Split (1)

train

The full dataset viewer is not available (click to read why). Only showing a preview of the rows.

The dataset generation failed

Error code:   DatasetGenerationError
Exception:    ArrowInvalid
Message:      JSON parse error: Missing a comma or '}' after an object member. in row 116
Traceback:    Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 153, in _generate_tables
                  df = pd.read_json(f, dtype_backend="pyarrow")
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 815, in read_json
                  return json_reader.read()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1025, in read
                  obj = self._get_object_parser(self.data)
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1051, in _get_object_parser
                  obj = FrameParser(json, **kwargs).parse()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1187, in parse
                  self._parse()
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/pandas/io/json/_json.py", line 1403, in _parse
                  ujson_loads(json, precise_float=self.precise_float), dtype=None
              ValueError: Trailing data
              
              During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
              
              Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1997, in _prepare_split_single
                  for _, table in generator:
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 156, in _generate_tables
                  raise e
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/packaged_modules/json/json.py", line 130, in _generate_tables
                  pa_table = paj.read_json(
                File "pyarrow/_json.pyx", line 308, in pyarrow._json.read_json
                File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 154, in pyarrow.lib.pyarrow_internal_check_status
                File "pyarrow/error.pxi", line 91, in pyarrow.lib.check_status
              pyarrow.lib.ArrowInvalid: JSON parse error: Missing a comma or '}' after an object member. in row 116
              
              The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
              
              Traceback (most recent call last):
                File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1529, in compute_config_parquet_and_info_response
                  parquet_operations = convert_to_parquet(builder)
                File "/src/services/worker/src/worker/job_runners/config/parquet_and_info.py", line 1154, in convert_to_parquet
                  builder.download_and_prepare(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1029, in download_and_prepare
                  self._download_and_prepare(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1124, in _download_and_prepare
                  self._prepare_split(split_generator, **prepare_split_kwargs)
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 1884, in _prepare_split
                  for job_id, done, content in self._prepare_split_single(
                File "/src/services/worker/.venv/lib/python3.9/site-packages/datasets/builder.py", line 2040, in _prepare_split_single
                  raise DatasetGenerationError("An error occurred while generating the dataset") from e
              datasets.exceptions.DatasetGenerationError: An error occurred while generating the dataset

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pred_label string	pred_label_prob float64	wiki_prob float64	text string	source string
__label__wiki	0.599964	0.599964	Opinions \| A Writer Under The Influence Fiction & Opinion by Jeff Campagna Posts from the “Opinions” Category The Emperor Of The United States Jeff Campagna The Emperor is Dead’ screamed the front-page headline of the San Francisco Chronicle on the morning of January 9, 1880. “On the reeking pavement,” the ensuing obituary lamented, “in the darkness of a moonless night under the dripping rain, Norton I, by the grace of God, Emperor of the United States, departed this life.” If you were to believe the history books and the immigration records, Joshua Abraham Norton was born in 1818 in the London borough of Deptford to parents John and Sarah. Two years later, he and his young Jewish family disembarked from the vessel La Belle Alliance at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa as part of the group now referred to as the “1820 Settlers” — Africa’s first… +Read In Full The Internet: From Landfill to Marketplace THINGS ARE CHANGING. For the past fifteen years the Web has been a catch-all. A landfill. A place where people came to dump their opinions, thoughts, concerns and drama — and where other people came to enjoy those things for free. All the while, major media outlets and corporations vied for a share of the attention. But there were very few rules (if any). It was an anything-goes affair. A frontier town with the usual suspects: the obnoxious tycoon, the corrupt sheriff, the painted whores, village idiots, drunkards and beggar-bundles slouched in dark doorways. No one really knew what the Internet was — or how to act inside of it — they just knew it was the place to be. In this ‘Wild West of the Web’, the concept of… Thoughts On The Future Of Travel Publishing Yesterday I downloaded the June 2014 issue of National Geographic on my iPad. At almost 200 megabytes, it took over an hour to download. After swiping through the issue that is filled with editor’s notes, tables of contents, app instructions, advertisements, photo contests, user instagram showcases and single-page micro-features, I found only three long-form, in-depth articles that I could really sink my teeth into. And the issue cost $4.99. What’s with all the noise? What if I just wanted those three meaty articles? Why do I have to pay for content AND look at interruptive advertisements? I can’t even find refuge in the travel sections of mainstream media websites. Outlets like The Huffington Post and The Guardian seem hellbent on publishing Top 10 round-ups,… An In-Depth Look At Frank Gehry’s Biomuseo in Panama After 15 years of development, ten years of construction, four Panamanian presidential administrations, countless project delays and $100 million dollars spent, Panama’s Biomuseo, designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, is at last open to the public. Slowly but surely, the building, much like the isthmus upon which it is perched, has emerged from nothingness, pushing itself up into being. As I crawl along the Bridge of the Americas in a stream of heavy Saturday morning traffic, it’s impossible not to notice the beast in the distance, with its technicolor shell lazing on the banks of the Canal, basking in the sun. The Cannibal Club: Racism and Rabble-Rousing in Victorian England Bertolini’s restaurant was cheap, but charming: perfect for the creatures who roamed 19th-century London after the sun went down. On Tuesday nights, in Bertolini’s backroom, respected judges and doctors, esteemed lawyers, admired politicians and award-winning poets and writers drank heavily, smoked cigars and secretly discussed what they thought they knew of the British colonies, more specifically polygamy, bestiality, phallic worship, female circumcision, ritual murder, savage fetishes and island cannibalism. The gentlemen would trade in exotic pornography and tales of flogging and prostitution. If, by chance, a pious, God-fearing bloke were to accidentally stumble into the Fleet Street backroom on a Tuesday night, the tips of his Victorian moustache would’ve certainly stood on end. Find Jeff’s Writing In Read This. Skip That. Smithsonian Mag The official journal published by the Smithsonian Institution The Definitive Guide to Enlightening Information Arc Magazine Fact, Fiction & Opinion Global Digital News Network Sabotage Times Sports, Music & U.K. Culture A Column On Drinking etc... About Jeff: Jeff writes news and opinion pieces for publications around the world, has published three volumes of collected works, written nine screenplays and is currently editing his first full length fiction novel. Jeff enjoys drinking rum, smoking cigars and riding a cheap motorcycle around the beaches of Panama. © Copyright 2014 A Writer Under The Influence	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line2
__label__wiki	0.74114	0.74114	Search BUFVC Search for DocumentsRemove this criterion New Search (BUFVC Search) Full access to all collections is a privilege of BUFVC membership. If you are already a BUFVC member, please log in. Otherwise you may join now. Search for: in All fields Title Category Entity Tag AND OR NOT in All fields Title Category Entity Tag Date range Year: 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 to 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 « Reset date Collections: TRILT News on Screen Find DVD Shakespeare TVTiP This Week LBC/IRN ILR South ILR Sharing BUFVC CMS Media types: Moving Image Audio Documents Availability: Online To Order Record only Genre: Television Radio Cinema news Shakespeare productions Other Results display: Sort By: Relevance Date (oldest first) Date (newest first) Title 1-10 of 1,025 results \| Page 1 of 103 ‹ Prev12345Next › Sort results by Relevance Date (oldest first) Date (newest first) Title Princess Marries Commoner British Paramount News Issue no NoS ID Story no 1 commentary sheet, 1 cameraman dope sheet, 1 shot list Five Royal families are represented at wedding of Princess Ragnhild, daughter of Crown Prince Olaf, and Mr Erling Lorentzen. News on Screen Cinema news Digitised Documents To order Moving image Universal News 1 commentary sheet The Princess Royal. The Princess Royal Inspects Troops Gaumont British News 1 film clip, 1 commentary sheet News on Screen Cinema news Digitised Documents Online Moving image Roving Camera Reports: Princess Anne’s Third Birthday News in a Flash Princess Royal’s portrait. The Princess Royal Inspects Big Parade Princess Royal with VAD Princess Royal Takes Salute Joining The ATS With A Smile Including inspection by the Princess Royal. News on Screen: 1,025 Cinema news: 1,025 Online: 730(warning) To Order: 295 Moving Image: 1,025 Documents: 1,025 Remove Princess Ragnhild of Norway Ceremonies Military Royalty Ceremonies Military Erling Lorentzen Related searches have been automatically generated using the OpenCalais semantic analysis service.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line7
__label__cc	0.649047	0.350953	Home > Vol 4, No 1 (2016) > Victor CAREGIVERS LEVEL OF BURDEN AND COPING STRATEGIES AMONG PATIENTS WITH EPILEPSY: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY Agnes Monica Victor Background: A neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures, which are sudden surges of electrical activity in the brain is epilepsy. It tends to arise suddenly, as it has highly random character and high psychological impact. Epilepsy occurring in a public place can lead to embarrassing and sometimes dangerous situations. It may occur in a workplace or in a social setting, where the patients along with the caregivers experience a lack of understanding and stigma on epilepsy. Objectives: The main objective of the study level of burden among caregivers of patients with epilepsy, explore the coping strategies used by family members of patients with epilepsy and to associate the level of burden between caregivers and selected demographic variables. Methods: Descriptive research design was adopted to achieve the objectives of the study. The study was carried out in the Neuro Center clinic in Chennai, India.A total of 40 consecutive pairs of subjects and their main caregivers were initially joined in the study. The samples are selected using purposive sampling technique. Participants were asked to complete three part questionnaire including demographic data questionnaire, caregivers burden inventory and coping strategies scale among caregivers of patients with epilepsy. The investigator explained the education to the patients and caregivers reassuring them that their privacy would be firmly endangered and the questionnaires are administered to the participants. Self-introduction of the invigilator was made on the meeting day; the caregivers were primarily invited into a designated interview room for privacy. They were delivered with a detailed description on the study purposes and its procedure as written in the Family Caregiver Information Sheet. The Written consent form was later signed upon contribution agreement by the participants. The information was assigned and analyzed using Statistical Package of Social Studies (SPSS) version 21.0. Results: Majority (37.5%) was under the age group of 21-30 years, (72%) female, married (55%) and joint family (52.5%). Around 95% of the subjects were literate and 70% of the Subjects from a city background and almost three fourth belonged to the middle class family. CAREGIVERS; BURDEN; COPING; EPILEPSY.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line11
__label__cc	0.626456	0.373544	How Tyrese used misogynoir and Black patriarchy to gain sympathy, support, and joint custody Entertainment, Featured, Guest Post Images via Instagram The reality is that Tyrese’s actions are not uncommon for abusers attempting to regain access to their victims. -Idiley by Idiley This is a man’s world. This is a world that is designed to coddle and protect men from the consequences of their actions and interactions with women. This is a world where men are given the immense power to define these interactions and single-handedly deem their retelling of it as an unchallengeable truth. If a man says that he has slept with a woman, it is accepted as fact, no matter what she says. If a man says his ex partner is “cr*zy,” it is accepted as fact, no matter how much psychological and emotional abuse he put her through. Men are nearly-always believed before women, so much so that it took more than forty women to accuse a single man of sexual abuses before the allegations were taken seriously, and even they face doubt from the public. The scales are forever tipped in the favour of men, and they know it well. RELATED: Black men, we need to acknowledge that we are the problem. Let’s talk toxic masculinity. While all men rely on this imbalance to escape accountability, some male abusers of women strategically and intentionally use it as a way to continue unleashing violence against their victims. Since this imbalance is rooted in the larger ways that societies value men and their word over women and their experiences, abusive men often enlist others to be active partners in their targeted abuse. This is usually thought of and discussed within the context of romance and sex, but much like all patriarchal concepts, it spills over into all interactions between men and women. A fitting example of this dynamic can be seen in the case of Tyrese Gibson and his ten year-old daughter, Shayla Gibson. In September, Tyrese’s ex wife, Norma Gibson, was granted a temporary restraining order and full custody of their daughter Shayla. This was given to her due to accusations of him beating Shayla so severely that she was unable to sit down for three days afterwards. For weeks following this decision, Tyrese turned to social media to air out his pain, posting long captions on Instagram about his love for his daughter, along with videos of him crying for/about her, and even going so far as to violate the restraining order by flying a banner over her school. Due to these antics, the general public began to pay attention to him, worry for him, and even support him, despite the active investigation of accusations of abuse against Shayla. To his supporters, it didn’t seem to matter whether or not he had done it. Tyrese has relied heavily on understandings of Black patriarchal concepts and practices to entice the public and get their support. When the restraining order was first issued, he accused Norma of only doing so because she was “bitter” over his new marriage. The “bitter baby mama” trope is rooted deeply in misogynoir, targeted towards Black mothers in conflict with the father of their children. Black men often get away with completely dismissing a Black mother’s concerns and legitimate issues by simply labeling her as “bitter” and painting the conflict as nothing more than “baby mama drama.” There is a lot of social pressure on Black women to be with Black men, and this pressure often looks like a Black woman’s words/feelings/life not being affirmed or validated without the approval of a Black man. This approval often takes the form of entering into a relationship with him. Those who are single, whether by choice or circumstances, are often coded as “not worthy,” “not good enough,” etc. We see this when Black women are berated for not being able to “keep a man.” Even when she is cheated on, she is told that she was not “doing enough to keep him.” So, when Tyrese decided to refer to Norma as “bitter,” he was using it as weapon against her. Tyrese relied on misogynoir in order to escape accountability for allegedly harming his daughter. Not only did Tyrese rely on racial stereotypes against Black women, but he also drew from ideas about how the system punishes Black fathers. He played into racial stereotypes in order to demonize Norma and to paint himself as the victim of not just her, but also the system. He now claims to be working on a documentary entitled Fathers, about his ordeal and the plight of Black fathers. Following through with the bitter baby mama trope, Tyrese positions Norma as a wielder of white supremacy, using the court system to inflict racialized violence on a Black man. This allows for Black people to further sympathize with him, especially those who see things like child support as a means to put Black men “in the system.” Many of these sympathizers have armchair diagnosed Tyrese with mental illness(es). When they saw Tyrese, a masculine Black man posting videos of himself crying online, they assumed that he must have been experiencing some sort of mental breakdown. Able-minded and neurotypical people have little to no understanding of mental illness and believe that those who live with mental illnesses are violent, out of control, and most importantly, not responsible for their actions. This ableist thinking allows them to completely separate Tyrese from his actions, words, and decisions. The reality is that Tyrese’s actions are not uncommon for abusers attempting to regain access to their victims. These acts are most effective when they are public because, much like public proposals, they place a woman in a position of pressure from a large group of people. If she rejects him, even if he is abusive, she is viewed negatively by the bystanders while the man receives sympathy for “putting his heart on the line.” This sympathy is dangerous as it causes the public to pressure Tyrese’s victims while he looks like a loving, weepy father who is, by his interpretation, “caught up in the system.” This makes the public both passively and actively complicit in his abuse. Given the extremely low standards that we have for fathers in this society, seeing Tyrese proclaim his love for his daughter through things like the banner and endless gifts convinces the general public that he deserves access to his daughter due to his love for her, regardless of what she wants. The banner made her so embarrassed that she stayed in the principal’s office for the rest of the day. There seems to be no concern about what she wants and how she feels throughout this whole ordeal. Rather, Tyrese’s supporters have assumed that, because he claims to love her, he is automatically entitled to her time, space, and custody. He recently admitted to lying about various claims he once made on his social media in order to garner sympathy from the public. Most important is the reveal that his current wife is not and never was pregnant, which is a detail that many pointed to as evidence of Norma’s “bitterness” and “false accusations” against him. Tyrese’s every move has been for his benefit alone and not at all for his daughter’s. Her privacy was constantly violated by her own father, to the point where she was left crying and embarrassed, all so Tyrese could center himself and paint himself as a victim in a situation in which he was the aggressor and abuser. By framing himself as a victim to systemic racism and a Black woman’s “bitterness,” Tyrese successfully changed the narrative to one that demanded sympathy for himself rather than his victims. RELATED: For Karen Smith And Other Black Women Who Seek Freedom When The Misogynoir Is Enough Now that the case has been dropped and he has won joint custody, he posts about how he has been exonerated after a decade of “lies,” as if he this situation makes him some kind of hero, rather than a villain. Despite being the reason behind both his daughter’s and his ex wife’s pain, both physical and emotional, Tyrese has successfully evaded accountability — and we have actively encouraged him to do so. Idiley is a Somali-Canadian immigrant who’s found a home in the Black Mecca of the South. She is a recent graduate, a sometimes writer, and a full time goddess. baby mama, Black fatherhood, Black Men, Black motherhood, Black patriarchy, black women, Misogynoir	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line14
__label__wiki	0.731433	0.731433	they know when you are sleeping. they know when you're awake. the NSA is tapping your phone. The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews. "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added. For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others. just how big does a database need to be to be the biggest in the world? that's bigger than google. in other words, it's a texas-sized database full of your phone records. 1. are you involved with al qaeda? 2. do you use telephone service from at&t, verizon, or bell south? if you answered yes to either of these questions, a detailed list of every phone call you've made or received is on file with the government. your phones are being monitored for your safety. pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. (that man behind the curtain, general michael hayden, is the president's pick to succeed porter goss as head of the CIA.) we were previously assured that only those who answered yes to #1 were being monitored. oops. i guess that was a lie. those three corporations gladly handed over all their customer records to the NSA, without a warrant, in controvention of federal law (FISA). their participation was entirely voluntary. but one company said no. According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used. Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial. Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled. In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more. Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused. The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. "They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them," one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events. if you are lucky enough to use phone service from qwest, you're safe from the prying eyes... assuming you never call anyone who uses at&t, verizon, or bell south. Qwest's refusal to participate has left the NSA with a hole in its database. Based in Denver, Qwest provides local phone service to 14 million customers in 14 states in the West and Northwest. But AT&T and Verizon also provide some services — primarily long-distance and wireless — to people who live in Qwest's region. Therefore, they can provide the NSA with at least some access in that area. despite repeated denials, we've suspected for a long time that this was happening. the EFF filed a class-action lawsuit accusing at&t of illegally collaborating with the NSA. a couple weeks ago, the bush administration desperately tried to get the case dismissed, claiming the states secret privelege. it's kind of a moot point now, but kudos to the EFF for once again drawing attention to an important issue before it's on most people's radars. and beaucoup kudos to qwest for refusing to participate in the NSA power grab.