial Hispanic Studies Research Group (MEM)
MEM was founded in Spring 2006 by Professors Catherine Larson, Steven Wagschal, and Juan Carlos Conde (now at Oxford University). We host lectures, colloquia, and symposia to promote the interchange of ideas between scholars in the U.S., the Americas, and Europe, and work to enhance the Hispanic culture and literature research of our own graduate students and faculty. Our current membership includes six faculty and ten graduate students.
Contact Professors Ryan Giles or Steve Wagschal for more information.
These events were sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Medieval and Early Modern and Colonial Hispanic Studies Research Group. They represent presentations on research in this area.
Perspectives on Early Modern Theater: A Symposium in Honor of Professor Catherine Larson’s Retirement
Perspectives on Early Modern Theater: A Symposium in Honor of Professor Catherine Larson’s Retirement. The symposium featured three alumni speakers: Mindy Badia, Ph.D. 1996 (Associate Professor, Indiana University Southeast), Robert Bayliss, Ph.D. 2003 (Associate Professor, University of Kansas), Anthony Grubbs, Ph.D. 2005 (Associate Professor, Michigan State University).
“Unbounded Speech: Performance, Manuscripts, and the Libro de buen amor (Book of Good Love).”
“Unbounded Speech: Performance, Manuscripts, and the Libro de buen amor (Book of Good Love).” A lecture by Professor Denise Filios, Associate Professor, University of Iowa.
Transcultural Food: What Cervantes’ Writing Reveals about New World-Old World Exchanges
Transcultural Food: What Cervantes’ Writing Reveals about New World-Old World Exchanges. A lecture by Professor Carolyn Nadeau, Bryron S. Tucci Professor of Spanish, Illinois Wesleyan University.
Abstract: As food travelled into Spain from the Americas we witness a key stage of transculturation that laid the groundwork for revolutionizing Spanish cuisine.
“The Gathering Storm: Pre-Expulsion Converso Apologia in Castile 1391-1492."
“The Gathering Storm: Pre-Expulsion Converso Apologia in Castile 1391-1492." A lecture by Commonweath Professor E. Michael Gerli of Spanish at the University of Virginia.
Abstract: The lecture examines the writings of new converts (conversos) to Christianity in the crucial, turbulent years following the fourteenth-century waves of mass conversion and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, leading to the expulsion of Sephardic Jews in late medieval Spain.
“Sensory Worlds: Iberian Empires and The Other Senses Symposium”
October 4th and 5th, 2013
“Sensory Worlds: Iberian Empires and The Other Senses Symposium.” The two-day event consisted of four panels and three lectures, with a total of fourteen presenters from eleven different universities in the U.S. and Canada. The symposium’s goal was to explore the ways in which Iberian writers crafted images to describe sensory perceptions of Old and New Worlds, both real and imagined. While previous research has tended to focus on the visual, invited speakers and panelists were asked to explore the ways in which medieval and early modern texts produced, activated, and continue to indulge the other senses—from the standpoint of philosophical and aesthetic insights, as well as modern approaches to cognition.
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About SPARC
Tuesday, March 24, 2015 News
NSF Releases Incremental Plan for Public Access
Open Access · Open Data
By Heather Joseph
Last week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released its plan to establish policies to ensure public access to articles and data resulting from its funded research, as required by the February 2013 White House directive. The plan calls for researchers to deposit final accepted manuscripts (or published articles) into the Department of Energy’s “PAGES” repository – a dark archive – with public access to be provided via links to publisher’s websites. All articles will be made available to the public no later than 12 months after publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Notably, the NSF plan will extend to papers published in “juried conference proceedings,” as well as peer-reviewed journals, and the agency notes it intends to eventually include other types of NSF-supported grey literature and educational materials under the final policy.
The timing of deposit for articles is not yet specified, though many other agencies are using the date of acceptance in a journal as the trigger event for deposit. The NSF plan is calling for researchers to deposit articles in PDF/A format, but does not indicate if other structured markup formats (such as XML) required by many of the other agencies, will also be supported.
