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Green Chimurenga
Dark-skinned thoughts occur here.
Category Archives: human liberation
Here's a little video about why I'm a vegan. Should have shared something like this eons ago… oh well. Also some fitness action to show that cruelty is not required for health and performance.
ONE MORE THING! Check out gothamparks.nyc. Most new content (in the form of creative writing) from us will appear there, with some strange posts to check out already. Go take a look!
Posted in active living, active transportation, African men, african vegans, black vegans, clean living, fitness, human freedom, human liberation, human potential, kettlebells, liberation veganism, power lifting, pull-ups, Uncategorized, vegan, vegan athletes, vegan fitness, vegan muscle, vegan nutrition, vegan revolution, veganism, vegans, vegans in the hood, vegans of color, WBAI
Tagged active living, black vegans, vegan
On Mysterious Niggers
"Well, if a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them, I fancy every farm and cottage thereabouts would get empty very soon. Only here the dwellings were gone too." – Marlow, in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
To follow up on the conversation begun in the "Furtive Movements" post about the fear of black men in North American society, I wanted to bring in some literary critique and historical review to expand the thought across borders and into the Pan-African realm.
Joseph Conrad spoke of "mysterious niggers" in Heart of Darkness when describing the instrument of ultra-violence and extreme terror that was the Force Publique, the army of the Congo Free State under Leopold II, wretched king of the Belgians. In the name of maximizing rubber-tapping output by the enslaved population of Leopold's now private property – a territory the size of the United States east of the Mississippi or almost as large as India – these minions worked hard at decimating villages, cutting off hands, raping women, children and men, and torturing, mutilating and murdering without rest. These ruthless rubber enforcers were instrumental in exterminating some 10 million Congolese between roughly 1890 and 1910, when the Belgian state took over the Congo following the exposure of Leopold's genocidal crimes in Central Africa in the name of profit. But the Force Publique, still in existence today as the Congo National Army, was recruited from amongst the indigenes of the Congo, young African men convinced and/or coerced by the virtues of raping their own country, taking the most meager cut of the pillage and giving the lion's share to the colonial masters. In the past fifteen years or so, the latest genocide in Congo, played out mostly in the country's east, has ended the lives of some 7 million Congolese. The same old coercive and violent structures remain in place, with proxy armies of the states of Uganda and Rwanda, simply called rebels in the shallow Western media, helping to enforce slave labor in the mining of precious minerals that are whisked away to the West and to East Asia by small planes in unmarked airstrips in the jungle. The Congolese Army likewise imposes this same regime and rapes and enslaves the Congo and its people for riches, leaving the most well-endowed land on the planet in a state that is extremely inhospitable to human life. And it is young African men, just like me, taking marching orders from utterly morally bankrupt and corrupt governments, or from greed and lust themselves, who are the in situ instruments of this mayhem.
But no one gets left off the hook by getting put in the category of mysterious niggers. And Joseph Conrad will not get a pass for coining that denigrating phrase either. Because these men are not niggers, they are African human beings. And they are not mysterious. They're purpose is very well understood, obvious, one-dimensional and brutally frank. The minions of the Force Publique, the Congolese Army, and most other private and state-controlled armies and police forces across Africa which typically enforce exploitation and oppression in pursuit of a neocolonial agenda – their work is blatantly political, studied, coherent. So we will neither call the Force Publiques of the black world mysterious (what's so mysterious about a violent enforcer of hegemony, no matter his/her tactics?), nor will we call them niggers, since they are part of our family, and they are fully human (if dehumanized by their deeds).
Not all Africans are good guys. We have to confront the internal sources of oppression and failure within our family and correct them by any means necessary. That is indeed the biggest obstacle to Uhuru – not the external and foreign forces we often get carried away with placing blame on, but the internal forces that prevent forward motion, the ones who look like us but that work in cahoots with the neo-colonial tendency and outside exploiters, that are preoccupied with satisfying their own boundless greed and need for instant gratification, and that possess unquestioned inferiority complexes about our capacity and potential as a people and a civilization, as Africans. Black inferiority complexes within us are ten trillion times worse than white supremacy is. For when we have full belief in our own full humanity, our unimaginable human potential, our beauty, our importance and our place in history, whatever we think exists of global white supremacy will suddenly have magnitudes less power to actually keep us from achieving what we wish, except perhaps by brute force (i.e. Leopold II), which is unlikely in this era.
Having rejected and denounced the concept of mysterious niggers, I acknowledge that we've all internalized it to some extent, all over the world. As for me, I love the man in the mirror. I like seeing other brothers, particularly those doing positive things in the world. But I know that my own starting point when strangers see me walking around North America as I do, the blank canvas I should be before I am judged by a new encounter – that eye draws me first and immediately as a mysterious nigger. In other words, I always begin in society as a mysterious nigger, at a minimum. And sometimes this holds true even in the eyes of other black people. Until I prove otherwise by my character, in some cases how I dress and carry myself, and even by my "well-spokenness," I'm a mysterious nigger, I'm a dark suspect of unknown intentions. If I were of European descent with milk-toned skin, I would perhaps present to others as familiar and unthreatening, especially given how I already tend to dress and move through the world, which is to say unassumingly and business-casual with a sporty twist. But I'm just about as black as we come, West African through and through from the Niger Delta.
Back home, it would be different only in the sense that I won't be such a threat to anyone, and there's no racial, cultural and historical ice of ignominy to bust through, at least in getting to know someone who looks like family already and comes from the same universe. But colonialism has left so many vestiges of its culture of violence between Africans, played out by young African men as cheap pawns, that in many cases we are still mysterious niggers to one another.
I remember back in 2003 when I was 19 and really started to take a deep interest in African affairs. Back in that summer the civil war in Liberia was really heating up before it's end very shortly thereafter. On the cover of the New York Times, some time in June or so, don't remember, there was a picture of a young combatant in Monrovia roaring with the look of venom in his face, standing in the rain with a rocket launcher over his shoulder. That was one of the first times I really saw myself in another African man like that. I could have been that unnamed guy somehow, if circumstances were different. I mean I looked like that fellow, very likely an age-mate. And the New York Times, in not naming him, in showing this random African with a machine gun destroying things and killing his brothers, was depicting a textbook example of a mysterious nigger.
I want to humanize the black man. And in doing so I will never absolve African men of any crimes they've done, including against African women and children, and other African men, and anybody else for that matter. I will never absolve us from complicity in our own oppression, or unwillingness to challenge it. But I'm done thinking in the context of mysterious niggers.
How can you honestly prosecute a mysterious nigger? How can you judge a mysterious nigger who is in the wrong? By initiating a thought about that person wherein he is already in the "mysterious nigger" category from the start, one already has a negative and dehumanizing image and concept of this man.
I think it is almost revolutionary to start to think about young black men, even those who do wrong, as first fully human. Contemporary societies, whether in North America, the Caribbean, or Africa seem resistant to this. If I want to know the story of a young soldier who is now on trial for the crimes he committed in the early 2000s in Sierra Leone, I want to know him as the flawed, sick human being he is, and his history. I want no less knowledge about his victims. But when we pursue justice acknowledging one another's humanity, including the potential psychoses, passions and prerogatives of all parties, I think we arrive inevitably at more fair results, and we do so in the light of better understanding.
Let us understand one another. No more mysterious niggers. Those gangbangers on the corner are not mysterious niggers – their sons, grandsons, cousins, fathers. Those rebels in the Congo, those Force Publique of old, those Tonton Macoute in Haiti, they are not black monsters. And black men individually are not monsters before we know who they are.
If we stop thinking numbly and dumbly about mysterious niggers with no known cause or cure, and start thinking about why violence happens, who funds it, who profits from it, and why men participate in it, we will go a lot further in preventing violence amongst young black men. We need the courage and the boldness to understand and humanize ourselves, and look one another in the eyes as humans, without prejudicial fear and loathing. We need to see one another, as young black men, with the eyes of understanding, at the very least. Our conditioning to hate one another is very difficult to act upon when we choose to understand each other, hear each other and listen carefully.
Let's study ourselves, study the human mind, study these stereotypes that trap us, and break the chains of slavery and dehumanization, starting with the man (or woman) in the mirror. To defeat self-hate, revolutionary an act as it is, it starts with simply listening, understanding, and being patient enough to allow the sea of negativity within us to calm itself so we can see the beautiful, undeniable humanity that was within our black selves all along. Then we can share that insight and live that understanding. And ain't understanding the kernel of love?
Posted in africa, african corruption, african culture, african history, african humanism, african internationalism, african liberation, african literature, African men, african revolution, african voices, african writers, african-american writers, African-Americans, africana studies, africans, afrika, afrikan revolution, afrikans, bakongo, bantu, beauty, Belgian Congo, black liberation, black literature, black men, black on black violence, black people, black writers, black youth, blackness, blood diamonds, Bumuntu, capitalism, chauvinism, civil war, colonialism, conflict minerals, congo, Congo Free State, Congo Genocide, corrupt government, corruption, critical thinking, culture of corruption, culture of violence, cycle of violence, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, eastern congo, ethics, exploitation, fearlessness, Force Publique, free spirit, freedom, gender violence, haiti, Heart of Darkness, horizontal violence, human condition, human freedom, human liberation, human potential, humanism, humans, ignorance, injustice, internal oppression, intolerance, Joseph Conrad, Kimuntu, kinshasa, kivu, kleptocracy, Leopold II, Liberia, literature, machismo, male privilege, male supremacy, manhood, masculinity, misogyny, morality, mysterious niggers, neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism, neoliberalism, Nigeria, nigerian writers, Nigerians, nigger, niggers, open society, pan-africanism, patriarchy, peace, police brutality, police state, police terror, poverty, power, quality of life, racism, rape, rapists, rationalism, reason, rehabilitation, respect, self-hate, self-hatred, slavery, social injustice, third world, ubuntu, uhuru, understanding, violence, war, young black men
Tagged Belgian Congo, chauvinism, Congo Free State, Congo genocide, Force Publique, heart of darkness by joseph conrad, Leopold II, literary critique, misogyny, politics, self-hatred
Gender Equality, Ubuntu, and Critical Thinking
March is women's history month. But women make history all year, year after year. Women's history is no joke. Women are no joke. Women are the harder-working half of humanity, hands down. They do the reproductive labor of our species, as well as productive labor. And because of patriarchal accounting systems, economies and cultures the world over, a woman's reproductive labor is not fully accounted for; sometimes it is called leisure. But the very reproduction of the species is a far more significant task than leisure. We cannot monetize it. We cannot, or refuse to, dignify it the way our acquisitive culture dignifies the whole predominantly white male lot of Wall Street bankers who helped dramatically deepen the long crisis that capitalism is. The World Bank and IMF will not categorize and catalogue the full worth of women's labor. But our patriarchal, consumer society has been far more successful at monetizing women's bodies, at the gross objectification of sisters, daughters, and mothers for their body parts. In this way women are reduced to mannequins and sex dolls, display pieces in downtown boutiques, or rated, graded, and sold as if on the meat market of human flesh, as when dowries are paid. So any thoughtful vegan should be quick to recognize that the liberation of women furthers the cause. More monumental is the task of having men recognize that when women are liberated from gendercide, subordination, and second-class status as humans and as male property, we men will be liberated to become more fully human ourselves. Women's liberation is its own worthy and urgent cause, but it is also to our own immediate advantage to participate in and share solidarity with full gender equality in our planetary civilization. For us to become more prosperous, more intelligent, and wiser, uniting with feminism is in the selfish interest of men – keeping it real. Reject male privilege. For women are no joke.
This is because an honest appraisal of who we are as individuals suggests the basic logic of the African philosophy of Ubuntu – that "I am because we are," that we are fundamentally and immutably interdependent beings. It is informed by a basic ecological principle that whatever our material embodiment consists of, it automatically invokes and forms from the contributions of our parents, their parents, the food they ate, the sunshine that shone on it, the minerals/stardust that fed it, and ultimately, the entire universe itself. By this understanding, the American notion of "rugged individualism" is illogical and misleading, perhaps deliberately so as it aims to divide us, isolate us and atomize us. All of us constitute the community, and the full participation of each of us, realizing our full potential, permits collective prosperity. If women are denied an education, the community suffers the loss of her more fully realized participation and contribution to the intellectual and material well-being of the group. The direct consequence of the unjust enforcement of ignorance upon females is collective poverty. This can be proven by looking at any society that has strong evidence of ongoing work toward equalizing the statuses, opportunities and life chances of men and women, and then looking at a society that treats women like livestock, like household appliances. The more just society is always more prosperous, healthy, educated, safe, clean, and so on, by many multiples across any human development measure.
Active critical thinking informs an honest assessment, for men, of the problem with oppressing women, or even passively acquiescing to their oppression. Think, for example, about how women in urban communities around the United States (really worldwide) must deal with street harassment, with the catcalling and worse, which exacerbate the oppression of black women. The street harassment paradigm posits the threat of violence over all of us. Street harassment is motivated by false and problematic beliefs in males of inherent domination, unearned privilege, the machismo quest for superficial and immediate validation, and the pursuit of easy sexual gratification. These are among the same exact prerequisites for deadly beefs on the street between us black men, the same ingredients for the horizontal violence perpetrated between us. While it is objectively true that the external factors of poverty and social debasement have often left us little option but to get over at the expense of one another, we destroy ourselves when we conform to the external anti-black expectation of our manifest, mass failure to thrive in any sustainable way. The motives of street harassment are one and the same as the motives for fatal internecine hostility. This in turn helps, in part, to enable mass incarceration of black men. Thus, the macho atmosphere of street harassment, which makes the lives of our sisters, mothers and daughters unbearable and dangerous, also makes our lives as men perilous. Street harassment is emblematic of a violent community towards all of its members. The streets with the most street harassment are also the streets where the most black brothers die at one another's hands. Street harassment, rape and bloodshed all live on the same block.
Critical thinking, aggressively centered on a defense of the dignity and full value of human beings, should also inform how we draw conclusions about how we relate to one another and whether or not what we call "tradition" is worth any respect by any intelligent person in this day and age. If you value your own humanity, we can safely and logically assume that other humans value their own essence and identity as well, and consider themselves worth a fair chance in society. Grounded in this logic, a logic that is more immediate to us as humans than almost any other, we should be able to safely regard any tradition, religion, book, philosophy, politic, ethic, or other source of culture and thought that denies the humanity and dignity of people who are different from the majority, or from those with power, as highly suspect, at best. Thus, those who see difference in others and thus deny that others' humanity, are behaving illogically, and hatefully besides.
The debate around homosexuality in Africa is centered, for the homophobes, in strange defenses of "tradition" or "religion" that claim the alienness of homosexuality to Africa, the "unnaturalness" of gay sex, and so on. These conclusions are fundamentally antihuman, and thus are to be fundamentally rejected; they are unscientific, dishonest and illogical besides. The lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is no joke. They are human beings. They are part of the community. They are worthy of respect and of every opportunity to fully contribute to and participate in the growth and empowerment in community; this is no less true in Africa or in black communities anywhere than it is in the West or any other part of the planet. The homophobes in power in Nigeria, in Uganda and elsewhere are using politics to disenfranchise, terrorize, scapegoat and dehumanize a part of the community that should be given every right to enjoy their human lives and be the sisters and brothers to our family that they truly are. By thinking critically and imagining ourselves the target of these laws and antihuman paradigms, we cannot but help draw conclusions that lead us to recognize the inhumanity and fundamental stupidity of homophobia and patriarchy. In this vein, heterosexual people should stand in full solidarity and advocate for the full inclusion and enfranchisement of our homosexual kin. This is the mature stance which will allow all of us to contribute our utmost to grow as a collective. Reject your heterosexual privilege and arrogance. Lives are at stake – and by the logic, critical thinking and Ubuntu understanding we have applied here thus far, it is unacceptable to deny the humanity of anyone in our community, no matter what gender or sexual identities they are born with or adopt. When we begin to take what private parts people have, or what they do with them in private, as justification for branding certain people unworthy of human dignity, we are being utterly childish, and any religion, tradition, or person that has that tendency is also ignorant, childish, dangerous and stuck in the stone-ages.
As a heterosexual male, I hope I have made a reasonable case that we, over-privileged straight men, will be far better off when we reject the convenient privileges of our status which permit us to dominate women and dehumanize gays. Equality of opportunity, for women to be born, to be educated, to enjoy equal participation in the maintenance of a family and household, and to be able to contribute their fullest potential to our collective excellence, will always lead to a superior quality of life for our community. The same equality of opportunity and recognition of humanity for non-heterosexual members of our community will also enable everyone to contribute fully and without fear of denigration.
Machismo is deadly to women and to men. Patriarchy and male supremacy are harming the planet and keeping millions of women from even being born, let alone contributing their full worth to the excellence of humanity. Only equality – an equality that enables us, especially as men, to see women as at our level in all productive, cognitive and creative capacities – can move us forward.
Gender inequality is a hallmark of underdevelopment, a cornerstone of neocolonialism and a function of ignorance. All sorts of indicators of social well-being in different societies show this. And when men, straight men at that, reject the insults of patriarchy, chauvinism, and homophobia, we truly begin to become revolutionary. For we begin to honor the basic nature of human beings that the Ubuntu principle reminds us of – that I am because we are, that all of us deserve to participate to the fullest might we can muster as free people towards our collective greatness.
Posted in activism, africa, african culture, african humanism, african internationalism, african liberation, african revolution, african vegans, african voices, african writers, africans, bell hooks, black liberation, black men, black on black crime, black people, black vegans, black women, black youth, capitalism, catcalling, collectivism, communalism, communism, consumerism, crime, critical thinking, culture of violence, development, domestic violence, economics, ethics, exploitation, feminism, freedom, gay rights, gender equality, gender inequality, gender violence, gendercide, health, homophobia, horizontal violence, human condition, human freedom, human liberation, human potential, human rights, humanism, humans, ignorance, individualism, inequality, injustice, interbeing, internationalism, logic, machismo, male privilege, male supremacy, manhood, masculinity, mass incarceration, neo-colonialism, pan-africanism, patriarchy, rejecting privilege, reproductive labor, respect, rugged individualism, self-determination, sexual violence, street harassment, ubuntu, uhuru, Uncategorized, vegan, violence against women, war on women, womanism, women's history month, women's liberation, women's rights, womynism
Tagged human-rights, science, society, women
The Beauty of African Resistance
I have been admiring the actions in this video since I first saw it six weeks ago when Mr. Omoyele Sowore, founder of Sahara Reporters, and his comrades pulled this off. This event, where Nigerian Minister of State Viola Onwuliri was supposed to explain the "virtues" of the radical removal of fuel subsidies in Nigeria effective January 1, was essentially prevented from happening by the revolutionaries in the room, after the "honorable" minister was shamelessly late to her own event, dishonoring everyone present on that front alone. Brother Sowore has been upstaging Nigerian politicians in their NY diplomatic theater events for some time now, operating with the "this is not Nigeria" philosophy that if there's any place we can call these people out for the thieves and liars they are, it is here in New York. Most politicians in New York City and in America are also disgusting thieves and scoundrels of the lowest order, but for the purposes of this post I will discuss the international, particularly African thieves of state who visit for "diplomatic" reasons. Wherever and whenever they try to make noises about how some new policy that's supposed to slaughter and consume the poor is actually good for them somehow, and try to convince a misinformed or bourgeois crowd that black is white, people like Omoyele Sowore, people like us, should do our utmost to make them uncomfortable, and make business as usual impossible. Revolution depends on us exposing the absurdity and inhumanity of the status quo, and it also depends on us creating and living, right now, the new norms by which we would prefer the world would operate – the Chomsky approach.
Comrade Sowore and his heroic brothers in this scenario provide an excellent and proper example for how to push forward the African revolution today. The crimes of the political class in the nation-states across Africa must be exposed everywhere. They must be explained to African people clearly, fully, and passionately. More of us, myself included, must become passionate about the African revolution. In this instance, even if ever so briefly, the good guys won the day, and they could make clear to anybody that such was the case. The greedy and wasteful political masters could not withstand the passion and the power of truth that brother Sowore and his colleagues threw at them.
Personas like Minister of State Viola Onwuliri are in fact the enemy. Anyone who defends the status quo, a status quo which is tailor made to destroy life for poor everyday Africans, is an enemy. Anyone who benefits from the status quo, who dines and lives large at the expense of the masses of suffering people, is an enemy. There is no future for them, no future for their politics, no future for their ideology, no future for their misleadership.
We are our own leaders, our own heroes, our own hope. It is we working-class hardscrabble Africans who, armed with knowledge, passion, and fearlessness, will revolutionize Africa until it is a land that provides all its citizens with a chance to thrive, create, innovate, and win. We are the majority, and those of us still blinded by the strange floodlights of heads of state, ministers and governors are dwindling among us, the truth of suffering making them question the fundamental construct of their reality.
A liberated Nigeria belonging to and run by the people of Nigeria would be a land of immense prosperity and productivity. A liberated Congo belonging to and run by the people of Congo would be a land of incredible bounty to Africa and the world. A liberated Senegal, a liberated Ghana, a liberated Liberia, a liberated Uganda likewise.
A united Africa, a union of the subaltern, of the oppressed throwing off the mindset of misery and building the will to win with the power of knowledge, would accomplish untold greatness.
But it starts with the boldness of men and women like Omoyele Sowore and men and women like you, transforming your individual lives, your families, and your communities with the passion and vision of what a liberated Africa would mean.
This boldness is a template for the revolutionary African in the 21st century, upstaging the thieves and cowards wherever they are and building the revolution right in the place where they stand.
I leave it to the Nigerian funk-masters the Action 13 who in the 1970s said what needs to be done today – GET… MORE… BREAD…. TO THE PEOPLE!
Posted in activism, africa, african corruption, african internationalism, african liberation, african revolution, africans, Afrikan internationalism, afrikan revolution, black liberation, black people, capitalism, class war, collectivism, communalism, corruption, culture of corruption, democracy, Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, fuel subsidy removal, global south, human condition, human freedom, human liberation, human rights, internationalism, kleptocracy, neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism, New York City, Nigeria, Nigerians, occupy nigeria, Omoyele Sowore, pan-africanism, politics, power, revolution, Sahara Reporters, socialism, third world, third world internationalism
Tagged african revolution, sahara reporters, thieves and liars
African "Causes" and the Tragic White Liberal
Today's broadcast of Al Jazeera's The Stream was pretty insightful on a number of fronts. The Congolese journalist and analyst Mvemba Dizolele was brilliantly on point each time he spoke – his point being that a law against conflict minerals passed in Washington won't do jack for the Congo and its ongoing conflict, rooted in vicious neocolonialism which impact the whole of the Congo (and all of Africa), and not just Eastern Congo and its militia-controlled mines and mass rapes. The broad and insidious roots must be addressed primarily, he asserted. He kept it so real and talked about actual Congolese, the actual experience around the Congo, and the kind of ironic attention and money a Western-led cause brings to certain of these conflicts of Africa. But I really love how he remarks repeatedly that you can't pretend to solve the problems of all of Congo, or of even Eastern Congo, by having Western activists press for narrowly defined laws and responsibility among Western corporations as if that will save the Congo. But so much of this goes without considering the input, experiences, priorities and insights of the people of the Congo. This Western liberal style wants to deal with gory or salacious particulars and symptoms of the problem upon which to build glamorous and grossly simplified campaigns, such as around the widely known war on women and blood mining in the Kivus. This shows that many of these Western activists are not listening, are paternalistic, and are too timid to address systemic issues which are the cause of much ongoing conflict, exploitation and progresslessness in Africa.
