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Tag Archives: captain
Rough seas ahead: why the government's James Cook infatuation may further divide the nation
The Morrison government has committed $50million to celebrate next year's 250th anniversary of Cook's landing at Kurnell on April 29, 1770.
AAP/Marc McCormack
Benjamin T. Jones, CQUniversity Australia
It is fitting that Scott Morrison represents the federal division of Cook, named after British explorer James Cook. First as treasurer, and now as prime minister, Morrison is committed to a A$50 million plan to celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of Cook's landing at Kurnell on April 29, 1770. He has announced A$6.7million for a replica of the Endeavour to circumnavigate the country (something Cook himself never did).
Cook and his treatment by public memory can be seen as the latest front in an ongoing culture war. It is a debate centred on how Australian history – especially its colonial history – should be understood. Which voices and stories should be included, and excluded, from the dominant narrative?
Morrison frames this is as an extension of the campaigns to change January 26 as Australia Day. In 2018, he lambasted the "indulgent self-loathing" of those who wanted to change the date. He tweeted – incorrectly – that "Our modern Aus nation began on January 26, 1788". This predates the flag, Constitution, five out of six states, and even the word "Australia".
But this was never about historical accuracy. Deputy Nationals leader Bridget McKenzie claimed – also wrongly – that January 26, 1788, was "when Captain Cook stepped ashore". He actually died in 1779. But nevertheless, as the man who claimed Australia for Britain, Cook has become a symbol of settler-colonialism with his legacy intertwined with Australia Day.
Morrison is determined that 2020 be a year of government-led celebration of Cook's exploits. The justification for the anniversary spend is as much ideological as historical. Morrison claimed:
he gets a bit of a bad show from some of those who like to sort of talk down our history.
Explorer James Cook has come to symbolise Australia's divided view of its history and how it should be celebrated.
The use of public money to cast Cook in a positive light is a continuation of the "history wars" that flared up during the prime ministership of John Howard. He rejected the "black armband" view that saw Australian history as a "disgraceful story". On balance, Howard insisted, it was one of "heroic achievement".
For Morrison, Cook is the embodiment of a colonial hero whose reputation has been tarnished by left-wing "activists". He laments that "it's very trendy to talk down James Cook and all that sort of stuff".
Presumably "all that sort of stuff" is a gentle euphemism for dispossession and the destruction of Indigenous cultures.
Australia's 'history wars' reignite
Debate over Cook's legacy briefly raged in 2017. Indigenous journalist Stan Grant questioned the plaudit, "discovered this territory 1770", etched in stone at Cook's statue in Sydney's Hyde Park. Soon after, "change the date" was spray-painted on the base.
The then prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, insisted Grant was "dead wrong". Using rhetoric that bordered on the ridiculous, Turnbull took to Facebook to describe the graffiti as part of a "totalitarian campaign". He also dismissed calls to change the date of Australia Day, condemning the "Stalinist exercise of trying to wipe out or obliterate or blank out parts of our history".
The Morrison government's decision to punish councils that do not acknowledge January 26, to introduce dress codes at citizenship ceremonies, to refuse to discuss the date of Australia Day, and to spend millions on Cook's 250th anniversary, all stem from the same culture war.
The Liberal Party's Twitter page claims it is trying to "protect Australia Day from activists". But the heavy-handed attempts to cast Cook as some high priest in the church of Australian nationalism stifles debate and skews history. Increasing social unease with traditional colonial narratives is not based on a desire to deny history, but to expand it and to include the perspective of First Nations.
As historian Mark McKenna notes, the communities in Kurnell and Cooktown have worked hard to connect with Indigenous leaders and find new ways to commemorate Cook's voyage. But crucially, this requires a willingness to accepts history's nuances and diversity. It requires moving beyond the false dichotomy of utter shame or complete pride in Australia's history.
Few would dispute that Cook was a brilliant navigator and explorer. But there is also a question of balance. The Captain Cook Society notes that he is commemorated by more than 100 memorials, many in Australia. It is hardly a "Stalinist exercise" to suggest that Cook is already well honoured and that a more worthy project might be a new Indigenous museum.
The original lyrics to Advance Australian Fair boasted that when "gallant Cook from Albion sailed … true British courage bore him on". Veneration of Cook has been historically tied to British patriotism. As the Sydney Morning Herald noted in 1929, Australia's great patriotic moments for "all who share British blood" occur in April. It included in this, Cook's landing, the landing at Gallipoli, St George's Day, and the birth of Shakespeare.
Our nation has changed.
Cook is no longer the national hero he once was, for the simple reason that Australians no longer see themselves as British, sharing in British achievements. More importantly, since W.E.H. Stanner's call to end the "great Australian silence" in 1968, Australians have become more aware of the ancient cultures that possessed this land at least as far back as the Pleistocene. Retreating into the lazy "cult of forgetfulness" with a government-promoted, triumphant Cook narrative, narrows a history that has been slowly broadening for decades.
Friday essay: the 'great Australian silence' 50 years on
The anniversary in 2020 of Cook's voyage can and should be marked. But without genuine consultation with First Nations peoples to find a form and language that offers respect, it will be another exercise in exclusion. If the memorials and events suggest, in former prime minster Tony Abbott's words, that before the British arrived Australia was "barely settled", we will know we have failed yet again.
Benjamin T. Jones, Lecturer in History, CQUniversity Australia
Posted in Australia, Liberal Party, news, Politics, Special Days	| Tagged article, Australia, captain, James Cook, news, Politics | Leave a comment
Cricket: Shane Watson to Captain Australia
Posted on March 22, 2013 by particularkev
Michael Clarke has been ruled out of the fourth test against India which starts today. Shane Watson will captain the team in what is likely to be another loss. The link below is to an article reporting on the elevation of Watson to captain.
http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/watson-named-australian-captain-as-clarke-ruled-out-20130322-2gkfu.html
Posted in Australia, cricket, India, Michael Clarke, news, Shane Watson, sport	| Tagged article, Australia, captain, cricket, elevation, fourth, India, likely, loss, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, starts, team, test | Leave a comment
Nepal Christians Fight for Burial Rights
Posted on February 17, 2011 by particularkev
Nearly 200 graves face demolition.
KATHMANDU, Nepal, January 25 (CDN) — Three years after the death of a Christian who was a captain in the Nepal Army, his widow, Gamala Guide, faces fresh grief.
The grave of her husband, Narayan Guide, is threatened with destruction as authorities of Nepal's most powerful Hindu temple are reclaiming the forested land where it is located.
"What kind of strange country is this that doesn't allow its own citizens to rest in peace?" the 55-year-old recently asked leaders of the Christian community in Kathmandu. "Please do something to stop the desecration, or my husband will die a second death."
At least 200 graves, many of them unmarked due to Christians' fear of discovery and destruction, could share the same fate. The Pashupatinath Area Development Trust, the organization administering the Pashupatinath temple that dates back to the fourth century AD, has begun renovating the shrine as Nepal celebrates 2011 as its "tourism year" with the goal of attracting 1 million visitors. The temple has been declared a world heritage site by UNESCO.
"In the late 1980s, the government gave us 292 hectares of land to develop the Pashupatinath temple," said Ram Saran Chimoria, director of the trust. "We have accordingly drawn up a five-year plan that will renovate the main shrine and beautify its surroundings. The forested land adjoining the temple will be used to grow plants considered sacred by Hindus."
Chimoria said part of the forest is also meant to be used for Hindu burials.
"A Hindu sect called the Dashnami, which has 10 sub-groups under it, buries its dead here, as Muslims and Christians do," he said. "Since Pashupatinath is a Hindu temple, the 10 sub-groups are allowed to bury their dead here. But other communities also began burying their dead here, first pretending to be the Dashnami and then clandestinely. This is against Hindu traditions, and the temple is seeking to reclaim what belongs to it. It is the responsibility of the government to allot burial grounds to non-Hindus, not the trust's."
The burial ground lies opposite Arya Ghat, a cremation ground at Pashupatinath, where bodies are burned on pyres according to Hindu tradition. Known as the Sleshmantak Forest, it is a steep and nearly inaccessible wooded tract where monkeys and foxes roam. Locals advise visitors not to wander into the forest alone, even during day time, for fear of robbers.
"I attended several burial rites there," said Chirendra Satyal, spokesman of the Catholic Assumption Church of Kathmandu Valley. "They were all low-key. Many of the graves are unmarked to avoid detection. The burial ground is used as a garbage dumping site, and at times foxes dig up the buried bodies. There are also cases of bodies being dumped on top of one another."
An increasingly angry Christian community, tired of petitioning the government for an official burial ground, is now seeking stronger measures.
"Nepal became secular in 2006, and two years later, we petitioned the prime minister, the culture minister and the top human rights agency in Nepal, saying that in a secular democracy Christians should have the same rights as others and should be given their own burial ground," said C.B. Gahatraj, general secretary of a Christian committee formed to provide recommendations to parliament, which is drafting a new constitution. "We understand the temple's position. But the state should understand ours too."
The committee had identified forested land on the outskirts of the Kathmandu Valley, in an area called Duwakot, and proposed that it be given to them.
"We would make it one of the most idyllic sites in Nepal," said Gahatraj. "It would have gardens and would be an attractive destination for tourists as well. But so far, there has been no response from the state."
Believing the time has come for stronger action, Christians plan to discuss the issue with 22 major parliamentary parties on Sunday (Jan. 30).
"At the meeting, we will present our case again," Gahatraj said. "We also want the trust to suspend the demolition drive till we are given our own land. If there's no result, we will internationalize our case by taking our problem to international rights organizations and the United Nations."
As the first such public protest, on Feb. 15 at Maitighar Mandala, one of the most prominent areas of the capital, the Christian community will begin a "relay hunger strike." Christians are also beginning the first-ever Christian census this year to ascertain their true position in society.
"We estimate there are about 2 million Christians now [out of a population of nearly 29 million]," Gahatraj said.
