The Nahmias Cipher Report archived articles from 2009 - 2020.
Of course silence is an option, but is it moral? "From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound. So why call her bad? From her, kings are born. From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all." ~ Guru Nanak, 15th Century Founder of Sikhism
Read More"This invisibility—this erasure out of the complex history of our life and time—is the greatest source of my longing. As you know, I’m a woman who yearns, who longs for. This is the key to me and to the work, and something which is rarely discussed in reviews or essays, which I also find remarkably disappointing. That there are so few images of African-American women circulating in popular culture or in fine art is disturbing; the pathology behind it is dangerous. I mean, we got a sistah in the White House, and yet mediated culture excludes us, denies us, erases us. But in the face of refusal, I insist on making work that includes us as part of the greater whole. Black experience is not really the main point; rather, complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion—even in the shit, muck, and mire—is the real point." -- Carrie Mae Weems
Read MoreChrycka Harper, Poet & Literary CriticLast Modified: 02:10 a.m. DST, 17 December 2013
Toto, Toto Where am I? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. My footsteps lead us here: But what is here? I heard we are at the Mecca But our leader is leaving and creativity has gone missing.
I heard we are in the Nation's capital, but the government is shut down, Obamacare is supposedly around, and everything seems upside down. It's all a rhythm that I am not familiar with.
Toto, Toto I don't know what to think. We never saw so many shades of brown adorned with different expressions of what it means to be brown. Yet verses of ghetto anecdotes flow from boys' mouths like scriptures.
Versace, Versace, Versace, they can click their heels three times and they still can't afford it or even spell it. But when I quote the Lord is my shepherd and everlasting collective love, they act like they can't even see the picture.
Women waddling around, bobbing heads arms tied behind their backs only to get so far. Multicolored lips, hair, and shoes yet their minds still live in black and white.
It's like they forgot about Lauryen Hill's doo wop doo wop That thing in which we cannot speak But their tongues are so familiar with. Children running in circles But missing out on the circle of life. One down then its on to the next one. I thought that we would give our soldiers the best weapons for war, But instead they get guns.
Published: 17 December 2013 (Page 2 of 2)
No child left behind But they fly under radar All the time Success after success of missing land mines and traps until when? Until they reach enemy territory then what?
Battles exchange, victories are won Then our children come home But they still don't know how to wade in the water. Help can barely exit their mouths so they try to wade and do what society says.
We tell them to disregard their fantasy, but we continue to imagine our reality. The true reality is that these souls try to operate in the zone in which they are comfortable at dawn, but it still remains at twilight. To the point where event the doctors, lawyers, and police can't save lives But rather push the waves to their demise.
A demise that so happened to be at Columbine. Newton. The Navy Yard. Miles away from where my footsteps leave off...
Toto, Toto I know we're not in Kansas anymore. Kansas had yellow green grass and rolling flatlands going nowhere. We never fit in and never would.
But I know when my true home Have been removed from its village. Now the only thing I see is A sky without a sun. This is what happens when people Don't listen to history. Instead They play the same songs.
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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 15:56 PM EDT, 29 August 2012
GEORGIA, United States – On Sunday, 27 August 2012, Besse Cooper, who is currently the world’s oldest person, celebrated her 116th birthday. She is the eighth person in the world to be verified by Guinness World Records as reaching this esteemed age.
Cooper was born in Tennessee in 1896, and has been certified by Guinness as the fourth oldest American supercentenarian. At her birthday celebration, according to MSNBC , Cooper was presented with “a plaque by Guinness World Records senior consultant of gerontology Robert Young during her birthday festivities at her nursing home in Monroe, Georgia.”
According to Guinness, Cooper is seven years shy of the 122 years lived by Jeanne Louis Calment, a French native who died on 4 August 1997. As expected, Cooper, who married in 1924 and had four children, is now, a grandmother, great-grandmother, and great-grandmother of numerous off-spring.
Every person is unique and there is no one secret to living a long and healthy life, but Cooper attributes it in part to “not eating junk food” and “minding my own business.” Most of the individuals who have been fully authenticated by Guinness as being the oldest people in the world, have primarily been women, which supports the empirical evidence that women live longer than men.
However, the oldest undisputed lifespan for a male supercentenarian is that of Christian Mortensen, who lived for 115 years and 252 days. The oldest living man since the death of 114-year old Walter Breuning on 14 April 2011 is 115-year-old Jiroemon Kimura of Japan. He was born on 19 April 1897.[Wikipedia]
Follow Nahmias Cipher Report on Twitter Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmiasWe each possess the power to positively or adversely impact our fellow human beings. So, "beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again." ~ Og Mandino
This video was produced by the NGO, Mercy Corps, and it has been featured on the website because of its thought provoking imagery. On the Nahmias Report we strive to present balanced reporting on human rights issues around the globe. In keeping with this mission, inspirational posts are published to challenge our readers to look inward as they look outward, to temper judgment with understanding, and to use every encounter as an opportunity to sow peace instead of dissension.
