At This Moment #10

Randi Vegh speaks with Accounting major Abe who gives us a little food for thought.

"Well, I was thinking about how celebrities get off so easy, able to escape all responsibilities for their actions. Someone ordinary will get the chains thrown at them, but the same acts conducted by a celebrity means nothing to this darn country. Aren't they also humans, civilians and citizens? If anything, they are humans in the public eye whose lifestyles and behavior are on display for all to see, especially teenagers and young adults who look to these celebrities as role models. Apparently they possess a power that rolls in with the red carpet and the fame, the money and the power.

"I was thinking if the world has learned anything from OJ Simpson, Martha Stewart, Russel Crowe, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant- just to name a few. Is there change? Do we see it? Is it for the better? There is no obligation for decorum, only money.

The Boylan Brief #34

The Boylan Brief. Think of us as your own personal deep throat.

Irate Response to Iranian Refute of Holocaust

In a news conference last Thursday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied the Holocaust and suggested that Israel be moved to Europe. The U.S. condemned the president’s remarks, which appeared inconsistent with Iran’s vow to uphold international norms.

Ahmadinjad proposed that European countries, such as Germany and Austria, relinquish some of their land to create an Israeli state. “If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces ... to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it,” he said. In an anti-Zionist conference in October, the Iranian president said that Israel should be “wiped off the map.” Israel insisted that Iran be expelled from the United Nations, but the proposal was met with fuming opposition. Israel still maintains that Iran is a prime financial provider to the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.“

Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces. Although we don’t accept this claim,” said Ahmadinejad, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Deputy spokesman Adam Ereli declined to say what, if any, action the U.S. might be inclined to take in response.

-Randi Vegh
Link


Chemical Spill in Chinese River

A chemical plant explosion on Nov. 13 killed five people and resulted in 100 tons of toxic benzene being dumped into the Songhua River in China.

The government did not confirm that the river was poisoned until Nov. 23, after the northeastern city of Harbin announced it was shutting down running water to 3.8 million people. Chinese officials were then forced to make embarrassing apologies to both its public and to Russia (the Russian city of Khabarovsk lies downstream from the site of the spill and is expected to be hit by the pollution on Dec. 13). Beijing has sent Russia 150 tons of activated carbon for use in water filtration as well as special pollution monitoring equipment.

The Chinese government vowed to punish all those involved in covering up the extent and impact of the chemical spill.

-Esther Hwang
Link


Urbanizing India

The very nature of India is changing as more of its citizens make the shift from living in isolated villages to big metropolises. For centuries, this nation boasted 600,000 villages, each its own unit leading an ordered life, from the strata of caste to the cycles of harvest. However, the modernization of over 3,000 miles of national highways that circle the country has led to a surge in cities.

The highway acts as a hub for all the cities’ needs, including cheap labor. It also reduces the distance between villages and cities, meaning villagers no longer have to wait for development (i.e., medical dispensaries, newspapers) to come to them.

India’s urbanization has been slow compared to that of China because of India’s economic policies. According to The Times, “Decisions made during and even after four decades of quasi socialism have crimped the kind of manufacturing that has spurred China’s urban growth.”

Regardless of jobs, India’s migrants continue to flood cities, and their presence is creating new challenges: battles for land, competition for jobs, strained resources and religious and political tensions. Moreover, when the migrants return home, they bring new views and aspirations with them. “Their perspectives are combining with the improved highways to open up, and out, the closed worlds of India's villages.”

-Christine Choi
Link


United States: "The Greatest Show on the Road"

Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter used his acceptance speech last Wednesday as a forum to castigate U.S. occupation in Iraq. The English playwright voiced his political views on U.S. foreign policy to the Swedish Academy in Stockholm via a video conference from London.

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them,” said Pinter. “You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good.”

In recent years, the Nobel literature prize has gone to writers with left-wing ideologies, such as Jose Saramago of Portugal and Dario Fo of Italy, but the reasoning and deliberations of the Swedish Academy have been kept secret. When Pinter won the award, he was unsure of the Academy’s choice—whether it was based on his own political views or not. Nevertheless, Pinter welcomed the platform, where he was able to bring his views to a larger audience than just his home country of England.

Pinter has been known not only for his “sparse prose style and haunting elliptical plays, but also [for being] a boastful spokesperson for anti-Americanism.” The Swedish Academy described Pinter as a “fighter for human rights.”

-Alyssa Gargiulo
Link


Pay Upfront or Die

Seven-year-old Cui Dejie may die of leukemia, even though it is considered highly treatable, because his parents have no money to pay for chemotherapy treatments. “Hospitals are not charities,” said a doctor from Beijing Children’s Hospital to Dejie’s father. “If you have the money the child can live. If no, he will die.”

Dejie’s parents were forced to check their son out of the hospital after being able to collect only enough money for one round of chemotherapy. “We warned you about this at the very beginning,” the doctor told Mr. Cui. Now you’ve lost all your money and you’ll lose the boy too.” The hospital’s fee of $18,500 for an initial 6 ½-month course of treatment was extremely high for the Cui family, whose annual income is only $350.

Medical horror stories similar to this abound in China, with its “cash upfront, or no treatment” health system. Last month, an impoverished family of a 47-year old woman left her for dead at a crematorium after checking her out of the hospital with a brain hemorrhage because they were too poor to pay the medical bills. The woman was saved only after undertakers saw her hand moving and noticed tears in her eyes.

In China, if patients cannot afford to pay for treatment in advance they are simply thrown out of the hospital, even in emergencies. The problem is very severe, as fewer than 1/3 of China’s 1.3 billion people have medical coverage. More than half of all health spending is out of pocket. To maximize revenues, doctors often prescribe unnecessary drugs and diagnostic procedures. “Hospitals have become huge corporate profit centers,” says Chen Bowen, an official with the Society of Community Health Service.