Catholics, however, form a tiny fraction of the Christian community. Satyal assessed there were about 7,500 Catholics. In 2009, three women were killed at the Assumption Church when a militant underground organization planted a bomb there. All three had to be cremated.
"Land is a premium commodity in Kathmandu Valley," said Anthony Sharma, Nepal's first Catholic bishop. "When the living don't have land, it is futile to seek land for the dead. We have accepted cremation for Catholics in Nepal in keeping with acceptance worldwide."
But even the cremation is dogged by discrimination.
"The Arya Ghat cremation ground at Pashupatinath distinguishes between upper castes and lower castes," the bishop said. "If Christians are taken there, they would be treated as lower castes. So we have organized our own cremation site in Teku [in a different part of the town]."
Madhav Kumar Nepal, who resigned as prime minister on June 30 but leads a caretaker government, was regarded as having a soft spot for Christians. After the attack on the Assumption church, he was among the first state officials to visit the injured in the hospital and kept his promise to bring the culprits to justice, with police managing to arrest the blast mastermind.
Nepal resigned last year under pressure by the largest opposition party, and since then the turbulent republic has remained under a powerless caretaker government, unable to make any major decision.
With the squabbling political parties unable to form a new government and a political deadlock spilling into its seventh month, there are now new fears about the prospective constitution, which is expected to consolidate the secular nature of the nation. The constitution was to have been completed last year, but as the bickering parties failed to accomplish the task, the deadline was extended to May 28.
The delay has enabled a spurt in activities of Hindus calling for the restoration of Hinduism as the state religion. If Nepal's May deadline fails as well, Christians fear it could be impossible to obtain their own official burial site.
Posted in Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Nepal, Roman Catholicism, United Nations	| Tagged 2006, 2011, agency, Arya Ghat, authorities, burial, C.B. Gahatraj, capital, captain, Catholic Assumption Church of Kathmandu Valley, Chirendra Satyal, Christian, Christianity, Christians, citizens, communities, community, country, cremation, culture minister, Dashnami, death, declared, democracy, demolition, destruction, director, Duwakot, fight, forested, foxes, fresh, Gamala Guide, General Secretary, government, graves, grief, ground, heritage, Hindu, Hinduism, Hindus, human rights, hunger, Islam, Kathmandu, land, located, Maitighar Mandala, monkeys, Muslim, muslims, Narayan Guide, Nepal, Nepal Army, Pashupatinath, Pashupatinath Area Development Trust, peace, Persecution, powerful, Prime Minister, pyres, Ram Saran Chimoria, reclaiming, relay, renovating, rest, rights, robbers, sect, secular, shrine, site, Sleshmantak Forest, spokesman, strange, strike, sub-groups, temple, threatened, tourism, tradition, trust, UN, UNESCO, United Nations, unmarked, widow, world, year | Leave a comment
Islamic Groups Aim to Shut Down Church in Indonesia
Posted on December 8, 2010 by particularkev
Muslims protest West Java congregation as it worships.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, November 19 (CDN) — More than 50 people from Islamic groups demonstrated against a church in West Java on Nov. 7, chanting for it to stop worshipping during its Sunday service, according to Muslim online news site Arrahmah.com.
The King of Glory church of the Christian Congregation of Indonesia denomination (Jemat Kristen Indonesia or JKI) was worshipping in the Graha Mulia (Planet of Glory) Multi-purpose Building in Karasak village, Astanaanyar district of Bandung City, when the protestors gathered. Chanting "Allahu akbar [God is greater]," the crowd claimed the building was not approved for worship purposes, according to another Islamic Web site, Hidayatullah.com.
Protesting members of the Karasak Muslim Citizens Communication Forum, the Islamic Congregation Front and West Java Islamic Reformation Movement (GARIS) said the church did not have permission from area residents, although church leaders said an area official had given permission since 2005.
With 100 police officers on hand to maintain order, the poster-waving crowed chanted for an hour before slowly dispersing. During the protest, Muslim Citizens Communication Forum leader Fikri Saeful said, "The citizens reject church activities in this area because there is no permission from local citizens," according Hidayatullah.com.
Fikri added that the church had reached out to area residents with free medical clinics and distribution of basic food items.
Agus Nugroho, a leader of the JKI church and an administrator of the Graha Mulia building, told Compass that the church had permission from the local area official known as a ward captain. The church submitted an application for a permit at a higher governmental level in 2005, he said. Church permit applications are often stalled in Indonesian government offices, opening the way for Muslim groups to accuse them of worshipping without official permission.
"We have been worshipping here since 2005 because we had trouble finding a place to worship," Agus said. "We do have permission from the local government for worship."
According to Agus, that permission did not have an expiration date. Moreover, he said, neither the building managers nor the church leaders have ever received a written complaint about the worship services.
"There have never been any problems between the citizens and the building managers or with the church," Agus said.
He said that there was no regulation against using a multi-purpose building for worship services.
"We managers have no objections," he added.
Anyone with objections to the use of a multi-purpose building by a church should pursue legal remedies, he said. The Graha Mulia building is also the location for the JKI Raja Kemuliaan Church.
GARIS leader Surayana Nurfatwa, however, told Compass the church his organization had received complaints from area residents, and that the church had no official permission for worship from them.
"We have received many reports from citizens who objected to these worship services," Nurfatwa said, adding that the church's continued worship would disrupt "religious harmony" and could result in conflict with the Muslim majority.
Posted in Christianity, Indonesia, Islam	| Tagged 2005, accuse, activities, administrator, against, Agus Nugroho, aim, Akbar, Allah, application, approved, area, Astanaanyar, Bandung City, basic, building, captain, chanting, Christian, Christian Congregation of Indonesia, Christianity, Christians, church, citizens, claimed, clinics, complaint, conflict, congregation, continued, crowd, date, demonstrated, denomination, dispersing, disrupt, distribution, district, down, expiration, Fikri Saeful, finding, food, free, GARIS, gathered, God, government, governmental, Graha Mulia, greater, groups, harmony, higher, Indonesia, Indonesian, Islam, Islamic, Islamic Congregation Front, items, Jakarta, Jemat Kristen Indonesia, JKI, Karasak, Karasak Muslim Citizens Communication Forum, King of Glory, known, leader, leaders, legal, level, local, maintain, majority, managers, medical, members, Multi-purpose, Muslim, muslims, objected, objections, officers, offices, official, opening, order, organization, permission, permit, Persecution, place, Planet of Glory, police, poster-waving, problems, protest, protestors, purposes, pursue, Raja Kemuliaan Church, reached, received, regulation, reject, religious, remedies, residents, result, shut, slowly, stalled, stop, submitted, Surayana Nurfatwa, trouble, using, village, ward, way, West Java, West Java Islamic Reformation Movement, worship, worshipping, worships, written | Leave a comment
Egyptian Convert Endures Life at a Standstill – on the Run
Daughter unable to attend school, church; acid thrown on her jacket.
CAIRO, Egypt, May 25 (CDN) — From the mosque across the street, words blasting from minaret megaphones reverberate throughout the tiny apartment where Maher Ahmad El-Mo'otahssem Bellah El-Gohary is forced to hide. Immediately following afternoon prayers, the Friday sermon is, in part, on how to deal with Christians.
"Do not shake their hands. Do not go into their homes. Do not eat their food," an imam shouts as El-Gohary, a convert to Christianity from Islam, looks through his window toward the mosque, shakes his head and grimaces.
"I hope one day to live in a place where there are no mosques," he says. "How many megaphones do they need?"
For nearly two years, El-Gohary and his teenage daughter have been living in hiding because he abandoned Islam and embraced Christianity. During this time he has been beaten and forcibly detained, and his daughter has been attacked. He has had to endure death threats, poverty and crushing boredom.
Asked what gets him through the constant pressure of living on the run, El-Gohary said he wants to show the world how Christians are treated in Egypt.
"My main driving force is I want to prove to people the amount of persecution that Muslim converts and Christians face here, and that the persecution has been going on for 1,400 years," he said.
When asked the same question, his 16-year-old daughter, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo'otahssem, pushed back tears and said one word.
"God."
El-Gohary, 57, and his daughter were forced into hiding shortly after August 2008, when he sued the national government to allow him to change the religion listed on his state-issued ID from Islam to Christianity.
El-Gohary followed in the footsteps of Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, 27, also a convert from Islam, in filing an ID case because he didn't want his daughter to be forced to take Islamic education classes or have her declared an "apostate" by Egyptian Islamic authorities if she decided to stay a Christian into adulthood. Dina is required by law to possess an ID card. The ID card is used for everything from opening a bank account to receiving medical care. The identification also determines whether Egyptians are subject to Islamic civil courts.
Dina is the daughter of El-Gohary and his first wife, who is a Muslim. El-Gohary said that before he got married, he told his future wife that one day he would be baptized as a Christian. He said he now thinks she was convinced that he would eventually turn back to Islam. Over time, she grew tired of his refusal go back on his faith and complained to El-Gohary's family, demanding a divorce.
"She started crying. She went to my parents and my brother and said, 'This is not going to work out, I thought that he was going to change his mind. I didn't think he was that serious about it,'" El-Gohary said. "She started talking about it to other people to the point where they started calling me from the loudspeakers of the local mosque, asking me what I was doing and ordering me to come back and pray."
Eventually El-Gohary married another Muslim, and over the years she became a Christian. She has fled Egypt and lives in the United States; El-Gohary hasn't seen her since March 2009.
On April 11, 2009, El-Gohary's lawyers presented a conversion certificate from the Coptic Church in court. He obtained the certificate under court directions after going to Cyprus, at great expense, to obtain a baptismal certificate. The next month, the State Council, a consultative body of Egypt's Administrative Court, provided the court with a report stating that El-Gohary's change of faith violated Islamic law. They instructed that he should be subject to the death penalty.
