Month: April 2012
Anglo-American music plagiarism: Selena Gomez sued for copying
Selena Gomez is at the centre of a plagiarism battle amid allegations the chorus of her 2010 song “A Year Without Rain” was lifted from a little-known California band.
Rockers Luce have filed a $1 million lawsuit claiming the pop singer’s track features a chorus that is “virtually identical” to their 2005 single Buy A Dog.
“A Year Without Rain”, co-written by Lindy Robbins and Toby Gad, became the title track of the teen star’s second studio album with her band Selena Gomez & the Scene.
Gomez, Robbins and Gad have been named as co-defendants in the copyright infringement lawsuit, according to Courthouse News Service.
original song Luce- Buy a dog
Selena Gomez – a year without rain
Racist Chants at Emory Univeristy directed at Asian American Students
Beta’s Cheers Are Offensive
By E. Wang, J. Kim, G. Kang, & D. Cho Posted: 04/27/2012
On Monday, April 24, the men’s intramural volleyball championship took place at the Woodruff P.E. Center between Beta Theta Pi and a team made up of predominantly Asian-American students. Each team had a number of fans cheering them on. In the middle of the second game, we heard the Beta fans cheering something. The meaning was not imminently clear for the first few seconds, but the racially-charged cheer soon struck us like a bolt of unwelcome, unrelenting lightning that rooted us to where we stood in shock.
“USA! USA! USA!” cheered the Beta fans with their fists pumping in the air as they chanted again and again. Suddenly, our yellow skin, black hair and Asian heritage became the target of this subtle, yet jarring taunt. With each declaration, we felt more alienated. Suddenly, we weren’t Americans, born and raised, but “Others” who didn’t belong.
It is difficult to explain the emotions that wash over you when you are subjected to such cruel and inconsiderate actions. What should you do? Do you yell back? Do you tell the intramural coordinator who is watching the game, listening to the same chant you are? Do you just take it and brush it off as a joke?
In the few seconds we had to react, we joined them in their chant.
“USA! USA!” we yelled back. We yelled not because we needed to retaliate, but because we wanted to let the Beta fans know how truly ignorant their cheer was. Most of us were born here in the United States, and our loyalties lie with the country that has given us so much. Gloria Kang pulled out an American flag from her bag and draped it across her shoulders. True American pride. Because that is who we are: we are Asian-Americans.
Type in diversity.emory.edu and you’ll find a Diversity Profile that outlines Emory University Composition Statistics. This 52-page, multi-colored document is meant to indicate just how diverse Emory is, with students coming from every state in the United States as well as 140 different countries. Ironically, the pages upon pages of statistics, pie charts, graphs and numbers do not reflect upon the main issue that we stumbled upon this past Monday: having diversity contributes greatly to the community but it does not automatically eliminate racially and ethnically intolerance and ignorance.
Eleanor Roosevelt wisely stated that “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” and we the writers of this editorial do not consent to this blatant act of racial intolerance. We will not sit by and let those students define us. This act of discriminatory harassment will not be forgotten.
We ask that all those who have ever been subjected to intolerance in any form because of their ethnicity, race, national origin, gender, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation or any other separating status know that the Emory administration is very willing to hear your voice and encourages you to come forth if you have every felt this way at Emory.
Emory is proud of its stance on diversity and its multi-colored student body. The commitment that Emory has made to its students and faculty should never condone these acts. Discrimination against Asian-Americans is predominantly unreported because of our familial nature to tolerate and not make a “big deal.”
We are not standing by or brushing it off. We do not consent. We are raising our voices.
The students hurt by this incident have met with a representative number of the Beta fraternity. We have started an enlightening conversation on racial and ethnic sensitivity. We hope this discussion will continue for years to come. Additionally, we maintain our love and pride for the unified Emory community. We look to all types of students for their support and hope that the conversation we have started will speak to them and empower them to raise their voices. And finally, we appreciate the great amount of feedback we have received from students, professional staff and administration.
Emily Wang, Joanne Kim, Gloria Kang and Daniel Cho are College seniors.
Letter to the Editor: Insensitive Chants from the Audience Reflects Poorly On Emory
By Donna Wang & Ozzie Harris II Posted: 04/27/2012
Picking on someone because of their ancestry and national origin is always wrong and always unacceptable behavior at Emory.
Such unacceptable behavior reared its ugly head this past week during what should have been a fun Emory sporting event, an intramural volleyball game between a predominantly Asian-American team and a fraternity team. But any fun to be had was lost when fan members in the audience shouted chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A” and “learn English” at the Asian American players and at the audience.
Comments targeting ancestry, national origin, ethnicity at a competitive sports event cannot be laughed off and cannot be an acceptable norm in our campus that strives to be a welcoming, inclusive global community. The disturbing chants labeled the Asian Americans as less than fully vested and appreciated members of the Emory fabric. Jeering and stereotyping are demeaning and hurtful. The Asian American students on the team and in the audience were first shocked: Could this really be happening at Emory? Stereotyped as foreigners and the ‘other,’ rather than supported and protected as members in our diverse community?
