South Los Angeles California » Articles on Gang Violence

Beijing 2008 Olympics: China Gets Ready to Smile for the Cameras

LA Editor — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 07:24:16 +0000

With the 2008 Olympics less than a month away, China is making every effort to shed its austere image. Gordon Rayner reports from Beijing. Just 27 days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games and in Beijing nothing, but nothing, is being left to chance. At the Changing Vocational School, 380 Olympic hostesses have been relentlessly drilled in such complex skills as how to smile.

To pass muster, they must always show between six and eight teeth and be capable of unflinchingly holding their grin for 10 minutes at a time. Those who cannot manage this must train for hours with a chopstick clamped between their teeth to build up their facial muscles. Elsewhere, 800,000 students are being taught how to clap and cheer in unison, and even the weather will be strictly controlled, using “cloud-seeding” techniques to ensure it rains before, but not during, the Games.

Yet the great irony of the communist party’s instinct to control every aspect of public behavior is that the Chinese, of all people, don’t need lessons in how to conduct themselves. Paying my first visit to China last week, my overriding impression of the Chinese was that they are unfailingly charming, friendly and polite. They’re also the smallest people I’ve ever come across (even without the chopstick exercises) and they have an endearingly childlike enthusiasm for the Games and for foreign tourists, which makes them natural ambassadors for China.

Walking down Beijing’s busiest thoroughfare, Chang’an Jie (a 30-mile long avenue thick with hooting traffic and whistling policemen) I made a point of stopping people in the street to ask them what they hoped the Games would achieve. There was, of course, a time when the only people allowed to speak to Westerners would have been communist party members primed with propaganda, but those days are gone, and I had no reason to doubt the motives of Ma Bin, a 32-year-old salesman for a coffee company, who said he hoped foreign visitors would discover “that China is a beautiful place where they will feel welcome”, or Sang Shigany, 25, a law student, who said tourists “might be surprised to find how cosmopolitan Beijing is”.

And there were some dissenting voices – one man told me about what he perceived to be corruption in the awarding of Olympics contracts, and suggested many Games venues would turn out to be white elephants. Alas, I can’t give you his name, because freedom of speech is still a distant dream in China, which locks up journalists, bloggers and dissidents, allegedly torturing some of them, and uses violence to crush independence rallies in Tibet. Yet China is changing fast, and changing for the better. It is worth pointing out that the man who told me about alleged corruption had travelled extensively and had lived abroad, including in Britain, but returned to China “because there are so many opportunities here. All countries have problems, but this is a great place to live.”

Indeed, the changes in China since Chairman Mao’s death in 1976 have been so rapid that anyone who has never visited Beijing is likely to have misconceptions that are 10 or 20 years out of date. Beijing is full of smart shopping malls, where wealthier citizens park their Audis and VWs (there are surprisingly few bicycles) to shop in Max Mara, Burberry and Tiffany just a short walk from Mao’s preserved corpse in Tiananmen Square (how much less complicated clothes shopping must have been in his day). And China’s booming economy, set to become the biggest in the world, has raised standards of living in its cities to unimagined levels.

Hi Xiao Long, a tour guide barely out of his teens, told me: “When I was a kid very few people had a television, and if they did, they would have 10 or 12 families coming around to watch it. Now everyone has three or four TV sets, people have cars and mobile phones. People here are happy with their lives. “China is desperate to get this message across, hence my visit as a guest of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games (BOCOG), but after 60 years of communist rule, Chinese officials remain better at monologue than dialogue, lending a sometimes surreal twist to our meetings.

On a visit to the new subway line serving the Olympic Park, I was presented with a 52-page pamphlet on how to use the subway, including instructions on what to do if you drop your handbag on the line (do not jump off the platform for it, or electric shock or contusion by trains may be incurred) and what to do in the event of a poison gas attack (use handkerchief to cover your mouth, go away from the source of gas quickly). Failure to observe the rules (which include “being neatly dressed”) will result in you being “transferred to public security departments”. Perhaps foreign visitors would be better off walking after all.

The Chinese also love statistics – I was told the exact circumference of each of Beijing’s five concentric ring roads, the exact number of workstations in the press centre (971) the total mileage of the city’s subway system by 2015 (561km), the improvement in the carbon monoxide levels in the city since 1998 (39.4 per cent)… anyway, you get the picture. I began to suspect the Chinese officials were bombarding us with numbers so there would be no time left for awkward questions about Tibet, Sudan, the disastrous torch relay or anything touching on human rights.

In fact, the top brass did let us ask questions about such prickly issues; Beijing’s deputy mayor, the sharp-suited Chen Gang, remained good-humored throughout repeated questioning about how pro-Tibetan demonstrators would be treated, though his answer wasn’t exactly candid. They would be dealt with, he said, in accordance with Chinese laws. Anyone wanting to demonstrate must have a permit (cue wry smiles) and, he said, “You will see during the Games how we will handle such situations.” A rather unsettling answer. Yet it may come as a surprise that the question could be asked at all.

China is a country which, just four years ago, was so wary of the media that it blocked almost all foreign internet sites, yet I was able to call up the BBC and UK newspaper websites and even search those sites for articles on China’s human rights record. Beijing, of course, wants the world to behold the impressive Bird’s Nest stadium and the funky Water Cube in the Olympic Village, the showpieces of the Games.

Sadly, visitors may struggle to find them through the unrelenting smog, which is so thick here that, on a bad day, it seems to cling to your face like a mask. Forget the blue-sky publicity shots of the Olympic venues you might have seen; when I visited the Bird’s Nest it was shrouded in a miasma and already appeared to have a thin film of grime coating its steel exoskeleton. The officials seem to be in denial about this, quoting endless statistics to prove how safe the air is. They don’t seem to realize that if the world sees this murk beamed into their homes every day, prospective tourists might choose to go elsewhere. And that would be a great shame, as they would miss out on a country which deserves to be seen first-hand.

livebeijingupdates is a dedicated Olympic website where you can get all Beijing 2008 Updates and information about Olympic venuesandBeijing Athletes

Van Halen Guitar Solos

LA Editor — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:22:25 +0000

Eddie Van Halen is the lead guitarist with a one of the iconic seventies loud and uncouth metal bands. The personalities of the group’s members have always been too individualistic to make for harmonious music, and the world thanks them for that. The personnel changes in the group have always tended to overshadow the music but in this article we will look at what is special about the guitar solos of Eddie Van Halen. Some of his most well-known solos are on the tracks “Eruption”, “Hot For Teacher”, “Mean Street” and on the Michael Jackson track, “Beat It”.

“Eruption” is an instrumental track that features tapping on the guitar fretboard using both the left and right hands. This technique has always been surrounded by controversy because the fans of many guitar players want guitar tapping to be attributed to their idol. Eddie Van Halen himself is credited by many people to be the inventor of guitar tapping technique but Steve Hackett from Genesis was using the technique in the early seventies and two handed guitar tapping can be traced back to Jimmy Webster in the early nineteen fifties. Nevertheless the guitar tapping on “Eruption” helped make Eddie Van Halen a guitar legend, and Eddie himself says he simply got the idea from Jimmy Page’s “Heartbreaker”.

“Hot For Teacher” opens with Alex and Eddie Van Halen competing for our attention like little boys doing handstands for their parents. The video of this track was a babefest directed by David Lee Roth, the group’s vocalist at the time, and was enormously popular with MTV audiences. On this highly theatrical number Eddie played Gibson Flying V, switching pickups as the dynamics of the song changed.

“Mean Street” is a showpiece for a Eddie Van Halen riff. This track also contains drama as the volume of the solo guitar, featuring Eddie simply showing off, starts low and increases menacingly. The riff on “Mean Street” is a classic seventies riff that old men will still be humming fifty years from now.

Michael Jackson got himself two Grammy Awards with the album “Thriller” featuring the song “Beat It”. Eddie Van Halen was asked to play the solo on this song by Quincy Jones, the co-producer of the album. The lyrics feature violence between gangs and Eddie’s guitar solo matched the theme perfectly. The simplicity of the song’s main riff provides a stunning backdrop for Eddie’s pyrotechnics.

It is Eddie Van Halen’s instinctive ability to contrast virtuosity with simplicity that makes him a guitar genius. His unerring use of tremolo in his picking and his penchant for guitar tapping have made him a legend. Eddie used a cheap guitar body fitted with a humbucker pickup, thus proving that the music is in the guitar player, not the guitar. We need to also acknowledge Floyd Rose’s fulcrum vibrato that endowed electric guitar vibrato with a flexibility that the guitarists of the sixties would have envied and which has been a crucial element in Eddie Van Halen’s playing style.