Sasha Lezhnev of the Enough Project insists that to go into the broader reasons for the conflict won't work. Won't work for whom? For the mostly privileged white activists in Manhattan or on K Street who need to dumb down their agenda as much as possible so the mindless, wholly bought politicians in Congress or at the UN can understand them? Neither DC nor the UN can legislate any viable solutions for Africa. Africa and Africans are the only people who can push the African revolution forward and save and develop Africa. Africans have fates bound to what actually happens in Africa, in conflict areas or elsewhere. Africans are the ones to be heard for and to enact solutions. We Africans definitely know what's going on and have thought about and struggled around these contradictions for a long-ass time.
It seems throughout this debate that Mr. Lezhnev is barely listening to Mr. Dizolele and his impassioned articulations of how a conflict minerals embargo is both ultimately useless and reflective of somewhat misplaced energies. What makes this clear is that Mr. Lezhnev frequently refers to vague statements from UN reports about some sort of progress for the new legislation that have moved former miners to other economic sectors. A lot of this evidence seems weak and contrived given the realities Mr. Dizolele refers to about what's going on at the ground level with people he is connected to as a Congolese.
It is the system that is not working! The system of global parasitic capitalism, neocolonialism, patriarchy, and vicious historical exploitation which have built mayhem and corruption into the DNA of post-colonial societies the world over! The system of deep regional disintegration and woeful underdevelopment toward the benefit of multinational access to cheap minerals, timber, and even arable land that should benefit the Congolese but does not! So-called legit minerals, with the current system left in tact, would hardly lead to much better outcomes for Congolese than whatever prevails today.
It's not about a single issue! To focus on it as a single issue, I feel, and seems to be true for Mr. Lezhnev and a lot of people like him, is to both attempt at very simplistic, aloof feel-good do-gooding, and to also be engaging in an ignorance of the fundamental histories and challenges of peoples of the third world and people of color while trying to solve their problems as a white liberal. I think this is symptomatic of the tragic white liberal syndrome. Not listening, not having genuine relationships, assuming leadership when it wasn't asked and isn't effective, assuming strange powers to solve fundamental problems without even questioning the fundaments of a problem. Especially when you yourself are part of the fundaments of a problem.
It makes no sense to me to assert that it's more effective to address one single symptom of a failed system (i.e. conflict minerals, blood diamonds, etc.), than to address the political root causes of the system and its failings. It seems to be that you are a much more effective critical thinker when you are able to interrogate and articulate the roots of a systemic problem that manifests in various bloody ways. The disintegration of Congolese society is rooted most deeply in Leopold's brutal occupation of the country, followed by formal Belgian colonization, the defeat of African liberation represented by the assassination of Lumumba, and war after war in which the West by their African proxies in Rwanda and Uganda greatly benefitted from access to minerals and other commodities amidst the mayhem, not to mention countless oppressive and greedy Africans. Congolese know this. It's not very different in Nigeria or Haiti. You have to be cognizant of the legacies of domination and their justifications to contemplate why and how they cause symptoms of chaos.
It can only be dishonest to do otherwise, to focus on a single issue. Of course we might struggle in particular against something, but we must acknowledge as dishonest and ignorant any attempt to assert that to struggle against the systemic historical and socio-political roots of the problem is too difficult or counterproductive. In fact, to dismiss the primacy of struggling against whole systems of oppression is downright counterrevolutionary. Hanging on to symptoms only is a sign of intellectual bankruptcy and even collusion with the corrupt system.
I detest conflict minerals and the war on women in the Congo. But the answer to those things is not a law in DC or white liberals campaigning about one single issue as if in a vacuum. That's the problem – posing the entire challenge as "rape in the Congo" or "conflict minerals in the Congo." It causes some to ignore the roots and broader manifestations of the crisis. People are dying in the Congo, across the whole of the territory, and while it is crucial to highlight some of these glaring symptoms, ignoring the neocolonial system and its super-exploitation and underdevelopment is ridiculous. A Western law against conflict minerals, as Mr. Dizolele notes, only leads to more smuggling, different but equally brutal manifestations of exploitation and war, and so on.
It's better to study the ideas and examples of, and participate directly in the struggles of, the revolutionaries and activists in Congo and from Congo, who understand things systemically and whose fate depends directly on deeply understanding the problems rather than only attacking symptoms. Take the lead of Congolese and African strugglers. Listen to them and share their fate. This is more effective than peripheral laws somewhere far away that sidestep the issue and demonstrate paternalistic, ineffective and willful ignorance of failed social systems that some of these white liberals seem content only finding politically-palatable bandaids for.
Shout out to the awesome sista Latoya Peterson for helping host the show – excellent work!
Posted in africa, african internationalism, african liberation, african revolution, african voices, africans, afrikan revolution, Al Jazeera, autonomy, bakongo, black environmentalists, black liberation, blood diamonds, capitalism, conflict minerals, congo, consumerism, corporate imperialism, corrupt government, critical thinking, Democratic Republic of Congo, development, disaster intervention, DRC, eastern congo, ecological crisis, ethics, exploitation, global south, human condition, human liberation, human rights, humanitarian assistance, imperialism, internationalism, kinshasa, kivu, kleptocracy, Latoya Peterson, Mvemba Dizolele, neo-colonialism, neo-liberalism, neoliberalism, pan-africanism, poverty, power, rape, Sasha Lezhnev, socialism, The Stream, third world, third world internationalism, third world solidarity, war
Tagged eastern congo, mass rapes, neocolonialism, western corporations
Album Review: "The Workout" by Stic (aka stic.man)
Discipline. NO excuses. Rhythm and movement. Motivation. Consistency. Execution only. Positivity only. Clean living. Self-affirmation. Affirmation of life.
These are among the themes of the beyond superb new album The Workout by Stic (aka stic.man) of Dead Prez. Living healthy is no easy task in this society, with both external and internal forces (the monkey mind) leading us toward negative addictions, attitudes, relationships, indulgences, negligence, and so on. But a revolution must lead with folks who comprehend how unhealthy society functions upon the mass of people, and who comprehend how the many contradictions and negative outcomes befall people governed by a system that wants to consume and exploit human beings, and get human beings to consume and destroy themselves in order to make a profit.
Thus I think The Workout, despite its primary concern with self-development, may be among the most revolutionary Dead Prez albums yet, because revolution, a radical break from a legacy of violence, death, ignorance, exploitation, anger, greed and fear, must begin with the self. And only oneself can liberate oneself – we ourselves are often our own worst enemies. It takes unyielding self-discipline, contemplation, study, exercise, and serious internal work to overcome the contradictions that we as individuals engage in that, in part, perpetuate the miserable status quo of human existence at large. Thus, to encourage diligent and profound internal work, including on our physical bodies as well as our minds, is to encourage revolutionary work, full stop.
And Stic and friends do a mighty fine job of encouragement, through superb musical hip-hop artistry and lyricism. This album surely works as great workout music, as I have listened to it during many a workout over the past few weeks. The refrain, "who am I? I am the champion!" from "Champion" buzzes through the mind while one sweats in exertion. Stic rhymes, "over my lifetime I'm tryna do a million crunches, a billion pushups and prolly throw a billion punches; it's not the numbers, it's all about the drive and hunger, to live strong like gorillas thrive in the jungle" in "Blood Pumpin'." I feel really driven when hearing this line, driven to push myself hard for the rest of my life and never stop reaching mental and physical peaks and then exceeding them, going from strength to strength as I become stronger, wiser and sharper with time.
In "Back On My Regimen (Swole like Tookie)," Divine RBG says "My everyday struggle got me slacking on my fitness, I hear my inner voice saying get back to bidness, get back in the gym, get back on the bars, I can get it in anywhere, the world is my yard!" I love these bars because brother Divine reminds us that for most of us there's little excuse to slacking, as the world is our yard, the whole of whatever tools and facilities and environments we have at hand. We must strive not to permit our everyday struggles to overwhelm us, to smother us, burn us out and steal our lives from under us. So we can do calisthenics at home; we can get it in at the park, taking walks, jogs, stretches; whatever is safest, most available, but we have to get it in no matter what and keep it up. I don't have a gym membership; just shoes, a bunch of kettlebells, my body, and my urban environment, and I make it work, getting it in 3-5 days a week and feeling absolutely great, killing the negativity and stagnation inside me every day with sweat and torque.
I greatly appreciate the pro-sobriety messages laced throughout this piece. General Steele (of Smif-N-Wessun) declares, "Strict code of conduct, respect for my enemies; exercise mentally, physically, spiritually; no guns needed – got a panther's agility, and I don't need drugs to enhance my ability" (Warrior Codes). No drugs, no steroids, no human growth hormone, no easy ways out. No intoxicants, no means to blunt reality. All things worth achieving are best and most sustainably achieved by all-natural, straightforward, head-first means. It's painful that so much of prominent rap music is about the opposite – celebrating drugs, self-destruction, ill-health, domestic violence and promiscuity, etc. the opposite of a clear-headed, simple, positive, healthy life which brings lasting well-being, not instant and fleeting gratification followed by craving and calamity.
There are so many incredible songs on this album. "Yoga Mat" reminds us of the importance of meditation and engaging in practices that help us arrive at mental clarity. Mental clarity is a rarer commodity than rare-earth minerals, rarer even than known Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. To even seek mental clarity and sincere inner peace, peace with oneself, in this society, is to engage in extremely subversive, anti-consumerist, anti-capitalist activities. The system doesn't mind meditation, since it doesn't harm it directly, and meditation won't speed revolution. But if it were the case that masses of us took up meditation (to regain our minds, assert our willpower and master our destinies) instead of smoking a cigarette, drinking alcohol, or doing other things to get high and lose our minds, the Babylon system could get mighty nervous.
The sistas make an appearance in "Baby Fat," "one of whom (I think Ife Jie?) spits "I know a beautiful body is what a man loves, but I do it for me, I got my own standards." While this album doesn't exactly explode with feminism, it doesn't push machismo and anti-women crap either. I appreciate how this woman asserts her desire for health and fitness as based on her own standards and aspirations to wellness, as opposed to being predicated on impressing men. She is allowed to define her own destiny and it needn't be just about pleasing men; it can be about pleasing and fulfilling herself.
I could go on about other goodies on this brilliant album, like "Bruce Lee" (awesome), "Sober Soldier," "Let it Burn," "Runner's High," and so on. But to wrap up I'll just say this is a nearly perfect example of positive culture. We need more positive culture! I need it. This is the sort of stuff I respond to deeply. This is the sort of stuff brothas and sistas ought to contemplate and actualize in order to affirm and perpetuate life rather than destroy it. Negative culture generally seeks the opposite of what our righteous brother Stic and company want to tell us. Positive culture encourages us to push the boundaries of human potential and do what we previously thought impossible, toward positive transformation of self and community. The Workout is right on that tip.
For the hardcore straight-edge vegan fitness freaks, for the revolutionaries, for those who seek health and clarity, for all of the above, this album will talk to you. Please support Stic and wise men and women like him, and cop this album ASAP.
Posted in african revolution, african vegans, africans, black vegans, black vegetarians, clean living, critical thinking, Dead Prez, discipline, fitness, health, healthiness, healthy food, hip-hop, hip-hop studies, holistic health, human condition, human freedom, human liberation, human potential, meditation, mindfulness, minimalism, motivation, physical culture, physical fitness, plant-based diet, rap music, sobriety, stic.man, straight-edge, strength, vegan, vegan athletes, vegan fitness, vegan hip-hop, vegan hip-hop movement, vegan muscle, vegan rap, vegan rappers, vegans, vegans of color
Kinda speciesist…
I've had trouble updating this blog for a while since I realize I no longer want to discuss just plant-based diets up in here. I've come to admit that Afrikan liberation at large – organizing for it, articulating it, propagandizing for it – is of more consequence to me than only advocating that we black folks eat plants.
See, the thing is, as oppressed people, in so many places where we are, we don't have access to affordable and sound whole foods and produce in the first place. It's not affordable or accessible to those of us who pull in little income despite busting our asses the hardest, and furthermore live in "food deserts." Our pro-corporate food systems subsidize cheap empty calories (corn-based processed food-like substances) at the expense of whole fruits and veggies, which are overpriced. So it is not easy to advocate, as one's sole agenda, a vast black vegan renaissance, when most Afrikans will have a hard time funding it or justifying it at the expense of other concerns in the life of someone of limited means and oversized responsibilities.
I promote a more plant-based lifestyle for Afrikans as a means towards optimal health, the health-consequences of meat- and fast-food- and junk-food-heavy diets being more expensive to the individual health of Afrikan peoples and to the shared ecosystem than would occur if more humans ate more plants primarily and increasingly spared this world of animal husbandry.
But I don't viscerally care so much what individual Afrikans are eating off the bat, don't want to question one's private choices, not outside of the context of recognizing that our inability to even access healthy plant-based lifestyles is due in large part to imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, neocolonialism, etc. themselves, the first causes of overall black suffering in the contemporary world.
To my current thinking, encouraging healthier lifestyle choices in the Afrikan community must always occur with the naked fact of segregation, exploitation, geographic and economic limitations and imposed ignorance about such choices, and so on, laid bare on the table, so we don't fall into the trap of just talking about "let's go vegan and it will all be fine, brothas and sistas!"
I'm not so interested in talking about saving the animals in this context either. In stating this I suppose I'm toying with blatant speciesism, which I'm not supposed to do as an ardent vegan. Make no mistake about it, I'm an ethical vegan, personally. I'm not interested in oppressing non-humans. But I have a whole lot more visceral solidarity with Jamaicans, Haitians or Nigerians than with cows and turkeys and pigs. And I'm not a back to nature man, I'm not one to stand still and be non-violent in the midst of being bitten by mad mosquitos or while suffering super-massive ant-infestations in my apartment (as occurred when I lived in Accra, Ghana). I'm not even a pet owner and never will be. I'm primarily interested in talking about and resolving human suffering by any means, and in particular the suffering of Afrikans.
Comparing slave ships to the animal slaughtering industry may have it's place, somewhere for some minds. But I'm currently more interested in discussing eating healthy for the self-interested agenda of building a healthier and stronger black race, period. Getting folks more liberated from all these chronic diseases, and using my own experience as validation and evidence, is what suits me more these days. I think discussion of the Afrikan Holocaust, the Ma'afa, is not even deep enough in the Afrikan community worldwide, not in everyday parlance. We need to think deeply about the legacy of that holocaust, and talk loudly about it because it continues in new ways today, before casually introducing notions of animal holocaust into discussion, at least in the sorts of circles I run in. We Afrikans are still being treated, and are treating each other, like animals. Thus I don't think some non-veg Afrikans are ready to immediately express profound sympathy for non-humans.
I am critical of Afrikan cultures that hold a prestige on meat. But that won't stop me from working with said Afrikans toward common liberatory goals in the broader areas we can and must collaborate on. I still hint at putting more fruits and veggies in the body than dead flesh, since that's my practice, I'm always asked about it by Afrikans, and most people intuitively know it's healthier to eat more fruits and vegetables. But it's not a make or break issue for me interpersonally.
So I just had to share that and update the blog. My pro-human speciesism is exposed. The direction of this blog, while still hip to discussions around plant-based diets and radical ecological justice struggles, will only entertain such struggles in full acknowledgment of the fact that capitalism/imperialism/patriarchy/white supremacy are the problems, to be resolved not by one-issue campaigns built on concepts hard to relate to intimately for all but the most privileged and aloof, but by humanistic revolutionary struggle to more fully meet human needs and enable human freedom for oppressed, dispossessed peoples, led by indigenous peoples, peoples of the third world, Afrikans. As sound, well-informed minds vying for healthier communities introduce their efforts into the revolutionary mix and see results, then in the course of a blatantly human struggle – this black struggle, land justice, sustainability and the needless waste of life and resources in current regimes of consumption can be overturned as well.
But for me it has to be about black liberation in total. Humans. To be fully human.
Posted in africa, african humanism, african liberation, african revolution, african vegans, African-Americans, africans, Afrikan internationalism, afrikan revolution, afrikan vegans, animal liberation, animal rights, black environmentalists, black fruitarians, black liberation, black nationalism, black people, black vegans, black vegetarians, capitalism, climate change, collectivism, communalism, consumerism, consumption, corporate imperialism, critical thinking, ecological crisis, ecology, ecosystem destruction, environmental justice, environmental racism, ethical veganism, food deserts, food sovereignty, health, hood diet, human condition, human freedom, human liberation, human rights, humanism, humans, imperialism, internal oppression, politics, revolution, sustainability, third world, third world internationalism, uhuru, vegan, veganism, vegans, vegans of color, vegetarianism, white supremacy, whole foods
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Police Apprehend Armed Man and Woman in Central Square
107 Faculty Called for Review of Tenure Procedures in Letter to Dean Gay
Citing Toxic Culture and Administrator Departures, Harvard School of Public Health Faculty Repeatedly Weighed Voting No Confidence in Dean
Elizabeth Wurtzel '89, Who Collected Friends 'Like Beads on a String,' Dies at 52
The Photos That Captured the 2010s
FACT AND RUMOR.
NO WRITER ATTRIBUTED
There was a cut in N. H. 2 yesterday.
Mat new Arnold lectured at Princeton last evening.
The average weight of the Yale rush line is now 185 pounds.
Wesleyan defeated the Michigan team 14 to 4 recently.
A league of bicycling champions have been formed.
John G. Whittier is one of the trustees of Brown University.
South Africa is thinking of sending a cricket eleven to England.
The Globe says "the Advocate is always conservative."
Mr. Goepp, '84, has been elected leader of the Pierian.
There are eighteen new candidates for the junior crew.
About thirty Harvard men accompanied the team to Princeton.
Not more than three hundred people witnessed the Yale-Columbia game Saturday.
Hanlan, the oarsman, proposes to live in Boston after his journey round the world.
Mr. Parker will read the "Fall of Troy" from Virgil's Eneid, Book II, this evening at 7.30 in Sever 11.
The Young America Cricket Club, of Philadelphia, is to have two lacrosse teams next season.
There is a theme due today in English 8; subject ; What I find in Wordsworth.
There will be one hour examination in Phylosophy 4 tomorrow on the work of the course up to the present time.
The Yale News is much incensed at the manner in the which the N.Y.World represented the foot-ball abilities of Princeston and Yale.
Meeting of the St. Paul's Society at 7 o'clock, tonight. Rev. Mr. Courtney will address the society.
Funkhouser, who once played for Princeton, is a member of the Union Pacific Base-ball Club of Omaha.
Rev. Frederick Courtney, of Boston, will address the St. Paul's Society, 17 Grays, at 7. P. M. this evening. A large attendance is desired.
The trustees of Vassar College have forbidden the driving of nails and tacks in the walls, except under the supervision of the proper authorities.
The Michigan eleven is making a tour of eastern colleges, and will play Yale and Princeton, as well as Harvard.
Mr. Fawcelt, the postmaster General of England, has been elected, over Mr. John Ruskin, as lord rector of the University of Glasgow.
There will be a new professional base ball club in Boston next year. It will be known as the Boston Union nine and has secured the old Coliseum grounds on Huntington avenue to play on.
Those who engage coaches for the Thanksgiving game should remember that no coach will be allowed to drive through the Park without a permit. [News.
Greek 3 has now finished Book xv. of Homer's Odyssey. There will be an hour examination in this course before December, which may be substituted for parts of the mid-year examination. Two-thirds of the paper will be at sight, one-third will be on what has already been read.
The following have been elected associate members of the Pierian Sodality and Glee Club, '84, Abbott, Agassiz, Bliss, Bryant, J. G. Coolidge, Cummins, Curtis, C. B. Davis, Ledlie, Mandell, L. A. Shaw, W. D. Smith, Spelman, Wesselhoeft, Whitwell, Wyeth: '85, Atkinson, Codman, Coxe, Delano, Krumbhaar, McArthur, Simpkins, Storrow, W. Thayer, White.
The Moot Courts which were once very popular in the Law School, are to be revived and will be held twice every month, sitting in the great lecture room of the Law School. Professors Gray and Ames are to sit as Judges alternately. The cases will be set by the above professors and the counsel, two for each side in every case and will be chosen by lot. Attendance and participation in the exercises of these Moot Courts is entirely voluntary.
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text:
KEITH POWERS
Talking Man Crush Monday and more.
Top HANES
"I was not even thinking about acting," says the model turned actor, Keith Powers in response to a question about his initial interest in the craft.
You may have received your formal introduction to Powers in the wildly successful 2015 biopic, Straight Outta Compton, in which he played Dr. Dre's younger brother Tyree Clayton, or as Ronnie DeVoe in the 2017 miniseries, The New Edition Story. Easily becoming Hollywood's new 'IT' guy, thanks in no small part to an impressive line-up of film and TV roles, in his current show, the Bella Thorne boasting Famous in Love—which comes from I. Marlene King, executive producer/co-showrunner of that other not-so-obscure teen series, Pretty Little Liars—he plays young actor and in-house bad boy, Jordan Wilder.
Eager to hear about the life of a star on the rise, we grabbed five with Keith to learn more about the journey to success.
So first off, how did you get into acting?
I got into acting simply through being signed as a model; it gave me the necessary tools to make that step. I remember, I was not even thinking about acting.I had this agent who would always ask me, "what do you want to do? What's your end gain?" I'm like' I really don't know', but I always thought TV personality would be interesting. I liked seeing hosts and stuff like that.
She recommended me to an agency for commercial talent and I got signed. The agency then happened to become theatrical, so I signed to the theatrical department and took a step back to think if I'm really going to do this, I have to study. I read a few books, I went from class to class and after I booked my first film, House Party: Tonight's the Night, I literally fell in love. I caught the bug and it was over.
Let's talk Famous in Love, what attracted you to the role of Jordan?
What I liked about Jordan was that they had already told us, kind of early on, that he would be dealing with a lot as a character. So I felt like if I'm going to be on the show – that has the potential to be on for years – I want to be a complex character; I want to be able to show my talent and range in a character.
And did you find it easy to relate?
I relate to his desires in the sense that when he wants something and tries to make something happen, something bad always pops up. No matter how good he's doing, something will happen but he always finds a way to get it done. That makes him so much more of a human and I can relate to that. We all make mistakes, or something will happen, and we have to bounce back from it.
You've been privy to some super varied roles, from Straight Outta Compton to The New Edition Story and Famous in Love.
Every role is so different and it's all about research. I didn't know much about Tyree. Nobody did; it was a dope character to introduce to the world. That was different than playing Ronnie DeVoe in New Edition because people know who Ronnie DeVoe is. You're not introducing somebody; you have to amplify that character on screen for people to fall back in love with that person. I had to really ask Dr. Dre what was his brother like. I had to bring the little brother to the screen so that people could feel that and when he passed it really hurt. For New Edition so much went into preparing for that; from dance rehearsals to coaching.
Going into Jordan, I felt so free. The preparation was more fun in the sense that I get to create the character for everyone else. I get to come up with what I want him to be in my head, given the guidelines from the writers.
T-Shirt CALVIN KLEIN
So your roles have undoubtedly led you to the Man Crush Monday title. Is that a bit weird?
Haha, I think that when you're put in a position like that it's easy to get big headed and really just think about yourself, to be like, 'I'm hot and I love everything that I do,' but for me, I've tried to appreciate the fact that when women appreciate my acting, it means something. I've always believed that women are the tastemakers for everything. They devote their time and emotion into everything they like. So the fact that I can be a Man Crush Monday – and then a woman tells me she really loved my work in something – it's a big deal of responsibility. With the position I'm in, I want to lead by example.
Who are your acting influences?
I have so many. I would honestly have to say, of course, Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Jamie Foxx. Then there's Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep…I have so many influences. I look up to and identify with the people who made me fall in love.
You've mentioned your modelling. How does being in front of the camera compare to walking the runway?
You just have to sell to the audience. A camera is right on you so the audience can always depict when you're not being truthful. Acting lives in truth, whereas being on the runway, there's more emotion and fierceness.
Cool. So what's next for Keith Powers?
I feel like I'm still so much on the come up and I still have so far to go. What's next? I don't even know. I want to be doing a bunch of movies. I have a movie coming out called Reality High on Netflix this summer. I'm on a show called Tales; a rap series by Gotti on BET. So I have some little things dropping but there's so much I want to do. I want to be in different movies and play different characters and at the same time, I want to be on your TV every week with Famous in Love. I just want people to fall in love with my characters and really grow with them.
Catch Famous in Love every Tuesday on Freeform.
Luke Austin
Jenna Remy
Clarice Metzger
Premiere: Calvin Love – "Sugar Hives"
CÎROC Summer Colada
Patrick Gibson
Premiere: POWERS – "Man On The Moon"
CHEAP MONDAY AW14
Edith Pritchett
Interview: Ryan Barrett
Introducing the Miu Miu Madras Project
Woman's Crush Wednesday Club
Musium × Cheap Monday at Selfridges
The totally exciting WONDERLAND × Kardashians competition
Charlie Fink
CHEAP MONDAY: PARIS CAPSULE COLLECTION
Rugby Ralph Lauren Comes To London
Doctor Strange Trailer
PROFILE: Barber & Osgerby for Canali
PAUL SMITH UNDERWEAR
New Noise: Mondo Cozmo
LFW: Burberry SS17
New Noise: OUTLYA
New Noise: Little Cub
New Noise: Jordan Mackampa