¶ djempirical said... for those who don't know (i didn't), Cingular is both AT&T and BellSouth. 'round these parts, cingular has already officially tranformed into at&t wireless, but that doesn't mean the transition is 100% complete. your mileage may vary. party on, dudes the enron verdict is hastert in the mix? hard rock hallelujah in an ideal world... do they speak english in what? where'd the cheese go? world premiere! dr. butcher m.d. "suffer" music v... my first youtube luckily for you, i'm in your extended network pop quiz, hotshot look at the bright side, indiana: at least you are... they know when you are sleeping. they know when y... if you live in terre haute, you have to look out y... i was just a boy when the infidels pwned my village the flogger hits the web goss is gone the adventures of the disenfranchised star-spangled bending tahoe ads deleted may 6 is free comic book day flogging to victory in the primaries it's captain election! reports from the future primary day	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line15
__label__wiki	0.683142	0.683142	Basketball guard is player of the year Posted By Online Editor on March 19, 2014 UNSTOPABLE–Starting guard Diosolene Lopez of the East Los Angeles College women’s basketball team practices her dribbling abilities on March 17 at the Women’s Gym. CN/MANNY MIGUEL By Liliana Marquez As the clock ticked off the final seconds, East Los Angeles College guard Dioseline Lopez scored a crucial three-pointer that gave the women’s basketball team momentum. It was all or nothing. The Huskies needed those points to tie the game and send it in overtime against the state’s No. 7-ranked Los Angeles Valley College. ELAC’s co-captain Lopez did not disappoint in the CCCAA second round playoff game. She also scored a career-high 33 points that night in a 92-88 loss. As a result of her performance throughout the season, Dioseline, 19, was named the 2013-14 South Coast Conference North Division Player-of-Year. She was also named to the CCCAA Southern California All-State Third Team. Her father, Rosario Lopez said that the loss was difficult, but her family was there to support her and that she cried a lot after that loss. He told her to be proud of herself because she had a great performance. He told her to be proud of herself because she had a great performance. “It broke my heart to see her cry. Winning a championship has always been her biggest dream and she couldn’t do it,” her mother Martha Lopez said in Spanish. Dioseline, who is 5 feet 6 inches tall, was born and raised in Los Angeles, her love for basketball began when she was nine years old. “When I was in elementary school, basketball was the main sport. It caught my attention when I watched guys playing it. You can do any move you want. You can make the defender look silly and you get to interact with people,” Dioseline said. She also played softball for a while, but basketball was the sport that she fell in love with. As of now, one of her priorities is to become a professional basketball player. She works day after day to achieve that goal. “I’ve always dreamed of playing for the (Los Angeles) Sparks as a professional. I would also love to play in Mexico,” Dioseline said. Her parents were born in Mexico and that is one of the reasons why she would like to play basketball in that country. Dioseline attended local Garfield High School where she played basketball for four years as a guard. She was also captain of the varsity team. She left high school without achieving one of her goals. She wanted to win a championship and get a ring. For this reason, she worked even harder to make that dream a reality while playing at ELAC, but the first season with the Huskies proved to be a challenge. “It was a tough year. It was difficult to adjust, but it also was a fun year. It changed the person and athlete I was,” Dioseline said. The support of her family also motivated Dioseline and helped her adjust to her new team. Her father started going to her basketball games at the end of her last season at Garfield. “After that, I never missed a game. I went to all the games she played at ELAC. I get very excited every time I watch her play. I love how she plays because she is aggressive and quick,” Rosario said in Spanish. Martha tried to attend the games. Just like her husband, she enjoyed watching their daughter play and feels proud of Dioseline’s accomplishments. “It’s amazing to watch her play and witness all the great things she can do on the court,” Martha said. Coming to ELAC and joining the basketball team changed Dioseline’s life. “I learned a lot about what reality was,” Dioseline said. Her second year at ELAC was also full of new and exciting things. Dioseline will always remember the game against Valley, the tying shot and the 33 points she scored. The duty of being ELAC’s co-captain was not an easy task for Dioseline. “Being a leader can be challenging. Sometimes your teammates might not agree with what you say, so you have to be careful and try to do what’s best for the team,” Dioseline said. She also keeps in mind that getting an education is important for her future. For this reason she decided to major in kinesiology. Dioseline’s mother said that she always reminds her that education and basketball should be her top priorities, and that she needs to excel in both. “We never know what can happen in the future. She might get injured and be forced to quit basketball, so she needs to have a backup plan,” Martha said. Although Dioseline loves basketball, if she could change something about the sport, it would be the way female players are treated. When she was younger and just starting to play basketball, she said that some of the male players told her that she didn’t belong there and that the court wasn’t her place. This was just because she was a woman. But experiencing that didn’t discourage her. She was even more motivated to accomplish her goals. Something that always keeps her working hard and fighting for her dreams is her winning mentality. “She is always focused in basketball and she always keeps positive. She is responsible because she loves the game,” Rosario said. Her parents are not the only ones who notice her commitment and talent. Both of them said that on multiple occasions, people told them that their daughter is a great and talented player. “It makes me proud to hear others say positive things about her. They recognize her talent and that for me is priceless,” Martha said. When she was 12 years old, Dioseline had the chance to meet Kobe Bryant, the athlete she admires the most. She met him when she attended one of his training camps. “I got a chance to meet him and talked to him about the game and about my future. He told me not to give up and to keep fighting for my dreams,” Dioseline said. That moment is something that Lopez will always cherish and remember. “He inspired her even more. He also encouraged her and her life changed because of meeting him,” Martha said. Dioseline’s father said that Bryant is her idol and that she wants to be like him. She wants to become a great player and a winner. Dioseline has a long way to go, but even at her age, she is taking the time to pass on her knowledge to her only brother, Bryant Lopez. Bryant, 14, also plays basketball in high school. Their parents said that even though they have their differences, they have a good relationship and that Dioseline always gives him advice. As of now, Dioseline’s top priority is to get her bachelor’s degree and to keep training hard. She received some offers to play at universities both in and out of the state and she want to transfer this year, hoping to soon start playing basketball at the next level. Dioseline Lopez when she was 12 years with Kobe Bryant. PHOTO COURTESY OF DIOSELINE LOPEZ Women’s basketball player finds recognition as a Husky Basketball player dribbles to scholarship ELAC basketball player led Huskies to great season Hard work earns basketball player scholarship Women’s basketball player parents twins, pursues dreams Posted in Features, Sports Tagged CCCAA women's basketball, Dioseline Lopez, Kobe Bryant, LA Valley College women's basketball, Liliana Marquez, Martha Lopez, Rosario Lopez, South Coast Conference basketball ← Artist targets specific audience Huskies arrive on the national scene → Campus News RSS feed Professors discuss women-led Iranian movement December 8, 2022 Wi-Fi improvements coming to ELAC December 8, 2022 HyFlex classes installed but not offered next academic year December 8, 2022 Villanueva under investigation for campaign donations December 8, 2022 Is TikTok safe? Here’s what users should know December 8, 2022 Professors discuss women-led Iranian movement Wi-Fi improvements coming to ELAC HyFlex classes installed but not offered next academic year Villanueva under investigation for campaign donations Is TikTok safe? 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__label__wiki	0.937124	0.937124	Google – AFP, Acil Tabbara (AFP), 9 December 2013 US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) speaks with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal during a joint press conference on November 4, 2013 in Riyadh (AFP/ File, Fayez Nureldine) Manama — With its decades-old US alliance strained over the Syria war and a nuclear deal with Iran, Saudi Arabia is calling on the Gulf monarchies to unite for their own self-defence. US Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel has assured Gulf states that the agreement struck between major powers and Iran on November 24 will not affect the presence of some 35,000 US troops in the region. But in a speech at the Manama Dialogue security forum in Bahrain, Saudi Assistant Foreign Minister Nizar Madani said "Gulf countries should no longer depend on others to ensure their safety." The oil-rich monarchies "must unite under one political entity in order to face internal and external challenges," said the minister. Riyadh has called for an enhanced union with fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which together account for 40 percent of the world's oil reserves and a quarter of its natural gas. Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief Prince Turki Al Faisal attends the 9th IISS regional security summit in the Bahraini capital Manama on December 8, 2013 (AFP/File, Mohammed al-Shaikh) "All countries have realised that blind dependence on a foreign power is no longer acceptable. GCC countries must decide their own futures," said Madani. Saudi Arabia, long wary of Tehran's regional ambitions, has reacted cautiously to the nuclear deal reached in Geneva, saying it could mark the first step towards a comprehensive solution for Iran's nuclear programme "if there are good intentions." The interim deal would curb Iran's controversial nuclear activities in exchange for some sanctions relief, and is aimed at buying time for negotiating a comprehensive accord. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal suggested that the GCC states join the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany. Western nations have long suspected Iran of covertly pursuing nuclear weapons alongside its uranium enrichment programme -- charges denied by Tehran -- and the United States has not ruled out military action to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions. Faisal stressed that the Sunni-dominated monarchies would immediately be affected by any regional military conflict or radiation leak, while accusing Shiite Iran of duplicity in its relations with its Arab neighbours. "Iran addresses us with broad smiles, while at the same time their man in Lebanon accuses Saudi Arabia," Faisal said in reference to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, who blamed the kingdom for a twin suicide attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut last month, which killed 25 people. Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias are battling alongside his forces against the Sunni-led rebels, who are supported by Riyadh. US accused of failing Syria rebels Saudi Arabia has accused the United States of turning a blind eye to the bloodshed in Syria, which has killed an estimated 126,000 people since March 2011. "The world sits as a spectator in front of the massacres against the Syrian people," said Faisal, the influential Saudi royal who served in the past as ambassador in Britain and the United States. It is "necessary to provide the reasonable Syrian opposition with means to defend themselves," which the "United States does not do," he said. "The Saudis blame the United States for imposing a veto on any delivery of heavy weapons or anti-aircraft batteries to the Syrian opposition, allowing the regime to maintain an upper hand using its airforce," a Syrian opposition member said. Saudi Arabia did not hide its anger after US President Barack Obama stepped back from punitive strikes against Syria over a chemical attack in August on a rebel-held district near Damascus. But for Faisal, the US-Saudi alliance, which dates back to a meeting aboard the USS Quincy in the Suez Canal in 1945 between the kingdom's founder King Ibn Saud and US president Franklin Roosevelt, "is not over." Both leaders had at the time agreed that Washington would help secure the kingdom in exchange for oil, but circumstances have changed, with the United States expected to become the world's top oil producer in 2015. "We had our differences in the past," Faisal told AFP. "And today we have differences on certain issues, but we agree on others." Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah speaks at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Kuwait. (REUTERS/Stringer) Gulf States fear losing power after Iran deal - New This image released by the Emirates News Agency, WAM, shows UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, right, meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/WAM) Labels: Bahrain, Energy, GCC, Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Regions - Blocs, Royals, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, US	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line22
__label__wiki	0.810524	0.810524	Johnny Lewis, ‘Smiles,’ and the Latest Designer Drug Panic A nightmarish scenario unfolded in Los Feliz this week, as actor Johnny Lewis allegedly murdered his 81-year-old landlady Catherine Chabot David by strangling her, and then jumped or fell to his own death off a roof. Lewis was a 28-year-old actor who worked regularly in television for years, with roles on Sons of Anarchy, American Dreams, and The O.C. He was written off Sons of Anarchy after asking Kurt Sutter to kill his character, Kip “Half-Sack” Epps. Sutter obliged, although Michael Pitt and Terence Winter style “creative differences” are also cited as a reason for Lewis’s stepping down from SAMCRO after two seasons. Lewis dated Katy Perry for a year in 2005, and remained friends with her BFF, Raising Hope‘s Shannon Woodward. Perry’s wistful hit from last fall “The One That Got Away” is reportedly about Lewis, with a lyric about him being her “Johnny Cash.” Woodward tweeted about the painful situation: “Johnny Lewis was one of my best friends. He was very, very ill. His actions were a despicable result of that. It was not who he was.” (She later deleted the message.) It is rumored that Lewis suffered from extreme mental illness, and whispered that he may have had serious drug problems as well. He had been in and out of rehabilitation clinics and jail in recent months. Police are investigating whether or not Lewis’s psychotic episode, in which he also beat two neighbors with a two-by-four, was triggered by the use of the designer drug “smiles.” Lewis displayed super-strength during the incident, which is sometimes a characteristic of PCP use. “Smiles” is a street name for 2C-I, the hallucinogen held responsible for the recent deaths of two teenagers in East Grand Forks, North Dakota Minnesota. While it’s been banned in Europe since 2003, 2C-I was technically legal in the United States until July 9 of this year, when it was reclassified as a Schedule 1 substance. 2C-I is similar to its sister in the 2C (2 carbon atoms) family, the more well-established club drug 2C-B. Both are psychedelic phenethylamines, originally synthesized and collected by cult figure and pharmacologist–psychoactive drug chemist Alexander Shulgin. Instructions on making it are listed in his book PiHKAL: Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved. 2C-I is described as being like LSD and MDMA crossed with a strong methlike stimulant. It was sold in pills as “smiles” in Dutch smart shops starting in the 2000s until the E.U. ban. Users also take it as a powder, or mixed into candy bars. The Johnny Lewis story is the most lurid news item yet to invoke “smiles.” The alarmism about the drug mimics the summer spike of interest in stories about “bath salts” users acting out violently while on the drug. Lewis’s suicide sounds familiarly like the urban legend about Diane Linkletter jumping out a window to her death while on LSD. Brain chemistry is a strange and delicate machine, and people suffering from mental health problems often self-medicate illicitly, since medicating legally can be so inaccessibly expensive. Results vary considerably. The gray market, where consumers obtain illegal drugs, is a global gray area. “Smiles” has been available in America for over a decade, but the sudden national interest in publicizing and demonizing the drug is very recent. It might be a sign of incoming DEA blowback against other potentially dangerous unscheduled drugs. Or maybe it’s just that it’s been a few months since we had a new major drug scare and “smiles” is a catchy innocuous-sounding name ironically attached to horribly tragic news stories. Breaking Bad has “Blue Sky” meth and The Wire‘s dealers slung “WMD.” Branding is everything, even when it comes to under-the-table businesses. On Internet drug forums there are plenty of satisfied online testimonials from still living consumers of “smiles” (albeit ones who write things afterward like “there were, and possibly are, two me’s”). Asking around, I found that several friends had taken 2C-I in college, had never heard it called “smiles,” and likened it to taking ecstasy. In one news clip about the Johnny Lewis story, a local resident describes Los Feliz as a quiet town where things like this don’t normally happen, perhaps unaware that the LaBianca family portion of the Manson Family murders took place in the picturesque upscale neighborhood in 1969. (The former LaBianca Market is now a popular Trader Joe’s). What Johnny Lewis did seems unpardonable, but if he was indeed very seriously mentally ill, it’s possible to feel sympathy even for someone who may have beaten an elderly woman to death and dismembered her cat. Whether motivated by drugs or not, the whole story is very strange and sad. Lewis was a decent actor, and clearly a very troubled guy. It’s unfortunate that he will now be remembered for this. Filed Under: Drugs NZT-4Ever: The ‘Limitless’ TV Show Is Finally Here to Unlock Our Smart-Drug-Craving Minds September 23, 2015 Cowabunga, Dud! The Spectacularly Dumb ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ August 8, 2014 Do You Like (Fake) Drugs? ‘Lucy,’ NZT-48, and a Definitive Ranking of the 10 Best Movie Narcotics July 25, 2014 Miley Cyrus and Wayne Coyne Are Totally High on the Drugs, You Guys July 7, 2014 Alexander Shulgin (1925-2014): Godfather of Psychedelics and Ecstacist June 4, 2014 See all Drugs Judging The X Factor: Li'l Monsters, Some Actual Emotion, and the Merciful End of the Audition Round Grantland Reality Fantasy League: Oil Wrestling, Oil Painting, and Thrown Challenges	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line27
__label__wiki	0.755859	0.755859	Home / All / Book Review: Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam Book Review: Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam Ali Teymoori March 2, 2022 All, Fiqh & Socitey, Sociability & Relations, Viewpoints Leave a comment 499 Views Fred M. Donner’s history of early Islam, Muhammad and the Believers, is a new, thought provoking work of the Early Islamic movement. In it, Donner presents a very unorthodox reading of the evidence relating to how Islam originally emerged. It is a well-presented, easily comprehended history of a very turmolous period that encompassed massive changes in the Near East, changes thatchanged theflow of history dramatically. However, the argumentation presented for his new reading into that time is extremely flawed with the neglect of important evidence; evidence which should never pass consideration when writing a history on Islamic origins. Author: Fred Donner Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, England, CT, Harvard University Press, 2010 (paperback 2012) Reviewer: Sayed-Esmail Al-Behbehani Donner is an acclaimed author in Late-Antique (and sometimes ancient) Arabia. He has spent a lot of his study leaves and research times in universities across the Arab world and has immersed himself in the Arabic language. Donner has written an English translation of Al-Tabari’s History the foremost important medieval book (now mostly used as a primary source) on the early years of Islam. Donner is currently a professor of Islam and a scholar on Near Eastern studies at the University of Chicago. When writing about early Islam, there are two pieces of evidence that someone can assess; the traditional accounts of the prophet Muhammad’s life and sayings[1] on one hand and the Qur’an on the other. Donner makes it explicitly clear that he regards the Qur’an as a reliablesource for information on early Islam, though he does not take it 100% at face-value; after a summary of debates over it’s authenticity, he states that, “The Qur’an did coalesce very early in the history of Muhammad’s community – within no more than three decades of Muhammad’s death” (P. 55-56). Donner also makes it clear that he is uneasy with the traditional narratives of Muhammad’s life as they contain “so many contradictions and so much dubious story telling” (P. 51). Donner, however, uses, with care, some traditional accounts as general background to his history, though the points he presses out as evidence to his argumentson the early events aremostly from the Qur’an. In the preface, Donner explains that, starting with Earnst Renan over a century ago, Western scholars leaned towards regarding the Early Islamic movement as starting of with nationalistic and/or socialistic tendencies, with religion playing a secondary role within the movement. The book is set out to counter this view. The book starts with an overview of the Near East on the eve of Islam and how the Arabs were situatedbetween the two warring titans: the Roman Empire and the Sassanian. Here Donner tries to inform us of the world around which our story starts. An important issue he brings up is that propheticism was an active issue in the region and that this would help us understand how Muhammad’s message would have been received. Another claim Donner makes is that monotheism was slowly taking over paganism; the tide in Arabia has shifted toward the Abrahamic religions. In chapter two the book zooms into the Hejaz area and how Muhammad came about to teach his new monotheistic religion. The argument Donner starts to present here, and which turns out to be his main argument throughout the book, is that Islam started as a piestic, monotheistic movement that did not draw a definite line between it’s followers and other monotheists of the region, namely the Christians and Jews, so long as they adhere well to their religious teachings and are pious[2].In other words, the early Muslims did not perceive themselves as a new religion at all; Christians and Jews were free to enter into the movement and very probably did. In Donner’s view, it is only a century later, under the Umayyad caliph Abdul Malik that Islam coalesced into a distinct religion, due to actions taken by the Caliph and his entourage. It strikes me that Donner when presenting the main argument of his book, namely that Islam started out as a non-distinct religious movement, does not try to counter the verses within the Qur’an that seem, at the very least, to pose the biggest challenge to his argument. Donner, always quoting passages from the Qur’an to aidhim in his ecumenical theory of early Islam, does not quote the verse that reads, “And whoever desires other than Islam as religion – never will it be accepted from him” (Q. 3:85), or the verse starting with, “Indeed, the religion in the sight of Allah is Islam” (Q. 3:19).Those two verses are clearly at odds with his main argument of the book as they clearly state that the teachings of the Qur’an regarded Muhammad’s new preaching as a distinct religion; that salvation cannot be acquired without adhering to it. Yet Donner makes no attempt to either allude to these verses or to counter them. Other flawed assessments of relevant Qur’anic verses relating to his assumptions are also found throughout his book.