|
Tuesday, 23 February 2010 01:26 |
|
By Michael Madill
In case you missed it, there was a coup d’etat last week in Niger. The President, Mamadou Tandja was arrested and forced to live in the servants’ quarters of his palace while a group of junior army and air force officers installed Colonel Salou Djibo as the new head of government. State power lies with the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy, which overthrew the elected president.
Niger is big and dry. It’s double the size of Texas and is made up mostly of the sand of the central Sahara Desert. The Niger River passes only through a panhandle in the far southwest of the country. The country’s name is a holdover from the Scramble for Africa, the competition between Britain, France, Belgium and Germany to claim colonial or protected territory in the late 19th century.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Monday, 22 February 2010 16:15 |
|
On March 11, 2010 Congregation Or Chadash and Emanuel Congregation, both members of the World Congress of GLBT Jews, will be hosting a presentation by The National Association of GLBT in Israel, known as the Aguda. This event is being co-sponsored by Club 1948 and the New Israel Fund. The program will be at 7:30 PM at the Emanuel Congregation building, 5959 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL.
Aguda will be celebrating their 35th year of service and support of GLBT rights and issues and providing social services to the GLBT community in Israel. The Aguda has been the founding father of many of the GLBT organization in Israel and is the only national GLBT organization offering programs ranging from youth services to an all new HIV-AIDs awareness website along with Project Barak, an educational program. The Aguda is presently trying to build an all new national social services program that will stretch from border to border and encompass all of Israel regardless of religion, origin or sexual orientation.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Thursday, 21 January 2010 18:14 |
|
 By Robert Rudner
It was 1776 when Haitians started shouting USA! Now, we hear our nation's name in praise in Haiti when assistance is delivered after a 7.0 Richter scale quake in the capitol. But it was our founding father Thomas Paine who openly advocated revolution in Haiti and among slaves. He rooted them on, as the author of "The Rights of Man," during the tricolor of 18th century revolutions from ours to France and the island in between.
The year 2009 was the bicentennial of Tom Paine's death. His bones were not allowed to rest in the nation whose name he invented. Some say his bones were tossed in the Thames, perhaps leaving a pair of femurs, mandible and skull for someone's trophy collection.
He was wise beyond his years and unfortunately ahead of his time. As for Haiti's cry of USA during the 1789 to 1804 uprising and liberation, most Yankees North and South thought the way Pat Robertson still talks today. Back then, many a Bible believer, which Paine was not, justified slavery in Biblical proportions.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
Friday, 29 January 2010 23:49 |
|
By Michael Madill
Stop for a minute and reflect on Haiti. It’s a mess, isn’t it? Poverty, disease, corruption, crime, environmental destruction and now an earthquake. But turn your mind to Africa, because Haiti is richer than Rwanda. That’s right. Haiti’s per capita GDP is around $1,300 per year. Rwanda’s is little over $1,000. That means that the Haitian economy is thirty per cent bigger than Rwanda’s.
Suffering plays really well on TV, so when you watch the misery broadcast from Haiti you might think, ‘How could anywhere be worse off?’ You wouldn’t know it by looking, and it’s true that the devastation caused by the earthquake will trim Haiti’s fortunes considerably. Now, rewind a few weeks, to before the catastrophe.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Friday, 22 January 2010 01:49 |
By Francis Scudellari
There's some interesting music being birthed deep in the bowels of the building at 1515 W. Howard Street in Rogers Park.
A group of guitar players and artists are letting their imaginations transform the seemingly simple studio space into a roomy mountain lodge with a fire blazing and a snowy riverbank just outside the window. The posh surroundings may exist only in their minds, but the music these day-dreamers create is very real.
Guitar Friends Studio offers a new approach in learning how to play the guitar. The Affective Immersion Project (AIP) was invented by the studio's director, Ron Scroggin, though he gives a lot of credit for the discovery of its technique to earlier work he did with guitarists Howard Roberts and Jessica Galang.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
|
|
<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next > End >>
|
|
Page 1 of 6 |
