By Rory Reynolds

A BLIND youngster whose life was turned around with help from a specialist school in Scotland is to have his special handmade Christmas cards send to famous folk including Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela.

Nine-year-old Ben Wilson lost his sight and was left brain-damaged after a 16-hour fit when he was just six-months old.

But his proud mum and dad say his life has been turned around after just three months at Edinburgh’s famous Royal Blind School.

Ben won a Christmas card competition to have his design presented to famous political figures, including former US president Bill Clinton.

Staff at the school helped Ben to draw a picture of three snowmen wearing top hats – which will soon also be sitting in the White House.His proud mum Jenny, 39, said she was astonished at Ben’s progress since he started at the world-renowned school.

Difficulties

She said: “We tried for a good while to get him into the school and I have to say the amazing reputation it has is dead right.

“Even though he has only been there for a few months, the difference is there to be seen.”

When Ben was just six months old Jenny found him suffering a fit while in his cot.

Doctors say that her waking him up may have saved him from cot death, but the tot was left with severe learning difficulties.

Jenny said: “Call it mother’s instinct if you will, I knew something was wrong.

“In hospital we were basically told his brain was like a scrambled egg, and anything he was able to do was a bonus.

“But since he’s been in Edinburgh he has learned so much – he can help me with washing dishes.

Independence

“He is in a wheelchair but one day we hope he can get a powered once which would give him some more independence.”

“We knew he had to go there, he was getting very frustrated with life and this has helped.

“But it can be hard, when we speak to him or the school and hear what he was been doing we sometimes think we would have liked to have done that with him, or seen him do it.

“But he is calmer and happier, every night there is something to do at the school which is something I couldn’t do as a mother of two other children.”

Edinburgh MP Nigel Griffiths, who ran the Christmas card competition, will ensure the famous figures receive the Ben’s festive greetings.

He said: “The school is among the best of its kind in the world.

“Whenever I go there I am asked deeper, more challenging questions by the pupils than I get from those at George Watson’s or Heriot’s.

“The work they do is terrific, and the result of Ben’s design going to 6,000 people around the world who are on my Christmas card list, including Gordon Brown and Barack Obama, is testament to what can be achieved.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

I recently attended a 2 day Internet Marketing seminar in the City with my close buddy. Initially I was very pessimistic and doubtful about the Quality of the information, presenters and the learning I would receive from this ‘free’ seminar. I even wanted to pull out from it last minute, until my buddy offered to drive me to the event.

I was actually blown away from it and I even invested in a $3000 Online Coaching course! This seminar also opened my eyes to the possibilities of doing business via the Internet like never before. It has also made me a few new friends and opened a few doors for future networking. Have you ever experienced a situation in your life (similar to mine) where you thought it would end up bad but it turned out for the better, plus it became an impetus that changed the course of your life?

It reminds me of the saying…’If you want a different result…try doing something different’. We all are fearful and unsure of anything new, risky, untested, uncommon and unknown. That is why less than 1% of all population in any country have truly tasted REAL SUCCESS! (and at times real failure as well). Think of it this way, there can only be 1 Tiger Woods, 1 Mother Theresa, 1 Billy Graham, 1 Martin Luther King Jr., 1 Suu Kyi, 1 Nelson Mandela, 1 Gandhi, 1 Obama, 1 U2 and 1 Oprah. What makes them stand out from the crowd to become an Icon in their field?

I’d like to say that with all their individual strengths, they all also shared a common thread; they all had a Heart to Believe and the Resilience to Go Against the Flow!

I believe 2010 will be a Defining Year in my life…Why? It’s because I have a DREAM and the DRIVE within me to become ALL that I am intended to be! The only person stopping me right now is the one facing me every morning in the mirror. If you don’t believe me…try it…

Exercise: Think about a Hairy Audacious Goal (or Dream) that you are “fearful” to achieve…

Answer: For some, it’s to Quit their Job, for others it’s to start a Business, yet for some it would be to go back to do an MBA or a PhD…and yet for others is to challenge their Fear over Something or Someone.

Challenge: Will you give yourself the authority to LIVE OUT this Goal (Dream) and be Free to decide your Destiny without anyone (including yourself) stopping you?

Forget about the planning and the step by step process for a moment. You will find yourself rationalizing…if you don’t make a decision today. Do you truly want to be successful? I challenge you to say YES!!!…try it and I guarantee you…2010 and beyond…will never be the same.

Take one more step…contact Coach Mel today…for a Free 20mins Coaching Skype Call and he will work with you to take a step forward >> to Live Your Dream! Go to www.dvcoaching.com or write to mel@dvcoaching.com

Check the huge red glasses and the white shoes...such a geek...My grandma, who is now deceased, and my aunt in the background...

Hello World,

I know that according to Wal-Mart and other chain super retailers, we are now officially in the Christmas season…but for me, the Christian season doesn’t actually begin until Dec. 1.

So what’s to do in those days that follow Thanksgiving leading up til the big day? Well, I decided to clean my refrigerator…I’m ashamed to say I found various sauces, condiments, salt fish, chicken etc. that probably have been there since 2008…As I type, I know my ability-to-be-a-wife quotient is probably lessening with each word…And let me add for emphasis, the reason that I finally decided to clean out my fridge is that I started to smell the fumes of something that even the nearly air tight doors could no longer keep in…(If my mom, who is super neat, read this post, she would not be happy…oh well)

So back to my gross fridge, as I was emptying the contents of my fridge into several trash bags, I decided to watch a movie…I happened upon the movie “Little Miss Sunshine.” I’ve seen it before, but it’s worth watching again…Of all of the funny yet poignant things that happened in the movie, this quote stands out…indulge me and read it…I swear I’m going somewhere…

Dwayne: I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap-high school and everything-just skip it.
Frank: Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
Dwayne: He’s the guy you teach.
Frank: Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent 20 years writing a book almost no one reads. But he’s also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh… he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, Those were the best years of his life, ’cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn’t learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you’re 18… Ah, think of the suffering you’re gonna miss. I mean high school? High school-those are your prime suffering years. You don’t get better suffering than that.