Do you want to learn to play the guitar? http://playaguitarforfree.com/ is my blog which shows you that there are many people like you who wish to learn how to play bass, acoustic or electric guitar. You will find guitar lessons, videos, articles and reviews to answer your questions, calm your fears and help you play the guitar.

Blending In The Streets

LA Editor — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:21:30 +0000

Gangster graphics. What comes in to your mind when you hear this? Graffiti? Abstract designs? How about guns and skulls? Do you picture wearing that art? Because now, you can have them right on your clothing.

The in-thing for streets clothing is exactly what we can call as gangster graphics. The designs feature strong and provocative symbols of money and a little bit of violence. Well, if you think of it, it doesn’t really look that bad at all.

In the past, this design is just commonly seen in men’s clothing in black shirt as the backdrop. Recently, however, women are now seen sporting these shirts giving it a little twist. How about roses to go with a little bit of pink skull? Or pictures of little girls drawn in black, white and red?

Streets clothing has taken a new spin for women by cleverly blending these styles together. Street clothing for women comes in different forms. Sexy razorbacks are embellished with stones together with the printed statements that depict the gang theme. Sometimes, just an intricate insignia of some sort printed on white tee appears like a monochromatic work of art.

As it has been for alternative clothing, men’s shirts are characterized by bold and oversized prints of abstract art and fonts. All creating a look that is fearless and at the same time, fashionable.

To complete the street clothing look, pants are also getting their own share of gangster appeal by destroying it and having it white washed. It seems as if the wearer just came from a fight. But mind you, you won’t get into trouble wearing these wonderful garbs. Women have also a choice to throw away their sneakers because flip-flops are the new bikinis. Wear a black flop with a simple white print of a gangster graphic and your feet are ready to run!

Street clothing is really about versatile pieces. Mix and match each article according to your mood. Don’t be afraid for street clothing is all about being bold and having that cool and hip attitude. The clothing is specially made to become outward projections of the it factor that each of us have.

For more information about Street clothing please logon to our website http://www.chillyo.com/

