people’s lives. His smile and eagerness to greet people made him one of the most loved vendors at the West Side Market.

He was an incredible person with an amazing story. He was homeless for 10 years, spent time in prison and became a community activist and educator. His lived experience taught him deeply about politics and the need for a deeper sense of community. He brought a deep wisdom to every conversation. He was always looking out for other vendors. When our meetings got tense, Buzzy would step in and mediate disagreements and seek resolutions. His presence will be missed by so many. Buzzy, thank you for wisdom shared.

Buzzy was scheduled to sell the paper outside the West side Market on Saturday, December 30th from 10 to noon.was a sweet man. He never had a bad word against me or anyone else. I went to his funeral adn his family treated me like a human being. The vendors at West Side Market came to See him. There was a dinner for Buzzy after the services. I went with his neice to the gathering. Buzzy only got flowers for his casket. Buzzy was cremated. Buzzy, you will be missed by me especially." - Delores Manley

Words from NEOCH's Staff:

"I am going to miss Buzzy. He was fun, flirty and in his mind, a Lady’s Man! He always had a smile on his face as well as a quick wit. I’m going to miss reading his wonderfully informative articles and just miss his presence.” Joyce Robinson

“He always had


an amazing smile and a genuine greeting. He always enjoyed people and made everyone feel like you were his best friend. He was full of wisdom and always looked at things with a mature perspective and he tried to learn from everything. He will be truly missed.” - Denise Moore

"Buzzy one of our leaders at The Street Chronicle. He taught so many of us how to live through the hardships of life. His heart was for his people and his wisdom was shared with everyone." - Chris Knestrick

Below is Buzzy's last article which was published in the November 2017 issue of The Street Chronicle

The State of the Country

Well the election is over and we have a new president, Donald Trump. Let’s review these first 100 days and thethe East 23rd and Superior Avenue area.

Chris mentioned that usually, everyone in attendance would introduce themselves, however, because of the larger than normal number of attendees, personal introductions would not take place. He did, however introduce Natasha Wynn, NEOCH’s newest outreach trainee.

OVERVIEW OF CONGRESS/WORK TO DATE:

LOH – as the representative for the Homeless Congress at Cuyahoga County Council Meetings and the ADAHMS Board, asked those present to spread the word about Homeless Congress to those unable to attend meetings.

Problem: People in recovery housed with people who are currently using…

KATIE DONOVAN ONDERS – from the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association Homeless Legal Assistance Program (CHLAP), talked a little about what CHLAP is and how it works.

Pro bono attorneys will visit homeless shelters to provide legal advice and assistance to homeless


BOARD/SHELTER FOR PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES – Chris invited input from the Congress regarding the next step(s) to take regarding the letter sent to the ADAMHS Board, June 30, 2017, about the need for a shelter for women with mental health issues. It was suggested that because Valeria Harper recently replaced William Denihan as Chief Executive Officer, and is getting up to speed with her new position, maybe another letter should be sent for her to review. Another suggestion was for members of the Homeless Congress to make phone calls to City and County Council members. Loh stated that she would attend the next ADAMHS Board meeting -September 27, 2017 at 4:30p.m., in order to encourage the board to review the letter.

CRISIS INTERVENTION CALLS - Quality Assuranceif they have experienced four episodes of homelessness in a three-year period, or one episode of one year.

TRUTH COMMISSION ON POVERTY – Chris reminded the Congress that the Cleveland Truth Commission on Poverty will take place Saturday, October 14, 2017 at Franklin Circle Church, from 10a.m.-4p.m., and encouraged attendees to provide written and in-person testimonies. Loh and Rosie Palfy said that they planned to attend.

DELORES GRAY – Dolores Gray, a community activist, business owner of Women on the Move –an organization which helps women and families find employment, and Zumba instructor, spoke briefly about the importance of voting and the upcoming mayoral primary. She assisted Homeless Congress attendees, who were not registered to vote, with completing voter registration forms.

Attendees were reminded that the next Homeless Congress meeting will


capacity for a while. Because all the family shelters are full, families are then sent to the overflow program at the City Mission if they are not diverted. Their family overflow program houses roughly 20 mothers and 30 children each night in their gym. It should be noted that the City Mission began the family overflow program in their gym last year in September 2016 because so many families were already being turned away since the other family shelters were full. The overflow program was meant to be a temporary solution to the crisis afflicting families, giving the County time to come up with alternatives. But quickly, it too has reached capacity, and there is still a lack of any concerted effort on the County to even acknowledgeand her 3-year-old daughter's "daily routine". They leave City Mission gym before it closes at 7am, carrying all their belongings with them. Then, they get shuttled to Cosgrove Center where she must wait outside on the street with her 3-year-old child and belongings till its 8am opening time. After eating breakfast and lunch there, she leaves Cosgrove Center at its 2:30 closing time. Having nowhere to go at that point, she takes takes her child to the beach or library till 7pm when the City Mission opens again. Then, she falls asleep with countless other families on the gym floor of City Mission and attempts to sleep till the next morning.

In the absence of a stable shelter situation, families must expend a great deal of energy to simply


even if nothing about their eligibility to vote has changed.

In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Ohio voters who had last voted in 2008 were removed from the voter registration rolls, with over 40,000 purged in Cuyahoga County alone. Many of these voters—as well as voters who had been purged under Ohio’s Supplemental Process in previous years—went to the polls in November 2015 and March 2016 only to learn that their names no longer appeared on the rolls, and were denied their fundamental right to vote.

Case Background on Husted v. APRI

In 2016, after having notified Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that Ohio’s Supplemental Process violates the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), the public policy organization Dēmos and the ACLU of Ohio brought a lawsuit on behalfand taken to the Bishop Cosgrove Center where they spend the day. In the evening the cycle begins again. Because these families are not yet placed in one of the three County approved shelters (Westside Catholic, Harbor Light or Family Promise) they are not given access to any services - they languish in limbo until space is available in an approved shelter. This is an appalling, unconscionable situation. Furthermore, the use of The City Mission gym was meant to be a temporary, short-term fix. I’m afraid it has become the solution.

Please do not mis-understand the intention of this letter. The City Mission is happy to provide our facility as a haven for these poor families. However, now that a year has gone by and there is no discussion,


the members were being rude to her. No one was purposefully rude to her but, being the bearer of bad news, as far as they were concerned, she did not like their response and seemed to take it personally. It was not any member or participants intention of disrespecting anyone at the meeting, but we would like to extend an apology to her if she felt that it was.

She was attending the meeting to keep the Homeless Congress up to date on the status of the Rapid Re-Housing Program and the Shelter Policies that would be put into place soon. She also got input from the members for both projects. She informed everyone, at the July meeting, that the Shelter Policies would be voted on by the Officein applying for the contract and the date to submit a proposal has been extended to August 18, 2017.

Larry Bresler, Executive Director of Organize Ohio, then began his presentation by informing members that one of the members and dedicated participants, Norman Wolfe, passed away. He provided information on the viewing and funeral arrangements. He then informed the members that Norman, he, and Ramona Turnbull were involved in orchestration of the End Poverty Now march and participated in the New Poor People’s Campaign. He then presented about the new project called “The Truth Commission” and wanted to ask for volunteers to do personal testimonies on six focus areas (4 personal testimonies for each). The focus areas are: 1) Environmental degradation, 2) Criminalization of the poor, 3) The right to


into Chinese.
Charles M. Barnes opens his book printing business in Wheaton, Illinois, a forerunner of publisher Barnes & Noble.
In Berlin, the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu is known to be working on the verse fairy tale "Girl in the Garden of Gold" (Fata-n grădina de aur). He will revisit the text regularly during the next decade, eventually producing his masterpiece Luceafărul (published April 1883).
Bertha Kinsky becomes governess to the Suttner family.

New books

Fiction
Louisa May Alcott – Work: A Story of Experience
Hortense Allart – Les Enchantements de Prudence avec George Sand
Ambrose Bierce – The Fiend's Delight
Mary Elizabeth Braddon – Publicans and Sinners
Rhoda Broughton
Nancy
Tales for Christmas Eve
Bankim Chatterjee – The Poison Tree
Wilkie Collins
Miss or Mrs.?
The New Magdalen
Sami Frashëri – Ta'aşşûk-ı Tal'at ve Fitnât (The Love Between Talat and Fitnat)
Émile Gaboriau – Lathe U.S. National Science Foundation, the American Society of Mammologists and the Animal Behavior Society.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a part of the Smithsonian Institution. The Institute furthers the understanding of tropical nature and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. STRI website: http://www.stri.si.edu.

# # #

SI-297-2017


Hospital with a concussion, a contusion and a frontal lobe injury to his right forehead, which required stitches, a cut to his left cheek, scrapes to his elbow and back, as well as wounds to his neck, back and leg.

The victim, who was a college student at the time, was later able to graduate with a business diploma, but he told the court he can no longer play contact sports, and suffers from pressure to his head and chronic pain.

Medical records show he has been told to wait to undergo plastic surgery to help with the contusion – a scar that causes him to feel self-conscious at his job at a software company, court heard.

Delta police investigated the assault, but no charges were laid. Later while living inIn the changes, Kayima was appointed to be in charge of information and publication under the office of the Police Chief Political Commissar.

Assistant Commissioner of Police, Polly Namaye will deputize Enanga and she replaces Patrick Onyango. Onyango was appointed as the Kampala Metropolitan Police Spokesperson while ASP Luke Owoyesigyire who has been occupying the position will now be Deputy.

While handing over office, Kayima applauded the team he headed describing them as committed and competent. He said that together, they worked as a family.

On the challenges in the Force’s Public relations, Kayima, admitted that many exist but are not insurmountable.

In his one year and two months tenure, Kayima has had a share of tough times in execution of his duties. But the most difficult of all was perhaps during


the spate of kidnappings of women and children in the first half of 2018. He also face criticism for the brutality visited on journalists during the tribunal hearings of murdered Senior Police officer, ASP Muhammad Kirumira in April of 2018.

