Month: December 2018

‘Tech Addicts’ Seek Solace in 12 Steps and Rehab

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

We like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service.

But for some people, tech gets in the way of daily functioning and self-care. We’re talking flunk-your-classes, can’t-find-a-job, live-in-a-dark-hole kinds of problems, with depression, anxiety and sometimes suicidal thoughts part of the mix.

Suburban Seattle, a major tech center, has become a hub for help for so-called “tech addicts,” with residential rehab, psychologists who specialize in such treatment and 12-step meetings.

“The drugs of old are now repackaged. We have a new foe,” Cosette Rae says of the barrage of tech. A former developer in the tech world, she heads a Seattle area rehab center called reSTART Life, one of the few residential programs in the nation specializing in tech addiction.

Use of that word — addiction — when it comes to devices, online content and the like is still debated in the mental health world. But many practitioners agree that tech use is increasingly intertwined with the problems of those seeking help.

An American Academy of Pediatrics review of worldwide research found that excessive use of video games alone is a serious problem for as many as 9 percent of young people. This summer, the World Health Organization also added “gaming disorder” to its list of afflictions. A similar diagnosis is being considered in the United States.

It can be a taboo subject in an industry that frequently faces criticism for using “persuasive design,” intentionally harnessing psychological concepts to make tech all the more enticing.

​One addict’s story

One 27-year-old man, found through a 12-step program for tech addicts, works in the very industry that peddles the games, videos and other online content that has long been his vice. He does cloud maintenance for a suburban Seattle tech company and constantly finds himself fending off temptation.

“I’m like an alcoholic working at a bar,” he laments. He spoke on the condition that he not be identified, fearing he might harm his career in an industry he’s long loved.

As a toddler, he sat on his dad’s lap in their Seattle area home as they played simple video games on a Mac Classic II computer. By early elementary school, he got his first Super Nintendo system and spent hours playing Yoshi’s Story, a game where the main character searched for “lucky fruit.”

As he grew, so did one of the world’s major tech hubs. Led by Microsoft, it rose from the nondescript suburban landscape and farm fields here, just a short drive from the home he still shares with his mom, who split from her husband when their only child was 11.

As a teen, he took an interest in music and acting but recalls how playing games increasingly became a way to escape life. “I go online instead of dealing with my feelings,” he says.

He’d been seeing a therapist for depression and severe social anxiety. But attending college out of state allowed more freedom and less structure, so he spent even more time online. His grades plummeted, forcing him to change majors, from engineering to business.

After graduating in 2016 and moving home, he’d go to a nearby restaurant or the library to use the Wi-Fi, claiming he was looking for a job but having no luck.

Instead, he was spending hours on Reddit, an online forum where people share news and comments, or viewing YouTube videos. Sometimes, he watched online porn.

​’Detox’

Others who attend a 12-step meeting of the Internet & Tech Addiction Anonymous know the struggle.

“I had to be convinced that this was a ‘thing,”‘ says Walker, a 19-year-old from Washington whose parents insisted he get help after video gaming trashed his first semester of college. He agreed to speak only if identified by first name, as required by the 12-step tenets.

Help is found at facilities like reSTART. Clients “detox” from tech at a secluded ranch and move on to a group home.

They commit to eating well and regular sleep and exercise. They find jobs, and many eventually return to college. They also make “bottom line” promises to give up video games or any other problem content, as well as drugs and alcohol, if those are issues. They use monitored smartphones with limited function — calls, texts and emails and access to maps.

The young tech worker didn’t go to reSTART. But he, too, has apps on his phone that send reports about what he’s viewing to his 12-step sponsor, a fellow tech addict named Charlie, a 30-year-old reSTART graduate.

At home, the young man also persuaded his mom to get rid of Wi-Fi to lessen the temptation.

He still relapses every couple months, often when he’s tired or upset or very bored. He tells himself that his problem isn’t as bad as other tech addicts.

“Then,” the young man says, “I discover very quickly that I am actually an addict, and I do need to do this.”

Having Charlie to lean on helps. “He’s a role model,” he says.

“He has a place of his own. He has a dog. He has friends.”

That’s what he wants for himself.
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Israel to Allow Medical Marijuana Exports

By Uponsci | | No Comments | Science

Israel’s Parliament has unanimously approved a law to permit exports of medical marijuana, allowing Israel to tap the lucrative global market.

Israel will become the third country, after the Netherlands and Canada, to take its medical cannabis global.

The Israeli medical cannabis company iCAN predicts the global industry will reach $33 billion in the next five years, as stigma fades and demand grows for the few countries certified to export.

The law was approved late Tuesday, sending cannabis company shares rising by about 10 percent.

The law was stalled for years over fears from security officials that medical marijuana would leak into the black market. To assuage concerns, the law empowers police to supervise licensing.

The Israeli Cabinet must give final approval — a step seen as a formality.

 
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At New Museum of Black Civilizations, a Call to Come Home

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The Museum of Black Civilizations in Senegal opened this month amid a global conversation about the ownership and legacy of African art. The West African nation’s culture minister isn’t shy: He wants the thousands of pieces of cherished heritage taken from the continent over the centuries to come home.

