text:
What is that Covm?
Should you remove Covm page which was brought to the system by Covm browser hijacker. Apart from annoying and uncomfortable redirections, Covm influences more changes in your Windows operating system. As you have new page set as your startup, you can often get modified search results which means that the given information is not always true. Moreover, you can be bothered by some ads offering various kinds of goods and making you click on it. However, we are obliged to inform you that such ads contain a lot of hidden viruses and if you don't want to catch some, you better skip these ads and remove Covm browser hijacker. Delete the threat immediately, if you don't want to end up in the total system crash as some other malware are about to join Covm.
How does Covm manage to become the part of the system?
Covm, as any other browser hijacker has a feature to intrude the system silently.This happens when you decide that you need some additional software on your PC and download it. Covmis bundled with the applications, usually, freeware, and starts its activities. On the other hand, user is the only one responsible for the items that are added to the system and can really prevent such cases. The way to do this is to observe how the installation goes and do not agree that Covm can be attached to the system. The other source of Covm is the infected spam which you can get any time. Well, this means you only have to be more attentive and think before you perform any actions while working with your PC. What you have to do now is to solve the current hijacker situation perform immediate Covm removal procedure.Download Removal Toolto remove Covm
How does Covm perform?
Undoubtedly, as you have Covm on Windows operating system, you can easily define some of the features of the hijacker's behavior. Well, you would probably begin with the changed startup page which is now Covm as well as search engine. Besides, when the hijacker is on computer you can face a lot of advertisements containing various messages and images. NOTE: think twice before clicking on it as it can be the beginning of the total system crash. Since Covm is not useful at all and you cannot use it as a search provider, you should get rid of it. In order to protect your system, operate Covm removal as soon as you can. How to remove Covm? After finishing reading the previous passages, the first thing you need to do is to delete Covm one and for all. As your goal is not to leave any remains of this browser hijacker, you must focus on two removal procedures – manual and automatic. The tips of the manual procedure are given below, where you have to fix your browser and get rid of Covm page which is now set as your search engine. Later on, install an automatic virus removal tool named Spyhunter and to get rid of Covm as well as any other threats found.
How to delete Covm from my browser?
How to remove Covm from Internet Explorer
- Press on Alt+X → then Internet Options → Advanced tab → Reset.
- Mark Delete personal settings selection → go for Reset.
- In order to confirm your actions click on Close → OK.
How to remove Covm from Mozilla Firefox
- Go to Firefox browser → and Help section.
- Find Troubleshooting information → double-click on Reset Firefox.
- End up with Finish.
How to remove Covm from Google Chrome
- Press on Alt+F → move to Settings.
- Mark Open a specific page selection → move to Set pages.
- Delete Covm and choose the new site to be your home page.
- Confirm with OK and move to Search.
- Navigate to Manage search → select a new search engine and delete Covm.
- Approve with Done.
Manual Removal Instructions
Covm Removal from Windows
Uninstall from Windows XP:
- Open the Start menu and click Control Panel.
- Double-click Add or Remove Programs.
- Select and Remove the undesirable software.
Uninstall from Windows Vista and Windows 7:
1. Click the Windows icon on the Taskbar and select Control Panel.
Download Removal Toolto remove Covm 2. Click Uninstall a program and find the undesirable software.
3. Right-click and Uninstall the program you have chosen to remove.
Uninstall from Windows 8:
- Access the Metro UI menu, right-click on the screen and select All apps.
- Open the Control Panel and click Uninstall.
- Right-click the program you have chosen to remove and select Uninstall.
How to remove Covm from Browsers
Delete Covm from Internet Explorer
- Right-click the IE shortcut and choose Properties.
- Go to Shortcut tab and find the Target line.
- Delete the text that is written after iexplore.exe" and click OK.
- Launch your browser and press Alt+T.
- Choose Manage Add-ons and move to Search providers.
- Choose the unwanted engine and click Remove.
- Click Close and press Alt+T again.
- Select Options and go to General tab.
- Change the Home Page and click OK.
Remove Covm from Mozilla Firefox
- Right-click the Firefox shortcut and choose go to Properties.
- Move to Shortcut tab and find the Target.
- Erase the text after firefox.exe" and Click OK.
- Open Mozilla Firefox and go to search box.
- Click the search provider icon and choose Manage Search Engines.
- Find the suspicious engine and remove it.
- Click OK.
- Press Alt+T and select Options.
- Move to General tab and choose Home Page.
- Replace the current Home Page with your preferred one.
- Click OK.
Delete Covm from Google Chrome
- Right-click the Chrome shortcut and go to Properties.
- Choose Shortcut tab and move to Target line.
- Delete the text after chrome.exe" and click OK.
- Launch Chrome and tap Alt+T.
- Go to Settings and check Open a specific page or set of pages.
- Choose Set pages and change the given default URL to your preferred one.
- Click OK.
- Under Appearance mark Show Home button and select Change.
- Change the provided URL with the one you prefer and click OK.
- Under Search choose Manage search engines and find the URL of the unwanted engine.
- Click X and delete it.
- Click Done.


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Since Nov. 2015, I have insistingly been asked (or shall we say, "challenged") via private e-mail by one John Roth to write an article for him - so as to refute an article published on the "Daily Kos" which, according to John, refutes the following statement of mine (published in my Tour Guide to the September Clues research ) :
That 'sarcastic' Daily Kos article (by one Katherine Smith) cited by John is titled "911 Truthers are Dummies" - and states the following :simonshack wrote:"The master plan of 9/11 was to demolish the redundant, asbestos-filled WTC complex in Lower Manhattan - 9 buildings in all. The area would naturally be evacuated (as for all such demolitions) in order to prevent a slaughterhouse of dreadful proportions - not a good idea at all. To be sure, this was no mass murder scheme - just a formidable opportunity for massive financial gains and military propaganda."
In other words, that article suggests that Larry Silverstein couldn't possibly be a willing participant in the Grand 9/11 Hoax - since he would have lost money in the process. The article also states most assuredly that "the twin towers were quite profitable and had fairly high occupancy rates" (yet fails to provide any sources to that claim). So let us now see what one expert biographer of the WTC towers ( Eric Darton) wrote in his book titled "Divided we Stand" :Katherine Smith wrote: The Single Stupidest Insurance Fraud In History
Silverstein's best-case scenario was an insurance payout of $6.8 billion for the twin towers. Putting aside that the insurance companies refused to pay and settled for $4.55 billion and that he had a mortgage on the twin towers, the $10-12 billion to rebuild the towers would leave him with at least $4 billion deficit. And contrary to what you heard, the twin towers were quite profitable and had fairly high occupancy rates.
To recap, Larry Silverstein wanted the moneymaking towers destroyed so he could collect a net loss from insurance funds, not to mention the loss of rental income during the 10+ years it will take to re-build the Freedom Tower.
'DIVIDED WE STAND' by Eric Darton (1999)
*** http://www1.cuny.edu/events/cunymatters ... fecut.html
Eric Darton published in 1999 the most exhaustive / comprehensive existing 'biography' of the WTC twin towers. Please note that Darton is certainly no 'conspiracy theorist' - as his book only traces the towers' history from their birth up to 1999. However, it turns out to provide invaluable clues as to how the towers' tenants might have been 'controlled' - so to speak - after the first 1993 "Al-Qaeda" bombing. 'Divided We Stand' is also a treasure trove for anyone interested in the wheelings and dealings that - historically - have characterized these most cumbersome, asbestos-laced and crappy / strongly disliked buildings.
I have selected a few interesting, short extracts of "Divided We Stand" (but please read his book to understand just what a decaying / decrepit estate behemoth the twin towers were known to be). Here they are :
1- THE TOWERS WERE A SHAMBLES FROM THE WORD GO - (and a decrepit behemoth by the late 1990's):
"Pacing out the periphery of the trade towers in the late 1990s, one navigated a cracked badlands of sidewalk crudely patched with mismatching cement. The weathered, gray (originally white) Italian marble paving on the plaza was a spiderweb of cracks, a condition that undermined the addition of benches and flowerbeds and the tinkling medley of new-age harmonics emanating from a score of tiny speakers mounted beneath Yamasaki's arcades. Construction equipment and barricades around the site appeared to have been deployed and then abandoned by a retreating army."
In 1985, when New York State moved most of its offices out, Dean Witter consolidated its operations in twenty-four floors of Tower 2 under a twenty-year lease. Visiting the brokerage and investment firm's offices and cafeterias, one invariably found them spotlessly maintained. But on adjacent floors, particularly those with multiple tenants, the paint was dingy, the carpets were stained, fixtures remained broken, and burned-out fluorescent lights went unreplaced, as did discolored ceiling tiles. And the listing of a company on the directory did not reliably indicate that a company was still there."