This is a conversation between the angst-ridden high schooler who discovers he’s color blind thereby obliterating his dream to go to flight school and his gay uncle who survived a suicide attempt. By the way, Steve Carrell plays the uncle…he is perhaps the funniest white guy ever…next to Jim Carrey…

So my question for this post is: What has suffering taught you? What are some things that pain taught you that may have not learned otherwise?  I know, I know, somewhat of a morose post after eating yummy food, reconnecting with the fam and thanking God from whom all blessings flow and what not…

Since high school suffering was mentioned in the movie, I gotta say most of the people that were hella popular in high school probably should have suffered just a little bit…it would have given them something to aim for…as it stands now, a majority of the people that seemed to be on top then don’t seem to be too interesting now…and some of them look practically ancient…guess if you start clubbin’, boozin’ and wilin’ out at 15, you’re bound to look old in your mid ’30s. 

High school Jackie went through some suffering…She couldn’t go to parties…She wore big red classes that covered more than half of her face…She could date when she was 16, but wasn’t asked out until she was 17…She was not asked to be in any of the cliques…She frequently spent time an inch away from the mirror analyzing her eyebrows…She was accused of smelling like fish because she had a penchant for eating salmon croquettes before football games…and on and on…

(Yes, I was referring to myself in the third person…) Truthfully, I was in the low B maybe High C crowd…definitely not an A lister. Well, what did it all teach me? Well for one, I wasn’t drinkin’ and clubbin’.  I’m sure that my youthful glow is due, in part, to my delayed entry into the club scene…Also, I was forced to develop friendships with people based on personality rather than popularity…And as result, some of those people are still my friends today…And it made me yearn for something better…i.e. college…I was convinced I was going to be The Truth just beyond the “insipidia” (made up word) commonly referred to as high school… Sidebar: I must say though many of the rappers that hail from the A or their wives graced the halls of Benjamin E. Banneker High School, and many of them were kinda popular even back then…oh well…but I do believe they are the exception rather than the rule…

Since I decided to become a Christian, I have suffered through trials due to my stance on certain issues…It has not been pretty. As people say, Jesus won’t bear the cross by Himself. If you believe in Him, at some point, you have to suffer…no I have not been persecuted like what is described in the Bible, but I have been ridiculed by people for my beliefs…I wrote an article on “The Prayer of Jabez” frenzy…remember that…So I met the author of the book, Bruce Wilkinson, at a rally, and I wrote about him and the rally…So my editor had to read the article before it was published…Below is a snippet of the conversation that took place during the editing process…

Ogre boss reclines in her easy chair. Her office door is ajar so she can conveniently bark orders at random to cringing staff in the newsroom.

Ogre boss: Hey Jackie!

Jackie: (Holding her arms around herself to somehow visibly shield herself from the verbal assault sure to ignite…) Yes…

Ogre boss: When you pray “The Prayer of Jabez,” do you pray for a new boss?

She cackles and snorts similar to the Wicked Witch of the West in “The Wizard of Oz.”

I say nothing…what was there to say…I know what I felt like saying…I won’t say because some of y’all think it’s not appropriate for Christians to curse…(Good thing, you’re not with me 24/7.)

Six months later, she fired me…Good riddance I say….And I moved on to a better situation in every way…suffering taught me that God can protect me – even from people who don’t like me because I’m a Christian, cuter, younger and even more talented – bitter, you say?…naw…really though, it’s all good…

And the truth is, the best writers have suffered through some thing…. How else can you write something that moves people? I could go on, but eh, I don’t feel like it…

So what has suffering taught you? Marinate on that…AND post comments on that..please…

I will add this…my absolute fave verse in the Bible…

All things (GOOD & BAD things that happen) work together for GOOD for THOSE who love Him and are called according to HIS purpose. Romans 8:28

God can bring good out of suffering…

P.S. I’m sure that Nelson Mandela suffered terribly while he was in jail for 27 years, but I’m sure that the same internal fortitude he developed in jail as a result led him to being the first elected president of South Africa…Yes, I plan to see the new movie “Invictus.”

Politicienii sunt apreciați drept cei mai importanți oameni ai istoriei unei națiuni, conform majorității sondajelor. Iată câteva exemple elocvente și oficiale:

Cel mai mare american: RONALD REAGAN (1911-2004), al patruzecilea preşedinte american (1981-1989) a fost mare amator de sport, prima sa slujbă fiind de comentator sportiv la un post de radio din Iowa. Reagan a făcut studii de teatru, sociologie şi economie, a jucat în 53 de filme şi a fost moderator al unor show-uri tv.

Abraham Lincoln, cel de-al şaisprezecelea preşedinte american, Martin Luther King Jr., susţinător al drepturilor civile americane, George Washington, primul preşedinte american, Benjamin Franklin, diplomat, politician, om de ştiinţă, inventator, filosof, George W. Bush, actualul preşedinte, ales „cel mai mare american în viaţă”, Bill Clinton, al patruzeci şi doilea preşedinte al SUA, Elvis Presley, r egele rock ‘n’ roll-ului, Oprah Winfrey, aleasă „cea mai mare femeie din istoria Americii”, şi Franklin Roosevelt, al treizeci şi doilea preşedinte, au fost de asemenea incluşi în clasamentul primilor 10 americani, realizat de Discovery Channel în 2005.