“It’s entirely logical that Africans should get back their artworks,” Abdou Latif Coulibaly told The Associated Press. “These works were taken in conditions that were perhaps legitimate at the time but illegitimate today.”

Last month, a report commissioned by French President Emmanuel Macron recommended that French museums give back works taken without consent, if African countries request them. Macron has stressed the “undeniable crimes of European colonization,” adding that “I cannot accept that a large part of African heritage is in France.”

The new museum in Dakar is the latest sign that welcoming spaces across the continent are being prepared.

The museum, with its focus on Africa and the diaspora, is decades in the making. The idea was conceived when Senegal’s first president, internationally acclaimed poet Leopold Sedar Senghor, hosted the World Black Festival of Arts in 1966.

At the museum’s vibrant opening, sculptors from Los Angeles, singers from Cameroon and professors from Europe and the Americas came to celebrate, some in tears. “This moment is historic,” Senegalese President Macky Sall said. “It is part of the continuity of history.”

Perhaps reflecting the tenuous hold that African nations still have on their own legacy objects, the museum will not have a permanent collection. Filling the 148,000-square-foot circular structure, one of the largest of its kind on the continent, is complicated by the fact that countless artifacts have been dispersed around the world.

Both the inaugural exhibition, “African Civilizations: Continuous Creation of Humanity,” and the museum’s curator take a far longer view than the recent centuries of colonization and turmoil. Current works highlight the continent as the “cradle of civilization” and the echoes found among millions of people in the diaspora today.

“Colonization? That’s just two centuries,” curator Hamady Bocoum told the AP, saying that proof of African civilization is at least 7,000 years old, referencing a skull discovered in present-day Chad.

Like others, Bocoum is eager to see artifacts return for good. The exhibition includes 50 pieces on loan from France, including more than a dozen from the Quai Branly museum in Paris.

More than 5,000 pieces in the Quai Branly come from Senegal alone, Bocoum said.

“When we see the inventory of the Senegalese objects that are found in France, we’re going to ask for certain of those objects,” Bocoum said. “For the moment, we have not yet started negotiations.”

He brushed off concerns that African institutions might be unable to care for their own heritage, pointing to the new museum’s humidified, air-conditioned storage space.

The history of some of the objects in the opening exhibition is grim. Pointing to the saber of El Hadj Umar Tall, a 19th-century West African thinker who fought against French colonialism, Bocoum described how French troops fighting him stripped local women of their elaborate jewelry by cutting off their ears.

Contemporary works in the exhibition touch on both triumph and tragedy. There are black-and-white photographs of African nightclubs in the 1960s shot by famous Malian photographer Malick Sidibe, and a stark mural by Haitian artist Philippe Dodard depicting African religions and the middle passage.

Works by Yrneh Gabon Brown, based in Los Angeles, reference slavery and contemporary race relations in America.

“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child,” Brown told the AP. “And here, as a member of Africa’s English-speaking diaspora, I am proud, reaffirmed.”

France, whose president in recent weeks has pledged to return 26 pieces to Benin, is just one of many countries loaning works for the new museum’s opening exhibition. Bocoum now is working with dozens of institutions around the world to plan future exhibits.

“This museum is celebrating the resilience of black people,” professor Linda Carty, who teaches African American studies at Syracuse University, told the AP at its opening. “This is a forced recognition of how much black people have brought to the world. We were first. That’s been taken away from us, and we now have reclaimed it.”
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Lobster Divers Risk Injury, Death in Honduras

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Saul Ronaldo Atiliano was diving for lobster in the clear waters off Honduras’ Caribbean coast when he felt a pressure, a pain in his body. And he knew he’d gotten the sickness that has killed or disabled so many of his Miskito comrades.

“The pressure attacked me deep in the water,” said Atiliano, a 45-year-old Miskito who for 25 years has dived for lobster, most of which winds up is exported to the United States.

Thousands of men across the Mosquitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua depend on lobster fishing to eke out a living. And like Atiliano, hundreds have been stricken with the bends — decompression sickness caused when nitrogen bubbles form in divers’ bodies. Some are paralyzed. Some are killed.

With more than 60 per cent of its 9 million people living in poverty, Honduras is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, and the Mosquitia is one of the most impoverished areas.

Among exotic, tropical vegetation along the Caribbean coast, the region is sprinkled with small fishing villages where indigenous villagers live in clapboard houses. A sign of the poverty — and also the innocence of childhood — kids play with trucks made of plastic juice boxes with lids for wheels. For many grown-ups, the only option they’ve found to cope with poverty is diving, no matter the risks.

In the Mosquitia, diving permeates everyday life. In the fishing village of Kaukira, worshippers are called to church by the sound of a hammer on a diving tank instead of a bell.

Safe standard diving techniques call for a gradual ascent to the surface to eliminate the nitrogen that the body’s tissues absorb during a dive, and for a limit to the number of dives a person makes in a day.