2- FOLLOWING THE 1993 BOMBING, 50,000 workers were displaced and 350 tenants were RELOCATED OUTSIDE THE WTC.
"The February 1993 blast in the basement of the World Trade Center killed 6 people, injured 1,000 others, displaced 50,000 workers, and threw 900 Vista Hotel and Windows on the World employees out of work, but it also provided a modest boost for the regional economy. This, at any rate, was the conclusion the Port Authority came to in an April 1993 report released six weeks after the bombing. (...) For the agency, this silver lining was due in part to the ease with which the 350 bombed-out trade center tenants could be moved into abundant vacant office space nearby."
"The Port Authority closed out the 1990s with a stream of press releases announcing the rental of unimaginably huge quantities of trade center office space to "cutting-edge" firms like Sun Microsystems. Yet around the complex a million square feet stood empty, and the buildings originally intended as great catalyzing chambers of world trade were, by degrees, transforming into a kind of disjunctive real estate layer-cake. One story above the carpeted, wood-paneled offices of a Japanese securities firm, a group of artists filled bare walls with boldly colored images and hung sculptures from the exposed ceiling girders of a vast echoing cavern. As part of a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council program that turned some of the vacant space in the towers over to artists rent-free, 40,000 square feet of concrete floor lay paint-spattered and strewn with the raw materials of a creative urge that has never been easily reconciled with the imperatives of a bottom line. "
So, let's see: according to Eric Darton - the expert WTC biographer, the WTC towers were:
1: "A SHAMBLES FROM THE WORD GO" - i.e., not at all profitable - and a real-estate developer's / owner's nightmare.
2: "TOTALLY EVACUATED OF ALL THEIR TENANTS AND 50.000 OFFICE WORKERS IN 1993" - i.e. the WTC towers were totally vacated after the first, reported 1993 'Al-Quaeda terror attack'. We learn that "350 bombed-out trade center tenants were moved into abundant vacant office space nearby."
3: AT THE END OF THE 90'S HUGE QUANTITIES OF OFFICE SPACE WERE ANNOUNCED RENTED by the press. Well, we'd have to trust the press in order to believe that "unimaginably huge quantities of trade center office space were rented to "cutting-edge" firms such as Sun Microsystems" - as claimed. Meanwhile, Eric Darton describes the WTC as a "vast echoing cavern" populated by a bunch of (non-paying / rent-free) squatting artists!
Are there any official, verifiable records of these new tenants purportedly once again filling up the WTC towers - following the total 1993 evacuation?
That is the question.
But hey, maybe we should set up a fundraiser to help poor / financially-beleaguered Larry Silverstein make his ends meet?
And from a more recent (May 2014) article - lamenting the low demand for leases of the new, $3.9 billion "One World Trade Center" :
"The World Trade Center twin towers struggled with finding tenants as well. The twin towers had to lease much of the office space to government agencies."
http://www.latinpost.com/articles/13651 ... demand.htm

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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Guesthouse On Story
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Since Guesthouse On Story has been in business, we have been providing the community of Louisville, KY with exceptional travel lodging. The building that we manage was built in 1870 so it wields tremendous historical significance. However, your comfort will not be spared, as we have recently remodeled the whole space.
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text:
For almost all of my gaming Ive played in the Forgotten Realms setting. The few times I was out of there it was in a custom world, which was thematically the same as Forgotten Realms. After 15 years of Forgotten Realms its starting to get to be about time to see something new. As luck would have it, D&D has had dozens of settings in the past, so theres plenty of options out there to choose from. Now the real trouble is picking one to play in.
Scanning down the list I can
For about two years now I've been DMing a D&D 4E campaign in MapTools. In the interest of trying to improve as a DM I like to take a moment from time to time and take a look at how things have been going; what parts I've done well and which parts I need to improve. Normally I'd base a lot of this on table talk from the players, its pretty easy to figure out what portions they liked based on their commentary. Since we're playing online this source of information isn't as available, despite
A while back, I complained about the lack of useful content in the D&DI subscription. Just recently I found a section that I really like, I dont know that it makes the subscription worthwhile, but its certainly a bright spot in it.
Most of the modules they offer are on the bland side, very little RP, then a dungeon crawl. This is probably a format that probably works for a some players. Myself, I prefer a story that is told throughout the adventure, there ought to be places
Last time I promised that MapTool would hide and reveal enemies and sections of the map as the players moved around. Then I showed you how to get MapTool to draw white lines representing the vision. Which is just a tad short of the promise I made.
So lets play with more settings and see if we can't make that happen then. Choose Preferences from the Edit menu, go to the Application tab and look for the check box "Auto-expose fog on token movement" and be sure its checked.
Some time ago I worked out how to make good use of the line of sight calculations in MapTool. Its pretty neat how it works. The players are shown an outline if what their characters can see; any tokens not within that shape are not shown to them. Which is really need for the Seeker in our group, he has a habit of hiding behind pillars and popping out to fire a few arrows on his turn before returning to cover. When he's behind the pillar he actually can't see whats going on in the melee, so every


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annihilation(redirected from Annhilation)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus.
annihilationA reaction between an elementary particle and its antiparticle in which the two particles disappear and photons or other particles and antiparticles are created; energy and momentum are conserved. An electron and a positron, for example, interact and produce two gamma-ray photons. Hadrons, such as the proton and the antiproton, also undergo annihilation, as do quarks and antiquarks.
(particle physics)
A process in which an antiparticle and a particle combine and release their rest energies in other particles.


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Several media outlets reported on Friday that TV icon Larry Hagman, who made oilman "J.R. Ewing" a household name, has died.
The actor passed away at a Dallas hospital at age 81, after suffering complications from cancer, the Dallas Morning News Reports.
His "Dallas" co-stars Linda Gray and Patrick Duffy were reportedly at Hagman's side when the actor died at Medical City Dallas Hospital.
The Morning News reports:
"Larry was back in his beloved Dallas, re-enacting the iconic role he loved most, the family said in a statement. Larry's family and close friends had joined him in Dallas for the Thanksgiving holiday. When he passed, he was surrounded by loved ones. It was a peaceful passing, just as he had wished for."
Hagman became a superstar in Dallas, the classic 1980s drama about a Texas family fighting over their oil empire. His shooting on the show had the whole world asking, "Who shot J.R.?"
But "Dallas" wasn't his breakout role. He's also remembered for playing astronaut Maj. Anthony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie.
Earlier this year, Hagman returned to his most famous role in TNT's Dallas reboot, which also featured Gray and Duffy. The show is set for a second season in 2013.
Hagman was born in Fort Worth to a Broadway actress and a prosecutor, an Wikipedia biography says, and his parents divorced in 1936, when he was 5. Hagman lived in California with his wife of nearly 60 years, the former Maj Axelsson, who's suffering from Alzheimer's, according to the Chicago Tribune.


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Organic Broccoli Sprout Powder 4oz (113g) (3-Pack)
Health Ranger Select Organic Broccoli Sprout Powder 4oz (113g) (3-Pack)
Get the nutrients your body craves, thanks to Health Ranger Select Organic Broccoli Sprout Powder! Our premium formula contains gently prepared broccoli sprouts delivering verified levels of sulforaphane, glucoraphanin, and glucosinolates. (Search for articles on sulforaphane to learn the amazing properties of this powerful nutrient.)
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Broccoli sprouts contain far higher levels of nutrients like glucosinolates than mature broccoli or other organic fruits and vegetables. Plus, the sprouting process causes minerals like magnesium and calcium to bind to proteins, so they're much more bioavailable. You'll get a boost of Vitamins A, C, and K, among others. You'll also enjoy a hefty dose of the nutrients you need to promote healthy skin and hair and to boost your mood and energy levels. Our formula is certified organic, non-GMO, 100% China-free, and contains no artificial sweeteners, colors, preservatives, or other additives.
Blend it into smoothies or protein shakes to consume it raw.Explore More About Organic Broccoli Sprout Powder and Capsules Now!
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This product is verified A++ based on glyphosate analysis standards published at www.GlyphosateTested.com.
This means the product has been tested via triple quad mass spec (LS-MS-MS) and conforms to the glyphosate / AMPA limits required for an A++ rating as described at www.GlyphosateTested.com.
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This means the product has been tested via ICP-MS and confirmed to meet the limits for an A+++ rating as described at LowHeavyMetalsVerified.org.


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Women's Empowerment in Islam
EducationReligion February 3, 2017 Usman Bugaje 0
Men have always assumed some superiority over women and have sought to dominate the world and relegate women to the background. Cultures and civilisation have sought to confer legitimacy to this male superiority and have accordingly developed myths and conventions that tend to perpetuate them.