Both Enanga and Namaye served in the respective positions, before being dropped by former IGP, Kale Kayihura in 2016, but Enanga says, he is ready to provide and outstanding service as he did before.

He committed to working with everyone as he did before, saying that “the sky will not even be the limit”.Jellyfish Protein Researchers Win Chemistry NobelTwo Americans and a Japanese researcher have won the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for their work creating a method of unveiling the previously invisible machinery inside living cells, using a protein that glows in the dark.

The three winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry are (from left) Martin Chalfie of Columbia University; Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen who works at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; and Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego.
AP
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AP

The three winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry are (from left) Martin Chalfie of Columbia University; Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen who works at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.; and Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego.

AP

Fluorescent


amazing thing is that nature suddenly smiled."

The gene worked beautifully in bacteria, worms and lots of other creatures. Under ultraviolet light, it made proteins in the cell glow a ghostly shade of green. Thousands of researchers worldwide now use it to track proteins; they can watch cancer cells or viruses multiply and spread.

Tsien, Chalfie and Shimomura all got telephone calls from the Swedish Academy of Sciences early this morning.

Chalfie says he slept through his call. At a news conference later, he explained that he'd accidentally set his phone to ring very softly. When he got out of bed, though, he remembered it was the day the Nobel Prize in chemistry was to be announced.

"So I decided to find out who the schnook was that won it this year,judgment being denied, the case was tried from July 5 through 8, 1994.

II. Discussion:
Based on the evidence and testimony presented at trial, this Court has made a series of factual determinations. To begin with, the Court finds that prior to Rule 45's adoption, representatives of both private and governmental organizations were allowed to be present on the floor of the House. They were allowed to be seated along the outside aisles (in what the Court has termed "the permitted area") and were allowed to communicate with legislators via whispered conversations on the sides or in the back of the chamber, via written notes passed by pages or other legislators, or via physical gestures and signals. They also discussed matters with legislators in the House Lounge. They were able


the chamber of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, which was usually open to all members of the public who wished to enter, was closed during the Governor's State of the Commonwealth address. During trial, the government admitted that the purpose behind the closing of the gallery was to deny members of the Philadelphia chapter of ACT-UP access during the speech. The gallery was both a place physically removed from the floor of the House and a place in which visitors were silent and had no interaction with legislators. Despite these limits on the communicative activities allowed to members of the public present in the gallery, the trial court nevertheless ruled that the gallery to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives was a limited public forum. In doing so, theis generally only one directional  the players to the audience. In contrast, the communication in the (sic) between the chamber and gallery works two ways: the audience listens to the political decisionmaking of the elected officials, and the elected officials receive the message, by the very presence of citizens in the gallery, that they are being watched, that their decisions are being scrutinized, and that they may not act with impunity outside the watchful eyes of their constituents. In fact, the closing of the gallery of the house chamber, the very seat of political power in the Commonwealth, is surely of more moment in the first amendment context than restriction on the availability of a theater for the portrayal of entertainment or satire, even if political in


nature.
Act-Up v. Walp, 755 F.Supp. at 1288.
In the instant case, the floor of the Rhode Island House of Representatives was open as a forum for expressive activity by the general public, and by both public and private lobbyists prior to the adoption of Rule 45. After the passage of Rule 45, it is the factual finding of this Court that the floor of the House is still made available as a forum for expressive activity to the general public, and to the limited class of governmental lobbyists. The general public and governmental lobbyists are allowed to be physically present, thus at least engaging in the communicative and expressive activity that sheer physical presence entails and that was described by the court in Act-Up v. Walp. As the courtlast-minute hurried communications from lobbyists that to end these communications would amount to a violation of their First Amendment rights.

4) Remedy
In their prayer for relief, plaintiffs ask this Court to restrain defendants from
(a) denying plaintiffs, lobbyists for plaintiffs, and other lobbyists access to the floor of the Rhode Island House of Representatives and the House Lounge when the House is in session, with such access to be provided on a first-come, first-serve basis as was the case prior to the 1993 session of the Rhode Island General Assembly; (b) commencing any contempt or other proceeding against Plaintiffs or any representative of plaintiffs for entering the House Lounge or the floor of the Rhode Island House of Representatives while the House of Representatives is in session.
Verified Complaint for Declaratory


of Rule 45 provides as follows: SIXTHLY  OF ADMISSION TO THE FLOOR 45(a) The following persons shall be entitled to admission to the floor of the House during the session thereof: The Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the General Treasurer, the state controller, and members of the Senate, judges and ex-judges of the United States court and of the state courts, ex-Speakers of the House, ex-members of the General Assembly, representatives of the legislative council, legislative staff, director of the department of administration, the budget officer, assistant in charge of law revision, and clerks of the Senate and House committees, superintendent of public buildings, state librarian, and the authorized representatives of the press, as provided in the rule next following, andsuch other persons as shall be admitted to the floor by the Speaker. At the discretion of the Speaker, members of the public may be admitted to the House floor, provided, however, that all such persons may not stay in the House chamber unless they remain seated along the sides of the chamber, refrain from conversation, and maintain the decorum of the House. All persons who are unable to access the House galleries by reason of physical handicap shall be entitled to admission to the House floor.

(b) Lobbyists including former state legislators who are lobbyists shall not be entitled to admission to the floor of the House during the session thereof. No person entitled to admission to the floor of the House during the session thereof, shall either


directly or indirectly engage in the practice of lobbying as defined in Rhode Island General Laws (22-10-2).
(c) Admission to the House lounge is limited to House members and persons invited and accompanied by a House member who will be responsible for them while in the lounge. Such persons when no longer accompanied by the House member with whom they entered, shall leave the lounge. No lobbyists shall be admitted to the House lounge during the House session. (Emphasis added.)
[2]  These organizations include the National Association of Social Workers; the National Education Association; Ocean State Action; the Rhode Island Affiliate, American Civil Liberties Union; the Rhode Island State Rifle and Revolver Association; the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee, Inc.; and the Coalition to Preserve Choice. Mem.P.business address of the employer, and the name, residence, and occupation of the persons employed for any lobbying purpose in connection with legislation, the date of the employment or agreement therefor (sic), the length of time the employment is to continue, if such time can be determined, and the legislation by bill number or by the subject matter ...
22-10-8. Identification badge.  (a) There shall be issued by the secretary of state to every person who shall qualify as a legislative lobbyist, as provided in this chapter, an identification badge evidencing qualification in such form as shall be prescribed by the secretary of state. Every lobbyist shall conspicuously display this identification badge on his or her clothing while in the state house at all times of the day


during any legislative session, and at all times of the day during any committee meeting or joint committee meeting of the general assembly. The color of the identification badge shall be changed each legislative year. The badge shall include but not be limited to the word "Lobbyist" in bold print as well as the name of the lobbyist, the year, the registration number of the lobbyist, and the name of the employer.
22-10-3. Exemptions.  The following persons shall be exempt from the provisions of this chapter:
(1) Any elected public official or the official's designee acting in his or her official capacity....
22-10-4.1. Governmental employees.  Any employee of any branch of federal, state, or local government acting in his or her official capacity shall register his or her nameLarge Landing Ship "Nikolay Filchenkov" (photo A. Brichevsky, 03/15/2006) flot.sevastopol.info A Russian warship carrying "special cargo" will be dispatched toward Syria, a navy source said on Friday, as the Kremlin beefs up its presence in the region ahead of possible US strikes against the Damascus regime.

The large landing ship Nikolai Filchenkov will on Friday leave the Ukrainian port city of Sevastopol for the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, from where it will head to Syria's coast, the Interfax news agency quoted a source from the Saint Petersburg-based central naval command as saying.

"The ship will make call in Novorossiisk, where it will take on board special cargo and set off for the designated area of its combat duty in the eastern Mediterranean," the source said.

The source did not


specify the nature of the cargo.

Russia has kept a constant presence in the eastern Mediterranean during the Syrian crisis.

In recent days Russia has made steps to beef up its naval grouping in the region.

The Russian destroyer Smetlivy will soon join the group in the region as well as the destroyer Nastoichivy, Interfax has said.

The anti-submarine ship Admiral Panteleyev has already entered its zone of operation as the flagship of the current rotation of the Mediterranean grouping, a military source has told the news agency.

Already in place in the eastern Mediterranean are the frigate Neustrashimy, as well as the landing ships Alexander Shabalin, the Admiral Nevelsky and the Peresvet.

They are expected to be joined by the large landing ships Novocherkassk and Minsk and the missile cruiser Moskva. The reconnaissanceA man has died on an Aer Lingus flight. (Photo: Peter Morrison/AP)

A bizarre incident on Sunday night onboard an Aer Lingus flight headed from Lisbon to Dublin has left one passenger dead. According to the Irish Mirror, a 24-year-old man “ran amok” and had to be restrained after he became violent and started “biting another passenger.”

The crew reported that the man — who was reportedly from Brazil and studying in Ireland — fell unconscious after he was restrained. The Irish police said in a statement that “the flight was diverted to Cork airport when the man on board became agitated. He was attended to by a doctor and nurse who were on the flight but was pronounced dead at the airport at 6:40 p.m.”

Related: Death Trap: What Really


Black Kids have released a new hook-laden single, "If My Heart Is Broken" today via BlackBook. Additionally, Playboy has premiered the lyric video. The track appears on their sophomore album, Rookie, out September 15. The album was recorded and co-produced by Andy LeMaster at Chase Park Transduction.

Singer Reggie Youngblood explains the inspiration behind "If My Heart is Broken" to BlackBook: "This song is the closest thing I have to a regrettable tattoo, cos when I hear it, I'm reminded that it came about when I legit thought I could move to Nashville and write country songs for Rayna James. I mean, I told everyone I was going to. AND THEN someone told me she's a fictional character... No "ifs" about it, I was def heartbroken-it would've made aI couldn't wait for a new Fails of the Week to come out every Friday after school. I was unaware of who Rooster Teeth was though.