But many of the divers of Mosquitia dive deeply, surface quickly and then go back for more, racing to collect as much lobster as possible. The boats, where they spend days playing cards and talking among themselves between dives, often have only rudimentary safety equipment and use aging tanks and masks.

Just how many have been stricken is somewhat unclear, though all agree it’s a large number for such small communities.

Jorge Gomez Santos, a former president of the Association of Disabled Honduran Miskito Divers, said this month that at least 2,200 Miskitos now work on the boats, and he said at least 1,300 have been disabled since 1980. Gomez, who uses a wheelchair, said 14 have died this year alone.

A study more than a decade ago cited by the Pan American Health Organization reported there were around 9,000 divers in the Mosquitia, and around 4,200 — 47 percent — were disabled by decompression sickness. Nearly all, it found, had suffered symptoms.

A diver makes 75 lempiras ($3) per pound of lobster and 7 lempiras (28 cents) for each sea cucumber. An average 10-pound (4.5-kilogram) daily haul of lobster is a windfall in one of the most impoverished regions of the Americas, so many take the risk, and many suffer for it, like Atiliano, who dove for 25 years without a problem until that day in September.

The father of 10 was paralyzed on the boat, which didn’t reach the docks for another day and a half. Fellow divers then drove him about 10 blocks to the hospital with a U.S.-donated hyperbaric chamber in city of Puerto Lempira, the area’s largest city.

Decompression sickness is usually treatable with sessions in such high-pressure, oxygen-rich chambers, but there are only a few available along the coast, and divers often must wait several days before they can be treated — reducing the chances of recovery.

“It’s the first accident I’ve had,” Atiliano said, speaking in Miskito through a translator. He appeared exhausted, with a blank stare, after a session of more than three hours in the chamber. He had shown little outward sign of improvement after that early treatment.

Another patient at the chamber was Charles “Charly” Melendez, a 28-year-old Miskito who said he been diving since he was 16 and had harvested 60 pounds of lobster on the day in November 2017 that he was injured.

Even now, after nine sessions, he hasn’t recovered. For a man who always made his living diving, it’s a nightmare being confined to a wheelchair.

“I still can’t stand up by myself,” he said. “I can’t sit for a long time; after an hour my body hurts.”

Cedrack Waldan Mendoza, the physical therapist operating the chamber, said the divers are driven by poverty, and even if injured, return to the boats.

“You run into them in the street and ask them why they’re going (back to diving) and they say it’s because their kids are hungry,” Waldan Mendoza said. “When someone tells you that their kids are hungry there’s no need to ask another question.”

Atiliano and Melendez are among the most vulnerable cogs in the lobster industry, which generated $40 million in sales for Honduras in 2017, nearly all of it from the U.S. market.

Atiliano said he expects to return to sea, not because he wants to, but for lack of options.

“If I recover, by necessity and for lack of work I’ll have to go back to diving,” he said.
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Koreas Celebrate Joint Railway

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

North and South Korea held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday to mark the start of a joint project to connect railways throughout the divided peninsula. The event was held after both Korea’s inspected railways along the peninsula’s east coast.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Lee Do-hoon told reporters last week, “The railroad linkage project and related groundbreaking ceremony were given the go-ahead to proceed as scheduled in the working group today,” referring to meetings held with State Department Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Biegun in Seoul.

Jung Dae-jin, a research professor with the Ajou Institute of Unification called the ceremony a strong indicator of both North and South Korea wanting to continue discussions held by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year.

“It looks frozen water from the surface, but the potential of having those conversations is still alive, like the water flowing beneath the ice,” he said.

Jung added that as the North’s rail and roadways are improved, “it can reduce the traveling time which encourages exchanges” between the two governments.

A special train carried 100 South Korean officials, politicians and members of families displaced by the war to the ceremony at Panmun Station in the border city of Kaesong.

In addition to officials from the United Nations, China, Russia, and Mongolia, South Korea’s unification ministry said they were joined by North Korea’s delegation of 100 people.

Following Wednesday’s ceremony, North and South Korea agreed to undertake further railway inspections and work closely with the United States and the United Nations to garner further support for the project and to address sanction concerns.

Railways and sanctions

North Korea’s rail system is said to be antiquated and in desperate need of repair in order to be linked with the South’s. During the first inter-Korean summit in April, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in agreed to “modernize” and “connect” the roads and railways across their border as part of efforts to improve ties and promote development and prosperity.

The railway inspection project had been delayed for months amid concerns about possible violations of UN sanctions on North Korea, but the project was given the go-ahead when the UN Security Council granted a sanctions exemption.

Professor Jung recalls that connecting the North’s and South’s rail lines were part of the 2000 Joint Declaration made by Seoul and Pyongyang and between 2007 and 2008, trains traversed the border several hundred times.

But, “if the extra sanctions are not lifted in the future, the whole plan of modernizing North Korea’s railroad will not be possible too,” he said.

Jung ties the future success of President Moon’s initiatives and plans for the connected railway to North Korea’s denuclearization.