Through time women have consistently, if grudgingly, borne the brunt of this male domination. Such inequities have been a feature of all human societies, from antiquity to our contemporary times. Religions, especially revealed ones, often intervene to redress such intrinsic imbalance in human relations. Christianity, at least in the form we know it today, rather unfortunately, did not help matters, for by blaming a woman (Eve) as the source of the down-fall of man, it in fact compounded this inequity, and unwittingly gave men a new impetus to relegate women to the background. It accordingly denied women even their independent identity, having to dissolve in to that of their husbands on marriage.
Islam, however, dealt with the issue decisively, but ignorance and enduring male arrogance have always connived to deny women what Islam has given them. This was further compounded by the incorporation of the Muslim world in to the contemporary world, shaped as it had been by Western liberalism which is rooted in a rebellion against a Christian God. With both Christianity and Islam marginalised in our contemporary world, the job of intervention and the restoration of equity in this gender relationship has now been taken over by the United Nation and chains of NGO's. The idea of women empowerment is a concept created by the UN, championed by UNIFEM and supported by the various NGO's.
Is Empowerment of women the answer to the problem? Can the UN, supported by the host of, admittedly good intentioned agencies, redress the imbalance and restore equity in gender relations? Does Islam offer a better hope and if it does, will our contemporary Muslims allow it? These are some of the questions that this paper seeks to address.
But first some caution. Foremost, the relation between men and women, which this paper is obliged to touch, is too often clouded by emotion. This may have to do with the nature of the relationship between men and women which is essentially emotive. For it is difficult to explain rationally why we love the people we love or why we marry the spouses we marry. Emotions, we hardly need say, cloud vision, obstruct rationality and make it difficult to fathom issues. Second, Muslims scholars have remained decades (some would say centuries) behind the very societies they are supposed to guide. Many of them appear to be oblivious of the age in which they live and seem unwilling to exert themselves as their predecessors had done in developing rulings (fatawi) which takes into account the dynamics of society and address their immediate context. This not only stultifies the Sharia, especially in the eyes of the uninformed, but, it also holds the Muslim community hostage to the imbecility and ineptitude of those who are supposed to lead it. Many followers are consequently left to wallow in increasing confusion as to the position of the Shari'a on many issues, especially the issue of women. Third, the prevailing intellectual decadence of the Muslim community has over several decades forged a timid mind which had been keen on conformity and weary of creativity. Thus the average Muslim mind has lost its analytical capacity and has become mechanical in its thinking, content with whatever is passed to it as knowledge.
The mind has been particularly intimidated into conformity by a clergy who have masked their incompetence by curtailing the kind of questions that can be raised and by raising the qualification of the jurist who could answer these questions to such humanly unattainable heights, that we are left to helplessly and endlessly wait for some imaginary mujtahid to emerge from only God knows where. Thus the average Muslim mind fears raising questions and finds it easier to evade rather than face issues, leaving many topical questions unanswered. Far from deterring us, these problems ought to in fact motivate us the more, they are raised here mainly to help explain some of the questions to be raised and put in context some of the liberties the author may wish to take. But it seems necessary to first appreciate the features and contours of our contemporary world, the terrain within which we shall be applying what ever ideas we may come up with.
Our Contemporary World
Our contemporary world is nothing but the extension and perfection of a culture which took its roots from the European renaissance which itself started in 15th century Europe. This is a culture which rebelled against God as symbolised by the Christian Churches and sought to create a civilisation which is man-centred and where the pursuit of pleasure becomes the overriding objective in life.
The Renaissance Movement thought that man's craving for pleasure and material progress has been blocked or at least delayed by the idea of a god and sought, therefore, to wean off man from god and release him from all inhibitions so that man can, for once, be free to explore his full potentials uninhibited. This new man, also called the 'renaissance man' or the 'universal man', limitless in his capabilities to acquire knowledge and in his capabilities for development, was deemed to be the centre, nay the master of the universe. The vision of the new man was to be found in the motto of the renaissance, captured in the famous remark of one of its chief prophets, Leon Battista Alberti (d. 1472) that "a man can do all things if he will". This was to form the foundations of renaissance humanism and the modern world it gave birth to. By the 19th century, renaissance had acquired sufficient momentum and its new man, enough audacity to declare God dead.
Soon books were being written about the history of God and Karl Marx was reported to have said that God never created man, but it was man who created God, in other words, God was nothing but a figment of man's imagination. By the middle of this century, however, some of the promises of the renaissance were still to be realised. The illusive search for happiness has only produced sadness and misery as evidenced by the dramatic rise of suicide cases, mental illnesses and violent crimes. The El Dorado promised by communism remained a mirage until the whole edifice collapsed like the proverbial house of cards. The glitter of science and technology had by the second half of this century began to fade in the face of the destruction it had wrought not only on the physical environment but also on man's social environment.
Social and economic inequality, weakening of the family unit and the crisis of values, were to unleash series of unprecedented consequences that continue to suffocate the life of the modern man. In the words of a prominent Western scholar, "the modern era had put its enthusiastic hopes in the mastery of nature and society. For more than two centuries man believed that the continued perfecting of rationality would have as a result the unceasing growth of his power and, consequently, an increase in well-being and happiness, freedom and equality among people. Now, not only has he experienced the limits of his power, but he has discovered that the rational and technological civilisation creates new problems and that it endangers the balance between man and nature, individual and society. The deception", he added, "is all the more painful because the progressivist had exalted people's desires and confidence." Such was the tragic end of modernism. In the eloquent words of Erich Fromm, "in the nineteen century the problem was that God is dead, in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead."Our contemporary world is a post modern world in which the variety of the problems created by modernism are being addressed. Admittedly many of these problems have not been sufficiently diagnosed or sufficiently comprehended. Even in the physical environment, which lends itself to easy inquiry, when we thought we have learnt enough of the global warming and ozone layer, the problems of EL-NINO is surfacing out of the blue.
The emergence of a new brand of tuberculosis that defies all known remedies, may well be the tip of an iceberg. The Social environment which is certainly more complex, is even more difficult to fathom. The crisis of values triggered by renaissance and championed by modernism, the confusion of roles and the consequent identity crisis and the rising domestic violence and the breakdown of the family, are only aspects of a complex situation in a constant state of flux. Though Europe and the rest of the Western world provided the main theatre for this drama, the Muslims world in particular and the non-western world in general, have increasingly been drawn and incorporated in to this contemporary world, initially through imperialism, subsequently through education and recently, but, perhaps more effectively, through satellite communication. The relationship between men and women, which is the concern of this paper, has been dramatically changed and shaped by the social crisis which has become the trade-mark of our contemporary world. This is what makes it necessary to first appreciate the features and contours of this contemporary world before delving in to this issue.
The Problem
The plight of women in the middle ages, when Europe was in the full grips of Christianity, is fairly explicable, for the Bible seem to have placed the entire blame for the descent of man at the door of the woman. In the popular literature of the middle ages, the woman was likened to the Satan who worked day and night for the destruction of the man. The Church in Europe remained stuck with its misogyny up through the 18th century when it presided over the famous debate in France on whether a woman had a soul or not. What appeared inexplicable was the continuation of these prejudices well after the renaissance and the weakening of the grip of the Church and the liberalisation of thoughts and ideas. It was even more surprising that a whole century after the French revolution of 1789, with its promise for people's rights and democracy, women in the West remain suppressed. Writing in 1866, George Eliot observed, "A woman can hardly ever choose … she is dependent on what happens to her. She must take meaner things, because only meaner things are within her reach.
" One can feel the sense of frustration in this remark. What is news, however, is not the remark , but the fact that George Eliot is a pseudonym of an English woman novelist Mary Ann Evans (1819-80), who apparently dared not use her proper feminine name in a society so dominated by men that works like hers could only be taken seriously if they were to come from men. She had six years earlier written that, "the happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history", in her book, 'The Mill on the Floss', where she "portrayed rural Victorian society, particularly its intellectual hypocrisy". This situation seemed to have continued unabated well in to the second half of this century and seem to have given impetus to what is commonly referred to as feminism.
The lives and works of three prominent Western feminists summarises the situation. Virginia Woolf, (1882-1941) a British novelist, philosopher and critic took the themes of the tensions for combining marriage and career in her book The Voyage Out and pursued the issue of economic independence for women in her book The Years 1928. That she tragically ended her life through suicide by drowning herself may not be unconnected with the tensions of her times. Gloria Steinem, (1943- ) an American journalist and liberal feminist emerged as a leading figure in American new women's movement in the late 1960's, co-founded the women's action alliance in 1970 and also co-founded the Ms Magazine. She was one of those who gave feminism a concrete shape, betraying the cumulative oppression and frustration of women behind the thin veneer, or as we may prefer in Nigeria, behind the smoke screen of freedom and equality.