Then comes my senior year of high school from 2011-2012. I met Mason, who has come to be one of my best friends. He formally introduced me to Rooster Teeth, and told me all about the Achievement Hunters and Red vs. Blue. I had heard of Red vs. Blue before but never got into watching it. I feel bad when I look back, and realize what I was missing out on by procrastinating watching Rooster Teeth's videos.

When RWBY was announced I knew I had to watch it and love it. So I watched RWBY and become so enamored by the world that Monty


Utility and effectiveness of a remote telepresence robotic system in nursing education in a simulated care environment.
There is a growing shortage of nursing graduates and faculty to prepare students for careers in nursing. One way to ameliorate this paradigm is to integrate technology such as a remote presence robot (RPR) in both clinical and educational settings. The InTouch Health (Santa Barbara, CA) RP-7, an RPR, was deployed in a simulated, multigenerational home where nursing students and faculty interact in a variety of activities. Seventy students and five faculty members were instructed by a remotely located instructor who controlled the RP-7 from a distant site. Students and faculty, using questionnaires, provided feedback on the didactic interaction. Of the 70 student participants, 56 (80%) responded, and faculty and clinical staffAge:

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There's a BJJ black belt and law enforcement trainer here who has libre in his style field. Can't remember his name though.

Well to be fair, the first countermove in those examples usually seems to be an entry that prohibits them from attacking further (like when he steps underneath and attacks, he's trapping the weapon arm between his shoulder and arm, as well as stepping to the outside and stepping too close), and while that's happening he's also throwing an attack that's likely to stun for a moment at least.

Yeah, knife sparring in any style tends to have that. I'm just glad to see them sparring, and a lot of the knife sparring you see out there is 99% hand tag.

Knive vs knife with 2 committed attackers is aare among the prisoners being held in these secret lockups and tortured, no information is ever given to the families as to why their loved one is being detained.

The crisis in Yemen has gone on for over 900 days resulting in over 10,000 deaths and millions of Yemenis in famine. Saudi and UAE forces are targeting boys and men to detain and torture them and the majority of them never come home, those are war crimes and this is genocide. The United States is not operating these prisons in Yemen, the UAE is, but sadly since the U.S. has tortured in the past, their tactics of torture have become known to the world and those tactics are evident in these secret lockups throughout Yemen. We know about the


Assab, over the past two years.

“In 2016, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea reported on “the rapid construction of what appears to be a military base with permanent structures” at Assab. According to security analysts, the base includes its own port, airbase, and a military training facility, where the UAE has trained Yemeni forces, including the Security Belt and Hadrami Elite Forces, according to the Middle East Institute. The UN Monitoring Group also reported that the base has “expanded to encompass not only personnel from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates but also Yemeni troops and other troops in transit.” – Human Rights Watch

This violates international law by forcibly detaining these men convicting them without trial and shipping them out of Yemen without so muchthe family home of “Kareem” and “Muneer,” both in their twenties, intending to arrest Muneer. Muneer was not home, so the Security Belt officers blindfolded Kareem, took him to a nearby camp and interrogated him. After a few hours, the men dumped a still blindfolded Kareem in a location he could not immediately identify. When he discovered where he was, he walked home. A family member said he “was very scared” when he arrived. The next day, Muneer surrendered at the Central Prison. Prison officials told Muneer’s father his son’s file was “with the coalition.” The general prosecutor issued a release order for Muneer. The prosecutor’s office told the family they could not secure his release, as the authorities did not respect their orders.”

“The UAE informed the UN


Panel of Experts on Yemen it had provided “military, financial, and training assistance” and “intelligence, logistic information, and aerial intervention,” but that the forces were under the control of the Yemeni Armed Forces. The UN Panel concluded that: “While nominally under the command of the legitimate Government, they are effectively under the operational control of the United Arab Emirates, which oversees ground operations in Mukalla.” A 2016 CIVIC report concluded the same.” – Human Rights Watch

A Yemeni NGO monitoring the detentions said that the Security Belt forces transferred more than 50 prisoners from the Central Prison in Aden, Yemen to the UAE headquarters in Buraika in 2017. The Yemeni Government is pushing back demanding 27 detainees be released in November of 2016 yet by February of 2017 onlyHaving Marocco, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Sudan, and the United States all providing naval units, fighter jets and ground troops in Yemen is not an intervention, it’s an invasion.

All these countries including the United States and Suadi Arabia which are among the richest in the world are bombing one of the poorest nations on this planet and their justification for killing over 10,000, imprisoning and torturing over 2,000 and forcing over one million into famine is, 200 Houthi-Saleh terrorist occupying the country and according to the U.S. presenting a present danger to the United States and Suadi Arabia who the U.S. heinously labels our allies.

“AQAP remains a significant security threat to the United States and to our regional partners and we welcome this effort to specifically


remove AQAP from Mukalla and to degrade, disrupt and destroy AQAP in Yemen,” Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said. – Reuters

He said this after saying the United States was putting a “small number” of troops on the ground in Yemen. This would turn out to be one of President Trump’s first hurdles as he had to dodge questions from media as to why an American Navy SEAL was killed in action while fighting Yemen. Recently Senator Rand Paul asked the Body why are we bombing Yemen? Paul went on to purpose that the decision to go to war be placed back into the hands of Congress. All countries involved in the crisis in Yemen should have to answer to the international community for their crimes against humanity inYemen and an international dialogue needs to be opened into the true events in Yemen, the United States government should not be hiding from the American people Saudi Arabia’s horrible campaign in Yemen as almost no western main stream media covers the crisis in Yemen. the American people should stand up against the Military Industrial Complex and demand the manufacturing of terrorist not become a common tactic to perpetuate war, just maybe if we stop destabilizing their regions and brutally oppressing people around the world America will stop being labeled the number one threat to peace in the world.


anchor has the advantage in that the counter-anchor determines the point midway between both anchors. Due to a possible lack of knowledge the party setting the first anchor can also set it too low, i.e. against their own interests. Generally negotiators who set the first anchor also tend to be less satisfied with the negotiation outcome, than negotiators who set the counter-anchor. This may be due to the regret or sense that they did not achieve or rather maximise the full potential of the negotiations. However, studies suggest that negotiators who set the first offer frequently achieve economically more advantageous results.

See also

 List of cognitive biases
 Poisoning the well
 Primacy effect
 Negotiation strategies
 Law of the instrument

References

Further reading

Category:Behavioral economics
Category:Cognitive biases
Category:Heuristics
Category:Prospect theoryThe Tappahannock Rotary Club meets every Thursday at 6pm at Roma's Restaurant, 1322 Tappahannock Boulevard, in Tappahannock VA 22560

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Labadie visitors from Vero Beach, Florida

Tappahannock Rotary welcomes Larry & Maureen Labadie based in Vero Beach Florida. Strangely enough they both belong to separate clubs - Larry is a member of the Vero Beach Sunrise Rotary Club and Maurine is a member of the Vero Beach Oceanside Club.

About us:

Tappahannock Rotary Club participates in many fund-raising activities including the annual Pig Roast, RivahFest local festival, and the Croaker Fishing Tournament. These funds are then used to support diverse community groups, organizations and individual students for the benefit and improvement of the services and opportunities in Tappahannock and Essex County.


Road office, has grown to 150 people in 2015.

WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff is working on several large rail projects domestically and internationally, and was recently appointed to deliver railway systems designs and engineering for HS2 Phase 2 in a contract worth £15m over five years. Since 2007, the company has been delivery partner for Transport for Greater Manchester, and is part of the project team delivering the city’s Metrolink expansion.

Thousands of engineering jobs will be created by the pipeline of major North West rail improvements and developments, such as the Government’s £1.2bn pledge to rail services across the North. Schemes include the TransPennine electrification programme which is earmarked to be completed by 2022/3, and HS2/3, alongside other national schemes including East/West rail and Crossrail 2 in the South-East.

Kearns saidMike Birchall MEI.

Marine Consultant and Surveyor (UK)

Mike's career began as a Deck Officer with BP Tanker Company, spending several years serving on a variety of vessels, including VLCC's, product & gas tankers. He then joined the oil inspection business with an international inspection company, performing inspections, investigations and surveys on over two thousand vessels worldwide. During his inspection career, Mike built up an extensive range of experience in all aspects of both liquid & dry cargo operations. He designed, recommended, and implemented new loading procedures for high-purity petrochemical cargoes for major international companies. . He received the 1997 "Award for Excellence" from an Oil Major for determining a calculation routine for Petrochemical volume expansion coefficients. Mike joined MTD as a Consultant Marine Surveyor in January 2000, and has


(endless) drying wire on whose support the web runs through the entire group so that the drying wire presses the web on the drying cylinders against the heated cylinder faces thereof, whereas on the reversing cylinders or rolls arranged between the drying cylinders, the web remains at the side of the outside curve and is subjected to negative pressure as it runs over the reversing cylinders or rolls in order to maintain the web on the wire. Thus, in single-wire draw, the drying cylinders are arranged outside the wire loop, and the reversing cylinders or rolls are arranged inside the wire loop.
In so-called normal groups with single-wire draw, known in the prior art, the heated drying cylinders are placed in an upper row and the reversing cylinders orunder controlled conditions. If necessary, the moisture level can be adjusted continuously. Thus, in this prior art construction, control of the curl of paper is not aimed at.
In the prior art constructions described above, the devices for the regulation of curl and the other, corresponding arrangements are placed in the dry end of the paper machine before the calender. It has been assumed that, if curl regulation operations are carried out after the calender, they have a detrimental effect on the surface properties of the paper. However, it is a drawback of a curl regulation device, such as a steam box or a moistening device, placed before the calender that, at the same time, the calendering result is affected to a great extent by the operation of the


Stone reliefs more than 2,700 years old date to the reign of the mighty King Sargon II.

