Day: February 21, 2019

A newcomer to acting, Yalitza Aparicio is in the running for Best Actress this Sunday at the Academy Awards. She plays a domestic worker in the Mexican film “Roma” and recently sat down with VOA’s Arturo Martinez to talk about her role.
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The architecture of American homes is a lot like America itself, a hodgepodge of different styles from different countries often melded together into one whole.

From colonials to Victorians to ranch-style houses and McMansions, the story of American residential architecture is that it tends to be eclectic.

“The history of American residential architecture has always been kind of like an all-you-can-eat buffet,” says architect Susan Piedmont-Palladino, director of Virginia Tech’s Washington Alexandria Architecture Center. “We can borrow anybody’s style of architecture and I’m not sure that’s the attitude in other countries around the world. I also think we’re dominated by the single family house in a way that other places aren’t.”

What that single family home looks like can vary.

“Most houses built today do not reflect any one style, but integrate ideas from many cultures,” Jackie Craven, a journalist who specializes in architecture and fine arts, told VOA via email. “A single house can have a French-inspired mansard roof, Grecian columns, and English Tudor-inspired timbering. Our homes, like our people, draw from many sources.”

After the American Revolution, the architecture of public buildings often borrowed from Greece and Rome to express democratic ideals of order and symmetry. This neoclassic style also extended to private homes, notably Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and George Washington’s Mount Vernon.

The long reign of Britain’s Queen Victoria, from 1837 until 1901, occurred during a time of American prosperity. Mass-production of building parts allowed for the construction of elaborate, affordable Victorian-style houses throughout the country.

The style of American homes has often reflected what the country itself is experiencing.

“During the Industrial Revolution, steel transformed the American landscape. The strength of this new metal made skyscrapers possible, rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871,” says Craven. “The lavish Gilded Age mansions of the late 1800s and modern-day McMansions both reflect the conspicuous consumption of a powerful wealthy class. Minimalist post-Victorian architecture rebelled against excess, and the 20th century brought new solutions for affordable housing. Catalogue companies like Sears sold mail order house kits, making home ownership achievable even during the Depression.”

The architect who most defined American residential architecture might well be Frank Lloyd Wright, who eschewed the idea of borrowing architecture from Europe or anywhere else.

In the first half of the 20th century, up until the 1950s, Wright’s designs and philosophy brought a new American modernity to the single family home. He pioneered housing features — such as low horizontal lines and open floor plans — that can still be found in suburban America today.

“He was very interested in a relationship with the land…this idea of relating terraces and the gardens and the landscape into the house…the roof would extend out, blurring the boundaries between inside and out,” Piedmont-Palladino says. “Wright really pioneered the unique architecture, and little bits of it do still show up. There’s a little Frank Lloyd Wright DNA in split-level houses and ranch houses still.”

The simple Cape Cod, a derivative of American colonial houses, and the ranch house, more reflective of America’s modernism, both dominate all of the other residential architectural styles in the United States, according to Craven.

Wright would probably be horrified by today’s oversized neo-colonials. Derisively dubbed ‘McMansions,’ these homes borrow loosely from classic architectural styles of the past.

What will the next dominant style of American house be? Piedmont-Palladino is concerned that the home-building industry doesn’t appear prepared to take on the challenge of building better-performing houses.

“I would like to be optimistic and think that, in a generation, the dominant language of American house construction is sustainable and that we would start to look at building environmentally responsibly, so that houses perform better. This is one of the big issues that is confronting us,” she says. “Houses are getting bigger and bigger and less efficient, even as our families are getting smaller.”

In addition to eco-friendly designs, Craven also envisions more avant-garde architecture with unusual shapes. New digital software can easily manipulate classic shapes, giving them a curvy or lopsided twist that could hit home in a modern way.
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The International Olympic Committee on Thursday canceled places for the 2020 Tokyo Games shooting competition to be awarded at an event in India after the host country refused to give visas to Pakistani shooters, the head of the sport’s governing body said.

India has accused Pakistan of involvement in a suicide bombing in Kashmir last week that killed 40 paramilitary soldiers and has vowed to “isolate” its arch-rival neighbor over the attack.

Sixteen qualifying places for the Tokyo Games were to be decided at the opening shooting World Cup event in New Delhi. But Vladimir Lisin, president of the ISSF world body, said these would now go to other qualifying events.

“The International Olympic Committee informed us this World Cup will not be included in the competitions for Olympic quotas,” Lisin, himself an IOC executive member, told the tournament opening ceremony late Thursday.

“The quotas will be distributed at another World Cup. No one can be discriminated against and we have to follow the IOC decision as part of the IOC family,” he added.

The IOC said it was deliberating on the controversy and would soon announce a decision.

Over 500 shooters are taking part in the Indian event, for which competition starts Saturday.

