U.S. and World News

Protest at Tehran Uni, November 22 دانشگاه تهران ۱ آذر

0LVE — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:42:25 GMT

فيلم : تظاهرات امروز دانشجويان در دانشکاه تهران 1 آذر 22 نوامبر

Protest at Tehran Uni, November 22

Photos of small plane crash in Maryland Heights, MO

John18555 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:47:56 GMT

A small plane crashed near a bike path at Creve Coeur Park, Maryland Heights, MO, about a half mile from Creve Coeur Airport. This occurred at approximately 2:30 CT, on November 22, 2010. At the time these pictures were taken, the pilot had been removed from the cockpit, and reportedly had survived.

Iran: Rafsanjani expresses doubts about the regime's future

0LVE — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:34:20 GMT

Sunday, 22 November 2009

NCRI- Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, mullahs’ former president and current head of the State Expediency Council expressed doubts that the mullahs’ regime “facing much public dissent can continue along its path,” said Hussein Marashi, the state run news agency ILNA reported on Friday.

Marashi, a former minister during Rafsanjani’s presidency, also warned that there is no hope that the regime can overcome the crises.

“The system [regime] must admit that there are serious public dissents to the extent of a crisis. At least 80 percent of Tehran residents are protesting the current situation and there is no hope that the current government can solve the problems,” he said.

He warned that the demands of people are “gradually increasing” and “the movement is being more radicalized… Hence the system [regime] must take the issue seriously.”

Marashi stressed that only reaching a compromise with various factions can prevent the downfall of the mullahs’ regime

Youtube Fraud

kingcozart — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 19:00:20 GMT

It has been suspected that Youtube frauds it's corporate sponsors by adjusting the comments and view counts of promoted videos. When a video becomes extremely popular (Fred) corporations (Kodak) can advertise on them. Then, when the video or channel loses popularity Youtube adjusts the statistics by adding comments and views from phantom accounts nobody owns. I caught Youtube red-handed. A comment was made on a popular "Fred" video from "funnykb" while "funnykb" was not logged on. Fred videos are quickly fading in popularity so Youtube commits this fraud to keep corporate sponsor Kodak interested.

I embeded the Youtube player so you can comments on Youtube also.

Air Force Jets Flying Throguh My Town?

bes92 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:41:56 GMT

I do not know why but air force jets flying through my town...pretty strange huh? I deicded to take a clip and a pic. it was interesting though!

Medical Marijuana: No Longer Just for Adults?

Marjaani — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:39:25 GMT

At the Peace in Medicine Healing Center in Sebastopol, the wares on display include dried marijuana — featuring brands like Kryptonite, Voodoo Daddy and Train Wreck — and medicinal cookies arrayed below a sign saying, “Keep Out of Reach of Your Mother.”

The warning tells a story of its own: some of the center’s clients are too young to buy themselves a beer.

Several Bay Area doctors who recommend medical marijuana for their patients said in recent interviews that their client base had expanded to include teenagers with psychiatric conditions including attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

“It’s not everybody’s medicine, but for some, it can make a profound difference,” said Valerie Corral, a founder of the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a patients’ collective in Santa Cruz that has two dozen minors as registered clients.

Because California does not require doctors to report cases involving medical marijuana, no reliable data exist for how many minors have been authorized to receive it. But Dr. Jean Talleyrand, who founded MediCann, a network in Oakland of 20 clinics who authorize patients to use the drug, said his staff members had treated as many as 50 patients ages 14 to 18 who had A.D.H.D. Bay Area doctors have been at the forefront of the fierce debate about medical marijuana, winning tolerance for people with grave illnesses like terminal cancer and AIDS. Yet as these doctors use their discretion more liberally, such support — even here — may be harder to muster, especially when it comes to using marijuana to treat adolescents with A.D.H.D.

“How many ways can one say ‘one of the worst ideas of all time?’ ” asked Stephen Hinshaw, the chairman of the psychology department at the University of California, Berkeley. He cited studies showing that tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active ingredient in cannabis, disrupts attention, memory and concentration — functions already compromised in people with the attention-deficit disorder.

Advocates are just as adamant, though they are in a distinct minority. “It’s safer than aspirin,” Dr. Talleyrand said. He and other marijuana advocates maintain that it is also safer than methylphenidate (Ritalin), the stimulant prescription drug most often used to treat A.D.H.D. That drug has documented potential side effects including insomnia, depression, facial tics and stunted growth.