How many teeth do you actually need to survive? Does flossing extend your life? What kind of bacteria live in your mouth? Why would you snog someone but not share their toothbrush? How do your teeth affect your job prospects?
In 2016 Science Gallery London are diving into the orifice with artists and scientists to explore the visceral space of the mouth, and everything inside it.
We put our mouths through endless daily rituals – they are prodded, poked, and re-aligned, brushed, scraped and refined. But this remarkable portal to our gut is also the gateway to self-expression and communication. Our mouths are powerful tools that can inspire everything from love and ecstasy to fear and loathing. From fillings and tooth tattoos to split tongues and pierced lips, mouths provide visual cues about who we are, and where we have come from.
Open wide and sink your teeth into a season of events, activities and installations that will leave you gobsmacked.
Science Gallery London's 2016 pre-opening season explores the mouth as a key portal to our lives, our unique identities, and self-expression. Season events, activities and installation will be held in and around Guy's campus at Kings College London, with other campus venues to be confirmed.
The salivating mouth – spit is an essential part of your mouth, facilitating speech, taste, and even protects your teeth.
Sensational mouths – from pain to pleasure, our mouths are sensational spaces, testing and responding to our surrounding environments.
The unique mouth – how our mouths and their contents make us physically, socially and culturally distinctive, providing a platform for self-expression.
Future mouths – scientists are now able to re-grow teeth for mice from stem cells. What will mouths of the future be like?
Animal mouths – Herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, invertebrate. We're open.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD SCIENCE GALLERY OPEN CALL PROPOSAL?
Relevance to our core target audience of 15-25 year olds is a factor in curatorial decisions. We are also interested in ideas that engage our hyperlocal audience and local residents.
A true connection to the theme is a must - avoid shoehorning an unrelated work.
Science Gallery London does not currently occupy a physical space. For this call we are especially interested in temporary, pop-up style activities, workshops, performances and installations, and digital collaborations.
Does this 'mouthy' open call welcome projects relating to the theme of speech and verbal communication?
If the video is longer than 2 minutes you can provide a link to it in the project description. Hope that helps.
We are a group of 3 individuals from different disciplines, applying together. I suppose the application should come in from 1 account, but in the Bio section we would like to include a 100 word Bio for each of us. Would the submitted form allow the 300 words or cut them to the first 100?
Hello Francesca, Please limit your bios to 100 words - if it's helpful you could link to external pages in this section.
Our proposal is under 200 words but the reference list takes us over the word limit. Is this ok considering the proposal is well within the word limit?