KUSA students bravely came forward, reporting this incident to the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services. The report offers an educational opportunity for raised awareness of the racism and historical context behind the stereotyping of all Asians as ‘the perpetual foreigner’ and rejecting Asian Americans as full citizens. Given the history of the United States, to imagine any of us would share a common ancestry suggests that we are not intellectually curious and poorly informed.
We’re all part of the Emory community. We must embrace common values of respect. Expect the best from each other to become a better Emory community. Do your part by speaking out when confronted with intolerance; don’t be a bystander as intolerance passes you by. We strongly encourage all students to come forward to report acts of intolerance and share experiences of discrimination, bias, and harassment. We remind our community of the University’s Discriminatory Harassment Policy, the Residence Life and Housing’s Acts of Intolerance Policy, and the Student Conduct Policies regarding ‘Respect and Consideration’ that may be accessed at http://conduct.emory.edu/policies/code/index.html Students can readily access staff in Residence Life, LGBT Life, OMPS, Office of Student Conduct and Office of Community and Diversity/EOP to seek support and investigation. Again, we’re all part of the Emory community.
Donna Wong
Director of Office of Multicultural Programs & Services
Ozzie Harris II
Senior Vice Provost, Community and Diversity
Ibn Warraq – “Why I am not a Muslim”.
Ibn Warraq of the Free Thought Society presents “Why I am not a Muslim”.
Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell first delivered this lecture on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall.
What Is a Christian? 0:16
The Existence of God 4:16
The First-cause Argument 5:27
The Natural-law Argument 7:42
The Argument from Design 12:08
The Moral Arguments for Deity 15:18
The Argument for the Remedying of Injustice 18:06
The Character of Christ 20:28
Defects in Christ’s Teaching 23:22
The Moral Problem 25:43
The Emotional Factor 30:45
How the Churches Have Retarded Progress 33:48
Fear, the Foundation of Religion 35:41
What We Must Do 37:10
Music Video: Russkij Razmer – Leti ( Русский Размер – Лети )
The Bible’s Buried Secrets [BBC] Episode 1 – “Did King David’s Empire Exist?”
Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou goes on the trail of the Biblical King David and his fabled empire. A national hero and icon for the Jewish people, and a divine king for Christians, David is best known as the boy-warrior who defeated the Philistine giant Goliath. As king, he united the tribes of Israel. But did he really rule over a vast Israelite kingdom? Did he even exist?
Stavrakopoulou visits key archaeological excavations where ground-breaking finds are being unearthed, and examines evidence for and against the Biblical account of King David. She explores the former land of the Philistines, home of the giant Goliath, and ruins in the north of Israel and in old Jerusalem itself purporting to be remains of David’s empire.
episode 2 coming next week
Music Video: Jay Chou- Ben Cao Gang Mu
Music: Funna- Finka Pe (Cape Verdean Music)
Sanford chief defender’s letter, addressed to black city manager, littered with the n-word
It’s one of those cases that demonstrates how racism is lived in America.
A letter, sent via the City of Sanford’s official letter, and addressed to the city manager, decries the treatment afforded the currently suspended police chief, Bill Lee. It faults the now familiar villains, according to Lee’s defenders: Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the country’s African-American attorney general, Eric Holder.
“Dear City Manager Bonaparte,” it begins. “The racist travesty that took place in Sanford should not be laid to rest and the city should not move on until there is a thorough condemnation of the Rabid Racist Ni**ers and their organizations, along with the irresponsible media, that formed a treasoneous [sic], anti-American, vigelante [sic] feeding frenzy race riot. Ni**ers like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, and that dancing baboon of the New Black Pu***es should be in jail, preferably shot.”
Mr. Bonaparte is black. And letters sent to city officials via the Sanford website are public record.
The writer, Gary K. Keats, a 71-year-old retired urologist from nearby Clearwater, Florida, stands by every word. And he sees no irony in sending a letter decrying what he considers black racism toward George Zimmerman and Bill Lee, and sprinkling that letter with terms like “baboons” and the n-word.
Keats told theGrio he used the n-word “just to get the point across that these people want to play the racist game, and see how they like it, playing it back. I think the whole thing is pretty disgusting, but apparently our beloved attorney general, Eric Holder, they think nothing of accusing everybody else of racism but when it comes to there actions everything is fine and wonderful.”
So does he really consider the attorney general to be a ni**er?
“I think he is pretty typical of that mentality, yeah pretty much. And I think he is pretty much a disgusting, despicable human being and he has no concept of law and order.” He goes on to decry the “travesty” of the Justice Department “going after Texas and Arizona” for their immigration laws, which he calls “people just trying to defend their lives and property.”
If it all sounds very retro, it is. During the late 1990s, Keats posted frequent comments on a website belonging to the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, an ultra-right wing non-profit founded in 1943 to fight the Social Security Act, and what it called “socialized medicine and … the government takeover of medicine.” The AAPS opposes “evidence-based medicine,” as well as Medicare, Medicaid, mandatory vaccinations, abortion and emergency contraception. It’s members and supporters include prominent Libertarians like Texas Rep. Ron Paul and his son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul.
Asked if he considered himself a racist, Keats replied, “no, not really.”
As to whether it’s appropriate to use the n-word in a letter to a black city manager, he conceded, “I don’t think it’s particularly appropriate but then again I don’t think firing chief lee was appropriate either.”
