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Ballet in Egypt

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Photo: Magda Saleh collection
Egypt’s first prima ballerina, Magda Saleh, as she is today and in ballets of the 1960s and 1970s.

I like to include stories about Egyptian culture whenever I see them because of my special connection to two naturalized citizens who were born in Egypt. Here is an intriguing New York Times article by Brian Seibert about an Egyptian who excelled at ballet and even performed with the Bolshoi in Moscow.

“Once upon a time, the Egyptian ballerina Magda Saleh danced the dream role of Giselle in Moscow as a guest star with the mighty Bolshoi Ballet. …

“Recently, in the elegant Upper East Side apartment that she shares with her husband, the American Egyptologist Jack Josephson, Ms. Saleh, 73, recounted how her life had been ‘punctuated’ by shifts in Egyptian political history. …

“In the era just before she was born, Egypt was no longer a protectorate of Britain, but British influence was still high. Her father, who would become a prominent academic, studied agriculture in Scotland and brought home a Scottish bride, Ms. Saleh’s mother. Their children spoke English and Arabic at home, French at school. …

“Her first ballet teachers were British, and she traveled to Britain to study ballet. By then, though, Egypt had undergone a revolution and soon it was at war with Britain. Young Ms. Saleh was called home, where she discovered that her British instructors had left.

“But the Egyptian government was now friendly with the Soviet Union, and new teachers arrived. In 1959, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture created an Academy of Arts, with a Higher Institute of Ballet, and imported teachers from the Bolshoi to run it.

” ‘This was unprecedented in Egyptian history,’ Ms. Saleh said. ‘We have this very ambiguous attitude toward dance and especially women dancers …

“ ‘None of this would have been possible,’ she continued, ‘but for a confluence of time and circumstance and one man, the first minister of culture’ — Tharwat Okasha, an army officer with vision and tenacity. …

“Ballet education came filtered through translation, with old Russians who had fled to Egypt during the Russian Revolution converting the instructions of the newly arrived Soviet dancers into broken Arabic.

“Yet the school developed rapidly, and in 1963, Ms. Saleh and four other female students were offered scholarships to study at the Bolshoi in Moscow. She was 19 — or ’19 going on 11,’ she said, ‘because we were so sheltered.’ Now they were on their own in the bitter cold of the grim Soviet capital, sitting on radiators before class to thaw. …

“The experience was tough. ‘But character forming,’ Ms. Saleh said. ‘The Russians taught us with love. Not love for us. Love for dance. They instilled this in us.’

“Back in Cairo, diplomas in hand, they wanted to dance. So the ballet institute mounted ‘The Fountain of Bakhchisarai,’ a 1934 Soviet ballet about a Polish princess abducted by a Tatar Khan. The Egyptian public loved it. The president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, awarded the dancers the Order of Merit.

“Even more meaningful to Ms. Saleh was the praise of a poor old man after a performance in the southern backwater of Aswan. ‘People had insisted that Egyptians wouldn’t accept Egyptian ballet,’ she recalled misty-eyed. ‘But we were right!’ ”

Read more and see some lovely pictures at the New York Times, here — and also here, at Ahramonline.

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Don’t Forget May Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 1, 2018| 4 Comments »

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Photo: Bryn Mawr College
Students dance around the May pole as part of an ancient spring tradition. A local men’s college used to try to steal May poles in the dead of night. One year a May pole ended up in a swimming pool.

As important as International Workers Day is, please don’t forget about the ancient May Day, the one that welcomes spring with flower baskets deposited at doors and with dances that weave ribbons around a May pole. It’s sweet and fun.

My children used to leave little bouquets of violets and daffodils and tulips on neighbors’ doorsteps. A babysitter showed us how to make baskets using wallpaper from discontinued sample books and a stapler. The kids would ring a neighbor’s bell, then run and hide. If anyone asked us later whether we knew anything about the nice flowers they found outside their door, we always said we had no idea what they were talking about. Which made it pretty obvious, actually.

I remember Mrs. Pulhamous saying to me, “Oh, I’m going to be so sad when your children grow up!”

Recently, I was sorting through files and was reminded that when Suzanne was in Girl Scouts, we made baskets for retirement home residents and received very sweet thank-you notes. I still think the Girl Scouts would be a good organization to carry on the tradition.

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“Travelers” Get Some Respect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 30, 2018| 3 Comments »

Photo: Rajpot
A stool painted by Travelers, or Gypsies.