text:
Haus Kotten (auch: Haus Cotten) ist ein Herrenhaus in Bösperde (Stadt Menden (Sauerland)). Es geht auf ein Rittergut aus dem 13. Jahrhundert zurück. Das heutige Gebäude stammt aus dem 17. Jahrhundert und steht seit dem 7. März 1983 unter Denkmalschutz.

Geschichte
Anfänge des Ritterguts Haus Kotten reichen bis in das 13. Jahrhundert zurück. Die niederadelige Familie von Kotten ist von 1259 bis 1383 bezeugt. Danach waren das Haus und die zugehörigen Ländereien im Besitz der Familie von Werninghaus. Über die Heirat einer Werninghaus-Tochter kam das Haus 1591 in den Besitz von Caspar von Schwansbell zu Arden und über die Heirat von dessen Tochter 1623 an Arnold von Freisendorf zu Opherdicke. 1755 erbte es die Familie von Tork. 1785 erwarben ein Herr von Nunum-Dücker und seine Gemahlin Marianne von Berswordt das Anwesen. Marianne heiratete in zweiter Ehe Ferdinand von der Becke, der das Rittergut 1882 an den Freiherren von Elverfeldt-Villigst veräußerte. Durch Erbgang kam es danach an Viktor Freiherr von Rheinbaben auf Haus Ruhr. Dessen Tochter Elisabeth Freiin von Rheinbaben (1880–1960) heiratete 1900 Hans Dietrich von Gemmingen-Steinegg (1869–1958). Seitdem ist das Gebäude im Besitz der Familie von Gemmingen-Steinegg.