In February 2009, lawyers opposing El-Gohary's case advocated that he be sentenced to death for apostasy. On June 13, 2009, a Cairo judge rejected El-Gohary's suit.
On Sept. 17, 2009, authorities at Cairo International Airport seized his passport. He was trying to travel to China with the eventual hope of going to the United States. On March 9, 2010, the Egyptian State Council Court in Giza, an administrative court, refused to return his passport. He has another hearing about the passport on June 29.
"I think it's a kind of punishment, to set an example to other Muslims who want to convert," El-Gohary said. "They want me to stay here and suffer to show other converts to be afraid. They are also afraid that if they let me go, then I will get out and start talking about what is happening in Egypt about the persecution and the injustice. We are trapped in our own country without even the rights that animals have."
As recently as last week, El-Gohary and his daughter were living in a small, two-bedroom apartment across the street from a mosque on the outskirts of an undisclosed city in Egypt. The floor was littered with grime and bits of trash. Clumps of dust and used water bottles were everywhere.
El-Gohary had taped over the locks, as well as taped shut the inside of windows and doors, to guard against eavesdroppers and intruders. He had taped over all the drain holes of the sinks to keep anyone from pumping in natural gas at night.
Even the shower drain was taped over.
The yellow walls were faded, scuffed and barren, save for a single picture, a holographic portrait of Jesus, taped up in what qualified as a living room. El-Gohary motioned through a door to a porch outside. Rocks and pebbles thrown by area residents who recently learned that he lived there covered the porch.
"I would open the window, but I don't want the rocks to start coming in," he said.
El-Gohary has an old television set and a laptop with limited access to the Internet. Dina said she spends her time reading the Bible, talking to her father or drawing the occasional dress in preparation for obtaining her dream job, designing clothes.
Even the simple task of leaving El-Gohary's apartment is fraught with risk. Every time he leaves, he places a padlock on the door, wraps it with a small plastic bag and melts the bag to the lock with a match.
El-Gohary cannot work and has to rely on the kindness of other Christians. People bring him food and water and the occasional donation. When the food runs out, he has to brave going outside.
"Our life is extremely, extremely hard. It's hard for us to attend a church more than once because people will know it is us," he said. "We can't go to a supermarket more than once because we are going to be killed."
Possibly the worst part for El-Gohary is watching his daughter suffer. A reflective youth with a gentle demeanor, Dina is quick to smile. But at a time when her life should be filled with friends, freedom and self-discovery, she is instead confined between four walls.
Even going to school, normally a simple thing, is fraught with dangerous possibilities. Dina hasn't gone to school in about a year. She said that the last time she did, other students ridiculed her mercilessly, and a teacher hit her when she tried to attend religious classes for Christians instead of Muslims.
Now she and her father fear she could be beaten, kidnapped and forcibly converted, or simply killed. She can't even go to church, she said.
"I don't understand why I am being treated this way," she said. "I believe in something, Christianity – I chose the religion because I love it. So why should I be treated this way?"
Dina was a little girl when she starting hearing about Jesus. Her father used to sit with her and tell her stories from the Bible, and he also told her about his conversion experience. Like her father, she cites a supernatural experience as a defining event in her faith.
One night, she said, she had a dream in which an enormous image of Jesus smiling appeared in a garden. She said the image became bigger and bigger until it touched the ground and became a golden church. She told her father about the dream, and since then she has believed in Christ.
Under Islamic law, Dina is considered a Muslim because her father was born as one. Because, like her father, Dina has decided to follow Christ, she is considered an "apostate" under most interpretations of Islamic law.
She gained national prominence in November 2009, when she wrote a letter, through a Coptic website, to U.S. President Barack Obama. She told the president that Muslims in the United States are treated much better than Copts in Egypt and asked why this was the case. She hopes the president will pressure the Egyptian government to ensure religious rights or let her and her father immigrate to the United States.
One afternoon last month, Dina was walking to a market with her father. As the two walked, El-Gohary noticed smoke and vapors coming off Dina's jacket. The canvas was sizzling and dissolving. Someone had poured acid over the jacket. El-Gohary ripped it off her and threw it away.
"I asked people if they saw what happened and everyone said, 'No, we didn't see anything,'" El-Gohary said.
Luckily, Dina was not physically injured in the attack, but since then she has been terrified to go outside.
"I am very, very scared," she said. "I haven't gone outside since the attack happened."
Change of Faith
El-Gohary, also known as Peter Athanasius, became a Christian 36 years ago while attending an academy for police trainees. During his second year of school, he became good friends with his roommate, a Copt and the only Christian in the academy. After watching cadets harass his roommate for praying, El-Gohary asked him why the others had ridiculed him.
"For me, it was the first time I had heard something like that," El-Gohary said. "I didn't have any Christian friends before, and I didn't know about the level of persecution that takes place against Christians."
Eventually, El-Gohary asked his friend for a Bible and took it home. His family tried to dissuade him from reading it.
"No, you can't read the Bible," his father told him. "It's a really bad book."
Undeterred, El-Gohary began reading the Bible in the privacy of his room. In the beginning, he said, the Bible was difficult to understand. But El-Gohary concentrated his efforts on the New Testament, and for the first time in his life, he said, he felt like God was speaking to him.
El-Gohary read the account of Jesus meeting the woman caught committing adultery, and the level of mercy that Jesus showed her transformed him, he said.
"Jesus said, 'If anyone among you is without sin, then let him throw the first stone.' The amount of forgiveness and love in this story really opened my eyes to the nature of Christianity," El-Gohary said. "The main law that Jesus talked about was loving God 'with all your heart, soul and mind.' The basis of Christianity is love and forgiveness, unlike Islam, where it is based on revenge, fighting and war."
Also, El-Gohary said, when he compared the two religions' versions of heaven, he found that the Islamic version was about physical pleasure, whereas for Christians it was about being released from the physical world to be with God.
El-Gohary said his decision to follow Christ was final after he had a brilliant vision of light in his bedroom at his parents' home, accompanied by the presence of "the peace of God." El-Gohary said at first he thought he was seeing things, but then his father knocked on the door and demanded to know why the light was on. He told his father he was looking for something.
Persecution Begins
As a budding Christian convert, El-Gohary went back to the police academy and learned as much as he could about Christ and the Bible from his roommate. Persecution wasn't long in coming.
One day an upperclassman spotted El-Gohary absent-mindedly drawing a cross on a notebook. The cadet sent El-Gohary to a superior for questioning.
El-Gohary avoided telling academy officials that his roommate had taught him about Christianity, but a captain at the school was able to piece together the evidence. The captain called El-Gohary's father, a high-ranking officer at the academy, who in turn told the captain to make the young convert's life "hell."
Officials were imaginative in their attempts to break El-Gohary. He had to wake up before all the other students. He was ordered to carry his mattress around buildings and up and down flights of stairs. They exercised El-Gohary until he was about to pass out. Then they forced him to clean bathroom facilities with a toothbrush.
El-Gohary was not swayed from Christ, but he decided he couldn't stay in what he said is the agency that "is the center of persecution against Christians" in Egypt. He tried numerous times to resign, but officials wouldn't let him. Then he tried to get kicked out. Eventually, officials suspended the police cadet and sent him home for two weeks. At home, his family had a surprise waiting; they had hired an Islamic scholar to bring him back to Islam.
The scholar started by yelling Islamic teachings into El-Gohary's ears, then moved on to write Quranic verses on his arms. El-Gohary remained seated and bore the humiliation in silence. Suddenly El-Gohary stood up, pinned the man against a wall and started yelling at him; the convert had caught the distinct smell of burning flesh – when he looked down at his arms, El-Gohary saw the scholar burning his hands with thin, smoldering iron rods.
"I said, 'Enough! I have tolerated all of your talk. I have listened to all you have said, but this has gone too far,'" El-Gohary recalled. "The man said I had a 'Christian demon' inside me."
As bad as things have been for El-Gohary and his daughter, their dedication seems rock-solid. They said they have never regretted their decisions to become Christians.
El-Gohary said that eventually, he will triumph.
"By law, my circumstance will have to change," he said. "I have done nothing illegal."
Dina is not so sure; she said she doesn't feel like she has a future in Egypt, and she hopes to move to a place where she can get an education.
Whatever happens, both El-Gohary and his daughter said they are prepared to live in hiding indefinitely.
"There are days that I break down and cry, but I am not giving up," Dina said. "I am still not going back to Islam."