[3] In addition to the fact that his primaryargument presented in the book is significantly shaken by themiss assessmentof the relevant Qur’anicverses on the issue, Donnermakes other minor arguments that expressclearly his incompetence with the most important source he uses for his book. In page 214 he states that the Qur’an is quiet on any mention of the Friday Prayer ritual. The reality is that the Qur’an has a whole chapter dedicated to this ritual. The chapter (62) is even called ‘The Friday’! When moving towards the emergence of Islam, Donner presents a summary of Muhammad through the traditional narratives, which the author does take caution with accepting. Then he represents an overview of the early movement and its character. It was piestic, in his view;piestic, in the sense that piety was central to early community’s character. It was also apocalyptic in nature, and thought the end of days, and hence the Last Judgment, were near. The early community had a strong sense that they were living in a very sinful world. Donner starts pressing a point of immenseimportance to his overall argument. In his view, during the early days Muhammad’s followers called themselvesBelievers and not Muslims – as Islam was not yet a fully developed religion (Christians and Jews were welcome to join the movement). He makes the argument that the Qur’an calls them by this name (Believers)much more than the other name, Muslims. It is only a century later when – under Abdul Malik’s reign – that a boundary was placed to separatebetween Muslims and other monotheists;the adherents of the Qur’an were only then called Muslim. Chapter 3 moves on tothe final years of Muhammad, his death and how the question of succession was dealt with early on. It also gives a narrative of the events of the Ridda Wars, inner strife within Arabia between the Muslims and the tribes that refused to continue giving their allegiance to the Islamic capital, Medina, after the prophet’s death. Donner then goes on toexplain the expansion movement of the, now united, Arab tribes outside of the Arabian peninsula, conquering the Near East, North Africa, and Transoxania. This is explained in a very clear manner, which, although summarized, does give a good overall understand to this monumental and complicatedevent. Donner is very good at summarizing huge events into a few pages, without damaging the overall flow of the argumentations within the book. He, again, achieves this admirablywhen narrating the civil strife events that tarnished the early Muslims’ unity later on in the book. The motivation for the expansion was to spread the sovereignty of God over the whole world, according to Donner; the Believers thought the Judgment was near, and their early success made them even more assured that God was on their side. Donner makes a point that the traditional view of the expansions by scholars is that it was of a violent kind, yet he assesses some texts originating from the era to prove the contrary. He also points to the fact that churches were still being built after the conquests. This he uses to further aid his original idea, namely that Islam at this early stage welcomed with open arms the Christians and Jews to join in the movement; if they were pious enough, they were looked at as equal Believers. Donner also stretches this point to the extreme,postulating that some Christians and Jews welcomed the conquests as they only had to pay an extra tax and not be forced to convert. After describing how the Muslims settled in the new lands and the new institutions they developed, Donner moves on to the civil strifesthat astounded the early Muslims. Again, Donner shows his prowessinnarrating very troublesome and complicatedevents in a clear and flowing manner – surprisingly, he achieves very in very few pages. The strifes, he explains, were to do with the question of leading the community – each emerging sect had it’s own ideas about what attributes were needed for someone to lead the community. The last chapter of the book explains how Islam, in Donner’s view, emerged out of the early movement; the religion we know today coalesced nearly a century after Muhammad started preaching. The way it emerged was complicated but can be summarized in that the now caliph, Abdul Malik, and his entourage redefined critical terms, shifted the emphasis from piety and general monotheism to Muhammad and the Qur’an, and started to polemicize the Christian belief. What also emerged from this period was a sort of Aristocratic Arab identity, which ruled over a vast non-Arab world. Donner again shows his carelessness in analyzingaccurately his main piece of evidence. In trying to explain that Abdul Malik elaborated the cultic practices of Muslims into the rigid system we have today, he astonishingly says that we have only “vague” evidence of the change of Qibla, or the direction of prayer, from Jerusalem to Mecca until Abdul Malik’s reign. The Qur’anicevidence, evidence which Donner relies on, makes it clear thatthe change of Qibla in facthappened during Muhammad’s time -or within three decades of his time, as Donner believes- at the very latest (Q. 2:144). Donner shows his incompetence with the main source of evidence for his arguments again. The book has been described as “thought-provoking” and posing “questions that many mainstream scholars have chosen to leave aside”. It certainly does have a completely revolutionary way of explaining events that had many unanswered questions within them. Donner writes history in a concise and delicately clear, fluid manner. Yet for anacademic so immersed in Late Antique Arabia, it is very perplexing how he articulates massive arguments in clear negligence of the main source in hand. This is a fine book for those in search of a concise overall narrative of the changes that occurred in the Near East at the birth of Islam.However, the main argument of the work is fundamentally flawed,rendered so by poor assessment of key evidence. [1] Collectively known as the Hadith (translated into the Sayings). [2] The Qur’an follows in the same traditions of the Abrahamic religion, regarding Abraham and all Old Testament prophets as truly sent from God. [3] It is also very atypical of an established scholar not to present the clearest piece of evidence that would aid his view. Verse 2:62 is a verse that would have leant him much help in his assumption had he wanted evidence to point our that the Qur’an in some verses seems to learn towards the idea that non-Muslims can be regarded as believers. Though, as I have mentioned in this essay, that other verses strongly counter this view. Tags Islamic Studies Origins of Islam Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) Sayed-Esmail Al-Behbehani Previous Muhammad and the Believers: At the Origins of Islam Next World Muslim Women Summit and Exhibition 2022	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line34
__label__wiki	0.72623	0.72623	Topics Roger Zelazny Quotations Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels. He won the Nebula award three times, with 14 nominations, and the Hugo award six times, also with 14 nominations, including two Hugos for novels: the serialized novel ...And Call Me Conrad (1965; subsequently published under the title This Immortal, 1966) and the novel Lord of Light (1967). The Chronicles of Amber Lord of Light At the end of the season of sorrows comes the time of rejoicing. Spring, like a well-oiled clock, noiselessly indicates this time. Opening lines from Zelazny's first published story, Passion Play (1962) Occasionally, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant — you just don't know which. You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the first place. Trust your demon. Introduction to Passion Play (1962) The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe. Charles Render, from the novella He Who Shapes (1965) and the novel The Dream Master (1966) Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen. The Agnostic's Prayer from Creatures of Light and Darkness (1969) Yeah, the mythology is kind of a pattern. I'm very taken by mythology. I read it at a very early age and kept on reading it. Before I discovered science fiction I was reading mythology. And from that I got interested in comparative religion and folklore and related subjects. And when I began writing, it was just a fertile area I could use in my stories. "A Conversation With Roger Zelazny" (8 April 1978), talking with Terry Dowling and Keith Curtis in Science Fiction Vol. 1, #2 (June 1978) I see myself as a novelist, period. I mean, the material I work with is what is classified as science fiction and fantasy, and I really don't think about these things when I'm writing. I'm just thinking about telling a story and developing my characters. Goodbye, and hello, as always. The Courts of Chaos (1978) "It is no shame to lose to me, mortal. Even among mythical creatures there are very few who can give a unicorn a good game." "I am pleased that you were not wholly bored," Martin said. "Now will you tell me what you were talking about concerning the destruction of my species?" "Oh, that," Tlingel replied. Unicorn Variation (1982) Death is the only god that comes when you call. 24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai (1985) - Review of 24 views, with images Every now and then it's nice to stop and just look over what you've been writing and the way you've been writing it and sort of reassess it, and see if you've fallen into bad habits or there's something you'd like to get better at. One way of reexamining your own work is to work with somebody else. It's a learning experience. I don't want to get into a rut. As quoted in "Forever Amber" (October 1991) Phlogiston interview (1995) An Interview with Roger Zelazny by Alex Heatley in Phlogiston Forty Four (1995) Well, I decided that as a teenager that I really didn't know enough to describe character well and I was wasting my time. I'd learned as much as I could about story telling techniques and it wasn't a matter of technique any more. It was a matter of substance. As a result I said I was going to wait until I was a lot older and had more experience. So it was that after I got out of college I'd been away from SF for about four years. I'd read SF steadily from when I was eleven until I started college. When I started college I said, "I'm not going to read that while I'm here, I'm going to learn poetry and other things of that sort" in fact I wrote a lot of poetry then. I'd had a long talk with Bob Silverberg, who was very influential on my early career. He'd, out of the kindness of his heart, at a convention told me that he thought I'd made several mistakes in the way I was disposing of my stories. And I said, "I don't understand what you mean, but I'll be glad to buy you a few drinks, if you'll tell me about it". So we adjourned to the bar and sat there a couple of hours. He was drinking Bloody Marys back then; I was drinking Black Russians. And he told me all sorts of things which carried me over the next several years; it was a lot of information for a couple of drinks. He told me that the first thing I should do if I wanted to write full-time was to get a really good agent. He said that after a while the business end of writing takes too much of the writing time. Better to pay someone ten percent and find that you're still more than ten percent ahead in the end. Which is true. My present agent says that he always feels that a good agent during the course of a year should earn back for his client at least the ten percent he takes by way of commission, so the client's really nothing out. And what he should ideally do is make him more money than the ten percent. I try to write every day. I used to try to write four times a day, minimum of three sentences each time. It doesn't sound like much but it's kinda like the hare and the tortoise. If you try that several times a day you're going to do more than three sentences, one of them is going to catch on. You're going to say "Oh boy!" and then you just write. You fill up the page and the next page But you have a certain minimum so that at the end of the day, you can say "Hey I wrote four times today, three sentences, a dozen sentences. Each sentence is maybe twenty word long. That's 240 words which is a page of copy, so at least I didn't goof off completely today. I got a page for my efforts and tomorrow it might be easier because I've moved as far as I have". My favorite form is the short story. From an aesthetics stand point you really have to pare down to the bone. You can't write a throw-away scene. Others about Zelazny listed alphabetically by author His stories are sunk to the knees in maturity and wisdom, in bravura writing that breaks rules most writers only suspect exist. His concepts are fresh, his attacks bold, his resolutions generally trenchant. Thus leading us inexorably to the conclusion that Roger Zelazny is the reincarnation of Geoffrey Chaucer. Harlan Ellison in his editorial introduction to the Zelazny story "Auto-da-Fé" in Dangerous Visions (1967), p. 524 Zelazny, telling of gods and wizards, uses magical words as if he himself were a wizard. He reaches Into the subconscious and invokes archetypes to make the hair rise on the back of your neck. Yet these archetypes are transmuted into a science fictional world that is as believable — and as awe-inspiring — as the world you now live in. Philip José Farmer, in a promotional blurb for The Last Defender of Camelot‎ (1980) by Roger Zelazny Roger Zelazny died as I completed the first chapter of The Wake and his memorial informed the second chapter. Neil Gaiman in his Afterword to The Wake (1996), the final set of stories in The Sandman. For absent friends — Kathy Acker and Roger Zelazny, and all points between. Neil Gaiman in his dedication for American Gods (2001) Zelazny likes to develop different systems of magic, but his emphasis is on systems. He feels the magic should be worked out and contain no contradictions. It should run more like science and not be too supernatural in which anything goes. That route leads to magic being a crutch to move the plot along. He also likes to use the mystery plot. He feels that there is an elegance to having a puzzle overlaid on a fantasy or SF novel. The mystery helps build the mythic elements in fantasy, but is also akin to the process of discovery in science. Summary of an interview by Garner Johnson in PUP # 1 (March 1994) He was a poet, first, last, always. His words sang. He was a storyteller without peer. He created worlds as colorful and exotic and memorable as any our genre has ever seen. George R. R. Martin in "In Memoriam: Roger Zelazny — The Lord Of Light" (June 1995) Sadly, at least two wonderful "untold tales" of the Sleeper were lost when Roger Zelazny passed away. I know that Roger had always intended to bring back Croyd's boyhood friend Joey Sarzanno, and tell the story of the crystallized woman that Croyd kept in his closet. But he never had the chance, and now he never will. Croyd will continue to be a part of Wild Cards — Roger deliberately crafted the character so he would be easy for the other writers to use, and always delighted in seeing what we did with him — but it would take an unusual amount of hubris for any of us to attempt to write either of those two stories, and it is not something I would encourage. They were Roger's stories. No one else could do 'em justice. George R. R. Martin in an interview about Wild Cards — Inside Straight (30 November 2007)	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line35
__label__wiki	0.668335	0.668335	You are at:Home»Federal Workplace»MSPB blocks agencies’ attempts at historical revisionism By Neil McPhie on October 20, 2014 Federal Workplace Historical revisionism can be dangerous. Revisers often gloss over or skew facts to create a narrative that justifies their agenda. And lately, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has been catching federal agencies engaging in historical revisionism when attempting to justify different penalties imposed on similarly situated employees. Take, for example, the recently decided case of Ellis v. U.S. Postal Service (2014). In this case the MSPB blocked the agency’s attempt to justify the removal of the appellant, a customer service supervisor, by exaggerating the differences between the appellant’s misconduct and the similar misconduct of another employee. In Ellis, the agency demoted and reassigned the appellant, who had been charged with unacceptable conduct – misrepresentation of mail volume reports. This charge was based on the appellant’s inflation of mail volumes on certain routes over two months. Although the Board upheld an MSPB judge’s initial decision that the appellant intentionally misrepresented mail volumes, it mitigated the demotion/reassignment penalty because of a lighter penalty imposed on a similarly situated supervisor. In challenging his penalty, the appellant in Ellis pointed to a similarly situated supervisor who had been punished with a letter of warning and a geographic reassignment for his misrepresentation of employee work records. The Board said this other supervisor’s offense was “essentially the same offense” as the misrepresentation of mail volume records. During the hearing for Ellis, the agency’s witnesses tried to paint the appellant’s misconduct as far more serious than that of the similarly situated supervisor, who inadvertently imputed the incorrect information into a database. One witness, according to the MSPB, “likened the difference between the misconduct by those supervisors and the appellant’s misconduct as akin to the difference between manslaughter and murder.” The Board, however, rejected the agency’s “post hoc re-characterization,” noting that the similarly situated supervisor had intentionally falsified official records and neither acknowledged nor expressed remorse for his actions. Consequently, the Board ordered the agency to reinstate the appellant to his EAS-17 position and to issue him a letter of warning rather than reduce his grade. Although it was not mentioned in Ellis, this case reminded me of a decision the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit had delivered while I was chairman of the Board. In Williams v. Social Security Administration (2009). Unlike Ellis, the revisionist in this case was actually the appellant, who had participated in a tax fraud and challenged his removal by pointing out the agency had actually re-employed the perpetrator of the crime. The Federal Circuit said that if the agency did in fact re-employ the more culpable employee and removed the employee, “that could have shifted the balance.” But during oral arguments before the court, a government attorney explained that the agency removed the perpetrator when his fraud was discovered. When he was criminally charged, the agency rescinded the removal and indefinitely suspended him, though he was removed again after he was convicted. This information, however, was not included in the record before the MSPB, prompting the court to remand the case so the Board could “develop, as fully as possible, the facts” necessary to properly analyze the disparate penalty claim. Last year, Williams’s requirement for a fully developed record for disparate penalty analyses ended up saving the job of the appellant in Broccolo v. Department of the Treasury (2013). The agency had removed the appellant because she inappropriately claimed unemployment compensation for seven weeks. An MSPB judge affirmed the agency’s removal decision, stating, “none of the comparators involved multiple, repeated applications for unemployment compensation over several weeks.” However, on appeal, the appellant in Broccolo identified two more comparators. One of them had inappropriately claimed unemployment benefits on two occasions for a total of three weeks. This comparator was suspended for two weeks for the first offense and 60 days for the second, though the latter offense initially attracted a removal proposal. After reviewing the more fully developed record, the Board rejected the agency deciding official’s assertion that the appellant was the “only repeat offender with multiple weeks of unemployment compensation claimed to which she was not entitled.” Finding the employee with the lighter penalty to be similarly situated and that the agency “failed to prove a legitimate reason for the difference in treatment,” the Board mitigated the appellant’s removal to a 60-day suspension. The truth is out there, and to find it federal employees may need the assistance of an experienced federal employment law attorney. Federal employees should not let agencies end their careers by revising history.