A while back, I started following Romani Arts (@romaniarts) on twitter, which is how I learned about a Scotland-based nonprofit that validates and promotes Gypsy culture. It’s called Rajpot.

From the website: “RAJPOT was established as a voluntary organisation by individuals from varying backgrounds, including Scottish Gypsy Travellers, with a view to establishing an inter-cultural arts centre that would enable people from indigenous and seldom heard cultural communities, often oppressed communities, to give voice to their experiences and allow their stories to resonate across cultural boundaries, deploying a multi-art format: visual arts, craft-making, performance art (drama, story-telling, music, poetry recital, etc.) …

“The word ‘Rajpot’ derives from the Scottish Gypsy Traveller language of Cant and usually refers to someone considered to be ‘mad’. …

“The creator embraced this humorous view of himself in designing the plans for the centre, where a large pot, typically used by Gypsy Travellers, occupies pride of place on an outside fire at the heart of the design; the symbolic value should be apparent to any Gypsy Traveller, many of whom preferred historically to cook in a large pot on an open fire.”

Rajpot’s History page offers additional background: “The origins of Scottish Gypsy Travellers, or Nackens, are commonly held by experts to be traceable to North-West India. It is believed that Gypsy warriors were expelled from India and gradually migrated westward around 1000 AD.

“Official records note the arrival of Romanies in Scotland around 1505, several years before the earliest record of their presence in England at Lambeth Palace.

“Research has noted that ‘cultural osmosis and intermarriage’ ensued between the Romanies and a group of pre-existing craftsmen referred to as ‘tynklers’; this name emerged on account of the tinkling noise they made in the production of tin wares.

“The art of tinsmithing was a widespread occupation among Gypsy groups throughout Europe. On that basis, the tinsmiths may have constituted an earlier band of Gypsy migrants who self-identified with the new arrivals.”

I have no way to evaluate whether that history is accurate. (You might check Wikipedia.) But the impulse to create an organization that honors an often misunderstood population seems a worthy one.

On a related note, this is a lovely photographic book on Travelers by two women from my old high school: Irish Tinkers.

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Altruistic Lemonade and Other Photos

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 29, 2018| 6 Comments »

There’s been a bit of a drought in my picture taking. I got so tired of winter, and now in spring I’m reluctant to shoot the same photos I shoot every year. Although when you think about it, it’s kind of beautiful that the same crocus, hellabore, and winter aconite pop up over the same creative neighbor’s stonewall year after year.

We’ve finally had some spring in New England. The very best sign of that was a lemonade stand I saw yesterday.

Two young girls were selling lemonade and flavored iced tea ($.75, mint leaves optional) and Rice Krispies Treats ($.25) while playing duets on the clarinet and violin. They told me they were raising money for a charity that provides instruments and music lessons to children in Haiti.

They were adorable. One girl pointed out their homemade signs. She said, “We didn’t have any big cardboard to make signs, so we got pizza for dinner last night.” The pizza box provided the needed cardboard.

The other pictures are pretty self-explanatory. The crocus flowers peeked up just before we had one of our numerous late snowstorms. The gorgeous architecture and shadows are thanks to the preservation ethos in Providence.

I was thrilled to see the opportunistic pansy poking through a stone curb. And the trout lilies. I had to take two shots of the trout lilies, the only wildflowers that still flourish after I took a walking class in local conservation lands 25 years ago.

(No worries: I didn’t steal flowers from the woods but was able to buy several varieties of wildflowers at a plant sale. Sometimes a solitary May Apple shows up near the trout lilies in my yard, but it is sad and lonely. The trillium never had a prayer as it is fussy about soil and likes to hang with a group. Perhaps the wild geraniums will bloom this year.)

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Swedish Companies Hiring Syrians

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 28, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Målerås
Glassworkers in the Målerås factory in Sweden. The company successfully brought on refugees when it was short-handed.

This story combines two of my great interests: Sweden and helping refugees. Erik’s homeland showed compassion by taking in 32,000 asylum seekers in 2015, but in a win-win scenario, some Swedish design companies have benefited.