In 1996, voters approved a ballot proposition making California the first state to legalize medical marijuana. Twelve other states have followed suit — allowing cannabis for several specified, serious conditions including cancer and AIDS — but only California adds the grab-bag phrase “for any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”

This has left those doctors willing to “recommend” cannabis — in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of medical marijuana, they cannot legally prescribe it — with leeway that some use to a daring degree. “You can get it for a backache,” said Keith Stroup, the founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Nonetheless, expanding its use among young people is controversial even among doctors who authorize medical marijuana.

Gene Schoenfeld, a doctor in Sausalito, said, “I wouldn’t do it for anyone under 21, unless they have a life-threatening problem such as cancer or AIDS.”

Dr. Schoenfeld added, “It’s detrimental to adolescents who chronically use it, and if it’s being used medically, that implies chronic use.”

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said she was particularly worried about the risk of dependency — a risk she said was already high among adolescents and people with attention-deficit disorder.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, however, patients and doctors have been reporting that marijuana helps alleviate some of the symptoms, particularly the anxiety and anger that so often accompany A.D.H.D. The disorder has been diagnosed in more than 4.5 million children in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers have linked the use of marijuana by adolescents to increased risk of psychosis and schizophrenia for people genetically predisposed to those illnesses. However, one 2008 report in the journal Schizophrenia Research suggested that the incidence of mental health problems among adolescents with the disorder who used marijuana was lower than that of nonusers.

Marijuana is “a godsend” for some people with A.D.H.D., said Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatrist who has written several books on the disorder. However, Dr. Hallowell said he discourages his patients from using it, both because it is — mostly — illegal, and because his observations show that “it can lead to a syndrome in which all the person wants to do all day is get stoned, and they do nothing else.”

Until the age of 18, patients requesting medical marijuana must be accompanied to the doctor’s appointment and to the dispensaries by a parent or authorized caregiver. Some doctors interviewed said they suspected that in at least some cases, parents were accompanying their children primarily with the hope that medical authorization would allow the adolescents to avoid buying drugs on the street.

A recent University of Michigan study found that more than 40 percent of high school students had tried marijuana.

“I don’t have a problem with that, as long as we can have our medical conversation,” Dr. Talleyrand said, adding that patients must have medical records to be seen by his doctors.

The Medical Board of California began investigating Dr. Talleyrand in the spring, said a board spokeswoman, Candis Cohen, after a KGO-TV report detailed questionable practices at MediCann clinics, which, the report said, had grossed at least $10 million in five years.

Dr. Talleyrand and his staff members are not alone in being willing to recommend marijuana for minors. In Berkeley, Dr. Frank Lucido said he was questioned by the medical board but ultimately not disciplined after he authorized marijuana for a 16-year-old boy with A.D.H.D. who had tried Ritalin unsuccessfully and was racking up a record of minor arrests.

Within a year of the new treatment, he said, the boy was getting better grades and was even elected president of his special-education class. “He was telling his mother: ‘My brain works. I can think,’ ” Dr. Lucido said.

“With any medication, you weigh the benefits against the risks,” he added.

Even so, MediCann patients who receive the authorization must sign a form listing possible downsides of marijuana use, including “mental slowness,” memory problems, nervousness, confusion, “increased talkativeness,” rapid heartbeat, difficulty in completing complex tasks and hunger. “Some patients can become dependent on marijuana,” the form also warns.

The White House’s recent signals of more federal tolerance for state medical marijuana laws — which pointedly excluded sales to minors — reignited the debate over medical marijuana.

Some advocates, like Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an associate professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard University, suggest that medical marijuana’s stigma has less to do with questions of clinical efficacy and more to do with its association, in popular culture, with illicit pleasure and addiction.

Others, like Alberto Torrico of Fremont, the majority leader of the California Assembly, argue for more oversight in general. “The marijuana is a lot more powerful these days than when we were growing up, and too much is being dispensed for nonmedical reasons,” he said in an interview last week, bluntly adding, “Any children being given medical marijuana is unacceptable.”

As advocates of increased acceptance try to win support, they may find their serious arguments compromised by the dispensaries’ playful atmosphere.

OrganiCann, a dispensary in Santa Rosa, has a Web site advertisement listing the “medible of the week” — butterscotch rock candy — invitingly photographed in a gift box with a ribbon. OrganiCann also offers a 10 percent discount, every Friday, for customers with a valid student ID.