“We need to see the New Year’s address by Kim Jong Un,” he said and notes that it is necessary that the global community see concrete measures taken by Pyongyang toward denuclearization for the process of rail and roadway use to proceed.

Lee Ju-Hyun contributed to this report.

 
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Futuristic Fun House Transforms Traditional Games into High Tech Wonders

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Technology is very quickly changing entertainment as we know it. While some worry that people are spending too much time on video games and not enough time with other people, there is a place in Los Angeles where visitors can interact with both. It’s called the Two Bit Circus – a funhouse that incorporates technology and games with group play for people of all ages. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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From Markle to Michelle: 10 Celebrities Using Star Power for Good in 2018

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Stars from Buckingham Palace to Bollywood and Hogwarts used their fame in 2018 to highlight a list of global challenges from climate change, to disease and women’s rights.

Here are 10 celebrities who took a stand in the past year in efforts to make a positive impact on the world:

  1. Meghan Markle: Since marrying into Britain’s royal family in May, the U.S. actress has vowed to shine a light on women’s rights. She was also snapped wearing “slave-free” jeans from Outland Denim in Australia, which sparked a run to buy the trousers, and collaborated with survivors of London’s Grenfell Tower fire to produce a community led cookbook.

  2. Emma Watson: Best known as Hermione in the Harry Potter films, Watson used 2018 to campaign for the #MeToo movement, donating one million pounds ($1.3 million) to a fund that supports charities fighting sexual abuse. In October, Watson wrote an open letter to end restrictive abortion laws from India to Ireland, while she was also photographed wearing a earrings fashioned from shrapnel and undetonated bombs from Laos.

  3. David Attenborough: The nonagenarian broadcaster of nature documentaries used 2018 and the annual United Nations’ climate talks in Poland to stand with young people and voice the need for urgent progress on climate action.

  4. Amitabh Bachchan: Bollywood veteran Amitabh Bachchan cemented his popularity in India when he spent more than 40 million rupees ($560,000) to clear the loans of farmers after an agricultural crisis left many of them in extreme poverty. 

  5. Elton John: The British singer-songwriter, a long-time advocate for LGBT+ rights, called for more to be done to support those living in poverty to gain better access to HIV/AIDS medical treatment, describing the lack of access a “disgrace.”

  6. Millie Bobby Brown: The teen star of hit Netflix series “Stranger Things” became the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF’s youngest goodwill ambassador this year, vowing to raise issues around children’s rights, education, poverty and work to end bullying. “It’s a dream come true,” Brown said.

  7. Michelle Obama: The former U.S. first lady has been promoting her memoir globally and speaking up for women’s rights and girls’ education. Obama, who grew up in a working class household in Chicago, said she wanted to empower women to seek hope in a difficult political and social climate.

  8. David Beckham: The former English soccer captain joined a campaign to reinvigorate the global fight against malaria, launched by charity Malaria No More UK. The retired athlete starred in a short film in which he was swarmed by mosquitoes to highlight that malaria continues to kill about 445,000 people a year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

  9. Cate Blanchett: Australian actress and United Nations’ refugee goodwill ambassador spoke out about the Rohingya crisis, urging nations to do more to support refugees fleeing Myanmar for Bangladesh. Blanchett, who has won two Oscars, warned of a “race against time” to protect Rohingya refugees.

  10. Princess Beatrice: The British princess, eighth in line to the throne, campaigned to tackle online abuse and cyber-bullying, especially against young women and girls. Beatrice is part of a wider anti-bullying movement promoted by celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Cara Delevingne to “Be Cool Be Nice.”
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Interactive TV Lets Viewers Choose Plot and Story Lines

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Movie and TV show endings can be a major let down, but what if you could control the storyline as it develops? Eko is an entertainment company that’s putting viewers in the director’s chair with interactive TV shows and videos. Tina Trinh reports.
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Japan Announces IWC Withdrawal, Will Resume Commercial Whaling

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Japan is withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission and will resume commercial whaling next year, a government spokesman said Wednesday, in a move expected to spark international criticism.

“We have decided to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in order to resume commercial whaling in July next year,” top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

“Commercial whaling to be resumed from July next year will be limited to Japan’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zones. We will not hunt in the Antarctic waters or in the southern hemisphere,” Suga added.

The announcement had been widely expected and comes after Japan failed in a bid earlier this year to convince the IWC to allow it to resume commercial whaling.

Tokyo has repeatedly threatened to pull out of the body, and has been regularly criticized for catching hundreds of whales a year for “scientific research” despite being a signatory to a moratorium on hunting the animals.

Suga said Japan would officially inform the IWC of its decision by the end of the year, which will mean the withdrawal comes into effect by June 30.

Leaving the IWC means Japanese whalers will be able to resume hunting in Japanese coastal waters of minke and other whales currently protected by the IWC.

But Japan will not be able to continue the so-called scientific research hunts in the Antarctic that has been exceptionally allowed as an IWC member under the Antarctic Treaty.