Alicia Brunker writes at Architectural Digest, “Rather than fear that refugees will take jobs away from locals, the Nordic country views Syria’s tradition of handicraft skills as a way to smoothy integrate its people into their own design-centric society. This mindset is especially true for the design community in southern Sweden, also known as Småland, a vast region that family-run glass workshops and international heavyweights, such as IKEA, call home. …

“Five years ago, the Scandinavian design purveyor began working with the women’s co-operative [Yalla Trappan ] to offer marginalized groups opportunities for livelihood, including Syrian refugees who have settled in southern Sweden without employment. As a way to give them economic independence, IKEA hired 10 women to work at their Malmö store, offering sewing services. …

“Whether a local customer needs a quick repair to their Ektorp sofa cushion or requires custom embroidery, the women at IKEA’s Malmö store will take the order at their sewing atelier and stitch it off-site.

“Beyond in-store sewing services, IKEA has recently teamed up with the Jordan River Foundation, opening up a production center in Amman. … At the facility, the Jordanians and an IKEA designer collaborated on a new range of textiles — including pillows, rugs, and baskets — that meld both culture’s styles into a single object. …

“The Jordanians lay the yarn on the floor and weave by hand on their feet. However, with IKEA’s ultimate goal of making these women employable in the future, they plan to teach the refugees more modern stitching practices with machines for upcoming collections.

“Inadvertently, IKEA has also provided employment for refugees through their annual Art Event. This year, the design giant enlisted local glassworks company Målerås to work with international artists on a limited-edition series of contemporary glass figurines.

“During the production process, the factory was short-handed and decided to add a dozen new contractors, four of which were Syrian refugees, to their workforce. Though they didn’t have glass-making experience, the men were familiar with working with their hands. Through an eight-month training period, the refugees learned the various steps of production and they picked up on their new country’s language and culture. …

“Benny Hermansson, owner and CEO of Gemla Möbler, the country’s oldest furniture factory, says the practice of working with craftsmen from other regions dates back to the 19th-century. … One of the [Syrians] who joined Gemla worked at a furniture company back in Syria, crafting headboards and cabinets out of wood. …

” ‘There are fewer and fewer schools educating students in these fields,’ [Hermansson] says. ‘It has become difficult to recruit people with the right competence. We have a need, and so do these refugees.” More here.

This is reminding me of a Syrian carpenter that I helped out a bit last year. He was thrilled to find work in Rhode Island installing insulation. I wonder if he has gotten into woodworking since then.

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The Value of Communication

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 27, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Look how happy my friend was after the 2012 ceremony that gave her US citizenship.

The other day the young lady above and I came to a funny realization about what I thought she told me 20-plus years ago when we first knew each other.

At that time, as a recent immigrant, her English was not as fluent as it is now, and I wasn’t as good a listener. As a result, I’ve been believing a bogus story for decades — and telling it to other people!

A naturalized US citizen originally from Brazil, my friend runs a cleaning business that has long benefited my family. Today she and I were chatting, and she happened to mention that she had studied nursing for two years. I was surprised. As the information sank in, I was even astonished.

“Wait! What? You spent two years studying nursing before you came here at age 14 with your boyfriend?”

It was her turn to be astonished. “I didn’t come here at 14. Oh, no! Something wrong with communication!”

“You didn’t leave home at 14 with your boyfriend, now your husband? The two of you didn’t come here through Mexico and work on a farm?!”

“No! Oh, my goodness, no!”

“But that’s my story about you!” I exclaimed. “I have told that story to everyone.”

How we laughed!

She said, “I think I know what I told you that made you think I came here when I was 14.”

“You mean I have to completely rethink my story of your life! Well, OK. Gee. I liked the old story.”

Laughing, she explained, “I met my boyfriend when we lived in Brazil. He came to America first, and he said, ‘Why don’t you come?’ So I got a visa and came. I was 18.”

“18! Well, I guess I’m glad you didn’t leave home at 14 after all.”

“My father was upset enough that I came here at 18. Imagine if I had come at 14! He would never speak to me again.

“I think I told you that there was an opening to become a citizen at that time, but to qualify, you had to be living and working in the orange groves for five years already. I wasn’t good with numbers when I told you that it meant I would have to be 14 when I started picking oranges. I should have said 13.”

Then I replied, thinking that if she had told me “13,” I really might have questioned the story more, “So you never came through Mexico?”

“No, we were in Florida. And the US had a special amnesty for people who worked in the orange groves for five years.”

“And the two of you never worked on a farm?”

“No! First I worked in a nursing home, but I really couldn’t speak English. I couldn’t understand what people were asking me for. The manager had to demonstrate everything.

“One time an old man asked me for water over and over and over, and when he finally tried using Portuguese, I just cried because I knew I hadn’t been helping him or the other old people when they needed help. So I went and put an ad in the newspaper for cleaning houses. That’s how it started.”