By KATHERINE ELLISON

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/health/22sfmedical.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Twenty Years From Now, You Will Lie To Your Children

german002 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:26:21 GMT

Twenty Years From Now, You Will Lie To Your Children

source: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23970.htm

Like a pop single from 1962 (or 2002, for that matter), it didn’t age very well.

It’s astonishing that this transparently frightened man was the leader of the free world for eight years, and was given so much license to commit so much destruction.

But, then, nothing seems to define our era quite so much as license.

We give ourselves license to incur fantastic levels of national debt, and hand the bill to the next generation.

We give ourselves license to invade other countries on the most patently bogus of pretexts, bringing disaster upon them and us.

Or at least some of us, that is, because we also give ourselves license to allow a tiny fraction of the population to carry the entire national security burden for all the rest of us.

We give ourselves license to spend half again as much as any other country in the world on healthcare, only to be ranked 37th ‘best’ by the World Health Organization, just so we don’t have to do the simple work of writing corporate predators out of the parasitic cash cow booty feeding troughs in which they’re entrenched.

Meanwhile, a bullet is heading toward the heart of the body politic in the form of global warming, and we give ourselves license to pretend that the threat isn’t even clearly defined, lest we should have to relinquish our precious Hummers.

The list goes on and on. I regret to say that history will not judge us, here and now, a serious people. Nor should it. I certainly don’t either.

Indeed, even when we get serious, we don’t. Barack Obama was supposed to be the antidote to the excesses and negligences of the Bush years. In fact, nearly a year of his term has now gone by and he has almost nothing to show for it. Which means that neither do we. When Saturday Night Live parodies you by having your character claim “jack” and “squat” as your administration’s two greatest achievements – well, that’s never a good sign.

Nor does Obama appear to have a lot of intent at accomplishing much, either. At least anything that requires the ruffling of a feather or two – which of course includes just about anything that matters. For any given question put before this president, it seems that his position can safely be estimated to fall square in the middle of the road, right there alongside Jim Hightower’s proverbial yellow stripes and dead armadillos. In reality, though, that’s actually an unfortunately generous estimate. Obama’s politics, if you actually look at them – rather than at most people’s false impression of them – turn out to be remarkably similar to George Bush’s on everything from the fiscal stimulus to big corporate healthcare initiatives to escalating war policies to eroded civil liberties to unequal treatment for gays.

And yet this milquestoastiest of presidents generates the most outrageous volumes of the most egregious vitriol in our public discourse, as if he were wrecking the country through disastrous wars based on lies, unprecedented constitutional shredding, or massive fiscal hemorrhaging. Oh, wait – that was the last guy. Never mind. Somehow those travesties didn’t precipitate much noise from the cave-dwelling set – unless you count deafness-inducing cheers of approval, or enough slurpy mass salivation to befuddle and alarm Dr. Pavlov.

One of the most astonishing things about the right in America is the degree and frequency with which they turn out to be precisely the opposite of what they claim to be. It’s quite Orwellian, actually, in a charming sort of war-equals-peace kinda way. They adore dressing up like they’re the big military tough guys, but they all had to go to Woodstock or something during Vietnam. They like to lecture us incessantly about the virtues of their particular brand of sexual morality, and then it always turns out that they’re the ones who love to dress up in leather and Vaseline and gang-bang packs of small furry rodents. They can’t wait to pontificate on the virtues of itsy-bitsy, low taxing, low spending government, but then whenever they get their hands on the damn thing they drive up the national debt like Yahweh himself told them it was their personal holy crusader’s mission to party hearty at the public’s expense (“I command you to choose a hockey mom from amongst your number, and cause her to buildeth a bridge to nowhere!”).

I could keep going forever, and it would actually be pretty entertaining, if only the real world effects weren’t so bloody destructive. One of my favorites, though, I have to say, is the riff on responsibility. You know, as in, they’re the ones who have it. Remember when the Bush crew came to power, literally saying “The grown-ups are back in charge”? I can think of a lot of things I would call George W. Bush, but “grown-up” is more or less last on my list, right there after “brave”, “articulate”, “compassionate” and “thoughtful”. In any case, these guys always fancy themselves the mature, reliable, responsible stewards of American government. That’s more than a little scary, isn’t it – to think that these are the nation’s best and the brightest? To imagine that Bush and Cheney and Rove represent the crowning achievement of six or ten millennia of civilizational development, topping off millions of years of genetic refinement?