The withdrawal means Japan joins Iceland and Norway in openly defying the IWC’s ban on commercial whale hunting.

It is certain to infuriate conservationists and anti-whaling countries such as Australia and New Zealand, and deepen the divide between anti- and pro-whaling countries.

Japan has hunted whales for centuries, and their meat was a key source of protein in the immediate post-World War II years when the country was desperately poor.

But consumption has declined significantly in recent decades, with much of the population saying they rarely or never eat whale meat. 
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Social Media’s Year of Falling From Grace

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

In 2018, technology firms such as Facebook and Google faced more scrutiny and negative press over their handling of data breaches and online speech. The issue may mean new rules and more regulations in the future.

The question of who can access personal user data through technology caused many people to rethink how much they trust these companies with their private information. At a recent hearing, House Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy grilled Google over accusations it uses algorithms to suppress conservative voices.

“Are America’s technology companies serving as instruments of freedom? Or instruments of control? Are they fulfilling the promise of the digital age? Are they advancing the cause of self-government? Or are they serving as instruments of manipulation used by powerful interests and foreign governments to rob the people of their power, agency, and dignity?,” he said.

At the hearing, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said he runs the U.S. technology giant without political preference.

In October, Google acknowledged that several months earlier, it had discovered a data breach involving its Google Plus service, which the company said would be shut down.

Pantas Sutardja, chief executive of data storage company LatticeWork Inc., says such scandals are forcing the companies to take a closer look at how they manage and protect user content.

“2018 has been a challenging year for tech companies and consumers alike. Company CEOs being called to Congress for hearings and promising profusely to fix the problems of data breach but still cannot do it,” said Sutardja.

Also this year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced tough questions from U.S. lawmakers over a breach that allowed a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, to exploit the data of millions of Facebook users. Zuckerberg apologized to lawmakers, but some legislators say the giant social network cannot be trusted to regulate itself.

Separately, the attorney-general for Washington, Karl Racine, said the U.S. capital had sued Facebook over reports involving Cambridge Analytica’s use of data from the social media giant.

The year saw new revelations that foreign operatives were using social media to secretly spread divisive and often bogus messages in the United States and worldwide. Walt Mossberg, a former tech journalist, says consumers are frustrated.

“It doesn’t matter to whose benefit they were operating. What bothers people here is that a foreign country, using our social networks, digital products and services that we have come to feel comfortable in, a foreign government has come in and used that against us,” he said.

The Facebook data breach has prompted companies like Latticework to create new ways for users to protect their information and themselves, Sutardja says.

“Despite apologizing profusely about leaking customer data, they can’t do anything about it because their real master, their boss is Wall Street,” he said.

User data was just one area in which tech firms came under criticism.Under pressure, social media companies tightened restrictions on the kinds of speech they tolerate on their sites.

And workers pressed managers about their companies’ government contracts and treatment of female colleagues.

Mossberg says he wants federal law to limit U.S. internet firms’ collection and use of personal data.

“These are giant companies now. There really are four or five of them that control everything. And governments and citizens of countries around the world need the right to regulate them without closing down free speech. And that’s tricky,” he said.

Mossberg says he has given up Facebook.
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Britain Commissions Review of Christian Persecution Worldwide 

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Britain has commissioned an independent review into the persecution of Christians to find practical steps to support followers of a religion that it said has been subject to a dramatic rise in violence worldwide. 

 

Some 215 million Christians worldwide faced persecution for their faith last year, it said, with Christian women and children particularly vulnerable and often subject to sexual violence as a result of their beliefs. 

 

Last year, on average, 250 Christians were killed very month because of their faith, it said. 

 

“So often the persecution of Christians is a telling early warning sign of the persecution of every minority,” Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement on Wednesday. 

 

“Today I have asked the Bishop of Truro to look at how the British government can better respond to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world. We can and must do more.” 

 

The review will map Christian persecution in key countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, analyze British support and recommend a comprehensive policy response, the government said.  
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Chicano Author, Illustrator Collaborate on Animal Adventure

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

The 81-year-old author is often called a dean of Chicano literature. The illustrator is a younger muralist steeped in the visual traditions of Mexican-American pop culture and low-rider cars. 

 

Together, novelist Rudolfo Anaya and painter Moises Salcedo — who goes by El Moises — have created a bilingual children’s book with parallel texts in Spanish and English about the adventures of a tiny owl named Ollie who longs to read on his own, even as he skips school and tangles with a cast of conniving animal characters in the hills and skies of northern New Mexico. 

 

Anaya achieved lasting literary fame with the novel Bless Me, Ultima in 1972 about a boy’s coming of age in post-World War II New Mexico under the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer. The book became a movie — and recently an opera. 

Local, traditional references

 

The new children’s book from the Museum of New Mexico Press — titled Owl in a Straw Hat, or El Tecolote del Sombrero de Paja — is chock-full of references to northern New Mexico geography and homespun Hispanic tradition — from posole soup and pinon nuts to the “acequia” organizations that help irrigate fields and lend a special order to local rural life. 