She had some other great stories about misunderstandings in English and we laughed a lot. Now everything is cleared up.

(I hope.)

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She Took Action to Help Refugees

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2018| 6 Comments »

Photo: Elissa Nadworny/NPR  
Cathy Meaney (right), a volunteer with International Neighbors, has befriended an Afghan refugee family in Charlottesville, Va.

Here’s a story of how one person can make a big difference. The one person I’m thinking of is a teacher who started a nonprofit to help refugees in Virginia. After launch, there was another “one person” and another and another.

In fact, quite a few kind Virginians were concerned to learn that refugees have to start taking care of their own needs in 90 days — a nearly impossible task in a strange place where you don’t know the language.

Elissa Nadworny has a report at National Public Radio (NPR).

“Here’s a number: 90. That’s how many days most refugees arriving in this country have before the basic resettlement money they get from the government runs out.

“But once that three months is over, there are still so many things recent arrivals need. That’s what Kari Miller saw over and over as a teacher in the public schools in Charlottesville, Va.

“In her classes, students who had recently arrived in the U.S. as refugees were struggling with all kinds of problems, like serious dental issues, or a lack of winter clothes or just the challenge of adjusting to life and school in a new land and a strange language. …

“She asked her principal for permission to take children to clinics, to buy them winter coats, to go home and meet their families. … Seeing them every day at school gave her an idea: Connect these families to their Charlottesville neighbors.

“Working out of her garage, Miller started the nonprofit International Neighbors. That was two years ago, and the organization has now grown to more than 200 volunteers. Many of them work full-time jobs but are ready to jump in to help families in that crucial period after the government aid runs out. …

“There are so many questions: Where can I get a car? Is school closed today? How do I turn on my shower? And, please, help me fill out all this paperwork!

“Paperwork, that’s the real currency in the United States, says Liza Fields, a member of International Neighbors’ board. … Fields helps refugees fill out those many, many forms — mostly for medical care but also dental work, school needs and, of course, paying bills. …

“The No. 1 request refugees make of International Neighbors is for a car. That’s usually followed closely by another related request: driving lessons. The organization provides money for lessons. But some volunteers like Helga Hiss are willing and able to give lessons. That, says Kari Miller, is the sweet spot. …

“Last fall, Hiss started giving driving lessons to a woman named Neegeeta, who moved to Charlottesville with her family from Afghanistan about 2 1/2 years ago.

” ‘It was very, very difficult life,’ Neegeeta says as her 18-month-old son, Musadiq, crawls into her lap. She asked that we use only her first name in order to protect family members who remain in Afghanistan.

“That first year in the U.S. was so hard, Neegeeta says, that they thought about moving back to Afghanistan. She felt isolated. She was working on her English, taking care of her three children, and dependent on a bus transfer to get her to appointments. …

“But, month by month, things got better. Her husband got a good job. The family got a car. They moved into an apartment downtown.

“Neegeeta credits much of this newfound confidence to volunteers like Hiss, who she says helped her feel welcome as she drove around her new city, laughing — and praying — in Hiss’s Toyota Camry.

“Those lessons, Neegeeta says, changed everything. Gave her freedom.”

Read about the nonprofit’s varied programs — including the one that pairs Charlottesville and refugee families who have similar characteristics — at NPR, here.

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Subway Project Unearths Treasures

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 25, 2018| 11 Comments »

Photo: beniculturali.gov.it
The newly discovered “commander’s house” was found while digging Rome’s Metro C subway line. It dates back to the 2nd century.

Nowadays, archaeologists get involved at construction sites early, especially if there’s a suspicion of buried culture deep down. It must be frustrating for builders to delay a project when something of historical significance is unearthed, but I like to think that some builders (or perhaps some low-level workers) find it exciting to be part of history. I like to imagine that once in a while an inspired worker goes back to school and becomes an archaeologist.

In Rome, a subway project first revealed unexpected treasure in 2016. Elena Goukassian has a report at Hyperallergic.

“In the summer of 2016, while digging the new Metro C subway line in Rome, workers came across a rare archeological find, a 2nd-century CE Roman barracks. [More recently] archeologists uncovered the remains of a ‘commander’s house’ (domus) connected to the barracks, ‘the first discovery of its kind in the Italian capital,’ according to the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA).