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line39
__label__wiki	0.658486	0.658486	An Intimate Look at “Coco.” September 29, 2009 0 comments Article Fashion, Film If you live in New York or Los Angeles than this past Friday you were able to see the much anticipated film “Coco Avant Chanel,” directed by Anne Fontaine and starring Audrey Tautou. I made of point of seeing the film on opening night and, while reviews for the film have been mixed, I loved it. I found the film to be romantic, beautifully shot, easy to follow, and heartfelt. All in all, a captivating true life story brought to the screen with gorgeous clothes in supporting roles. Yet one does not need to be a fashion connoisseur to enjoy it. The film is based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s biography of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel and examines the designer’s youth, her relationships with Etienne Balsan and Arthur “Boy” Capel, her lovers and benefactors, and her rise to fame first as a milliner (a boutique where she sold hats and accessories opened in 1913 in Paris and Deauville) and then as a designer of clothing (she opened her first couture house in Biarritz in 1915). The film ends with Chanel’s first fashion show at her famous maison de couture, located at 31 rue de Cambon, in Paris. Alice Mackrell wrote of Chanel in Vogue magazine in 1954, “the essence of the Chanel Look was Chanel herself; her style is inseparable from her life.” This is incredibly true and, in my opinion, this idea is the film’s guiding spirit. That Chanel had her own personal style was evident from the beginning. The trajectory of this style is fascinating to observe and the director carefully choose Chanel’s key looks and wove them into the story. Chanel did not come from money. She and her sister were raised at an orphanage, where they learned how to sew at an early age and she made her own clothes. Chanel favored loose fitting garments that did not restrict movement, as she had to work for a living, and often took out the corset of the costumes which she performed in at the cabaret. It is here, during her performances, that she acquired her nickname “Coco.” From the beginning, Chanel had a predilection for men’s clothing. While staying with Balsan at his country estate, Chanel did not have much to choose from in terms of personal attire. She would often “borrow” his clothing and remake it into something that would be appropriate for her to wear. I think that at times, Chanel’s fashion choices were constituted more by her need than by her foresight. While it is true that Chanel wore pants to go horse riding, when all other women were still wearing skirts, is it possible that this was because she did not have the proper riding attire? While she initially shocked with her masculine style, she would later become famous for appropriating men’s clothing for women’s fashion. The two materials that she favored most, jersey and tweed also came from men’s clothing. In particular, jersey was traditionally used for men’s underwear. However, it was also a cheap fabric for her to use, which became very important during World War I, when women were not able to spend as much on their clothing as they did prior to the War. In the film, she took Capel’s polo shirt, made of jersey, and created a top for herself, and viola! an idea was born. A trip to the French seaside town of Deauville left a lasting impression on the young seamstress. The striped blue and white sailor shirts which she favored, she saw worn by fishermen on the beach. According to the film, the famous little black dress, a classic, was Chanel’s gown of choice for a night of dancing with Capel in Deauville. It is very clear in the film that she did not condone Edwardian fashion trends. In one scene, she says that she is embarrassed for the over-dressed women strolling on the woman on the promenade near the beach in Deauville. “She is wearing all her silverware” Chanel remarks when she sees the women dripping with jewelry, favoring a single strand of a pearls herself. Even the hats that she designed were simple straw hats with minimal decoration, nothing like the overly adorned hats, with large feathers, worn by women at that time. Another example is the camellia flower, in the film, pinned to the lapel of Capel’s tuxedo jacket. In memory of her great love, the Camellia became Chanel’s trademark. For comparison, I also watched the miniseries “Coco Chanel,” which premiered last year on the cable channel “Lifetime,” starring Shirley MacLaine as Chanel. I was disappointed with the film which I found to be flawed for several reasons. Most importantly because I think that the film got some facts wrong. But perhaps both films are at fault for that? I am planning to read Charles-Roux’s book about Coco Chanel and separate fact from fiction. Finally, there is a third film, that premiered at Cannes this past summer, titled “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” which follows the “passionate, intense love affair between two creative giants.” This film has not yet been released in the United States, but it is a premiere that I will be present for on opening night as well!	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line41
__label__cc	0.539347	0.460653	Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 . . . 66 67 Browsing page 5 of words meaning computers, electronics, technology (665 words total) The location of this category within the thesaurus is shown on page 1 of this category. The list of all slang words with this meaning is shown on page 1 of this category. Full definitions of all the slang words listed above: astroturfing noun - uncountable the use of paid employees or contractors - or people who otherwise have a stake - to astroturf. See more words with the same meaning: computer slang. Last edited on Nov 15 2011. Submitted by WalterGR (via TheJargonFile) on Aug 14 2009. The creation of lobbying groups that appear to be separate from corporate interests, but that are actually funded by them. As opposed to "grass-roots" political activism. Astroturfing is also the progressive conjugation of "astroturf". Last edited on Nov 15 2011. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Nov 15 2011. acronym for "ass to mouth". Dante Hicks: "You never go ass to mouth!" -- Clerks 2 (2006) Last edited on Feb 26 2018. Submitted by Inga on Sep 26 2014. acronym for "at the moment". Used commonly in computer-based conversation (e-mail, text messaging, etc.) Sorry, I can't chat ATM. See more words with the same meaning: Internet, texting, SMS, email, chat acronyms (list of). Last edited on Feb 26 2018. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Aug 02 2009. acronym for "automated teller machine". See more words with the same meaning: acronyms (list of). Last edited on Nov 28 2010. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Aug 11 2009. referring to the vagina as a source of income for a prostitute. Man, that nasty bitch opens her legs and uses her ATM to get up her rent money. She spread her legs and I plowed her ATM. Damn, I got played and I'm down $200 cash and bought her new shoes. Last edited on Feb 26 2018. Submitted by Rick Consort on Oct 21 2017. referring to the vagina as a source of income for a woman who has sex with people. verb - transitive acronym for "ass-to-mouth", i.e. a sex act in which anal sex is immediately followed by fellatio or cunnilingus. He ATMed her. Citation from "Chapter 12", Eastbound & Down (TV), Season 2 Episode 6 (2010) censored in hope of resolving Google's penalty against this site. See more words with the same meaning: anal sex. See more words with the same meaning: fellatio, 'blowjob'. Last edited on Feb 26 2018. Submitted by Anonymous on Feb 13 2008. at scale with heavy usage. A vague term since what constitutes heavy usage of something is highly context-dependent. We've been running the new version - in production and at scale - for about a year. Last edited on Aug 26 2015. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Aug 25 2015. acronym for "alternate universe". Last edited on Jun 08 2015. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Jun 08 2015. automagically to happen automatically, in a way that appears almost magical. When you close the laptop's lid, it will automagically go into hibernation mode. See more words with the same meaning: easy, simple. See more words with the same meaning: fast, quick, quickly. Last edited on Nov 04 2011. Submitted by Allen G. on Dec 18 2000. The New Oxford American Dictionary reports that the term dates to the 1940s, and is a blend of "automatically" and "magically". Last edited on Nov 04 2011. Submitted by WalterGR (via TheJargonFile) on Apr 17 2009. an icon, pictorial, or 3D representation of a person online. In the online gaming community, for example, one's character as seen by other players is one's avatar. Origin: in Hindu mythology, an avatar is a physical incarnation of a deity on earth. Her game avatar was getting its butt kicked. Last edited on Jan 12 2003. Submitted by Ray G. from Seattle, WA, USA on Jan 12 2003. "alright". Often used on social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter and MSN. See also aight. Are you feeling ayt? Last edited on May 06 2011. Submitted by Mark Shadow on Jun 06 2010. acronym for "are you there?" Last edited on Jul 19 2011. Submitted by Walter Rader (Editor) from Sacramento, CA, USA on Jun 06 2010. woman. Likely short for "bitch". Let's go to the party and scope some b's. See more words with the same meaning: woman, women, female. Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Cosmo Kramer from Manhattan, NY, USA on Apr 05 1999. likely short for "brother" or possibly "boy." Used to address a friend or associate. See also the slang word "g". What's up, b? Damn, b, she's fine! B what are you doing. See more words with the same meaning: friend, friends. See more words with the same meaning: man, men, male. Last edited on Oct 01 2019. Submitted by RASHON T. from Brick Township, NJ, USA on Apr 15 1999. an offensive way to refer to someone of either gender. Short for "bitch". Get the hell out of my way, b! I ain't playin' b! See more words with the same meaning: dude, person of unspecified gender. See more words with the same meaning: miscellaneous insults (list of). Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Kelly S. from Pittsburgh, PA, USA on May 28 2007. a Blood, i.e. a member of the Bloods gang. See more words with the same meaning: criminal, hooligan, gangster, gangsta. Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Noneya I. on Apr 04 2009. shortened form of "bastard". Those cheatin' Bs are gonna suffer! See more words with the same meaning: uncool person, jerk, asshole (general insults - list of). Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Anonymous on Dec 03 2012. shortened form of "babe" and "bae". Thanks a bunch b. Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Tintinni on May 03 2017. shortened form of brown or bobby, both of which mean "heroin". See more words with the same meaning: opiates. Last edited on Dec 05 2012. Submitted by mattheusjohn from Westminster, London, UK on Aug 20 2010. acronym for "back", usually used in video games online chat. Left right mia. Mid b, b! Last edited on Mar 07 2018. Submitted by Chuck S. on Sep 19 2017. abbreviated form of "be". how u b? before. Online chat acronym. I knew you B4 we went to the same school together. I graduated Bfore you. See more words with the same meaning: before, prior to. Last edited on Apr 13 2014. Submitted by Maurice J. from Fall River, MA, USA on Nov 21 2002. backronym a word that has come to be an acronym (or is viewed by some as an acronym) when it was not originally an acronym. Slang examples include "SHIT" meaning "ship high in transit", "PHAT" meaning "pretty hot and tempting", etc. "Backronym" is itself an acronym, being "back" + "acronym". Last edited on Feb 11 2013. Submitted by WalterGR (via TheJargonFile) on Aug 14 2009.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line42
__label__wiki	0.549331	0.549331	“Mandela’s guiding Light will be missed but South African will not perish” -Gen Bantu Holomisa Holomisa delivering a vote of thanks at Madiba’s final memorial The larger than life image of Mandela with his legendary spirit of reconciliation and strong moral credentials makes his absence a source of concern on the future of South Africa. The concerns are even more founded with the inequalities that abound and growing frustration from the majority whose economic fortunes have not changed much since apartheid ended. Lending his voice to those offering reassurances on South Africa surviving the absence of Madiba is Gen Bantu Holomisa, President of the United Democratic Movement. Holomisa , one of the last people to see Mandela in his last days was entrusted with the responsibility of giving a vote of thanks to all those who worked to give the celebration of Mandela’s life the grandeur it deserve. “His guiding light will be missed but South Africa will not perish,” says Holomisa who heads the United Democratic Movement. General Holomisa once a very popular figure with the ruling ANC before his expulsion , thinks it is time for South Africans to cast votes based on whether services were delivered or not and not just from historical perspectives. Interviewed by Ajong Mbapndah L, Bantu Holomisa shares his personal experiences with Nelson Mandela, his party-the UDM and other political developments in South Africa. General Holomisa as the world mourns the passing of President Mandela what is your reaction? I mourn as the people of South Africa, and indeed the world, mourn. But, I also grieve for the loss of a man who I considered a personal role model and father figure. You probably met with Nelson Mandela several times, what recollections do you have about the man, what were some of the things that struck you about him when you two met? I met Mr Nelson Mandela for the first time at his old four-roomed house in Soweto five days after his release from prison. When one considers where he had been (just a few days before) it was quite extraordinary that he made everyone feel welcome in his home in such a jovial and energetic manner – a style he maintained whilst he was president and even in the years after his retirement from public life. I fondly remember times during our travels over the world, when he teasingly introduced me by saying: “Here, accompanying me is Bantu Holomisa… a dictator from the Transkei”. At another occasion, in December 2007 during our annual Christmas lunch, Madiba received a phone call from President Jacob Zuma wishing him a Merry Christmas. Madiba said, with a deadpan face, “Nxamalala, ndinoBantu apha ndimgadile angasibhukuqi, ngoba ungumbhukuqi”. Roughly translated: “Nxamalala [Mr Zuma’s clan name], I am here with Bantu, we are enjoying lunch, but I’m keeping an eye on him so that he does not execute a coup d’état because, remember, he’s a specialist.” What in your opinion is the biggest legacy he leaves in South Africa and on the world stage? Bantu Holomisa (2nd left) waves to crowds from a helicopter while Nelson Mandela looks on, (seated back right) Bantubonke Harrington Holomisa (25 July 1955) is a South African Member of Parliament and President of the United Democratic Movement (UDM). Previously a member of the ANC, he was explelled from the party after, among other things, testifying before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in 1996.Source ANC Archives The spirit of reconciliation – a lesson he taught by example. How to listen; to acknowledge the dignity and views of the person on the other side of an argument. He also taught us to find common cause in spite of our differences. Madiba was extremely concerned about poverty and education. He saw education has one of the tools to fight poverty. Every step he made was made with the view to free South Africans from the scourge of poverty and to ensure that each child receives a quality education. Clearly Mandela’s passing has left a huge void, how does the present generation of leadership in South Africa managed the country in a way that the ideals he sacrificed his life for are preserved? Madiba handed over the baton many years ago and had not for some years influenced decisions on daily basis. The doom prophets said South Africa would go to the dogs after he stepped down and it did not happen. Yes, we will miss his guiding light, but it is wrong to suggest that South Africa would somehow perish in his absence. We are still grappling with the Apartheid legacy and to think that the damage and hurt will disappear over night is foolish. However, our Constitution is the contract that South Africans have with each other and we should at all time strive to live by those standards. Then there is the collective consciousness of our Nation and this includes the current day leaders of this country and those of the future. Nelson Mandela’s teachings and example form a part of this consciousness; we are accountable to ourselves and to each other. I also think that there is an element of thinking: “What would Madiba do?” – just like that little voice of your elders in your mind, he now forms part of that choir that “regulates” our behaviour. Still on leadership, how would you size the current leadership under President Zuma, where has he failed, where has he succeeded? While there are many challenges facing the Country, the ruling party has also taken significant steps to improve the lives of the poor and President Zuma must be given credit for the things his government has done right. Unfortunately he has made a number of critical mistakes, the Nkandla saga being the worst – it boggles the mind how this mess was denied, covered up and justifications conjured from thin air. He was also shortsighted in the appointment of his cabinet. Aside from the obvious bias towards persons from his home province, he was also let down by the people in whom he placed trust. Names that come to mind are Ms Dina Pule and the USAASA debacle as well as the Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission, Advocate Pansy Tlakula, and the Public Protector’s findings on the lease agreement of their head offices in Centurion. Obviously he will be in the race for a second term, what are some of the serious issues South Africans should consider in picking their next President? Each South African has to make up his or her own mind based on the ruling party’s performance, and this includes President Zuma’s term, over the past two decades years. There is still an element of people who will vote for the ANC because of the Struggle history, but I think voters are more-and-more casting their vote based on service delivery, or rather the lack thereof. Institutionalised corruption should make voters think twice, in other words, do they want another five years of the unapologetic looting of state resources? The reality is that South Africa has been on a slippery slope for the past 19 years. Some of the most devastating corruption scandals go as far back as Sarafina-2, the Arms Deal, Oilgate, Travelgate, as well as the Chancellor House/Hitachi and Eskom Deal. What is however disconcerting is that, instead of decreasing, corruption flourished under President Zuma’s watch and he himself was caught with his hands in the cookie jar. In addition, our people have been disappointed with the poor quality of the infrastructure that the ruling party provided over the years. Electricity is not reliable; water projects are launched only to break down after a few months and the RDP houses are worse than those built for blacks by the Apartheid government. Where President Zuma and his government failed completely was on the question of employment. What is your reaction to the criticism that while apartheid may be gone, the ANC leadership has succeeded in empowering a few people at the top with a majority still languishing in poverty? I think the criticism is justified and to compound matters Government shows a fondness of engaging in ‘elite projects’ such as building soccer stadiums, the Gautrain, the much hated e-tolling system, etc. Whilst some of these serve a good cause, we are doubtful of others. Government has its priorities all wrong! How can these elite projects be a priority whilst millions of South Africans still need access to a basic thing as clean water? The priority must be to use the resources of state to deliver basic services. May we know what vision your party has for South Africa, and how different it is from what the ANC represents today? § For many years, the South African economy relied on labour intensive sectors like mining, agriculture and the textile industry to provide employment opportunities for the poor. In 1994, the ruling party inherited an economy in which the previous regime was not reluctant to intervene, albeit under separate developments. However, due to the ruling party’s misplaced confidence in globalisation and the free market system, incentives to these strategic sectors were hastily withdrawn, resulting in millions of jobs being lost. The UDM has since its formation said that for GOVERNMENT TO DO MORE! Government has a responsibility to intervene and protect the South African economy and South African jobs when necessary. Whilst Free Market Capitalism is the best economic system developed by humanity, it is still fraught with weaknesses and failures that must be actively managed. § The United Democratic Movement has a consistent track-record in fighting issues on principle. An example of this courage of conviction is that the UDM took the ruling party to the Constitutional Court to challenge the floor-crossing legislation. We bat from the anti-corruption wicket, consistently promote clean governance and respect for rule of law. The ANC does not seem to understand that by tolerating corruption and allowing its members to act as though they are above the law undermines the most fundamental promise of government: earning and keeping the trust of the people. § Also, the UDM is of the view that South Africa needs to move towards a mixed electoral system, that draws from the strengths of both the proportional and constituency-based electoral systems. Our people should be allowed to directly elect their president. In addition, the cabinet appointed by that president should be subjected to the scrutiny of the Parliament’s Ethics Committee before they are sworn in – this kind of vetting would have allowed President Zuma to avoid a number of potholes. How do you market that vision to South Africans and are you considering running for the elections? Yes the UDM will be participating in these elections and it will be for the fourth time since 1999, in fact, the seventh if you also count our municipal election campaigns across the country. Marketing our vision is a difficult question to answer without sounding self-pitying. The UDM has from its inception expressed strong views on the need to level the political playing field, because there are certain inherent disadvantaged for opposition parties. The current system for the funding of political parties only serves to make the heavy weights stronger and those who box in the middleweights are eventually forced to fight as featherweights. Proportional funding does not provide for the growth of all political parties but benefits only one party and this is therefore does not foster a healthy democracy. Unfortunately the big corporates, that have democracy development programmes, apply this same model when they spend their budgets. Other factors that contribute to this skewed landscape is the bias of the so-called “public broadcaster” and the use of the state machinery with their “communication budgets” to conveniently (on the eve of elections) remind South Africans of the “wonderful things” “they” (in other words the ANC) have done for our people. . A party can have the best policies in the world, but if you are unable to market those, it becomes demotivating. The UDM has however never given up the good fight and every election we find the energy and courage from