(NAT GEO)-

In the eighth century B.C., Assyrian King Sargon II ruled over a wealthy and powerful empire that included much of today’s Middle East and inspired fear among its neighbors. Now a team of Italian and Iraqi Kurdish archaeologists working in northern Iraq have uncovered ten stone reliefs that adorned a sophisticated canal system dug into bedrock. The surprising find of such beautifully crafted carvings—typically found only in royal palaces—sheds light on the impressive public works supported by a leader better known for his military prowess.

“Assyrian rock reliefs are extremely rare monuments,” said Daniele Morandi Bonacossi, an archaeologist at Italy’s University of Udine, who co-led the recent expedition. With one exception, nosuch panels have been found in their original location since 1845. “And it is highly probable that more reliefs, and perhaps also monumental celebratory cuneiform inscriptions, are still buried under the soil debris that filled the canal.”

The site near the town of Faida, close to the border with Turkey, has been largely closed to researchers for a half century due to modern conflict. In 1973 a British team noted the tops of three stone panels, but tensions between Kurds and the Baathist regime in Baghdad prevented further work. An expedition led by Morandi Bonacossi returned in 2012 and found six more reliefs. The subsequent invasion by ISIS again halted research efforts; the battle line between the Islamic State and Kurdish forces lay less than 20 miles away until


the Muslim fundamentalists were defeated in 2017. (Here are the ancient sites ISIS has damaged and destroyed.)

This past autumn, Morandi Bonacossi and Hasan Ahmed Qasim from Iraq Kurdistan’s Dohuk department of antiquities catalogued a total of ten reliefs set along the banks of an ancient four-mile-long canal. The scene they portray is unique, according to the Italian archaeologist.

The panels display a king—who the archaeologists believe is Sargon II—observing a procession of Assyrian gods, including the main deity Ashur riding on a dragon and a horned lion, with his consort Mullissu on a lion-supported throne. Among the other figures is Ishtar, goddess of love and war, the sun god Shamash, and Nabu, god of wisdom. Archaeologists suspect that such images emphasized to passersby that fertility comes from divine aslay some 60 miles to the south, across the Tigris River from today’s city of Mosul.

Assyrian/Babylonian winged Bull diety, Lamassu

Sargon II ruled over what historians call the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which dominated the region from 911 B.C. until its destruction in 609 B.C. at the hands of Persians and Babylonians. As the first army to use iron weapons, the Assyrians developed advanced military techniques to overwhelm their enemies.

When Sargon seized the throne in 721 B.C., he immediately conquered the rebellious northern kingdom of Israel and forcibly relocated thousands of captives. The Bible mentions that he overwhelmed the coastal city of Ashdod, and archaeologists recently found a hastily built wall around the settlement that failed to ward off the threat. The southern kingdom of Judah avoided Israel’s fate by becoming


ON SEA ICE NEAR RIGOLET, Labrador — Leaning over the handlebars with one knee up on the seat, Derrick Pottle commanded his snowmobile between rocks and sheets of gray sea ice before stopping suddenly at the mouth of a bay.

“It’s open,” Mr. Pottle said, turning off his machine. Ten yards away, the ice had cracked and opened a dark hole in the water that made it impossible to drive across the inlet.

It was Jan. 7, unusually late in the season for Mr. Pottle’s first trip to his winter cabin — a few hours drive by snowmobile from his hometown, Rigolet — over what should have been more than 60 miles of frozen trails and solid ice.

Rigolet, a town on Canada’s eastern edge, has no roads leading in orout. Lakes, rivers and streams, if they freeze over, become what the town’s 300 residents call their “highway” — a lifeline to nearby towns and places to fish, trap and hunt.

But as the climate has warmed, these ice roads have become unreliable, breeding isolation, and, some studies suggest, elevated mental stress.

Mr. Pottle, a 61-year-old Inuit hunter, surveyed the land and water. In a lifetime in the north, he had traveled thousands of miles through blizzards, shot seven polar bears and fallen through sea ice. But this was an unfamiliar landscape.

He strode a few yards toward the hole in the ice before turning back to his snowmobile. Pausing, he put his gloves back on his tattooed hands, revved the engine and took off through the spruce trees, searching for


and anxious, and, in some cases, led to increased risk of substance abuse and suicidal thoughts.

In one town, a woman told Dr. Cunsolo’s team that not being able to get on the land made her feel like her spirit was dying. In another, a man said, “Inuit are people of the sea ice. If there is no more sea ice, how can we be people of the sea ice?”

When Dr. Cunsolo first visited Rigolet in the winter of 2009-10, air temperature in the region was an average of 12.8 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. It barely snowed, and there was severe wind and freezing rain. Finally, at the end of January, the ice froze over — choppy, sharp and ten weeks late. By April, six to eight weeks earlierFebruary 11, 2005

Ending Female Genital Mutilation?

Rights, medicalization, and the state of ongoing struggles to eliminate the FGM in Kenya

Prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation in Africa (darker shading denotes higher rates of FGM). Map adapted from data at State of Women in the World.

NAIROBI, KENYA -- Being a deep-rooted cultural practice for many communities in Kenya, no one assumed it would be an easy task to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). For the first time in 1998, the Kenya Health and Demographic Survey included questions on FGM and found that 38 per cent of women had undergone the procedure. In 2003, the survey found that 34 per cent of women had undergone FGM, however in communities where FGM was almost universally practiced there was very little change. The slow


rate of progress is discouraging to organizations that have been working on this issue for many years. Realizing just how much of a sustained and tailored effort FGM eradication campaigns require, international organizations and NGOs are trying to collaborate on research and intervention efforts to make greater inroads into eliminating this practice. At a conference held in Nairobi in December, UNICEF, Population Council and several other NGOs presented their latest research findings on FGM, with a particular focus on the Somali community in Kenya.

"How much longer?" said Abdi Abdullahi of National Focal Point at the conference. "There has been 80 years of campaigns and yet there's been little impact."

The papers presented at the conference showed many FGM intervention campaigns have had little to no impact, and some maytakes place in 28 African and Arab countries, as well as by immigrant communities from these regions.

The Somali ethnic group in Kenya has the highest prevalence of FGM - 97 per cent of Somali women have undergone the procedure, and almost all are infibulations. As in many other communities, pre-marital virginity is very important for the Somali, and FGM is considered essential in preserving virginity and family honour. Many Somali also believe that FGM is an Islamic requirement, although some Sheikhs, community elders and Muslim women's groups have clarified that infibulation is in violation of the Koran. This has led to a shift from infibulation to a less-severe form of FGM, and it is a complex issue for groups working to eradicate the practice to encourage its abandonment


in the past decade, although trained health providers performing these services are contravening medical ethics, disregarding the Ministry of Health policy, and violating the 2001 Children's Act. According to some activists, the trend of medicalization is a major impediment to the abandonment of FGM because it only decreases the risks involved, rather than eradicating the practice altogether.

In 1999, the Ministry of Health developed a National Plan of Action for the Elimination of FGM in Kenya to eliminate the practice by 2019, and in 2001, the Children's Act made FGM illegal for girls under 17. However, the Children's Act is not well-known or understood by many communities, and there is little support for enforcement of the law. The threat of imprisonment for those caught performing the procedure has drivenat a younger age presents a major problem to campaigns aimed at empowering women to refuse FGM. A girl at the age of eight has considerable difficulty asserting her rights when no one is asking for her consent, and support is not available within her community. The alternative rite of passage, developed to replace FGM as a transition into womanhood without any cutting, also has little impact when girls are cut at earlier ages, because by the time girls reach the age where the ceremony would be relevant, their families may have already had the procedure done.

Education of girls is the key to the long term elimination of FGM, as women with higher levels of education are more likely to refuse that their daughters undergo the procedure. School


the law.

I spent the last three days and nights ingesting a crazy amount of food and bev at FeastPDX, the Bon Appetit-sponsored food fest in the Rose City. It was the festival's second year; I attended last year as well. And while I had no complaints about last year, overall I think this year's festival was better: more events, a few free events, some very good tasting panels and speakers, and of course, the primo events: the Sandwich Invitational, Night Market and High Comfort.

This weekend, the biggest and best Northwest food festival is taking place in Portland. Seventy food media and at least that many star chefs--from Philly, New York City, Charleston, Austin, LA and Seattle--are taking over the Rose City for Feast Portland, a nonstop food blitz:town is near impossible to keep up with, even when it's your fulltime job.

I drive past the home of Humble Pie (at 525 Rainier Ave, at Weller Street) on the edge of the International District (technically it's the Central District) almost daily on my way to and from the south end. And for over a year, I've watched as owner Brian Solazzi gradually built decking, planted living roofs and installed chicken pens around the two shipping containers he moved onto the property to house his pizza place.


This may be the single hardest thing I ever have to write. Stan Lee, beloved co-creator of the Marvel Era of Superheroes, King of Cameos and Hype Man for all Comics, has died at age 95.

Stan started in the industry at the dawn of the medium at the ripe young age of 17. There he was the gopher of then Timely Comics assisting Joe Simon and Jack 'The King' Kirby. By '41 he was the Interim Editor, then in '42, like many of his countrymen, he joined the Army as a member of the signal corps during the second world war. In the war he was one very few people to be given the job of 'playwright', working in the job alongside Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr.Seuss.

Upon returning he took over the reigns of comic publisher until he was ready to quit in the early '60s, when his wife Joan Lee told him to write a comic that he would want to read and to give a shot--if it failed, he would quit and become an author, if it succeeded then he would stay in comics. That book was Fantastic Four #1, and history was made. Heroes didn't have to be larger than life, they could be the family (of rocket scientists) down the street. Teenagers and mutants leaped to the forefront of readers minds, with characters like Spider-Man and The X-Men.

In the '70s Stan took a step back and he started touring the country, going to universities and talking about the industry and


about comics in general. After several grueling years he left New York and headed up Marvel's early attempt to break into Hollywood, which was successful in animation, but floundered in live action.

Away from Marvel he wasn't as successful and had very few major victories. His Stan Lee Media was invested for stock manipulation, Stan was NEVER implicated in the crimes, and the company went under shortly afterwards. He did see minor success with POW! Entertainment which is still going on to this day.