Cel mai mare german: KONRAD ADENAUER (1876–1967) a asigurat deschiderea Republicii Federale Germania către Occident, după al doilea Război Mondial. La 15 septembrie 1949 a devenit primul cancelar federal al noului stat, funcţie pe care a deţinut-o timp de 14 ani.

În clasamentul primilor 10 mari germani se regăsesc, alături de K. Adenauer, Martin Luther, primul reformator protestant, filosoful Karl Marx, teoretician al socialismului german, Sophie şi Hans Scholl, tinere victime ale nazismului, Willy Brandt, cancelar al RFG, compozitorul J.S. Bach, Goethe, Johannes Gutenberg, inventatorul tiparului, Otto von Bismarck, primul cancelar al Imperiului German, şi fizicianul Albert Einstein.

Cel mai mare britanic: WINSTON CHURCHILL (1874-1965) a fost lord al amiralităţii între 1911-1915, lider al Partidului Conservator între 1940-1955, prim-ministru între 1940-1945 şi 1951-1955, membru al Parlamentului din 1900 şi ministru în diferite guverne britanice. În 1953 a obţinut Premiul Nobel pentru Literatură.

Lista celor 10 mari britanici a fost completată de inginerul Isambard Kingdom Brunel, prinţesa Diana de Welles, celebră pentru implicarea în acţiuni caritabile, naturalistul Charles Darwin (1809-1882), William Shakespeare (1564-1616), considerat cel mai mare scriitor al literaturii în limba engleză, fizicianul Isaac Newton, Regina Elisabeta I, John Lennon, component al trupei Beatles, Amiralul Nelson şi Oliver Cromwell.

Cel mai mare francez: CHARLES DE GAULLE (1890-1970) este ales preşedinte al Republicii în 1958, fiind supranumit „guide de la nation”. Şi-a păstrat postul şi după alegerile din 1965. În 1969, de Gaulle s-a retras prematur din funcţia de preşedinte al statului.

Chimistul şi biologul Louis Pasteur, Abatele Pierre, fizicianul Marie Curie, actorul Coluche, scriitorul Victor Hugo, actorul şi interpretul Bourvil, Moli è re , scriitor de teatru, unul dintre maeştrii satirei comice, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, explorator, ecolog , şi cântăreaţa Edith Piaf au fost cei care au completat clasamentul celor mai mari 10 francezi din toate timpurile.

Cel mai mare canadian: THOMAS (TOMMY) DOUGLAS (1904–1986). Promotor al politicilor de protecţie socială, Tommy Douglas a intrat în politică în 1935, devenind, la 10 iulie 1944, prim-ministru al primului guvern socialist din Canada. În 1961 a fondat Noul Partid Democrat şi a fost ales deputat în Parlamentul naţional.

Următorii mari canadieni aleşi de public au fost: atletul Terry Fox, fostul prim-ministru Pierre Trudeau, Frederick Banting, cunoscut pentru introducerea insulinei în terapeutică , David Suzuki, genetician, ecolog şi om de televiziune, Lester Bowles Pearson, prim-ministru (1963-1968), Don Cherry, antrenor de hockey, John Macdonald, primul prim-ministru al Canadei, Alexander Graham Bell, inventatorul telefonului şi Wayne Gretzky, jucător profesionist de hockey.

Cel mai mare sud african: NELSON MANDELA , „Mitul Africii Negre”, conducător al Congresului Naţional African, a devenit o figură-simbol a populaţiei de culoare din Africa de Sud pentru lupta sa împotriva politicii de apartheid. Eliberat din lunga perioadă de detenţie la (1962–1990), Nelson Mandela a obţinut abolirea sistemului apertheid-ului în urma tratativelor cu reprezentanţii guvernamentali (albi). În 1994 a devenit primul preşedinte de culoare al Republicii Africa de Sud, iar în 1993 i s-a decernat Premiul Nobel pentru Pace.

Mandela a fost urmat în clasamentul celor mai mari personalităţi sud africane de: chirurgul Christiaan Barnard, fostul preşedinte F.W. de Klerk, Mahatma Gandhi, părintele independenţei Indiei, Nkosi Johnson, copil victimă a virusului HIV, Winnie Mandela, politician, a doua soţie a lui Nelson Mandela, actualul preşedinte Thabo Mbeki, jucătorul de golf Gary Player, politicianul Jan Smuts şi arhiepiscopul Desmond Tutu.

Cel mai mare finlandez: CARL GUSTAF EMIL MANNERHEIM (1867- 1951 ) a luptat în cele trei războaie purtate de ţara sa în secolul XX (primul Război Mondial, Războiul Iernii din 1939 şi cel de-al doilea Război Mondial), a fost regent al Finlandei în 1918 şi preşedintele Republicii între 1944 şi 1946. Graţie lui Mannerheim, Finlanda şi-a păstrat independenţa după cel de-al doilea Război Mondial.

A fost urmat în clasament de Risto Ryti, preşedinte al Finlandei (1940-1944), Urho Kekkonen, preşedinte al Finlandei (1956-1981), Adolf Ehrnrooth, general de infanterie, Tarja Halonen, actualul preşedinte al Finlandei, Arvo Ylppö, medic, Mikael Agricola, episcop, creator al formei scrise a limbii finlandeze, Jean Sibelius, compozitor, Aleksis Kivi, scriitor, dramaturg, poet, şi Elias Lönnrot, folclorist şi filolog.