Das Hofgut war seit 1882 bis in die Zeit unmittelbar nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg an Pächter vergeben und zuletzt stark vernachlässigt, wohl auch weil sich die Pächter eine günstige Übernahme erhofften. Als es 1947 in der britischen Besatzungszone Pläne zur Enteignung von Pachthöfen gab, übernahm Hans-Werner von Gemmingen-Steinegg (1916–1961), jüngster Sohn Hans Dietrichs, selbst die Bewirtschaftung des Hofguts. Er setzte insbesondere auf Milchviehhaltung, die in der Nachkriegszeit am Rand des Ruhrgebiets lohnend war. Aus dem Erbe seiner Mutter fiel ihm 1960 noch das als evangelisches Studienzentrum verpachtete Haus Villigst zu. Nach seinem Unfalltod 1961 übernahm seine Witwe Marta die Verwaltung des Besitzes, bevor 1972 der Sohn Hans Helmut von Gemmingen-Steinegg (* 1944) in den Betrieb eintrat, den er nach seiner Heirat mit Kate Freiin von Rotenhan 1977 vollends übernahm. Er bezog mit seiner Familie das Gutshaus und stellte den landwirtschaftlichen Betrieb in den 1980er Jahren weitgehend um, indem künftig auf Milchviehhaltung verzichtet wurde, während man überwiegend Getreide sowie Raps und Zuckerrüben anbaute.