The NSF plan doesn’t elaborate on reuse rights for articles. However, since access to the majority of NSF-funded articles will be provided through proprietary publisher web sites, they will be subject to whatever copyright and related license terms are imposed by individual publishers. No indication of how the kinds of productive reuse (computation, text and data mining etc.) set out by the White House Directive will be facilitated by this arrangement.
The NSF plan specifically notes that the distributed nature of access across a wide number of publisher websites makes bulk downloading (a prerequisite for effective computation and mining) “inherently difficult.” The plan points out that investigators will be allowed to “follow the links to full-text and build a collection appropriate for analysis subject to the rights associated with the content,” in essence, continuing the status quo.
NSF indicates that it will provide a mechanism for stakeholders to petition the agency to change the required embargo period. Specifically, the plan notes that any such petitions should present “factually and statistically-based evidence that a change will more effectively promote the quality and sustainability of scholarly publications, while meeting the objectives of public access.”
NSF funded investigators will eventually be required to ensure that they report successful deposit of articles and juried conference reports as a part of the agencies annual and final grant reporting process., and compliance will be monitored by “Cognizant Program Officers.”
In terms of ensuring access to NSF-funded research data, the agency was an early leader in requiring investigators requesting funding to submit a Data Management Plan (DMP) outlining their plans for managing and providing access to research data, or else to provide a rationale why their research can not or need not be made available. The new NSF plan calls for this requirement to remain in place and does not outline any immediate significant changes to the current requirements – although it does indicate that the agency will continue to explore ways to refine and improve this process.
The NSF plan lays out an incremental approach. The agency indicates that a mechanism to support voluntary deposit of articles will be in place by the end of 2015, and that they expect to implement a mandatory system sometime in 2016.
The plan also indicates that the NSF is aware of other potential partners and solutions for ensuring effective public access, and may pursue future arrangements with them, initiating discussions “as early as FY16…”
While the NSF plan is clearly still a work in progress, the agency notes that an additional, 60-day opportunity for public comment will be presented to the community via the Federal Register – most likely in April.
Academic alliance welcomes FASTR fair access act in USA
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Classic Hip Hop playlists by Serato DJs
Classic Hip Hop
DJ Gee-O Supreme | DJ Gee-O Supreme Throwbacks 25 (4th of July BBQ Edition) 04 Jul 2019 Hip-Hop, Rap, Mixed Genre, Electronic, R&B, Instrumental, Break & Sample Originals, Rap & Hip-hop, Classic Hip-hop, Psychedelic Rock, Pop-rock, Funk, Soul, Jazz, Pop, Rock Ft Lauderdale, Florida, United States of America See playlist
MOFO | THE CRATEZ SHOW #25 01 Nov 2018 Future Soul, Hip-Hop, Classic Hip-hop, Funk, Chill-out, Trip Hop, Dub BRISBANE, Australia See playlist