“Complete with marble floors, mosaics, and frescoes, the Hadrian-era house was found [roughly 39 feet] under the Amba Aradam station, close to the Basilica of San Giovanni Laterano. …

“Measuring 300 square meters (~3,200 square feet), the house contains 14 separate rooms, including a ‘bathhouse with underfloor heating.’

“The house will be dismantled piece by piece and temporarily moved, before returning to its original location and incorporated into the new metro station, which ‘will surely become the most beautiful metro station in the world,” [the head of Rome’s monuments authority, Francesco Prosperetti] told reporters.”

Great pictures at Hyperallergic, here.

Who wouldn’t love the mosaic owl discovered under a subway line in Italy?

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Arts Are Important for Colorado Economy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 24, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Helen H. Richardson/Denver Post
Denver Performing Arts Complex in 2017. The creative economy in Colorado accounted for 4.3 percent of the state’s gross domestic product in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available.

It can’t be stated too many times that the arts are often an important driver of local economies — and a reason for states and municipalities to help artists be successful. Rhode Island, for example, aims to help artists by not taxing art sales, but the lack of affordable housing in the state remains a big problem.

Joe Rubino writes at the Denver Post about Colorado’s creative economy, noting that anyone who saw a show at the local opera house in 2015, bought a painting or book by a Coloradan, or visited a local museum “contributed to the $13.7 billion arts and culture brought to the state’s economy that year, a figure that outdid both the mining and transportation sectors. …

“The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and the National Endowment for the Arts on [March 7] unveiled their most recent analysis of the economic impact of arts and culture in the U.S. In 2015, the year with the most recent reporting data, goods and services generated by museums, architecture firms, artists and other artistically inclined businesses and agencies accounted for 4.3 percent of the Colorado’s GDP. …

“[Nationwide,] creative industries accounted for a $20 billion trade surplus that year, according to the analysis. Work in arts and culture accounted for 4.9 million U.S. jobs in 2015. Of those, 100,631 were in Colorado. …

“The analysis, collectively known as the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account, or ACPSA, looked at 36 industries that contributed to America’s arts and cultural economy. Some of them are considered core contributors — like museums and graphic design firms — and others are viewed as support industries [including] broadcasting. …

“When it comes to comparing states in the American West, arts and culture in Colorado ranked only behind California and Washington in terms of money made.”

More at the Denver Post, here.

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Passing a Computer Test without a Computer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 23, 2018| 4 Comments »

Ghanian teacher Richard Appiah Akoto drawing Microsoft Word on a blackboard because he has no computer to help his students pass exams.

Over here in the Land of Plenty it’s hard to imagine some of the stratagems teachers in less favored regions must employ to help their students learn.

And although this particular story is about Africa, I don’t mean Africa only. There are many parts of the United States where meager school funding pushes dedicated teachers to extraordinary feats of creativity.

At CNN, Gianluca Mezzofiore reports on a teacher in Ghana who needs to teach kids computer usage — without a computer. How does he do it? He draws a screen image of Microsoft Word on a blackboard.

“Richard Appiah Akoto is a Ghanaian teacher who faces a pretty discouraging dilemma. His students need to pass a national exam that includes questions on information and  communication technology (ICT) — but the school hasn’t had a computer since 2011.

“So Akoto had an ingeniously simple idea: he drew computer features and software on his blackboard, using multicolored chalk.

” ‘I wanted them to know or see how the window will appear if they were to be behind a computer,’ Akoto told CNN. …

“Images of Akoto — who on social media uses the nickname ‘Owura Kwadwo Hottish’ — drawing a diagram of Microsoft Word for his pupils at Betenase M/A Junior High School in the town of Sekyedomase went viral after he posted them on Facebook. …

“Akoto’s 100-plus students were happy about the drawing because it made the explanation about launching Word simple for them, he said. And this is not the first time he has illustrated IT technology on the board.

” ‘I have been doing this every time the lesson I’m teaching demands it,’ he said. ‘I’ve drawn monitors, system units, keyboards, mouse, formatting toolbar, drawing toolbar, save as dialog box and so on.’

“Quartz, which first reported on the teacher’s story, says the written exam is a requisite for 14- and 15-year-olds in Ghana to progress to high school.” More here.

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Protecting Both Reindeer and the Climate

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 22, 2018| 2 Comments »

Photo: Sonia Narang/PRI  
Inka Saara Arttijeff is the adviser to the president of the Sámi Parliament and hails from a family of Sámi reindeer herders. She represents Finland at international climate change summits. 