Posted in Barack Obama, Barrack Obama, Christianity, Cyprus, Egypt, Islam, Orthodox, USA	| Tagged 2008, 2009, abandoned, absent-mindedly, academy, access, accompanied, account, acid, across, administrative, Administrative Court, adultery, adulthood, advocated, afraid, afternoon, agency, allow, amount, animals, apartment, apostasy, apostate, appeared, area, arms, attack, attacked, attempts, attend, attending, August, authorities, avoided, back, bad, bag, bank, baptismal, baptized, Barack Obama, barren, based, basis, bathroom, beaten, bedroom, beginning, begins, believe, believed, Bible, bigger, bits, blasting, body, book, bore, boredom, born, bottles, brave, break, brilliant, bring, brother, budding, buildings, burning, cadets, Cairo, Cairo International Airport, calling, canvas, captain, card, care, carry, case, caught, center, certificate, change, China, chose, Christ, Christian, Christianity, Christians, church, circumstance, city, civil, classes, clean, clothes, clumps, committing, compared, complained, concentrated, conditions, confined, considered, constant, consultative, conversion, convert, converted, convinced, Copt, Coptic, Copts, country, Courts, covered, cross, crushing, cry, crying, Cyprus, danger, daughter, deal, death, death penalty, death threats, decided, declared, dedication, defining, demanded, demanding, demeanor, demon, designing, detained, determines, difficult, Dina Maher Ahmad Mo'otahssem, directions, dissolving, dissuade, distinct, divorce, donation, doors, drain, drawing, dream, dress, driving, dust, ears, eat, eavesdroppers, education, efforts, Egypt, Egyptian, Egyptian State Council Court, embraced, endures, enormous, event, eventual, everything, evidence, example, exercised, expense, experience, extremely, eyes, facilities, faded, faith, family, Father, fear, Februray, feel, fighting, filing, filled, Final, first, fled, flesh, flights, floor, following, food, footsteps, force, forced, forcibly, forgiveness, fraught, freedom, Friday, friends, future, gained, garden, gas, gentle, girl, Giza, God, golden, good, government, great, grew, grimaces, grime, ground, guard, hands, happened, happening, harass, hard, head, hearing, heart, heaven, hell, hide, high-ranking, hired, hit, holes, holographic, homes, hope, humiliation, ID, identification, illegal, image, imaginative, imam, immediately, immigrate, indefinitely, injured, injustice, inside, instructed, Internet, interpretations, interrupted, intruders, iron, Islam, Islamic, jacket, Jesus, job, judge, kicked, Kidnapped, killed, kind, kindness, knocked, laptop, law, lawyers, learned, leaving, letter, level, life, light, limited, listed, listened, littered, little, live, lives, living room, local, locks, looks, loudspeakers, love, loving, Maher El-Mo'otahssem Bellah El-Gohary, main, man, march, market, married, match, mattress, medical, meeting, megaphones, melts, mercilessly, mercy, minaret, mind, Mohammed Ahmed Hegacy, mosque, motioned, Muslim, muslims, national, natural, nature, New Testament, night, notebook, nothing, obtain, obtained, obtaining, occasional, officer, officials, old, open, opened, opening, opposing, ordering, Orthodox, outside, outskirts, padlock, parents, part, passport, peace, pebbles, people, Persecution, Peter Athanasius, physically, picture, piece, pinned, plastic, pleasure, police, porch, portrait, possess, possibilities, poured, poverty, pray, prayers, praying, preparation, prepared, presence, presented, President, pressure, privacy, prominence, prove, provided, pumping, punishment, pushed, qualified, questioning, quick, Quranic, reading, recalled, receiving, recently, reflective, refusal, refused, rejected, released, religion, religious, rely, remained, report, required, residents, resign, return, revenge, reverberate, ridiculed, rights, ripped, risk, rock-solid, rocks, rods, room, roommate, run, scared, scholar, school, scuffed, seated, seeing, seized, self discovery, sentenced, serious, sermon, set, shake, shakes, shouts, show, showed, shower, shut, silence, simple, sin, single, sinks, sizzling, small, smell, smile, smiling, smoke, smoldering, soul, speaking, spends, spotted, stairs, standstill, started, State Council, state-issued, stating, stay, stories, story, street, students, subject, sued, suffer, suit, superior, supermarket, supernatural, surprise, suspended, swayed, talk, talking, taped, task, taught, teacher, teachings, tears, teenage, television, terrified, thin, things, threw, throughout, throw, thrown, time, tiny, tired, together, tolerated, toothbrush, touched, trainees, transformed, trapped, trash, travel, treated, tried, triumph, trying, two-bedroom, unable, undertsand, undisclosed, upperclassman, USA, used, vapors, verses, versions, violated, vision, waiting, wake, walking, walls, War, watching, water, way, Website, wife, window, windows, woman, words, work, world, wraps, write, wrote, yelling, yellow, youth | Leave a comment
Massive Mob in Indonesia Protests Christmas Eve Service
Posted on January 4, 2010 by particularkev
Church meeting in tent has sought building permit for years.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, January 4 (CDN) — More than 1,000 people protested the Christmas Eve service of a church meeting in a makeshift facility in Bekasi, West Java.
Christians of the Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church (HKBP) fearfully held their service, including the Lord's Supper, in spite of the disturbance.
With the Dec. 24 service scheduled to start at 9 p.m., the mob had already gathered at 6 p.m., shouting demands that it not take place and that the church be disbanded because it did not have permits. The church erected a tent and a semi-permanent structure for the service.
The church does not yet have a permanent building, though the congregation has been trying to obtain permission for one for years, church leaders said. The protestors claimed that the Christmas service could not be held at the site because a church building permit had not been issued.
Hundreds of police and soldiers were on hand to guard the 200 worshippers against the protestors. The service continued until the end, with police accompanying worshippers as they left. Other police and soldiers guarded the property after the mob had dispersed.
The Rev. Palti Panjaitan said that the crowd blocked the street in front of the site in an area of up to 200 meters.
"They blocked vehicles and people trying to get to the church," the pastor said. "However, after negotiations, our congregation was able to pass, and the service was held on time."
Bekasi Police Chief Herri Wibowo said that the church had not obtained citizens' approval or recommendations from either the local government or the Bekasi office of the Department of Religion.
"The mob in the street rejects the building of a church and holding of worship services because permits have not been granted," Herri said.
The church lot is located in the Ninth ward of Jejalan village in Bekasi district. A captain of the Ninth ward who goes by the single name of Bongkon said that the church permit application has been in process for at least two years.
"Some of the citizens have signed the letter agreeing to the church, but some have not agreed," said Bongkon. "The church claims that they have permission and will only use the place temporarily."
Church elder Tigor Tampubolon said that the church purchased the land with the intention of constructing a worship building from the beginning. He said the seller of the land and the village leader agreed to construction of a church building, but that sub-district level officials have created delays.
Thus far Filadelfia HKBP Church has held services in the tent. Tampubolon said he hopes that local residents will not bother the congregation's future worship.
"Every citizen has the right to worship in his own way," he said. "There is no need to request permission from the block or ward captains, or from the government."
Pastor Panjaitan said that the church has submitted all the necessary papers for a construction permit for a permanent building, but that formal permission has not yet been issued.
"The church building will go up as soon as the permit is issued," he told Compass.
On Dec. 27 another demonstration took place during Sunday worship, with a mob gathering and demanding that services cease. This crowd, however, was not as big as the one that tried to stop the Christmas Eve service.
The Filadelfia congregation has been active since 2000, with services initially held in the pastor's home. In 2006, a mob of 300 people swarmed the pastor's home during a Sunday morning service. Claiming to be neighbors, they pressured the pastor to sign a document promising not to hold religious meetings at his home.
Since then, services have been held in the homes of various church members on a rotating basis.
In 2008 there was another threat to close the church. The captain from the Fourth block of the 10th ward sent the church a letter and personally visited the pastor with a community request to stop worship services.
Posted in Christianity, Indonesia, Islam	| Tagged 10th, 2000, 2006, 2008, ;and, able, accompanying, active, agreed, agreeing, application, area, basis, beginning, Bekasi, big, Block, blocked, Bongkon, building, building permit, captain, cease, Christian, Christianity, Christians, Christmas, Christmas Eve, church, citizens, citizens' approval, claimed, claims, close, community, congregation, constructing, continued, created, crowd, delays, demands, demonstration, Department of Religion, disbanded, dispersed, district, disturbance, document, elder, end, erected, facility, fearfully, Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestan Church, formal, fourth, front, future, gathered, government, guard, guarded, held, Herri Wibowo, HKBP, hold, holding, home, including, Indonesia, intention, Islam, issued, Jakarta, Jejalan, leaders, left, letter, level, local, located, Lord's Supper, lot, makeshift, massive, meeting, members, mob, Muslim, muslims, name, necessary, need, negotiations, Ninth, obtain, office, officials, Palti Panjaitan, Panijaitan, papers, pass, Pastor, people, permanent, permission, permits, Persecution, personally, police, Police Chief, pressured, process, promising, property, protested, protestors, protests, purchased, recommendations, rejects, request, residents, Rev, right, rotating, scheduled, seller, semi-permanent, service, shouting, sign, signed, single, site, soldiers, sought, start, stop, street, structure, sub-district, submitted, swarmed, temporaily, tent, threat, Tigor Tampubolon, time, various, vehicles, village, visited, ward, West Java, worshippers | Leave a comment
Indonesian Islamists Bully Villagers into Revoking Church Permit
Area residents who had approved construction are intimidated into withdrawing support.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, October 26 (CDN) — The regent of Purwakarta regency, West Java has revoked his decision to permit construction of a Catholic worship building in Cinanka village after Islamists threatened residents into withdrawing their approval of the project.
Dedi Mulyadi on Oct. 16 revoked the permit for construction of Catholic Church of Saint Mary after Islamists threatened some of the local residents whose approval is required by Indonesian law, the priest of the church told Compass.
"Those who had signed were continually terrorized by the FPI [Front Pembela Islam, or Islamic Defenders Front]," the Rev. Agustinus Made said. "They became so frightened that when they were called to a meeting by the Interfaith Communications Forum, many did not attend. Also, the members of the Interfaith Communications Forum and the Department of Religion were also terrorized by the FPI so that they were afraid to say that they agree to the church building."
The FPI also intimidated the regent, resulting in his revoking the building permit he himself had signed two years ago, Made said.
"Since the end of the Islamic month of fasting [Aug. 22], the FPI has staged repeated demonstrations in front of the regent's office demanding that the building permit for Santa Maria Church be rescinded," he added.
The 5,000-square meter residential lot had been zoned for a house of worship. Jaenal Arifin, head of the National Unity and Community Protection Purwakarta Regency Office, said Regent Mulyadi signed the Oct. 16 decree revoking the building permit.
A Joint Ministerial Decree promulgated in 1969 and revised in 2006 requires the permission of more than 60 neighbors and a permit from local authorities to establish a place of worship. The more than 60 local citizens giving their approval must provide photocopies of their identity cards.
The regency office's Arifin said that, after a review of a community survey taken by the Interfaith Communications Forum of Purwakarta Regency and the Purwakarta Regency Department of Religion, 15 citizens had withdrawn their support. Additionally, he said, the church had not secured permission from the block captain.
"Based upon the latest developments, only 45 citizens have agreed," Arifin said. "Therefore the requirement is not fulfilled."