Keats has not yet received a response from the manager to his letter.
Dogs That Changed The World (PBS Nature)
Broadcast (2007) NATURE’s two-part special DOGS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD tells the epic story of the wolf’s evolution, how “man’s best friend” changed human society and we in turn have radically transformed dogs. From the tiniest Chihuahua to the powerful and massive English Mastiff, modern domesticated dogs come in a bewildering array of shapes and sizes, with an equally diverse range of temperaments and behaviors. And yet, according to genetics, all dogs evolved from the savage and wild wolf-in a transformation that occurred just 15,000 years ago.
The Rise of the Dog
In THE RISE OF THE DOG, you’ll learn about how the domestication of dogs might have taken place, including the theory of biologist Raymond Coppinger that it was the animals themselves-and human trash-that inspired the transformation. The genetic analysis of Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden has placed the origins of domesticated dogs-and those of the first dog-in East Asia. You’ll also discover 14 dog breeds that controversial genetic studies show are the most ancient-and the best living representatives of the ancestors to all living dogs.
Over 400 breeds of dog are recognized around the world, each unique for its personality, habits, and form. Most of these breeds exploded onto the scene over the past 150 years, spurred by the Victorian-era passion for the “dog fancy”-the selective breeding of dogs to enhance particular characteristics. By tinkering with its genetics, humans made the dog the most varied animal species on the planet‹and also created a host of hereditary health problems.
Dogs by Design
Despite the plethora of new shapes and sizes, dogs have retained the instincts bred into their ancestors by thousands of years of work: the urge to herd or hunt, to dig and to guard. In DOGS BY DESIGN you’ll discover how these hard-wired behaviors help different types of dogs, from hounds to herders, excel at different tasks (and why it can sometimes be so difficult to train them to do otherwise). You’ll also learn how dogs’ finely tuned senses are serving humans and saving lives.
The many other Trayvons
The U.S. has a long history of violence against African Americans, committed by racists and police–but as Lee Sustar explains, there is also a history of resistance.
POLICE AND racist killings of African Americans are horrifyingly familiar. So why the protest movement around the case of Trayvon Martin–and why now?
Rev. Jesse Jackson, speaking at a March 30 press conference with Black family members of young people recently shot and killed by police in the Chicago area, put his finger on the issue. The mainstream media “has adjusted” to the routine deaths of African Americans at the hands of cops–but their family members haven’t.
“The traditional media did not break this story,” Jackson said. “It was Facebook and Twitter that really broke the story. Here, when young brother Watts is killed, it’s a one-night story, and we move on and wait for the next one.”
Jackson was referring to the police murder of Stephon Watts, the young Black man with autism shot by police in Calumet City outside Chicago in February. Stephon’s father, Steven Watts, also spoke:
My son has autism, and he just wanted to get out of the house. He saw the police. He’s afraid of the police, and he just wanted to get past them. He had a butter knife in his hand, and just because he had a butter knife in his hand, the officers came to the conclusion that it was okay to use deadly force.
They shot him once. He fell. He tried to get up, and they shot him again. They did not try to wound him. They did not try to shoot him in his arms or legs. They did not try to hold him or Taser him. They shot him in the torso. They meant to kill my son. And now he’s gone, and I have no answers.
I feel compassion for Trayvon. I really do. But what about my son? I feel pain and anger inside of me. I see my son getting shot every night before I go to sleep. I see the same thing over and over. I see smoke coming out of the gun. That’s how close I was.
Also at the press conference was Angela Helton, mother of Rekia Boyd, killed by an off-duty Chicago police officer who opened fire at an unarmed young Black man in Chicago’s Douglas Park neighborhood.
Helton was shocked at the killing of Trayvon, but angry that the death of her daughter barely made the nightly news in Chicago. “My daughter was murdered for no reason at all,” she said. “I just want justice for my daughter, and I want the person who murdered her prosecuted to the fullest extent.”
Trayvon Martin, Stephon Watts and Rekia Boyd have joined the uncounted numbers of African Americans murdered by racists or law enforcement in the nearly 150 years since the end of the Civil War.
A century ago, such killings were commonplace in the South–lynchings aimed at terrorizing a Black population denied basic and political rights under the Jim Crow system, America’s version of apartheid. These days, the majority of such racist killings are carried out by police–sometimes even African American ones–as part of a system of social control that author and activist Michelle Alexander calls “the new Jim Crow.”
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MY NEARLY 30 years as a reporter for Socialist Worker spans much of the “law and order” era that today has put more African American men in prison than were enslaved in 1850. Over the years, I’ve witnessed the agony of the parents and family members of African Americans killed not only by police, but by racists who took their cue from the cops and pulled the trigger themselves.
In October 1984, a few weeks after I moved to New York City, police officer Stephen Sullivan shot and killed Eleanor Bumpurs, a 66-year-old African American grandmother, in her apartment after she allegedly brandished a kitchen knife. Somehow, Sullivan and the other five cops on the scene couldn’t manage to subdue Bumpurs without firing two shotgun blasts into her.
And if the murder of Bumpurs wasn’t shocking enough, there was the demonstration of 10,000 NYPD officers–the force numbered 25,000 at the time–in support of Sullivan when he was indicted for second-degree manslaughter. A judge ultimately acquitted Sullivan of all wrongdoing in a nonjury trial.