When I was in Sweden last year, I visited the history museum in Stockholm, where I learned a little about an indigenous population called the Sámi. I had previously heard them called Laplanders, but Wikipeida says they don’t like that term:

“The Sami people (also known as the Sámi or the Saami) are a Finno-Ugric people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses large parts of Norway and Sweden, northern parts of Finland, and the Murmansk Oblast of Russia. The Sami have historically been known in English as the Lapps or the Laplanders, but these terms can be perceived as derogatory.”

Sonia Narang of the GlobalPost recently reported on the Sámi people and the threat that global warming poses for their way of life.

“Inka Saara Arttijeff and her family gather in the cozy kitchen of their red, wooden house, as a pot of soup simmers on the stove. They live at the edge of a frozen lake in the storybook village of Nellim, up toward the far reaches of northern Finland. … Arttijeff is part of a family of indigenous Sámi reindeer herders who are unfazed by short days in subzero weather.

“The Sámi [are] known for their centuries-old tradition of herding reindeer. … However, the warming climate has threatened to disrupt the Sámi people’s tradition of reindeer herding. … The combination of weather changes and increased tree cutting has made it harder for reindeer to find food, and it’s altered their migration patterns.

“ ‘Reindeer herding represents a way of life,’ Arttijeff said. … Arttijeff is one of a growing number of outspoken Sámi women who are taking their voices well beyond the borders of their small villages. The 33-year-old is the adviser to the female president of the Sámi Parliament, Tiina Sanila-Aikio, and represents Finland on the world’s stage. Every year, Arttijeff joins a delegation of indigenous representatives at the UN’s climate change talks. In between all that, she is also a graduate student in international relations and law. …

” ‘For reindeer herding, [we] need forest that is healthy,’ Arttijeff said. … Finland’s state-owned forestry agency, Metsähallitus, manages about one-third of the country’s forests, and it’s also responsible for harvesting and selling timber. Kirsi-Marja Korhonen, a regional director and environmental specialist at Metsähallitus, … notes 60 percent of trees on Sámi lands are in protected areas.

“That still leaves large swaths of Sámi forests up for grabs, reindeer herders say, and they point to clear-cutting of productive forests. …

“[Saara Tervaniemi, a reindeer herder] says it’s critical to monitor forestry activities on her people’s lands since logging is eroding the culture she hopes to pass down to her children. …

“Since Sámi women are primarily responsible for child care and passing on their culture to the next generation, reindeer herding has become an important issue for them, especially as logging and climate change have intensified in recent years. …

“It’s not just reindeer herding that’s at risk — it’s the four other Sámi livelihoods, too: fishing, gathering, hunting and handicrafts. ‘For all of those, you need materials from nature,’ Arttijeff says. ‘If the nature changes, you cannot do traditional livelihoods anymore. So, if that changes, everything changes for us.’ ”

More here. Hat tip: @morinotsuma on twitter.

For more on the importance of forests, see my post reviewing The Gospel of Trees, here.

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These Doctors Want Less Pay

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 21, 2018| 2 Comments »

Photo: Caiaimage/Robert Daly
Canadian doctors who want less pay think the money would be better spent elsewhere.

At first blush, it seems counterintuitive that doctors would reject more money, but like the Oklahoma teachers who went on strike after getting a raise, they were concerned about the priorities of the whole system.

Catherine Clifford reports at CNBC, “In Canada, more than 500 doctors and residents, as well as over 150 medical students, have signed a public letter protesting their own pay raises.

” ‘We, Quebec doctors who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations,’ the letter says.

“The group say they are offended that they would receive raises when nurses and patients are struggling.

” ‘These increases are all the more shocking because our nurses, clerks and other professionals face very difficult working conditions, while our patients live with the lack of access to required services because of the drastic cuts in recent years and the centralization of power in the Ministry of Health,’ reads the letter, which was published February 25. …

“Canada has a public health system which provides ‘universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay,’ the government’s website says.

“The 213 general practitioners, 184 specialists, 149 resident medical doctors and 162 medical students … ‘believe that there is a way to redistribute the resources of the Quebec health system to promote the health of the population and meet the needs of patients without pushing workers to the end,’ the letter says.

” ‘We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be canceled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the health care workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec.’ …

“On February 1, the [Médecins Québécois pour le Régime Public] published a letter denouncing working conditions of nurses. ‘The nurses are exhausted by a heavy workload. They argue that the chronic lack of staff and the fatigue caused by repeated overtime, sometimes mandatory, for lack of replacement of the team, have an impact on the safety of patient care,.’ ”

More here, at CNBC. I’m impressed by how well these doctors appreciate that overworking nurses and staff can interfere with their own jobs — and with patient outcomes.