The congregation of 1,000 people has been holding services in a warehouse belonging to a steel factory located far from the proposed building site. The church has been worshipping in the warehouse since 2002.
With the revocation of the building permit, the church is also in danger of losing its place of worship. There is fear, Made said, that a radical group will approach the owner of the warehouse to stop services there.
The church is preparing to bring a lawsuit in a West Java court, he said.
"We are building on land that was set aside [zoned] for a house of worship, and which we have purchased," Made said. "We demand that justice be firmly enforced. Intimidation by radical groups must cease."
Posted in Christianity, Indonesia, Islam, Islamic Defender' Front, Roman Catholicism	| Tagged 1969, 2002, 2006, afraid, agree, Agustinus Made, approach, approved, area, attend, authorities, based, belonging, Block, building, bully, called, captain, Catholic Church of Saint Mary, cease, Christian, Christianity, Christians, church, Cinanka, citizens, community, congregation, construction, continually, court, danger, decision, decree, Dedi Mulyadi, demand, demanding, demonstrations, Department of Religion, developments, enforced, establish, fasting, fear, firmly, FPI, frightened, front, Front Pembela Islam, fulfilled, group, head, holding, house, identity cards, Indonesia, Indonesian, Interfaith Communications Forum, intimidated, Islam, Islamic Defenders' Front, Islamists, Jaenal Arifin, Jakarta, Joint Ministerial Decree, justice, latest, law, lawsuit, local, located, losing, lot, meeting, members, month, Muslim, muslims, National Unity and Community Protection Purwakarta Regency Office, neighbors, office, owner, people, permission, permit, Persecution, photocopies, place, priest, project, promulgated, proposed, provide, purchased, Purwakarta, radical, regency, regent, repeated, required, requirement, requires, rescinded, residential, residents, resulting, Rev, revised, revocation, revoking, Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholics, Santa Maria Church, secured, services, signed, site, staged, steel factory, stop, support, survey, terrorized, threatened, village, villagers, warehouse, West Java, withdrawing, withdrawn, worship, worshipping, zoned | Leave a comment
UGANDAN LRA INVOLVED IN CHRISTMAS MASSACRE AT CHURCH
Uganda's army is accusing rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army of hacking to death 45 civilians in a Catholic church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.
A story on the BBC website quotes Ugandan Army Capt Chris Magezi who said the scene was "horrendous… dead bodies of mostly women and children cut in pieces." The attack happened on December 26.
A rebel spokesman has denied responsibility for the killings, which follow a collapse in the peace process, the BBC said.
It also reports the UN saying that at least 189 people were killed in several attacks last week. Some reports say more than 100 people were killed in the church alone.
The BBC said the armies of Uganda, South Sudan and DR Congo carried out a joint offensive against the rebels in mid-December after LRA leader Joseph Kony again refused to sign a peace deal.
The BBC reported the LRA leader, who has lived in a jungle hideout in north-eastern DR Congo for the last few years, is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
It also says Uganda's government had been involved in lengthy peace negotiations with the LRA, hosted by the South Sudanese government. But LRA leader Kony has demanded that arrest warrants for him and his associates be dropped before any agreement can be struck.
Meanwhile, the UN peacekeeping mission in DR Congo says one of its troops accidently shot and killed a Ugandan soldier in the nearby town of Dungu.
The BBC said that aid officials requesting anonymity near Doruma, which is about 40km from the border with South Sudan, confirmed to Uganda's Daily Monitor newspaper and to the AFP (Agence France Presse) news agency that the massacre had taken place.
"Bodies of the women and children, with deep cuts are littered inside and outside the church," an aid official told The Monitor.
Witness Abel Longi told The Associated Press (AP) news agency that he recognized the LRA rebels by their dreadlocked hair, their Acholi language and the number of young boys among them.
"I hid in bush near the church and heard people wailing as they were being cut with machetes," he said.
However, LRA spokesman David Nekorach Matsanga has denied that the rebels are behind the killings, the BBC reported.
"Reports about the LRA killing innocent civilians is another propaganda campaign by the Uganda army," he said.
"I have it on good authority from the field commanders that the LRA is not in those areas where the killings are reported to have taken place." He said the massacre may have been carried out by Ugandan soldiers.
"They want to justify their stay in DRC [Congo] and loot minerals from there like they did before," he told the AP.
The BBC reports that Capt Magezi said that on Saturday the army had killed 13 of the rebels behind the alleged attack and were pursuing the rest of the group.
The UN's humanitarian agency Ocha says 40 people were killed in attacks in DR Congo's Faradje district, 89 around Doruma and 60 in the Gurba area, according to the BBC report.
The BBC story also says that many thousands of Congolese villagers fled their homes after LRA attacks near Dungu in October.
It explains that countries from Uganda to the Central African Republic have suffered 20 years of terror inflicted by the LRA. Tens of thousands of children have been abducted to be fighters and sex slaves.
Uganda's government said the joint offensive had destroyed some 70 percent of the LRA camps in DR Congo.
The BBC's Africa analyst, Martin Plaut, says that LRA leader Kony's force is relatively small, about 650 strong. However, the difficulty is that when it is hit, it scatters and then regroups.
Report from the Christian Telegraph
Posted in Central African Republic, Christianity, Christmas, Democratic Republic of Congo, France, Lord's Resistance Army, Roman Catholicism, Sudan, Uganda, United Nations	| Tagged abducted, Abel Longi, accidently, accusing, Acholi, AFP, Africa, Agence France Presse, agency, agreement, aid, alleged, analyst, anonymity, AP, armies, army, arrest warrants, associates, attack, authority, BBC, behind, bodies, border, boys, bush, campaign, captain, Central African Republic, children, Chris Magezi, Christmas, church, civilians, collapse, confirmed, Congolese, countries, crimes against humanity, cut, cuts, Daily monitor, David Nekorach Matsanga, dead, death, demanded, Democratic Republic of Congo, denied, destroyed, district, Doruma, dreadlocked, dropped, Dungu, explains, Faradje, field commanders, fighters, fled, follow, good, government, Gurba, hacking, hair, happened, hid, hideout, homes, horrendous, hosted, humanitarian, inflicted, innocent, inside, International Criminal Court, involved, joint offensive, Joseph Kony, jungle, justify, killed, killings, language, leader, lived, loot, Lord's Resistance Army, LRA, machetes, Martin Plaut, massacre, minerals, mission, negotiations, news agency, newspaper, north-eastern, outside, peace, peace deal, peacekeeping, people, pieces, process, propaganda, pursuing, quotes, rebels, recognized, refused, regroups, reports, requesting, responsibility, Roman Catholic, Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholics, scatters, scene, sex slaves, shot, sign, soldier, south, South Sudan, spokesman, story, Sudan, Sudanese, suffered, terror, The Associated Press, town, troops, Uganda, Ugandan, UN, United Nations, villagers, wailing, wanted, war crimes, Website, witness, women, young | Leave a comment
STORM WARNING IGNORED
The Melbourne Storm have been criticised for months, even years, over the various tackling methods that they use. These methods have included the infamous grapple tackle, the chicken wing tackle and wrestling coaches to assist the Storm in tackling. With all of the controversy about the Storm and their tackling methods the Storm have largely ignored the warning signs and now are likely to suffer the consequences.
The Storm's captain, Cameron Smith, tonight faces the NRL judiciary to answer for a grapple tackle in which he made 'unnecessary contact with the head or neck' of Sam Thaiday in last weekend's elimination match with the Brisbane Broncos.
If found guilty, Smith faces a ban of two weeks, which would of course include the Grand Final should Melbourne defeat the Cronulla Sharks this weekend. If Melbourne is eliminated this weekend, the suspension would include the Australia v New Zealand World Cup opening match.
My tip would be that Cameron Smith will be suspended and will pay the consequences of ignoring the many warnings that have been sounded concerning the tackling methods of the Storm.
The video below, while not great, does show the tackle on Sam Thaiday:
Posted in Rugby League, sport	| Tagged assist, Australia, ban, Brisbane, Broncos, Cameron Smith, captain, chicken, coaches, consequences, contact, controversy, criticised, Cronulla, Cup, defeat, eliminated, elimination, faces, found, Grand Final, grapple, guilty, head, ignored, include, infamous, judiciary, match, Melbourne, methods, neck, New Zealand, NRL, opening, pay, Sam Thaiday, Sharks, signs, sounded, storm, suffer, suspended, suspension, tackle, tackling, tip, unnecessary, various, warning, wing, world, wrestling | Leave a comment


An FTC Scrimmage is an opportunity for Teams to get together and practice competing with their robots. We'll have the Velocity Vortex field set up and we'll run practice matches and talk about what a tournament is like and how to prepare for it.
Even if your robot isn't ready, bring it and you can work on it and get help from mentors and other teams.
Note: This is the building beside where we held the BC FTC Kickoff event.


This little kingfisher seems oddly proportioned, rather like a sparrow with the bill of a heron. Living along streams and rivers near the Mexican border, it is often overlooked, because it tends to perch low among vegetation near the water; its sharp ticking callnotes may give it away. When moving up or downstream, the Green Kingfisher flies fast, with quick wingbeats, very low over the water.
May have declined in parts of Texas with loss of streamside habitat. Recently has begun nesting locally in southern Arizona, spreading north from adjacent Mexico.
Rivers, streams. Always found near water, but sometimes near very small streams with only intermittent pools. Also around edges of ponds and larger rivers. Favors areas where there is dense low growth on the banks, providing low perches close to the water.
Forages mostly by perching low, typically on an overhanging branch or root 3-6' above the water, sometimes on a rock in mid-stream, watching for small fish swimming close to the surface. When prey is spotted, bird flies down and plunges into water headfirst to take fish in its bill. Seldom hovers before diving.
3-6, usually 5. White. Incubation is by both parents, 19-21 days; female incubates at night, male part of day. Young: Fed by both parents. Young leave nest about 22-26 days after hatching, may be fed by parents for several days thereafter.