somewhere to hit the campaign trail hard. It is a fact that the UDM has never had the resources to use fancy spin-doctors and launch sophisticated nationwide advertising campaigns – the party has always grown through mere word of mouth. The advent of social media has made it easier for us to communicate with South Africans, especially the youth. Widely accessible cellphone technology makes it easier for people to access the internet and social media, but the UDM will not have the funds to drive SMS and/or email campaigns as some of the political parties are already doing. There seems to be quite some dissentions within the ANC, the widow of Steve Biko has a party, Julius Malema has a party, is this a healthy development for democracy in South Africa? I start off by welcoming the new kids on the block and wish Dr Ramphele and Mr Malema the best of luck; they have the same rights as any political organisation to battle this out with the rest of us. This is an interesting dynamic in South Africa, but the proliferation of political parties is hardly a new phenomenon. It has been a common, in many democracies across the world, for aspiring politicians to establish “new political parties” on the eve of the elections – each believing they have the magic recipe to fix all. As the Congress of the People discovered the hard way, it is not very easy to retain the imagination of voters and the jockeying for positions inside a party sometimes does more damage than good. The UDM is on record saying that the results of the 2009 National and Provincial Elections showed that the South African electorate wants a system where two large parties, of similar strength and size, compete for the mandate to govern. A number of political parties have been talking along those lines, but one cannot realign the South African political landscape merely for the sake of opposing the ruling party – any such “marriages of convenience” has a slight chance of succeeding. We however have a wonderful example on home soil of such strange partnerships that works i.e. the Tripartite Alliance. Where else in the world do communists and capitalists, labour and big business, sit around the same fire? As a testimony of how difficult it is to manage such relationships, I think it has recently become a little more difficult to manage them with the labour organisations flexing their muscles. Last question Mr Holomisa, what future do you envision for South Africa in the post Mandela era? It seems too obvious to actually say this, be we have to constantly have to remind ourselves to stay on course. I join all South Africans in hoping for the best and doing my part to ensure that we fulfil the original agenda – which is to improve the lives of all South Africans; to ensure that our Rainbow Nation becomes a Winning Nation where all prosper and live in dignity. Latest News December 16, 2013 Zuma unveils bronze statue of Madiba in Pretoria The Future We Want, The UN We Need Kenya’s 2017 elections will be like none before. Here’s why. Turning heads: Kenya’s first start up for natural African hair Kenya: First Lady Margaret Kenyatta Holds Talks With Cuban Ambassador Juan Vazquez Why migration from west Africa may start to slow Africa Finance Corporation signs Zambia as a Member Country Mozambique Sees $1.7bn In New Projects In 2022 THIS EGYPTIAN SENATOR, AFRICAN WOMAN CEO, FASHION ICON, EMPOWERS FASHION WITH PURPOSE IN AFRICA. ERHC Energy has evolved to a veritable and respected operator in its own right	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line44
__label__wiki	0.898815	0.898815	My life in a building: A chapel from the soil By Al Jazeera Dusk falls in Ibadan and the Dominican friars sing their evening prayers in reverberating harmony. The last rays of sun shine through the window of the chapel’s tower, illuminating the crucifix on the wall behind the altar. One imagines it was the effect the chapel’s Nigerian designer, Demas Nwoko, had in mind. After all, he designed each detail of the building – large and small – with precision: from the way the lack of enclosing walls allows the air to circulate, the breeze blowing the brothers’ white habits as they sing, to the seats of the stools, carved like the imprint of a pair of buttocks. Coming up the hill from Oyo Road, the tower of the Dominican Chapel is impossible to miss. Its concrete palisades topped with a cross rise above the treetops like a ship’s mast. Consecrated in 1973, it is a landmark in Ibadan, a city about 120km from Lagos in Nigeria’s south. But ask any passer-by who designed it, and you will likely be met by a blank stare. Not many will have heard of Demas Nwoko, who is now 79 years old and leads a secluded life in the eastern Nigerian village where he was born. The Dominican Institute in Ibadan was listed in the 2014 book 1001 Buildings You Must See Before You Die – along with three other of Nwoko’s buildings. In international publications Nwoko’s work has been compared to that of Gaudi and Frank Lloyd Wright. But his architecture is not widely known in Nigeria, and his work is not systematically taught in the country’s architecture schools. And that, says his son Ashim, who followed in his father’s footsteps as an artist, is a shame. “My father might not have been trained as an architect, but neither were Michelangelo and [Leonardo] da Vinci,” he says. Ashim Nwoko remembers the construction of the chapel very well. He was still in primary school, and after class his father would bring him to the site. “He always took us children along,” he remembers. “As a little boy, I have had my fair share of nails in my shoes.” He witnessed just how involved his father was in every moment and detail of the construction. At the time, he was an artist lecturing at the drama department at the University of Ibadan, a short drive from the Dominican Institute. He was on site almost every day. He would climb down into the foundation to set a pillar himself, remembers his son, and if a wall was not built according to his design, he would order it to be broken down brick by brick to do over. “Some might say he is difficult to work with, but he is a perfectionist. He does not compromise in his work,” says Ashim. After secondary school Demas Nwoko started working as a draftsman in the Public Works Department in Ibadan. There he met English architects designing English buildings for Nigeria, says his son. “He didn’t see real life in them. They had no connection to the place they were meant for.” His father decided to train as an architect, but quickly realised that he would not find what he was looking for in architecture school, which concentrated more on the technical than the artistic. So, he borrowed money from his uncle to study art at the University of Zaria in northern Nigeria. “He believed art was not just about creating beautiful things, but had to be on the forefront of technology and design,” explains Ashim. Today, Ashim starts his tour of the chapel in one of the two shell-roofed entrances, pointing out the wooden door panels, the granite walls and the carved trees that reach up to the high ceiling like totem poles, all made of material found around Ibadan. “My father doesn’t believe in importing. He looks at the raw material in the area and uses what he sees,” he says. His designs reference local culture in much the same way that they utilise local materials, from the traditional sand casting technique used to create visually pleasing burglar bars in the chapel to the geometrical motifs on the landing’s cobblestones as well as the carvings on the pillars. Even today, his father always looks to tradition when he wants to explain something, Ashim explains. In 1992, Demas Nwoko published a book titled The Impoverished Generation, in which he explored the possibilities of a democracy based on local, traditional values. He argued that the many institutions forced upon Nigerians since colonisation were alien to them, which led to corruption and poor leadership: or, put simply, what you do not understand, you do not value. His father is indeed a traditionalist, says Ashim, but he doesn’t follow tradition for the sake of it. “He believes tradition is made by and for the people, and is dynamic, not static.” As a builder, Demas Nwoko first and foremost believes in designing a building for the people who are intended to use it, he says, tapping his foot on the burgundy floor leading into the chapel. The pigment mixed into the cement gives it its reddish brown colour. “It is polished by feet. No need to repaint it; it will get more beautiful with age,” Ashim explains. “My father knows we don’t have a maintenance culture. So he designs things to be maintenance free. In 20 years’ time, they must still look the same.” Father Cletus Nwabuzo was 19 years old when he entered the Dominican order in 1980. He remembers the awe he felt when he first saw the chapel. “It looked like nothing I was familiar with. To me, it was part of the mystique of the religious community I was joining,” he says. As the now 54-year-old priest walks by the ponds encircling the back of the chapel, he explains how, to him, the water has a theological symbolism. “It refers to the baptismal font. To get into the chapel, you have to cross that purifying water,” he says. But according to The architecture of Demas Nwoko, a book written by two British architects in Nigeria in 2007, Nwoko had an alternative reason for placing the moat around the back of the chapel: He put it there to prevent future extensions to his design, knowing full well how churches in his country tend to mushroom. When crime rates rose in Ibadan during the 1980s and armed robberies became more frequent, additions proved necessary. Nwabuzo describes the morning in 1982 when the brothers arrived at the chapel to find a blood trail leading into the sacristy. “Apparently armed robbers had used it for a hiding place at night,” he says. That is when the order decided to put walls around the compound and to install steel-framed doors in the chapel’s sacristy and service vestry. “But we discussed it for hours. We did not want to distract attention from the original design,” he adds. Through the years the chapel and other buildings on its grounds – Nwoko also designed the living quarters, refectory and school for the Dominicans – underwent some adjustments. Instead of the tiny tilapia they used to keep in the pond to chase away the mosquitoes, they now breed catfish to roast. Rails have also been attached to the stone steps into the chapel to support the older members of the religious order who have difficulty walking, and fans have been put up for the hot days when the cross ventilation does not suffice. Today, they are considering building a ramp so that wheelchair users can more easily enter the chapel, adds Father Dominic Mbomson, the prior of the St Thomas Aquinus Priory, as the Dominican convent is officially called. He stresses that for a radical adjustment, like a ramp, they will get in touch with Ashim, who works with his father in the realisation process of his designs. “We respect the work of art we are praying in,” the prior explains. The new buildings on the site, all of which are behind Nwoko’s creations, were necessary to accommodate the convent’s growth. With its 97 brothers who have taken the vow of chastity, obedience, and poverty, the Dominican Institute in Ibadan is one of the largest priories of this Roman Catholic religious order in the world, says Mbomson. “We are blessed with vocation,” he adds. The order, which combines a contemplative life with active preaching, welcomes visitors who want to see the chapel and Nwoko’s other buildings, but there are not many of those. Nigerians are not very active tourists in their own country, the prior explains, adding: “But when they come here for a function, they’re always amazed by the architecture.” In his opinion, it is no coincidence that a creation as extraordinary as Nwoko’s chapel was commissioned by Dominicans. “We are an order of preachers, and you can preach using all things of beauty. Because in all beauty, there is God,” he says. Not many of the brothers who witnessed the early stages of the building project in the 1960s are around any more, but student brother Gerald Okechukwu has spoken extensively with two of them in the past. They told him that the order had first commissioned another architect, but were not happy with the design he proposed. “They wanted something more African, something that wasn’t Western or foreign,” explains Okechukwu. After reading fine and applied arts at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, Okechukwu joined the order in 2010. Nwoko’s design, a structure he had heard nothing about in art school, struck him from the first time he saw it. “This was a sculpture, not a building,” he thought. The 32-year-old has not yet been ordained as a priest, but he hopes he will not be sent away when that happens. “This is such an inspiring environment. Every corner gives you something to think about,” he says. One day he was counting the wooden pillars in the chapel, which seem to be growing organically out of the soil. “I discovered there are eight big columns and four smaller ones. Twelve in total; just like the disciples,” he explains. Even the fact that the chapel remained unfinished has a religious connotation to him: “Unfinished like the church itself. Just like our journey will not be finished here, but only when we meet God.” “Yes, some of my father’s works remain unfinished,” acknowledges Ashim Nwoko. “My dad was extreme. You can’t deal with someone like that for long.” He points up to the concrete steeple of the chapel. “I think he still wanted to put a mosaic up there. But it doesn’t look incomplete, does it? At whatever point my father left the job, it never looked unfinished.” The New Culture Studio that his father designed and built on one of Ibadan’s hills, and where Ashim lives and works, is also an ongoing project. The roof of the theatre adjacent to the studio has not been put up yet. But this year Demas Nwoko turns 80 years old, and his family and friends are trying hard to roof the theatre in time for the party they are planning to hold there. “He hasn’t come to Ibadan since 2009. That’s why we want to celebrate his 80th birthday here,” Ashim says. “My father deserves to be celebrated.” Source:: Al Jazeera The post My life in a building: A chapel from the soil appeared first on African Media Agency. Source:: http://amediaagency.com/my-life-in-a-building-a-chapel-from-the-soil/ Congolese warlord Bosco ‘Terminator’ Ntaganda on trial Latest News September 2, 2015 Here’s why Paul Kagame won a third term as Rwanda’s president Sudan’s Bashir returns from Uganda after ‘short visit’ World Food Day: African Development Bank (AfDB) urges African leaders to make agriculture attractive to young Africans and stem migration Nigerian War Veterans Deserve Better Attention – Air Comodore Balogun Tia Lee supprime toutes ses photos Instagram et les remplace par une grille noire mystérieuse UN panel blames South Sudan leaders for Juba violence Burundians flee capital in run-up to crackdown African students set to benefit from $27m scholarship program Boko Haram attack: 50,000 flee town in Niger Dealing with Food Insecurity, on a Longer Term	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line45
__label__cc	0.648133	0.351867	Molecule of the Month: Tetrahydrobiopterin Biosynthesis Tetrahydrobiopterin plays an essential role in the production of aromatic amino acids, neurotransmitters and nitric oxide. Enzymes that perform unusual chemical reactions often need some assistance. The twenty natural amino acids have many different chemical properties that may be used to catalyze chemical reactions, but sometimes amino acids just aren't enough. In these cases, cofactors with special chemical properties provide the necessary chemical expertise and enzymes use them as tiny tools to perform their reactions. For instance, tetrahydrobiopterin is a cofactor used by several enzymes that juggle molecular oxygen, attaching it to amino acids and other molecules. Three enzymes perform sequential steps in tetrahydrobiopterin synthesis. Building a Cofactor Three enzymes build tetrahydrobiopterin starting from GTP. The first step, which is the committing step for the whole process, is performed by a large enzyme complex called GTP cyclohydrolase I (GTPCH, shown here from PDB entry 1gtp ). It breaks the smaller ring in the guanine base, opens up the sugar, and reconnects everything to form a slightly larger ring. In the second step, the enzyme 6-pyruvoyl-tetrahydropterin synthase (PTPS, PDB entry 1gtq ) swaps a few atoms around in the ring and clips off the phosphates. Finally, the enzyme sepiapterin reductase (SR, PDB entry 1sep ) cleans up the portion of the sugar that is left to form the final cofactor. Important Connections Enzymes that require tetrahydrobiopterin are important for the production of amino acids, but perhaps their most visible role is in the production of neurotransmitters. Phenylalanine hydroxylase and tyrosine hydroxylase create the raw material for building dopamine, which in turn is the building block for making epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine. Tetrahydrobiopterin is also used by nitric oxide synthase, which builds nitric oxide gas that is widely used in the body as a hormone. If the enzymes that build tetrahydrobiopterin are missing or mutated, these functions will be compromised and can cause severe problems with the nervous system and cardiovascular system. Fortunately, people with these problems can be treated with compounds like L-dopa, which are normally made by tetrahydrobiopterin-dependent enzymes. Regenerating the Cofactor When used as a cofactor, tetrahydrobiopterin grabs molecular oxygen and attaches one oxygen atom to the target molecule, but it ends up having the other oxygen attached to itself in the process. Two enzymes are then needed to strip off this unwanted oxygen and restore the cofactor. The first, pterin-4a-carbinolamine dehydratase (PCD, PDB entry 1dcp ), strips off the oxygen and releases it as a water molecule. The second, dihydropteridine reductase (DHPR, PDB entry 1dhr ), adds a few hydrogen atoms and the cofactor is ready to go for the next reaction. Two enzymes regenerate tetrahydrobiopterin after it is used as a cofactor. Sepiapterin Reductase (PDB entries 1sep and 4j7u) A recent crystallographic analysis revealed the structural basis for side effects caused by sulfa drugs. These drugs revolutionized medicine in the 1930s, being one of the first effective antibiotics for fighting bacterial infections. However, they show some side effects with the nervous system when used at high doses. A recent structure (PDB entry 4j7u ), revealed that the drugs bind to sepiapterin reductase, blocking its action and ultimately blocking the production of neurotransmitters. To explore the structure of a sulfa drug bound to this enzyme, as well as the structure of the enzyme with its intended substrate (PDB entry 1sep ), click the image for an interactive JSmol. To see tetrahydrobiopterin in action, try searching for structures of phenylalanine hydroxylase, tyrosine hydroxylase and nitric oxide synthase. More information about tetrahydrobiopterin is available at the Ligand Summary page. Browse Drug Action Browse Antimicrobial Resistance 4j7u: H. Haruki, M. G. Pedersen, K. I. Gorska, F. Pojer & K. Johnsson (2013) Tetrahydrobiopterin biosynthesis as an off-target of sulfa drugs. Science 340, 987-991. B. Thony, G. Auerbach & N. Blau (2000) Tetrahydrobiopterin biosynthesis, regeneration and functions. Biochemical Journal 347, 1-16. 1sep: G. Auerbach, A. Herrmann, M. Gutlich, M. Fischer, U. Jacob, A. Bacher & R. Huber (1997) The 1.25 A crystal structure of sepiapterin reductase reveals its binding mode to pterins and brain neurotransmitters. EMBO Journal 16, 7219-7230. 1dcp: J. D. Cronk, J. A. Endrizzi & T. Alber (1996) High-resolution structures of the bifunctional enzyme and transcriptional coactivator DCoH and its complex with a product analogue. Protein Science 5, 1963-1972. 1gtp: H. Nar, R. Huber, W. Meining, C. Schmid, S. Weinkauf & A. Bacher (1995) Atomic structure of GTP cyclohydrolase I. Structure 3, 459-466. 1gtq: H. Nar, R. Huber, C. W. Heizmann, B. Thony & D. Burgisser (1994) Three-dimensional structure of 6-pyruvoyl tetrahydropterin synthase, an enzyme involved in tetrahydrobiopterin biosynthesis. EMBO Journal 13, 1255-1262. 