Racist vigilante justice is nothing new, either. The police coddling of George Zimmerman and support for him in the conservative press reminded me of the media embrace of Bernhard Goetz, the New York City “subway vigilante,” who in December 1984 shot four African American youths after they asked him for $5.
When a wounded 19-year-old Darrell Cabey tried to get away, Goetz followed him. “You don’t look so bad, here’s another,” Goetz said as he shot Cabey in the side at point-blank range. In Goetz’s statement to the police, he justified his action by describing the young men as “savages” and said he was prepared to “murder” them.
Goetz ultimately did just eight months in prison for unlawful possession of a firearm–but was acquitted of attempted murder. Meanwhile, Cabey’s injury put him in a coma that left him brain damaged, with the mental capacity of a third grader. Cabey’s mother won a $43 million lawsuit against Goetz, but was unable to collect.
Of course, police account for far more shootings and murders of unarmed African Americans than vigilantes like Goetz. Meeting Rekia Boyd’s mother in Chicago brought back memories of Veronica Perry, the mother of Edmund Perry, a 17-year-old Phillips Exeter Academy graduate who was bound for Stanford University when he was shot and killed by a New York City police officer in upper Manhattan in 1985.
The cop who shot him, Lee Van Houten, claimed that Perry and another African American youth had tried to mug him. But Perry’s body had no cuts, bruises or powder burns indicative of a struggle–just like there was no evidence that Trayvon Martin attacked George Zimmerman.
Like the Martin murder, the police tended to the killer, not the victim. As I wrote then: “Why did Van Houten’s fellow cops take him to St. Luke’s Hospital for cuts and bruises and leave Perry bleeding on the sidewalk, just 100 yards from the hospital door?” Veronica Perry, died just six years later at the age of 44, reportedly as a result of a heart condition.
The anguish of Steven Watts, the father of Stephon Watts in Chicago, reminded me of the horror on the face of Jean Griffith Sandiford, the mother of 23-year-old Michael Griffith, who was chased by white racists onto a Queens highway, where he was struck by a car and killed in 1986.
Griffith’s car had broken down near Howard Beach, a white neighborhood where he and his friends walked to try to get help. They found a lynch mob instead. The NYPD’s 106th Precinct–which months earlier had been exposed for torturing Black prisoners with electric cattle prods–failed to respond to three emergency calls about the attack on Griffith and two companions.
It took a series of protests in Howard Beach to force Gov. Mario Cuomo to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the murders.
It was racists again who took the life of 16-year-old Yusef Hawkins for daring to visit another white neighborhood, Bensonhurst in Brooklyn, to buy a car in 1989.
I’ll never forget the hatred and threats hurled at those of us in the multiracial weekly marches in Bensonhurst–or the courage of the African Americans who led that struggle to bring Yusef’s killers to justice. Rev. Al Sharpton, who usually headed the weekly marches, was stabbed in the chest while preparing for one Saturday protest.
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THE RACIST police shootings in New York City from the 1980s on–including, more recently, Amadou Diallo in 1999 and Sean Bell in 2006–stand out for their brazenness. Even the mainstream media had a hard time ignoring the fact that police fired 41 bullets at Diallo and fired 50 rounds at Bell.
Yet the fact is that police carry out racial profiling of Blacks and Latinos in every city in the U.S.–and that members of these groups are vastly more likely to end up dead in encounters with police than whites.
That’s certainly the case in Chicago, where I moved in 1997. In June 1999, Robert Russ and LaTonya Haggerty–two young African Americans, both unarmed–were killed in separate police shootings within a 24-hour period.
Those killings highlighted the role of police as the primary enforcers of institutional racism–the cops who fired the shots that killed Russ and Haggerty are themselves African Americans. It’s the social function of police–not simply the racial identity of individual cops–that leads them to regard all Blacks, especially young Black men, as dangerous suspects, whether they are armed or not.
But it’s the white cops who cultivate a culture of racism and a code of silence that allows police to kill African Americans with impunity. In my hometown of Cincinnati, the police brass and Fraternal Order of Police were for decades dominated by men from the historically white west side of town, where I grew up.
A series of police killings and beatings of unarmed African Americans over several years finally boiled over in April 2001, when a white cop killed 19-year-old Timothy Thomas in a downtown alley in a neighborhood targeted for gentrification. When several hundred African Americans protested at City Hall, the police attacked them, sparking several days of riots. As I wrote about the police crackdown that followed:
For Cincinnati cops, every African American was a target. One 53-year-old Black man was shot by beanbags 10 times–for simply walking down the street in daylight. Another woman’s scalp was partially torn off by one of the projectiles. Hundreds of people–almost exclusively Black, many of them homeless–were arrested by the cops for curfew violations.
I arrived in town amid the curfew and watched police in military gear swarming through African American neighborhoods, peering down riflescopes and kicking in doorways. I could witness this firsthand because my white skin gave me a passport onto streets that were off-limits to anyone Black.