Her perception of feminism is captured in her oft quoted statement "We are becoming the men we wanted to marry" and another attributed to her, "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle". Yet another woman in this class is Juliet Mitchell, a British psychoanalyst and writer. She took feminism further first by her article titled The Longest Revolution, in 1966 and later her books titled, Women's Estate (1971) and Psychoanalysis and Feminism (1974). She seemed to have been the first to combine socialism and feminism and to use Marxist theory to explain some of the reasons behind women oppression in the West. Juliet Mitchell has had tremendous influence on feminist thinking and one could see her hands in to a lot of the women struggles against oppression in the West. The influences of these and other feminists writers can easily be detected in the current debate on gender equity. We must not make the mistake that many pious Muslims make of dismissing feminism. One does not have to like feminism to appreciate the situational problems that brought it about. Dismissing it, as many Muslims are apt to doing, is ignoring the circumstances, which is neither fair nor panacea. If nothing else, in feminism we have a lesson to learn and that is: if we are not prepared to allow equity, then we should be prepared to live with anarchy. And one should quickly add, single parent family, which had been a phenomenon restricted to non-Muslim communities is slowly creeping in to the Muslim community. This is only one form of anarchy. Lesbianism is another. And one could go on. In the Muslim world the literature on this subject, especially authored by women, may not be as rich, but that is not to say the oppression was any less. Here in pre-Jihad Hausaland, presently Northern States of Nigeria, reading the works of Shehu Usman Dan Fodio, particularly his Nurul-al-Bab one can see a lot parallel with the misogyny of the Victorian days in Europe, in spite of the equitable and humane provisions made by the Sharia. The presence of the Sharia, undoubtedly, made the difference.
Even as the provisions of the Sharia did not stop the oppression, they made Shehu Usman's case easier, for all he needed do was to enlighten the society and draw attentions to these provisions. Of course, even then it was far from easy, not only because of the opposition he faced from nor other than scholars themselves, but also because no sooner had the tempo of the jihad began to wane and ignorance started to creep, the situation reverted, gradually, back to the pre-Jihad periods. Today the situation of Muslim women, in terms of rights and equity is very much close to the pre-Sokoto Jihad period. It may at first sound like an exaggeration until we visit the Area Courts in the North and perhaps the customary courts in the South. Or better still until we allow the women to tell their tales. Many Muslim women will today find the offer of the UN and the host of NGO's quite attractive, not so much because Islam has not given her something better, but rather because they are either not sufficiently aware or the men, better still, Muslim scholars, are not quite ready to concede to them what Islam has given them. But coming from the West, such offers of emancipation are, rather naturally, rooted in the rebellion of the renaissance, imbued with a consuming hedonism and embellished in a rhetoric that is designed, like a bait, to capture a prey. The social context of the offer itself presents some problems for Muslims, for our contemporary modern world, having made the search for pleasure a major, some would say, the major, objective in life, has predicated gender relationship on sheer lust.
Modelling, fashion and advertising agencies are up and about exciting our base desires and making lust a major consideration in our decisions in life including the important institution of marriage. The institution of marriage itself has lost its sacredness in the West, it is, in fact, fast loosing its meaning, so such offers tend not only to ignore Muslim sensibility, invert Muslim scale of priority, but may actually find no place to accommodate religion, having completely dispensed with it a long time ago. It is worth recalling that the globilisation of gender equity started quite recently, with the United Nation declaring 1975 as the International Women's Year. Sequel to this the decade 1976-1985, was declared the Decade for Women, during which international agencies as well as some governments focused attention on what came to be popularly referred to as 'women issues'. This decade was crowned by the Nairobi conference on women in 1985 in which forward-looking strategies for women to be implemented by the year 2000, were adopted.
Then came the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 which seemed to focus on the independence and autonomy of women even with a family context. Indeed several conferences, conventions and activities of a host of international agencies took place during the 1985-1994 period to prepare the grounds and minds for the famous Beijing Conference in 1995. It was in Beijing more than anywhere the issue of empowerment was focused and made such an indispensable condition for world progress and development. These two decades, during which the UN championed the globilisation of the women issues, happened to be the two decades during which the UN became increasingly a tool in the hands of a few Western nations who were using it to achieve their selfish political goals. The role of the UN in the Palestinian Crisis, its role in the Gulf War and its performance, or lack of it, in Bosnia, left many in no doubt that someone was using the UN to subvert Islam and Muslim body politic. This left many Muslims unsure about the role of the UN in respect of the women issues.
Empowerment as a solution?
The word 'empowerment', seems to be of very recent etymology, it became widely used and popularised by the 'Draft Platform of Action' of the Beijing conference of 1995. Though the etymology appear recent, the morphology of the word betrays a deep root in the psyche of a civilisation which had been born out of conflict and remains ridden with conflict. For empowerment suggests the giving of power to someone who has been deprived of it, someone who will remain vulnerable without that power, someone whose hope for justice and fairness seem to hinge on the possession of that power. This power, which is held to be the solution to all the problems, has to be wrested from some despot, presumably, in this case, man. This power also holds a promise for a panacea. All these features underscore the origin of this word in Western conflict embedded psyche. This conflict which began with renaissance and continue to date, appears to be one thread which runs through Western social and intellectual development. First it was a conflict between man and God, then between the state and Church, then science and nature, then Proletariat and the bourgeoisie, then women and man and young and old. There is therefore the fear that empowerment conceived in this context may only aggravate this perceived conflict rather than solve it.
In the same way that the empowerment of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie led to the crumbling of the communist edifice leaving hardly any pieces to pick. The difference being that while we can happily do without communism, one is not sure if the same can be said of the institution of the family. Empowerment, at least in the way it has been conceived in Beijing, may only aggravate the war of the sexes which had been triggered earlier. Empowerment, if and when it succeeds, may be the cost of complementarity of the sexes which again is essential for the health and function of the human family. One is not sure from where empowerment will drive its power of implementation.
So far it looks like it will be the UN and its Member states, which undoubtedly have immense coercive powers, but can coercive power alone impose a code of behaviour between such intimate partners as husband and wives, brothers and daughters, ect.? Granted the UN and its members states will be wise enough to appreciate the folly, will they then appeal to the minds and hearts of their citizens? But does the UN and its member states and even the NGO's have a real place in people's heart? To put it bluntly does UN and others in the business of empowerment believe that people will abandon what their religions stipulate in favour of some resolution from Beijing? The UN has immense power, they can send troops anywhere in the world and these troops can wreck all manners of havoc, but unfortunately for the UN or any of its members state, it has no heavens or hell to reward or punish people after death.
What does Islam have to offer
It must first be appreciated that Islam is a religion of balance; balance between the mundane and the spiritual; balance between work and worship; balance between self-preservation and selflessness. This balance or 'ADL, as the Qur'an calls it, is the very essence of the human creation, in which the body and spirit are united and balanced and on whose shoulders consequently lies the responsibility of the maintenance of the balance in nature, both societal balance as well as the eco-system.
Islam as a religion seeks first to maintain that balance in man and then guides man to maintain that balance in society and the eco-system which plays host to the human society. The disruption of this balance is what Islam calls injustice, DHULM. A man who violates the balance between his spirit and his body is called unjust in the Qur'an. Similarly the violation of the balance in human society or the eco-system is seen as injustice. This explains the Qur'an's choice of 'ADL to describe that balance for 'ADL also means justice, harmony and complementarity. Similarly, in the relations between the two opposite sexes, Islam seeks to ensure 'ADL, balance, justice, harmony and above all love and mercy. How exactly did Islam go about ensuring this? 1. At the time of Islam's intervention in the seventh century, the human society then (as indeed today) was replete with a variety of societal injustices, claims of superiority of one group over the other and discriminations on the basis of sex, lineage, tribe, race, etc. One of the first things Islam did was to demolish all these artificial barriers in the famous verse:
"O Mankind we created you from a single (pair) of a male and female, and made you in to nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)."
It is significant that the verse started with gender discrimination. The message is unmistakably clear that men and women are in the sight of their creator equal, the only way one can be better than the other is by being more righteous. But even here, none can flaunt about his iman and brag, because luckily only God Himself knows who really is more righteous. As if to pre-empt men's intransigence, Allah continued to reinforce this position in several verses of the Qur'an stressing this equality and balance. 2. Another intervention which was as quick as it was sharp was in the arrival of the female child. The female sex in the seventh century Arabia was a sort of abomination, the mere announcement that a wife had begotten a female child used to evoke anger and disappointment in the husband and the female child may end up, as many did, being buried alive in the Arabian sand without as much as a remorse in a society that has completely lost its balance and sense of justice.