DJ Pr1MeTiME | Shadows in the Alley 04 Aug 2018 Rap, Hip-Hop, Classic Hip-hop Baltimore, Md, United States of America See playlist
DJ SCOOTS | Bay Area Classics 06 Jan 2018 Bay Area, Hip Hop Rap Hip-hop, Classic Hip-hop, Rap, Party United States of America See playlist
DJ Gee-O Supreme | DJ Gee-O Supreme Throwbacks 20 10 Aug 2017 Rap, Rap & Hip-hop, Hip-Hop, Rap & Hip Hop, Mixed Genre, Instrumental, J-hiphop, Underground Hip-hop, B-boy, Blues, Classic Hip-hop, Library Music Margate, FLORIDA, United States of America See playlist
SoHoDutch | Sunday Vibes 23 Apr 2017 Reggae, R&B, Electronic, Dance, Classic Hip-hop, Pop, Alternative, Rhythm Urban, Hip-Hop, Hip.hop, Urban, Soul, Rap, Reggae Fusion, Alternative Rock, Blues, Soca, B&g Intro, Rythmic Top 40, Country, Motown, Latin, House, Jazz Hip-hop, Salsa, Funkymix, Big Band, Club, Rock, Brazilian Sunday Vibes, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America See playlist
SoHoDutch | Sunday Vibes 09 Apr 2017 Pop, Alternative, R&B, Soul, Country, Hip-Hop, Rap, Dancehall, Latin, Latin Urban, Rock & Roll, Electronic, Dance, House, Jazz, Classic Hip-hop, Rhythm Urban, Latino, Urban, Salsa Y Tropical, Top 40, Motown, Calypso, Reggae, Africa, Club, Alternative Rock, Reggaeton Y Hip-hop, Rock, Funk Sunday Vibes - Art Cafe + Bar, Brooklyn, New York, United States of America See playlist
DjFound | Mixtape Pt.3 24 Feb 2017 Underground Hip Hop, Hip-Hop, Rap, Rap & Hip-hop, Classic Hip-hop Greece See playlist
DJ GEE-O SUPREME | DJ Gee-O Supreme Throwbacks 15 23 Feb 2017 Hip-Hop, Blues, Rap, Unknown, Classic Hip-hop, Rap & Hip-hop Gee-O Podcast, Margate, FLORIDA, United States of America See playlist
SoHoDutch | Art Cafe & Bar 21 Feb 2017 Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, Dance, Soul, Jazz, Rap, Rhythm Urban, Salsa Y Tropical, Electronic, House, Rock, Soundtrack, Motown, Brazilian, Classic Hip-hop, Top 40 Art Cafe + Bar, Brooklyn 11238, New York, United States of America See playlist
SoHoDutch | Night Grooves Vol 3 06 Feb 2017 Reggae, R&B, Soul, Salsa Y Tropical, Pop, Rap, Hip-Hop, Reggaeton Pop, Classic Hip-hop, Dance & Dj, Dance Crown Heights Radio, Brooklyn 11238, New York, United States of America See playlist
DJ GEE-O SUPREME | 6/1/17 18 Jan 2017 Hip-Hop, Rap, Electronic, Fusion, Drum & Bass, Grime, Rap & Hip-hop, Alternative, Soundtrack, Electro, рэп, хип-хоп, Instrumental, Jazz, Ost, Fushion, Bass, Mashup, Dubstep, Blues, Classic Hip-hop, R&B, Dance, Trap, Experimental, Various, Beats And Soul United States of America See playlist
SohoDutch | Lunchtime Series - MLK 2017 16 Jan 2017 R&B, Classic Hip-hop, Hip-Hop, Rap, Soul, Dance, Hip-hop/rap Crown Heights Radio, Brooklyn 11238, New York, United States of America See playlist
SoHoDutch | DJ Mix Set and Wedding 17 Dec 2016 Dance, Hip-Hop, Rap, Classic Hip-hop, Soundtrack, Alternative Rock, Oldies, Alternrock, Crooners, Reggaeton Y Hip-hop, Vocal, Pop-folk, R&B, Wedding Crown Heights Radio, Brooklyn 11238, New York, United States of America See playlist
Wreck | 23/11/2016 23 Nov 2016 Hip Hop/rap, Hip-Hop, Underground Hip Hop, Classic Hip-hop Hip Hop Vibe show, United Kingdom See playlist
DJ DeeMDee | ON TRACK 2016-03-20 20 Mar 2016 Hip-Hop, Rap, Pop, Classic Hip-hop, Jazz, Blues, Funk, Lo-fi, Qc_rap Canada See playlist
Reggie Beas | 11/17/15 17 Nov 2015 Smooth R&b, Classic Hip-hop Everett 02149, Massachusetts, United States of America See playlist
