IN: Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri (Arabic 'bw l'l lm'ry Abu al-'Ala' al-Ma'arri, full name 'bw l'l 'Hmd bn 'bd llh bn slymn ltnwkhy lm'ry Abu al-'Ala' Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Sulaiman al-Tanuhi al-Ma'arri; December 973 - May 1057) was a blind Arab philosopher, poet, and writer. Al-Ma'arri held and expressed an irreligious world view which was met with controversy, but in spite of it, he is regarded as one of the greatest classical Arabic poets.

An early collection of his poems appeared as The Tinder Spark (Saqt al-zand; sqT lznd). The collection of poems included praise of notable people of Aleppo and the Hamdanid ruler Sa'd al-Dawla. It gained great popularity and established his reputation as a poet. A few poems in the collection were about armour. A second, more original collection appeared under the title Unnecessary Necessity (Luzum ma lam yalzam lzwm m l ylzm 'w llzwmyt), also simply Luzumiyat or Necessities. The title refers to how al-Ma'arri saw the business of living and alludes to the unnecessary complexity of the rhyme scheme used. His third famous work is a work of prose known as The Epistle of Forgiveness (Resalat Al-Ghufran rsl@ lGfrn). The work was written as a direct response to the Arabic poet Ibn al-Qarih, whom al-Ma'arri mocks for his religious views. In this work, the poet visits paradise and meets the Arab poets of the pagan period, contrary to Muslim doctrine which holds that only those who believe in God can find salvation. Because of the aspect of conversing with the deceased in paradise, the Resalat Al-Ghufran has been compared to the Divine Comedy of Dante which came hundreds of years after. The work has also been noted to be similar to Ibn Shuhayd's Risala al-tawabi' wa al-zawabi, though there is no evidence that al-Ma'arri was inspired by Ibn Shahayd nor is there any evidence that Dante was inspired by al-Ma'arri. Algeria reportedly banned The Epistle of Forgiveness from the International Book Fair held in Algiers in 2007. Paragraphs and Periods (Al-Fusul wa al-ghayat) is a collection of homilies. The work has also been called a parody of the Quran.

What was life like

OUT:

IN: Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908 - January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th President of the United States from 1963 to 1969, assuming the office after having served as the 37th Vice President of the United States from 1961 to 1963. A Democrat from Texas, he also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people who have served in all four federal elected positions.

Johnson, whose own ticket out of poverty was a public education in Texas, fervently believed that education was a cure for ignorance and poverty, and was an essential component of the American dream, especially for minorities who endured poor facilities and tight-fisted budgets from local taxes. He made education the top priority of the Great Society agenda, with an emphasis on helping poor children. After the 1964 landslide brought in many new liberal Congressmen, LBJ launched a legislative effort which took the name of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The bill sought to double federal spending on education from $4 billion to $8 billion.; with considerable facilitating by the White House, it passed the House by a vote of 263 to 153 on March 26 and then it remarkably passed without change in the Senate, by 73 to 8, without going through the usual conference committee. This was an historic accomplishment by the president, with the billion dollar bill passing as introduced just 87 days before. For the first time, large amounts of federal money went to public schools. In practice ESEA meant helping all public school districts, with more money going to districts that had large proportions of students from poor families (which included all the big cities). For the first time private schools (most of them Catholic schools in the inner cities) received services, such as library funding, comprising about 12 percent of the ESEA budget. Though federal funds were involved, they were administered by local officials, and by 1977 it was reported that less than half of the funds were actually applied toward the education of children under the poverty line. Dallek further reports that researchers cited by Hugh Davis Graham soon found that poverty had more to do with family background and neighborhood conditions than the quantity of education a child received. Early studies suggested initial improvements for poor children helped by ESEA reading and math programs, but later assessments indicated that benefits faded quickly and left pupils little better off than those not in the schemes. Johnson's second major education program was the Higher Education Act of 1965, which focused on funding for lower income students, including grants, work-study money, and government loans. Although ESEA solidified Johnson's support among K-12 teachers' unions, neither the Higher Education Act nor the new endowments mollified the college professors and students growing increasingly uneasy with the war in Vietnam. In 1967, Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act to create educational television programs to supplement the broadcast networks. In 1965, Johnson also set up the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, to support academic subjects such as literature, history, and law, and arts such as music, painting, and sculpture (as the WPA once did).

How did this help the children living at poverty levels?

OUT: large amounts of federal money went to public schools.

IN: James was born in Holton, Kansas; his mother, died in 1954 when he was five. His father was a janitor and a handyman. After four years at the University of Kansas residing at Stephenson Scholarship hall, James joined the Army in 1971. He was the last person in Kansas to be sent to fight in the Vietnam War, although he never saw action there.

In his Baseball Book 1990, James heavily criticized the methodology of the Dowd Report, which was an investigation (commissioned by baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti) on the gambling activities of Pete Rose. James reproached commissioner Giamatti and his successor, Fay Vincent, for their acceptance of the Dowd Report as the final word on Rose's gambling. (James' attitude on the matter surprised many fans, especially after the writer had been deeply critical of Rose in the past, especially what James considered to be Rose's selfish pursuit of Ty Cobb's all-time record for base hits.) James expanded his defense of Rose in his 2001 book The New Historical Baseball Abstract, with a detailed explanation of why he found the case against Rose flimsy. James wrote "I would characterize the evidence that Rose bet on baseball as...well, not quite non-existent. It is extremely weak." This countered the popular opinion that the case against Rose was a slam dunk, and several critics claimed that James misstated some of the evidence in his defense of Rose. Derek Zumsteg of Baseball Prospectus wrote an exhaustive review of the case James made and concluded: "James' defense of Rose is filled with oversights, errors in judgment, failures in research, and is a great disservice to the many people who have looked to him for a balanced and fair take on this complicated and important issue." In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct. James remained steadfast, continuing to insist that the evidence available to Dowd at the time was insufficient to reach the conclusion that it did.

Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?

OUT:
In 2004, Rose admitted publicly that he had bet on baseball and confirmed the Dowd Report was correct.