Fed by both parents. Young leave nest about 22-26 days after hatching, may be fed by parents for several days thereafter.
Small fish. Feeds on minnows and other small fish, mostly those about 1-2" long. May also take some aquatic insects.
Nesting pair defends territory along stream, maintaining good distance from other pairs. Nest site is in burrow in vertical dirt bank near water. Burrow (probably excavated by both sexes) is usually 2-3' long, 5-8' above the water level, and no more than about 2" in diameter. The entrance to the burrow is usually hidden by overhanging vegetation or roots (in other kingfishers, entrance is usually exposed). At the end of the burrow is a slightly enlarged nest chamber, usually with no nest material added.
Permanent resident. Sometimes wanders slightly north of range.
An insect-like buzz; also low clicking notes.


text:
TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE by Damian Siqueiros
Led by visual artist and photographer Damian Siqueiros, "To Russia with Love" portrays iconic gay and lesbian Russians in all of Siqueiros's usual detail and flare. Along with his collaborators, Mr. Siqueiros is passionate in his belief that fighting hatred with hatred is as nonsensical as trying to extinguish a fire with more fire. There is no condemnation for those perpetrating injustice, instead these portraits serve to remind us of the beauty of love and to validate the couples and the identities of our Russian brothers and sisters in the LGBT community.
"...exquisitely detailed...." - Phil Tarney, Artists Corner Gallery, Hollywood, California
"Masterful visual quotations.." - Ivan Savvine, Russian Journalist & Activist
8.5 x 9 | Full-Color | 60 pgs. | ISBN 978-1-926716-33-6 | Softcover
8.5 x 9 | Full-Color | 60 pgs. | ISBN 978-1-926716-33-6 |
To Russia with Love" is how a group of Montreal artists and collaborators answer the phobias arising out of Russia. This is their stand against the recent wave of bigotry and violence and the realization of the moral imperative to not remain passive in the face of hatred and injustice.
CORE VALUE SYSTEMS OF A HARMONIOUS SOCIALIST SOCIETY by Luo Guojie
This book, the Study on "Core Value Systems of a Harmonious Socialist Society" is the result of a series of researches and studies conducted at the Ethical and Moral Improvement Study Center of Renmin University of China-a center of Humanities and Social Sciences for the Ministry of Education...
5.83 x 8.27 | 394 pages | Softcover
WOMEN IN JAZZ: The Women, The Legends & Their Fight
Containing interviews and first-hand accounts, this book is witness to the generosity, profundity and positivity with which women have responded and the energy they have put into their lives in overcoming challenges.
268 pages | 5.83" x 8.27' | 56 Photos | ISBN 978-1-926716-55-8
THE MIDAS TOUCH by James Cummins & Cameron W. Reed
". . . a journey into the predatory nature of some of the practices and institutions in the financial industry today..."
Authors James Cummins and Cameron W. Reed take us on an exploratory journey into the predatory nature of some of the practices and institutions in the financial industry today. What seems innocently enough as capitalism and greed gone naturally wild in an environment of deregulation, soon appears as deliberate political manoeuvering and close control on an international scale by agents and institutions operating above the law.
5 x 8 | 230 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-06-0 (pbk.) | Softcover
THE KNOTTED ROAD by James Cummins
A new epistemology, "The Knotted Road" examines the root of the age-old divisions between religion and science, empiricism and skepticism, the philosophic and the artistic. A call for a new valuation that synthesizes humanity's contradictions, The Knotted Road is a radical philosophic work on the cutting edge of our increasingly entropic society.
248 pgs | 6 x 9 | ISBN 978-0-9809108-4-1 | Softcover
IN NIETZSCHE'S FOOTSTEPS by Jonathan R. Cohen
A thrilling, vicarious journey through Friedrich Nietzsche's favorite haunts, "In Nietzsche's Footsteps" walks us through an earnest discussion and pragmatic reflection on elements of Nietzsche's biography and philosophical discoveries throughout the philosopher's journeys....
248 pages | 5.5 x 8.5 | ISBN 978-1-926716-48-0 | 2nd Ed.
CRITICAL THINKING, WORLDVIEWS & LOGIC by Paul Catanu
CRITICAL THINKING, WORLDVIEWS & LOGIC by Paul Catanu is a must read for anyone studying the Humanities or wishing for a survey of the history of the development of thought in the Western World.
368 pgs | 7.5 x 9.25 | Full Color | ISBN 978-0-9877804-2-3 | Softcover
THE MIDAS TOUCH by James Cummins & Cameron W. Reed-Hardcover
5 x 8 | 230 pages | ISBN 978-1-926716-06-0 | Hardcover
MACROECONOMICS - GradeBooster Series by Elijah M. James
The Grade Booster Series (GBS)—Macroeconomics is designed to help college students improve their grades in Microeconomics. Through the Grade Booster Series you will better understand the principles and concepts discussed in your textbook; and be able to apply them in varying scenarios and learn how to answer economic questions.
246 pages | 8.5 x 11 | ISBN 978-1-926716-45-9 | Full-Color
MICROECONOMICS - GradeBooster Series by Elijah M. James
The Grade Booster Series (GBS)—Microeconomics is designed to help college students improve their grades in Microeconomics. With the Grade Booster Series you will better understand the principles and concepts discussed in your textbook; and be able to apply them in varying scenarios and learn how to answer economic questions.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Category: Small Business
dreams Existence interface Jason Santa Maria Small Business Standards Startups State of the Web The Essentials The Profession W3C
My Glamorous Life: The Power Compels You
Post date 10 May 2012
I DREAMED that my friend Jason Santa Maria took a job at a popular new startup that had exploded onto the world scene seemingly overnight. A fascinating visual interface was largely responsible for the popularity of the company's new social software product. It was like a Hypercard stack that came toward you. A post full of exciting social significance just for you would appear in a self-contained deck with rounded corners. The next post would pop up on top of the first. The next, on top of that one. And so on. In my dream, people found this back-to-front pop-up effect thrilling for some reason.
Having imagined the interface, I next dreamed that I went to visit the startup. There were so many cubicles, so many shiny people running around, holding morning standups and singing a strange company song, that I could not locate my friend Jason's desk. Someone grabbed me and told me the founder wanted to see me.
THE FOUNDER was an ordinary looking white guy in his late twenties. I was surprised that he wore beige chinos with a permapress crease. With all the TV and newspaper hubub around his product, I guess I'd expected a more stylish and charismatic presence.
The founder told me he was concerned because his mother, apparently a cofounder or at least an officer of the company, was of the belief that I had contempt for their product and disliked her personally. I assured him that I liked the product. Further, I had never met his mother, never read or heard a word about her, and felt only goodwill toward her, as I bear toward all people in the abstract. I don't hate people I don't know.
"It would be cool if you told mom that yourself," he said. And suddenly two assistants were whisking me off to speak to her directly.
THE AUDITORIUM-SIZED waiting room outside the founder's mother's office was filled with at least a thousand people who had come to talk to her before me. They seemed to have been waiting for hours. There was an air of boredom and rapidly thinning patience, mixed with excitement and the kind of carnival atmosphere that surrounds things that blow up suddenly in the press. It felt like the jury selection room for a celebrity murder case. Only much, much bigger.
The two assistants escorted me to the very front of the auditorium, to an empty row of seats abutting the door to the founder's mother's private office. "Special treatment," I thought. I was thrilled to be cutting to the front of the line, apparently as a result of the founder's directive to his assistants. The front row chairs were reversed, facing back to the rest of the auditorium, so I was put in the somewhat uneasy position of staring out at the mass of people who had been waiting to see the founder's mother since long before I arrived.
After a while, Ian Jacobs of the W3C was brought to the front of the room and seated near me.
We waited as other people were shown into the founder's mother's presence.
AFTER FIVE or six hours of drowsy waiting, I realized that the room was set up to mirror the software's interface: people from the very back of the auditorium were first in line, and were shown into the founder's mother's presence first. Gradually, the hall of applicants emptied from the back to the front. Those of us in the very front of the line were actually the last people of all who would be admitted to the holy presence. It was a smart marketing touch that apparently permeated the company: everything real people did in the building in some way echoed the characteristics of the software interface — from the end of the line coming first, to the way the rounded conference tables echoed the shapes of individual news posts in the software's back-to-front news deck.
What a smart company, I thought. And what a good joke on me, as I continued to sit there forever, waiting to see someone I'd never met, who held a baseless grudge against me, which it would one day be my task to talk her out of.
A Book Apart books Brands Browsers Code Collectibles Community content CSS CSS3 Design E-Books editorial eric meyer HTML HTML5 Small Business Standards State of the Web The Profession This never happens to Gruber Web Design Web Design History Web Standards work writing XHTML
Top Web Books of 2010
"It's been a great year for web design books; the best we can remember for a while, in fact!" So begins Goburo's review of the Top Web Books of 2010. The list is extremely selective, containing only four books. But what books! They are: Andy Clarke's Hardboiled Web Design (Five Simple Steps); Jeremy Keith's HTML5 For Web Designers (A Book Apart); Dan Cederholm's CSS3 For Web Designers (A Book Apart); and Eric Meyer's Smashing CSS (Wiley and Sons).
I'm thrilled to have had a hand in three of the books, and to be a friend and business partner to the author of the fourth. It may also be worth noting that three of the four books were published by scrappy, indie startup publishing houses.
Congratulations, all. And to you, good reading (and holiday nerd gifting).
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Gary Vaynerchuk on The Big Web Show Episode 26
Post date 3 November 2010
GARY VAYNERCHUK is our guest on Episode #26 of The Big Web Show, taped live before an internet audience at 1:00 PM ET Thursday 4 November at live.5by5.tv. Gary is the creator of Wine Library TV, the author of the New York Times bestselling book Crush It! , and the co-founder with his brother AJ of VaynerMedia, a boutique agency that works with personal brands, consumer brands, and startups.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is recorded live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of recording, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web. Subscribe and enjoy!