1dhr: K. I. Varughese, M. M. Skinner, J. M. Whiteley, D. A. Matthews & N. H. Xuong (1992) Crystal structure of rat liver dihydropteridine reductase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 89, 6080-6084. August 2015, David Goodsell	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line47
__label__wiki	0.80856	0.80856	February 9, 2016 In Interviews, Writing Big heart for art: Faizal Hamdan FAIZAL Hamdan is the kind of art teacher who gets a sense of satisfaction from the achievements of his former students. With a glint of pride in his eyes, he talks about coming across his former students who are continuing to teach and practise art and how he always tells them to do art beyond the confines of the canvas. “I have to tell them what they can do with art,” says the 40-year-old artist and art educator. “When you finish school or your art subject you can apply it to other things – like making your own business or creating a product. It’s not just painting and drawing.” His former students have taken this to heart, such as the owners of the clothing line Fizzy Fire and Fairuz Zabady Hj Zaini, owner of the graffiti store Stain, who are creating their own distinctive creative brands and identities. He says that he sees teaching as the highlight of his career so far. But who knew he would go on to develop a big heart for art about two decades ago? Seemingly a world away from art, Faizal Hamdan completed his National Diploma in Construction from Sultan Saiful Rijal Technical College in 1997. He was going to pursue a career in architecture. “I did some work as a draughtsman at a structural engineering company (under a work attachment programme). Drawing floor plans, internal structures of beams, reinforcement and calculating the force.” During the two-and-half-year course he learnt about computers, computer-aided design software and materials. After Faizal completed his course he was on the lookout for employment in the private sector. However, while scoping jobs in the field of engineering, architecture and quantity surveying his mind was somewhere else. “In the meantime I was preparing my art portfolio… I was wondering if (getting a job) wasn’t the next step for me, so I focused to get back into art.” The portfolio was prepared from the previous work he completed as secondary student and some portrait commission work. He always had an interest in art and initially applied for an art course, but with no scholarship he found himself in technical school. With the portfolio Faizal assembled during his time looking for jobs he applied for an art course in Western Australia at Curtin University of Technology in Art. The transition between the fields was a shock. “It was a shock in the beginning. First year, I didn’t really know what art was. But it was really interesting since they exposed us to different areas. Changed my perception looking at things.” Once back in Brunei from university, he started to teach but had no time to create his own art work. “I didn’t know how to manage my time,” he says of his first teaching stint at Sultan Omar ‘Ali Saifuddien College. “Teaching was more important.” “Teaching was more important.” It took him four years to find a balance between teaching and creating art work. Now Faizal Hamdan’s artwork has been exhibited throughout Asia and he is one of the few art educators in the country who are also practising artists. Faizal’s realistic portrait paintings have also occupied the top spots in the annual portrait competitions for His Majesty Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah, The Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam’s birthday celebrations. The first opportunity for him to exhibit was at the Penang National Art Gallery, Malaysia in an exhibition entitled ‘Darussalam Spaces’. Being invited with other art educators in Brunei was “a turning point” for the sixth form teacher. This exhibition led to more opportunities for him to exhibit locally and internationally while honing his craft as an artist and educator. His growing confidence in his practice led him to organise his own self funded exhibition ‘Empat’ with four other art educators. Now at Sengkurong Sixth Form Centre, Faizal hopes that his own attitude towards teaching and making art can urge students to create. He acknowledges most of the art teachers in Brunei don’t practise art, they only teach, he says. “I’d like to change that. Maybe slowly, it will happen. “Even if it’s not every day, teachers should produce something, express themselves and let their students get in- spired by their work. I like to do it that way, rather than teach them, I share my experience.” Driven to Excel: Mamad AK (Muhammad Abdul Khalid) From Beams to Seams - Maricel Pamintuan Nice Things About Brunei Survey	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line49
__label__wiki	0.773631	0.773631	More than Just a Land Acknowledgment Irvin Provost October 29, 2019 October 2019 No Comments There’s a good chance that if you have visited or live in Canada, you have heard of a land (or territory) acknowledgment at the beginning of a public, civic, sporting, or academic event. Land acknowledgments are a way of recognizing that an event is taking place on the ancestral lands of a particular Indigenous community. This term, if you decide to explore its origin, unearths a complex and dark account of North America’s colonial history. Currently, various Canadian institutions have begun to adopt land acknowledgments on a wide-spread scale as a facet of ‘reconciliation’. However, if acknowledging the land simply becomes an agenda point, it is easy to forget its intention and relevance. Land acknowledgments trace their roots to a report published by the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada” (TRC). Land acknowledgments have been used by Indigenous communities as a method of organizing land stewardship and acknowledging rights to resources such as gathered foods by means of fishing and hunting as well as the acquisition of medicinal plants. Recently, land acknowledgments have devolved into lip-service at worst, and at best, a sincere recognition of being guests on someone’s traditional territory. The TRC, before it dissolved, primarily focused on preserving the history of residential schools and acknowledging the dark legacy it has left behind. Residential schools were government-funded institutions operated by Christian churches across Canada. In 1876, with the enactment of the ‘Indian Act’, Indigenous children were required to attend these institutions as part of their education [1]. The intention of these schools was to assimilate young Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture and society. The assimilation had involved the prevention of using their own language, abandoning their customs, and separation from their home communities. Credit: Canada. Dept. of Interior / Library and Archives Canada / PA-046123 [4] Upon entry, staff members physically stripped Indigenous children of their identity through various ways such as the following: nuns cut the long hairstyles of Indigenous boys to become very short and had replaced their clothing with European influenced uniforms. Afterward, they were segregated by gender, they weren’t allowed to speak their traditional language without corporal punishment, and they were ordered to remain at the residential school until the school term ended. Their names were stolen and prohibited from use; in some cases, they were assigned dehumanizing numbers instead of names. To build an account of the schools, the TRC reached out to the survivors of these disgraceful institutions many years later. Survivors described elements of sexual, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse committed by the staff of these institutions. It is estimated that 4,400 children died under their care [2]; Charlie Wenjack, a 13-year old child, died while attempting to walk 643 kilometers to his home community [3]. The last federally-supported institution closed in 1996. The trauma of the school has reverberated through each successive generation right across North America. Therefore, the effects of these schools have coloured every aspect of Indigenous lives in Canadian society. The ‘Indian Act’, before key amendments made after the middle of the 20th century, undermined the economic, cultural, and political sovereignty of Indigenous communities. Alcoholism, over-representation in the Canadian criminal justice system, low graduation rates, lower life expectancy, and other factors affect our communities. Yet, despite these traumas, we have persisted and have demands that extend beyond acknowledging our ancestral lands. More than 100 Indigenous people march on Parliament Hill to protest the elimination of Aboriginal rights in the proposed Constitution, on 16 November 1981 [Source: The Canadian Press/Carl Bigras] [6] The TRC formally dissolved in 2015, leaving reports and recommendations addressed to all levels of the Canadian government. Land acknowledgments, while constituting public recognition of Indigenous sovereignty, are not sufficient or adequate steps towards true reconciliation. Among the 94 calls to action, only ten have been fulfilled under the Liberal government [5]. All major Canadian political parties are touting some form of Indigenous land policy, but previous governments have failed to uphold promises they’ve made to Indigenous communities. Potable water, decent housing, authority over resources, local education, social services, health care, language preservation, and other issues remain to be fully addressed. With the Canadian election in full-swing, it’s unclear whether the remaining 84 calls to action will reach their full completion regardless of whether or not there is a new government. Land acknowledgments must accompany other forms of reconciliation; difficult questions must be posed and answered. To establish reciprocity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, we can ask: “What can I do to better strengthen my relationship with local Indigenous communities? How can I support existing initiatives and movements? When is it time to step back and let Indigenous leaders lead the change?” Asking these questions, in addition to adopting land acknowledgments, contributes to a more equitable relationship between non-Indigenous and Indigenous communities. In today’s Canadian political landscape, land acknowledgments are just one gesture in how we may approach reconciliation. To retain the relevance and importance of land acknowledgments, we must remind ourselves of their origins and do our part in the on-going conversation and concrete manifestations of reconciliation. Additional Readings: [1] Residential Schools in Canada [2] Names of Children who Died in Residential Schools to be Released [3] The Lonely Death of Chanie Wenjack [4] Residential School Photo [5] Calls to Action Counter [6] 1981 Aboriginal Rights Protest Photo About Irvin Provost © 2023 First Person Magazine. All Rights Reserved.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line50
__label__cc	0.58198	0.41802	Best of Craigslist: Remember Diversity By Courtney P March 17th, 2008 @ 4:33 PM Castro,Queer,San Francisco Here’s a thought-provoking story to wrap up the day… a Craigslist rant about a bit of reverse discrimination in The Castro: You, the waiter in the castro…… So there we were, coming in to eat at your establishment. You, my oh-so perfect little queen waitron were almost but not quite able to hide your dismay at this odd group of people. I mean, really, at least three of us were clearly from somewhere in the midwest. Given that three of us were also obviously dykes, or at least local weirdoes, you might have caught on that we were entertaining visitors. But no, you struggled masterfully, albeit unsuccessfully, to hide your disdain for our friends from Ohio. Your undertone snide comments were not unnoticed, my friend. Next time, make those comments while you’re in the kitchen. Saying things like “you people are horrible” in a perky bright voice is bad form, to say the least. Fucking unforgivably rude is more like it. For your information, miss i’m-too-young-to-remember-the-plague-years, that ancient (over 50) woman from Ohio who ordered too much food and was loud and annoying to you comes out here to meet up with us because we took care of her son while he was dying a dozen years ago. The same son she drove to New York so he could attend the first year of Harvey Milk High. The same son she came out to once he was 16. The son who died a month before his 22nd birthday. She’s been at the forefront of what passes for a gay rights movement in Ohio, and has stood up so that pathetic little twinks like you can walk down the street in your aberzombie and felch uniforms and hold hands. And even with what you acted like, she still tipped you 20%, because she remembers her son working in a similar restaurant, and his struggles with money. Next time someone who doesn’t fit your personal tastes comes into your restaurant, perhaps you might try some compassion, or even just some human respect. Remember the word diversity? It applies to you and your tiny narrow mind as well. We like to think that we live in one of the most diverse and open-minded cities in the world, but things like this still do happen, unfortunately. njudah on March 17th, 2008 @ 11:06 pm righteous. It kills me how the people in the "alt culture" are as fascist as the mainstream they disdain. WTF? icbalaam on March 18th, 2008 @ 7:39 am Living in that neighborhood, being apart of that community, this rant doesn’t surprise me at all. But what’s up with the prevalent passive aggressive attitudes we have here in SF? Instead of opening up a dialog with the waiter for acting like twerp, the author went home and penned a CL rant. How does this help the community? Is she seeking solidarity from other passive aggressive people who can hide behind their computers? A lot of good that will do. Richard Ault (richard) on March 18th, 2008 @ 8:33 am Unfortunately I hear this kind of "hate speak lite" way more than I’d like to in SF. The history of tolerance was one of the major attractions for me, in moving to sf. But nowadays it seems that people don’t live by any sort of code in this town (except stick with your own). And just like courtesy, intolerance is contagious. Wrt the passive aggressive nature of the population, I doubt that’s got much to do with computers, although that seems to be the likely scapegoat. Just look at the previous post about the Anonymous protest, doesn’t seem very passive aggressive to me… more like aggressive. Courtney P (courtney) on March 18th, 2008 @ 7:13 pm I feel like icbalaam’s comment is kind of one of the same generalizations that we make about others. There are certainly people out there that will not take the passive-aggressive route when dealing with situations such as this. There are certainly people that take action, but there are a lot of people that are just plain afraid. Even though it may not be the way we might handle a similar situation, I say, good on her for taking the first step towards standing up for her beliefs. I’m not surprised at her rant, I am just saddened that we are not as tolerant and accepting as we would like to believe we are.	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line52
__label__cc	0.735474	0.264526	Keough Insider Stories from Notre Dame's Master of Global Affairs students Frontline protesters aren’t the only ones making a difference on climate change Discarded Data, Lasting Impact: Lessons from Angela’s House 5 Ways to Effectively Shape Policy Great Expectations and Shifting Perspectives Learning from Neighbors: What Germany’s Ruhr Valley and the American Midwest Have in Common Food Supply Chain i-Lab Shelter for All Follow Our Stories Subscribe to Keough Insider by Email Tag: Kroc Institute The African American Dilemma by: Bryanna Beamer The first time I put my foot down on African soil in Ghana, I wanted to cry. Feeling the heat that borders on oppressive with not a single hint of breeze may not be everyone’s idea of paradise, but I loved it. Now I’m here again, in The Gambia this time, enjoying the sun as my dark skin absorbs its rays. Rewind to 20 years ago when Africa was little more than another name on a map, my parents worked hard to make sure that my brother and I had every opportunity not always afforded to people of color. One huge step in this process was packing us up and out to the suburbs of Philadelphia. My school district was extremely diverse, and I am only now just realizing that my circle of friends looked like a cheesy brochure promoting diversity. I got the odd racial joke of being called an Oreo, and my family and I made a game of seeing how many Black people we saw when we went to dinner, but I lived my childhood blissfully ignorant of present-day racism and prejudice. And then there was college. My choice was between a HBCU and a Pennsylvania state school in the middle of farmland. In the end, I couldn’t ignore the money. State school it was. I have never regretted my decision, but I was definitely a black speck of ebony in a sea of ivory. So, when I graduated and joined the Peace Corps, I told them I didn’t care where they put me, but it needed to be Africa. The first workshop that Bryanna helped lead. The participants were instructed to select an adjective about themselves that began with the same letter as their name. Most of the people in the group didn’t understand what bookworm meant. I spent the next 2 years in Ghana where I was different, but not obviously so. I was a Black person in a Black country. People assumed I was one of them, and I loved it. There were challenges—Ghanaians had a lot less patience with me compared to white volunteers when teaching their culture—but I was finally among what felt like my people. And then there was grad school. I knew I wanted to work in the international field, but the international aspect was missing from a lot of these international programs, so Notre Dame in all its homogeneity it was. I love the Keough School, but its demographics don’t spill out to the rest of the University. I have found myself more racially defiant than ever, wearing my Nah- Rosa Parks shirt with my fluffy halo of hair all the while secretly wondering how Black is too Black for ND. Now how does any of this relate to my time in The Gambia right now? Well, this time, I feel lost. Before college, I was just an American kid. In college, I gripped my identity as a Black woman tight. In Ghana, I was able to celebrate being around Black people. At Notre Dame, I played the woke Black American. Now, I am acutely aware of how American I am because here, there is no Black and white America. It’s all America, and America is white. Where does my Blackness fit in? Do I subscribe to the American identity I grew up with, or the African identity that is my history, no matter how distant and forgotten? I’ve done 23&me, so I know that my DNA test says I have a lot of West Africa in my blood (along with a significant amount of European but who would accept that), but I can’t tell you generations back what my ancestors did. I don’t find it a privilege to live with my parents until I marry, which apparently should have happened already. Even my name, with the Br, is hard to pronounce here. And I LOVE personal space, a concept severely missing here. Bryanna feeling cool, calm, and collected in a Ghanaian market in 2017. It’s not that these differences didn’t exist in Ghana. I was just so excited to be around Black people that I minimized them. And now I’m confused. I’m too Black for America and I’m too American for Africa. And it’s only worse when I hang out with the white expats. Visually, I can pass for Gambian so when I go out, I feel the Gambian eyes linger on me a little longer. It’s like I’m too similar for them to understand that I’m not like them, and by not acting like them they see it as me rejecting their Gambian culture. So for all of you who look like TV’s version of America or know the origins of your people, make a little effort to appreciate that privileged knowledge and comfort in knowing exactly who you are. We don’t all have that luxury. Top Photo: A decidedly not personal-space friendly lounging area at the beach. Posted on October 13, 2021 October 13, 2021 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace StudiesTags Africa, Gambia, Ghana, Kroc Institute Reparations for Colonialism by: Sarah Nanjala “The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.” ― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance MGA student Sarah Nanjala while on her visit to Belgium over the summer of 2021. Old historic buildings, tall gothic cathedrals, ancient marble roads, magnificent Flemish art coupled up with modern infrastructure, and the smell of dark chocolate were just some of the scenes that welcomed me to Brussels, Belgium in the summer of 2021. During my five-week stay in the European country, I was treated to infinite doses of an incredibly rich culture that immersed me in a highly intriguing moment of history. As I made my way through the touristic streets, I would be taken aback by the magnificence of the Art Nouveau architecture surrounding the city. My online research of the city did not do me any justice and I often found myself sidetracked by the hundreds of pictures I took. As much as I wanted to enjoy the present, I did not want to miss anything and, as such, took pictures of everything—from gargoyles to landscape, food, performances, street art, and artifacts. Among the fascinating places was Grand Place, which had some of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. These buildings date back to the 14th century and stood boldly in defiance of time. As I walked through the structures while feeling the walls with my fingers and closed eyes, I imagined what it was like 500 years ago—what the lifestyle and culture were, and how did they dress and interact. I was curious: was there hunger, wars, and crime, and was there mass travel as is today? Just by the sheer age of the ground I stood, it hit me quite vividly that history has proven to be a double-edged sword, sharing our successes as well as our failures and all preserved in monuments around us. As a student from Africa visiting Europe for the first time, it shocked me to see so much of African culture in Belgium. During my second week, I took the train to the Africa Museum, an ethnography and natural history museum located 8.5 miles outside Brussels. The museum focuses on the Congo, a former Belgian colony, and other parts of Africa such as East and West Africa. While en route to the museum, I knew I would be interacting with African culture, however, the magnitude of the traditional artifacts on display was unexpected. I started the tour with much excitement, embracing the African culture and appreciation, but this feeling soon turned into shock and then anger. Why were there so many African traditional artifacts in a museum in Europe? “Some of these pieces were obtained by violent or unlawful means.” Because of colonization, the histories of Africa and Europe are forever tied and although more than five decades have since passed, the effects are enormous. From the religions we hold to the naming of our children, our education systems, and the languages we speak, they all have a hint of colonization. There have been negative effects too—economic instabilities, systemic racism, ethnic rivalries, degradation of natural resources, and widespread human rights violations that we see across Africa years after independence. These realities became very real to me with each room I entered and with every item I saw. It is no secret that most of these artifacts—masks worn by elders and warriors, traditional clothing and weapons, and musical instruments—were obtained during the colonial era and not in the most peaceful of means. In an announcement in one of the hallways, the museum acknowledges the questionable nature in which these artifacts were acquired. They confess that “a large part of Africa’s material heritage is housed in Western Museums or with private collectors” adding that “some of these pieces were obtained by violent or unlawful means.” African traditional artifacts displayed at the African Museum in Tervuren, near Brussels, Belgium. Some of the artifacts may have been taken by force during colonization but have never been returned. This encounter raised several pertinent questions in my mind, among them was, should reparations be made to post-colonial states for atrocities made during colonization and if so, what forms should they take? There have been numerous debates in recent years about whether European countries should return these artifacts as part of a reparations process. Countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Benin, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and Egypt have, in the past, made appeals to have their artifacts returned. Some European countries have agreed to this but on conditions such as on a loan basis, as was with the case between Nigeria, Benin, and Britain. I must admit that there has been some form of acknowledgment of the need to reinstitute these artifacts, the question though remains—is that enough? It has been shown in research that former colonial masters enriched their countries’ economic and industrial strength through the resources they extracted from their colonies. In addition to natural and human resources, traditional artifacts are just among the many things that were taken. The Africa Museum noted that it “is currently prioritizing provenance research to ascertain how objects were acquired,” noting that “the museum has an open constructive attitude towards the restitution debate.” Although this shows some willingness to have the debate on reparations, this intent needs to be translated into action. On this, I say there is a need for both repentance and reparations. Besides restitution of African artifacts, there has also been a push for reparations that match the level of atrocities committed during colonization. So far, only acknowledgments and very few public apologies have been made. An excellent example was in June 2020 when the Belgian king, Philippe, wrote a letter to the Congolese president acknowledging the “painful episodes” of the colonial era with its “acts of violence and cruelty.” In this statement, Philippe says that he “would like to express my deepest regrets for these injuries of the past, the pain of which is now