Cel mai mare ceh: CAROL AL IV-LEA (1316–1378). Conte de Luxemburg, rege romano-german din 1346, rege al Boemiei din 1347, împărat al „Sfântului Imperiu Roman“, margraf de Brandenburg din 1373, Carol al IV- lea este una dintre cele mai importante figuri ale Evului Mediu târziu. În 1348 a întemeiat Universitatea din Praga, prima din spaţiul de limbă germană (universitatea se numeşte şi astăzi „Universitatea Carolină”, în amintirea sa). A dispus construirea, la Praga, a „Podului Carol” care-i poartă numele şi care este înscris pe lista patrimoniului mondial.

Topul celor mai mari 10 cehi a fost completat de T.G. Masaryk, preşedintele Republicii Cehoslovace după primul Război Mondial, Vaclav Havel, fost preşedinte al Cehiei, Jan Amos Komensky, filosof şi pedagog, Jan Zizka, lider militar, reformator în cadrul unei mişcări religioase, Jan Werich, scriitor şi actor, Jan Hus, reformator religios, Antonin Dvorak, compozitor, scriitorul Carel Capek şi Bozena Nemcova, scriitoare, predecesoare a feminismului ceh.

Cel mai mare olandez: PYM FORTUYN (1948-2002) a fost reprezentantul dreptei radicale din Olanda şi un înfocat luptător împotriva crimei, islamismului şi imigranţilor. Conferenţiar universitar la Universitatea din Groningen şi profesor universitar la Universitatea Erasmus din Rotterdam, Pim Fortuyn a fost asasinat de un militant islamist în luna mai, 2002.

Pe următoarele poziţii ale ierarhiei stabilite de votul publicului olandez s-au clasat: prinţul Willem van Oranje; Willem Drees, prim-ministru între anii 1948-1958, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, cercetător şi botanist, Desiderius Erasmus, umanist şi filosof renascentist, celebrul fotbalist Johan Cruijff, amiralul Michiel de Ruyter, scriitoarea Anne Frank, celebrii pictori Rembrandt van Rijn şi Vincent van Gogh.

Often I question myself. I ask myself what kind of world I wish to create for myself. The answers vary depending on the way I feel. But the basic desire is always clear. I want to be an author. I have wanted to write novels since I was just in third grade. I want them to inspire people. I want to make people gasp and see themselves through my characters. I want my readers to relate to my stories and be inspired to make a change in their lives, or even just to get chills up their spine. That is my wish. So I must create my world accordingly. I will create my own world as I go along. And as the great Nelson Mandela once said, “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”

Below is a quote from a new article called Stop the lama love-in – He’s adorable, yes, but just what is the Dalai Lama accomplishing?

… public perception of the Dalai Lama needs to change. As it stands, when people turn their attention to him, they do so in the spirit of answering John Lennon’s call to “turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream.” The outcome of this lazy attitude is to reinforce the Dalai Lama’s leadership and his counterproductive efforts to free his people. The basic problem was summed up by the Dalai Lama himself when he stated, “I find no contradiction at all between politics and religion.” So long as the Dalai Lama is regarded as a figure of both spiritual and political liberation, his efforts to make the first goal happen will ensure the second never does.

Here’s a comment from someone named David about the article:

I think the major reasons Dalai Lama hasn’t got what he wanted are:

1. Dalai Lama used to be a slave-master/owner. He doesn’t have any moral authority in ordinary Tibetans left behind in China when he exiled. His followers went into exile with him are all prior nobles and slave-masters, together with some slaves they owned to serve them in India.
2. Dalai Lama fought for CIA and caused a lot of ‘trouble’ to the Tibet during the 60s and 70s. He is no ‘peace-lover’ by heart. He is forced to give up after US and China re-established diplomatic relationship.
3. China has done a lot of constructive work in Tibet in the past 30 years. Dalai Lama did nothing. Not many Tibetans in Tibet wants him back.
4. Nelson Mandela and Gandhi were with their people on the ground, suffering for their people. Where is Dalai Lama? He is living a luxury life wearing Cuchi Brand Italy Leather Shoes.

These are some of the fundamental reasons why Dalai Lama and his supporters are not going anywhere.

HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 26. November 2009

Zuletzt erinnerte ich mich wieder daran, warum die letzten Medien-Lancierungen, Marwan Barghouti sei der palästinensische Nelson Mandela – unglaubwürdig sind. Deshalb nämlich, weil niemand bei den Palästinensern selbst nachfragt.

Jerusalem Post-Kolumnist Khaled Abu Toameh mit einem kritischen Blick auf die Außenwahrnehmung Barghoutis:

Anders als viele westliche Medien haben palästinensische Journalisten und Verfasser selten – wenn überhaupt – Barghouti als “charismatischen” Führer oder als “palästinensischen Nelson Mandela” bezeichnet. Zyniker und Verschwörungstheoretiker in den palästinensischen Gebieten noch weiter, wenn sie davon ausgehen, dass Barghouti in Wirklichkeit Teil einer US-israelischen  Intrige sei, ihn zum zukünftigen Führer der Palästinenser zu machen. Um ihre Behauptung zu untermauern, stellen sie so profane Fragen wie: Seit wann erlaubt Israel denn einem strengst bewachten Häftling, Medieninterviews zu geben oder in seiner Zelle israelische, palästinensische, europäische und amerikanische Offizielle zu empfangen?

Zweifellos wird Barghouti von vielen Palästinensern respektiert. Doch nicht, weil er der palästinensische Nelson Mandela oder Saladin ist – der moslemische Krieger, der die Kreuzfahrer aus Jerusalem herauswarf -, sondern weil er in einem israelischen Gefängnis sitzt.