BREATH OF LIFE

LA Editor — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 07:21:01 +0000

D. THOREAU- “Things do not change, we change.” DANIEL WEBSTER-“Let us never forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labour of man.” DANIEL WHOYT –“If you have a friend worth loving, Love him. Yes, and let him know that you love him, ere life’s evening Tinge his brow with sunset glow. Why should good words ne’er be said of a friend till he is dead?” DANISH PROVERB- “The road to friend’s house is never long.” DANISH PROVERB- “Who is ashamed of asking, is ashamed of learning.’ DANNY DE VRRO- “There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull. How do you hang on to some one who won’t stay? And haw do you get rid of some one who won’t go?” DANNYAINGE –“When you’re playing it as a business… your livelihood depends on winning and losing and so some- times sportsmanship is lost, as in the process of billion dollar companies.” DANTE –“Compassion is not a passion; rather a noble disposition of the soul, made ready to receive love, mercy, and other charitable passions.” DANTE –“Getting Things done the secret of getting things done is to act.” DANTE –“What shall one do with the verse, if he knows not That?” DANTE ALGHIERI- “There is no great sorrow than to recall happiness in the time of misery.” DANTE ALIGHIERI –“Midway upon the journey of our life/I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.” DANTE GABRIEL ROSETTE –“Look in my face, my name is might-have been, I am also called no more, Too-late, Farewell.” DANTE, DE MONARCHIA –“Unity in wills cannot be unless there is one will dominating and ruling all the rest to oneness… wills of mortals have need of a directive principle… therefore for the well-being of the world, there should be a monarchy.” DANTE, II CONVITO –“Everything is virtuous in its nature that fulfils the purpose for which it was ordained; and the better it does this, the more virtuous it is. That is why we call him a good man who leads the on depletive or the active life for which his nature fits him; we call the horse good that runs fast and far, which he is created to do; we call the sword good that cuts hard things with ease, for which end it is made. Thus language, being ordained to express human conceptions, is good when it does this; and the more perfectly it does it the better it is.” DARA SHIKOH –“Paradise is there where no mulla exists—where the noise of his discussions and debate is not heard. May the world become free from the noise of the mulla, and none should pay any heed to his decrees! In the city where a mulla resides, No wise man ever stays.” DARRIN WEINBERG –“It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose.” DARRYL F ZANUCK –“If two men on the same job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree, then both are useless.” DASHAVAIKALIKA –“The very first principle of religion laid down by Lord Mahavira is ahimsa — non-injury to living beings—which must be observed very scrupulously and thoroughly, and behaving towards all living beings with proper restraint and control.” DAVE BARBT –“The Internet: Transforming Society and Shaping the Future Through Chat.” dave barry –“In those days, most people read newspapers, whereas today, most people do not. What caused this change? One big factor, of course, is that people are a lot stupider than they used to be, although we here in the newspaper industry would never say so in print.” DAVE BARRY –“YOU CAN ONLY BE YOUNG ONCE. BUT YOU CAN ALWAYS BE IMMATURE.” DAVE MEURER –“A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.” DAVE PELZER –“Hate is a cancer that spread on cell at a time.” DAVE THOMAS –“In the beginning there was nothing and God said ‘Let there be light’, and there was still nothing but everybody could see it.” DAVE TYSON GENTRY –“True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable.” DAVID A WYSS –“If one tries to stamp out a bubble in one place, it resurfaces in another.” DAVID ARMISTEAD –“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware.” DAVID ATTENBOROUGH –“Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.” DAVID ATTENBOROUGH –“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.” DAVID ATTENBOROUGH –“People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.” DAVID BATCHELOR –“Colour is uncontainable. It effortlessly reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it… To work with colour is to become acutely aware of the insufficiency of language and theory — which is both disturbing and pleasurable.” DAVID BATCHELOR -“Colour is uncontamable. It effortlessly reveals the limits of language and evades our best attempts to impose a rational order on it… To work with colour is to become acutely aware of the insufficiency of language and theory -which is both disturbing and pleasurable.” DAVID BISSONNNETTE –“I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste.” DAVID BOHM –“In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.” DAVID BOWIE- “A man may be so much of every thing that is a nothing of anything.” DAVID BOWIE- “Time may change me, but I can’t trace time.” DAVID BRIN –“It is said that power corrupts, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible.” DAVID BRIN –“It’s said that ‘power corrupts’, but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.” DAVID BRIN –“When it comes to privacy and accountability, people always demand the former for themselves and the latter for everyone else.” DAVID BRINKLEY –“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.” DAVID BROWER –“Cherish these rivers. Witness for them. Enjoy their unimprovable purpose as you sense it, and let those rivers that you never visit comfort you with the assurance that they are there, doing wonderfully what they have always done.” DAVID BROWER –“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.” DAVID BYRNE –“Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.” DAVID GRAYSON –“Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.” DAVID L. WEATHERFORD –“When faced with a challenge, look for a way not a way out.” DAVID LETTEBMAN –“Humans are the only animal who can have sex over the phone.” DAVID LETTERMAN- “Keep in mind that your individual vote doesn’t mean anything.” DAVID LEVESQUE –“You know you are in love when you see the world in her eyes, and her eyes everywhere in the world.” DAVID LLOYD GEORGE –“Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.” DAVID LODGE- “Literature is mostly about having seen and not much about having children. Life is the other way round.” DAVID MYERS –“For those passionately in love, the whole world seems to smile.” DAVID NIVEN –“Ultra competitive people who always need to win end up enjoying things less.” DAVID OGILVY –“A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.” DAVID OGILVY –“The best ideas come as jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible.” DAVID OWEN- “We are fed up with fudging and mudding with mush and shush.” DAVID R HAWKINS –“ Why give the ego more power by resisting and opposing it?” DAVID SCHWARTZ –“Every big accomplishment is a series of little accomplishments.” DAVID SCHWARTZ –“Think little goals and expect little achievements, think big goals and win big success.” DAVID SLAWSON –“Names are an important key to what a society values. Anthropologists recognise naming as ‘one of the chief methods for imposing order on perception’.” DAVID STARR JORDAN –“The secret of being a bore is to tell everything. Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.” DAVID STEEL –“To listen to some people in Politics, you’d think-nice-was a four-letter word.” DAVID STEINDL-RAST –“Wherever we may come alive, that is the area in which we are spiritual.” DAVID VISCOTT –“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” DAVID W JOHNSON –“There are no speed limit on the road to excellence.” DAVID WILCOX –“Sometimes the people you love in the night/ The morning will choose to forget/ This is my last cigarette.” DAVID. R. HAWKINS –“Prayer: Holding in mind what you desire, but without adding desire to it.” DAVIS BEN-CURION- “Courage is the knowledge of how to fear, what ought to be feared and how not to fear, what ought not to feared.” DAVIS NAPIER- “There is of course absurdity in every act of faith.” DE MAGISTRO –“If I am given a formula, and I am ignorant of its meaning, it cannot teach me anything, but if I already know it what does the formula teach me?” DE STAEL –“Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.” DEAN INGE –“The enemies of freedom do not argue, they shout and then shoot.” DEAN MARTIN –“I’d hate to be a teetotaler the morning and knowing that’s as good as you’re going to feel all day” DEAN WILLIAM R INGE –“What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” DEBORAH MCGRIFF- “Treat failure as practice shorts.” DECLARATION OF THE BAB –“ “Let your reliance be on the remembrance of God, the most Exalted, the Most Great. He will, erelong, bring to naught all the things ye possess. Let Him be your fear, and forget not His covenant with you, and be not of them that are shut out as by a veil from Him. Purify thou, first, thy soul with the waters of renunciation, and adorn thine head with the crown of the fear of God, and thy temple with the ornament of reliance upon Him.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“As is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm, As is the atom, so is the universe, As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“Everything that is happening at this moment is a result of the choices you’ve made in the past.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue. Make a decision to relinquish the need to control the need to be approved and the need to judge.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance: of the universe.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It’s a way of entering into the quiet that’s already there — buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“Silence is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it. There is no substitute for the creative inspiration, knowledge, and stability that comes from knowing how to contact your core of inner silence.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“The all-pervading energy source of existence or Shakti manifests itself as creation. Shakti is the divine mother who gives birth to and nurtures the newborn—whether it is a newborn babies a brand new relationship, a fresh idea, or a magical manifestation. Although Shakti is beyond the boundaries of gender, form or color, we call It Mother because of its mothering and creative qualities.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“The body must be credited with an immense fund of know-how.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“The coexistence of opposites — stillness and dynamism — makes you independent… When you quietly acknowledge this exquisite coexistence of opposites, you align yourself with the world of energy — the quantum soup, the non-material non-stuff that is the source of the material world. This world energy is fluid, dynamic, resilient, changing, forever in motion. And yet it is also non-changing, still, quiet, eternal and silent.” DEEPAK CHOPRA -“The first spiritual law of success is the law of pure potentiality This law is based or the fact that we are, in our essential state pure consciousness Pure consciousness is pure potentiality; it is the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity Pure consciousness is our spiritual essence Being infinite and unbounded, it is also pure joy Other attributes of consciousness are pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility simplicity, and bliss. This is our essential nature. Our essential nature is one of pure potentiality.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“The less you open your heart, the more your heart suffers.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“The way to fill your life with love is very simple: if you want more love, give more love.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“There are no accidents … there is only some purpose that we haven’t yet understood.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“To find oneself living in an age of doubt is not such a curse. There is a kind of reverence in undertaking the quest for truth, even before the first scrap has been found.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“When awareness is completely balanced, communicating with the outside world is instantaneous and automatic. It happens with the touch of thought.” DEEPAK CHOPRA –“You and I are infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices. Some of these choices are made consciously, while others are made unconsciously. But the best way to understand and maximize the use of karmic law is to become consciously aware of the choices we make every moment.” DEEPAK TANDON –“Soaring, Where perception, from wherever, is correct in itself, Where the horizon spreads to all directions, Where merger, defies the theories of opposite forces, Where separation, is reduced to just an illusion, Where ‘the abstract force’, breaks all barriers of disputed views, Where the issue, is not even the issuelessness, Where the beauty of a lush green meadow and a desert is the same, Where colour is not bound by a significance, Where merger, even merges the difference between duality and oneness, Where wholeness is love, Where love in its description, goes abstract, Where ‘The abstract’, manifests wherever to enjoy wherever, Where, wherever amazes himself with himself, Where this phenomena may be expressed as ‘life’. Where there ‘is’, thus, “The Joy of Life”.” DEMOCRITUS –“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.” DEMOPHILUS –“It is with youth as with plants, from the first fruits they bear we learn what may be expected in future.” DEMOSTHENES –“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.” DENG MING-DAO –“Eventually, the time of action must come. When this happens, be a winner! Don’t settle for mediocre results. Don’t try to stay even. Go for it all!” DENG XIAOPING –“If the masses feel some anger, we must let them express it.” DENIS DIDEROT – “The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Belief is the ignition switch that Gets you off the launching pad.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, remove yourself from the unacceptable.” denis waitley –“chase your passion, not your pension.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take; but by the moments that take your breath away.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Look within for value and look beyond for perspective.” DENIS WAITLEY –“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” DENIS WAITLEY –“There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” DENIS WAITLEY –“View life as a continuous learning experience.” DENNIS GREEN –“The secret to success is to start from scratch and keep on scratching.” DENNIS WEAVER –“It’s not an if— we’re going to have to change. Oil is simply going to be gone.” DENVER, AUG 1993 –“Precisely when science and medicine are achieving a greater capacity to safeguard health and life, the threats against life are becoming more insidious.” DEREK WALL –“How to be green? It’s really very simple and requires no expert knowledge or complex skills. Here’s the answer: consume less, share more. Enjoy life.” DEREKE BRUCE –“In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him.” DESI ARNAZ –“It became a ritual that at each of our anniversaries i sang a song and sent her red and white carnations.” DESMOND MORRIS- “The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.” DESMOND TUTU –“Children are a wonderful gift… They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.” DEUTERONOMY –“And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground… And the Lord will make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall tend upward only, and not downward; if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God.” DEVI BHAGAVATAM –“0 Saraswati, goddess of learning, grant me knowledge, grant me memory, grant me learning, reputation and poetry, and the power to enlighten disciples.” DEVI MAHATMYAM –“At dawn, I bow to Chandi. Her play-act deludes Brahma, Indra, Rudra and munis and she has innumerable forms.” DEVOTEE’S CONFESSIM –“I asked for strength and God gave me difficulties to make strong. I asked for wisdom and God gave me problems to solve. I asked for Courage and God gave me dangers to overcome. I asked for Love and God gave me troubled people to help. I asked for favours and God gave me opportunities I received nothing I wanted. I received everything ineeded.” DEXTER –“Let the chain of second causes be ever so long, the first link is always in God’s hand.” DEXTER –“The demand of the human understanding for causation requires but the one and only answer, God.” DH LAWRENCE –“I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me. That I am part of the earth my feet know perfectly and my blood is part of the sea.” DH LAWRENCE –“It is a fine thing to establish one’s own religion in one’s heart, not to be dependent on tradition and Second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing. DH LAWRENCE –“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” DH LAWRENCE –“The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, I or a tiger into lustre.” DH LAWRENCE –“This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. Those gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognise and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.” DH LAWRENCE –“Why doesn’t the past decently bury itself, instead of sitting and waiting to be admitted by the present?” DHANI RAM CHATRIK –“Let us bury caste and creed, Let us erase this sorrow indeed, You a Sayyid, I a Brahmin, let us finish this foolish din. We have to bear each other, say We are not here for eternal stay, Let there be laughter in our meeting, Let our hearts be one this evening.” DHU I-NUN –“Dim I-Nun: How can one attain the state of the wise? The Bedouin Sheikh: By giving up undertakings and genealogies, by cutting short all relations.” DHU I-NUN –“I perceived that God takes in hand the affair; of them that put then- trust in Him and does not let their tribulation come to naught.” DIANA –“Call me Diana, not Prineess Diaiia… Don’t call me an icon. I’m just a mother trying to help… Everyone needs to be valued. Everyone has the potential to give something back… I want my boys to have an understanding of people’s emotions, their insecurities, people’s distress, and their hopes and dreams.” DIANA L ECK –“In Montana, every mountain and river has a name, and our Montana culture speaks these names with familiarity and reverence — the Gallatin and Madison, the Bitterroot and BIackfoot. Nature does indeed reveal both the glory and terror of the Divine. But most of us in the Christian tradition have not let the icons of nature become a powerful part of our theological language. There is no part of nature that carries for Christians the cultural power and mythic energy of the Ganges, as much ; as i love the Madison, the Gallatin, and the BIackfoot rivers. Why not? Perhaps those of us in the western prophetic traditions have been afraid that ; we will worship nature and not God.” DIANA RANKIN –“It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success.” DIANA RANKIN –“It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success.” DIANE –“Youth lasts much longer than young people think.” DIANE ARBUS – “Love involves an unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” DIANE ARBUS –“My favourite thing is to go where I have never gone.” DICKENS- “It’s over, and can’t be helped, and that’s one consolation, as they always say in Turkey.’’ DIETRICH BANBOEFFER –“0 merciful God, forgive me all the Sins I have committed against you, andagainst my fellow men. I trust in your grace and commit my life: wholly into your hands. So do with me as seems best to you and as is best for me. Whether I live or die, I am with you, and you are with me, my God. Lord, I wait for your salvation.” DIETRICH BONHOEFFER –“The test of the morality as a society is what it does for its children.” DIGHA NIKAYA –“Brethren, if outsiders should speak against me, or against the Doctrine, or against the Order, you should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer resentment, or feel ill will. If you, on that account, should feel angry and hurt, that would stand in the way of your own self-conquest.” DIGHA NIKAYA –“He who says: “It is too hot, too cold, too late!” Leaving the waiting work unfinished still, Lets pass all opportunities for good. But he who reckons heat and cold as straws And like a man does all that’s to be done, He never falls away from happiness.” DIGHA NIKAYA –“In five ways should a child minister to his parents: ‘Once supported by them, I will now be their support; I will perform duties incumbent on them; will keep up the lineage and tradition of my family; I will make myself worthy of my heritage. In five ways parents thus ministered to, by their child, show their love for him; They restrain him from vice, they exhort him to virtue, they train him to a profession, they contract a suitable marriage for him, and in due time they hand over to him his inheritance.” DIGHA NIKAYA –“The friend who always seeks his benefit, The friend whose words are other than his deeds, The friend who flatters just to make you pleased, The friend who keeps you company in wrong, These four the wise regard as enemies: Shun them from afar as paths of danger. The friend who is a helper all the time, The friend in happiness and sorrow both, The friend who gives advice that’s always good, These four the wise see as good-hearted friends And with devotion cherish such as these As does a mother cherish her own child.” DILLON LAUGHTON –“Do good things for others and people may accuse you of selfish motives. Do good anyway.” DINAH MARIA MULOCK CRAIK –“God rest ye, little children; let nothing you affright. For Jesus Christ, your saviour was born this happy night; along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay. When Christ, the child of Nazareth, was born on Christmas Day.” DINAH SHORE –“Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.” DIOGENES –“Education is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the older, wealth to the poor, ornaments to the rich.” DIONYSIUS –“This Universe… is both One and Many.” DIONYSIUS –“Trinity — Higher than any being, any divinity, any goodness. Guide of Christians in the wisdom of heaven! Lead us up beyond unknowing and light, up to the farthest, highest peak of mystic scripture, where the mysteries of God’s Word lie simple, absolute! And unchangeable in the brilliant darkness of – a hidden silence with treasures beyond all beauty.” DIONYSIUS –“We must be transported wholly out of ourselves and given unto God… This Foolish Wisdom, which hath neither reason nor intelligence… is the cause of all intelligence and reason, and of all wisdom and understanding,” DISRAELI –“We make our fortunes and call them fate.” DISRAELI –“Youth is a blunder, manhood a struggle, old age, a regret.” DIXY LEE RAY –“It is no coincidence that our reawakening to the special nature of our world and to its uniquely balanced environment and its limitations coincided with our first glimpse of earth from outer space, through the eyes of astronauts, television cameras and photographic equipment.” DN PANDEY –“Since local knowledge systems in India are still being practised among communities, they can contribute to address the challenges of forest management, sustainable water management, biodiversity conservation, and mitigation of global climate change. Ecological consequences of climate change require that we access all stocks of knowledge for mitigation strategies.” DOC SEUERINSEN –“Music and the arts are not just something to make people feel good. They elevate the soul and broaden the entire personality.” DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN –“In the Book of Songs it is said, He makes no show of his moral worth, yet all the princes follow in his steps. Hence the moral man, by living a life of simple truth and earnestness, alone can I help to bring peace and order in the world.” DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN –“It matters not what you inquire into but when you inquire into a thing, you must never give it up, until you have thoroughly understood it. It matters not what you try to think out, but when you once try to think out a thing, you must never give it up until you have got what you want.” DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN –“Only those who are absolutely sincere can fully develop their nature. If they can fully develop their nature, they can fully develop the nature of others.” DOLLY PARTON –“If you want the rainbow you’ve got to put up with a little rain.” DOLLY PARTON –“Storms make trees take deeper roots.” DOLLY PARTON –“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” DOM MORAES- “I shall leave in ways we believed, impossible in our youth. A little tired, but in end, not unhappy to have lived.” DON DE LILLO –“There’s always a period of curious fear between the first sweet-smelling breeze and the time when the rain comes cracking down.” DON GALER –“In the heroic organizations, people mentor each other unselfishly.” DON HAROLD’S –“Don’t ever slam a door, you might to go back.” DON JUAN DE MARCO –“There are four questions of value in life… What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying fort The answer to each is the same. Only love.” DON MARQUIS –“Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.” DON MARQUIS –“I have often noticed that when chickens quit quarrelling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them. I wonder if it might not be the same with the human race.” DON MARQUIS –“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him, whose?” DON MORQUIS- “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” DON WARD –“Enthusiasm is contagious. Start an epidemic.” DON WARD –“Others can stop you temporarily; only you can do it permanently.” DON WARD –“Take your job seriously but learn to laugh at yourself.” DON WIIIIAMS JR –“God talks incessantly. But, as it turns out, mankind is deaf.” DON WILLIAM JR –“God, despite his casual silence, still exists. Of that I haven’t a single doubt.” DON WILLIAMS JR –“On an altar of prejudice we crucify our own, yet the blood of all children is the colour of God.” DONALD H. ME CANNON –“Leadership is action, not position.” DONALD LAIRD –“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” DONALD LATUMAHINA –“1. Be observant. 2. Never let any idea go uncaptured. 3. Try to learn something from the people you meet. 4. Take a book or magazine wherever you go. 5. Allocate a minimum of 30 minutes to read a book. 6. Meditate. 7. Take time to reflect on your day. What have you done right? What have you done wrong? What can you do to improve yourself? 8. Drink water a lot. 9. Exercise. 10. Read a collection of quotes. 11. Choose a quote of the day to ponder and apply. 12. Take notes of every expense you make. 13. Do something for the first time. 14. Effectively read online articles. 15. Use timer to help you actually do what you need to do. 16. Learn to use a tool, either to improve your skill with a familiar tool or to learn a new tool. 17. Take time to review your life purpose and goals. 18. Rise early 19. Listen to educational or motivational audio programme when you are doing activities which do not need full concentration. 20. Be grateful for your day 21. Read a random article to expose you to new things. 22. Have fun. Be passionate about life.” DONALD LATUMAHINA –“There is no such thing as instant improvement in life. And as you know in agriculture, growth can only happen little by little over time…. The things that you do daily may seem small and insignificant, but over time people will be surprised to learn how much you have grown in life. Focus on the small things you do daily The key word here is daily If you do not have the persistence to do these small things consistently, you won’t be able to see the results over the long term.” DONALD LUPTON- “The best news is when we hear no news.” DONALD TRUMP – “As long as you’re going to think anyway, think big.” DONALD TRUMP –“You have to think anyway, so why not think big?” DONNA A FAVORS –“Being nice is one of many bridges on the road to Happiness.” DORIS DAY –“Killing an animal to make a coat is a sin. It wasn’t meant to be and ‘we have no right to I do it. A woman gains status when she refuses to see anything killed to be put on her back. Then she’s truly beautiful.” DORIS DAY –“The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge.” DORIS LESSING –“Coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous.” DORIS LESSING –“Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.” DORIS MORTMAN –“Until you make peace with who you are, you’ll never be content with what you have.” DOROTHEA KENT –“A man 90 years old was asked to what he attributed his longevity. “I reckon”, he said with a twinkle in his eye, “because most nights I went to bed and slept when I should have sat up and worried.” DOROTHY BERNARD –“Courage is fear that has said its prayers.” DOROTHY F GURNEY –“Kiss of fhesurt for pardon. Song of the birds for mirth you’re closer to God’s heart in a garden than any place else on earth.” DOROTHY NORMAN -“Are cosmic creation myths in microcosm. They depict, in no matter how subtle variation, the eternal battle we wage to release the creative energies within ourselves and in the world.” DOROTHY NORMAN -“Myths of the heroes are cosmic creation myths in microcosm. They depict, in no matter how subtle variation, the eternal battle we wage to release the creative energies within ourselves and in the world.” DOROTHY PARKER – “If you want to know what God thinks of money, just looks at the people he gave it to.” DOROTHY PARKER –“I shall stay the way I am because I do not give a damn.” DOROTHY PARKER –“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch is, and it darts.” DOROTHY PARKER –“Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.” DOROTHY SERPES –“If you remember just the roses Forgetting all the thorns The memory of a harsh word Should not linger on I Remember all the kisses That swept those words away/ And the smiles and. laughter And the sunshine of the day I Recall all those moments You treasured once before And keep them in your treasure chest Now and forever more Life’s sunset is so beautiful It can make you smile If you recall sweet memories Just for a passing while The world is yet so beautiful It hasn’t changed at all; You can hear the nightingale/ You can hear the koel call The roses are still fragrant/ As they were in years gone by The birds still sing as sweetly And there are white clouds in the sky It’s up to you to freshen up i Before the curtain falls For Death is not the end of life? It’s the Beginning for us all.” DOROTHY THOMPSON –“Fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light.” DOUG LARSON –“To err is human; to admit it, superhuman.” DOUGIAS P WHEEIER –“To halt the decline of an ecosystem it is necessary to think like an ecosystem.” DOUGLARSVN –“A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your successes.” DOUGLAS ADAMS – “God’s final message to creation: Sorry for the inconvenience.” DOUGLAS ADAMS – “In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.” DOUGLAS ADAMS- “Any one who is capable of getting himself into a position of power soul on no account is allowed to do the job.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“If you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry, and has been widely regarded as a bad idea.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely products of a deranged imagination.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“l may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I intended to be.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“Nothing travels faster than the speed of the light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.” DOUGLAS ADAMS –“This is obviously some strange usage of the word ‘safe’ that I wasn’t previously aware of.” DOUGLAS EVERETT –“There are some people, who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” DOUGLAS JERRDD –“Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.” DOUGLAS JERROLD –“A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when he respects another’s weakness.” DOUGLAS MACARTHUR –“There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.” DOUGLAS MACARTHUR –“Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber. So long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long are you young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and then only, are you grown old. And then, indeed as the ballad says, you just fade away” DOUGLAS MALLOCH –“You have to believe in happiness, Or happiness never comes.” DOUGLAS PAGEIS –“A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best thing you can be.” DOUGLAS YATESS –“People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.” DR BENDRE –“Age after age, Millennium after millennium, Yugadi returns. Bringing with it new joy of the New Year and of a new life.” DR SEUSS –“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled ’till his puzzler was sore./Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before./ What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store./ What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” DR TED KAPTCHUK –“Health is an episode between two illnesses.” DR. LEONARD BACON- “This country is inhabited by Saints, Sinners and Beechers.” DRAUPADI, SABHA –“Go, and ask that gambler present in the assembly, whom he hath lost first, himself, or me.” DREW BARRYMORE –“Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time!” DRIES SHAH –“It is not enough that there is a collection of people with the common aim of working in unison towards an objective… Aspiration and desire only are not enough.” DRYDEN –“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see: the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.” DRYDEN –“Mark her majestic fabric; she’s a temple. Sacred by birth, and built by hands divine.” DRYDEN –“There are three effects of doting age: Vain doubts, idle cares, over caution.” DUDLEY MOOKE –“The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.” DUE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD –“However brilliant an action may be, it should not be accounted great when it is not the result of great purpose.” DUE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD –“We are all enough to bear the misfortunes of other.” DUKE OD EILINGTON –“Love is indescribable and unconditional; I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is.” DUKE OF WINDSOR- “The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.” DULICHAND JAIN –“One has to understand that non-violence and equality constitute eternal dharma.” DULICHAND JAIN –“Perhaps more than any other religious tradition, Janism is imbued with its commitment to self-reliance. In the soul’s tormented struggle to free itself from its beginningless, and possibly endless – worldly bondage, neither fate nor the gods can be of any help. Even the Jinas cannot relieve him of his karmic debts; however, it is their teaching which facilitates the soul’s journey towards perfection.” DUMBLEDORE –“Dark and difficult times lie ahead, Harry. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right… and what is easy.” DUMBLEDORE –“His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.” DUMBLEDORE –“The truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone One does not do well to dream and forget to live.” DUMBLEDORE –“What’s coming will come and we’ll just have to meet it when it does.” DUMBLEDORE –“Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.” DUNCAN JOHNSTONE –“First published shortly after his death in February 1940, ‘Memory Hold-the-door’ is not an autobiography in the fullest sense, but rather a collection of reminiscences about people and places John Buchan had known. In the first sentence of the preface he wrote: This book is a journal of certain experiences, not written in the experiencing moment, but rebuilt out of memory’.” DUNYA MIKHAIL –“The Wright brothers created the single greatest cultural force since the invention of writing. The airplane became the first World Wide Web, bringing people, languages, ideas and values together Bill Gates It no longer overlooks the river No longer is in the city No longer on the map The bridge that was The bridge that we used to cross every day The bridge The war tossed it into the river Just as that lady aboard the Titanic Tossed her blue diamond.” DURGA ASHTOTRAM –“A tiger symbolises unlimited power. Durga riding tiger indicates that She possesses unlimited power and uses it to protect virtue and destroy evil.” DURGALAKSHMI, V –“It is God, His being, His seeing, which make the whole world seem a never ending beauty in bliss. This beauty, this bliss is born of love divine. To grant man this beauty, this true bliss of love, God comes down and walks the earth, as a sage, as a saint, a mahatma or a guru divine. His mystic divine vision now, is for one and all, to see, to drink in and feel sweet ecstasy Man then dances singing thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks my dear lord, for revealing to me You and I can be one in sweet godly seeing. Truth, love and beauty are an eternal reality to me now, as I know You are me and I You.” dustin hoffman –“Life stinks but that doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy it.” DWIGHT D EISENHOWER –“Well, it’s hard for a mere man to believe that woman doesn’t have equal rights.” DWIGHT D ELSENHOWER –“Plans are nothing; planning is everything.” DWIGHT D ELSENHOWER –“We, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve.” DWIGHT EISENHOWER –“Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” DWLGHT D. EISENHOWER –“I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.” DYLAN THOMAS –“Though lovers be lost love shall not/And death shall have no dominion.” LORD GEORGE-BROWN –“It is difficult to go on strike if there is no work in the first place.” SMITH –“If to be old is not to be wise, then it is simply to be obsolete.”