Many young and old fans will remember him for his narration and cameos in the Marvel projects over the years appearing in every Marvel movie (besides the Blade Trilogy) since the late '90s.

Stan was--I never wanted to have to refer to him in the past tense--oneWhile many head to Ketchum for the skiing, another kind of tourist could soon be headed to the home of Sun Valley. The city of Ketchum has been designated an International Dark Sky Community -- the 16th in the world. It is the mission of the International Dark-Sky Association is to preserve and protect nighttime darkness.

"The focus there is changes on public policy and educating the residents there on good lighting practices in the hopes of, over time, it will generally become darker as those changes come into effect," said John Barentine of the International Dark-Sky Association.

Ketchum city leaders say being recognized could bring thousands of star gazing tourist to the town. More and more, artificial light is cutting out the starry sky in places, and, because of


C1RCA Eugene, Oregon Photos

The C1RCA team did a signing at Tactics in Eugene, Oregon last week followed by a demo at the local park. Here are some photos of David Gravette, Robbie Brockel, Emmanuel Guzman, and Peter Ramondetta from the day.On November 14, 1889, Nellie Bly, the crusading younger woman reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s global newspaper, left long island urban by way of steamship on a quest to wreck the list for the quickest journey around the globe. additionally departing from manhattan that day—and heading within the wrong way by way of train—was a tender journalist from The Cosmopolitan journal, Elizabeth Bisland.

In April 1941, seven Canadian ladies grew to become prisoners of battle whereas on a voyage from long island urban to Cape city. Their getting older Egyptian liner, the Zamzam, used to be sunk off the coast of South Africa by means of the German raider Atlantis. The passengers have been transferred to a jail send and finally placed ashore in Nazi-occupied France.

For the top-earning girl, the


findings to the British Royal Society, a collection of naturalists and mathematicians. While Stone’s work was acknowledged, the true significance of his discovery was overlooked.

His “Mr. Tompkins” series used science fiction to explain difficult science in a way that anyone— including Tompkins, whose attention span was notoriously short— could understand. In 1954, inspired by the Watson-Crick DNA model, he theorized that the order of the DNA molecules determined protein structure. ” His “diamond code” paved the way for Marshall W. Nirenberg to crack the genetic code in 1961. In 1956, Gamow settled in Boulder to teach at the University of Colorado. That year, he received UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for his popularization of science, and two years later he was married (a second time) to Barbara “Perky” Perkins, whoteam.

Trump and his supporters have questioned the CIA, FBI and Obama White House’s role in the early days of the Russia investigation. They have accused the FBI of improperly using the infamous Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Brennan’s role in the Russia investigation has also come under scrutiny from congressional investigators.

Congressional Republicans are interested in Brennan’s outreach to members of Congress in the early days of the Russia probe.

Brennan briefed members of the so-called Gang of Eight in late summer 2016 about Russian meddling in the presidential campaign. According to a book published in March, Harry Reid, a member of the Gang of Eight at the time, believed that Brennan had an ulterior motive during an Aug. 25, 2016, briefing with


in the world" and that she would move to shut down casinos if it was shown that they were increasing problem gambling.

She said she did not accept that the new casinos would necessarily spark an increase in problems, but added that their impact would be monitored "very carefully indeed".

Asked if she would shut down casinos if they did cause problems, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The new gambling legislation gives me a number of reserve powers in the event that problem gambling does begin to increase in a way that causes concern."

Ms Jowell said that the gaming regime in force since the previous legislation in 1968 was out of step with the "explosion" in online gambling and other new forms of betting.

"We had to modernise andTony Clark (@TonyClarkCP) July 7, 2017

Moving over to the site 2 big track projects are taking place this week. We start off, much like the ride will, with the lift.

Track has been rising since a couple of days after the 4th of July and has gone to about where another turn would sweep under it:

Another angle shows us that not only is track going up on the lift but stairs as well:

At the present leave off point, track is right at the turn below as we mentioned above:

A worker was already hard at work on the next set of track supports:

At the very top we can see where the drop will start. In the 2nd picture, we see our first set of downward supports:

These supports for track are


already in place for most of the drop as mentioned above and in previous updates. The picture progress from top of lift to bottom of drop:

In that last picture, you may notice some more track. This is the second area of the coaster where track was being added this week. In what is likely a double up occurring after dropping out of the MCBR we showed you last week. We can even this track from inside the park looking through the old entrance area:

Over at the campground, once again we find a better look at this section. Notice in the second picture we see the supports highlighted above as being for the first big drop:

We even get a peek through the trees of the drop into the aboveads for McDonalds, Walmart, Kellogg's, and many TV shows, films, and even a few theme songs. Her journey has been documented in magazines and newspapers, like Variety, Billboard and the LA Weekly.

After earning multi-six figures each year with her own songs, she started her own an agency, Catch the Moon Music, helping other artists to do the same. She has spoken on the DIY hustle and how to reverse engineer your dream job at countless places such as UCLA, the Grammy Museum, Billboard Film/TV conference, ASCAP Expo, Berklee College of Music, and more.

ABOUT LISA OCCHINO

Lisa Occhino is an award-winning songwriter and the founder of songwriting collaboration website SongwriterLink. She's also a marketing consultant, freelance writer, and editor for several music companies, including Bandzoogle, ReverbNation, and Soundfly. Previously, she


served as the managing editor at Sonicbids, where she spent her days working with music industry experts to provide independent artists with music career advice.

Lisa was accepted to Berklee College of Music on a songwriting scholarship and graduated summa cum laude with a music business degree. In addition to her experience in music journalism and music tech, Lisa honed her industry skills and knowledge at a boutique booking agency and renowned music publishing companies such as BMG Chrysalis and Shapiro, Bernstein & Co.

ABOUT SONGWRITERLINK

SongwriterLink is a free songwriting collaboration website that makes finding the perfect co-writer faster and more efficient than ever before. It’s the only website that uses matching engine technology – the same kind that dating websites use – to help find you exactly the typeHaggard, etc.

Groundwater contaminated with volatile organic compounds from operations at the former Vernay Laboratories production facilities on Dayton Street has spread eastward across Wright Street and Suncrest Drive. Soil contamination at the site is concentrated in an area near the two former plants, where chlorinated solvents used to degrease metal parts were disposed, and at the front of a property, where a common pesticide was used. SG-15D is the soil gas well whose fall 2016 high test results were alarming to the oversight firm EHS. (Map generated using data and maps from Vernay and EHS Technology Group)


have used the love of Heer and Ranjha symbolically or as a metaphor of love between man and God.

Muzaffar says that due to the lack of media in the past, this story had limited reach, relying on the oral tradition of transmission only, but with the present day improvement in literacy and media modes of transmission available at large, it has become the subject of an excellent research project and it was Muzaffar A Ghaffar who took it upon himself to carry out this magnanimous work; hence this voluminous and detailed magnum opus.

This work has appeared in four volumes, wherein the story of Heer Damodar has been written in different scripts by Muzaffar A Ghaffar.

It is not an easy task to document the oral tradition into Punjabi, writtensince 1989.

Muzaffar says that the editing of the texts, exploration of meanings and discussions in the Sangat are the foundation of his efforts made towards the Within Reach series of masterpieces of Sufi poetry; the latest among it being presenting the text in Nastaliq, Gurmukhi and Roman with an extensive glossary, poetic translation and line-by-line discourse.

This mammoth work must be commended.

The reviewer is based in Lahore and can be reached at doc_amjad@hotmail.com

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

By Nicholas Birch, *Sufism in Turkey: The Next Big Thing?* - Eurasia Net - New York, USATuesday, June 22, 2010

A pretty garden and a table laden with cheese, ham and good bread: a typical summer evening scene on the Prince's Islands, a popular haunt for wealthy Istanbul residents.

But the dozen or so people sitting


around the table haven't come to exchange polite gossip. For the past four hours, they have been listening intently to a popular Sufi mystic discoursing on the love of God.

"Bring unity to your heart and you create a temple of Allah, do that and you feel an irrepressible desire to dance," says the man, holding up his arms like a whirling dervish, clicking his fingers.

The past five years have seen a huge surge in interest in Sufism among urban, secular-minded Turks. Almost every television channel now has a program about Islamic mysticism. In bookshops, only books peddling conspiracy theories outsell the primers in Islamic mysticism and the new translations of Ibn-i Arabi.

Interest in Sufism surged last year, when novelist Elif Safak, best known in the West for beingput on trial in 2006 because one of her fictional characters allegedly "insulted Turkishness," published her new book about an American Jewish woman's discovery of Rumi, the 13th century founder of the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes.

Rumi, who was born in 1207 in what is now part of Tajikistan, spent most of his life in present-day Turkey. His teachings offer some of the best insight into Sufi practices ever written.

Brought out in the United States this spring, The 40 Rules of Love is one of the best selling novels in Turkey's history. With sales mounting above half a million, publishers even brought out a grey-jacketed version for male buyers too embarrassed to be seen holding the bright pink original edition.

In some ways, the wave of interest is surprising.


described as 'White Turks,' is a matter of image. "Islam in Turkey has long been presented as malign, dirty and primitive, and turning to religion is no easy affair for such [urbanized] people," he says. "What would you prefer? Beards, skull caps and dogmatism, or Rumi's slogan 'come, whoever you are?’"

Outlawed by the secular leaders of the Republic in 1925, mystical Islam never disappeared from Turkey. Arguably, it was the powerful, orthodox Nakshibendi mystical order that did most to turn Islam into the political force it is in Turkey today. From the 1960s on, though, Sufism faced increasing opposition from radical Islam, nourished by puritanical Salafi beliefs imported mainly from Egypt.

Islamist radicals consider the Sufi relationship between sheik and believer to be idolatrous, according to Ismail Kara, professorof Islamic thought at Marmara University in Istanbul. Like earlier generations of Islamist modernizers, they also saw mystical brotherhoods as one of the chief reasons why the Islamic world could not keep pace with the West.