Wenn die Palästinenser selbst Barghouti nicht als Mandela betrachten, warum spinnen die Mainstream-Medien dann weiter an diesem Mythos? Das neueste Beispiel dieser Art liefert Irish Times-Korrespondent Michael Jansen, wenn er schreibt:

Von vielen Palästinensern wird er als ihr Nelson Mandela gesehen.

Rede mir nicht ein, wie Barghouti wahrgenommen wird, sondern zeige mir, wie er wahrgenommen wird. Nimm’ einfach den ganz normalen Palästinenser auf der Straße ernst.

Man kann Barghouti jederzeit an seinen eigenen Worten messen, seit er Israels meistinterviewter und bestbewachter Häftling ist. Im Gespräch mit Corriere Della Sera ließ er die Gewaltoption offen.

Natürlich verträgt sich das nicht mit der rosigen Wahrnehmung Barghoutis durch den Westen….

Lesen Sie bitte Toamehs vollständigen Beitrag [In Englisch].

Dazu passend: Barghouti Is No Mandela

I don´t know what this is advertising, but I like the concept:

I love this:

An expert commission of African leaders today announced their plan for comprehensive reform of music band U2. Saying that U2’s rock had lost touch with its African roots, the commission called for urgent measures to halt U2’s slide towards impending crisis.

“Our youth today are imperiled by low quality music,” said Commission chairman Nelson Mandela. “We will be lending African musicians to U2 to try to refurbish their sound to satisfy the urgent and growing needs for diversionary entertainment at a time of crisis in the global music and financial sectors.”

Concerns about U2 have been growing in Africa for a while. One Western aid blogger testified to the Commission that his teenage kids found U2’s music “cheesy.” The Mandela Commission proposed that U2 follow a series of steps to recover its Edge:

1) Hire African consultants to analyze U2’s “poverty of music trap”

2) Prepare a Band-owned and Commission-approved Comprehensive U2 Reform Strategy Design (CURSD)

3) Undertake a rehabilitation tour of African capitals to field-test and ground-truth proposed reforms

4) Subject all songs to randomized experiments in which the effect on wellbeing of control and treatment groups is rigorously assessed.

Mandela expressed optimism that the Commission’s report and proposed reforms had come in time to stave off terminal crisis in U2, and restore its effectiveness in the 80s arena rock field.

FYI, its cross-posted from Aid Watch

The Aid Watch blog is a project of New York University’s Development Research Institute (DRI). This blog is principally written by William Easterly, Professor of Economics at NYU. It is co-written by Laura Freschi and by occasional guest bloggers. Our work is based on the idea that more aid will reach the poor the more people are watching aid.

And thats all I have to say about that. Except that everyone is freaking out about the Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody, so I’m gonna go ahead and share it with y’all.

love & rawkouts,
Sunshine Superboy

Amazon.com Review

The famously taciturn South African president reveals much of himself in Long Walk to Freedom. A good deal of this autobiography was written secretly while Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years on Robben Island by South Africa’s apartheid regime. Among the book’s interesting revelations is Mandela’s ambivalence toward his lifetime of devotion to public works. It cost him two marriages and kept him distant from a family life he might otherwise have cherished. Long Walk to Freedom also discloses a strong and generous spirit that refused to be broken under the most trying circumstances–a spirit in which just about everybody can find something to admire.

Click on the book cover to buy the book from Amazon.com.

This is the third report for my How Do You Jew? project on Jewish identity.

Rose Suttner Barlow grew up a Jewish girl in Apartheid South Africa, a minority within a minority within a minority. Her minority status as a Jew within the white population in overwhelmingly black Africa was obvious. Her minority status within the Jewish community was a result not of demographics, but of the traditionally limited role of women in Jewish life at that time and place. Years later, as the Apartheid system was dismantled in her homeland, Rose learned of a more diverse, inclusive Judaism and gained equal rights as a Jewish woman thousands of miles away in her adopted country, the United States.

South Africa

Rose’s Jewish journey has been a lifelong one, and it has paralleled her physical travels away from her childhood home in a   tightly knit Jewish neighborhood in Johannesburg to Cape Town,the DeBeers diamond mines, England, Scotland, and finally to Marin County north of San Francisco, where she has settled to raise her family. As Rose increasingly engaged in the wider, non-Jewish world and encountered diversity that was heretofore unknown to her, she shed many of the communal and ritual aspects of Judaism that had never fully or satisfyingly been incorporated into her identity. It was only once she became a mother and came to live in the liberal, diverse and tolerant Bay Area Jewish community that she found that there was a way back into Jewish life that provided her meaning and purpose.

In many ways, Rose has reinvented herself Jewishly, but she believes she had done so on the basis of a strong cultural foundation. “Even though I was alienated from Jewish communal life [for many years], I was never alienated from my Jewish self,” she says. Rose’s parents became baalei teshuvah when she was in her 20’s and her mother became ill with cancer (she died not long afterwards in 1986), but this was many years after Rose’s experiences growing up with parents who were at the time ethnically and culturally Jewish, rather than shul-going shomrei mitzvot.

A South African farthing from 1960, the year Rose was born

Rose was born in Johannesburg in 1960 to a mother whose intellectually inclined family immigrated to South Africa from Lithuania and Russia during WWI, and a father who came from a more business oriented family that had been in the country for three generations. Her father was a member of the first generation in his family to go to college, becoming an electrical engineer and going into the family business manufacturing car radios (founded by his father who had had no higher education). Rose’s mother, whose own mother had been accepted to medical school and father was a lawyer, studied social work.