Wuuuuhhhh. That lurching twitch you just felt was a serious shudder going down your spine, your body’s involuntary reaction to perceptions of sheer horror. But, meanwhile, did I mention that the real story of responsibility is slightly different than the regressive version?

Start with global warming. I’m not a climatologist and I don’t even play one on Fox TV. Which is why I rely on the people with the PhDs in the field and their masses of data, elaborate models and giant supercomputers to tell me what is happening on that question. Like most people, I wouldn’t even have the foggiest sense of whether the Earth is spherical, flat, or shaped like a bicycle-built-for-two, were it not for the geographers and explorers who figured it out. There’s almost no way to get there on your own from daily experience. Hence, I take their word for it, just like I take the word of astronomers that our little planet is not, after all, at the center of the universe (which is good news indeed for the universe).

Our happy regressive friends do the same thing, of course. Except when they don’t. They reject evolution in favor of a 6,000 year-old Earth. Though I notice that they’re quite content to queue up for radiation therapy when they’re sick with cancer, even while rejecting the veracity of radio-carbon dating of ancient fossils. Hmmm. Go figure. They mostly have reconciled themselves nowadays to a heliocentric solar system, though they did imprison Galileo for telling a but too much truth on that one. Given the recent tenor of the religious right in America, I’m waiting for even this bit to get tossed out with evolution, any day now. You heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen. Mark my words. The Earth will return to the center of the universe, just like the good book says.

Meanwhile, the same people who would happily burst through the doors of the National Archives, yank the Constitution out of its case and run it through a $19.99 shredder they just picked up on sale at Office Depot – all in the name of fighting terrorism – are simultaneously working frantically to make sure we don’t do anything at all about the very real threat of global warming. Udickuitous Cheney once said that we have to pull out all stops in case there was even a one-percent chance of a terrorist attack that might kill thousands. But a survey of the experts on climate change suggests that there is a more than ninety-nine percent probability that whole countries will be drowned and entire groups of species eradicated in the coming decades. And that’s just the easy part. Still, the regressive prescription for this looming nightmare is to continue to do nothing at all, lest we anger the supreme goddess Commerce.

I’ve always been a little weird this way, but where I come from, that ain’t exactly the most responsible choice. Neither was invading Iraq. More than 4000 dead Americans later, and George Bush is still looking under his desk for the missing WMD (heh-heh, wasn’t that a hilarious little comedy routine he did on that?). As if that would have been a valid excuse to invade a country that was neither attacking us nor threatening us, anyhow. As if dozens of countries don’t have WMD. As if the Republican government of the United States didn’t cover for Saddam at home and at the UN at the time he was actually using chemical weapons on his own people.

So perhaps a million Iraqis are dead now, American finances are in the toilet, the country’s global reputation is too skanky to qualify for horizontal employment in a makeshift basement brothel in Tijuana, and our national security – supposedly the purpose of the whole exercise – has been radically diminished by the decimation of an army that even Colin Powell described as “broken”. This is what you get from the “responsible” ideology, ladies and gentlemen.

But wait! There’s more! How about a crushing national debt. Hey, why not borrow money recklessly to pay for these fun wars based on lies? And how about those super-rich folks out there? Don’t they deserve additional tax cuts? I’m sure our children won’t mind paying for the loans to finance those giveaways, plus interest, in the future. Why would those crazy kids want to actually bring home the fruits of their labor in a paycheck anyhow? They won’t mind working long hours to finance the ‘responsibility’ of unparalleled deficit spending by regressives, will they?

Well, actually, that question is likely to be a moot issue now anyhow. That’s because the upshot from the ‘responsible’ economic policy provided by our nice regressive friends increasingly means that the youngins won’t have any jobs at all. That certainly solves the problem of spending a lifetime paying taxes to finance their parents’ spending sprees, doesn’t it? Pretty clever, is it not? No regulation, no economy; no economy, no jobs; no jobs, no income; no income, no taxes; no taxes, no worries! Damn! I wonder if the good folks on the right had this all figured out from the beginning!

Ho-ho, eh? Not so funny, though, if you’re on the butt end of the joke. Which we all are, not least the younger generation. There is an era of bad feeling in America, long in the making, but hardly at its nadir. The United States has been on a southward glide path for three decades now, an act of political physics as natural and inevitable as gravity itself, but also deeply exacerbated by the predatory political movement pioneered by Reagan and Thatcher, and continued by Bushes, Blairs, Clintons and Obamas alike.