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19th C. Autograph Collection on Silk

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 20, 2018| 4 Comments »

Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Detail showing Abraham Lincoln’s signature in an autograph quilt created by a seventeen-year-old Rhode Island girl in 1856.

To boldly go where no one has gone before (Star Trek)

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

I like to think of myself as occasionally creative, but when I read a story like this one about a 19th century Rhode Island girl, I’m humbled. See how she took a traditional idea and expanded on it.

According to Public Domain Review, “In 1856, a seventeen-year-old girl from Rhode Island embarked on a unique and brilliant quiltmaking project.

“The girl’s name was Adeline Harris and her project was to make a quilt incorporating hundreds of celebrity autographs. While signature quilts were nothing new, the contributions were typically sourced from within a small community, such as a church, and functioned to commemorate a single event, such as a birth or marriage.

“Adeline, however, had bigger ideas, her community as the notable figures of her day, her event the phenomenon of nineteenth-century celebrity. …

“She sent a small diamond of white silk in the post with an explanation of her project and a request that they send it back to her signed. The returned and now autographed fragments were then worked into the quilt as the ‘top’ planes in a wonderful trompe l’oeil tumbling block design.

“The response she got to her unusual request was nothing short of phenomenal — she ended up incorporating 360 signed pieces in total, including those from such luminaries as Jacob Grimm, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Abraham Lincoln (one of eight American presidents represented). …

“One of the people Adeline contacted in 1864 was Sarah Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, who, as well as providing her signature, also promptly wrote up ‘the very beautiful idea’ in her magazine. Hale explains how it is not only the signed pieces which tell a story:

Each autograph is written, with common black ink, on a diamond shaped piece of white silk (placed over a diagram of white paper and basted at the edges), each piece the centre of a group of colored diamonds, formed in many instances, from ‘storied’ fragments of dresses which were worn in the olden days of our country. For instance, there are pieces of a pink satin dress which flaunted at one of President Washington’s dinner parties …

“As for the process, conservator Elena Philips explains that, after examining the seams along the quilt top, it can be seen that ‘first she stitched the individual diamonds into blocks, then connected the blocks into columns, and finally seamed the columns together across the entire width. In total, she cut and stitched 1,840 individual silk pieces to create the quilt … [and used] more than one hundred and fifty different silk fabrics.’

“This is just one example from the Metropolitan Museum’s superb collection of 151 American quilts and coverlets, more about which you can read in curator Amelia Peck’s American Quilts and Coverlets in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2009).”

More at Public Domain Review.

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Beekeeping in South Africa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 19, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photo: Destiny Connect
More than 50% of the honey sold in South Africa is imported. Mokgadi Mabela, a beekeeper and founder of the Native Nosi, is striving to change the business landscape.

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour …”

Yesterday I paid a visit to friends who recently moved to Massachusetts from Minnesota. The wife is a textile and quilt artist. The husband is a woodworker and beekeeper. Before moving, he sold his 2,000 pounds of honey and all his beekeeping equipment. But the new home came with a beehive in the backyard, and he can’t resist setting up on a smaller scale.

I think these two, retired from careers that have nothing to do with bees or art, may be the most industrious people I have ever met.

Speaking of busy bees, I just happen to have a post today on beekeeping. Hope you like it. Nazley Omar wrote the story for Destiny Connect.

“More than 50% of the honey sold in South Africa is imported. Mokgadi Mabela, a beekeeper and founder of the Native Nosi, is striving to change the business landscape [and] keeping the legacy of beekeeping in her family alive.

“She is a third-generation beekeeper who specialises in organic honey production. Mabela launched the Native Nosi in 2015 with the aim of producing local, quality pure honey, alleviating poverty through job creation and providing rural beekeepers with access to urban markets.

“ ‘In South Africa, beekeeping was historically never part of the basic academic curricula in agriculture,’ she says. ‘Therefore, your average South African knows very little about bees and their role in the ecosystem value chain.’ …

“Several bee species across the globe are heading towards extinction, which would have a huge impact on agriculture and food production. Mabela says we need more beekeepers to help preserve bees and produce honey.