As a school girl, Rose attended a whites-only public school with a large Jewish student population owing to the fact that the neighborhood was predominantly Jewish. Her parents did not send her to a cheder or afternoon Jewish studies program, leaving her formal Jewish education to the once a week session in which Jewish children were separated from the other students into their own class (for religious instruction) and given workbooks on Jewish topics from which to teach themselves. The Jewish Board of Deputies had worked out this arrangement with the public school authorities, apparently leaving teachers to instruct the children out of the plan.

Although Rose’s father’s parents went to synagogue regularly (a Modern Orthodox one, which was the normative form of Judaism at the time in this particular community), her parents did not. They did not keep kosher or regularly light the Shabbat candles, but Rose and her younger brother were kept home from school on every Jewish holiday and her brother officially marked his becoming bar mitzvah.

She did participate in the Habonim Zionist youth group for a short time, though she did not attend its summer camp. Nonetheless, Rose developed a strong attachment to Israel from her first visit at the age of thirteen and from her knowledge of her mother’s close relationship with a cousin and good friend who lived there. Her self-education on the Holocaust through reading works on the bookshelves at home also helped shape her identity.

Perhaps if President Obama had been leading the seders, Rose's experience would have been more positive. It appears that the President knows how to engage a crowd, even around a seder table.

The message Rose received from her family and her community was that she was expected to succeed in secular life, but that advancement as an adult Jew was not an option. She recalls sitting at the foot of the very long Pesach seder table year after year, unable to hear anything but the mumbling of the older men at the head. The most she could have hoped for would be her eventual move to the middle of the table, to the women’s section, once she was a mother. She characterizes her Jewish upbringing and identity formation as overall positive. “I learned by osmosis by having been placed in my formative years in settings where I was surrounded by Jews.” But she adds, “The gender message remained problematic.”

By the time Rose was in late elementary school and high school, she was aware of the political situation in South Africa and that among those standing up against Apartheid were many Jews, most of whom were very secular and on the extreme left (In fact, a distant cousin on her father’s side was imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela). Many of Roses’s teachers were Jewish and exposed their students to the situation more than was done in other schools. Roses’s classes took field trips and was twinned with a school in Soweto. Rose herself, when she was an older high school student and in college, was personally acquainted with fellow young Jews who were members of the National Union of Student Leaders fighting against Apartheid, some of whom were conscientious objectors against the military draft.

Nelson Mandela revisiting his cell at Robben Island in 1994

“You could not sit on the fence,” Rose says about Apartheid. “Either you were for it or against it.” Against it, Rose chose contribute to the cause through her profession. She studied at the University of Witswatersrand for two years and transferred to the University of Cape Town to finish her Bachelors degree in psychology and industrial sociology. Upon graduation, she went to work in industrial relations in the mining industry for five years in the mid-1980’s. Rose was a member of a team that worked as change agents at De Beers, making significant strides toward eliminating the culture of (white) managerial violence against (black) mine workers through the implementation and enforcement of newly developed policies.

A book of interviews with Jewish South African activists, edited by Rose's brother, Immanuel Suttner,

Proud of the impact she had made, Rose chose to leave South Africa with her fiance (now her husband) so that he could return to his native England to pursue an advanced degree. Although the couple left for personal-educational reasons, it is evident that the question of the quality of their future life in Apartheid South Africa was lurking in the background. Unbeknownst to them, secret talks that would lead to the dismantling of Apartheid were already underway as the two of them were packing up and departing for London.

Rose and her husband, who is not Jewish and has not converted, were married soon after they arrived in England. They remained in the UK for seven years, living in both England and Scotland, where Rose worked in human resources in the oil industry. Rose claims that although she was not associating herself with the Jewish community during those years, she “never lost touch with [her] internal Jewish clock.” When a holiday came around, it was if she had “an atavistic impulse to get off the merry-go-round to contemplate or celebrate.” In 1994, while living in Aberdeen which was devoid of Jews save for Rose, she suddenly had the desire to have a Pesach seder – just for her and her husband. So, she travelled all the way to Glasgow to buy the required pesadik supplies.

In 1996, Rose, her husband and their baby daughter left the UK to start the next chapter in their lives in California. Here, they had a second daughter, and both girls are receiving a solid Jewish education in day schools,synagogue programs, Jewish camps and youth groups. Her older daughter has already become bat mitzvah and her younger one is preparing for hers next year. The Jewish Community Center (JCC) nursery school in their town was the gateway to an active Jewish life involving not only education for the girls, but also plenty of adult Jewish educational programming and a variety of volunteer, philanthropic and lay leadership roles in the Bay Area Jewish community for Rose.

Madame A.F. Aude and her two daughters, 1899, Mary Cassatt

Rose always had the Jewish proclivity for analysis and debate, and she has applied this to her recent study of Jewish texts. She finds that her increased Jewish and Hebrew literacy has allowed her to really grow in her Judaism. Rose describes it as “a virtuous cycle. The increased literacy promotes increased engagement, which in turn leads me to yet more learning.”

Rose is very grateful to now live in a community where Jewish pluralism is celebrated. When she was a girl in South Africa, she had no inkling that the Jewish community could include anyone other than Lithuanian and Polish Jews. Similarly, she had not had the opportunity to establish close connections with people of different ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds until she went out into the challenging world of the mining industry to try to make a difference. It has been through her discovery of the other that she has been able to rediscover and re-imagine her Jewish self.

It is not uncommon for Jewish women of Rose’s generation to reconnect with their Judaism and the Jewish community through their children. It is an especially pointed experience for a woman who felt Jewishly disenfranchised as girl to be able to empower her daughters. Few women, however, have travelled as far as Rose has in order to come home.