 

Anaya said the work is a heartfelt effort to encourage shared family reading in English or Spanish, with eye-grabbing imagery. 

 

The book’s illustrations spring from the brush of Mexican-born, Arizona-raised El Moises — who made New Mexico his adopted home nearly a decade ago. His other recent commissions include urban murals, a tequila logo, CD covers and more.  

The 45-year-old illustrator is a father of five who often paints at a weathered living-room table amid the bustle of family. El Moises says people call him a Chicano artist, but it’s really just his take on everyday life. 

 

“Bold and bright has always been my thing,” he said. “I love low-riders because I grew up around them. … I just think that I’m an artist who is narrating his life.” 

 

One of the new book’s characters — a hungry and untrustworthy wolf in sunglasses named Luis Lobo — is adapted from a self-designed tattoo on the artist’s upper arm. Other characters include a young raven and crow who prefer video games to school. There are positive role models, too — a disciplined roadrunner who drives a dazzling low-rider car and a loving grandmother “Nana” owl. 

 

El Moises and Anaya already are working on a sequel that explores concerns about childhood bullying, something the illustrator and a 13-year-old son have been grappling with recently in Albuquerque, culminating in the decision to do home schooling.

Anaya, a widower who lives in Albuquerque with a dachshund at his side, continues to work steadily on essays and novels for grown-up readers. 

 

He said Owl in a Straw Hat is an outgrowth of his enduring concern for children, including children living far away in war-torn countries. 

‘Something positive’

 

“Maybe that’s why I write books for children — to get a lift, to think there is something positive on Earth that might offset the evil that we see,” Anaya said, on a day where violence in Syria dominated news headlines. “As I’m writing, I’m speaking to a child, to children. I’m kind of telling them, ‘Look at Oli and Raven and Crow.’ The children are always there, they’re always there wanting to hear a story.” 

 

The English text of the new book contains a smattering of colloquial Spanish words and phrases — such as “mi’jito” for my little son. A Spanish-English glossary at the back of the book resolves any mysteries. 

 

That aims to help young readers from various cultures feel comfortable, according to Enrique Lamadrid, who wrote the book’s full Spanish translation.
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Trump Praises Treasury Secretary Mnuchin But Hits Fed Again on Rate Rises

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressed confidence in Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin amid worries over a weakening economy and a stock market slump, but repeated his criticism of the U.S. Federal Reserve, saying it has raised interest rates too quickly.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after a Christmas video conference with U.S. troops deployed abroad, Trump also said U.S. companies were “the greatest in the world” and presented a “tremendous” buying opportunity.

Asked if he has confidence in Mnuchin, Trump said: “Yes, I do. Very talented guy. Very smart person,” he said. His comments came after Mnuchin on Monday held a conference call with U.S. regulators to discuss plunging U.S. stock markets.

The call did more to rattle markets than to assure them. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended down more than 2 percent on the day before the Christmas holiday. The S&P 500 has lost about 19.8 percent from its Sept. 20 closing high, just shy of the 20 percent threshold that commonly defines a bear market.

Mnuchin also spoke on Sunday with the heads of the six largest U.S. banks, who confirmed they have enough liquidity to continue lending and that “the markets continue to function properly.”

Investors said his move to convene a call with the president’s Working Group on Financial Markets, known as the “Plunge Protection team,” may have weighed on sentiment.

On Tuesday, Trump praised U.S. companies and said their lower stock prices present an opportunity for investors. “I have great confidence in our companies. We have companies, the greatest in the world, and they’re doing really well. They have record kinds of numbers. So I think it’s a tremendous opportunity to buy.”

U.S. stocks have dropped sharply in recent weeks on concerns over weaker economic growth. Trump has largely laid the blame for economic headwinds on the Fed, openly criticizing its chairman, Jerome Powell, whom he appointed.

“They’re raising interest rates too fast because they think the economy is so good. But I think that they will get it pretty soon,” Trump said, repeating his criticism.

Media reports have suggested Trump has gone as far as discussing firing Powell, and he told Reuters in August that he was “not thrilled” with the chairman.

On Monday, Trump said “The only problem our economy has is the Fed.”

The Fed hiked interest rates again last week, as had been widely expected.
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UK Royal Christmas: Church, Lunch and the Queen’s Message

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II wove personal reflections into her annual Christmas message, offering the customary wishes for peace and saying she hoped she had attained a measure of wisdom during her 92 years.

“Some cultures believe a long life brings wisdom,” Elizabeth said in a pre-recorded message broadcast Tuesday. “I’d like to think so. Perhaps part of that wisdom is to recognize some of life’s baffling paradoxes, such as the way human beings have a huge propensity for good and yet a capacity for evil.”

On a lighter note, the queen noted that 2018 was a busy year for her family: two weddings, two new babies and another due next year.

“It helps to keep a grandmother well occupied,” she said.

The annual message was broadcast to many of the 53 Commonwealth countries after the queen and senior royals attended a church service on the outskirts of one of her country estates.

Elizabeth and other members of the British royal family received cheers from a Christmas crowd when they arrived.