“ ‘Ordinary citizens who have no interest in beekeeping can help by planting more trees and plants that are bee-friendly, as habitat loss is one of the factors contributing to the global bee population decline.’ …

“It’s important for South Africans to consume honey, wax and by-products that are produced organically and locally. Imported honey products have to be irradiated in order to limit South Africans to the exposure of impurities and diseases.

“ ‘Although this process is done with good intent, it destroys all the nutrients and delicate properties for which honey is known. When you buy local, you consume natural, quality honey that has not been subjected to any processing,’ explains Mabela.

“When Mabela first launched her company, she encountered many challenges. The startup capital required to buy beehives and processing equipment was high. She tackled this by buying honey from her father and other beekeepers and selling it to raise enough money to buy beehives, increasing her production and securing her own supply.

“I also won [an award] through a pitch competition sponsored by SAB, Standard Bank and The Hook Up Dinner, which I used to buy the equipment. …

“ ‘We are here to change the game and smash stereotypes about young, black, females in business and agriculture. … Starting is often the most difficult step. Once you start, you are able to get a lot of the fear out the way and get on with the real business.’ ”

More at Destiny Connect, here.

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Chernobyl Victim, Paralympian

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 18, 2018| 5 Comments »

Photos: MoSwo PR
Despite birth defects resulting from her birth mother’s exposure to Chernobyl radiation, Oksana Masters won medals at three Paralympics in different sports: London 2012, Sochi 2014, and PyeongChang 2018.

There is so much to like in this story about a girl adopted from a Ukrainian orphanage who became a champion despite severe disabilities.

I lucked into Gary Waleik’s interview with her at WBUR radio’s Only a Game.

“Oksana Masters spent her early childhood in Ukraine. … When she was 7, Oksana stood only 36 inches tall and weighed just 35 pounds. She was malnourished, but that wasn’t the only reason she was small. Oksana was born in 1989, about 200 miles from Chernobyl, just three years after the nuclear disaster there.

” ‘I was missing the main weight-bearing bone in both legs,’ Oksana says. ‘And the left leg, I didn’t have a full knee. It was a floating knee. I had six toes. My hands were webbed, and I also have one kidney. I don’t have a full bicep on my right side. Thank God my hair didn’t get ruined. I could use a little more body, but I’m happy with it.’

“Oksana’s birth mother gave her up for adoption when she was a baby. Life was hard at the three orphanages she lived in, which were situated in the former USSR.

” ‘One of the things that I remember is, like, just that pain in your stomach from when you’re really, really hungry, and just how to ignore that feeling,’ Oksana says. ‘And sometimes you’d go to bed with no meals, or just a cup of soup, or just bread.’ …

“Thousands of miles away, a Buffalo, New York, speech pathologist saw a picture of Oksana in adoption agency literature.

“Says Gay Masters … ‘When I saw her picture, I just knew she was my daughter.’ …

“Not long after that, Oksana was shown a picture of Gay. [Then] on a freezing cold night in January, 1997, orphanage workers woke Oksana from a sound sleep. ..

” ‘I just see my mom, and she’s kneeling down on the bed next to me,’ Oksana says. ‘And I said, “I know you. You’re my Mom. I have your picture, see?” ‘ …

“Two weeks later, the new family landed in Buffalo. For the first time in Oksana’s life, there was ample food. There were toys and hugs. And there was a new language to learn. …

“Oksana did well in school. She had a restless energy that drove her to push her physical limits with the help of new prostheses. She climbed trees and jumped off steps with the neighborhood kids. …

” ‘My mom basically got me into ice skating, not necessarily to get into sports and be competitive, but have an opportunity to move and use your body and make friends,’ Oksana says. ‘And I fell in love with it.’ ”

Alas, first one and then the other malformed leg had to be amputated. Recovery after the second surgery was long and difficult.

“Then someone mentioned the Paralympics to her.

” ‘And I had no idea what the Paralympics was,’ she says. ‘When I found out about it, I went home, looked it up and then my competitive nature came out. Like, “Oh, my gosh, I can represent the United States? I can wear a flag on my back? What?” ‘ ”

Read about Oksana’s continuing quest for new sports, her triumphs and setbacks — and a moving visit to demoralized Ukrainian soldiers who had lost legs — at Only a Game, here.

And since you may be wondering what happened at the Winter Paralympics after that radio interview, Wikipedia reports that Oksana “claimed a silver medal in the women’s 6km sitting biathlon event during the 2018 Winter Paralympics.”

Oksana at the Ukrainian orphanage in 1993.

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