A major riot in sleepy and conservative Cincinnati got national attention, as worried politicians and pundits weighed the implications of such a rebellion. It was one thing for Los Angeles to erupt in 1992 following the acquittal of the cops who beat Black motorist Rodney King, and were caught on videotape doing it. But if Cincinnati could explode over racist police killings, it could happen anywhere.
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A DECADE later, it’s the murder of Trayvon Martin that has once again put a spotlight on the reality racist murder in the U.S. While the police didn’t pull the trigger this time, they certainly conspired with George Zimmerman to promote his claim that he killed Trayvon in self-defense.
Tellingly, both protesters and the media have put the murder of Trayvon in the context of racist police violence nationally, rather than dismiss it as the isolated act of a white vigilante. Every day that Zimmerman walks free highlights the racist character of the criminal justice system. Everyone understands that if the shooter in the Sanford case were Black and the victim white, arrest and prosecution would have followed immediately.
As Jesse Jackson pointed out, it was grassroots activism that made the murder of Trayvon Martin national news and sparked a movement to demand justice. And the outrage over Trayvon is amplified by the growing discontent over the mass incarceration of African American men, which author Michelle Alexander has described as a new racial caste system.
After all, even African American men who survive their encounter with law enforcement find themselves facing trumped-up charges–and are compelled to plea bargain in order to limit time in prison, resulting in felony convictions that often strip them of voting rights and severely limit their employment prospects.
Another factor sparking activism around Trayvon is the Occupy movement, which put grassroots protest onto the political map and won the sympathy of millions of people fed up with rising inequality and corporate-dominated politics. Crucially, the massive outpouring of support for Trayvon has brought the question of racial justice to the fore for a new generation of activists who themselves got a taste of police repression when cops cracked heads to clear Occupy encampments last fall.
The challenge now is to give the movement against racist and police killings some local focus and staying power. Whether or not George Zimmerman is arrested, prosecuted and convicted, in every city, racist police brutality should become a focal point for activism. Speak-outs and panel discussions featuring those targeted by police–or their surviving family members–can be a starting point for campaigns against racial profiling and police harassment of people of color.
It’s the duty of activists to cast a spotlight on the bitter experiences of African American and Latino youth at the hands of police and racists–because if they don’t, no one else will. Since the great African American journalist Ida B. Wells undertook dangerous journeys to the South a century ago to document lynching, it’s always been the Black, socialist and radical press that has taken the lead in exposing racist violence.
The racist murder of Trayvon Martin is, as many have pointed out, our contemporary version of lynching. Wells’ words from her 1895 pamphlet, The Red Record, still ring true:
In slave times the Negro was kept subservient and submissive by the frequency and severity of the scourging, but with freedom, a new system of intimidation came into vogue; the Negro was not only whipped and scourged; he was killed.
The groundswell of protest demanding justice for Trayvon shows that, once again, people are prepared to take up Wells’ legacy of fighting to put an end to these racist atrocities.
Becoming Human PBS NOVA
Part 1
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Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA’s comprehensive, three-part special, “Becoming Human,” examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives.
Part 1, “First Steps,” examines the factors that caused us to split from the other great apes. The program explores the fossil of “Selam,” also known as “Lucy’s Child.” Paleoanthropologist Zeray Alemseged spent five years carefully excavating the sandstone-embedded fossil. NOVA’s cameras are there to capture the unveiling of the face, spine, and shoulder blades of this 3.3 million-year-old fossil child. And NOVA takes viewers “inside the skull” to show how our ancestors’ brains had begun to change from those of the apes.
Why did leaps in human evolution take place? “First Steps” explores a provocative “big idea” that sharp swings of climate were a key factor.
Part 2
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In “Birth of Humanity,” the second part of the three-part series “Becoming Human,” NOVA investigates the first skeleton that really looks like us–“Turkana Boy”–an astonishingly complete specimen of Homo erectus found by the famous Leakey team in Kenya. These early humans are thought to have developed key innovations that helped them thrive, including hunting large prey, the use of fire, and extensive social bonds.
The program examines an intriguing theory that long-distance running–our ability to jog–was crucial for the survival of these early hominids. Not only did running help them escape from vicious predators roaming the grasslands, but it also gave them a unique hunting strategy: chasing down prey animals such as deer and antelope to the point of exhaustion. “Birth of Humanity” also probes how, why, and when humans’ uniquely long period of childhood and parenting began.
Part 3
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In “Last Human Standing,” the final program of the three-part series “Becoming Human,” NOVA examines the fate of the Neanderthals, our European cousins who died out as modern humans spread from Africa into Europe during the Ice Age. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals or exterminate them? The program explores crucial evidence from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome.
How did modern humans take over the world? New evidence suggests that they left Africa and colonized the rest of the globe far earlier, and for different reasons, than previously thought. As for Homo sapiens, we have planet Earth to ourselves today, but that’s a very recent and unusual situation. For millions of years, many kinds of hominids co-existed. At one time Homo sapiens shared the planet with Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and the mysterious “Hobbits”–three-foot-high humans who thrived on the Indonesian island of Flores until as recently as 12,000 years ago.
“Last Human Standing” examines why “we” survived while those other ancestral cousins died out. And it explores the provocative question: In what ways are we still evolving today?