Anlage
Die Anlage ist durch eine Allee zu erreichen. Sie besteht aus dem zweigeschossigen Herrenhaus mit Nebengebäuden und einem turmartigen Gebäude im Nordosten. Das heutige Herrenhaus stammt vermutlich aus dem 17. Jahrhundert. Das Erdgeschoss ist aus Bruchsteinen errichtet, das Obergeschoss ist aus Fachwerk. Ehemals wurde die Anlage durch Gräften geschützt, von denen heute keine Spuren mehr sichtbar sind. Das turmartige Gebäude wurde in der Vergangenheit fälschlich als Wohnturm gedeutet. Tatsächlich war es ursprünglich ein Wehrspeicher. Es diente in erster Linie zur Lagerung von Getreide, in Kriegszeiten aber auch als Rückzugsort. Das Gebäude war noch im frühen 19. Jahrhundert von Wassergräben umgeben und nur durch eine Brücke zu erreichen.

Siehe auch
 Liste der Baudenkmäler in Menden (Sauerland)

Literatur
 Jens Friedhoff: Sauerland und Siegerland. 70 Burgen und Schlösser. Stuttgart 2002, (Theiss Burgenführer), ISBN 3-8062-1706-8, S. 98f.
 Maria Heitland: Familien-Chronik der Freiherren von Gemmingen. Fortsetzung der Chroniken von 1895 und 1925/26, Elztal 1991, S. 24–26 und 38–40.

Kotten
Baudenkmal in Menden (Sauerland)
Bauwerk in Menden (Sauerland)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Home » Oxford Global Q&A Session with Torsten Hoffmann
Delivering Innovative Drug Discovery Starting Points
Dortmund, January 2020 ++++
Ahead of Oxford Global's R&D Series Drug Discovery Summit on 26-27 May 2019 in Berlin, Germany, Oxford Global spoke to Taros Senior Vice President Drug Discovery Torsten Hoffmann about his work in Pharmaceutical R&D and the opportunities and challenges in Drug Discovery. Besides Torsten Hoffmann Taros CEO Dimitrios Tzalis will attend the event as speaker, both presentation and panel discussion, and as moderator.
Read the full interview here
Oxford Global is the specialist for cutting edge Congresses & Summits for the Life Sciences industry in the UK, Europe and USA.
About Taros Chemicals
Taros is a privately owned discovery chemistry company, working with global pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies since 1999. Alongside our performance chemicals and material science division, Taros' drug discovery mission is to create drug candidates as potential new medicines. Taros has a strong scientific track record on many biomolecular targets in all main therapeutic areas and thereby adding considerable value to collaborations from target validation and hit identification to lead generation and optimization. Taros' core expertise ranges from custom synthesis and process development to modern medicinal and computational chemistry, as well as compound library design and production.
Taros was heading the chemistry efforts of the EUR 196 million funded European Lead Factory (2013-2018) and is currently heading its EUR 36.5 million funded continuation (2019-2022). Moreover, Taros is deeply engaged in other research alliances like the EUR 11 million funded Drug Discovery Hub Dortmund.
Youri R. Mesmoudi, Executive Vice President, e-mail: innovation |at| taros.de
Taros' international and multidisciplinary team has more than 180 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience. Collectively as a team, we worked on more than 120 biomolecular…
We create performance chemicals to enhance new materials, plastics, coatings, dyes & inks, cosmetics, flavors and many more research and industrial applications…
Looks interesting?
As a leading contract research organization in discovery chemistry and custom synthesis, Taros provides comprehensive solutions to meet our clients' needs from diverse branches and applications
Our experienced chemists practice a pragmatic culture and customer-centric approach in order to exceed project expectations, despite challenges, bridging very narrow timelines. They are trained to consider economic, safety and ecological boundaries and conditions laid out for all stages of the project, starting from the development of synthetic routes to…
I3-STM research project completedPress Releases