"Islamism was a critique of Islamic history," Kara explains. "Islamists made a deliberate attempt to cut themselves off from traditions and the past. They saw tarikat [mystical orders] as obstructing their efforts to go back to the sources and start again."

Today, Islamist animosity is waning as younger Turkish Muslims increasingly question the correctness of reducing religion to a political ideology. "People have begun to ask what happened to the profound Islam of the Middle Ages," says Mahmut Erol Kilic, an expert on Sufism as Marmara University. "People have begun to ask how a


culture which produced Avicenna, Ibn-i Arabi, Mevlana and Yunus Emre could have become so narrow."

Sufi leaders say that tolerance of the more heterodox sects has extended even to the Justice and Development Party [AKP] government, whose leaders, when young, were influenced by radical Islamism.

Even a decade ago, discussing the culture of tarikat on Turkish television was almost impossible, says Cemalnur Sargur, head of one branch of the Rifa'i sect, and Turkey's only female sheik. Today, she hosts two weekly television programs, including one on state television.

"Some say they are bigots, but mysticism is something that this government understands, and has opened the way for," she says.

But not everybody is happy about the increasing visibility of Sufism. Many Muslim intellectuals object to the way in which the Mevlevi brotherhoodpoint. Secular Turks' interest in Sufism, he points out, really only took off after UNESCO proclaimed the Mevlevi sema, or whirling ceremony, a World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2005. In honor of Rumi's 800th birthday, UNESCO also declared 2007 the Year of Mevlana and Tolerance.

"This is Sufism that comes from the West," Erkal says. "It is like a Turk drinking his first Turkish coffee in America."

Traditional Sufis would doubtless be horrified at what is going on in the garden on the Prince's Islands. At least two of those in attendance, Turks who studied in the United States, openly admit to being atheists. As the sun drops below the Marmara Sea, the host comes to the table carrying a bottle of Doluca Moskado, a pricey local white wine.

The man


at the head of the table calls a halt to intricate discussions of the qualities of different Sufi saints, and holds up a wine glass. "The squalid life is not for the Sufi," he says. "The Sufi is a gourmet, a master of the art of living."

Adamant that there can be no Islamic mysticism without an acceptance of the foundations of Islam, the Koran, the Sunnah and religious law, or sharia, Cemalnur Sargur nonetheless shrugs her shoulders at such heterodoxy.

"There are a lot of wrong roads on the road to the Truth, and those who realize they are on the wrong road quickly find the right one," she says.

After Elif Safak's book came out, she adds, she received hundreds of telephone calls from people saying that they wantedto know more about Rumi's companion, Shems-e Tabrizi, one of the main figures in the novel.

"The mere fact of mentioning Shems' name in this world is an act of grace," she says.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan, celebrated sitar maestro, talks about his debut as a film music composer

Referred to as the greatest North Indian classical musician of his generation, Ustad Shujaat Hussain Khan is indeed a master of folk music and poetry.

Belonging to the Imdad Khan gharana of the sitar, he belongs to the seventh generation of musicians in family that boasts some of the greatest names in Hindustani music.

He is, without a doubt, a celebrated personality in the foreign arena with almost 50 musical releases and various laurels conferred on him by many Indian and


is done to the music with a good intent is always welcome.

You are a celebrated artist in the foreign arena and now, you have made your Bollywood debut as well. So, what is the next step?

I am on the verge of finishing an album with Asha Bhosle in which the two of us are composing. There is one composition from my son as well. It is slated for a July release.

Saturday, June 26, 2010

A young seeker named Cat Stevens ''picked up a couple of very important strands of the mysterious truth'' during his last tour of Australia in 1974.

Within two years they would lead him to a new faith and a new name - Yusuf Islam - and out of the music business for three decades.

In one ofthe most gently persuasive voices of the peace/love generation, the singer recalls a pair of random meetings with lingering wonder.

''She was a tall lady, 60 years old. Her name was Hestia Lovejoy and she turned me on to numerology. My next record was Numbers, as a direct result of that,'' he says. ''Another interesting thing was a book with a velvet cover that was given to me, a book of Rumi's poems. That was my first introduction to Sufism and that was quite important.''

Yusuf's retirement from music in 1976 was a sudden departure to fans, but the London-born Steven Georgiou maintains that his conversion to Islam was the culmination of a gradual discovery.

The assertion is borne out in the lyrics of old songs such as The Road to


Find Out, from his landmark Tea for the Tillerman album of 1970, one of many classics he has enjoyed rediscovering since picking up his discarded guitar in 2002.

''It's amazing how seamless the process has been,'' he says. ''But you know, life is continuous. Each album represents a stage in my pathway of life.''

Yusuf weathered controversies after the fatwa against the British author Salman Rushdie in 1989. He also found himself briefly barred from the US in 2004 in a case of mistaken identity. Today he largely distances himself from a media seeking to cast him in the role of a political spokesman for Islam.

''I've been asked many questions in the past and to be honest, I'm not very successful at being a politician,'' he says. ''However, as apoet, as a singer, and as a spiritual person, I find lots of ways, I think, of fixing things.''

Yusuf is touring Australia for the first time in 36 years with his son, Yoriyos, whose '60s-style blues-rock band, Noxshi, is supporting on all dates. They perform tonight and on Wednesday at Sydney Entertainment Centre.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Indian choir Malhaar will perform a musical combining Sufi music, theatre and art this weekend.

Residents of Dubai with an ear for the unusual are in for a treat this Dubai Summer Surprises with Rooh-e-Ishq, a musical that combines Sufi music, theatre and art being held this weekend.

It is being performed by Malhaar, an Indian music choir in the UAE in association with Theatrewallas, a local theatre group, and Indian celebrity musicians - Gulam


Ali and Shailesh Bhagawat also taking to the stage.

Rooh-e-Ishq, which roughly translates as "in love with the soul", will follow the birth of Sufism and its journey across the world through the ages.

For the uninitiated, Sufism is the mystical dimension of Islam in which Muslims seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. They generally do this by shunning all worldly pleasures and devoting themselves to God. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a Sufi. The Sufi movement has spanned several continents and cultures over a millennium and sufis composed songs in devotion to God in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and a dozen other languages.

Rooh-e-Ishq brings together the region's dancing dervishes and the qawwals (group singers) of Punjab. It featuresthe life and works of four master Sufis of all time, Jalaluddin Rumi, Amir Khusro, Bulleh Shah and Kabir.

Jogiraj Sikidar, founder director of Malhaar, told Emirates Business: "I was exposed to Sufi music right from my childhood when I was living in Silchar, in Assam, as on many mornings I would be woken up by the sounds of a wandering minstrel singing Sufi songs.

"Then when I went to Delhi to do my graduation my interest in Sufi music deepened further as there I was exposed to Sufi music at the tomb of Amir Khusro.

"That's the time when I realised the depth of Sufi music and how it is still relevant. I decided that I would one day do a show that would present Sufi music in a contemporary


form so that today's generation can connect with it. So when I set up Malhaar I decided that this was the time to do it and this show is the result of months of research and hard work."

The musical will unravel the mystical world of Sufism through three powerful media – music, theatre and poetry – and is divided into five segments.

The first four segments are a theatrical life sketch followed by a musical performance based on the four master Sufis. In the final segment, Malhaar will perform contemporary Sufi music from Indian film and pop albums. Each segment will be introduced by an anchor, who will also recite popular Sufi couplets.

Talking about the paintings that will be prominently displayed in the theatre during the show, Sikidar said:"We asked artists from the UAE and India to make paintings based on their understanding and representation of the Sufi masters and their music."

He said the paintings would be displayed in the theatre and form part of the backdrop on the stage.

"Later, in true Sufi tradition of charity, two of the paintings that have been made by Shrabani Brahmachary, a well-known artist from Delhi, will be auctioned and the proceeds from it will go to Manzil, the school for children with special needs."

The show will be held at 6.30pm tomorrow [today, Friday, June 25] at the Centrepoint Auditorium, Ductac, Mall of the Emirates. Tickets are priced at Dh50 and are available at the box-office and Gazebo and Kamat restaurants. For more, e-mail malhaar.choir@gmail.com.

By Ed Lake, *Cultural calendar: Sufi


history lesson through music* - The National - Abu Dhabi, UAESaturday, June 19, 2010

The strangest of this week’s art events comes to the Mall of the Emirates on Friday.

I read the press release about it and was, I admit, perplexed. Not that it was badly written, not at all. Merely, the things it described were quite hard to imagine.

So I phoned up the event organiser and asked him what was going on. He spoke almost uninterruptedly for 15 minutes, clarifying certain details, sketching the history of his group and enlarging on the attractions laid out in the press release. The more I heard, the less I understood. I thanked him and hung up, and then fretted about how to write these next few paragraphs.

Allow me to attempt adays.

The performance will last for three hours. Patience is clearly a prerequisite.

[Picture: Shams of Tabriz as portrayed in a 1500 painting in a page of a copy of Rumi's poem dedicated to Shams. BNF Paris. Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumi]

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Novelist Elif Shafak grew up with two very different models of Turkish motherhood – her modern, working, educated mother and her traditional, religious grandmother

Three months before her first child was born, Elif Shafak, Turkey's leading female novelist, found herself facing prosecution and a potential three-year prison sentence. Her crime? She was accused of insulting "Turkishness" in her novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, through a fictional character whose ancestors had been murdered in the Armenian genocide.

On the day of the trial, protesters inside and outside the courtroom jostled and slapped


at the defendants – dozens of Turkish writers and intellectuals – shouting and throwing objects at them. "More disturbing than the actual trial," Shafak said at the time. "Very aggressive, very provocative."

The case was eventually dropped, only to be taken to a higher court. The trial took place a few months later. Shafak had just given birth and was not present. After a 40-minute hearing, she was acquitted.

After the case, Shafak fell into a postnatal depression that lasted for several months. Were the two linked, the legal ordeal and the postnatal depression? "I don't want to make too much of it," is all she will say, four years on. "The book was very well received, sold well and was read by a wide range of people – peopleshe also thinks that the experience is different for each generation, and that perhaps the adjustment to motherhood is harder for women with intellectual and professional aspirations.