A chauffeured limousine delivered the 92-year-old Elizabeth to St. Mary Magdalene Church, while younger royals walked from nearby Sandringham House.

Prince Charles led the way, followed by his sons: Prince William and his wife, Catherine, and Prince Harry and his pregnant wife, Meghan.

Harry and Meghan, who are expecting their first child in the spring, walked arm in arm next to William and Catherine. Many in the crowd wished them “Merry Christmas” as they strolled to the church in the English countryside on a cold, wintry morning.

During the service, the congregation sang the traditional carols “O Little Town Of Bethlehem,” ″Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

After the 45-minute service, people gave them flowers as they headed back for a traditional Christmas lunch.

The queen’s husband, Prince Philip, who is 97 and largely retired from public life, did not attend the service. Charles’ wife Camilla, who is recovering from flu, also missed church.

William and Catherine’s three children — Prince George, 5, Princess Charlotte, 3, and 8-month-old Prince Louis, also stayed home.

Prince Andrew, the queen’s son, arrived by car with his mother. Princess Eugenie, another of the queen’s grandchildren, arrived with husband Jack Brooksbank.

Britain’s royals usually exchange small gifts on Christmas Eve, a practice popularized by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The queen typically frowns on extravagant gifts, and many of the presents are novelty items.

When the queen was younger, Christmas meant a brisk family walk through the woods on Christmas or an excursion on horseback.

Elizabeth made her first Christmas Day broadcast on the radio in 1952, the year she ascended to the throne. She made the move to television in 1957.

She has broadcast the message each year since, with the exception of 1969. The queen felt the royal family had gotten enough TV exposure that year while allowing unusual access for a TV documentary.

That year, the message only appeared in writing.
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Former Nissan Executive Released from Tokyo Jail

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Former Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly was released from jail in Japan Tuesday after a Tokyo court rejected prosecutors’ request to continue to detain him.

The Tokyo District Court granted his release after setting bail at $636,000.

Kelly had been detained for 37 days after being arrested and charged with underreporting the pay of his boss, ousted Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, by $44 million.

Ghosn was also arrested along with Kelly on November 19 on suspicion of conspiring to understate Ghosn’s pay. Ghosn remains in custody.

The charge is part of a wider effort by Japanese prosecutors and the auto company to show that Ghosn leveraged his position for personal gain.

The court set restrictions on Kelly’s release. Kelly is prohibited from traveling outside Japan without the court’s permission and from meeting with people linked to the case against him.
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Japan Stocks Fall Below 20,000

By Uponbiz | | No Comments | Business

Shares on Japan’s key stock exchange plummeted Tuesday, highlighting investor fears about political turmoil in Washington and this month’s massive losses on Wall Street.

The Nikkei 225 Index lost 1,000 points — five percent of its value –to close Tuesday at 19,155, finishing under 20,000 points for the first time since September 2017. Tuesday’s closing numbers are down 21 percent from its October high.

China’s Shanghai index finished nearly one percent lower Tuesday.Markets in Hong Kong, Australia, South Korea, the U.S. and Europe were all closed in observance of Christmas.

The losses on the Nikkei were a spillover from Monday’s down day in the U.S., where the Dow Jones Industrial Average index, the S&P 500 Index fell nearly three percent and the NASDAQ Composite Index lost more than two percent.That continued this month’s run of near-daily losses, putting U.S. markets on track for its worst December since 1931, during the Great Depression.

The U.S. Christmas Eve selloff was triggered in part by President Donald Trump’s Twitter attacks on the central bank, the Federal Reserve, and its chairman, Jerome Powell, for a recent hike in interest rates, as well the partial shutdown of the U.S. government.Investors were also rattled by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s phone calls to the heads of the nation’s six largest banks on Sunday to determine if they had enough capital on hand to continue operating normally.

Trump renewed his complaints about the Federal Reserve on Tuesday, telling reporters in the Oval Office it is “raising interest rates too fast because they think the economy is so good.” The president added, however, that U.S. companies were “the greatest in the world” and that their lower share prices presented a “tremendous” buying opportunity for investors.
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Disabled Venezuelans Reach New Heights Through Dance

By Uponent | | No Comments | Entertainment

 A stray bullet crushed Iraly Yanez’s aspirations of becoming a professional dancer eight years ago as it ruptured two of her vertebrae and left her paraplegic.

But now the young Venezuelan dancer is pursuing her lifelong passion in a wheelchair — and hoping to put her career back on track — thanks to a contemporary dance company that is helping disabled people perform.

Caracas based AM Danza works with 50 young Venezuelans who are pursuing their passion for dance despite limitations like broken spines, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or blindness.

Yanez, 34, joined the group three months ago and recently performed in her wheelchair in an emotional hour-long show that the dance troupe put together for its followers.

“This is the opportunity of a lifetime” Yanez said after the contemporary dance review, “Ubuntu,” was held in one of the Venezuelan capital’s most prestigious theatres. “I can’t allow external issues to affect me any longer.”