DJ O.G.ONE | REMEMBER THE TIME MIX SESSION II - 8/20/15 20 Aug 2015 Hip-Hop, Classic Hip-hop, Old School, 90's R&b, Remixes, R&B, Bay Slaps & La Claps! Barrel Room PDX, Portland, Oregon, United States of America See playlist
DJ O.G.ONE | REMEMBER THE TIME MIX SESSION 1 - 7/23/15 23 Jul 2015 90's Hip Hop, Hip-Hop, R&B, Classic Hip-hop, Funk, Soul Barrel Room, Portland, Oregon, United States of America See playlist
Casio CoPilot | 2015-01-20 20 Jan 2015 Hip-Hop, Classic Hip-hop Afghanistan See playlist
Majik | 8/2/14 02 Aug 2014 R&B, Hip-Hop, Reggae, Remix, Dirty South, Av8, Go-go, 2000s Hip Hop, Steppers, 90's Old School, Blends, Mash-ups, Party Anthem, Twerk, Classic Hip-hop, Birthday, Party Break, Urban, Twerk Remix, Trap Grove Park Bar & Lounge, Durham 27704, NC, United States of America See playlist
Dj Kmatic | 28/07/2014 28 Jul 2014 Hip-Hop, Rap & Hip-hop, Classic Hip-hop, Hip-hop Classic United Kingdom See playlist
DJ Kmatic | 10/07/2014 10 Jul 2014 Classic Hip-hop, Hip-Hop, Rap United Kingdom See playlist
randomplaynz | Revelry Throwback Thursday 08 May 2014 Pop, R&B, Reggae, Rap, Rock, Funk, Hip-Hop, Dance, New Wave, Classic Hip-hop, Mash Hop, Disco, 80's New Zealand See playlist
Dj HoBo | The Soup Kitchen (Jan_3 2014) 03 Jan 2014 Hip-Hop, Rap, Live Dj Set, Mixtape, Classic Hip-hop www.tttradio.net, United States of America See playlist
Dj HoBo | The Soup Kitchen (Dec_20 2013) 20 Dec 2013 Hip-Hop, Rap, Underground Hip-hop, Classic Hip-hop www.tttradio.net, United States of America See playlist
Dj HoBo | The Soup Kitchen (Dec_13 2013) 13 Dec 2013 Hip-Hop, Rap, Classic Hip-hop, 90's Hip-hop www.tttradio.net, United States of America See playlist
Randomplay | Guilty Pleasures Set @ Chapel 13 Dec 2013 Funk, Dance, Remix, Reggae, Funky Breaks, R&B, Rap, Soul, Classic Hip-hop, Mashup, House, Remixes, Pop New Zealand See playlist
DJ Brian Daze | 11/22/13 22 Nov 2013 Pop, Top 40, R&B, Hip-Hop, Dance, Rap & Hip-hop, Rap, Transition, Classic Hip-hop Filling Station, Powell, Ohio, United States of America See playlist
DJ Brian Daze | 6/21/13 Filling Station 21 Jun 2013 Rap & Hip-hop, Rock, Alternative Rock, Hip-hop (south), Mashup, Top 40, Segway, Intros, Downtempo, Hip-Hop, Transitions, Classic Hip-hop, General Hip Hop, Club Filling Station, Powell, Ohio, United States of America See playlist
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Kim to Putin: 'I Wish You Success in Building a Powerful Russia'
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un congratulated Russia on its national day.
TOKYO (Sputnik) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has greeted Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian people on the occasion of Russia Day on Monday.
"Please accept my heartfelt congratulations to you and your people on the occasion of the Russia Day national holiday…. I wish you success in your responsible work of building a powerful Russia, of protecting its security and interests for the sake of the welfare and prosperity of your people," Kim said, as quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
© Photo: Frank Herfort
Scenes From Everyday Life in Russia Turned Into Fairy Tales
Kim added that the relations between Russia and North Korea have a long history, and expressed hope that the traditions of friendship between the two countries would be further strengthen.