please

Crazy rights in Saudi Arabia!

LA Editor — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:13:17 +0000

Crazy Righs for Saudi Women. (editorial)

By Raisa Hasan

It wasn’t too long ago when women won the right to vote in America which was during 1919-1920. Discrimination against women has diminished in many countries through out the years, but what about the places where women are still treated as inferiors? Discrimination and abuse of women in Saudi Arabia still exists today.

I feel that there are a lot of facts that people should learn about the Saudi Arabian society and how it affects the women there. According to the article “Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia” from www.truthout.org Saudi women face a lot of discrimination in many aspects of their lives. This includes education, employment, and the justice system. Looking at the statistics, many women in Saudi Arabia go to school and get their degrees, 70% of the female population are registered in universities although only 5% make up the workforce which is the lowermost percentage in the world.

I’m not saying that America is a perfect country when it comes to the exploitation of women, we have our flaws. Our media always put up women as sex symbols, sometimes we don’t even realize how the younger generation of girls try so hard to look like supermodels. It’s sending subliminal messages to little girls and tells them how they are “supposed” to look.

America’s domestic violence against women is topping the charts as well. There is still sexism in the United States but I believe looking at Saudi Arabia we are definitely not as bad.

In Saudi Arabia, culture and religion makes a woman’s life segregated. There is actually seclusion under their own roofs, for instance, some rooms have separate doorways for men and women.

Something that I’d really like to touch on is the legal system that females have inequity in as well. In the article I’ve mentioned before, there is a list of laws for why in most cases women are forbidden to testify in court. I find these reasons a bit funny, but it is somewhat true for the women over there because of their daily way of life. The laws are; “Women are much more emotional than men and will as a result of their emotions, distort their testimony.” “Women do not participate in public life, so they will not be capable of understanding what they observe.” “Women are dominated completely by men, who by the grace of God are deemed superior; therefore, women will give testimony according to what the last man told them.” Finally, “Women are forgetful, and their testimony cannot be considered reliable.” Some laws right?

Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to ride bicycles or drive in any public roads or large cities. This is the only country in the world where females are forbidden to drive. Yet some still drive illegally on rural roads. Before 2008 women were not permitted to enter hotels without a chaperon.

The rape cases are not taken seriously at all, it some how still is the women’s fault for getting raped. There was recently a case where a gang-rape victim was in prison by a Saudi court along with 200 lashes for disobeying the rules of “segregation of the sexes”.