"I grew up with two different models of womanhood: that of my mother, who was an educated working woman, very cultured and modern, and that of my grandmother, who was much more traditional, superstitious, religious. Women like my grandmother were, perhaps, better prepared for motherhood in some ways. Her generation would protect new mothers from jinn [a spirit in Muslim belief who could assume animal or human form] by not leaving them alone for a moment in the first month. For my mother's generation, it was harder. There was no room in their mental framework for the ups and downs. For my


generation, too, motherhood has to be perfect."

Her husband, Eyüp Can, a journalist, has been a vital support. They share a commitment to an egalitarian marriage, and his involvement with the children is essential to her ability to maintain a balance between writing and bringing up children. Next year, she and Eyüp will be moving to the UK for several months while she works on her new book. They will share the childcare and her husband will commute between London and Istanbul. "If there were any competition between us, it wouldn't work. He is very unusual for a Turkish man."

Shafak's childhood was similarly peripatetic and international. Due to the demands of her mother's job, they were often physically apart, in different cities and different countries. Much of her childhoodwas spent living with her grandmother in Ankara. She was born in Strasbourg in 1971; her father was a philosopher and her mother a diplomat. Her parents separated soon after the birth and she was brought up by her mother.

"It took me a long time to overcome my anger towards my father for his absence. A very long time. Fury is a stimulating force, but in the long run, it is a destructive one. It's not good for the soul. I had a lot of fears in relation to my father, but the thing about fear is that if you exaggerate it, you start to believe it."

She is now on good terms with her father and her half-brothers by his second marriage. Her relationship with her mother is


very close. "To be a woman diplomat and a single parent was not easy for my mother, but she is a very independent woman, very determined. The mother-daughter relationship is not composed of one colour only, but we are very good friends. There is huge love between us."

Already something of a celebrity in Turkey, Shafak is having an increasing impact on the international literary scene. She has a reputation for blending western and eastern elements in her fiction, and in her journalism she is a bold and outspoken critic of her country's politics. She is seen by many critics and readers as an exciting, innovative, politically challenging writer. Besides having won many literary awards in Turkey and abroad, she has a large and devoted readership.

"If people like yournovels in Turkey, they take you into their hearts," she says. "My readers write to me about their personal lives: they invite me to their weddings; to share their most intimate joys and sorrows. I have a very strong connection with my readers. It is rewarding and very humbling."

Perhaps, too, her readers love her because she writes about things that touch so directly on their lives. Her new novel, The Forty Rules of Love, already a bestseller in Turkey, is concerned with questions of motherhood and selfhood. Ella Rubenstein, the middle-aged American housewife and mother at the heart of the novel, is unhappily married to an unfaithful and neglectful husband, and in thrall to the needs of her children. Her own life and needs and aspirations have been


lost along the way, as has her belief in love.

Shafak has taken a significant risk in The Forty Rules of Love in making Ella a rather dull character, certainly at the start of the novel – the kind of woman you wouldn't want to have coffee with because you know she'll just drone on about the kids. Shafak agrees, but defends the decision. "I didn't want Ella to be extraordinary. I wanted her to be someone you could recognise instantly, whether you're a Muslim woman in a headscarf in Ankara or a Jewish woman in Boston. I wanted to write about the capacity for transformation even in uninspiring material."

If love is one of Shafak's themes, Sufism is the other. She first became interested in Sufism as a collegeguardian.co.uk/bookshop or call 0330 333 6846

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The labyrinthine Arab-style medina of Fez, Morocco’s historical capital of trade, culture and religious life, was a remarkable space for the 16th Annual World Sacred Music Festival June 4-13.

The expansive and diverse event, with about 60 performances, took place in the walled city's public spaces, traditional palaces and places of worship.

The festival, originally started by Moroccan anthropologist Faouzi Skalli in 1994, seems to have spawned a growing worldwide trend of sacred music festivals, including the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles every three years.

Performers included Amadou and Mariam, a blind couple from Mali who have become international stars, and Jordi Savall, a Catalan composer who is a major figure in early music.

There also was an emphasis on providing


empty sections on several nights. On Sunday night, the lively and athletic Drum Masters of Burundi played to a low-energy audience of tourists and Moroccan elites at Bab Makina.

Two blocks from the Palace gate, the plaza in front of Bab Boujloud (a major gate to the old walled city) teemed with crowds at free concerts every night.

On Sunday, Moroccan popular singer Najat Atabou had a young and boisterous crowd of about 5,000 dancing at the free concert. About half of the concerts were free, including Sufi music performances each night.

For many attendees Jordi Savall’s musical epic presenting the history of Jerusalem epitomized the message of harmony at the festival. The full orchestra included Israeli, Palestinian, Armenian and Greek musicians playing traditional instruments. The stunning and elaborate piece includedpoetry and religious texts from the many groups who have inhabited Jerusalem.

Chris Colucci, a sound designer and composer from Philadelphia, called this concert the “spirit of the festival,” which emphasized the “profound ways in which we’re all the same.”

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Jews, Christians and Muslims prayed together as regional Sufi leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bukhari was laid to rest in his home in Old City Jerusalem.

On June 1 he passed away at the age of 61, after a long struggle with heart disease. Rabbis, Muslim and Druze sheiks, Christian clerics and lay people of diverse faiths paid respects at the mourning tent, which received visitors for three days.

Sheikh Bukhari was the head of the mystical Naqshabandi Holy Land Sufi Order and Uzbek community. In his lifetime, he became


deeply engaged in interfaith peace activities, including co-founding Jerusalem Peacemakers, and participating in the Interfaith Coordinating Council in Israel, Interfaith Encounter Association and the Sulha Peace Project.

Some have said Sheikh Bukhari’s heart disease was due to the stresses of peace work. His teachings and practices had put him in danger on several occasions.

The Sufi leader believed in interfaith unity and nonviolent approaches to resolving conflicts. When faced with the reality of violence in the Middle East, he found inspiration in Islamic law and tradition, as well as in the writings of Gandhi, King and Mandela.

When asked when his interfaith peace work began, he recalled a phone call he received in 1999 from the Vatican. A Cardinal requested his participation in the upcoming millennium celebration. The plan was forand find a common language that we all love the Holy Land we all love the spirit, so we have to do something about it.

I had the chance to meet Sheikh Bukhari in Melbourne this past December. Thousands of people had descended on the Australian city for the Parliament of World Religions. People of various faith traditions from across the globe attended to learn from one another.

At the Parliament, Bukhari was on a panel with others from the Middle East to discuss ‘Religion, Conflict and Peace Building: The Case of Israel-WestBank-Gaza.’ The panelist told stories of how peacemakers in the Holy Land were working together to bridge the gulf between peoples.

Besides attending the panel discussion, I encountered the Sheikh in the press room as he was interviewed by


bones, so we move the bones aside and we lay next to it…

Sheikh Bukhari was thus wrapped in a white shroud, and buried in same grave as that of his grandfather, great-grandfather and the line of family sheikhs dating back to the 17th century.

His family had first migrated from Bukhara to Jerusalem in 1616 to establish a center to teach Sufism. Their home was built on the Via Dolorosa, the road that Jesus walked from the place of Pontius Pilate’s sentencing to his crucifixion.

He was a direct descendent of the Sunni scholar Imam Muhammad Ismail al-Bukhari of Bukhara, the ninth-century author of the hadith al-bukhari a collecter oral tradition that contains guidance about Islamic tradition and religious law and practice.

Bukhari’s family played a role in the political historyJune 17 to 19.

Based on the life and times of Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh, Ajoka’s new play is about the less-known but extremely dramatic and moving story of Dara Shikoh, eldest son of Emperor Shahjahan, who was imprisoned and executed by his younger brother Aurangzeb.

Dara was not only a crown prince, but also a poet, a painter and a Sufi. He wanted to build on the vision of Akbar the Great and bring the ruling Muslim elite closer to the local religions.

His search for the truth and shared teachings of all major religions is reflected in his scholarly works such as ‘Sakeena-tul-Aulia’, ‘Safina-tul-Aulia’ and ‘Majma-ul-Bahrain.’

The play also explores the existential conflict between Dara the crown prince, the Sufi and the poet.

The violent and devastating struggle between brothers Dara


actually god or a divine lover worshipped by Majnu who is literally possessed by her love.

But in western Rajasthan, the story is symbolic of the composite culture of the sub continent. So in this fair, hundreds of people collect to ask for the blessing of the two lovers and the gift of true love in their lives.

"I heard there was a fair here so I came to see. It is said that whatever you ask for here, you get it," said a girl visiting the fair.

Before the Kargil conflict this shrine was also open to Pakistani visitors.

There are many variations to the legend of Laila and Majnu. In a version popular here Laila is forcibly married off to another man. Her husband challenges Majnu but as soon ashis sword pierces Majnu's heart, it is Laila who dies.

The tomb of Laila and Majnu is a major attraction in these parts, therefore it's not surprising that even one of the BSF [Border Security Force] posts on this border is called the Majnu post.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

New York and London have been treated in recent seasons to major exhibitions of Chola bronzes. A thousand years ago, sculptors in southern India began creating exquisite devotional figures—most often depictions of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati.

The bronzes are palpably sensuous and, even now, undimmed by centuries of worship that involves draping the figures in silks and garlands; anointing them in butter, curds, milk and sandalwood paste; and parading them through villages and towns to show the gods their


domain.

Among the most sublime art that the hand of man has produced, the bronzes remain part of a living religious tradition.

It turns out that they are part of still-living artistic tradition, too. In "Nine Lives," William Dalrymple introduces us to Srikanda Stpathy, a 35th-generation bronze caster directly descended from the stone carvers who first learned the art of bronze casting in the region of India called Tamil Nadu. The casting tradition has kept his family busy for 700 years, and his workshop has "a backlog of orders that would take at least a year to clear."