Beauty therapists have plenty of ways to remove a dark spot from your skin. But there's only one thing they should be doing, and that's sending you to see a GP so it can be checked for melanoma.
We sent mystery shoppers to beauty clinics across the country to see if therapists would offer to treat the raised spots they were shown. They aren't meant to. The New Zealand Association of Registered Beauty Therapists president Judy West said members were prohibited from removing unidentifiable lesions and skin tags without permission from a registered medical practitioner. However, association membership is voluntary.
Auckland Council's health and hygiene code of practice states only health practitioners can remove skin lesions and moles.
The risk for the consumer is a beauty therapist may not recognise the spot as a symptom of skin cancer. Given New Zealand's high skin cancer rate, we think beauty therapists should steer clear of the issue and leave diagnosis to the doctors. A Brisbane research institute study recently found New Zealand had overtaken Australia as having the highest per capita rate of invasive melanoma.
Our concerns were backed up with seven of the 46 clinics offering a treatment to get rid of the spot. None of the clinics that offered a treatment are members of the Association of Registered Beauty Therapists. Treatments offered included laser, Surgitron (a machine that uses radio waves) and Dermastamp (a skin-needling process). One therapist told our shopper they would be happy to "cut it out", while another said they had a machine on the way that could simply "electrocute" it off.
All the clinics that said they could remove the spot were in Auckland and were visited by the same mystery shopper. She described the spot on her arm as a mole but on her rounds it was described by therapists and clinic office staff as a scar, skin tag, blemish and "warty lesion". We sent a picture of it to Dr Amanda Oakley, a consultant dermatologist at Waikato Hospital and honorary associate professor.
Dr Oakley says our shopper had dermal melanocytic naevi, which can be removed after being diagnosed correctly. "However, basal cell carcinoma, amelanotic melanoma and some other, less common, malignant tumours can resemble dermal melanocytic naevi," Dr Oakley says.
In 2010, the Middlemore Hospital Dermatology Department and Registered Beauty Therapists Assocation surveyed beauty therapists. Of the 79 who completed the questionnaire, 39 percent said they had not received formal training in identifying skin cancer. When asked how they would respond if a client was worried about a skin pigmentation, 90 percent said they would refer to a doctor.
However, 29 percent said they would treat a lesion that had been histologically confirmed as being in the early stages of melanoma. When shown a photo of the spot, 22 percent were unsure whether to treat it.
Dr Oakley says she has attended a therapists conference where attendees were asked if they would treat lesions that had been photographed and displayed.
She wasn't surprised by the results of our mystery shop.
Melanoma NZ chief executive Linda Flay says anyone can buy laser devices that could be used to remove spots.
"We believe the classification of medical devices under Medsafe should take into account the risk of using them. Some people should never be able to get their hands on them. Therefore, a level of regulation is important," Ms Flay says.
Given the high incidence of melanoma in New Zealand, caution is "absolutely warranted", she says. The organisation strongly recommends treatment is only carried out after consultation with a medical practitioner.
This clinic identified the mark as a skin tag and said it could cut it out if our mystery shopper booked in for a 10-15-minute appointment. Amax was given the opportunity to comment but didn't respond.
The clinic said a laser was needed and offered a treatment for $59, discounted from $100. In its response, the clinic said it had "no prior knowledge regarding how beauty therapy businesses could potentially violate regulations with respect to removal of moles". It went on to say it had "advertised the removal of moles on Trade Me and received many praises thus far". It said it would immediately stop removing moles and look into formal training.
Our shopper was told her spot was a skin tag and offered numbing cream and laser treatment for $80. Beauty Forever declined to comment on our findings.
Our mystery shopper was told a CO2 fractional laser would get rid of the spot and treatment would cost $80. The clinic owner said the matter was of "great concern". She told staff to not remove or offer treatment around spots, warts and moles and to refer clients to their GP. She also planned further training so they could identify types of blemishes.
Our mystery shopper was initially told the spot looked like a scar, then a mole. Another staff member said "skin needling will break down the scar tissue and give it a softer appearance". In the skin consultation with the manager, she was recommended five sessions of Dermastamp. Laser Clinics did not respond to our inquiries.
This clinic offered to use a laser. "We can do it now if you like." In his response owner Andre Palmere said "the whole industry needs to be trained properly".
Our shopper was told "We will be getting in a little high-frequency machine and it kind of electrocutes off any dark spots and pigmentations. It just really looks like a skin tag." Q Medispa didn't return our emails and phone call.


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Past in Pictures: A Photographic View of Holidays
by Alex Woolf
Find out how the holidays of British families have changed dramatically in the past 150 years as foreign travel has become easier, cheaper and more accessible. What were holidays like for Victorian children? This book looks at family holidays through the ages, from days out in the countryside, to British seaside resorts and more modern destinations.
The Past in Pictures series gives a fascinating look at life in Britain through the photographs of The National Archives. It looks at past eras; at the way rich and poor families lived, the concept of holidays and leisure time for families and how the role of men, women and children from Victorian times, through two world wars, to modern Britain, have changed.
Genre: Children's, Teenage & Educational / Children's / Teenage: General Non-fiction / History & The Past: General Interest (children's
Past in Pictures


If you thought that making animated movies was difficult, then you may be right... up to a point. It basically depends on the tool you are using. Plotagon makes it easy for anyone to create interesting stories with animations. The intuitive app is compatible with PC, Mac, iPad and iPhone, but this review focuses on the PC version.
When we launched Plotagon, its window opened while displaying a large P-like icon at the center. The next window displayed "Welcome to Plotagon" message and gave us the option to either create an account or sign in. To make full use of the free animation software, we needed to create an account. Alternatively, we could log in using our Facebook credentials. The account gave us our current statistics.
By default, Plotagons feature one scene with two characters, but you can change scenes and therefore characters as your story develops. There are many characters and scenes you can download for free, and you may buy more if you want.
When we clicked on "New Movie", Plotagon displayed an untitled window in thumbnail format, and we typed the title for our movie. The program's user interface displayed tabs for creating scene, dialog, action, movement, sound and music.
We selected the appropriate scene for our movie, characters and their respective locations in the scene. We then selected the dialog tab and typed what we wanted our characters to say. We selected the characters to say what was typed and their moods, whether they were afraid, angry, arrogant, excited, happy, neutral, proud, sad or surprised. We needed to click the dialog button whenever we wanted to add dialog for a different character.
We also added appropriate movement for our characters and sound effects that complemented the scene. We tested our creation by clicking the play button.
Once we were satisfied, we clicked on "Publish and Share" button which publishes your video to the Plotagon community. Each video has its own public URL so you can easily share your creation.
Plotagon provides a simple way of creating interesting animated movies. We recommend that you create a story plot first and then add it to your Plotagon scene. You may simply copy and paste dialog at relevant positions. Please note that you may need to type some words phonetically for the TTS robot to pronounce them correctly.


text:
Q: Is this morphism $\rho\colon G\longrightarrow Aut_{TOP}(X)$ continuous? Let $G$ be a group and $X$ a set. For an action $\mu\colon G\times X\longrightarrow X$, we can build a group morphism $\rho\colon G\longrightarrow Aut_{SET}(X)$ given by $\rho(g)(x)=\mu(g,x)$. In fact you can start with $\rho$ and arrive to the definition of $\mu$.
Let $G$ be  a topological group and $X$ a topological space. A continuous action is asked to be an action $\mu$  such that is continuous with the product topology over $G\times X$. Does this implies that the induced $\rho$ is continuous when we take the open-compact topology over $Aut_{TOP}(X)$?
If we start with the continuity of $\rho$, do we get the continuity of $\mu$?

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text:
Okręg wyborczy North Wales – dawny jednomandatowy okręg wyborczy do Parlamentu Europejskiego (PE), istniejący w latach 1979-1999 i obejmujący północną Walię. Powstał po ustanowieniu bezpośrednich wyborów do PE, natomiast jego likwidacja nastąpiła wskutek reformy, która połączyła wszystkie walijskie okręgi do PE w jeden okręg wielomandatowy.

Lista posłów

źródło:

Przypisy

Dawne okręgi wyborcze do Parlamentu Europejskiego w Wielkiej Brytanii


Our enterprise since its inception, constantly regards product good quality as organization life, constantly improve production technology, strengthen merchandise high quality and continuously strengthen enterprise total good quality administration, in strict accordance with all the national standard ISO 9001:2000 for Cardboard Paper With PE, Անջրանցիկ Steel փաթաթում Թուղթ , VCI Creping Թուղթ , PE կաղապարով կրեպ թուղթ For Ավտո headliner , We warmly welcome merchants from your home and overseas to contact us and set up business enterprise partnership with us, and we'll do our greatest to serve you. We now have a highly efficient crew to deal with inquiries from clients. Our intention is "100% shopper pleasure by our merchandise quality, price tag & our staff service" and take pleasure in a very good standing amongst purchasers. With quite a few factories, we can easily provide a wide vary of Cardboard Paper With PE, Due to the stability of our products, timely supply and our sincere service, we are able to sell our products not only over the domestic market, but also exported to countries and regions, including the Middle East, Asia, Europe and other countries and regions. At the same time, we also undertake OEM and ODM orders. We will do our best to serve your company, and establish a successful and friendly cooperation with you.