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Episode 20: Designing Web Applications, Managing Teams, and Creating Readability
Post date 22 September 2010
Rich Ziade, creator of the popular reading tool Readability, guests on Thursday's today's episode of The Big Web Show, co-hosted by Dan Benjamin and taped before a live internet audience.
Richard Ziade is the founding partner of Arc90, a consulting firm, product shop, and idea incubator based in New York City. Arc90 has a reputation as one of the best web application design shops around. Alas, nearly all their web application design work is for private corporate clients. Thus most of us don't get a chance to see and learn from Arc90's work. Fortunately we can get a taste of what they're about by visiting the Arc90 Lab, where the company shares ideas, tools, and the occasional experiment in web technology.
During Thursday's Friday's taping of The Big Web Show, we will probe Rich (if you'll excuse the disgusting imagery) to find out where his ideas come from, how Arc90 manages the balance between product development and client services, and how to build a reputation when your client services agreements prevent you from having a public portfolio. I will also try to force Rich to tell our listeners if he has any awesome future plans for Readability.
Prior to Arc90, Richard worked in various roles crossing disciplines in design, technology and product management. Rich shares his occasional thought on design and technology at his blog: www.basement.org.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET today at 2:00 pm! on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of taping, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.
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The Big Web Show Episode 15: Social Media, Social Capital
Post date 5 August 2010
Tara Hunt, social media entrepreneur, author of The Whuffie Factor , cofounder of Citizen Agency, and one of Fast Company's "women in tech—nine thought leaders who are changing our ideas about technology" is our guest on today's episode of The Big Web Show, co-hosted as always by Dan Benjamin, and taped in front of a live internet audience.
The Big Web Show ("Everything Web That Matters") is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards, often within hours of taping, via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.
Miss_rogue photo courtesy Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
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37signals' Jason Fried live today on The Big Web Show
Post date 1 July 2010
I have known 37signals CEO Jason Fried since he was a young copywriter who reminded me of me, only smarter and more confident. Like many of you, with a mixture of awe and pleasure, I have watched him change our industry, along with book publishing and business generally. Dan Benjamin and I are delighted to announce the mercurial Mr Fried as our guest on The Big Web Show. Join us today, 1 July 2010, for the live taping at 1:00 PM ET.
Jason's official bio is brief, but he can write at length when he wishes: see Rework , Getting Real , and Defensive Web Design , each a classic, and to each of which he was principal co-writer and guiding force. Besides saying no to meetings, contracts, and VC money, Jason and 37signals are famous for godfathering a speedy, iterative form of web application design; for gifting the industry with Ruby on Rails; for creating a suite of beloved (yes, really) business productivity web apps; for mastering and then abandoning client services in favor of making stuff; for somehow, in the midst of all that busyness, churning out tons of fine content on their popular blog; and for being roommates with the equally fantastic Coudal Partners.
Can't wait to interview Jason Fried in front of a live internet audience today. Hope you'll join us.
The Big Web Show is taped live in front of an internet audience every Thursday at 1:00 PM ET on live.5by5.tv. Edited episodes can be watched afterwards (often within hours of taping) via iTunes (audio feed | video feed) and the web.
Photo © John Morrison – Subism.com
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Click My Lit Panel
Post date 17 August 2009
In "New Publishing and Web Content," a proposed panel for SXSW Interactive, I will lead book and new media publisher and entrepreneur Lisa Holton, designer, writer, and W.W. Norton creative director Mandy Brown, novelist, web geek, and Harper's editor Paul Ford, and writer, editor, and content strategist Erin Kissane in an honest and freewheeling exploration of the creative, strategic, and marketing challenges of traditional and online publishing—and how content strategy and design can help.
Topics covered will include:
What is content strategy?
For magazines that are born digital, what opportunities and challenges does the internet offer editors and publishers?
For traditional magazines, what opportunities and challenges does the internet offer editors and publishers?
How can traditional book publishers harness the energy and talent of the online community?
What new forms are made possible by the intersection of traditional publishing and social networking?
How can design facilitate reading?
How can design encourage readers to become writers and publishers?
What is the future of magazines and newspapers?
What is the future of books?
How can editors and publishers survive and thrive in this new climate?
If this sounds like a panel you'd enjoy seeing, vote for New Publishing and Web Content via the SXSW Interactive Panel picker.
ShortURL: zeldman.com/x/55
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"Freelance to Agency" Podcast
Post date 30 March 2009
PRESENTING the full audio recording of "From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small", a panel at SXSW Interactive 2009 featuring Roger Black (founder of agencies huge and small), Kristina Halvorson (freelancer turned agency head), and Whitney Hess (agency pro turned freelance), and moderated by yours truly.
The panel was about quitting your job (or coping with a layoff), working as a freelancer, collaborating with others, and what to do if your collaboration starts morphing into an agency. We sought to answer questions like these:
What business and personal skills are required to start a freelance business or a small agency? Is freelancing or starting a small agency a good fit for my talents and abilities?
Is freelancing or starting a small agency the right work solution for me in a scary and rapidly shrinking economy? Can the downsides of this economy work to my advantage as a freelancer or small agency head?
I've been downsized/laid off/I'm stuck in a dead-end job working longer hours for less money. Should I look for a new job or take the plunge and go freelance?
What can I expect in terms of income and financial security if I switch from a staff job to freelancing? What techniques can I use as a freelancer to protect myself from the inevitable ups and downs?
How do I attract clients? How much in-advance work do I need to line up before I can quit my job?
How do I manage clients? What client expectations that are normal for in-house or big agency work must I deliver on as a freelancer or the head of a small or virtual agency? Which expectations can I discard? How do I tell my client what to expect?
Do I need an office? What are the absolute minimum tools I need to start out as a one-person shop?
How big can my freelance business grow before I need to recast it as a small agency?
What models are out there for starting an agency besides the conventional Inc. model with all its overhead? Which model would work best for me?
Who do I know with whom I could start a small or virtual agency? What should I look for in my partners? What should I beware of?
If I'm lucky enough to be growing, how do I protect my creative product and my professional reputation while adding new people and taking on more assignments?
How big can my agency grow before it sucks? How I can grow a business that's dedicated to staying small?
Whitney Hess has written a fine wrap-up of the panel, including a collection of tweets raving about it, some of Mike Rohde's visual coverage, and links to other people's posts about the panel.
LISTEN to "From Freelance to Agency: Start Small, Stay Small".
[tags]design, webdesign, podcast, recording, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSWi09, panels, panel, freelance, agency, smallagency, transition, survival, economy[/tags]
Tags agency, Design, economy, Freelance, panel, panels, podcast, recording, smallagency, survival, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSWi09, transition, webdesign


Wherever you work, the Samsung SF-760P multifunction printer has the design features and technology to help you work more efficiently and cost-effectively. Compact design means you can get all these benefits, even if space is at a premium.
With 4-in-1 versatility, the Samsung SF-760P printer streamlines workflow and ensures that the office print operation is working as efficient as possible. With print, copy, scan and fax functionality, the SF-760P offers flexibility and lets you work with less barriers. A host of innovative features ensure that your workforce has the necessary functionality needed to thrive in the modern world of business.
The Samsung SF-760P is designed to deliver fast and efficient fax communication. The controls include 20 assignable instant dialing buttons, and you can store as many as 200 frequently used numbers for speed dialing. When you need to send documents to multiple locations you can use the SF-760P to store up to 209 contacts, in up to 100 separate groups or lists for group dialing. An additional 9 contact numbers can also be stored in the memory and all of the contacts can receive the same fax message by using the machine's Multi Send feature. Now you can send numerous fax messages to numerous contacts as often as you like! Once again Samsung simplifies your complex life with a fax machine that is quick, easy, and efficient.
The Delay Send button on the control panel stores documents in the memory, and allows you to send them during a predefined time period when off-peak call charges apply – allowing you to make significant savings on your phone bill.
With Samsung's faster printing speed of 20 pages per minute, you can minimise time wasted hanging around the printer. The enhanced printer performance will streamline workflows and let employees, and businesses, reach their full potential. A 33.6Kbps modem speed makes for fast communication and enhanced efficiency. What's more, 8MB of memory on both models means that you can store up to 600 pages of information.
With the growing demand for more space efficient office equipment, the Samsung Monochrome Laser Fax/Multifunction Printer SF-760P is a perfect choice. This compact multifunction printer delivers the standard in premium printing service without the excess of unwanted size. Small to medium businesses and home offices will find this printer ideal. And because it is so compact in design, it adds to its portability. So, save space and hassle with the Samsung Monochrome Laser Fax/Multifunction Printer SF-760P and its contemporary compact design.
If you need to make an impression, nothing shows professionalism like the stunning 1200 x 1200 dpi clarity produced by the Samsung Monochrome Laser Fax/Multifunction Printer SF-760P. High resolution printing of this caliber ensures that important print-outs, like work presentations and reports, are sharp and impressive. So, give your operation every chance of making a good impression with high resolution printing.


With the recent snowstorm, winter boots have been flying off the shelves! After a very mild start to winter, with a string of warm days, including a 70+ degree day on Christmas, the script has flipped and it's nothing but cold! If you've noticed in the last couple of weeks that your old boots just aren't cutting it, it's probably time to pick up a nice pair of winter boots from Red Wing to tackle the cold.
At Red Wing, we don't carry boots built only for winter weather. We don't think that's a good approach. After all, you're not just wearing cold-weather boots because it's cold outside, you're wearing them because it's cold outside… and you have a job to do.