In 1992, the Supreme Soviet of Russia passed a resolution designating June 12 a public holiday and a non-working day in honor of the adoption of the declaration on the state sovereignty of Russia. On that day in 1990, the first Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic adopted a declaration on the republic’s sovereignty within the Soviet Union.
Putin Presents State Awards in Science, Arts in Kremlin on Russia Day
Iranian President Offers Best Wishes to Putin for Russia Day
Putin Calls 'Russian Day in World' Social, Cultural Event of Int'l Importance
Armenian President Sargsyan Congratulates Russian People on National Day
Russia Day, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK), Russia
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The Naval Game Torpedo Attack (Торпедная Атака)
Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines in St. Petersburg, Russia
Maybe you’ve heard of Pacman, Donkey Kong, and Space Invaders, but what about Rally Авторалли-М), The Humpbacked Horse (Конек Горбунок), and Torpedo Attack (Торпед Атака)? While Americans were shoving quarters into arcade machines to play game after game, those in the Soviet Union were dropping in 15 kopecks in just the same way.
A few friends and I learned about The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines (Музей советских игровых автоматов) from a SRAS ‘things to do’ list and decided to try out the Soviet arcade experience. Once you enter the place, ‘museum’ seems to be bit of a misnomer for it. When we visited, there was rocking retro music, two boys yelling in excitement about the latest score in their foosball (table soccer/football) game, and a man getting frustrated with another ‘game over’. This is no normal museum. While a museum-goer could, in theory, just look at the machines and read the information (available in both Russian and English), I simply wouldn’t advise missing out on playing the games. With admission comes a small box of 15 kopeck pieces so visitors can get a first-hand experience playing these games.
Matchbox of 15-kopek pieces included with price of admission.
The games range from big-game hunting and commanding a naval fleet to hockey, racing, and horseback riding. There were plenty of game types to choose from: standing digital arcade machines, foosball-esque table games, and pinball. We jumped from game to game. Some, such as The Humpbacked Horse, are single-player games; in this one, you control a boy and his steed jumping over obstacles and fighting back nasty wolves. Our favorite game was simply titled hockey (Хоккей). In this two-player table game, each player controls 5 players and a goalie. Each player moves back and forth with the handles and then spins around by spinning the knob. This game proved to be just as challenging as it was fun, as we spun our skaters around and around to try to slap the ‘puck’ (a small ball) into the net.
The big-game-hunting arcade game “Good Shooting” (“Удачный Выстрел”)
The games were just a part of what turned out to be a happening place. There was also a ping-pong table, chess boards, a good-sized seating area with cartoons being shown, retro kvass and soda water machines, and a full cafe. There were also plenty of people just hanging out on their laptops or doing school work. The museum’s website has great in-depth information on all of the machines, including pictures of the machines being repaired and some recreations of the games that you can play at home.
Entrance to the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines
The Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines turned out to be much, much more than just a museum. It was a retro arcade hangout, and I will certainly be visiting again during my time in St. Petersburg. Gamers and other competitive people will love this museum tucked away in the center of St. Petersburg.
Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines – St. Petersburg, Russia
Konyushennaya Square, 2B (Санкт-Петербург, Конюшенная площадь, 2 лит В)
Hours of Operation: Everyday, 11am – 8pm
Time Spent: 2-3 Hours
Cost of Entry: 450RUB ($7.25) or 350RUB with student ID ($5.50)
Websites: Russian: 15kop.ru; English: 15kop.ru/en/
Bushe, Cafe in St. Petersburg, Russ... Sand Sculptures at Peter Paul Fortr...
James Taylor is a Junior studying Software Engineering and Linguistics, with a minor in Russian Studies, at Iowa State University. During his summer abroad in St. Petersburg, he hopes to greatly improve his language skills and learn a lot about the culture (and food!). His study abroad experience will contribute to his future goals of combining his love for software, linguistics, and Russian to work in the field of computer assisted language learning.