Pakistan, which has denied any role in the Kashmir attack, says two shooters and a coach were denied visas to attend the contest.

Lisin said the International Shooting Sport Federation and the Indian organizing committee had done everything possible to get the shooters to the contest.

But National Rifle Association of India president Raninder Singh said he could not go against the Indian government’s decision.

Singh also insisted no final decision on the Olympic places had been taken.

“Nothing is canceled as of now. The status as of now is we don’t know,” Singh told reporters. “There are meetings that are going on where the position is being assessed by the IOC and the government.”

Amid widespread anger over last week’s Kashmir attack, some calls have also been made for India’s cricket team to boycott its scheduled World Cup game against Pakistan in England later this year.

Media reports said Indian cricket’s governing body, the BCCI, had prepared a letter calling for Pakistan to be banned from the cricket World Cup.
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U.S. actor Jussie Smollett was released from jail Thursday, after posting bond that was set at $100,000.

The actor appeared in court in Chicago, Illinois, where the judge set bond and demanded he surrender his passport before being released from custody. Smollett and members of his family left the courthouse surrounded by a swarm of reporters, but offered no comment.

Police said Smollett turned himself in around 5 a.m. Thursday, after the Chicago police department announced charges against him of felony disorderly conduct and making a false police report.

WATCH: Actor Charged With Filing False Report

​The 36-year-old black openly-gay actor on the U.S. television drama Empire created a social media storm last month when he told police on Jan. 29 that two apparent supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump had struck him, put a noose around his neck and poured bleach over him after he visited a Chicago sandwich shop.

In a tweet Thursday, Trump denounced Smollett. “What about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!?” he said, referring to his 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”

Smollett received an outpouring of support from celebrities and lawmakers, but police immediately found inconsistencies in the actor’s story.

As part of a three-week investigation, police say they examined security cameras located throughout the area where the alleged attack occurred. Police brought in two brothers for questioning, but they were released after two days and were no longer considered suspects. Police said Smollett paid the brothers $3,500 to stage the attack.

At a news conference Thursday, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters that police believe Smollett faked the attack as a publicity stunt because he was dissatisfied with his salary.

Johnson did not hide his contempt for Smollett’s alleged actions:

“Why would anyone, especially an African-American man, use the symbolism of a noose to make false accusations? How could someone look at the hate and suffering associated with that symbol and see an opportunity to manipulate that symbol to further his own profile? How can an individual who’s been embraced by the city of Chicago, turn around and slap everyone in this city in the face by making these false claims?”

Johnson called the actor’s alleged deception a scar that Chicago didn’t deserve. He said absolute justice would be for Smollett to admit what he did and apologize to the city of Chicago.

Smollett has not yet entered a plea. The charge against him carries a penalty of up to three years in prison, though former Cook County prosecutor Andrew Weisberg told The Associated Press news agency that judges rarely throw defendants in prison for making false reports, opting instead to place them on probation.
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Scenes from the Oscar-nominated film Green Book depict post-World War II America as a land of wide prosperity, big cars, nation-spanning highways, and easy travel. But this was the Jim Crow era, before civil rights reforms, and discriminatory laws of the time made it challenging, even dangerous, for black motorists to move around the country. They simply weren’t welcome in most restaurants, hotels or other businesses.

So, enterprising New York City mail carrier Victor Green began publishing a travel guide, listing businesses where black motorists were welcome. He called it The Negro Motorist Green Book. It was published annually, from 1936 until 1966. At first just listing restaurants, lodgings, night clubs, grocery stores and gas stations in the New York area, it gradually expanded to include as many as 10,000 sites in nearly every U.S. state and parts of Canada, Mexico and Bermuda.

“Usually segregation is thought of as a Southern thing, a Southern problem,” said Ginna Cannon, a historian with the Rutherford County, Tennessee, Chamber of Commerce. “Really it was a national issue, and one that we all need to understand and come to terms with and do better in the future.”

The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations, made the Green Book unnecessary almost overnight. Candacy Taylor, an author, photographer and cultural documentarian who has been researching Green Book sites, estimates that 20 percent are still standing, and about 3 percent are still in business.

Renewed interest in The Green Book and African-American history has prompted historians across the country to try to document the remaining sites in their states.

WATCH: Green Book Mapped a Safe Route Through Era of Discrimination

Documenting relics of discriminatory era

Working with architectural historians in Nashville and Chattanooga, the Center for Historic Preservation at Middle Tennessee State University recently surveyed Green Book sites statewide. 

Ginna Cannon was part of the research team. 

“Places matter,” she said. “To have a story not associated with a property, it loses some of its resonance and that is really important for us to remember as we go forward as a country,” she said.

Tiffany Momon, a Ph.D. candidate in history at Middle Tennessee State, agrees.