text:
package com.asakusafw.runtime.io.text.value;

import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.*;
import static org.junit.Assert.*;

import com.asakusafw.runtime.io.text.driver.BasicFieldOutput;
import com.asakusafw.runtime.io.text.driver.FieldAdapter;
import com.asakusafw.runtime.io.text.driver.MalformedFieldException;
import com.asakusafw.runtime.value.ValueOption;

final class TestUtil {

    private TestUtil() {
        return;
    }

    static <T extends ValueOption<T>> void equivalent(FieldAdapter<T> adapter, Object value, T buffer) {
        CharSequence cs = toCharSequence(value);
        adapter.parse(cs, buffer);
        checkEmit(adapter, buffer, cs);
    }

    static <T extends ValueOption<T>> void checkParse(FieldAdapter<T> adapter, Object value, T expected) {
        CharSequence cs = toCharSequence(value);
        try {
            @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
            T sink = (T) expected.getClass().newInstance();
            adapter.parse(cs, sink);
            assertThat(sink, equalTo(expected));
        } catch (ReflectiveOperationException e) {
            throw new AssertionError(e);
        }
    }

    static <T> void checkMalformed(FieldAdapter<T> adapter, Object value, T buffer) {
        CharSequence cs = toCharSequence(value);
        try {
            adapter.parse(cs, buffer);
            fail(String.valueOf(buffer));
        } catch (MalformedFieldException e) {
            // ok.
        }
    }

    private static CharSequence toCharSequence(Object value) {
        return value == null ? null
            : value instanceof CharSequence ? (CharSequence) value
            : String.valueOf(value);
    }

    static <T extends ValueOption<T>> void checkEmit(FieldAdapter<T> adapter, T value, Object expected) {
        BasicFieldOutput output = new BasicFieldOutput();
        adapter.emit(value, output);
        String r = output.get() == null ? null : output.get().toString();
        String e = expected == null ? null : String.valueOf(expected);
        assertThat(r, equalTo(e));
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Judging at ISI competitions is done by trained and certified ISI Professional members. All coaches who have students participating in an ISI competition are required to volunteer their time to judge at the event.
level of the ISI Judge Certification Examination. The certification exam is offered online.
All tests are open book. Most answers can be found in the current edition of the ISI Handbook.
This exam style is used to test the candidate's knowledge of maneuver requirements, competition events, event levels, penalties, and knowledge of where to find the correct information in current ISI publications.
There are four ISI Online Judge Certification exams. The Bronze, Silver and Gold tests must be taken in order. The Synchronized Test may be taken at any time. The fee for each test is $40.
The 2018 Update test fee is $20. The new rules are in effect as of September 1, 2018.


TGS Baltic provided legal assistance to the 51% majority shareholders of one of the largest producers and largest exporter of steelwork and constructions SIA S.B.C. in sale of their shares to the 49% minority shareholder the Norwegian company Contiga Holding AS. That transaction completed the sale of the shares of SIA S.B.C. commenced on 2013, when the majority shareholders, who owned all the shares of the company at that time sold the first batch of 49% to Contiga Holding AS.
Contiga Holding AS is owned by Heidelberg Cement Northern Europe AB (60%) and KB Gruppen Kongsvinger AS (40%) via Nordic Precast Group AB.
TGS Baltic team was led by Partner Andra Rubene and Associate Partner Nauris Grigals.


text:
Emissary staff
Arms Trade Treaty
Committee will debate 2012 draft treaty on the arms trade
By Ilya Bañares, Senior Copy Editor
In just a couple of weeks, the North American Model United Nations (NAMUN) conference will take place at the University of Toronto, and will gather hundreds of delegates from across the world in one place. One of the committees in particular, the Arms Trade Treaty, will take a different format: a historical committee, it will involve countries negotiating an agreement of utmost importance.
"Our committee is a re-enactment of the negotiations which took place at the United Nations during the summer of 2012 with regards to controls on the international arms trade," Co-Chair Raluca Petrut told The Emissary. The treaty, back in 2012, was the first legally binding treaty negotiated by the UN regarding the regulation of the arms trade.
Petrut, however, also highlighted that to this day, the treaty was ultimately a failure, as many countries and member-states had not signed the document. "However, with this committee we are challenging delegates to go back in time and negotiate a stronger treaty," Petrut said. "One that effectively integrates all of the complex and conflicting interests of various countries while also bringing to the table a new and powerful plan on restricting the illegal flow of weapons and any sales of arms to vulnerable areas."
The committee mechanics are slightly different than that of a regular General Assembly; delegates will be debating on the actual treaty itself, and will be negotiating amendments that would make the document more amenable to countries.
With the unique format of the committee, the Co-Chairs are underlining the importance of coming to the conference prepared. In an email to The Emissary, Co-Chair Nicholas Klid said, "However, with this committee we are challenging delegates to go back in time and negotiate a stronger treaty–one that effectively integrates all of the complex and conflicting interests of various countries while also bringing to the table a new and powerful plan on restricting the illegal flow of weapons and any sales of arms to vulnerable areas."
The Co-Chairs have been hard at work, writing the background guide during the summer and perfecting it during the academic year. "In sum, delegates must come to the conference prepared to debate and bring their enthusiasm with them to ensure success is achieved at NAMUN 2018," Klid said.
NAMUN begins in less than a month at the University of Toronto. Follow the Emissary's coverage on this year's committees here.
Newer PostIndependent Commission of Experts: Switzerland's Armed Neutrality
Older PostThe United Arab Emirates: The Cabinet


and he had that effect on me. We just finished on Wednesday with my 12th session.
I held my shoulders, moved my arms, how long my strides were.
"forgetting" to do the walking. It is almost as if I didn't want to be aware.
one's eyes and see their true Self. Roger did this to me.
He just sat there (after I'd told him I was afraid of being vulnerable) and stared at me.
vulnerable. I said because I was being attacked. He said, by who? Evil.
me to feel vulnerable and attacked. It is not the Truth. I am safe. So are you.


Latest revision: 10 Sep 2015.
What are special sleep problems of women?
The National Sleep Foundation (USA) has prepared excellent information about special gender aspects of women with sleeping problems. Here it is.


This month The Barts Hendrick's Book Club is delighted to announce a talk given by journalist, author and relationship expert, Zoe Strimpel on Wednesday 3rd August. She will be raising temperatures with a scintillating talk on 'Love & Lust in Literature'.
Zoe wrote a critically acclaimed book about men that was published last summer: What The Hell Is He Thinking? (Penguin, Fig Tree). She is also the Lifestyle Editor of daily newspaper City AM and also writes a weekly blog, zoestrimpel.com, pertaining to dating and all its pitfalls and oddities. Her next book will be published in e-book format this November and paperback inDecember. It will be entitled, The Man Diet: One Woman's Quest to Detox Her Love-Life.
Zoe will be taking questions from the floor and the person with the most peculiar query will win a £20 Waterstones Book Voucher and a Hendrick's teapot filled to the brim with the splendid Hendrick's Chelsea Rose cocktail.
So if you're looking for a hot date head down to Barts for 'Love & Lust' on 3rd August.
Barts is a quirky 'speak easy' style bar on prestigious Sloane Avenue in the heart of Chelsea. It is the brainchild of Duncan Stirling andCharlie Gilkes, the young duo who also recently opened the highly successful80's themed nightclub, Maggie's. It is well loved for its great and innovative cocktails and sense of fun. They will open Bunga Bunga, an Englishman's Italian, Bar, Pizzeria and Karaoke in Battersea this summer.


text:
Tamil Nadu Village Conducts Special Festival, Sacrifices 3000 Goats To Please The Rain Gods
2.6 K Shares
Senthil Kumaran, TNNUpdated on Aug 06, 2016, 12:25 IST
Invoking the gods for rain, villagers of Chinnakosanam in Gobichettipalayam taluk in Tamil Nadu's Erode district conducted a special festival at Poothanachi Amman and Petrayaswamy temple.
BCCL
As part of the festival, which takes place once in two years, special puja was performed and food for more than 50,000 people was served in a grand fest.
"We usually perform this special puja to call on god during troubled times. We are totally depending on rain in order to irrigate our lands," S Kaliannan, one of the devotees said. He further said in the last four years there was no heavy downpour.
"Though we had the puja in mind for a long time, we waited until this year to perform it, as this (Aadi) month is appropriate for the puja," he explained. According to him, distressed farmers decided to perform this special puja in a grand manner.
"We have decided to placate the rain god by performing this special puja, offering bucks and goats along with other food items to Poothanachi Amman and Petrayaswamy," M Mariappan, a localite said.
Since Thursday late night, people from various villages across Gobichettipalayam taluk including Kunnathur, Sengapalli, Perundurai, Arachalur, Vettaiyampalayam, Gobichettipalayam, Modachur villages started coming to the temple.
The entire place was decked up with festoon and buntings. They also formed a few makeshift shops as part of festival. Meanwhile, on Friday morning, more than 1,000 men and women from the crowd came forward to cook sumptuous food for more than 50,000 devotees.
Later in the afternoon, people started performing the puja. Several hundred devotees chanted mantras along with the temple priest. Subsequently, the villagers offered bucks and 3,000 goats to the god, after which, lunch was served to all devotees.


❶If you are so certain you are a perfect match for a school, your answer had better match perfectly!!!
The only thing that has been difficult is getting used to my new appetite. I've been throwing out a lot of my food because I physically feel like I cannot eat that much, and if I do eat too much then I don't feel so good. However, I'm learning to keep all my meals small and frequent (just like I should have been doing all along!). I plan to definitely buy this product again, I really love it and finally, I've successfully changed my eating lifestyle. Dieting is Out.
Why UPenn College Essay Example 1 – Penn Supplement College essays are hard to write, especially when they're for competitive Ivy League colleges like the University of Pennsylvania. Here's the deal.
Read our guide on how to write stellar supplemental essays for the application cycle. How to Write the University of Virginia Supplement Essays August 31, Luckily, we here at CollegeVine are here to help. Read on for our advice on how to tackle the UVA essays!
If supplemental essays are good gauges for demonstrated interest, this particular type of essay is the most important. When answering this essay question, use specific details. Mention courses and professors of interest. This sample supplemental essay for college admissions shows a good example of a short and effective essay. See what makes it so strong and targeted. Homework Help Private Schools Test Prep College Life Graduate School Business School Law School The supplemental essays for college admissions can be a stumbling point for .
Be sure to avoid them in your supplemental essay. Be sure to avoid them in your supplemental essay. Common Supplemental Essay Mistakes. Search the site GO. For Students & Parents. College Admissions Essay Samples & Tips Supplemental essays for college applications can take all kinds of forms, and many of the country's top . I'm having trouble with writing the two supplement essays.. Any ideas? I'm drawing a blank and this is my top choice. Also will I get in RD?