View all posts by: James Taylor
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By Judith Schumacher-Jennings
Shortly after Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal, Donald Trump tweeted:
“I think it is very important for the Democrats to press forward with their Green New Deal. It would be great for the so-called ‘Carbon Footprint’ to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military – even if no other country would do the same. Brilliant!”
The Green New Deal resolution begins:
“Whereas the October 2018 report entitled ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C’ by the (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the November 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment report (mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990 signed into law by President George H.W. Bush) found that – human activity is the dominant cause of observed climate change over the past century.
“A changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and an increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts, and other extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure. Global warming at or above two (2) degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrialized levels will cause mass migration from the regions most affected by climate change; more than $500 billion in lost annual economic output in the United States by the year 2100.
“Wildfires that, by 2050, will annually burn at least twice as much forest area in the western United States than was typically burned by wildfires in the years preceding 2019; a loss of more than 99 percent of all coral reefs on Earth. More than 350 million more people to be exposed globally to deadly heat stress by 2050, and a risk of damage to $1 trillion of public infrastructure and coastal real estate in the United States…”
The Green New Deal proposes:
• building resiliency against climate change-related disasters
• repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States
• meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable and zero-emission energy sources
• upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort and durability
• spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible
• working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible
• overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible
• removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and reforestation
• restoring and protecting threatened, endangered and fragile ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency
• cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites
• promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding and services, with the aim of making the United States the international leader on climate action, and to help other countries achieve a Green New Deal
Mark Z. Jacobson is a Stanford University civil and environmental engineering professor and co-founder of The Solutions Project and 100.org. He said 100 percent renewable goals for energy are technically and economically possible to achieve. The major obstacles are social and political.
A 15-year-old Swedish environmental activist, Greta Thunberg, addressed the United Nations COP24 conference in Poland last December. She said, “You say you love your children above all else. Yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes. Until you start focusing on what needs to be done rather than what’s politically possible, there is no hope. We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis.”
In January, she addressed conferees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She said, “At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag.”
Thunberg added, “Yes, we are failing, but there is still time to turn everything around — we can still fix this. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”
A Few Political Reactions
A group of young people visited Senator Diane Feinstein in February asking for her support of the Green New Deal.
Feinstein told them: “You know what’s interesting about this group? I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I know what I’m doing. You come in here, and it has to be my way or the highway. I don’t respond to that. I’ve gotten elected. I just ran. I was elected by almost a million-vote plurality. I know what I’m doing. So, maybe people should listen a little bit.” Further she pointed out that she has seven grandchildren.
2020 Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren support the Green New Deal.
Gillibrand said, “The way I see a green economy is this: I think we need a moonshot.”
Courtesy of Rossmoor News March 27, 2019. Email Judith Schumacher-Jennings at sjmadrone@sonic.net
It’s Time to Move Toward a Plant-Based Diet → ← July SR Movie: WOMAN AT WAR
One thought on “A Closer Look at the Green New Deal”
Carol Weed says:
Thank you for this article Judith.
The GND is becoming divisive politically — and not only from the right. Many unions (IBEW, the building trades) see it as a threat to good paying jobs. Many green jobs are low-paying, non-union jobs. Talk of a “just transition” so far has been mostly just talk.
Some strategists advise instead to focus on the policies within the GND. In CA, we have little to gain with the GND. We could loose momentum picking fights instead of building on the gains we’ve made. There are more than 100 active environmental bills in our legislature.
Federally, we need the carbon fee & dividend, and also to make the polluters pay for the cleaning up of superfund sites, etc. These are pieces of the GND.
Tips on Helping the Environment and Yourself
By Dale J. Harrington I recently found the following quote: “Environmental sustainability doesn’t mean living without luxuries, but rather being aware of your resource consumption and reducing [...]
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