During the show, disabled dancers performed alongside fully abled professional dancers to demonstrate that art knows no barriers. Some members of the audience shed tears.

Dancers with limited mobility in their legs lifted their crutches in the air in unison. A dancer hoisted Yanez from her wheelchair and lifted her above her shoulders to perform complex moves.

“Dancing is all about passion” said AM Danza’s director, Alexander Madriz. “You have to enjoy your possibilities and use your body to express emotions.”

Madriz has worked for two decades with dancers who have disabilities and says that thanks to them he has learned that corporal expression has no limits.

“Not everything has to be the perfect lines and symmetry that you see in contemporary classical dance” he said.

Madriz, 47, said that the students’ love for dance has helped them overcome the numerous obstacles faced by disabled people in Venezuela, where public transport is still mostly inaccessible to people on wheelchairs and ramps on sidewalks and public buildings are few and far between.

In addition, like everyone else in Venezuela, they have to cope with rampant medical shortages and hyperinflation that has devastated their incomes.

Yanez says that on weekdays she can spend up to three hours waiting for one of the few wheelchair-friendly buses that pass through her humble neighborhood in the suburbs of Caracas to take her to AM’s dance studio.

But that doesn’t seem to diminish her will to train.

She said that the dance company has allowed her to come to terms with the accident that changed her life and make feel like she can now “fly through the sky.”

The ballerina was hit by a stray bullet on New Year’s eve in 2010 as she entered her home in a crime-ridden slum. That was the end of her dancing until she joined AM Danza in September.

As 2018 comes to a close, Yanez says she is looking forward to participating in more performances.

In the kitchen of her small apartment, she glanced at a drawing of dancers posted on the refrigerator by her 10-year-old niece, who also now practices ballet.

“She’s one of the reasons that I am keeping up my struggle” Yanez said. “I see her, and I also see myself.”
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Scandal-Plagued Facebook Goes on Charm Offensive in Vietnam   

By Uponsil | | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Before Facebook, Vu Kim Chi thought something was lacking in her job, which is to promote the economy in and around Vietnam’s famed Ha Long Bay. Posting updates to her department’s website, or photocopying missives to send to constituents, she said, was mostly one-sided.

But after she set up an official Facebook page for Quang Ninh province, the conversations started to flow in both directions, between Chi and the local residents or businesses. That’s why, when it comes to social media, she thinks more civil servants need to catch up with the rest of the country.

“Social media, especially the Facebook application, is really used a lot in Vietnam,” said Chi, who is deputy head of the province’s investment promotion and support office. “But for public agencies that use it as a tool to interact with people and businesses, it’s still not necessarily used a lot.”

Facebook on charm offensive

Even as governments around the world are demanding more accountability and transparency from Facebook, public officials in Vietnam are looking for more ways to use the website. And Facebook is happy to oblige.

The company is on something of a charm offensive in Vietnam, where it has roughly 42 million members, nearly half the country. Besides sending top officials to visit Vietnam last year, Facebook has been instructing small businesses on how to sell their products on the site, and now it is giving civil servants like Chi advice for engaging with the public.

The chance to win some good will in Vietnam comes at a time when pressures are piling up on Facebook both inside the country and abroad. Globally, it has been accused of complicity in plots to convince voters to vote for Brexit or for candidate Donald Trump, as well as in what the United Nations calls ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. The company reportedly paid for research that could damage its critics’ and competitors’ reputations, as well as gave users’ data to dozens of other firms without consent.

New cyber law

In Vietnam, the government told advertisers to boycott Facebook and other sites in response to users’ postings that criticized the one-party state. Next month, the country will enact a cyber law requiring firms to store data domestically, which Facebook opposes.

But those troubles were not front and center at a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City this month where a company representative gave bureaucrats tips on making a Facebook page.

“We have to understand and put more attention to the social aspect of the platform,” said Noudhy Valdryno, who handles government outreach for Facebook. “That means you have to understand your followers, who are they, where do they live, what are their interests?  Then you can formulate an accurate strategy to engage with your followers.”

The workshop included suggestions for government officials, such as posting updates on Facebook at regular intervals, shooting videos vertically to retain the attention of mobile users, and encouraging conversations among followers on the page.

Tech companies welcome

The event was an example of how Vietnamese officials are open to working with the tech company. It is so ubiquitous in the Southeast Asian country that when Vietnamese people say “social media” they mean Facebook, and when asked what newspapers they read, they give the answer: Facebook. 

“What we’re talking about is effective use of technology in this day and age to achieve our goals,” said Le Quoc Cuong, vice director of the Ho Chi Minh City department of information and communications. “What we’re looking for is being effective, being engaging and enhancing cooperation between the government and the people.”

Chi says more Facebook data would help her better engage with residents around Quang Ninh, a northeastern province that hugs the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Chinese border on another. She would like regular reports, perhaps every month, with information to help analyze the province’s fan page, from key words to number of “likes.” So as many people worldwide have begun to decry tech companies for abusing and cashing in on users’ data, there are those who still continue to see untapped potential in gathering further data.

 
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