"One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him." ~ Booker T. Washington
We must not define ourselves by freedom from religion, from abuse, from rape, from derision. From societal norms, from conformance, from acceptable compliance. From race, from the accident of geographical happenstance of birth or of life whether lived extraordinarily or pedestrian, with unsung aplomb, or within the rarefied strata of the new minted pantheon of 'celebrity' deities.
Read MoreThe Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about the traditions of a single story framed by prejudice, stereotypes, and misinformation. The author of “Half of a Yellow Sun” (2006), she has several other notable books, short stories, plays and poem anthologies under her belt, but this presentation transcends continents, cultures, and class. View the video here.
Read MoreA truly powerful movie that is metaphoric and profound on so many levels. Words fail to capture the depth of longing portrayed by the principal character of this film who is the veritable "everyman" calling out to the great unknown for guidance, support, and assistance. As an artist and a deeply spiritual person the other worldliness and mysticism experienced by the characters in this film transcend man made boundaries to emote true connection to the "unseen" that binds us all. In a time of deep divides along geographical, political and religious lines, it is important for people to remember that ultimately these factions and the resultant conflicts have been a facet of humanity since its beginning. Therefore, we should not define ourselves by this our greatest failing, instead we should strive to identify the communality of our experiences, our humanity, and our intrinsic need to understand from whence we came and to where we return.
Read MoreIn the Middle East and North Africa women rights are coming to the forefront as they begin their modern-day suffragette movement amidst the recent uprisings - now known as the “Arab Spring”.
Suffragette “derived from the word "suffrage", means the right to vote,” however; women across the Middle East are fighting for more than the right to vote, they want to be involved in the running of the country and they wanted to be treated as equal human beings while remaining cognizant of the inherent differences between men and women.
This struggle for equality that women in the Middle East are currently engaged in is reminiscent of the early British and American women's rights movement. Within each movement these brave women sought basic human rights which initially conflicted with the cultural and societal norms into which they were born. However, at the same time, these women did not seek to relinquish their relationship to these societies' but sought to achieve greater autonomy to enable them to participate as fully functioning members their societies.
As women in Saudi Arabia assert their civil rights through driving which is forbidden to women by Saudi Arabian law, women in other parts of the Middle East and North Africa are participating in similar acts of disobedience. Prohibiting women from driving is an archaic interpretation of Qu'ranic law designed to keep women hidden from other men and society at large.
A consequence of this legislation is that it prevents a woman from removing themselves or their children from potentially dangerous situation should they find themselves married to an abuser. They are also unable to transport themselves to and from work or to perform basic chores such as grocery shopping, etc. Read more about this movement on the blog Saudi Jeans.
On International Women’s Day, March 8, 2011, Egyptian women participated in a “Million Woman March” aimed at reminding the nation that they should have a voice in its future. Nehad Abu El Komsan, director of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights, expressed disappointment with the fact that the new prime minister’s cabinet includes only one woman. “If we're not involved in building the constitutional and legislative future of this country now, then when? Why do we see women, who were almost 50 percent of the protesters in Tahrir, not represented in decision-making rooms?”
In the case of the Egyptian Women's revolution some incidents of rape and harassment were reported but no loss of life. By contrast when Neda Agha Soltan was shot to death in the streets of Tehran two years ago after the rigged 2009 presidential elections of Iran, millions of people watched in horror as this young woman bled to death on the street amid mayhem and fleeing protesters.
Ironically, a few days short of the anniversary of Neda’s death, another senseless killing occurred. Haleh Sahabi, another Iranian humanitarian and democracy activist, died from wounds inflicted following her father’s funeral. Haleh, 54, was a member of Mothers for Peace and a campaigner for women’s rights.
Haleh was originally arrested on August 5, 2010 with numerous other activists. Released on a two-week pass to attend the funeral of her father, the police used this opportunity to incite a disturbance in which Haleh Sahabi was thrown to the ground, kicked then beaten to death.
Women have sacrificed selflessly throughout history. We have died in defense of children, family, principles and country. We have suffered under the tyranny of slavery, endured the unimaginable abuses of ruthless laws, fought to justify our worth within patriarchal systems, and been forced to be complicit in perpetuating this injustice through the sell of our daughters into sexual enslavement and domestic abuse.
Today's struggles for equality, a voice and participating role in determining our destiny is not new, but the fact that this revolution has found root in Middle Eastern societies bound by century old mores and customs, makes the bravery of these women more even more remarkable.