The Qur'an strongly warned not only those doing these killings but even those who express anger at the arrival of the female child, describing graphically the attitude, it says,
"When the news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief!" (Q. 16:58)
The Qur'an unequivocally abolished the practice not only by promising a severe penalty in the day of judgment but by instituting the 'life for life' injunction in the Sharia. The prophet of Islam followed these sticks, as it were, with a big carrot when he announced to his companions that anybody who has been blessed with two female children and he brought them up very well, with love and kindness, Allah will on that account grant him paradise. Of the people listening some had only one female child and they kept asking the Prophet: what about one? The Prophet, in his characteristic condescension, granted that even one would do. In another hadith, the Prophet said, "Whoever has a female child and does not bury her alive, nor holds her in contempt, nor prefers his male child above her, God will make him enter into paradise." (Abu Dawud) 3. The Prophet of Islam not only said that the search for knowledge was compulsory on every Muslim male and female, but he also said who ever educates a male educates an individual and who ever educates a female educates a nation.
Here not only does the Prophet give priority to the education of the female but also by likening the female with the nation he conferred a special position and by virtue of that position a special role for the female. That an individual female is nation is a concept that requires a whole book to expound, but for our immediate purpose here it will suffice to point to the fact that the female which alone harbours the womb and carries the heaviest responsibility in child bearing also represent the pedestal on which the future of mankind as a whole revolves.
The female to this extent symbolises the human races and the custodian of human values and the conscience of society. If she is left ignorant and backward, so will the nation and if she is educated and advanced, so will the nation. This point has been amply demonstrated by the jihad of Usman Dan Fodio and is today being re-enacted in the Republic of the Sudan which saw tremendous transformation only after educating and incorporating its women in its struggle for a just society. 4. We may wish to recall the eagerness with which the companions of the Prophet tried to excel each other in the doing of good and were always asking the Prophet how they could increase their good and become better.
In one of these inquiries, the Prophet, as if to summarise the situation, informed them that the best among them is actually the one who is best to his wife (family). This is a very profound position not only in the seventh century Arabia where wives were no more than chattels but even today when they appear to be the least of the worries of men. By making the state of wives the very measure of the quality of men, Islam, more than any other religion or ideology, has placed women in a pedestal which guarantees their happiness and welfare. If wives of Muslim men are not the happiest of wives, it is not because of Islam, it is in spite of it. 5. We are all too aware of the companion who came to the Prophet telling him that he was rich and in a position to help and be kind to people and he wanted the Prophet to tell him, of the people on earth, who deserves his benevolence most.
The Prophet in this well known Hadith replied the man: "Your mother", the man asked, "then who?", the Prophet repeated: "Your mother", he continued to ask, "then who?", the Prophet repeated for the third time: "Your mother", before saying "your father", in the fourth instance. This special position of the mother had been preceded by verses of the Qur'an and supplemented by other statements of the Prophet. In the words of the Qur'an, "And we have enjoined on man (to be good) to his parents: in travail upon travail did his mother bear him, in years twain was his weaning: (hear the command), 'Show gratitude to Me and thy parents: to Me is thy final Goal." (Q.31:14) It is not difficult, therefore to understand why the prophet said that, "Paradise lies at the feet of mothers." (Muslim) So, as a child, as a wife and as a mother, Islam has given a woman such special and distinguished position that nor other culture or civilisation has given her and that ought to be the envy of men. But let us still go a little further and see in what other ways has Islam empowered women, so that we can be intelligible to our contemporaries who live in this age of empowerment.
Islamic Empowerment
Perhaps the first and most important empowerment is give woman her own separate personality that does not dissolve into that of a man on account of marriage or any other account for that matter. There is certainly no better empowerment than to be ones own self. The idea of being an appendage of man, in some cultures man's personal property, robs her of all powers and denies her an independent life of her own. Islam wishes to produce a woman who is not only of independent personality, with a life of her own, but also one who does not nurse any feeling of deficiency because she is a woman. This is particularly relevant today when women have been made to feel a deep sense of deficiency and consequently
see their equality in terms of equating to men in almost every thing, dressing like men, behaving as tough as men and insisting in doing those jobs and holding those offices that are thought to be exclusive to men.
The kind of personality that Islam seeks to build is also one which will save women from the torments of having to dance to whims and caprices of men, as the modelling industry amply demonstrate. Too often women go through all manners of dieting and work-outs not for their own good but for meeting men's expectation of beauty, some times they undertake measures that are clearly injurious to their very health like the bleaching of their skins and the implants of silicon to boost their bust-line. The personality Islam seeks to bestow is one which gives women confidence, security and esteem which allows them to deal with men as equals with out having to play to their gallery or aspire to behave like men. 2. The Prophet of Islam not only made the education of male and female compulsory but he appointed a separate day in which he attended to the educational needs of the women. One woman who made the best of this opportunity, rather understandably, was his youngest wife Aisha. She learnt so much and had a wonderful memory that the prophet told his companions that they could take half of their knowledge of Islam from this red girl, referring to Aisha. By this statement, the Prophet was actually appointing Aisha, to what today we call a professorial chair, in the university of the Prophet. By this appointment of a woman in this exalted position the prophet was elevating women to the highest and perhaps the most prestigious of position of power, for knowledge is indeed the greatest source of power.
We must thank Allah that Aisha lived long after the Prophet during which time she transmitted large numbers of hadith, the fourth largest, corrected numerous others and taught many men and women. 3. The average Muslim woman today may not quite understand the noise made about economic empowerment, largely because she has always been empowered; her dowry has always been hers, not even her parents can take any part thereof without her consent and permission; her wealth has always been hers, if she works she never had to operate a joint account with her husband, who will then decide what to do with the money. A lot of what is called economic empowerment, Islam had given women 14 centuries ago. If over time and due to societal ignorance this is denied her she can best recover this through a process of re-education and enlightenment. Her economic independence is a right given her by the Most High and no one can deny her. This right to own her property uninhibited must not, however, be confused with the right to work to earn money. The issue of work has to be weighed against the non-material needs of the family and the conveniences of the couple, for work touches on issues that Islam deems more important than material possession. 4. Allah's call to stand up to injustice in society and endeavor to correct them was not restricted to men only it was a general call addressed to all Muslims, and women are just as equally liable as the men. For the avoidance of doubt when Allah brought up the issue in Surah al-Tauba, he made it amply clear that he meant both men and women working together, in His sublime words:
" The believers, men and women, are protectors, one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity and obey God and his apostle. On them will God pour His mercy: for God is exalted in power, wise. God hath promised to believers, men an women gardens under which rivers flow, to dwell therein, and beautiful mansions in gardens of ever lasting bliss. But the greatest bliss is the good pleasure of God: that is the supreme felicity."
What the Most High is saying is that Muslim women are empowered to supervise, improve on and correct the social order. They are thus empowered to participate in the running of every aspect of state and society, without prejudice to their responsibilities as mothers or wives. 5. To the extent that this correction of injustice of society requires political action as it too often does, then women have a responsibility to partake in politics not just as passive voters but also and if need be as active participants. What is important for the Muslim women here is that politics is not a past time or a hobby but a serious business. Politics is not an end in itself but a means to a higher end and that is the cleansing of and the improvement on society. Some Turkish women who joined politics as elected members of the municipality (under the REFAH Islamic party) have scored great success in the elimination of prostitution and drugs, unlike the men before them, in the Turkish cities on the eastern borders with the Soviet Republics.
That women can take responsibilities and head units and institutions has never been in doubt in the Islamic tradition. This idea is clear and unambiguously conveyed in the very hadith of the Prophet that says
"every one of you is a shepherd, and every shepherd will be held responsible for his flock, …. a woman is a shepherd in the house of her husband … "
Here then are examples of what we may call Islam's empowerment of women. What must be noted is that this is empowerment without the confrontation and bitterness and without the excessive competitiveness and the confusion of between equality and uniformity that so characterises the empowerment in vogue. As FOMWAN would say, "setting women against men in rivalry specifically for power and wealth, (which is what is meant by empowerment) is a piece of social engineering on par with the communist experiment in equality based on the mistaken idea that all human beings are the same." What FOMWAN seems to be saying is that just as the communist edifice crumbled so would any notion or institution which chose to ignore reality and build castles in the air, as it were.
Concluding Remarks
It may still be necessary to go a little further to clarify certain issue that appear to many, especially to non-Muslims, to contradict the exalted position Islam had accorded women as has been discussed above. Some of these issues include the share of inheritance, the issue of evidence, polygamy, restriction in a marriage to non-Muslim men and invalidity of Women political leadership.
Inheritance – That a Muslim woman receives half of what a man receives in the share of inheritance has lead many an ignorant observer to rush to the conclusion that Islam values woman as half the value of man. Those who mean mischief have found a ready example of Islam's oppression of women and a ready ear in those ignorant non-Muslim observers, or so they thought. The fact is however different. First the Islamic laws of inheritance are easily the most equitable that mankind has known, but it is beyond the scope of this short paragraph to go further, the interested reader can inquire further in so may published works. Here we can only point the fact that women in Islam, unlike their Hindu or post-modern counterpart, receive dowry in marriage from a man. Besides, as a wife all her basic needs of food, cloth and shelter are provided for by her husband. When not married she remains the responsibility of her father or brother whose duty it is to take care of her. By simple arithmetic the woman who gets half of what her male brother gets could end up twice richer than the same brother. So Islam is simply being practical, and the logic is clearly unassailable. If any has a better system let him share his wisdom with all and sundry, we should all be ready to learn.