A list of videos starting with “Saudi Wife Shows us into her Home (part 1)” on Youtube has explained a lot about the daily lifestyle of Saudi Women. In the video the lady explains who she can and cannot be seen in front of wearing a full burkha. She talks about many more things that might make us Americans gasp in shock, but is pretty much normal to them… a part of their life, reality.

I enjoyed watching the 2008 Olympics last year, but it was sad to learn that Saudi Arabia did not have a female representative because women’s sports are not permitted in their culture.

No country has found a middle ground when it comes to how women are viewed in society. Certain things in America are very open about women and in Saudi Arabia it’s a sin for women to even show their faces. We have the extremes on both sides. Descrimination and abuse against women still does exist in certain countries, Saudi Arabia is just one of the few that stood out to me. As I researched about this, I honestly thought that the rights these women have to obey were crazy! Hopefully the advanced women’s rights and groups of feminists will try to lessen the issues that women in Saudia Arabia have to face everyday. Life will and can be easier if countries can find a middle ground in all of this.

Hello,
I’m Raisa. I’m 17 and a senior in High School. I want to get into journalism…or any other type of media communications. I love writing, and I want to inform people about issues in the society today. I want people to give my articles a chance, and I asure it will open up your eyes. I have written one article in particular that I want to share with people, thats basically why I opened up this account. I hope people read this article I’ve written and hopefully agree with my opinions..hehe.
There should be more young writers coming out, we have great points that people would like to hear as well.

More Americans among shooting victims in Mexico

LA Editor — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:22:43 +0000

By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter. Aug 19, 2009 at 12:01 PM PDT

Mexican Drug Cartels Paramilitary

As many as six more Americans killed in Juarez. Two men from El Paso were among the victims of a multiple shooting inside a Juarez bar. Mexican newspapers reported that the shooting and murders were apparently retaliation to the on going war among Mexican Drug Cartels.

At least 21 persons were murdered within 24 hours in Ciudad Juarez. Eight of those victims (two Americans) were shot at the “Seven Seven” bar in Juarez. The other thirteen all died late Sunday within a five hour period. Last year, Juarez won the title of the most violent city in Mexico, with more than 1,600 out of the nearly 6,000 that took place in the entire country. More than a dozen Americans have been killed in Mexico since the beginning of the year. According to a main Mexico City newspaper, this year’s total killed in Mexico, both Americans and Mexicans has reached 4,353 so far and is in line to surpass the 2008 record. More Americans have been kidnapped, tortured and killed in Mexico than ever before in recent memory.

A Chihuahua state police spokesman has identified Benito Felix Holguin, 38, and Jose Antonio Flores Jr., 33, as U.S. citizens born in El Paso who were among the victims.

The men were among seven men and a woman shot inside the Seven & Seven bar early Monday. Mexican media reports that the victims were chosen to die using the Mexican game “Tin Marin,” which is similar to “Eeny, meeny, miney, moe.”

Police on both sides of the border confirm Holguin was wanted in connection with a murder in El Paso which was believed to be drug-related.

“We are trying to find out if it is the same individual,” El Paso police spokesman Javier Sambrano said earlier in the week.

Holguin and his brother Alfredo Holguin are suspected of shooting and killing Mark Cedillo during a kidnapping attempt in the parking lot of a strip mall on Lee Trevino Drive in 2002, according to El Paso Times archives.

The El Paso times is reporting that the deaths, according to a banner found in Juarez, was linked to the war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartel, which is known as La Linea.

The banner supposedly left by La Linea claimed that the victims in the bar were innocent people killed by gunmen working for reputed Sinaloa drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman as payback for the deaths of several men La Linea killed in the Valley of Juarez recently.

“La Linea does not kill innocent people or families … ‘Chapo’ killed one of our guys and his family last Friday in (the village of) Loma Blanca,” the banner read in Spanish.

The banner stated La Linea retaliated by killing eight men, described as criminals, leading to the counter strike at the Seven & Seven bar.

A news release from the Juarez city government seemed to confirm the account by stating that innocent people have been killed and that the cartel war is not over.

Friday, still more Americans were killed. A man, his wife and his stepdaughter from Las Cruces were killed in a shooting on the Juárez-Porvenir highway in Loma Blanca. It is believed by Mexican Police that the shooting was the family referred to in the Mexican Cartel banner.

Around 11:15 p.m. that same Monday, a young boy and a man believed to be Americans were killed when a family traveling in a Chevrolet Suburban was attacked on that same highway by shooters near the village of San Isidro in Juarez, state police said. Armando Pulido Mota, 45, and Ivan Christopher Salgado, 4, were killed. An unidentified woman also believed to be an American was hospitalized as a result of the same shooting.

In response to a major increase in death and violence in the Mexican President’s home state of Michoacán President Felipe Calderon sent more than 5,500 additional troops and federal police to protect, defend and support federal forces already there and other Mexican law enforcement personal who have taken a stand against the Mexican Drug Cartel known as La Familia. Many of those troops sent where taken from the Juarez area. Locals feared that would leave Juarez vulnerable and many now believe that is true and is at least part of the reason for the recent up-tick in violence. According to authorities 16 police officers and a unknown number of Mexican solders have been slain recently by the Cartels well coordinated, organized and well armed paramilitary . Federal authorities hold the La Familia Mexican Drug Cartel responsible for those slayings. Some leaders in the Mexican like Congress believe that the forces being used by the Mexican Government to combat the Mexican Drug Cartels are inadequate.

Mexican Drug Cartels angered by a nationwide military crackdown on their drug and other criminal actives are striking back. This powerful group of organized criminals and their alliance, also known as the Federation, is a cooperating group of the major Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) also known as Mexican Drug Cartels and their Para-military units and gangs that are attacking Mexican Army troops and Federal Police. They also as a resource for the cartels carryout murders, smuggle drugs, humans and launder money, along with protecting drug transportation routes for the cartels, both in Mexico and on into the United states.

Concerned citizen Jose Carlos said “we as residents of Juarez fear for our safety even more now since the troops were pulled out and the city is more vulnerable.” Nearly 4,000 people, including more than 160 just this month alone, have been killed in the Juarez area since a war between Mexican Drug Cartels and the Mexican Government began in 2006 shortly after the election of Mexican President Calderon.

Sources:

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO)

Diario de Yucatan

El Paso Times

El Paso Police Dept.

Mexican law enforcement

Mexican Army Officer

For Related Articles go to: www.lagunajournal.com

America’s leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Investigative Reporter for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies.

Crime, Education and Charity

LA Editor — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:32:17 +0000

A recent Wall Street Journal article called, “Murder Spike Poses Quandary” talks about how criminologists are offering a number of explanations for an increase in the murder rate in some cities over the last month. In Washington in April 2008 there were 18 murders during a 13 day violence spurt, 20 percent deadlier than one year ago.

Other cities including Chicago and Philadelphia had similar murder waves during the same period. This leads criminologists to wonder if this signifies the srat of a new trend. People studying crime tell us they can see no easy explanations, other than the usual usual reasons like poverty, gangs, easy access to guns and the economy.

Murder rate statistics overall have dropped for years, but lately have been inching up in the black community — accounting for only 13 percent of the country’s population. However more African-Americans are killed in the U.S. than any other racial group, and it accounts for 49 percent of all murder victims, states the FBI.

One county medical examiner in Cincinnati who analyzed all the available data on his region’s most recent murder victims thinks that the reason is lack of education. This Hamilton County medical examiner studied the death certificates of his victims and realized that 60 percent of them had quit school over a five-year period.

There are a number of organizations that are trying to do something about the negative aspects in their communities, including Children of the City in Brooklyn who believe that improving the quality of life involves breaking the cyclical effects of poverty, therefore giving families hope. In this community alone there is a 48 percent high school drop out rate. With 30,000 children, that means 15,000 are dropping out. One in three families are under the poverty level. A culture of drugs and gang, 1,000 deaths annually. Kids are into violent acts like selling drugs.

They believe that the only way to fix the problem is via educating kids and their families. For more than two and a half decades, this group of volunteers has been making a difference through programs like its Create Success program, countering the near 50 percent drop out rate and instigating positive change.

The best news is that almost half of the kids enrolled in the education program believe that it helped deter them from drugs.

An author and social media marketing professional, Kristin Gabriel works with Rocco Basile of the the Basile Builders Group based in New York. Basile is involved with several charities including Children of the City and the Joe DiMaggio Committee for Xaverian High School.

Learning Community Culture

LA Editor — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:08:13 +0000

Hundreds of thousands of learners are casualties of ineffective, inaccessible, under-funded, and poorly managed educational systems. Although idealistic and controversial educators and learners are already tackling educational challenges in amazing ways, much more constructive action is required.