D.C.’s Marion Barry called ‘racist’ for remark about Filipino nurses
For the second time in less than a month, D.C. Council member Marion Barryis having to fend off criticism that he unfairly singled out an ethnic group as he attempted to explain how to get more African Americans trained and employed in the District.
At a hearing Monday on the University of the District of Columbia’s budget, he spoke about the need to train more African Americans to become nurses. In a video of his remarks aired by WTTG-TV, Barry noted a growing number of nurses are “immigrants” from the Philippines.
“[I]f you go to the hospital now, you’ll find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” said Barry (D-Ward 8). “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses, and so that we don’t have to go scrounging in our community clinics and other kinds of places, having to hire people from somewhere else.”
The National Federation of Filipino American Associations called Barry’s remarks “racist” and “bigoted.”
“We reject this continued Asian bashing by elected officials like Mr. Barry and demand that he apologize for his insensitive and irresponsible remarks,” Ed Navarra, chairman of NaFFAA, said in a statement. “We also call on him to engage in a meaningful dialogue with our community so we can better educate the broader American public about the significant contributions that our diverse immigrant communities have made to this country.”
On Tuesday, Barry said he was attempting to make a larger point about the university and the country’s demands for nurses.
“UDC ought to be a premier nursing school in the country. The nursing shortage is so bad we have to bring in nurses from the Philippines. What’s negative about that? Nothing’s negative about that,” he said. “It’s an asset to the United States to have access to nurses from other countries, but I want UDC to be the premier nursing institution.. . . Every time I mention a group, it’s not negative, it’s a fact.”
Earlier this month, Barry was forced to apologize after an election night screed in which he referred to Asian-owned businesses in Ward 8 “as dirty.”
Several of his council colleagues, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) and several Maryland lawmakers of Asian descent publicly condemned Barry’s statements as divisive.
Barry’s remarks Monday appear to track with his long-held views that the city needs to do more to reduce unemployment, particularly in neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. Along with Barry, D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) and a majority of the D.C. Council have embraced policies to require or encourage local businesses and institutions to hire more District residents.
Barry stressed during Monday’s hearing that local colleges could help lower the unemployment if schools such as UDC, which has a growing nursing program, redoubled efforts to identify and train potential nurses.
Because of shortages nationwide, for years hospitals have had to turn overseas to bolster their ranks of nurses. More than half the foreign-trained nurses come from the Philippines, according to a 2005 study by Minority Nurse, which focuses on career and education training.
But Navarra said Barry made a hurtful mistake by singling out an ethnic group. “Filipino nurses and teachers have performed admirably in America’s health care and educational system, and they don’t deserve the harmful and xenophobic rhetoric that pits them against other American professionals,” Navarra said.
Barry’s relationship with the Asian American community could come to a head Thursday, when he’s to conduct an oversight hearing on the Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs.
As chairman of the Committee of Aging and Community Affairs, Barry oversees several District agencies designed to serve as liaisons between the government and minority communities. He created several of the offices when he served as mayor in the 1980s.
The Choice is Yours! SLAVE SERMONS (Episode 39) “Black Sheep”
There were no people called “Hebrew” in 1300 BC, the so-called period of the “great exodus.” Blacks never called themselves “Jews.” The letter “J” is too new for such an old people. Religion to Blacks (even the so-called conscious) is like a drug and living life without it is just too frightening for most. There is usually a problem with trying to correct misinformation: Once people buy into a set of facts, they are unlikely to change their minds, even if presented with evidence to the contrary. Studies in psychology have shown that when people are presented with an absolute correction of misinformation, they tend to believe the myths even more fervently
music video: Yamada Yu – Fly So High
Two white neighborhood watch brothers who ‘beat up 15-year-old black boy’ facing 13 years in prison in new ‘Trayvon’ case
Trial: Eliyahu, pictured left, and Avi Werdesheim are accused of beating a 15-year-old boy who was walking through a Baltimore neighborhood in November 2010
Two brothers accused of beating a black teenager so badly they broke his wrist while patrolling an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood are set to go on trial Monday in a case with similarities to the Trayvon Martin shooting.
The brothers, who are white and Jewish, have claimed self-defense, saying the teen was holding a nail-studded board.
Local civil rights activists hope the Martin case will draw more attention to what they believe was racial profiling by neighborhood watch vigilantes.
Eliyahu and Avi Werdesheim are accused of beating a 15-year-old boy who was walking through a Baltimore neighborhood in November 2010.
The brothers pulled up next to the teen in a vehicle, then got out and ‘surrounded him,’ according to charging documents.
The passenger threw the teen to the ground and the driver hit him in the head with a hand-held radio and patted him down.
The teen remembered the driver yelling, ‘You wanna (mess) with us, you don’t belong around here, get outta here!’ according to court documents, which do not identify which brother was driving.
While the teen struggled, a third man got out of a van and kneed the teen, pinning him to the ground.
The teen told police that he stopped struggling and the third man continued to search him, while the teen insisted he didn’t have anything on him.
Eliyahu Werdesheim told the Baltimore Jewish Times that he was acting in self-defense because the teen was holding the piece of wood.
The teen picked up the board during the encounter, but put it back down, said J. Wyndal Gordon, an attorney for the teen’s family. He said the family did not want to speak publically.