It was bad enough that we lived for as long as we did at a greedy and unsustainable level, stealing from other peoples, from our environment, from brown and female workers, and even from our own children. But now it’s getting much, much worse.

In twenty years those children are all too likely to be living poor, on a hostile planet, working long hours to pay down the sins of their fathers.

And they might well be enraged, too, as they should be.

A decade or two from now, if they confront their right-wing elders – gazing in anger and astonishment at the bottomless capacity of their parents’ selfishness – you can safely bet that their questions will be met with dissembling deception.

Twenty years from now, regressives will lie to their children.

We know this because those regressives are already lying today, covering their execrable crimes the only way possible.

With deceit.

House fire in Copperas Cove, Texas

pjefferies — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:10:56 GMT

Firemen and neighbors respond to a house fire on Bernice Circle in Copperas Cove, Texas on Sunday morning. The family of five escaped unharmed but a pet cat was overcome by smoke. The house and two vehicles were very badly damaged.

The local American Red Cross and many neighbors came out to offer support, reassure the family, and collect clothing and personal items for the five.

One fireman was moved from the scene, affected by the heat and smoke. After the fire was extinguished the fire department marked off the scene to investigate the reason for the fire. Observers said that the fire seemed to start in the area near a gas-fired water heater in the garage.

How To Create A Terrorist or Sophisticated Terrorism Made-By-Israel

german002 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:03:20 GMT

Going from Ramallah to Jerusalem by bus should only take about twenty minutes, but since Israel constructed the separation wall it usually takes up to one hour. In addition to the wall one has to negotiate Kalandia checkpoint, a hi-tech airport/border security style military facility. Everyone has to disembark from the bus, pass through the checkpoint and, assuming that everything went as planned, get back on the bus on the other side of the wall and continue on their journey to Jerusalem.

The last Sunday of October 2009 it took me and a friend who was accompanying me more than three hours because of a dramatic incident that is going to change one girl’s life forever.

After getting out of the bus, we arrived at the checkpoint’s entrance and went through a narrow, barred passageway that could be the entrance to hell. Then we passed through the first turnstile under the watch of a bored looking Israeli security guard and several sophisticated video cameras, and entered the heart of the checkpoint, it’s security area—where you are trapped until the Israeli soldiers allow you to exit.

To do so, you have to proceed through several steps. The first is going through one of the six lanes, where you have to pass through a second turnstile before arriving at the lane’s “checking area”. There you have to put all your belongings through an x-ray machine, walk through a metal detector, present an identity document to a teenage Israeli soldier sitting in the lane’s control room behind bullet-proof glass.

Of course, you can only pass if you have a foreign passport with a valid Israeli visa, an Israeli passport, a “Blue ID card” (for Palestinians who live inside the current borders of Israel but not in East-Jerusalem) or a “Jerusalem ID card” (for Palestinians who live in East-Jerusalem). This means that the vast majority of Palestinians living in the West Bank, who hold a “Green ID”, are not allowed to cross the checkpoint and go to Jerusalem. However, even if you have all the needed documents and everything goes right until that point, you are still at the whim of whichever young, generally female, soldier who is present in the control room that day. If she denies you because she just had a fight with her boyfriend on the phone or for any other arbitrary reason, you must turn around and do the “walk of shame” through the turnstile that you just came from. The time it will take only depends on the mood of the security guard who has to unlock the turnstile so that you can take it in the opposite direction—I’ve seen people waiting there for more than ten minutes while the security guard was having a snack or playing a game on his mobile phone. After this, you’ll end back where you came from, i.e. on the Palestinian side of the separation wall. On the other hand, if you are allowed to pass the “checking area”, you still need to go through two more turnstiles before finally reaching the exit of the checkpoint.

My friend and I had made it to the step where we had to wait in the lane that should have brought us, with a bit of patience, to the other side. That day, as is the case most of the time, only two out of six lanes were open—that of course makes the waiting time even longer. We had been waiting there for a few minutes when a Palestinian girl (Sumud Karajeh, 21 year old, from the Saffa village and student at the Al-Quds Open University) put her shoulder bag through the x-ray machine and showed the soldier her identity card.