Evidence – In the course of the evolution of the Sharia, some of the sources were interpreted to mean that in certain circumstances the Sharia either doesn't admit the evidence of women or it takes the evidence of two women in place of that of one man. But the Sharia is not static it evolves over time to meet the dynamics of society. Surprisingly, even the Muslims, who ought to know better, are resisting this dynamism of the Sharia. But luckily scholars in the Sudan, who more than any other Muslim community today on the globe, are having to live the Sharia in the present time, not in the past, have re-examined these interpretations in our contemporary context and have now given women equality in evidence. In respect of the verse in al-Baqra, (Q.2:282) for example, they have argued that at that point in time, seventh century Arabia, women were not involved in commercial transactions and hence were not deemed to be familiar enough with the intricacies of trade to make their evidence in such matters reliable. Today, however, many women are involved and quite familiar with trade and commerce thus obviating the need to undervalue their evidence. The details, it would be appreciated, cannot be provided here.
(see African Marriage)
This is one touchy issue which can hardly be resolved in a paragraph but on which luckily a lot has been written. While we refer readers to more detailed works on the subject, we need mention one very important point: that Marriage in Islam is not absolutely compulsory and if one wishes to marry he is free to enshrine such conditions as the contracting parties may wish to consent to and this ought to take care of the fears of those who do not, for whatever reason, wish to be part of a polygamous family. One may also be tempted to ask why wouldn't women be granted the same opportunity, so that they can also have multiple husbands. We only need to point to one fact, that in a polygamy, for every child both the mother as well as the father can be known with certainty, while in a polyandry there could be no doubt about the mother but it will be difficult to establish the father with absolute certainty. Islam deems certainty in the parentage of children too seriously to risk any confusion.
Restriction in the marriage – While Islam allows Muslim men to marry women from among the people of the book. Jews and Christians, It does not allow Muslim women same, is this not a form of discrimination? How many times has one heard Muslims, especially the men, trying to explain by pointing to the fact that because women are weak their is the fear that a non-Muslim husband may either convert her to his religion or carry the children from this marriage over to his religion. This, however, is not Islam's reason, it only shows how uninformed Muslims themselves are about the Sharia. First Islam does not view a woman as weak on matters of faith and conviction, for Islam knew the generation of Makkan women who made the first and the second hijra against all manners of threats and hardship. It should also be recalled that the first person to die of the torture in Makka was a Muslim women. We actually need not go very far, in Nigeria we also know of army generals who will come out to command troops but go home to stoop and be commanded by a woman. Islam's reason has nothing to do with this idea (or is it figments of imagination?) of the weakness of women. The main reason is simple and easy to comprehend. In the Sharia the married woman has a right to be fed, clothed and sheltered by her husband, and these rights are justiciable. In other words if the husband should fail in his duty she could go to a Sharia court which will force him to pay up. If, however, the husband is not a Muslim the Sharia cannot enforce itself on a non-Muslim. On the other hand if the wife is non-Muslim and she goes to court the Muslim husband will be forced to pay up. The restriction is not therefore a discrimination, on the contrary it is meant to secure and uphold the rights Islam had given married women.
Political Leadership
We have already seen the need, some would say necessity, for women to participate in politics, but can a woman hold the highest political post of the head of state? Most Muslims would say no a woman cannot hold the post of the head of state. The evidence hinges on the hadith which says that: "a nation would never succeed that make woman in charge of her affairs." This evidence has however been faulted by some scholars. First, one of the scholars argued, the hadith does not seem to be in agreement of the spirit of the story of Bilqis the queen of Sheba in the Qur'an, for Bilqis, who was the head of her state, and was praised by Qur'an for her wits and sagacity and actually succeeded since she came into Islam along with her people. Secondly the hadith itself could not pass the credibility test on three counts. Third there is no explicit text of the Qur'an which says no to women leadership. Some scholars therefore believe that there is no barrier to women leadership any more than the standards that Islam has placed for such leadership, which applies to any Muslim, male or female.
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REPURPOSE - Pearce Morgan
Pearce Morgan
mixed media with resin on 6" x 6" canvas
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GIVE BACK with the GIFT OF ART!!! All profits from the REPURPOSE shop will be donated directly to the ongoing relief efforts of Hurricane Michael through The Sonder Project and St Andrew United Methodist Church in Panama City.
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All of the REPURPOSE works of art were created specifically for this Hurricane relief project, inspired by our communities coming together in support of our neighbors & turning broken pieces into something beautiful. The silver lining shining through the dark clouds after the storm. Many of the elements were donated by the local art community and creators of all ages were able to make this art as an opportunity to express their creativity at no cost with the understanding that the art would be sold to raise money for relief efforts.


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A former high school football star has been found guilty of helping his uncle plot the murder of his aunt.
Twenty-nine-year-old Leonard Roundtree III denied knowing about his uncle Alvin Roundtree's plan to kill Army Capt. Mona McFadden. Prosecutors convinced a jury that Roundtree agreed to deliver the payment to a hit man contracted by his uncle to kill McFadden.
Roundtree faces up to life in prison at sentencing Aug. 1.
The latest news from around North Texas.
Alvin Roundtree is also awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last month to shooting McFadden seven times last June outside her office at the Army Medical Department Center at Fort Sam Houston where she worked as an instructor.
She survived, prompting the alleged murder-for-hire plot while Roundtree sat in jail.


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It's hard to escape the impression that Mitt Romney's campaign is about everything but Mitt Romney.
In an era of personality-driven politics, he is running on a central idea—fixing the economy—without the personal flair and calculated charisma that often define White House contenders.
It's not the world's worst strategy for a guy who is never going to match Barack Obama on the charm front or feel comfortable chatting with the ladies of The View. Romney is nonetheless running almost neck and neck with the incumbent after a bruising primary battle.
But to the extent that many Americans remain uneasy with Romney, it may be because he reveals so little of himself.
Indeed, Romney has cordoned off major sections of his life, leaving him little to share beyond policy talking points.
If he has one passion in life, it's business. But Romney barely talks about his experience at Bain Capital, because he doesn't want to engage on the thousands of jobs lost when his former firm took over ailing companies and sometimes pushed them into bankruptcy. When he talks about Bain, it's to play defense, as when the Obama campaign put out last week's video featuring steelworkers who were cut loose when their Bain-owned factory shut down. (Yes, Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker didn't help the team by saying on Sunday that he is uncomfortable with such attacks on private equity, though he backtracked within hours. But how can Bain not be fair game for the president, given the nature of Romney's campaign?)
The problem for Romney is that his job was to generate big profits for himself and his partners, not to serve as a job-creating agency, which is not exactly bumper-sticker material. So if Romney can't talk with enthusiasm about his career as a capitalist—his central credential as a candidate—what can he talk about?
Well, he had a reasonably successful term as Massachusetts governor, the only elective office he's ever held. But we don't hear much about that. And the reason is hardly a mystery.
The centerpiece of his four years in Boston was a health-care plan passed with bipartisan support. But since Romneycare was the model for Obamacare, which brought the candidate so much grief during the primaries, he now treats it as radioactive.
As for the rest of his Massachusetts tenure, well, Romney doesn't seem to be selling that either. He ran as a moderate—a pro-choicer, for example—and governed pretty much in that mold. In today's Tea Party climate, Romney doesn't want to remind Republicans that he was anything less than severely conservative. So that's off the table, too.
What's left? Romney seems determined not to talk about his faith. And there is a political downside. While The New York Times ran a largely positive and respectful front-page story on his Mormonism, it did include details that some would find off-putting, such as that he encouraged a working mother to quit her job so the church would bless her efforts to adopt a child.
My own feeling is that no one has any business demanding that Romney talk about his religion. But I don't think he's avoiding the subject solely because, say, evangelical Christians regard Mormonism with suspicion. He is essentially a private guy who believes that such matters are between him and his church, to the point that he won't even boast about his missionary work as a young man.
But the expectations in our Oprahfied culture are that candidates are supposed to share, even overshare, on such matters. Asked about his favorite philosopher in one of his earliest debates, George W. Bush answered: "Christ, because he changed my heart." (Bush also spoke about kicking the drinking habit.) Obama's embrace of religion is such that he took his book title, The Audacity of Hope, from his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. (He also wrote about taking drugs as a young man.)