After the trio left, the teen called police and was taken to a hospital with a cut on the back of his head and a broken wrist, according to court documents.
Using a photo book compiled by investigators, the teen later identified Eliyahu Werdesheim, now 24, as one of the men who assaulted him.
He was arrested after about 10 days; his now 21-year-old brother was charged two months later.
The brothers are charged with second-degree assault, false imprisonment and carrying a deadly weapon (the hand-held radio).
The pair face up to 13 years in prison if convicted on all three counts. A third man, identified in a lawsuit brought by the teen’s family as Ronald Rosenbluth, does not face charges.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said investigators don’t believe Rosenbluth was involved in the beating. Rosenbluth said he doesn’t believe there was a third person and he was only called to the scene after the incident.
Law enforcement officials emphasize that neighborhood watchers’ responsibility is to report crime, and leave interventions to police. Most follow the rules, and confrontations are rare.
‘We owe a lot of our success to communities that have stepped up and partnered with police. They help us out,’ Guglielmi said. ‘But when they step too far, we have to hold people accountable.’
In the Florida case, authorities charged neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman this month with second-degree murder in Martin’s death Feb. 26.
Zimmerman claims self-defense, but Martin’s family claims he targeted Martin mainly because he was black. Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother Hispanic.
t’s unusual to have a trial in which the allegations mirror a case so prominent in the news, said Steven Levin, a former federal prosecutor.
‘Since the Trayvon Martin case, people cannot help but think about that case and draw comparisons, whether they are fair or not,’ he said.
‘Since the Trayvon Martin case, people cannot help but think about that case and draw comparisons, whether they are fair or not,’ he said.
In the Werdesheim case, the six trial postponements could significantly hinder the defense’s case, Levin said.
However, the charges against Zimmerman since the last postponement may mean jurors won’t feel that they need to somehow set things right through the case they are deciding.
Eliyahu Werdesheim was suspended from the neighborhood group while Avi was never a member, according to Nathan Willner, general counsel for Shomrim of Baltimore, a group that patrols neighborhoods with a large concentration of Jewish residents and institutions in the Baltimore area.
Shomrim, which is Hebrew for guard, has about 30 volunteer, unarmed responders. It was founded in 2005 to provide security and gather information for police, Willner said.
While the case has not garnered the attention the Martin shooting has, Cortly C.D. Witherspoon, president of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, has organized protests outside the courthouse during court hearings and has been frustrated by the postponements.
‘We feel that justice should have been served long ago. I would contend that the urgency for justice (in this case) is affected by the Trayvon Martin case because of the similarities,’ he said.
Members of the area’s Jewish community also rallied outside the courthouse when the brothers appeared in court to enter not guilty pleas in February. Jakob Lurman, the owner of a barbershop, was among them.
‘I have a business in the community. Shomrim do good work,’ Lurman said. ‘I don’t know what happened in that case, but I wanted to show support.’
Jewish neighborhood watch groups in New York City have faced accusations of unnecessary force against blacks, creating tensions between the Jewish and black communities.
That hasn’t yet happened in Baltimore, according to the Rev. Alvin Gwynn Sr., president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance.
The organization of predominantly black clergy met with leaders of the area’s Jewish community to keep relationships between the two communities strong.
‘We were already working with them when this came up,’ Gwynn said. ‘It hasn’t done much damage yet.’
Baltimore is a city that’s 64 percent black, and the jury will likely have eight or nine black members. So race will be a factor, said University of Baltimore School of Law professor and practicing attorney Byron Warnken.
‘What the defense has to do is completely downplay that,’ he said, and show the force was necessary to prevent a crime.
Susan Green, an attorney for Avi Werdesheim, said last month that she hoped the media coverage would not create an atmosphere that would make it difficult for her client, but declined to comment further.
The attorney for Eliyahu Werdesheim did not return calls for comment.
Why Do Blacks REALLY Love Jesus? (Episode 38) SLAVE SERMONS “The Whipping Post”
Those in power have always used religion as a transport system into the psychology of the people. Here is a very brief explanation of how the conquerors of the world used and continue to use religion to maintain dominance over the masses.
The conquerors of various cultures ultimately become the providers of resources to those cultures which overtime will appear as a “naturally superior” group over a “naturally inferior” group. Once this perception is established, it becomes easier for the conqueror to convince the conquered that their position has been divinely arranged and part of an omniscient plan. The conquered people on the bottom, in reality, have no fair way of reaching the top and are now at the mercy of those on the top to provide them with a liberating belief system, of which those on the top pretend to have experienced.
The dream of the conquered to be in the position of their conquerors becomes so great that the conquerors must provide a way to make their dreams come true without actually changing their collective position. This is achieved by creating the illusion that they can make it to the top. There are many ways this is done but the most efficient way of accomplishing this illusion is by creating a theology that offers the people on the bottom a way to get to the top (heaven)—virtually.
A monotheistic belief system is created and at its essence, is a loving, kind and all-inclusive savior that allows an opportunity for the conquerors to be forgiven for their transgressions. The conqueror’s diabolical acts of enslaving, subjugating and decimating various cultures are willingly expunged by the conquered through the act of forgiveness. The conquered passively become bound, tied or fastened (Latin description of the derivation of the word religion/religare) to “god” and worship instead of freedom and liberation. Individual and personal relationships with provided deities take precedence over group goals and agendas, which is what constitutes a culture in the first place. The conquered pathologically rationalize their privation with the hope and faith that one day their predicament will change and they will ultimately be escorted to a place where unconditional love, wealth and peace abound.