“So much of African-American history is about place-making,” she said. Claiming a land and a space of their own after emancipation, and if we lose these buildings we lose these stories.”

Standing on Jefferson Street in downtown Nashville, where most of the city’s Green Book listings were once located, Momon said, “Think about what that life meant that you needed to have a guidebook to tell you how to get around a country where you were supposed to be equal … to tell you which establishments were friendly to you, and just imagine what it was like to stop in a town that wasn’t in the Green Book.”

Jefferson Street remains at the heart of the city’s African-American community. But many Green Book sites were lost in 1957 when a federal highway was built through the heart of North Nashville. Others were lost to the gentrification of historically black neighborhoods. A handful have found new life. For example, a motel that once catered to black motorists is now a nail salon and day spa.

One of the few Nashville Green Book sites still in business is Jefferson Street’s R&R Liquor. Owner Kenneth Christman says he is pleased to be part of the Green Book heritage and legacy. 

“R&R serves as one of the last bastions of black business in this area, particularly now that gentrification is taking place,” he said. “We (African-American business owners) as a group have not had the privilege of having as many businesses survive, so it’s of particular importance in the community.”

Persevering and surviving

Tiffany Momon says documenting Green Book sites in Tennessee and elsewhere is about more than locations on a map.

“Black businesses that through the Jim Crow era, through the era when the Green Book was published, persevered and survived and paved the way. So the preservation of these sites is important so that we can continue to tell those types of stories,” she said.

Especially when those stories come at a time when the country is again wrestling with racial discord.
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A youth-led protest movement in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra, which saw riots last summer over failing services and soaring unemployment, has found an artistic outlet in the words and beats of homegrown rapper Ahmed Chayeb. 

The 22-year-old rapper, also known as Mr. Guti, says his generation is fed up with the false piety of politicians and religious authorities who preach about faith and duty but have let Basra fall apart. 

“We need to be critical of everything that’s not right,” Chayeb told The Associated Press in a recent interview in his home studio, where he recorded “This is Basra,” lashing out at the powerful Shiite religious establishment.

Mr. Guti’s expertly produced music videos have drawn tens of thousands of YouTube viewers but his new-found fame has also brought danger: threats from hard-liners are common and two of the city’s protest organizers have been killed in recent attacks. Their killers remain at large. 

​Basra rundown, violent

Basra, long known around the Persian Gulf for its drinking establishments and its maritime vibe, fell under conservative rule after Shiite clerics and militias took over the city in the vacuum caused by the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. 

Once renowned for its canals and markets, Basra’s waterways today are clogged with waste, and its drinking water is filthy. The city erupted in violent unrest last summer that led to demonstrators burning down government and party-affiliated buildings.

Amid the revolt, rap offered Basra’s youth, tired of joblessness and failed services, an opportunity for lyrics blistering with criticism. 

In “This is Basra,” Chayeb raps against the backdrop of a march around the city’s burning municipal building during last summer’s protests, asking why his generation has been called on to fight a war for leaders who cannot secure water for the city. 

The conflict he refers to is the four-year war against the Islamic State group that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces ultimately won. Many young Shiites followed a call in June 2014 by Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for volunteers to fight against IS. Thousands died in that fight.

“We were martyred for this war, I fell, and the authority has forgotten my loyalty,” he raps.

“You’re not associated with Hussein,” he goes on, invoking the revered Shiite imam and grandson of the Prophet Muhammad who died in the 7th century Battle of Karbala, and whose example Iraq’s leaders have asked their youth to follow. 

​Careful, not backing down

Chayeb, mindful of the dangers, is circumspect about where and when he performs. He says most of his concerts are arranged through private contacts; he stopped recording at a professional studio in 2016. He said he’s received death threats that have grown more intimidating in recent months.

But he won’t stop rapping.

“If we stay afraid, nothing will change,” he said. 

As a teenager, Chayeb watched U.S. and British rappers on YouTube, then got together with friends to perform his own rhymes. He also followed a string of Arab rappers and sees Klash, from the Saudi city of Jiddah, as one of his greatest influences.

“My aim is to explain what is happening to Basra because of the people who are corrupt,” he said, adding that rap is a way “to release my pain.”

Corrupt politicians and clerics should watch out, he says. 

“Beware of Basra,” he raps. “We won’t be quiet until our demands are met.”
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The United Methodist Church’s top legislative assembly convenes Sunday for a high-stakes, three-day meeting likely to determine whether America’s second-largest Protestant denomination will fracture due to divisions over same-sex marriage and the ordination of gay clergy.

While other mainline Protestant denominations — such as the Episcopal and Presbyterian (U.S.A.) churches — have embraced gay-friendly practices, the Methodist church still bans them, even though acts of defiance by pro-LGBT clergy have multiplied and talk of a possible breakup of the church has intensified.