But Romney's religion is more closed to outsiders than most, and he doesn't seem to have many sins to confess, as Mormons don't drink or smoke. So that part of Mitt also remains behind a curtain.
What remains is a kind of Swiss-cheese cutout of a life. Yes, Romney helped turn the Salt Lake City Olympics into a success, but that's not enough to win the gold medal.
Romney doesn't even talk much about his hobbies. Sports fan? I have no idea. Movie buff? Who knows? He once talked about hunting varmints, but that drew ridicule. Romney's wife, Ann, brings a warm touch to describe the unzipped Mitt, but her husband remains decidedly zipped up.
Maybe Romney is running as the anti-charisma candidate. Maybe his team has decided to turn a weakness into a strength: if he can't match the lofty orator, perhaps he can PowerPoint his way to the presidency by promising results. But on some level, Romney needs to find a way to move beyond bullet points in painting a picture of who he is.


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After almost two weeks of work on the bug, I'm very glad to show everyone the new Swell-foop video demo! It basically features the toolbar, the animation for score and the preference window. The code has been almost rewritten to follow the principle of Model-View-Controller (MVC). I'd like to take this chance to thank Bob very much for his reviews and his and many other contributors' brilliant work on the other Vala games. They set me very good examples to follow, making my coding much easier.
This Vala game still has minor bugs. I'm not sure if it can be included in the coming release of Gnome-3.4.


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Visit the Sales Room
Visit the sales room at the Pottery Studio for the widest and most current selection of work from The Saint John's Pottery and the Johanna Kiln. In addition to providing educational tours of the studio, staff are available to assist guests with purchasing functional pottery suitable for everyday use.
In general, types of pottery available for purchase from the sales room include cups, mugs, bowls, liddled bowls, salad plates, dinner plates, platters, spice jars, pitchers, serving bowls, teabowls, and teapots. Larger items may include cake platters, sushi platters, wall-mounted presentation platters, and large jars.
The Saint John's Pottery accepts payment in the form of cash, check, or credit card. Each purchase is wrapped using recycled packaging whenever possible. Shipping is available through the U.S. Postal Service. In addition, visitors to Saint John's are also welcome to visit the pottery displays in Sexton Commons and Alcuin Library.


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Our 50ml Spirit bottle also known as the Titus bottle are perfect for luxury oils, dressings, sauces, drinks, spirits, liquors and much more.
All of our bottles are made from high quality recycled glass and are food/beverage grade certified.
All of our bottles are fully traceable and can be traced right back to their origin.
Please note: The 50ml spirit bottle comes with a 20mm Cap.
Any orders from 50-500 units will be delivered boxed.
Full pallet volumes with arrive on a wooden pallet, shrink wrapped and may require a pallet jack. (Please check your storage situation before ordering full pallets).
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Family of American detained in North Korea reacts
SEATTLE (AP) — The family of a Washington state man imprisoned in North Korea for more than a year expressed alarm and sadness Monday after an invitation was cancelled for a U.S. envoy to visit Pyongyang and discuss Kenneth Bae's release.
Terri Chung, Bae's sister, said in a statement, however, that relatives are encouraged by a growing number of people — including the Rev. Jesse Jackson — calling for her brother's freedom.
"It has been 474 days since Kenneth has been detained in the DPRK," the statement said, referencing the nation's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "Kenneth is just an ordinary American father of three who is desperately trying to return to his family."
American missionary detained in North Korea Kenneth Bae speaking to reporters at Pyongyang Friendship Hospital in Pyongyang. In a bizarre and drunken interview with CNN, Rodman suggested Bae is at fault for his own detainment in the repressive country
The statement continued, imploring U.S. and North Korean leaders "to work together to let this U.S. citizen come home to his family."
Bae, 45, of Lynnwood, a suburb about 15 miles north of Seattle, had been living in China for seven years. He was taken into custody in November 2012 while leading a tour group into a North Korean economic zone.
The cancellation, announced by the State Department on Sunday, comes only days after a detained Bae told a pro-Pyongyang newspaper that he expected to meet this month with U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights issues, Bob King.
The move signals an apparent protest of upcoming annual military drills between Washington, D.C., and Seoul, South Korea. North Korean officials also say the U.S. has mobilized nuclear-capable B-52 bombers during training near the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea calls the planned drills a rehearsal for invasion, a claim the allies deny.
On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said King was still prepared to meet with North Korean leaders in the future.
The State Department also has said Jackson, the civil rights leader, has offered to travel to North Korea at the request of Bae's family. "We support the efforts, of course, of the family but also of Reverend Jackson to bring Kenneth Bae home," Harf said.
Analysts say North Korea has previously used detained Americans as leverage in its standoff with the U.S. over its nuclear and missile programs; North Korea denies this.
The North accused Bae of smuggling in inflammatory literature and trying to establish a base for anti-government activities at a border city hotel.
Chung says Bae's Christian faith got him into trouble.
In August, North Korea also rescinded an invitation for King to visit, saying Washington had perpetrated a grave provocation by flying B-52 bombers during military drills with South Korea.
Chung said Friday that her family learned from the State Department that her brother had been taken back to a labor camp from a hospital where he had been treated after losing 50 pounds.
On Monday, Chung said in the statement that the family is "gravely concerned that the stress Kenneth endures at the labor camp will be too much for him."
Associated Press writer Hyung-Jin Kim contributed from Seoul, South Korea and AP writer Matthew Pennington contributed from Washington.
Pacific Century Institute Chairman Donald Gregg, second left, and his party arrive at Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with representatives of the Pacific Century Institute, a private U.S. group. Gregg, who is chairman of the institute, wouldn't say what he hoped to discuss there. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)
Pacific Century Institute Chairman Donald Gregg, center, and his party arrive at Pyongyang Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with representatives of the Pacific Century Institute, a private U.S. group. Gregg wouldn't say what he hoped to discuss there. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)
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If YouTube existed 20 years ago, there's little doubt the grainy black-and-white footage of then-Washington Mayor Marion Barry smoking crack instantly would have gone viral, with one hit on the pipe spurring millions of hits on the Internet.
Two decades later, Barry – now a disgraced Washington councilmember – is all over YouTube with a pilot for a Reality TV show, The Washington Post noted, though he's hardly proven a viral sensation. The three installments making up the pilot barely notched a combined 5,000 views in the first three days after being posted, perhaps a sign of the show's prospects for a life on television.
You can never tell, though: Marion Barry's Washington might be light years from "Sarah Palin's Alaska," but we're all living in a sad state where politicians' exploits are somehow considered potential Reality TV fodder.
Former Chicago Gov. Rod Blagojevich, convicted felon and failed contestant on "The Apprentice," is marking time chatting with Perez Hilton and promoting pistachios on TV as he awaits retrial on corruption charges – and more media opportunities.
Tom Delay, the former House majority leader, did a Texas two-step last year on "Dancing With the Stars" even as he was under indictment for the money laundering charges he ultimately was convicted of last month. He could spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Palin, of course, is in a far different position. She's a politician on the rise, a potential 2012 GOP presidential candidate – and a Reality TV show success whose homey program is designed for mass appeal (her recent gunning down of a reindeer aside, perhaps).
The Barry show is a mixed bag, but not without some odd appeal of its own. We get to see him sing (not terribly), play golf (terribly) – and conduct blunt conversations with aides and pols over the kickback scheme that led to his censure this year. Some of the action seems staged – a TV news report about his woes conveniently pops up just as he's discussing them – though there's a certain poignancy in the loyalty of Barry's son to his flawed and somewhat self-deluded dad.
What's amazing, at first blush, is the number of Washington municipal politicians who participate in the show. But then again, a chance to be on TV, in whatever form, outweighs what used to pass for common sense.
On Friday, two days after the posting of Barry's "Mayor For Life" pilot, we were treated to a reality show of another sort, on C-SPAN2: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' 8.5-hour filibuster to protest the tax cut deal struck between President Obama and Republican lawmakers. The New York Times notes that the Independent lawmaker's speech sparked significant social media activity, and proved a "hit" for the normally sleepy cable outlet. Sanders also is now a modest YouTube star.
Sanders' "Mr. Smith"-like marathon may turn out to be his defining moment. No amount of TV Reality nonsense, though, likely will erase the defining moments of say, Blagojevich caught on tape cursing President Obama and images of Barry smoking crack.
Check out excerpts of Barry's show and Sanders' speech below – and remember to choose your reality wisely:
The Politics of Reality TV
From Sarah Palin's Alaska to Marion Barry's Washington, we're all in a sad state.
If YouTube existed 20 years ago, there's little doubt the grainy black-and-white footage of then-Washington Mayor Marion Barry smoking crack instantly would have gone viral, with one hit on the pipe spurring millions of hits on the Internet.