Religious belief and imperialistic agendas go hand-in-hand. In order to break the cycle of ecclesiastical enslavement, one must be willing to challenge the status quo, particularly in areas pertaining to psychological bondage. As long as religion exists, there will be fear, powerlessness, dependency, separatism, imperialism and delusion. Until we (the conquered) understand how we arrived at where we are in terms of our beliefs and how our beliefs perpetuate social impotence, we will continue to be the bottom-feeders of the world. There is no divine plan behind the equation of conqueror over conquered. The meek have not inherited anything and the last have not finished first. It is only by recognizing that real liberation comes from knowing the conqueror’s motives and strategies. Conquerors need victims and bible believing, “god”-fearing, church loving people are just the prey that keeps them in power. Religion must die so that we may live.
Latina maid stereotype: Eva Longoria to direct tv series “Devious Maids”
Eva Longoria and company selling out to racist Hollywood
Eva Longoria may be saying goodbye to Wisteria Lane, but don’t think she’s leaving the world of primetime soaps.
Turning up in New York City this Good Friday to hype Pepsi’s new reduced sugar cola, Pepsi Next, the Desperate Housewives star talked to E! News exclusively about her future plans once the hit ABC drama draws to an end on May 13, including her new matchmaking show and a little something called Devious Maids.
If it’s as devious as Desperate‘s final hurrah, viewers are in for a treat!
Per Longoria, Devious Maids is a new spicy serial drama she’s executive producing with Desperate mastermind Marc Cherry and ABC Studios that—like Housewives—follows four female leads. Only in the setup, which takes its cues from a Mexican telenovela format, the hot Latinas played by Ana Ortiz, Roselyn Sanchez, Dania Ramirez and Judy Reyes are the help.
“It’s probably going to fill [the Desperate Housewives] void really nicely,” Eva tells E!. “It’s about four women, four maids and their employers and their lives and it is so funny and dramatic and mysterious. It’s got all the great elements that Desperate Housewives has but with different content, a different point of view—the help’s point of view.”
Muy caliente! The show reportedly starts shooting next month.
But that’s not all Longoria’s got cooking. Following her 2010 divorce from NBA star Tony Parker and her recent breakup with Salma Hayek‘s little brother, Eduardo Cruz, after a nearly year-long relationship, the newly single actress is also playing cupid.
She’s developing All About Love, a new dating series in which professional matchmakers Steve Ward and Amber Kelleher pair up singles looking for love in all the wrong places.
As for last month’s mistrial in Nicollette Sheridan‘s wrongful termination suit against Cherry, Longoria told E! that she and her fellow castmates were largely unaffected by the legal battle which she told Good Morning America yesterday was an unfortunate “stain on our legacy as a hit show.”
“It was like a sideshow,” said the 37-year-old thesp. “We’d get an update once in a while then it was over. We were never really called to testify or get in the middle of it and then it just kind of happened on its own. It had absolutely zero effect on set.”
As a Mexican-American, Longoria also has been held up as the poster child for network diversity, a role she’s continued to embrace wholeheartedly in helping minorities gain a larger presence in the entertainment business.
“I think there’s definitely been an increase in minority groups on television whether it’s women or African-Americans or Hispanics or Asian-Americans,” she notes. ” It’s still not accurately reflective of the American demographic. I think [Hispanics] are maybe 10 percent of TV but 16 percent of the population. And I think there’s a lot of room for improvement for females in television which is the other minority group. But I think slowly but surely it’ll get up there.”
Longoria adds that is the reason she loves producing.
“As women you’re not gonna be able to sit back and wait for that role to come along. You’re gonna have to go write it, produce it, direct it and get it on the air,” she says.
And when she’s not hawking Pepsi Next, the soda giant’s latest stab at the diet market with 60 percent less sugar, Longoria also serves as a campaign co-chair for President Obama’s 2012 re-election effort.
Racist Hollywood WhiteWashing: Warm Bodies
Hollywood as usual displaying their white supremacist nature in making movies. White washing Nora a browned skinned biracial woman who has an Ethiopian father
Hollywood is remaking this zombie novel into a movie. the supporting character in the book is described as:
“Nora is sitting in the sand in front of the log, playing with some pebelles and pinching a smouldering joint between her middle finger and the stub of her ring finger, missing past the first knuckle. Her eyes are earth brown; her skin is creamy coffee.”
“At least you have some cultural heritage you can hold on to. Your dad was Ethiopian, right?”
“Yeah, but what does that mean to me. He didn’t remember his country, I never went there, and now it doesn’t exist. All that leaves me with is brown skin, and who pays attention to colour any more?” [Nora] waves a hand towards my face. “In a year or two we’re all going to be grey anyway.”
Hollywood being the racist pieces of shit they are choose a white American figure skater, actress, and fashion model Analeigh Tipton, to portay Nora who is a biracial browned skinned woman who have an Ethiopian Father.
Living in Anglo-America 