New Jerusalem United Church of Christ and the Western North Carolina UCC Association observed the 50th anniversary of the ordination into the Christian ministry of the Rev. Jimmy J. Norred at the 11 a.m. service Sunday.
The Rev. Jerry Rhyne, minister for church affairs, WNC UCC Association, preached and recognized the 50th anniversary with a plaque for Norred. The church provided a meal and fellowship time in the fellowship hall.
Norred has served churches in Alabama, Florida and North Carolina for 51 years. He is married to Nora Hawkins Norred, who is a retired school teacher. They have two children — Joseph Norred and wife Sara and Jen Norred Fountain and husband Rob. They have four grandchildren — Aubrey Norred, Arely Norred, Avery Fountain and Jack Fountain.
A report issued Wednesday (August 3) by the US Department of Commerce’s Economics and Statistics Administration reveals that women in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) remain vastly underrepresented compared to men even though they make up nearly half of the available college-educated workforce.
The key to improving the country’s technologies, job market, and competitiveness with other nations depends on the ability to tap into the pool of STEM degree-holding women, according to the report. However, despite increasing efforts to recruit women into STEM fields, only 25 percent of STEM jobs are held by women—the same percentage as 10 years ago—and only a third of STEM degree-holders are women, suggesting that women are less attracted to these fields than men.
Furthermore, the study reports that women earn 14 percent less than men in STEM jobs. While this may seem like a big difference, the disparity for non-STEM jobs is even greater, with women making 21 percent less than men. “One might think that the smaller [salary] gap might actually draw women into STEM jobs,” Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank told ScienceInsider. “So it adds to the puzzle of what is it that we are doing inside our schools and our families that makes STEM jobs seemingly less attractive to girls."
One possibility is that many more women than men who hold STEM degrees enter the fields of healthcare and education, which were not counted as STEM jobs in this study. Other possible explanations include “a lack of female role models, gender stereotyping, and less family-friendly flexibility in the STEM fields,” the authors write.
The standard gauge railway has been a lot in the news recently. On the one hand, we have the governing Jubilee Party pointing to it as one of the key proofs that the Uhuru Kenyatta government has delivered on its promises.
And, on the other, we have the opposition NASA, alleging that it is the greatest proof yet of the rampant corruption that has marked the Kenyatta government.
An incident in May this year suggested there may be something to what NASA alleges: A senior official of the National Lands Commission was found to have no less than Sh17 million in cash in his house, when the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission made a raid. This sum is regarded as the mere tip of the iceberg, in an investigation into the “skewed compensation of land for the SGR”.
Now let’s go back to the years when “the original railway” – the Kenya-Uganda Railway built between 1896 and 1903 – and consider this question: Do you think there was much fuss over compensation for the people whose land was taken to make way for that rail?
Far from being compensated, the indigenous communities whose lands lay on the path taken for the railway could look forward to violent evictions, and vicious counter-attacks if they interfered with the building of the railway.
Two such examples are recorded in Wikipedia: “…Building the railway met local resistance on various occasions. A major incident was the Kedong Massacre, when the Maasai attacked a railway workers’ caravan killing around 500 people...At the turn of the 20th Century, the railway construction was disturbed by the resistance by the Nandi people led by Koitalel arap Samoei. He was killed in 1905 by Richard Meinertzhagen, finally ending the Nandi resistance…” Such then were the methods used to clear the way for progress: All the way to Uganda.
It is tempting to put a racial interpretation on the use of force to dispossess the locals of their land. But it was not just the colonial soldiers who used force in the pursuit of their interests. Kenyan indigenous tribal communities were just as vicious in their dealings with each other. And this is something we don’t even have to consult the history books to know.
Ever since the long drought started last year, there have been regular reports of vicious fighting in Northern Kenya, primarily involving the Pokot and the Turkana. And this was in continuation of a long history of cattle-raiding, attacks and counter-attacks over rights to pasture and watering points, which go back to a time well before the lunatic railway was conceived, much less built.
Respect for property rights were not a strong feature of pre-colonial Kenya, and the reason that the colonial soldiers usually won their engagements with indigenous communities was that they had modern guns, while “our ancestors” had mostly spears, bows and arrows.
Even now, in a confrontation between the Turkana and the Pokot, the outcome is likely to hinge on the question of who has the newest rifles. No question at all of respecting property rights.
But although many of the nomadic pastoralist communities of Northern Kenya still choose to live the same way they did 100 years ago, according to an essay posted on the website of Gamewatchers, a Kenyan tour company: “There is now a growing realisation that the traditional nomadic pastoralism of the early 1900s, over a hundred years ago, when small numbers of people moved around the sparsely populated landscape seeking grazing for their livestock alongside the herds of wild herbivores, can no longer continue in the modern day and age, when there are 20 times the number of people living there...”
But even that is not the whole story. For not only is there now a larger population within the regions where the nomadic communities once roamed freely, but there is also the recent development of unpredictable weather patterns and increasing frequency of drought.
Next week, I will consider possible solutions to this crisis, and why it is not receiving the same attention as other regional priorities in this election year.
Hidden down a maze of lanes in peaceful countryside between Basingstoke and Newbury is the stylish ‘Welly’, once used as a hunting lodge by the Duke of Wellington. Inside are wooden tables, tiled floors and attractively patterned curtains and blinds. Since arriving here over a decade ago, Jason King and Simon Page have never looked back. Their ethos is simple: local, well-priced and delicious food. Jason’s award-winning, daily chalkboard menus offer plenty of interest and imagination and much of the produce is organic and local or home grown, since they are dedicated to keeping down the food miles. Salad leaves, herbs and vegetables are grown in the pub’s polytunnel and raised vegetable beds, free-range eggs come from their rare-breed and rescue hens, and there are also pedigree Jacob sheep, Tamworth pigs and five beehives. The dining room is rather small so booking is certainly advisable. The well-tended garden acts as an extension for diners when the sun shines; if the weather is on the chilly side, ask to borrow a warm mohair rug.
From A4, east of Newbury, through Aldermaston. At 2nd roundabout 2nd exit signed Baughurst, left at T-junction, pub 1 mile