Instead, what we offer are simply great boots, that are built to be capable of getting any job done, all while withstanding extreme cold and adverse weather. If you have to spend any time outside doing your job this winter, we've got a pair of boots that will keep your feet warm and dry, without sacrificing superior grip and protection. You can find winter boots in our Irish Setter, WORX, Vasque, Work Boots, and even Heritage collections. Just let us know what you're looking for, and we'll find you a pair of warm, dry, rugged, dependable, winter boots.
Get in Touch to Learn More about Red Wing's Winter Boots!
If you're ready to get fitted for a pair of winter boots from Red Wing, head up to one of our 3 Richmond area locations and talk to one of our footwear experts. We'll get you all taken care of!
If you want to learn more about Red Wing's winter boots, or have anything else we can help you with, get in touch! We're always happy to help out! Give us a call, send us a message on Facebook, or contact us online!


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Dapecol's Blog
Prison Monologue
Posted on August 20, 2010 by dapecol
PRISON OFFICER TO AN INMATE: A Reminder
Prisoner, this is your first day in this facility. Forget time, forget freedom, forget life outside, forget emotion and most of all, forget everything. Also, bear this in mind. You were never invited here at all. You simply appeared before us because that is what our justice system wants. Both of us therefore do not wish to be with each other yet here we are in front of one another, well that is fate.
First of, there is only one requirement here to survive. We expect everyone to be humble. Ignore it and you are a goner. Ignore it and life would be miserable. Ignore it and you will never be sane for the rest of the time you are expected to serve here. Deception is the order of the day but never, never allow yourself to conduct your routine in our presence using it as medium. Remember that deception is not an attribute of humility. You will perish if you do just that. Be true to yourself and if in the course of your detention you must have to deceive, deceive yourself first and from there stop deceiving. There is wisdom in said action. You will be able to resist the irrational nature of communal life and in the process; you would gain entry into a period of creativity.
You have plenty of rights. It is not true that there is no such thing as human rights for prisoners. It is gibberish a thought. Not because the fountain head of human rights—freedom— has been stripped off from your being, you lose all human rights. That is pure myth. Lights, potable water, faith, education and work are human rights in the prison community. You can determine a right from privilege. A right is something significant, something that could not be taken away, even if freedom has been removed. A privilege on the other hand is something granted and can easily be taken away. Prison life is a dynamic interaction of rights and privileges. You have it and it is there always. It is however up to you to sustain it for your purpose. It simply means that you adhere to prison rules.
I tell you what. Prison is not a place where offenders are to be punished. The criminal justice system imposed incarceration to offenders, separating them from the free community for a period depending on the offense, as a matter of penalty. That is the punishment. The segregation is the punishment in itself. Ignore the thought that commencement of punishment begins in prison and that my role is to pound you continuously as punishment. I am here to oversee your welfare even if society has shunned you already. I am one part of society though that believes in the goodness of man. As a matter of fact, government pays me to make such concern a career. Cooperate therefore. Let your goodness reflect through every activity you are given to perform with humility on top of everything. I tell you, incarceration is not that unfortunate at all.
Of course, there are drawbacks in communal life. You will be forced to live and share everything with all your fellow inmates—stories, life stories including communal odor. The scent of communal life is overwhelming but it is something you can live by. There are occasional threats to your sanity, like loneliness and enforced discipline, as in regular headcount, food distribution and even in evening taps but you can adjust to it. Remember that prison life is also akin to living in the free community. Every segment in your waking time is an occasion for intrigue and blasphemy. What differentiates your community with the one you left behind however is the fact that you are within a social system which is the exact inverse of the free community. What makes you smile outside, it will make you sad inside. Try to think of your loved ones and you will get my point. Everything therefore that matters outside is pure fleeting moments that are useless inside. Acquaint yourself to it for a period of time. It will help you find your humanity intact.
Prison is a make or break affair for you. You adjust and you are fine. You find difficulty in adjusting, you are broken. It is as simple as that. The barb wires around your facility are not exactly a sight to behold if you are trying to make something of yourself. I understand your predicament. But I am always there to cushion your life. Make me a friend and an elder brother and things would turn out right. Treat me as your foe then you will never achieve peace of mind. We will only be forced to accept our relationship in terms of violence. Remember that we are constantly living in a world where violence is understood as a common language. Let's change it.
Tomorrow will be any other day. Everything from hereon will always be familiar. The same routine, grinding slowly and almost customary. It tames the wild and exploits the tamed. It is circular and cyclical. Life revolves in a seemingly endless schedule. It is out rightly monotonous and boring. Learn to read or read during your spare time. Do something worthy like writing or praying. Rehabilitation only means a state where one gains respect through humility. Be respectful of others and be understanding and you will lessen the dullness of your surroundings. That way, it will sharpen your mind and make you stronger as you reach the end of your prison term.
You need it once you leave the facility and begin to exercise love. Meanwhile, while serving time, forget love. Everything in prison is about rules.
By: Venancio J. Tesoro
Prison Superintendent
Davao Penal Colony
Davao del Norte, Mindanao
Email: vjtesoro@yahoo.com
URL: http://philippineprisons.wordpress.com
http://vjtesoro.multiply.com
Facebook: Ven Tesoro (vjtesoro@yahoo.com)
DAVAO PENAL COLONY: A Template for an Ideal Correctional Facility
Move over Michael Jackson pretenders, a better view is about to unfold within the corrective service of the country. This is one facility which must also be appreciated not from the prism of youtube but of social science as well.
There was a time when the rule was to forget the offenders, expose them as entertainers and extract much through exploitation that which is supposed to be utilized for their rehabilitation and promote thievery in the coffers that would promote their welfare, but over in Davao Prison and Penal Farm , another situation is aborning. It had its own separate agenda. Previously, it has been the site of all known brutal violence in the past, so brutal that its history is enough to discourage an officer or a prisoner from being assigned in the area. Riots and hostage drama in the national penitentiary were veritable picnic sessions when compared to Davao Penal Colony's record of mayhem. It was an institution that has existed on the fringes of luck and survived at the edge. And the picture of bestiality and savagery subsided eventually as the institution veered from the traditional closed prison approach to a work/ training oriented facility as it is now being conducted.
Davao Prison today
To date, Davao Prison and Penal Farm, with its well ordered plantation within the prison reservation, the disciplined community of workers/trainees among the prison community, the dormitories and projects and lately, the foundation of the only correctional facility for women in Mindanao are testimonies of change—quite half a decade more advanced than the quest for change which the present administration wanted to bring forth—which is already reaping quite a number of review and appreciation. Change can indeed happen and the skeptics may have their own comeuppance once they see the place and try to believe that indeed it can happen despite the odds and challenges. And change happened at a period when plunder is in the midst, abuse the order of the day and indifference, the climate of bureaucracy. It is a plenary lesson which the new administration can take a leaf from. Change can indeed be pursued through sheer audacity and yes, honesty as expected from the ranks.
Institutional lessons
Governance, it has been said, is the proper blending of government, private business sector and the free community. It is reflected on the very fabric of institutional programs which has become the major change factor in the management not only of prison resources but also in the rehabilitation of prisoners. Private and Church based colleges have found Davao prison a very receptive social laboratory for their educational concerns. Private corporate enterprise not only provided its technology in developing prison farms but enrolled the prisoners in agro industrial tasks and discipline, resulting in a productive pursuit which generated a revenue benefiting all major penal institutions in the country. The establishment of a Correctional Institution for Women made Davao Prison the only regional facility in the country which services for female offenders in the whole Mindanao. It was the pride of the women sector in Mindanao and for the visiting women dignitaries (for ambassadors, to Zonta, and Soroptomist) it was an accomplishment worth their crusade. The facility, notwithstanding its locally constructed infrastucture can stand on equal footing with the best facility in Southeast Asia.
Davao Correctional Reforms
Davao Prison and Penal Farm has advanced to a certain degree that one can already make an impression which is worthy as an educational sojourn. Arguably, it can pass as a tourist destination sans the usual degree of apprehension one experiences when visiting a penal facility. The penal institution has come of age.
Institutional exposures
Last year, all agencies of the Department of Justice regional office (region 11) in celebrating its 112th foundation anniversary had chosen Dapecol as its program site. "It is safer, ironically, in Davao Prison than any place in Davao City to hold our celebration." Says Chief State Prosecutor Antonio Arellano. Atty. Romulo Manapsal, then NBI regional director, seconded, after assessing the peace and order situation of the region, which at that time was marred with threats to public safety. The whole day affair of the Anniversary capped with legal and medical assistance not only to the prison community but to outlying communities; and on the whole, it was concluded with success.
San Pedro College registrar pursued an unimaginable move. She coordinated a program by establishing a private library for prisoners in both male and female ward of Davao Prison. It was firmed up further when the Ignatian Institute of Theology Education (based in Davao City) negotiated for the opening of their scholarship for prisoners who wanted to pursue theological education while serving time. It was an elaborate pedagogical exercise where virtues and academic skills are integrated into the mainstream of disciplinary regime in the prison rehabilation scheme. As it were, the provincial passing grade and average of those who successfully hurdled the ALS (Alternative Learning System) in Davao province is dependent on the showing of prisoner-passers. Prisoners would top the examination for quite sometime.
Volunteerism in Arts
Not to be outdone in the field of prison volunteerism, bemedaled and acclaimed Mindanao artist Kublai Milan went to organize a fine arts class among interested prisoners and shared his expertise in cement-based sculpture. After 3 weeks of immersion along with artists from National Commission on Culture and Arts, his class was able to renovate the prison park and transformed it into a gallery of sculptural wonders.
The list of activities is becoming longer by the day and the institution is now preparing for its pioneering attempt in forging an after-care program for released prisoners. Under the procedure, released prisoners will be assisted in various administrative concerns from seeking clearances to referral for employment.
The Prison Service
Prison service is an ungrateful calling and at times an unpopular career. And yet, there must be a system which transform a misdirected humanity back to the mainstream of law abiding citizenry. It has often been said that the window of a civilization may be gleaned from the landscape of its penal institutions.
By: Superintendent Ven J. Tesoro