The struggle shall continue but in the meantime women around the world shall continue to suffer and die because of their sex.
After the release of information by the American government which claims that pornography was discovered on Osama Bin Laden's computer, the idea of pornography in Islamic nations shouldn't be strange. In fact, I wrote a post titled "Sex for Sale from Moldova to Dubai," which deals with the topic of human trafficking and sex slaves from former Eastern Bloc countries who end up working across Europe and the Middle East. But even researching these abuses I had never heard of "Granny Porn." The term evoked an image of an elderly frail grandmother with white hair engaged in non-consensual sex. In fact, because of the lead-in I thought that Dr. Drew was going to focus on the issue of the rape of elderly women in nursing homes.
Read MoreAs of 45 minutes ago it was reported that the military leader Than Shwe has signed the release of Aung San Suu Kyi who received the paperwork earlier today. Her release came on the heels of Myanmar's 7 November 2010, its first election in twenty years. Even with this demonstration of Myanmar's desire to move closer to Democracy the elections have been marred by charges of fraud. The newly elected government has been condemn by the international community. Even President Barak Obama has stated the elections were "neither free nor fair." Upon Suu Kyi's release she is expected to participate in the investigations of allegations of fraud in the polls and other irregularities.
Read MoreI long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give final meaning and color to one's loves and friendships. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison
Read More"Tell your own story, and you will be interesting. Don't get the green disease of envy. Don't be fooled by success and money. Don't let anything come between you and your work." ~ Louise Bourgeois Artist Louise Bourgeois died at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan on Monday, 31 May 2010. She suffered a heart attack Saturday night, said the studio director, Wendy Williams. Although 98, she was still working and in fact finished her latest piece just last week.
Read More"The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.” ~ Bill Clinton
Read More"A woman’s fate is determined by men and women who play God. Her first gift is a doll-named-Baby with which she rehearses home maker, wife and mother. She is groomed to be a ‘proper woman’ — the silent one when the men are talking. All these in preparation for her husband’s house; is that not where all ‘good’ women end? A woman’s worth is defined first by her father, then her husband and last by the children she bears. She’s more blessed if she bore boys. If it’s a girl child, irrespective of her career success, she has to follow her mother’s steps. A ‘good woman’ doesn’t break the cycle! That’s not all, these ‘inequality gods’ add spice to her lifespan with other tough stops like the lack of freedom of choice; gender discrimination; rape and assaults of all kind. A woman should not allow these ‘inequality gods’, be they spiritual, economic, political or social, to script her life and that of her daughters." ~ Temitayo O, Nigeria
Read MoreWomen of all ethnic backgrounds, experiences, physiognomy and sexual preference are a wonder to behold. This video pulls you into the eternal flow of the mysteries that lie beneath the mysterious facades with sagacious eyes. Best said by Isak Dinesen, "the entire being of a woman is a secret that should be kept." We shall never know the secrets these women held, but we can ponder or project, as women, as children, as husbands and lovers our temporal secrets onto these women of amaranthine loveliness.
Read MoreThese Algerian Desert Flowers were featured in a 1917 National Geographic story that documented the exotic beauty of North African people and their religious customs. Unlike the anthropological approach to other cultures, people and countries that primarily exists today, the captions that reference many of the photos in this series 'Scenes of Orient' are ethnocentric, paternalistic and colonialist at best, and downright racists at worst. Thankfully, the beauty of these captured moments surpass the limitations of the recorder.
Read MoreEritrea (pronounced /ˌɛrɨˈtreɪ.ə/ or /ˌɛrɨˈtriːə/;[6] Ge'ez: ኤርትራ ʾErtrā, Arabic: إرتريا Iritriya), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The east and northeast of the country have an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands are part of Eritrea. Its size is just under 118,000 km2 (45,560 sq mi) with an estimated population of 5 million. The capital is Asmara." Photos of Eritrean Women by Dawit Rezenè.
Read MoreGlobally 33 million people have HIV, researchers suspect that 1 in 300 people are probably "elite controllers." One of the earliest known cases in the United States of an "elite controller" is a man named Rod Fichter who was first diagnosed in 1986 but has been living symptom free for over 20 years. Both he and a friend tested positive, however his friend succumbed to complications from the disease shortly thereafter. Much to Rod's surprise not only did he survive, he never developed any symptoms and remained healthy without ever taking medication.
Read MoreThe Report seeks to challenge readers to move beyond the accepted standard fare purveyed by most media, often demonizing and convicting an entire society and citizenry. Rather, The Report asks readers to recognize themselves in the “other” and assign blame to the miscreants who truly are the culprits of many of the atrocities that negatively impact us all.