This article is about the education of learners of all ages to become what they aspire to be through whatever means made available. What are our aspirations for education? The following points are meant to get us thinking, talking, creating solutions and taking action – envision this:

Taking up the challenge: Communities are taking on the educational challenge and are making a big difference in their own communities and as far as they can reach, assisting learners in creative, innovative, collaborative ways and sharing their insights with other communities worldwide.
Ignited: In communities, there is a strong desire to thrive and prosper, for social awareness, tolerance, change, self-reliance, sustainability, environmental consciousness, synergetic collaborations, efficiency and achievement of common, as well as individual goals.
Inspiration: Educators are thinking outside the box, are in touch with the real world, and are inspiring their students beyond what is considered typical – enabling learners to make their mark in the world.
Making a difference: Entire communities are making a difference. They are bringing great achievements, and create opportunities for members of the community who aspire to educate themselves further.
Media coverage: Media coverage is highlighting the positive impact of community education achieve all around the globe. Extensive, well structured and concise information about community education solutions are freely available on the internet. Long discussions are summarized – focused onto pivotal points.
A great future: Learners are aware that the ‘education system’ has a great future in mind for each one of them, providing them with real world knowledge and individual attention where needed.
Empowering: We are making incredible progress by empowering and developing learners and educators and every member of the community and are determined to continue providing them with what they need to grow and develop into life-long self-educators.
Can-do approach: Motivated learners are able to learn no matter what their academic backgrounds are or where they come from and educators and peers are helping them believe that anything is possible.
Imagine: What impact will we have on educational systems if we demanded that our elected leaders send their children to those institutions? It would demand radical improvements and it will inspire them to spend money on and focus on activities that will be in the best interest of themselves and their followers too!
Self-reliance: Learners focus on being transformed into independent learners as soon as possible, and take personal responsibility for their education, by seeking out more opportunities for themselves and others. Self-education is encouraged and rewarded.
Activities: Communities and individuals are investing the time, money, and effort to improve educational systems and are achieving compound benefits. Communities and individuals are changing or improving any conditions that doesn’t have the desired impact.
Resources: The required resources – time and money – are made available by leaders, commercial sponsorships and philanthropists to educate learners efficiently and help them become independent learners – self-educators and educators.
Encouragement: Individuals are encouraged to persevere with their education and become what they aspire to be by educators, and the community at large and have many channels for finding assistance with their learning where needed.
Making a Difference: Educators are set on changing or improving the attitudes and lives of learners for the better.
Facilities: Communities are setting up learning centers and sports facilities and investigate how to utilize any underutilized facilities more efficiently.
Independent: Independent learning solutions are providing opportunities to learners and are improved on all the time through input from learners and educators.
Connecting: Educators love what they do and are interacting with learners in a engaging ways, challenging them, making learning fun and relent – teaching them only what they need to know.
Inspiration: Educators inspire learners through their own passions and willingness to learn and explore new possibilities and points of view, which makes learners want to learn more and work harder and be more open minded.
Coaching skills: Learners are taught to actively coach each other within the learning environment, which greatly improve efficiency of education.
Life skills: Learners are able to express their outlook on and expectations from various aspects of life in open discussions, and are provided with constructive input from educators. Life skills activities include developing goal setting, assertiveness, communication skills, negotiation skills, anger and stress management, sexuality, health, safety, cultural awareness, people skills and more…
Mentoring: Members of the community are motivated to provide short-term mentorship interventions to put learners on the fast track towards achieving their goals.
Understanding: Educators ensure that they have a good understanding of each learner’s aspirations and expectations, and what life looks like through their eyes. Educators ensure that they understand the backgrounds, challenges and survival strategies of learners.
Critical insights: Learners learn to value their own insights, to challenge their own assumptions, to critically analyse ideas they encounter and to become aware of a multitude of points of view.
Difficulties: Educators assist one another to find ways to get through to learners who have learning difficulties, who have been in trouble with the law or have other circumstances which makes learning difficult.
Counseling: Learners are assisted to overcome any debilitating fears, to come to terms any blows life has dealt them, to build up their self-esteem and belief in their abilities, and are assisted to find answers to their questions about the future and how to achieve their goals. Learners are educated about their behavior and how to improve it.
Open mind: Learners are keeping an open mind to a viewpoint and belief that everyone has the capacity achieve their goals through persistence, learning and practice.
Transform: Educators transform learners through interpersonal activities. Educators empower learners by providing them with knowledge and assignments which give them a voice, enhance their confidence, and help them to be upstanding citizens in the community.
Excellence: Educators encourage excellence and exceptional performance in students and students model their behavior on the expectations of the educators and the community. Learners are respected by educators and they are respected in return.
Community: A sense of community, prosperity, support, wholeness and culture is enhanced and each learner has access to a support network in their community and via the Internet.
Volunteering: Volunteers and funders assist in planning, producing and delivering learning programmes. They teach basic fundamental education at informal group workshops or one-on-one. When learning basic literacy – reading, writing and communication skills – learners of all ages are hosted in the same room and are able to assist/coach one another to grasp new concepts.
Solutions: Creative research is done, bringing thoughtful conclusions, and results in setting up accessible, inspirational learning environments and support systems that work.
Unconventional methods: Educators and learners work towards creating their own educational opportunities, by developing unconventional methods for providing education.
Taskforce: The entire community is tasked in finding ways to reach, retain, motivate and educate learners.
Skills required: Life skills, academic subjects, appreciation for and practice of art, culture and literature, behavioral sciences, media, writing and editing, dancing, martial arts, yoga, sport and more…
Learning-culture: Life-long learning became a culture and ever member of the community is participating, collaborating and reaping the benefits.

Challenges

At present, the education-futures of many learners are looking very bleak and there are no quick and easy answers… It takes time and energy to challenge the norms and taking on the challenges. Let’s find out what all the challenges are and how we can face up to them:

Coping or not?: Educational-wise we have to cope with challenges such as:- poor funding and buy-in from leaders, unsupportive and blatantly destructive media, illiteracy, unemployment, poverty, dysfunctional family situations, neglected children, abuse, violence, drugs, school drop-out rates, intractable bureaucracy, cultural issues, gangs, peer pressure, hygiene, safety, environmental challenges, intimidation and aggression towards educators and/or learners.
Underperforming: School systems are deteriorating and unsupportive and are impeding the educational process of hundreds of thousands of learners to crisis proportions. Many are providing inadequate basic skills levels, very low mastery of subjects and are producing more drop-outs than graduates.
Survival mode: Many learners are left to their own devices once they drop out or graduate with inadequate skill levels, and despite the odds actually manage to find ways to survive anyway without a solid education. They are forgotten by a system which failed them, but deserve an opportunity to gain further education made relevant to their needs.
Uninterested: Learners often become disinterested in furthering their education, as in some cases they are skeptical about what an education can do for them if it is not in touch with reality. Some individuals working in low-income jobs, believe that they will never gain another opportunity to learn and do not aspire to gain further education and improve their income.
Street life: Once off the streets, learners might still experience strong peer pressure to fall back into the street life, street gangs, alcohol or drug habits.
Knowledge gaps: Often learners and even educators have extensive gaps in their general knowledge which hamper their progress and effectiveness.
Training educators: There is a growing need for ways to effectively develop educators – educators also need to learn how to question their own assumptions and be more present to the specifics in a situation.
Liberating educators: Many education systems limit the educator, which results in lack of enthusiasm, passion and energy for the task at hand.
Undermining: New educational solutions are often systematically undermined and used as corporate/political pawns instead of focusing on making a difference for as many learners as possible.
Unresponsive: Some learners cannot or do not want to respond to the solutions provided, and there aren’t any alternatives available for them – they are difficult to reach.
Bureaucracy: Caring, well-meaning educators are often frustrated by existing systems in their efforts to teach or nurture learners. Educators find it difficult to go against the institution when their job depends on maintaining the status quo.

Now, we know a lot about learning, the challenges involved and what a brighter future will look like. Are we doing the best we can or are we just coping? What is the next action we can take?

From world-wide evidence, it looks like we (communities) will have to be the change that we want to see – and non-profit organization structures are ideal vehicles. Let’s get involved and get much more great things to happen for learners! Let’s take on the challenges of our educational revolution in full force!

Do you perhaps have a list of non-profit organizations working in the field of education which you could send to me? Please send me your insights on this subject.

http://www.earthchildproject.org/

I am Benjine Gerber, business owner of www.graphicouture.com.

Educational Trends: Crime Versus School Attendance

LA Editor — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:43:32 +0000

Do you believe if more kids attended school, there would be less crime? Studying the relationship between school attendance and crime goes back more than 200 years. Many people believe that better crime control measures should involve vigorous police work, or strict law enforcement.