The soldier said something in Hebrew, which the girl couldn’t speak, over the loud speaker, in a shrill, irritating and robotic voice. The girl, confused, answered something in Arabic, which the soldier couldn’t speak either. After what seemed like five minutes of this improbable dialog they somehow managed to communicate and the girl understood that the soldier wanted her to put the shoulder bag through the x-ray machine again. So she did it two more times while being continuously verbally affronted by the soldier over the loud speaker. After that, the soldier started yelling at the girl, who still couldn’t understand Hebrew. So not knowing what she was supposed to do she started to get really uncomfortable and nervous.

At this point, a Palestinian man who had just arrived at the lane said that he also spoke Hebrew and that he could translate. The soldier let him through the second turnstile, they talked for a minute and he said to the girl that she had to put her bag through the x-ray machine one more time. After another passage of the bag through the x-ray machine, the soldier ordered the girl to empty it out in front of the window so that she could check what was inside. So, the girl, irritated and stressed, took out each object she had in her bag, including several school books and notebooks, showed them to the soldier and put them on the ground. The soldier still wasn’t satisfied and asked the girl to take out the lining of her purse. The man who was translating did it and found something that looked like a swiss knife stuck in the bottom of the lining. That was it, the reason why all this had happened was a simple swiss army knife—similar to ones that can be bought in hundreds of shops across Jerusalem. At that point the Palestinian girl became really angry because of this young soldier humiliating her for more than fifteen minutes in front of all the people waiting in the lane just for having a swiss knife in her bag. And then, three strong, intimidating looking Israeli soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles entered the security area and surrounded the girl. Now she looked really scared. One soldier x-rayed the bag again and started going through it, item by item, while another passed the swiss-knife through the x-ray machine.

the rest of the story on http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1158

Chicago Youth "Being the Change"

ajcurtis — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 17:26:20 GMT

In the past two years, Chicago youth have been linked with countless violent acts and poor academic performance. However, there are groups of Chicago Public School students are do not fit this mold, and are striving to have successful lives in academics and beyond. We want you to see and read about them here.

Our names are Anthony Curtis and Darci Keyser, and we currently teach at a Chicago Public School, Phoenix Military Academy. We believe that all students, no matter their background, their economic status, or race, they can be successful in post secondary education and beyond. This desire to motivate our students inspired us to start two mentoring programs for our students: the Brotherhood and Sisterhood.

In a school, where more than 95% of our students reside in low-income households and receive free and reduced lunches, many of our students, especially our African-American and Latino male students, do not see college as a realistic option. We all know that high school graduation, college retention, school violence, and identity are ongoing problems for our young men and women. For many years, CPS has had many initiatives and projects that have helped with this problem. However, Darci and I wanted to start a program that would personally affect and influence the young men and young women at Phoenix Military Academy. Our mentoring programs titled, the Brotherhood: Brothers Making A Difference and the Sisterhood: Strong Young Women United As One, started with a few students and two adults passionate for change.

The Brotherhood’s mission is to empower the young males at Phoenix Military Academy to be the men they can be in academics, character, respect for themselves, and consequently be better role models. We do this through bi-monthly meetings, team building activities, field trips, college trips, fellowship activities, community service, and sessions where we just sit around and have "real talk" discussions about prevalent young male issues. We sometimes have guest speakers, and we are currently in the process of writing our own book for other young men. This writing project is inspired by Hill Harper’s book, Letters to a Young Brother. This project is helping the young men see reading as a life changing and active experience for greater knowledge and power. We also partner with Dr. Shelby Wyatt at Kenwood Academy and the CPS Male Initiative Project to encourage positive male relationships amongst CPS male students. We organize and attend two conferences every year in partnership with DePaul University, where students are able to discuss prevalent issues and participate in various activities and sessions for their well being. Our next Male Initiative Project conference is Friday, Feb. 6, 2010.

In conjunction to the male mentoring program, the Sisterhood, Strong Young United As One established a vision to provide lifelong opportunities and support for social, intellectual, and spiritual development by bringing women together to positively impact our communities. This program does similar activities as well, but they also participate in events like Hip Hop Yoga, Girls Leadership Summits, and community service projects including two cancer walks and a breast cancer awareness day. They also have guest speakers that promote women empowerment, and also read Hill Harper’s book, Letters to a Young Sister. The Sisterhood also partners with O Ambassadors and the Girls World Exchange, and this allows the young women to connect and learn from young women in Kenya. Through O Ambassadors, the Sisterhood also organized a third world awareness day called “A Day In My Shoes”, which allowed students to trade American lunches for third world lunches. Darci and I truly believe that our youth are the generation who will “shake the world”, and we recently organized a fundraiser at a downtown Chicago venue to raise awareness and build partnerships for our programs.