© 2009 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Invictus (Dec. 11th, 2009) is Clint’s next great coming alive flick. Mr. Eastwood is going back to the universal language of sports in order to bring out our human emotions. This film is based on the South African President Nelson Mandela’s idea of change that had the 1995 Rugby World Cup as the main ingredient for unity.
All I have to say is, Morgan Freeman plays a great Mandela!
Clint Eastwood is a film making machine. I can’t wait to wrap my mind around this one. Also, starring Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the South African Rugby team caption.

Bis auf die kleine Info am Ende, dass der Dalai Lama im Dezember in Australien ist, hab ich keine Ahnung wie es zu diesem Clip kam und was er soll. Komplett sinnfrei eine (so grandiose) Geschichte zu inszenieren, kommt mir aber doch komisch vor. Wie auch immer… feel the funk!

Die Band: Dalai Lama a.k.a. Diddy Lama, Nelson Mandela a.k.a. Nelson “The Man” Dela und Mutter Teresa a.k.a. Mother T

via urlesque

Image via Wikipedia

spitting image
1. noun Informal.
Origin:
1925–30; from the phrase spit and image by confusion of spit and with spittin’; cf. earlier the very spit of -  the exact likeness of

2. British satirical puppet show which ran on the ITV television network from 1984 to 1996

In the spirit of the famous UK show, Kenyan politicians (as well as Barrack Obama and Michael Jackson) are being satirised in The XYZ Show, which has just finished its first season and starts again in January. This is a report from Reuters Africa.

Elsewhere, the South African Broadcasting Corporation commissioned and then rejected as too controversial the series ZA News (from the .za in  South African web addresses). It is now available for streaming and download over the internet. This is the first episode from October this year; of course, it’s difficult to follow if you don’t know about the news, but it’s worth watching if only for the puppets of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu at the beginning!

In the next instalment, we’ll be looking at the original Spitting Image and its European partners in crime in Spain, France and Russia!

—————————-

Strange Random Language Fact: There is no English word that rhymes with purple – so if you’re writing a song, consider using “blue” instead!

Resulta que Yoani hizo unas preguntas a Obama y Raúl Castro en su blog y el bueno de Barack le ha respondido. ¿Huele esto o no a apoyo de Estados Unidos?

Yo no tengo pruebas, así que no afirmaré nada. Que cada uno piense lo que quiera. Por cierto, han escrito un libro acerca de Cuba -con prólogo de Nelson Mandela- que puede que tenga algo interesante que decir acerca de todo esto.

Someone asked me, just yesterday, whether or not they should go to Johannesburg and if so for how long. I’m so bad at answering these questions. Not sure why. Here’s my attempt:

I enjoyed my time in Johannesburg. But so much of what I enjoyed was made possible because one of my closest friends, S., lives there. The things that everyone would typically do in Johannesburg turned out to be very mundane. Our first full day in Johannesburg, we went to the Apartheid Museum, where we were first divided arbitrarily into racial groups to enter the museum and given a detailed history of South Africa and apartheid. Normally one who takes their time during museum visits, I seemed to speed through the exhibits compared to my friend, C’s, snail-like pace. We would have probably spent the entire day there, had the lights not gone out, forcing C. to run out of the museum, missing a little more than a quarter of the exhibit.

We also went to Soweto, the most popular township known for its role in the struggle against apartheid. We dined buffet style at Sakhumzi’s while we were serenaded by a girl with a beautiful voice, and joined by a contortionist who had been folding himself into awkward positions on the street with hope to receive tips, earlier. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him. C., on the other hand, was not as interested. Sakhumzi’s perfect location put us right in between Bishop Desmond Tutu’s house and Nelson Mandela’s house, which is now a museum. So we visited the both, with the latter having more activity around it, particularly people selling things.

Speaking of selling, S. took us to the African Market at Rosebank to search for souvenirs. Let’s pause for a moment right here. NOTA BENE: When I say souvenirs, that is precisely what I mean. Trinkets. Magnets. Mass produced paintings. Etc. Although, I quickly fell in love with this number:

Yes, that is a real zebra hide. Yes, I saw it and was drawn to it, like a moth to a flame. Dear PETA, please don’t hate me. I loved it, up until I found out the price. 8,000 South African Rand. Please do the math on that. Yes, over $1,000. I chuckled and walked away, and it was mistaken for a negotiation tactic.

Salesman: How much do you want to pay? I give you good price.

Me: No no, honestly, I cannot afford it. The fact that you started at 8,000 rand means I shouldn’t even continue to talk to you.

Salesman: Give me 6,000 rand and you can have it.

Me: What about 6 rand?

Salesman: What you said? Six thousand? [Emphasis on thousand]

Me: I need to go find my friend.

The run-of-the-mill Johannesburg activities were fun, yes, but like most other tourist activities you may want to run quickly through them so that you can get to the real fun…

xo

J. Justine

 Vida da esposa de Nelson Mandela vai virar filme

Jennifer Hudson será Winnie Mandela nas telonas

A atriz Jennifer Hudson, premiada com um Oscar por sua performance em Dreamgirls – Em Busca de um Sonho, acaba de ser contratada como protagonista de Winnie, em que viverá Winnie Mandela, esposa do ex-presidente sul-africano Nelson Mandela.

O filme terá direção do sul-africano Darrell J. Roodt e será um drama sobre a história da controversa ativista, que lutou contra o apartheid ao lado de seu marido. O roteiro foi escrito por Roodt, Andre Pieterse e Paul L. Johnson, com base no livro biográfico Winnie Mandela: A Life, escrito por Anne Marie du Preez Bezdrob.