For thousands of years and long before the mandatory school attendance, crime has prevailed. Violence and even references to youth gangs are all refferenced in the Holy Bible.

American’s views about education and crime were referenced in a January 10, 1931 Literary Digest, article entitled “What We Shall Be Like in 1950.”. The article mentioned prophecies made by the National Education Association adapted from a publication called Tomorrow’s Business, which said, “Crime will be virtually abolished by transferring to the preventive processes of the school and education the problems of conduct which police, courts, and prisons now remedy when it is too late.”

One student drops out every 26 seconds in America. One Harvard study found that black students fall behind by the time they are three years old. Three of the one million New York students are a minority, with 70 percent impoverished.

Many experts believe school causes crime more than it prevents it, and this is not necessarily a new belief. Henry Fielding said in his day, “Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.” Henry Fielding lived from 1707 to 1754.

Others wonder if crime is closely related to drug use. A study entitled, “The Monitoring the Future Study” asked high school seniors this question in 2006: “On how many occasions, if any, have you used drugs or alcohol over the last twelve months?”

Here are the answers:

Alcohol – 66.5
Marijuana 31.5
Other opiates – 9.0
Stimulants – 8.1
Sedatives – 6.6
Tranquilizers – 6.6
Cocaine – 5.7
Hallucinogens – 4.9
Inhalants – 4.5
Steroids – 1.8
Heroin – 0.8

Today there are numerous programs nationwide that help prevent both drug use and crime, and they have also helped students do better in school.

One Brooklyn New York program called “FutureSafe,” sponsors a collaborative monthly event attended by around 500 kids. This neighborhood block party offers food, games, singing, crafts, and other fun activities. Those who attend this venue is often a first step for children to engage in structured afterschool activities, a proven preventative element designed to deter children from drug abuse, delinquency, and gang involvement.

Author and social media marketing pro, Kristin Gabriel works with Rocco Basile who is based in New York. Basile is involved with several charities including Children of the City and the Joe DiMaggio Committee for Xaverian High School.

Atrocitirs Against Women : Indian Perspective

LA Editor — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 07:50:12 +0000

Atrocities Against Women: Indian Perspective

Kshama Sen

Head of the Department: Political Science

L.R.College,India.

The constitution of India enjoins upon every citizen the duty to “renounce any practice derogatory of the dignity of women”. The need to incorporate the injunction into Indian constitution arose due to the prevailing atmosphere in which the women were denied their place in family and in society and subjected to humiliation, which reduced them to a position inferior to men.

The incidence of crime is rising at a very fast rate in our country and crime against women is no exception. Our constitution provides equality of sexes. Despite the constitutional provisions we continue to have inequality and women are treated as inferior and subservient beings. In all spheres of life, women are denied the basic right to live with dignity. Inspite of the legal safeguards provided for women, atrocities against women continue unabated in our country. Violence against women manifests itself as rape, molestation, stripping, eve-teasing, kidnapping and abduction, aminocentisis (killing of female foetus in the womb) and the like. Domestic violence includes wife beating, dowry harassment, dowry deaths, and cruelty to women driving them to commit suicide, female infanticide and sati and so on.

Women are oppressed in two ways: – (a) Oppression within the family,

(b) Oppression outside the family.

The sexual division of labour and the master-slave relationship between man and woman generally form the structure of the family life. The factors like age-old household drudgery, bringing up children, cooking, washing and cleaning etc. increase the burden of womenfolk. Addiction of men to alcohol and wife-beating further multiply hardship of the women. Hence the sphere of her oppression becomes total on her mental capabilities, capacity to work, and finally on her own self. In some educated families, as I have noticed, husbands force their wives to resign from their services in which they were engaged before their marriage on flimsy grounds. A job provides a woman not only economic liberty but also a strong feeling of dignity. Forcing a woman to give up her job may satisfy the ego of a husband but it tantamount to severe mental torture of the wife.

As per the report of National Crime Records Bureau, namely Crime in India since 1991, a total number of 10,410 cases of rape were reported in the country. Out of this 2596 cases were reported in a single state that is Madhya Pradesh followed by 1417 cases in Uttar Pradesh. These two states and Andhra Pradesh,Bihar,Maharastra and Rajasthan jointly account for nearly 70% of the rape cases reported in the country during 1991.Incidence of child rape has multiplied manifold, i.e., from 394 in 1990 to 1099 in 1991.(S.K.Khanna: Women and the Human Rights).Every morning news papers publish new and horrifying cases of rape including gang rape of women including minors throughout the country. The saddest part of the story is delay in justice. There are also large numbers of cold blooded murders of their wives by their husbands who are regarded as ‘param gurus’ by the Hindu ladies. Often relatives of the husband also carryout the pious duty of punishing the wife. Unfortunately many a cases of such atrocities remain unreported and never come for trial in the court of law due to social stigma, poverty of parents of the bride, illiteracy, lack of courage and scope etc.

It is also true that police interference does not always help except in a few cases. Agitations during the Roop Kanwar’s episode in Rajasthan brought to light that there have been 40 reported cases of ‘sati’ since independence. Is it not a matter of shame? The acquittal of all the 32 accused by the session court proves the efficiency of the police investigation. More shameful is the act of some fundamentalists who garlanded these people after their acquittal. In the same manner the judgement of the Honourable Supreme Court was nullified in Shah Banu’s case to please the fundamentalists for cheap political gain.

Violence against women takes place for several other reasons like poverty, alcoholism, lack of education in the family etc. According to the estimates of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development in 1981 between 30 to 45per cent of the population of the Metros were living in slums. Poverty affects the daily life of the women in the slum, the very environment directly leads to the erosion of personal values of the women in slum areas. It may be regarded as social atrocities against the women.

Most of the Indian societies are male- dominated and it is the husband who decides even the number of children in the family. We strongly believe that it is inhuman to let helpless women get inflicted with frequent maternities which ruin them physically and kill them psychologically. This is also atrocity.

Regarding health care also data show that women, particularly in rural areas receive nominal or no health care services. The reasons may be many but the result is one and that is physically weak and mentally shattered women population who are supposed to nourish the future MEN FOLK of the country for a bright and prosperous India. Generally a woman is brought to the hospital for medical checkup only when things go out of control. In most of the families belonging to lower socio-economic strata, the women receive home remedies instead of proper institutional care.

The answer to the problem of the solution of sufferings of women lies in proper social education which will expand the knowledge base of the society. In our country there is a visible gap between the ‘Law’ as it stands and the ‘Law’ as it operates. This gap should be permanently wiped out. There is a well known dictum ‘educating a woman means educating a family’. Thus spread of education among the women of India, both rural and urban is a must. Only the educated section of women can bridge the gap and save the society as a whole. For this central as well as the state governments should join hands and ensure free and compulsory education for women from primary to atleast undergraduate level.

The central and state governments should take all other necessary and practical steps for fruitful development of women, particularly those who are residing in rural and interior areas. Only setting up of Mahila Commissions cannot be considered as adequate.

Economic independence is essential for the personality development of a woman which also gives her confidence, liberty, identity, security, a status and moreover a feeling of sharing the economic needs of he household. The NGOs can play an effectual role and exert effective influence for the harmonious development of the position of women in our taboo-infested society.

I would like to conclude this discussion by adding a few words regarding the responsibilities of women. Any discussion is bound to be one-sided and indeterminate if the responsibility and provocative role of a section of women is overlooked. Under the influence of maddening addiction of quick money and so called name and fame a section of young girls go almost bare in the public. Earlier we used to enjoy cinema with our entire family but those days are gone. TV has entered almost every house. This small box is giving worst possible exposure of female bodies through its serials and advertisements. Even the advertisement of a shaving razor ends up with the exposure of female flesh. What do we notice in our neighbourhood? Sometimes our mode of activities invites atrocities. For instance, there are some modern ‘mummies’ who allow their growing daughters to wear tight jeans and tops. With their active consent young girls are presented now a day as commodity in the TV serials and advertisements. Such license in the name of modernization leads to provocation and this may endanger the security of a lone girl in the society. The young and elderly women in the society should come forward and raise voice not only in papers or in seminars but also within the family and on the streets. In my opinion, even a small beginning in this regard will go a long way in reducing atrocities on women. I do believe that women can be a real force behind success if the retarding factors are properly addressed.

(The author does not claim any originality as this article is a collection of views of many thinkers all over the world which helped her in framing her own views. The author expresses her gratitude to all of them and also proposes for a joint movement in this regard.)

http://ANEVETHINKS.rediffiland.com