In the media, they are countless of amounts of reports of violence and low academic performance in Chicago Public Schools. We wanted to inform the world of two positive programs and a movement happening in Chicago Public Schools that is inspiring young people to be the change they wish to see in their community and beyond.

algerian violence

amirayoub — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:21:56 GMT

As the oldest Arab nation, Egypt has always been the big mind of this region according to it's important place on the geographic & historical spot we always took the Arab public interest as our own .. we watch over it & make sure not to take any unwise decisions or aggressive ones that could put us or any Arabic country in a misfortunate situation.

Algerian violence in no news to our ears as Egyptians .. as we repeatedly faced it over the last two decades especially in sports field like the Egyptian doctor who had his eye punctured because of the 89 match between Egypt & Algeria witch ended 1/0 & Egyptian team qualifying to world cup, other than our national football team on particular facing several harassments from the Algerian people with no official reports filed against them because after all where are all brothers & we can't give this image about our self's even if it means us taking a lot of pressure regarding that matter.

But that attitude has come to an end this last week after the cruel false allegations coming from the Algerian football team before the 14/11/2009 match VS. Egypt while arriving at the Cairo international airport claiming that Egyptian boys threw a rock at the bus carrying them to the hotel & describing the Egyptian football fans as Berber people & to get them for no reason. Especially when the hotel is 200 m. away from the arriving hall & being surrounded by security officers the whole ride.

But we all know that Algerian football federation was already trying to get FIFA to cancel the match before even playing it witch means their instant qualifying for world cup 2010.

So after that incident Egyptian investigation team led by FIFA representer conducted an immediate investigations & saw that the glass of the window bus fell outside the bus witch contradicts with the team allegations and after hearing the sayings of the bus driver who was beaten by a big Algerian government Official., The bus driver stated that "the Algerian team was infuriated by some Egyptians in the street who kept waving the Egyptian flag in their faces so they took the fire extinguisher and hit the glass to make a hole so they could replay to the Egyptians in the way.

After that what happened is completely anonymous and we don't know where the alleged injuries came from or if it when it happened .. all we saw is that video airing on Algerian & French televisions with one or two Algerian players with blood all over their faces .. bizarrely after seeing them going to the hotel without any blood scenes.

Of course everything occurred to that major false video was a big disaster ,, Algerian newspapers turned it into a war event .. huge headlines & massive allegations witch resulted in a large hate wave against Egypt out of nothing .. in fact Algerian newspapers was attacking Egypt for a whole year with out a sane cause.

After Egypt winning by 2 goals for nothing .. Aate crimes was committed against Egyptians in Algeria .. they were Blockade & deprived of food & water .. Major attacks were done against Egyptians companies in Algeria like Orascom & Egypt Air witch coasted over that 15 million Egyptians pounds., and over that 200 Egyptians were deported from Algeria after what they faces over there.

After the FIFA deciding that Sudan in the place for the decisive match between The two teams Algerian government sent 18 Warplanes carrying 30 000 Mercenary three days before the 18/11/2009 buying all knives and daggers found in "Khartoum" capital of Sudan and taking streets as Shelter waiting for the Egyptian team & fans to arrive.

Fortunately and again Fortunately the Egyptian team lost the match & didn't qualify to world cup .. but for the Surprise that Did not stop them from attacking the national Egyptian team & fans causing hundreds of injuries & public panic between the Egyptian side.

Hundreds of Egyptian women & children took cover in different Sudanian homes until they could reach anyone who could save them.

I'm just a regular Egyptian girl & it's my first time to write who sadly found my country "although i know we' are classified as a 3rd world country"., i found my country insulted on the world wide news networks and i felt so ashamed that i don't can't do anything or say anything To clarify this unfortunate events we found ourselves in.

i am attaching all the videos & footage i can assemble so my efforts would be for nothing.

& I'll keep speaking to the world until i find the response we deserve.

NEW.Slogan/Shoar against iranian regime عکس : شعار نويسی

0LVE — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:58:51 GMT

NEW.Slogan/Shoar against iranian regime

عکس : شعار نويسی

Taken in Iran.