-Elina Bloch
Link


FUN FACTS:
-Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.-You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.
SOURCE: Here.

December's Hero of the Month

Why Children Will Always Love “Brownie”

I can remember back to when I was a girl, no older than two or three. One of my fondest memories from early childhood is my mother reading to me before bed. Of course, because she was a teacher, bedtime was certainly not the only time that she read to me, but it is certainly the most special: stretched out on the bed, cozy in footed pajamas, lying on my belly, chin resting in cupped hands, elbows propping up my head while my eager eyes and ears waited with great anticipation for the story to be read in my mother’s soft voice.

“In the Great Green Room,
there was a telephone,
and a red balloon,
and a picture of—
the cow jumping over the moon”

Goodnight Moon, as it begins above, is one of the most poignant and cherished classics ever to be written by a children’s author. It is timeless. The genius behind this beautifully poignant children’s classic is its sparse, but meaningful verse and its richly textured illustrations, which vary between black and white images and full color settings.

The author, native Brooklynite, Margaret Wise Brown, first published the work in 1947, and it has stayed in print to this day. Most of you know her for her cherished classics such as Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, but Brown only discovered writing after drifting tentatively into a teacher-training program at Bank Street College. Brown, commonly referred to by her nickname, Brownie, worked out of her Manhattan home, Cobble Court.

Previous to the publication of her stories, the children’s illustrated literature scene was dominated by classic fairytales and fables. Her exposure to Lucy Sprague Mitchell, the visionary founder of Bank Street College in Manhattan, inspired Brown to later become a children’s author. There, Mitchell introduced a progressive concept for children’s literature that she deemed “Here and Now.”

This novel theory worked along the same premises as later theories on Education that emerged during the seventies such as the Constructivist Theory. Its focus is on children learning through the five senses, paralleling the hands on approach of the Constructivist Theory. Pre-existing children’s works such as fables and fairytales, worked with abstract concepts and story lines, moral issues that sometimes stretched far beyond a child’s comprehension, and written from an adult perspective.

Brown, on the other hand, using the “Here and Now” concept, was able to write Goodnight Moon from a child’s perspective; readers were introduced to this new world through the eyes of the little boy bunny character, involving children actively through their five senses. As a result, the experience was more meaningful to children, and made for a unique approach for parents to become involved in reading to their children. During the process of writing children’s literature, Brown discovered that children were much more interested in reading about their own lives than about arbitrary fairytales or stories whose main focuses were on grown-ups. In Goodnight Moon Brown’s use of simple words, concrete images paired with the imaginative illustrations of Clement Hurd made for an instant classic, memorable in the hearts of both children and adults of all ages.

Brown’s New York upbringing helped her to develop into a cultured New Yorker, more dynamic and complex than any of the characters brought to life her books. Those who knew her spoke of her talent as genius in its enormous creative energy and of her ability to tap into an inner core.

As a future educator, following in my mother’s footsteps, my goal is to attend Bank Street College for my Master’s in Education. However, I feel that Children’s Literature is an essential component of a balanced education. For this reason, Margaret Wise Brown is a personal hero to me. She is a true inspiration as a progressive leader in education and Children’s Literature. And her stories act as quiet reminder of my very first teacher: my mother.

-Alyssa Gargiulo

"One can but hope to make a child laugh or feel clear and happy-headed as he follows the simple rhythm to its logical end. It can jog him with the unexpected and comfort him with the familiar, lift him for a few minutes from his own problems of shoelaces that won't tie, and busy parents and mysterious clock time, into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of a story." –Margaret Wise Brown





Sources
Brown, Margaret Wise. Goodnight Moon: A 50th Anniversary Retrospection. New York: Harper Collins Publishing, 1997.
http://www.margaretwisebrown.com/long_bio.htm

Poems of the Week

This week Elina Bloch brings us two poems by our beloved mentor, Dr. Roni Natov, entitled "Summer in December" and "Like Frida, Without the Pain."

Summer in December

It is summer in December and I am walking alongside the pond.
The turtle is up on its rock, sunning in the pale December sun.
It is at least 70 degrees,
And I am inside the light,
Happily aging.

I thought I’d be horrified by turning 50, and was,
And now at 55, I am aware of a new rapture,
My body beautiful, to me, even as I recognize the signs of middle age:
Stomach won’t go in; breasts, ass hanging.
What’s this, I ask into the mirror,
Observing another pocket of skin hanging around my chin.
Even in photos, my face is lumpy.
And I am asked to accept this, and do,
Not only as a good feminist, but as a lover.
Yes, I say, to the lined face in the mirror.
You’ve never been more beautiful to me.
And when you were 20,
With that frightened burning around the eyes,
And the light coming off your hair,
Did you love her then?
Did you treat her with care?
Did you stroke her hand,
Say into her eyes, yes, yes, you are okay?

This rapture is solitary, but embodied.
I have been looking for it all my life.







Like Frida, Without the Pain

I like to think about Frida, without pain,
what would she have been able to do?
Would her painting have turned from the self
to politics and to her Mexican culture?
Would she have walked out on Diego
and not come back?

Lately I feel like Frida, without the pain,
my eyebrows almost meet in the center of my face.
Over the years my dark eyes have been turning down, squinting
into the sun.

I used to be jittery, talky
or else, quiet and hidden.
I’d talk over my pain.
But now I can sit quietly
at least for a few hours,
lean back in my lounge chair.
Instead of smoking a cigarette
I take a deep breath.

My inner life
even at its darkest
shakes light into the day.