revived by the discrimination still too present in our societies.” The admission came as a shock as no Belgian monarch has previously made such a statement. The African Museum, an ethnography and natural history museum located 8.5 miles outside Brussels. The museum focuses on the Congo, a Central African country and a former Belgian colony, and also extends to other parts of the continent including the Congo River basin, Central Africa, East Africa, and West Africa. The debate on whether reparations or apologies should be made has been contentious. The main point of debate is the governments and individuals that committed these atrocities are no longer in power and that those who experienced colonialism firsthand are gone. It is from this argument that French President Emmanuel Macron in January 2021 said that there will be “no repentance nor apologies” for its occupation in Algeria but rather they are open to participating in “symbolic acts” that will promote reconciliation. On this, I say there is a need for both repentance and reparations. But what form should they be in? Well, the first step is education that will allow people, most importantly policymakers, to understand and appreciate the need for it. This would call for an acknowledgment and apology for colonial atrocities. Secondly, reparations do not necessarily need to equate to monetary value (although common) but can also be in the form of radical and justice-driven change, as economist Priya Lukka notes. There is also a crucial need to make international laws more inclusive through decolonizing principles that obstruct reparations. This would pave way for racial equality and eliminate avenues for discrimination, more so on reparations. It is encouraging to see that there is an ongoing conversation on this topic, which is what is needed if we are ever to ensure justice is achieved for those who were colonized. However, for now, we can start with the return of these African artifacts to their rightful homes. Top Photo: Statues outside the African Museum in Tervuren, Belgium. Posted on October 6, 2021 October 6, 2021 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace StudiesTags Africa, Belgium, Congo, Kroc Institute The Case for Rehabilitation: Peaceful Responses for Interrupting Violent Patterns in El Salvador By: Jacqueline Shrader When I first started sharing with my colleagues and community that I would be living in El Salvador working with ex-gang members, their first question was “Will you be safe?” This question was admittedly ironic, since my placement was with Creative Associate International’s Crime and Violence Prevention Project (CVPP). While the question was rooted in concern for my well-being, it reflects the ways in which the discourse around El Salvador is dominated by violence, gangs, and poverty. At the Keough School of Global Affairs, many of our classes demand interrogation of themes like this. In contexts of violence such as those in El Salvador, there has been a tendency to rely on repressive tactics that risk exacerbating the problem. There are an estimated 60,000-70,000 active gang members in El Salvador. If each of those gang members is part of a family who could be affected by repression, then there is tremendous risk for creating more division in the larger society rather than addressing the original conflict. The CVPP is one of the first large projects to work on tertiary prevention, which is direct intervention with people looking to leave gangs. Focusing on rehabilitation of people trying to leave the gangs—already very challenging—creates opportunities to lower the number of gang members, decrease violence, and address original factors that lead to people joining gangs. Out of most of the ex-gang members I have spoken with, many reference wanting to feel like their identity is respected and that their well-being sustained. Due to contexts of unresolved conflict, scarce resources, classism and other issues that maintain violence, people who join the gangs seek alternative groups that respect their human dignity. CVPP has focused on public space rehabilitation. This was a community painted mural that seeks to brighten the neighborhood and reinforce community building. For example, there are two dominant gangs in El Salvador, both of which originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 90s. During these years, a surge of Central American immigrants fleeing civil war and conflict landed in LA seeking refuge. LA did not have the infrastructure to support the sudden influx of people, which resulted in high unemployment and dense urban living situations. Existing gang violence and insufficient municipal infrastructure created an impossible reality, which led to the creation of new gangs for safety and community reasons. With high homicide rates and violence in LA, the US responded with heavy-handed incarceration and deportation policies. This response sent young men back to their birth countries, though many did not even speak Spanish. The policy implementation could not have foreseen the violence that the US would export back to Central America, which in 20 years would create a new iteration of the immigration crisis. For the last 10 years or so, the popular rhetoric assigned to gangs and gang members in Central America has been one based on violence and fear. The violence perpetuated by gangs is harsh and inexcusable, leaving several communities in El Salvador struggling. Through extortion and other forms of violence, the gangs in El Salvador pose threats to the Salvadoran social fabric that increase instability, migration, and lower chances of success. With every new iteration of repressive mano dura, or Iron Fist policy, gangs adopt a more formal infrastructure and presence. Gang members may commit violent acts, but the questions need to be asked in order to think about gangs origin and historical trajectory. Why did they end up in a gang in the first place? How did the public institutions, international policies, and social fabric fail people enough that they would join a gang? How do gangs provide a sense of safety or security to involved people that they may not feel otherwise? Applying an anthropological lens reveals more answers that may not excuse behavior, but offer hints for disrupting and transforming violence. This painting hangs in the Chapel at the University of Central America, San Salvador. It depicts the military’s violence during the civil conflict, which eventually led to the murder of 6 Jesuit priests in 1989 by the military. As a peacebuilder from the USA, I come home every day with new questions, information and experiences to think about. My country not only deported the original gangsters, but also policies that provide quick answers without addressing root causes. Scholar-activist John Paul Lederach’s reflections resound daily: “To speak well and listen carefully is no easy task at times of high emotions and deep conflict. People’s very identity is under threat.” The starting question may still be, “Will you be safe?” But as practitioners, we must reframe the question to “How is this person not safe due to underlying structural and historical causes that threaten the dignity of the person in front of me?” If practitioners do not, we risk replicating historical patterns of violence towards current and future generations, compounding the root causes and contributing to future insecurity. Pupusas are a famous Salvadoran food. Posted on September 27, 2019 October 29, 2021 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace StudiesTags el salvador, Kroc Institute Voices of Hope Amid Complexities By: Ephraim Bassey Emah To what extent should outside peacebuilders (or newcomers) display optimism for positive social change despite the presence of protracted conflicts in an environment? This is a question that I struggle to answer as I engage my Master of Global Affairs field experience in Myanmar. Based on my interactions so far, it is clear that as long as local populations, who are the most affected by the conflict, demonstrate optimism, then outside interveners should keep the faith and continue to show solidarity with them. This attitude, I would argue, should be part of the professional ethics and individual responsibility of [outside] peacebuilders, and shape how we engage with conflict-affected populations. The strength that communities need to transform conflict relationships, achieve long-term social change, and thrive is often embedded in their collective display of resilience, positive attitudes, and belief that violent conflicts will de-escalate or disappear. Overlook of Yangon from RAFT Office. Myanmar is a beautiful country with a rich culture, substantial mineral deposits, and a friendly people. Despite these endowments, different complex issues continue to drive conflict escalation and frequent clashes between the country’s military, called Tatmadaw, and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in different parts of the country. Continued conflicts in Shan and Rakhine states are just one of the major conflicts that occur around the country. The continuation of fighting in locations like Rakhine State reveals the complexity of contextual issues and how the outcomes of the conflicts shape relationships among citizens. Ethnonationalism, ethnocentrism, demand for political autonomy and resource control, and the weaponization of religion to incite hate are some of the factors that sustain the conflicts. A continuous polarization of identity and broader national security by different armed actors, including the government, threatens social cohesion and the possibilities of achieving integral human development, a core principle and goal of the Keough School. Achieving sustainable peace and human flourishing in environments affected by high-intensity conflict is difficult. As I engage in deep reflections about opportunities that exist amid the complexity in Myanmar, interactions with youth help me realize that outside peacebuilders’ emphasis should be on integral human development and integral peace. Pursuing both goals emphasizes the importance of “carrying everyone along.” However, the optimism of many groups who are working beyond narratives of hate and stereotypes demonstrates significant hope for peace and conflict transformation in the country. This optimism is further amplified by the existence of civil society organizations, like RAFT, whose organizational make-up reflects a dynamic mix of technical capacity, contextual awareness and sensitivity, firm resolve and commitment to collaborative peacebuilding actions, and a desire to build peace across various identities. My immersion in Myanmar, through the guidance of RAFT, enables me to more deeply understand the ethics associated with engaging local contexts, being sensitive to different dynamics that exist, carefully triangulating information, and maintaining the best attitude and poise that is required to manage conflicts. It is evident that because the sources of conflicts often emerge from local populations, they are better placed to develop locally-owned and locally-driven solutions for transforming their problems. Therefore, as a peacebuilder and participant-observer, it is my responsibility to interact cautiously within this space. Because we do not wish to do harm, peacebuilders should recognize that we are not “saviors,” but “facilitators” of positive social change. We may be experts with technical capacity, but may never be experts of local solutions. Therefore, supporting local populations to identify and leverage available resources and utilize their agency to build peace is one of the greatest gifts that outside peacebuilders or interveners can give in any context. Program Coordination Meeting with some RAFT colleagues. The growing level of hope for a peaceful Myanmar among young people stirs their resolve to display group solidarity regardless of their ethnic or religious inclinations. I remember Min Nyan Shwe, a young colleague at RAFT, telling me one time that “even though there is fighting everywhere, we know things will change one day.” This hope expands the space for mobilizing collective action towards reducing discrimination, strengthening the agency of youth to pressure conflict actors to end violence, promoting social cohesion, and transforming narratives that have divided citizens for decades. My interactions with many young people have also opened my eyes to the paradox of a peacebuilder’s position. Although the positionality of peacebuilders provides power, legitimacy, and increases access to resources, our work will be more effective when we channel our resources toward sustaining the optimism growing among local actors, regardless of the difficulties that they face. It is not “what” peacebuilders offer to transform conflicts that often matters; it is “how” these resources are transmitted that sustains peacebuilding. A Display of Youth Solidarity. As peacebuilders enter new environments, we automatically become a part of the context and its issues. Our vocation is one that requires us to identify and create solutions constantly. Solutions are easily recognized through genuine and deep reflection, respect for context, awareness of sensitivities, developing and maintaining the right relationships, and a display of humility to learn through the processes that shape us. Peacebuilding is a conscious journey toward identifying opportunities for inclusive and sustainable solutions, despite the existence of structural and institutional complexities. Solutions are not always created. Sometimes, they are already available at our fingertips. We only need to reflect, visualize them, and overcome the fears and constraints that the environment may create towards implementing them. Posted on September 13, 2019 September 13, 2019 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace StudiesTags Kroc Institute, Myanmar People Peace by: Malalai Habibi Upon my arrival to DC, I started working to lay the groundwork for the Afghanistan Peace Campaign (APC). This campaign is not officially launched yet, so I have been doing in-depth research and news analysis on the peace efforts to end violence in Afghanistan, known as Kabul Process. Because I wanted to experience organizational fieldwork as well and I found many interesting opportunities, I ended up taking on two organizational field placements. So, with the APC I can now say that I am completing three internships! The first organization I work with is the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) which is focusing on women, peace and security, and the second is Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), where I can put my focus on anti-corruption compliance. For this blog, I wanted to focus on my personal experience with ICAN. ICAN is a small organization, but a very professional one. When seeing their office, one cannot believe that so many creative and professional programs and projects are improvised, planned, and implemented in two small rooms. Their office is situated in the Brookings Institution’s building, so it is a small two–room organization at the heart of one of the biggest think tanks in Washington, DC: what a contrast! ICAN has an established relationship with small women-led peacebuilding organizations in many countries affected by conflict. Their relationship is not like a donor-and-receiver one, but like two collaborating entities with the same mission: successful peace and sustainability. As part of my internship with ICAN, I am supposed to contact the Afghan partners and facilitate work and collaboration. I have been going through proposals and working on their monitoring and evaluation. I started corresponding with the founder of one of the Afghanistan NGOs to inquire about her activities. While speaking with her a few times, and as it is the case with nearly all Afghans, we were trying to find a mutual relation or friend. Again, as it is the case with all these attempts, we were successful! Her son-in-law who is living a few minutes from us is a mutual friend of my husband. The NGO holder was coming to the U.S. for a visit. I decided to visit and welcome her in a friendly manner, another Afghan tradition. And to my surprise, I found her to be a humble woman working for the improvement of Afghan women. Nearly unaware of all those theories of peacebuilding, deradicalization, integration, preventing and countering violent extremism, bottom-up approach and above all ‘Do No Harm,’ she is implementing and practicing these ideas impactfully and in highly committed ways. Since meeting this woman, my mind has been preoccupied with her and with wondering what all other activists are doing in such societies. I have learned more from her than from any event, seminar or symposium I have attended in DC and those theories and books I have read. She spoke with me about her experience very briefly, but each of those experiences was very informative and educational for me. My new friend told me how she could mobilize 11 groups of Taliban. While the majority of INGOs and NGOs are working in the urban areas of Afghanistan and do not dare to go and work in the rural and remote areas, she is among the few who dared to go to those areas where mostly the Taliban and other insurgent groups reside. She believes these areas need the deradicalization and educational programs more than any other place. Her NGO provides training and workshops for the people in those areas without differentiating between Talib or not-Talib families. This made her very popular, especially in the remote areas. She said she has a picture of a Taliban Commander who is distributing hygienic kits among women. This woman uses different tactics, from approaching the wives of members of the Taliban to be intermediaries and speak with their husbands, to providing them with short-term funds to launch entrepreneurship activities. She is very strategic and is able to identify and use these points of entry with the conservative people in remote areas in order to deradicalize them. Her activities remind me of mediation theories and the importance of using local potential to solve problems. She provided a sewing machine for a Talib wife with funds out of her own pocket so that the wife could sew as a bread-and-butter job. She tried to provide the sewing machine before the recent Afghanistan parliamentary election. When she was asked why she was in a rush to buy the machine and could not wait for funds, she answered that she was going to provide it before the election in the hope that it might aid in deradicalization. For instance, if the woman’s husband possibly was going to jeopardize the election, he might decide not to when he sees that there are people who care about their family and try to help them. It reminds me of the importance of identifying potential dangers and root causes and trying to tackle them before they become chronic and out of control. This woman told me about a Talib who came to her and asked for help to start a small shop for selling dung (which people still use as fuel in rural areas). The Talib promised her that if he could have a small source of income, he would never continue fighting. She also spoke of many challenges as well. She said that after conducting workshops and entrepreneurship training for many women in the rural areas, the Taliban wives came to her and asked for the same programs for themselves. She tried to persuade other international NGOs to conduct such programs for them, but they refused for fear that if something threatening happened, they would be blamed for letting the wives of the Taliban in amongst other people. While reading some of the proposed projects at ICAN, I was surprised to see that nearly all the proposals are written very eloquently, professionally, and effectively. NGOs have successfully implemented programs from making documentaries about women to holding focus group discussions, capacity building training, doing research, and promoting national dialogues. As I think about the principle of the local turn, I now am able to see that truly the people on the ground can identify the root causes of conflicts, know how to address them, and improvise very professional solutions to tackle them far better than any professional outside intervener. At first it seemed to me that someone with a very extensive background on peace and conflict might have written the proposals: someone who either has studied this field for many years or worked in the highest position within this discipline so he or she could address these issues so elaborately. But as I get to know the NGOs and their workers more, I understand that this level of proficiency and expertise has been gained by being in the field, working on the ground, and collaborating with locals and taking them into account. One of these activist women with whom I spoke once told me that people are tired of hearing the rhetoric of “political peace” and that they want “people peace.” It was so interesting to me that these activists, many of them nearly unaware of all peace studies theories, can still identify the exact problems facing their communities. And above all, that they take the initiative to tackle the problem themselves. I wish that they could have more support in order to start a durable and inclusive peace from the bottom up. Photo at top of story: Advancing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Understanding Masculinities at USIP with ICAN and its partners, from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka. Posted on December 18, 2018 January 3, 2019 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace StudiesTags Kroc Institute From Ouelessebougou to Baltimore by: Djiba Soumaoro In Malian French, we have an expression: “Le cordonnier est le plus mal chaussé,” or “the shoemaker wears the worst shoes.” The English equivalent might be: “The plumber fixes his own pipes last.” I got to thinking about these aphorisms during my daily commute on foot from my apartment in Baltimore’s upscale Mt. Vernon neighborhood to Catholic Relief Services (CRS) headquarters near the seedy Lexington Market. As I approach, beggars ask for spare change, the homeless huddle in doorways, alcoholics congregate around a liquor store, and drug-addicts wander aimlessly or are occasionally sprawled on the sidewalk. This despondency is the face of America’s violence. My six-month internship with CRS, part of my Master of Global Affairs program at the University of Notre Dame, has afforded me an extraordinary opportunity to learn about peacebuilding. For the past six years I’ve lived in the U.S., but I was born and raised in Africa. My wife is Malian, like me, and we have a lovely baby girl. CRS Headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. I like my hometown of 20,000 people in rural southwestern Mali. From a distance it looks like a large village at peace with itself on the rolling savanna. Up close, however, it’s violent. Girls do not graduate, we don’t trust each other, we suffer chronic food shortages, malaria kills our young and old, youth no longer respect elders, and religious leaders fail to inspire. Corrupt, despotic government is normal. When I left Mali, I didn’t understand the inherent violence in these realities. I knew nothing about modern peacebuilding, but I knew some traditional peacebuilding strategies. I count myself fortunate to have landed on CRS’ Equity, Inclusion and Peacebuilding (EQUIP) team. EQUIP consists of