At the church’s upcoming General Conference in St. Louis, 864 invited delegates — split evenly between lay people and clergy — are expected to consider several plans for the church’s future. Several Methodist leaders said they expect a wave of departures from the church regardless of the decision.

“I don’t think there’s any plan where there won’t be some division, and some people will leave,” said David Watson, a dean and professor at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, who will be attending the conference.

Formed in a merger in 1968, the United Methodist Church claims about 12.6 million members worldwide, including nearly 7 million in the United States. In size, it trails only the Southern Baptist Convention among U.S. Protestant denominations.

The church technically forbids same-sex marriage and gays serving in the ministry, but enforcement has been inconsistent. Clergy who support LGBT rights have been increasingly defiant, conducting same-sex marriages or coming out as gay or lesbian from the pulpit. In some cases, the church has filed charges against clergy who violated the bans, yet the UMC’s Judicial Council has ruled against the imposition of mandatory penalties.  

At the heart of the ideological conflict is an official UMC policy, dating from 1972, asserting that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”

One of the proposed plans, endorsed by the UMC’s Council of Bishops, would remove that language from the church’s law book and leave decisions about same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT clergy up to regional bodies. This proposal, called the One Church Plan, would open up many options for those who support the LGBT-inclusive practices, but it would not compel individual churches or clergy to engage in those practices.

In contrast, the proposed Traditional Plan would affirm the bans on same-sex marriage and the ordination of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals.” The plan would strengthen enforcement of those bans, and set up procedures for churches and regional bodies to leave the UMC if they could not abide by those rules.

A third option would create three branches of the church reflecting the different approaches to LGBT issues. One branch would maintain the current bans, another would expect all its clergy and regional groups to support full LGBT inclusion, and the third would neither forbid nor require the inclusive practices. This plan would take several years longer to implement than the others.

Those three plans were developed over 17 months of deliberations by a Methodist committee that was formed after conflict over LGBT policies boiled over at a General Conference in 2016. In accordance with Methodists’ long tradition of democratic policy-making, delegates in St. Louis will be free to revise any of those plans, or consider some alternative. The UMC’s Queer Clergy Caucus will be presenting what it calls “the Simple Plan” — which is even more LGBT-affirming than the One Church Plan.

Kenneth Carter, the Florida-based president of the Council of Bishops, is among a majority of the bishops supporting the One Church Plan, hoping it would limit any exodus by creating space for differing views on the LGBT issues.

“We’re better together than we are separated and fragmented, but I do understand that the forces that would separate us are very powerful,” Carter said.

“We’ve tried to remain together as a global body,” he added. “The challenge is simply that there are some nations where homosexuality is taboo.”

Among the supporters of the Traditional Plan is Mark Tooley, who heads a conservative Christian think tank, and has long engaged in the debate over Methodist policy.

He believes a traditionalist alliance of U.S.-based and overseas delegates will be large enough to outvote centrist and liberal delegates. 

Unlike other mainline Protestant churches, the UMC is a global denomination; its greatest growth recently has been overseas. About 30 percent of the delegates in St. Louis will be from Africa — a bloc with relatively conservative views on sexuality that in the past has supported the LGBT bans.

If the Traditional Plan does prevail, Tooley says some liberal segments of the church — perhaps its Western U.S. district — might withdraw to form a new denomination.

“It would be very significant,” Tooley said. 

UMC leaders are acutely aware of how searing the lengthy ideological conflict has been. In December, the Council of Bishops issued a pastoral letter expressing remorse that the buildup to the St. Louis meeting has been hurtful to many LGBT people. 

“Demeaning and dehumanizing comments and attacks on LGBTQ persons in conversations related to the upcoming February Conference are a great tragedy and do violence to hearts, minds, and spirits,” the letter said. “We commit ourselves to helping people who disagree with each other to have conversations that include, honor, and respect people with different convictions.”  

A localized example of the church’s internal divisions has surfaced in San Francisco, home to the liberal Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, which has 12,000 members.

The UMC’s California-Nevada conference removed two of Glide’s pastors last summer, then filed a lawsuit in December seeking to assert control over the local church property. A Glide spokesman, Sam Singer, said the regional authorities were displeased with Glide’s “open door policy” — which includes a variety of social-service programs for the needy and extensive outreach to the local LGBT community.

One of Glide’s former senior pastors is Karen Oliveto, who — after eight years at Glide — was elected by the Rocky Mountain regional body in 2016 as the UMC’s first openly lesbian bishop and is now based in Colorado. The UMC’s judicial council upheld the election result, while ruling that Oliveto’s 2014 marriage to a woman violated UMC policies for its clergy.

Oliveto hopes the delegates in St. Louis vote to end the LGBT bans; she’s unsure what would ensue if the Traditional Plan prevails.

“What that means for us, I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll be praying very deeply.” 
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