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The Equal Opportunity Commission has recently published an Enforcement Guidance Memorandum on the subject of vicarious employer liability for unlawful harassment by supervisors (meaning, when is the camp liable for the acts of supervisory employees?) This means that all camps should be taking a close look at their workplace harassment policies. It is likely that most should be modified immediately. You have probably heard that there has been an increase in harassment charge filings, but consider this statistic:
This needs your attention now!
In the EEOC's Memorandum (a copy of which is available on the agency's Web site: www.eeoc.gov/docs/harassment.html), the EEOC details what an employer must do in order to avoid liability or limit damages in those instances where it is entitled to establish an affirmative defense to a supervisor's act of harassment. That affirmative defense, created by the Supreme Court in June 1998, consists of two necessary elements, and one of them is that the employer must prove that it exercised "reasonable care" to prevent and promptly correct any harassment.
The EEOC states that reasonable care generally requires an employer to:
disseminate, and
enforce an anti-harassment policy and complaint procedure.
Stated otherwise, an employer's failure to establish anti-harassment policies and effective grievance mechanisms thereunder will make it difficult for an employer to prove that it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct harassment. The EEOC notes that whether an employer can prove that it exercised reasonable care depends on the particular factual circumstances. There are no "safe harbors" for employers based on simply having a written set of policies and procedures. Action must be taken in your camp setting to both disseminate and enforce policies.
Content of Anti-Harassment Plans
According to the EEOC, an anti-harassment and complaint procedure should contain, at a minimum, the following elements:
A clear explanation of prohibited conduct.
Include prohibitions of sexual harassment, AND harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, disability, and any other harassment specified by your state statutes. For instance, in some jurisdictions, sexual orientation is a protected class.
Assurance that employees who make complaints of harassment or provide information related to such complaints will be protected against retaliation.
A clearly described complaint process that provides accessible avenues of complaint.
There should be multiple points of filing a complaint and should not require an employee to first report the harassment to his/her supervisor. Further, the policy should encourage reports of harassment before they become severe or pervasive.
Assurance that the employer will protect the confidentiality of harassment complaints to the extent possible.
A complaint process that provides a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation.
The procedure should contain information regarding the time limitation for filing complaints. The procedures should describe a mechanism for a prompt, thorough, and impartial investigation by a "neutral" investigator who has been well trained in the skills required for interviewing witnesses and evaluating credibility.
Assurance that the employer will take immediate and appropriate corrective action when it determines that harassment has occurred.
In addition, it is the EEOC's position that an employer should provide every employee with a copy of the policy and complaint procedures, redistribute it periodically, post it in central locations, and incorporate it into the employee handbook. The EEOC states that employers should train all employees to ensure that they understand their rights and responsibilities. At the very least, you should be training your supervisory employees to receive and give appropriate attention to complaints according to your written procedures.
As a practical matter, camps should be sure that seasonal employees receive a copy of the policy during or prior to staff training, and the policy and process should be reviewed during staff training. The policy should be posted in a staff lounge or the camp office — somewhere where staff will see it, and know where it is if they wish to file a complaint. Year-round employees should be reminded of the policy and provided additional copies as necessary on a regular basis — perhaps quarterly or twice a year. This regular reminder of anti-harassment policies will underscore your organization's commitment to anti-harassment behavior.
EEOC Enforcement
The guidelines are even more important in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling on punitive damages, which provides that an employer is not vicariously liable for punitive damages so long as it made "good faith efforts" to comply with federal law. Given the Supreme Court's previously published opinions expressing the view that Title VII was designed to encourage the creation of anti-harassment policies and effective grievance mechanisms, it will be difficult for a camp to successfully argue "good faith efforts" if it has not established, publicized, and enforced an anti-harassment policy and complaint procedure that incorporates the standards that are identified by the EEOC.
ACA recommends immediate attention to your policy. We advise you to consult your legal counsel for assistance. Due to the increase in complaints received by EEOC, the complaints in camps of which ACA is notified, it would be prudent to address this concern prior to your next season.
Originally published in the 1999 Fall issue of The CampLine.


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This month HSP begins a new 26-month project to process and conserve fourteen collections related to civic engagement in Philadelphia and beyond. Willhem Echevarría has already started work as project archivist, and in December he will be joined by Leah Mackin as project preservation technician. Previously, both Willhem and Leah worked on our Chew papers project and Digital Center for Americana pilot project, and we're fortunate that they'll be continuing on with this new initiative.
In this blog post I'd like to talk about some of the reasons I'm excited about the Civic Engagement Collections project and efforts surrounding it.
Working with great collections
The project deals with collections documenting a wonderful variety of people and organizations. These range from Albert Greenfield (real estate broker turned banker, politician, and philanthropist) to Morris Milgram (socialist activist turned integrated housing pioneer and developer of planned communities). From Anthony Biddle, Jr. (elite-born diplomat and military officer) to Max Weiner (who helped launch a grassroots consumer protection movement in the 1960s). The project includes the papers of reformers across three generations: Herbert Welsh, who from the 1870s to the 1930s tackled everything from imperialism to forestry to civil service rules; Richardson Dilworth and Natalie Saxe Randall, who helped lead Philadelphia's political reform movement after World War II; and John Fryer, psychiatrist and gay rights activist, who in 1972 helped persuade the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Organizational collections in the project include the records of the Citizens' Permanent Relief Committee, a late 19th century philanthropic group that aided people harmed by natural disasters, famine, war, or political repression; and the Indian Rights Association, which played a key lobbying role from the 1880s to the 1930s around its paternalistic aim to "bring about the complete civilization of the Indians and their admission to citizenship." There are also six decades of records of the League of Women Voters of Philadelphia, which promoted women's political participation and took stands on issues ranging from child care and public education to the United Nations and the Marshall Plan.
I'm especially pleased that this project will enable us to digitize 160 hours of phonograph recordings from the Philadelphia Fellowship Commission, a pioneering civil rights coalition formed in 1941. To help promote its multi-cultural ideals, in the 1940s and 50s the commission sponsored a series of radio plays, stories, and interviews with people of diverse racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. The Civic Engagement project will make these recordings publicly accessible for the first time since they were broadcast.
Highlighting our 20th-century holdings
While HSP is rightly famous for our pre-20th century collections, the fact that we also have rich collections up through the late 20th century receives much less attention. For example, most of the applications to our research fellowship program (a collaboration with the Library Company of Philadelphia) focus on our pre-20th century collections. The Civic Engagement project – which primarily deals with 20th century collections -- is part of our plan to change all that.
A related effort is our recently launched Greenfield Project, funded by the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation. This will endow a research fellowship in 20th-century history and create a web portal focusing on 20th-century collections and featuring related interpretive material. The Greenfield Project funding also covers archival processing work on the Greenfield Papers, which is part of the Civic Engagement project.
Implementing "More Product, Less Process" (MPLP)
The Civic Engagement project is funded primarily by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the grant-giving arm of the National Archives and Records Administration. The NHPRC has gone farther than any other major archives funder in embracing MPLP principles. To get NHPRC funding for a "detailed" processing project, including any descriptive work below the collection level, a repository has to ensure that virtually all of its collections are or will soon be open for research and locatable online. This embodies one of MPLP's key tenets, that repositories should provide a basic, minimum level of access to all their collections before giving intensive attention to a select few. HSP's Archives Department wholeheartedly endorses this approach. For the first time ever, we will soon provide online collection-level descriptions for all our archival holdings, through a new online guide that will launch later this year.
Processing work on the Civic Engagement collections will be based on MPLP principles as well. This means that some practices will be streamlined to speed up processing and make more collections accessible more quickly. For example, collections may receive only rough arrangement below the sub-series level. Non-archival folders will be replaced only if they are damaged or do not fit in an archival box. And, yes, metal fasteners will be removed only if they are rusty or pose a hazard to users. Staff time for this project has been allocated based on an average of 2.6 hours per linear foot for processing work and 1.25 hours per linear foot for conservation work. HSP has five different processing levels that we use depending on the specific collection, and guidelines for this project are based on our Level 3 protocol, in the middle of the range.
Contributing to a regional effort
The Civic Engagement project is interconnected with a consortial processing project that HSP is participating in. The PACSCL Hidden Collections project, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources, is processing collections at 24 institutions, including HSP. (PACSCL stands for Philadelphia Area Consortium of Special Collections Libraries.) The two projects share the same processing methodology and were developed in close coordination with each other. HSP staff helped design the PACSCL project, establish its standards, and write its manual. PACSCL project staff, in turn, has helped to train HSP staff in the use of MPLP principles and Archivists' Toolkit. Two collections in the Civic Engagement project (League of Women Voters of Philadelphia and the World War II collection) will be processed by PACSCL project staff at HSP, working alongside HSP staff. This type of interchange enriches our work and helps us see our tasks as part of a regional effort.