Segundo a Variety, o filme contará a história toda – tanto o lado bom, do ativismo social, como o lado ruim, das acusações de fraude e corrupção que marcaram parte de sua carreira política. Fonte: Omelete.

Alguém aí já deu uma olhada nesse viral que tá rodando pela internet desde o dia 16/11? Pois é, ninguém sabe do que se trata…

Enfim…só sei que é um dos vídeos virais mais interessantes já produzidos por aí! Descrito simplesmente como “Quite possibly the funkiest supergroup of all time. Peace Out.”, temos Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela e Madre Teresa se esbanjando num groove tenso de tão fodástico em nome da paz. Doido né?

Pesquisas no deus Google não revelam absolutamente nada sobre a ‘banda’, e o vídeo foi postado por uma conta recentemente criada no You Tube. Os dados do usuário da conta indicam ser de um australiano de 41 anos. A qualidade tanto do vídeo quanto do áudio são profissionais, assim como a maquiagem do trio. Sem contar que não dá para não notar a luvinha prateada do Michael Jackson fazendo o ‘peace sign’ de relance perto do final do vídeo. Seria essa mais uma pista? Mas pista de que? Qual é a história por trás dessa campanha viral?

Comentários no You Tube e  Twitter têm dado destaque aos tags ‘nobel’ e ‘peace’ e a pergunta “Where’s Obama?” também tem surgido com frequência. Mas, ao que tudo indica, ninguém tem uma prova concreta sobre quem está por trás da ação. Então meu caro, assista e divirta-se, enquanto a gente continua tentando desvendar o mistério!

I can’t wait for “Invictus” to hit the theatres in Singapore! When when? So, what’s this awesome movie about? Let me capture the synopsis for you:

The true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa’s rugby team, Francois Pienaar, to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa’s underdog rugby team as they make an unlikely run to the 1995 World Cup Championship match.

As I watched the trailer for this movie, Nelson Mandela’s words echoed in my head over and over again. “I am the master of my fate… I am the captain of my soul.” “How do we inspire ourselves to greatness where nothing less will do… How do we inspire those around us?”

Sometimes, I question if I’m a freak because while many of my friends around me are either getting married or dating, somehow, I don’t have that interest at all. I don’t yearn for it even.

All I want is to be great… Not in the sense of being a CEO or a figure of authority – not at all. Somehow, power and authority never tantalized me. For that very same reason, I’m not afraid of people in power and positions of authority.

But, I want to be great in the sense that I want to inspire and to make a difference.

Once, at a Planetshakers conference, we were all asked, “What would you want written on your tombstone when you die?” Because that is precisely what you should be fighting for. I remember scribbling down on my paper… “She inspired and she loved”.

That’s probably why this movie, “Invictus” strikes a chord.

I admire the way Nelson Mandela never backed down when told that what he was doing was either insane or not in line. If all we want to do with our lives is to follow convention or to do what’s safe, how will we ever “inspire ourselves to greatness where nothing less will do” and “how will we inspire those around us”.

By the way, “Invictus” is Latin for “unconquered”. Don’t believe me? Go Google it!

Also, I love the scene where Nelson’s wife was telling him that he was making a political calculation but Nelson replied, “No… it’s a human calculation”. At the end of the day, we’re all human. CEO, manager or janiter… we’re all human, with feelings, thoughts, opinions, and the capacity to love and be loved.

“I am the master of my fate… I am the captain of my soul.” So what would you want written on your tombstone? Because that’s precisely what you should be fighting for. Everything else is a distraction.

http://quenchyourthirst.webs.com

By Chris Richburg

While Morgan Freeman is making his movie rounds as Nelson Mandela, he’ll be happy to know that he’ll have Jennifer Hudson as his former better half. But not in the same film.

Variety reports the singer/actress will play Winnie Mandela in the new drama, Winnie. For Hudson, the chance to play a woman who has seen her share of ups and downs in the political spotlight was too good to pass up.

“I was compelled and moved when I read the script,” Hudson revealed to Variety. “Winnie Mandela is a complex and extraordinary woman and I’m honored to be the actress asked to portray her. This is a powerful part of history that should be told.”

Best known for her support of Nelson Mandela as well as her efforts to free her husband, who was jailed as he led the fight against apartheid in South Africa, Winnie Mandela has been at the center of controversy over the years. Among the lowlights was a reported association with a bodyguard who murdered a 14-year old alleged informer for the government, addition to a 2003 conviction for fraud and theft.

Despite being in good standing in the eyes of some, the good and bad of Winnie Mandela’s story will be told in Winnie. In addition to starring in the film, Hudson is expected to sing the film’s theme song. Winnie is set to begin production May 30 in various locations in South Africa, including Johannesburg, Capt Town, Transkei and Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison.

Those wondering about Freeman’s portrayal of the former South African president can catch that next month in the Clint Eastwood-directed feature Invictus. The film, which also stars Matt Damon as South African rugby team captain Francois Pienaar, centers on Mandela’s release from prison as well as his attempt to use the 1995 Rugby World Cup to help bring his country together after the fall of apartheid.

Invictus his theaters Dec. 11.

Jennifer Hudson

De acordo com a revista “Variety”, os produtores do filme “Winnie” estão contando com a vencedora do Oscar Jennifer Hudson para ser a protagonista da produção que mostrará momentos de altos e baixos na vida de Winnie Mandela.

O longa deve começar a ser rodado em 30 de maio de 2010, na África do Sul, sem previsão portanto de estreia nos cinemas mundiais, e será dirigido por Darrell J. Roodt, devendo mostrar não somente o apoio que a esposa de Nelson Mandela deu ao marido nos tempos de prisão, mas também divergências políticas e a história de vida da ativista.