Such are the joys of "Nine Lives," in which Mr. Dalrymple profiles nine Indians and through them the variety of religions that thrive in our reportedly homogenized world. His subjects include a Jainnun, a Theyyam dancer, a sacred prostitute, a singer of ancient epics, a Sufi "lady fakir," a Tibetan monk who renounced his vows to fight the Chinese invaders and now lives in exile, a Tantric worshipper of the ferocious goddess Tara, and a blind Baul (wandering singer).

Mr. Dalrymple lets them all speak directly about their lives and beliefs, and he sketches along the way both their individual narratives and the history and literature of their faiths.

Discussing the meaning of Srikanda's work, Mr. Dalrymple ends up musing on the place of sex in Hinduism—noting that the Judeo- Christian Scriptures begin with the creation of light while Hinduism "begins its myth with the creation of Skama—sexual desire: in the beginning was desire, and desire was with God, and desire was


God."

He cites a fourth-century poet-prince who tried to discern whether asceticism or sensuality was the true path to God: "Tell us decisively which we ought to attend upon," the poet says in one of his verses. "The sloping sides of the mountain in the wilderness? Or the buttocks of a woman abounding in passion?" In a later chapter in "Nine Lives," the Baul singer, part of a mystical Hindu tradition, seems to offer an answer: "Never plunge into the river of lust / For you will not reach the shore. / It is a river without banks, / Where typhoons rage, / And the current is strong."

Mr. Dalrymple calls "Nine Lives" a travel book, but it is more an episodic look at religion in the age of globalization.Turning away from the country's most pressing religious story—the battles between Hindus and Muslims that have shaped Indian politics for the past two decades as the secularism into which the country was born in 1947 has eroded—Mr. Dalrymple conveys the details of everyday worship and fulfills that hoary cliché of giving voice to the voiceless. Each of the figures he profiles exults in his faith, but most also fear the future.

As a child, Lal Peri twice escaped the violence engendered by the birth of Bangladesh and has since found sanctuary in the temple of Lal Shabhaz Qalander, a Sufi saint who preached religious tolerance in the 13th century. But she knows that this syncretic worship, and Sufism in general, is threatened by the exponential rise of fundamentalist Islam,


supported by the Gulf states and the madrassa school system they have built throughout Pakistan.

Mr. Dalrymple goes to see the head of a new madrassa in the town, who speaks quite openly of his desire to destroy the Sufi temple and any variant type of Islam.

As close as Mr. Dalrymple comes to anger is in describing the dynamiting by Pakistani Taliban of a small shrine to the 17th-century Pashto poet-saint Rahman Baba at the foot of the Khyber Pass. Mr. Dalrymple had visited it often in the late 1980s while covering the war in Afghanistan and reveled in the way refugees gathered there to take solace in the poetry and music of the Sufis.

Modernity is another threat. The Theyyam dancer, Hari Das, works as both a well diggerand a jail guard to make ends meet. The high point of his year is the two months when he travels to festivals incarnating deities and monsters as part of the Theyyam rites.

In an intense ritualist dance, the actors—dressed in fantastic and weighty costumes—are possessed by the Hindu deities they are incarnating. Yet as much as Hari Das wants his sons to master the physically demanding art, he knows that they can find better jobs through education.

It is the same for the sculptor Srikanda, whose son is interested in computers. As pained as he is by the thought of sundering a 700-year tradition, he acknowledges: "Our work here is very hard. Computer work is not so difficult, and it pays much more. . . . After all, as


my son says, this is the age of computers. And as much as I might want otherwise, I can hardly tell him this is the age of the bronze caster."

It is, though, the age for writers like Mr. Dalrymple who fall in with the rhythms and languages of foreign lands. "Nine Lives" shows us lives hidden almost entirely from Western readers.

Another recent book, Alice Albinia's "Empires of the Indus," presents the cultural richness of the still fought-over lands around the Indus River—which flows from Tibet through India and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea—and manages to humanize Pakistan.

Friday, June 18, 2010

New Delhi/Ajmer: Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Monday sent a 'chaddar' to the shrine of Sufi saint Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chishti in Rajasthan's Ajmer city.

The cloth is to be offeredat the shrine by Congress party leaders on the occasion of Urs.

'Urs' marks the death anniversary of Moin-ud-din Chishti, who is popularly referred to as 'Gharib Nawaz', or the 'messiah of the poor'.

Scores of devotees from all over India converge the shrine on the occasion.

Chishti, who is believed to have been born in 1142 AD, preached tolerance and unity of all religions. In 1236 AD, the saint entered his cell to pray in seclusion for six days, at the end of which he died. Since then Urs has been celebrated for six days every year.

It is believed that praying at the tomb of the saint fulfils a person's wishes. Devotees visiting the shrine offer fresh flowers as a symbol of their devotion. Some even go up to the


extent of offering large amounts of money and expensive jewels.

Devotional music and recitations from Chishti's own works and other Sufi saints are presented in traditional Qawwali (chorus singing) style.

The annual event culminates with readings from the holy Quran and special prayers.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

As I wait in a crowded square at one of the entrances into the old town of Fes in Morocco for musicians to take the stage after evening prayers, the scene before me is as far removed as it can be from quarrels of the world beyond the Atlas Mountains.

I have come to Fes to take in the sights and sounds of the most fascinating city in Morocco, likely in all of Africa.

The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, held annually at this time, isunique as musicians and poets from around the globe gather here to celebrate the language of the heart that transcends any and all divisions among the children of Adam.

Fes was founded by Moulay Idris, a descendant of Muhammad, around 789. His son Moulay Idris II extended the town during his reign from 807 to 828, and he is buried in the centre of Fes inside a mosque remarkable for its interior art work and exquisite calligraphy in marble.

The old town of Fes is a labyrinth of narrow streets, shops and homes where, except for electricity and its working facilities, one is immediately transported back to the times of Maimonides, the revered Jewish sage from the 12th century, and earlier.

Maimonides and his family found refuge in Fes after leaving


behind trouble-infested Cordoba, as did generations of families later — Arabs, Berbers and Jews, from al-Andalus (Spain). They came to Fes and added to its fame and fortune.

Commerce and philosophy were joined together in Fes. Here stands one of the grandest mosques in Africa, al-Quaraouiyine, and it houses one of the oldest universities in the world, opened in 859, where Ibn Rushd (Averroes) lectured.

Fes is also the centre of Sufism — the path of mystics in Islam that connects with all faith traditions through the language of the heart — and the gateway to Islam in sub-Saharan Africa.

The mosque and shrine of Shaykh Ahmed Tijani is a short walking distance from al-Quaraouiyine, and this is traditionally the first stop for pilgrims to Mecca from Senegal, Mali, Mauritania andtranquility into a snake-pit of bigotry and violence.

The musicians return and a singer from Mali fills the air with his love song to Abraham and Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, and the people around me respond in rhythm to the music while the starry night unfolds above me in an absolutely enchanting Fes.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The old woman is whirling into a blur. Qawwals are singing. It’s a joyous mood. Tonight, the sufi shrine of Hazrat Shah Farhad in Bageecha Pirji, near Sadar Bazaar, is lit up with lamps. It is Shah Farhad’s Urs, his 286th death anniversary. He died in 1723 AD.

In Sufism, the death of a saint is celebrated as the occasion when his soul gets united with that of his beloved, the God. Urs means ‘wedding’


in Arabic.

Shah Farhad was born in Delhi but grew up in Burhanpur in central India where his father was a governor. As a child, he got attached to a mystic who initiated him into an offshoot of the Chishti order. Shah Farhad later settled in Delhi where he acquired a following. This evening’s crowd is a proof of his popularity.

Every morning before opening their stores, the traders in the neighbourhood come to the dargah to get their shop keys blessed by Shah Farhad. Childless women come asking for children. Students come to get their books blessed.

The shrine is also a place where you come to get rid of djinns, the mysterious beings who, according to Islamic beliefs, are made of smokeless fire. These creatures trap vulnerable people intheir spell and make their life miserable. The ‘possessed’ men and women then visit fakeers and shrines to become normal again.

Some come to the dargah of Shah Farhad, also known as the master of djinns. Clinging to the grills, the tormented scream and shiver in agony, asking the djinns to leave. If they become free, they become life long followers of the saint.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

For the last week, al Shabaab has launched daily attacks in Mogadishu, using gunmen and mortars. As a result there are 50-100 casualties on some days, most of them civilians caught in the crossfire.

In the last three years, since al Shabaab, and other Islamic radical groups began their attempts to conquer the country, over 20,000 have died and 1.5 million people have become


of whom died).

June 8, 2010: In central Somalia, 320 kilometers north of Mogadishu, hundreds of al Shabaab gunmen were defeated after they attacked the Sufi controlled villages of Dhusamareb and Marergur. The al Shabaab fighters were forced to retreat, abandoning many weapons, vehicles and large quantities of ammunition. The Sufi militias, who are allied with the TG, were seen celebrating.

Three ministers of the Transitional Government have resigned, further paralyzing the fragile coalition. Cooperation is not a popular practice in Somalia.

A Somali militant group allied with the country's weak U.N.-backed transitional federal government says it has killed and captured fighters from the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militia during clashes in central Somalia.

Analysts say the casualties, reportedly inflicted by the Sufi group Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jamma'a, could signal the start of a series ofsignificant clashes in the region.

Ahlu-Sunna Wal-Jamma'a spokesman Sheikh Abdullahi Sheikh Abu Yusuf said the group had attacked al-Shabab fighters in and around the central town of Dhusamareb. He said in this operation, four al-Shabab militia troops were killed, and one captured. He said his group reports no casualties.

Located on a major highway linking Somalia's capital Mogadishu with the northern autonomous region of Puntland, Dhusamareb is seen as a strategically important town in the battle for central Somalia.

In January, al Shabab said it had retreated from Dhusamareb just days after its forces had seized control of the town. Ahlu-Sunna has been attacking al-Shabab positions since taking up arms against the group in 2008. In March, Ahlu-Sunna signed an agreement with Somalia's transitional federal government to provide support in the