a handful of staff dedicated to improving life conditions for overseas youth, women and girls, and anyone who is marginalized and oppressed. EQUIP members are experts in governance, protection, gender, and peacebuilding. Within EQUIP, I was assigned to the Africa Justice and Peacebuilding Working Group (AJPWG), which focuses on Sub-Saharan Africa. Its five members–three of whom are based on the Continent–provide technical assistance to CRS’ field offices, to the Catholic Church and its networks, and to local partners in Africa. They develop tools and methodologies based on lessons and best practices. I find this work interesting and stimulating. When I arrived at CRS, I had many of the traditional worries of an intern: How could someone like me do anything useful? Would CRS benefit from my internship? But I soon had little time for such preoccupations. I began drafting an annotated bibliography for case studies involving CRS’ youth, elections, and peacebuilding projects in Ghana and Liberia. I conducted research on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) in Mali. I developed an outline for my capstone project on youth and religious leaders in Mali. I became so busy that when it happened, it took me by surprise. I was poised to experience an epiphany. Soon after my arrival, my CRS mentor invited me to attend the AJPWG’s annual Institute for Peacebuilding in Africa (IPA). The IPA was a week-long workshop that covered the basics of peacebuilding—Peacebuilding 101—all the things you would want to know if you were thrown out in a conflict zone and asked to design a project. Nearly 500 people have taken the workshop since 2009. This year it was going to be held in La Somone on Senegal’s Petite Cote, about 600 miles from my hometown. Twenty-three development professionals representing a dozen countries in Francophone Africa came, and I would be able to visit my family after the workshop. My group was the first to use the Peacebuilding Fundamentals Participant’s Manual, a document comprising the basic IPA curriculum. It was full of helpful tools and exercises. That was the good news. The bad news was that I had to stand up before my peers and lead sessions. Among other things, my job was to explain the John Paul Lederach triangle! Despite my fears, I discovered that teaching is the best way to learn and practice new skills. Fire hardens steel as they say. It prepared me for what was to happen in the coming days. As I travelled across the Sahel, I reflected on “learning by doing.” I had survived the scrutiny of my peers. It felt exhilarating. In Baltimore I had already begun to reflect on conflict in Ouelessebougou, Mali—my community. How could I get involved? What tactics and tools would be appropriate? How would I use them? At the beginning of my internship, I never imagined what occurred to me now. I had the tools I needed in my backpack: the Peacebuilding Fundamentals Manual. I could get started. I needed to act quickly. I only had one week. Representatives of 10 youth associations and the largest women’s associations in Ouelessebougou gathered at the Youth House. Using the “Conflict Tree,” the participants identified two major issues and mapped their root causes and consequences. The participants linked the mismanagement of schools and a dysfunctional school system to extreme youth poverty. We found that a lack of education was causing high youth unemployment which self-serving politicians were manipulating to create insecurity in our community. Young people no longer trusted each other. Relationships were broken. Parents were apathetic about their children’s education. The conflict tree we created at Youth House in Ouelessebougou. Emboldened by their progress, the women and youth suggested follow-on activities. How about a connector project? What about a youth entrepreneur program to create jobs and discourage political opportunism? Could I return to conduct three trainings or workshops per year? Why not use the Conflict Tree to analyze problems in the household? The region? At the national level? Participants later approached me and thanked me profusely. It was the first time that women and youth had come together to discuss common issues and solutions. The following day, Ciwara, our community radio station, featured me as a guest. How could young people be inspired to pursue higher education and change their lives in positive ways? How could parents be encouraged to care about their children’s education? Many young people quit school to make quick money panning for precious metals and stones. Few got rich and some returned with disease, pregnancies, and divorces. Awareness-raising and education were needed. Like a tree, education would offer a long-term investment bearing fruit and nuts over time. I gave examples of people who had struggled, who made such investments, and how education had changed their lives. They had been children of farmers, blacksmiths, and well diggers. A child born in lowly circumstances could become an ambassador or a minister. Me at Radio Ciwara in Ouelessebougou, Mali. After the broadcast, several people greeted me at my family’s home. Some parents told me that my radio talk had opened their minds. They were persuaded that they needed to care far more about educating their children. Some people were so taken by the discussion that they called the Station Director to request weekly programs on this topic. I reflected that the IPA had motivated me to take action and enabled me to make a real difference in my home community. I returned to CRS in October and resumed my daily routine. I saw the police handcuff someone on the streets. I saw the drug addicts, and I read about mass killings. I asked myself: Why are Americans unable to solve gun crimes and drug problems in their own country? Why do they spend so much money to solve violent conflict overseas? Could the federal government and the City of Baltimore work together to resolve violence? How is it that a power like the United States, able to help other countries reduce violent conflict, cannot stop police brutality, drug abuse, and mass incarcerations on its own shores? I have no answers, but I wonder how long it will take for public places to become safe and peaceful in the U.S. Could the same social cohesion and conflict analysis tools I used in Ouelessebougou help identify the root causes of gun crimes and mass shootings in Baltimore? Malians and Americans share the same sense of urgency regarding social problems, and maybe the tools and solutions are not that different. Posted on December 8, 2018 Author Ti-PatriceCategories Peace StudiesTags Catholic Relief Services, Kroc Institute Kenya: An Opportunity to Learn Adaptability and Effective Engagement in Foreign Spaces by: Loyce Mrewa Working in Nairobi, Kenya, has been a unique experience with challenges I had not initially anticipated, but it has exposed me to various nuances which will be helpful in the future. This experience enabled me to travel to Kenya for the first time and to work in a country other than my own. It has also provided the opportunity to learn and witness firsthand the implementation of the peacebuilding concepts and tools I have been learning in class. Since I am a foreigner with limited familiarity with Kenya, its culture, and the local language, Kiswahili, I have been observing this implementation process from an outsider perspective. A bottom-up approach Being in Nairobi, Kenya, for five months has enabled me to witness and learn about the importance of having long-term engagement. My perspectives about how to engage Kenyans in peacebuilding work have shifted over time, with greater exposure and interaction with locals. Working with a local partner has provided space for interrogation and inquiry about the dimensions and nuances that influence peacebuilding work. It has made me realize the importance of engaging in peacebuilding work with the aid of locals who are more familiar with cultural and social practices that are important to analyze. The significance of the local turn in peacebuilding is being put into practical perspective during this field experience, at least at the individual level where, as a foreigner, I am working and being guided by a local partner with vast local knowledge and experience in the peacebuilding field. A bottom-up approach is an essential skill in the field, because at one point or another you will find yourself in a foreign land or space where you will have to learn from others. In such situations, one has to learn to support and trust in the capability and knowledge of persons from that particular context, and abandon initial assumptions one might hold. I believe this process of trusting and supporting existing local structures and persons is what is meant by accompaniment and a bottom-up approach, concepts that I am currently learning firsthand in Kenya. My trip to the coast of Mombasa, Kenya. The immersion process into Kenya, its culture, and the peacebuilding interventions implemented by our partner organization has also provided space to practice accompaniment by learning from others through observation and providing assistance with projects. This has exposed me to strategies for effectively engaging in foreign spaces and working with persons from varying identity groups to enhance adaptability, social bridging skills, and cultivate an acceptance of differences. These traits are vital for relationship building and working in foreign environments, particularly since soft forms of power such as relationship building (social harmony) are utilized in making societies more peaceful and just. Me, admiring the beauty of Naivasha. Although immersion has been challenging for various reasons including language barriers, I have acquired valuable skills and have come to understand the practical importance of a local dimension in implemented interventions. Additionally, I am realizing the importance of working in foreign environments where one has limited familiarity and discovering the strategies for navigating these spaces. I now understand what Susan St. Ville, the Director of the International Peace Studies Concentration, meant in her advice to be “comfortable with being uncomfortable” in the field: the lessons learned in the field make the awkwardness of initial engagement all worth it. Posted on November 20, 2018 Author Keough EditorCategories Devolution, Peace StudiesTags Kroc Institute Becoming Uncomfortable: Peace Studies in the Field by: Susan St. Ville Students in the International Peace Studies Concentration of the Keough School Master of Global Affairs program will soon embark on the extended field internship experience that is an integral part of their peace studies training. Students will spend six months on the ground working with a peace-related organization and conducting independent field research that will form the basis of their MA Capstone project. This year members of the peace studies cohort will be located in Nairobi, Bogota, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Seattle, and South Bend. They will join a range of organizations including the World Bank, Catholic Relief Services, Voice of America, the Life and Peace Institute, and Act, Change, Transform (ACT!). The Kroc Institute established its first field internships in 2004. Six months is a long time to be away from campus and the extended internship experience is unique among master’s level peace studies programs. We are encouraged that alumni of the master’s program and employers alike consistently report that the extended time spent in the field is essential to building the professional identity and self-understanding that is the hallmark of peacebuilders trained at the Kroc Institute over the last 32 years. In the high stakes and unpredictable world of conflict and peace work, acting professionally requires much more than simply applying skills learned in the classroom to vexing problems in the real world. As part of the Keough School Master of Global Affairs, the peace studies concentration draws deeply on the pragmatic insights of reflective practice: the understanding that the most effective knowledge in any situation comes through practice. Put simply, we learn best by doing. Reflective practice requires that we shift the center of gravity on the theory-practice continuum. In his classic book, Experience and Education, John Dewey asserts that learning rooted in experience is key for intellectual and personal growth, helping students to “improve their power of judgment and capacity to act intelligently in new situations.” The peace studies students in the field learn above all to listen to the nuances of the local context and to act in a manner fitting to the particular situation. To be sure, students draw on the theories and skills that they have learned during the first year of coursework. But they understand the importance of holding these theories gently and being ready to adapt, rework or even reject them as the situation demands. Peace Studies students often remark that the field experience helps them to be “comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Indeed, the experience is intentionally designed to unsettle students. Students are generally placed in a culture that is unfamiliar to them: this year our interns in Nairobi, for example, will hail from the Philippines, China, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Interns become full members of the organizations where they are placed, learning how to navigate an institutional setting very different from the university community that has been their home for the past year. Students spend the majority of their time (four days per week) working with their organization, leaving one day each week for their own academic research. In these practical ways, the Peace Studies field experience seeks to embody the key principles of solidarity and subsidiarity that are central to the understanding of integral human development that undergirds the Keough School Master of Global Affairs. Asking students to step outside of their comfort zone and follow the lead of the local partners for six months is difficult, but through this process students learn in very practical ways how to genuinely support their partners and nurture local initiatives that support the common good. Over the course of six months, students will write monthly journal entries and longer papers that recount the challenges they face in these unfamiliar settings, but also the creative ways they have found to meet these challenges. Later entries from Peace Studies students on this blog will give readers a glimpse of these journeys. Like past interns, this year’s Peace Studies students will produce important products for their organizations, including conflict assessments; policy analyses and recommendations; workshop designs; and program evaluations. But more importantly, they will develop personal qualities that will allow them to succeed as professional peacebuilders, no matter the context in which they find themselves. Education theorist Randall Bass writes that the most valuable and transformational educational experiences are those that improve students’ ability to “make discerning judgments based on practical reasoning, acting reflectively, taking risks, engaging in civil, if difficult, discourse, and proceeding with confidence in the face of uncertainty.” Over the extended six-month period, Peace Studies students grow in all of these areas, learning to think outside the box and to act confidently (with both generosity and humility). If the stories and career trajectories of past master’s students are any indication, we know that the field experience will be radically transformative for our students. We are excited for our Peace Studies students to undertake this formation process and even more excited to see who they become over the next six months. Susan St. Ville Director, International Peace Studies Concentration Posted on June 22, 2018 July 16, 2018 Author Keough EditorCategories Peace Studies, UncategorizedTags conflict transformation, Kroc Institute, strategic peacebuilding	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line53
__label__cc	0.636471	0.363529	Proposition 1: Veterans Affordable Housing Bonds Placed on the ballot by the Legislature Research Assistant: Naseem Nazari ’21 Proposition 1 would authorize $4 billion in general obligation bonds to fund veterans and affordable housing. Background[1] Housing in California is expensive. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, “an average California home costs 2.5 times the national average,” and “California’s average monthly rent is about 50 percent higher than the rest of the country.” There are many reasons for this, but the most important one is that there is a significant shortage of housing in many communities, especially on the coast. This shortage drives competition among people who want to live in those communities. This competition, in turn, leads to higher home prices and rents. Roughly 100,000 homes and apartments are built in California each year. Most are built entirely with private money. Federal, state, or local governments do, however, provide some financial assistance to build some housing. The help is in the form of grants or low-cost loans given to local governments, nonprofits, and private developers to fund a portion of construction costs. Typically, housing built with these funds must be sold or rented to residents with low incomes and a portion of housing built with state funds is set aside for homeless Californians. California historically has not provided ongoing funding for these housing programs. It does, however, receive approximately $2 billion each year from the federal government to support these projects. California’s veteran home loan program provides home loans to eligible veterans, including those who may not otherwise qualify for a home loan. The state sells general obligation bonds to investors and uses the funds to provide loans to eligible veterans to buy homes. The veterans repay the state for these home loans and the then state uses these funds to repay the bonds. Proposition 1 would authorize $4 billion in general obligation bonds to fund veterans and affordable housing.[2] Proposition 1 provides $3 billion for various state housing programs. Local governments, nonprofit organizations, and private developers would compete for these funds through programs administered by the state. Affordable Multifamily Housing Programs, $1.8 billion to build or renovate rental housing projects. These programs generally provide local governments, nonprofits, and private developers with low-interest loans to fund part of construction costs. The projects must then reserve units for low-income households for a period of 55 years. Infrastructure Programs, $450 million to build housing in existing urban areas and near public transportation. The funds also provide loans and grants for a wide variety of projects that support this housing, such as parks and water, sewage, and transportation infrastructure. Homeownership Programs, $450 million to encourage homeownership for low- and moderate-income homebuyers. Most of these funds would be grants or loans to help the recipients with down payments or to build their own homes. Farmworker Housing Program, $300 million in loans and grants to build housing, both rental and owner-occupied, for farmworkers. Proposition 1 also provides $1 billion for home loan assistance to veterans. Veteran Housing Program, $1 billion for home loan assistance to veterans. Veterans generally use these loans to purchase single-family residences, condominiums, farms, and mobile homes. In total, the bonds could provide annual subsidies for up to 30,000 multifamily and 7,500 farmworker households. In addition, about 15,000 homebuyers would be assisted with down payments, and about 3,000 veterans would receive home loans. Californians would quickly begin to benefit from the down payment assistance programs. Benefits from programs for construction of new affordable housing will take longer to be felt. Fiscal Impact[3] The LAO estimates the total cost to taxpayers for Prop 1 to be $5.9 billion. The principal amount is $3 billion and the estimated cost of interest over the life of the bonds is $2.9 billion. The proposition would increase state costs to repay bonds by an average of about $170 million annually, for 35 years. The annual cost is equal to about 1/10 of 1% of California’s current General Fund budget and would come out of the General Fund. Participants in the CalVet Home Loan Program would pay the state monthly, consequently allowing the state to repay the bonds. These payments generally cover the amount owed on the bonds, thus allowing the programs to operate at no direct cost to the state. Two committees have been formed to support Prop 1: Affordable Housing Now and California Homeless and Housing Coalition Action Fund.[4] Affordable Housing Now, a coalition of affordable housing advocates, business leaders, labor, veterans, and environmental groups California Homeless and Housing Coalition Action Fund Congress of California Seniors Coalition to End Domestic Violence Affordable Housing Now has raised $1,838,558, through July 31, 2018.[5] Almost one-quarter of these funds, $250,000, was donated by the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation.[6] California Homeless and Housing Coalition Action Fund has raised $77,000, through July 31, 2018. Arguments of Supporters[7] Supporters argue that Prop 1 would Provide affordable housing for veterans, working families, seniors, people with disabilities, and the homeless Not raise taxes Opponents[8] Prop 1 is opposed by Gary Wesley, from Mountain View, California. Arguments of Opponents The housing shortage in California stemming from the influx of millions of people to the state requires a far bigger solution.[9] Programs aimed at helping a very limited number of people[10] Prop 1 is evading the issue of costly construction in California, especially in comparison to other states. As the San Diego Tribune puts it: “Rent control, prevailing wage on new home developments, and the imposition of solar panels on new developments (at a cost to taxpayers of $30,000 per unit) all make homeownership more expensive.”[11] Issuing bonds can be interpreted as legislators “throwing” money at a problem, as opposed to engaging in structural reform. Those who desire legislative solutions to lessen the cost of construction for affordable housing in California would not vote yes on Proposition 1.[12] Voting YES on Proposition 1 would authorize $4 billion in bonds to fund veterans and affordable housing Voting NO on Proposition 1 would not authorize $4 billion in bonds to fund veterans and affordable housing For more information on Proposition 1, visit: www.roseinstitute.org www.Vetsandaffordablehousingact.org [1] https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/2018/prop1-110618.pdf [3] https://lao.ca.gov/ballot/2018/prop1-1106.pdf [4] http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1401697&session=2017 [6] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Housing_Programs_and_Veterans%27_Loans_Bond_(2018) [7] http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail/aspx?id=1401697&session=2017 [11] http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/sd-oe-prop1-housing-coupal-20180801-story.html	cc/2023-06/en_head_0055.json.gz/line56

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