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Without K.oS., there is only Chaos

He who knows himself knows God

[Traditional saying of The Prophet Muhammad]

At exactly which point do you start to realize That life without knowledge is, death in disguise? That's why, Knowledge Of Self is like life after death Apply it to your life, let destiny manifest

[from Knowledge of Self (Determination) by Black Star]

Check out the fantastic work of Irshad Manji at http://www.muslim-refusenik.com
Peace and God's blessings to Irshad and to all who humbly seek peace, knowledge, and truth.

Note-Taker Zim

Taking notes is second only to reading writing and simple 'rithmatic, in the skills one should master before finishing high school. Yet after 12 years of grade school, four years of college, 800 hours of professional development/continuing education, and a semester and a half of graduate school, I can think of only two lessons I had in note-taking: outlines and "bubble maps". So two fifty minute class periods to learn what two decades of academic life would ultimately hinge upon. Even the most callous and cold-hearted parent will check and make sure their kids figured out how to doggy-paddle after tossing them into the deep end of the swimming pool!

What's more, note-taking is a very personal process. It requires trial and error with different note-taking strategies and tools, and may eventually require some reflection on how you process best information (visually, spatially, rhythmically, etc.). Well, 20 years too late as I limp my way to the grad school finish line, I finally discovered the tool for me. Meet Zim.

Zim is a Perl-based "desktop wiki", a WYSIWYG tool that allows you to create a local set of wiki pages. If you're like most of the population and don't yet understand Nerdinese, check out Wikipedia and learn first hand the beauty and magic that is Wiki.

The hallmarks of wiki pages which Zim implements with tremendous simplicity are:

• ease of editing
• hierarchical organization
• intelligent linking

The interface is as familiar as any other graphical text editor you've used, be it Text Edit on Windows, or GEdit or Kate on Linux. And it's even simpler than Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer. It's two-framed interface allows you to see both the information and structure of the present document in one pane and the information and macro-structure of the wiki in the other frame. Don't take my word for it. Seeing is believing.

Zim's maintainer(s) describes it as a tool "intended to keep track of TODO lists or to serve as a personal scratch book." And I guess oxygen is just a gas that helps make breathing a little more comfortable. In my previous life, I used the computer to take notes for more conference calls and meetings than I care to remember. I've dabbled with a variety of desktop tools for note-taking, from Microsoft Word to Lotus Notes to Cold Fusion Studio in WYSIWYG mode. What sticks out most through these experiences is that they all SUCKED!!!

In this age where our browser bookmarks have supplanted our scrapbooks, and email and MySpace/Friendster/Blogger accounts our diaries, Zim is note-taking, reviewing, and archiving platform for the hyperlinked generation. It's by no means perfect, but even at humble version 0.11, Zim has transformed reading and note-taking from grueling chores, engaging and meaningful learning experiences. I feel like I read faster and more deeply with Zim open alongside my textbook than I did before whether taking notes or not.

Will Zim work for you? Maybe. It's more important that you take time to think about how you think, how you record information for later use, and simply what draws you to information (format, color, spatial arrangement...) then consider the tools available to you (analog and digital) from that standpoint.

The good thing about Zim is that you're not constrained to the linear constraints of a word processor, nor the physical constraints of pen and paper. As it becomes more important whether in class or at work to take notes that are meaningful, organized, easy to access and distribute, it's even more important to have a tool that suits your preferred note taking style.

Zim isn't the only such tool out there, nor is the wiki style the only alternative to vanilla-text editor note-taking or even the outline-friendly presentation tools. Freemind, and kdissert are Graphical Mind Mapping tools (think "bubble maps" or "concept maps") that are also excellent for recording and organizing notes and ideas. Consider these particularly if you find you are more visually or spatially oriented. Zim, Freemind, and kdissert are all free (as in "free beer" AND as in "free speech") but there are commercial tools available as well (see Microsoft OneNote, or Inspiration). There are also a number of note-taking strategies in addition to the ones mentioned above which you should peruse, especially if like me, you only got 100 minutes of note-taking lessons for twelve years of grade school.

Just remember, it's not about the money you spend, the quantity of information captured, or the who's who in using one system or another. It's about taking the time to find out what works best for you. I lucked out and found Zim. Take a look and see what you find.

Colds Are &#@%ing Useless

All they do is make you tired and uncomfortable. Not bad enough to cause explosive diarrhea, febrile delirium, or other conditions both fun and useful. They are debilitating enough, however, to make going to work a living hell. Not so much, though, that you'll garner any sympathy from your boss and co-workers if you DO stay home. "Oh, he has a 'cold'" they'll sneer, as though you're actually at the Ritz Carlton penthouse suite, throwing a crazy swingers party with Burt Bachrach doing his thing on a revolving grand piano. Meanwhile you're busy judging the international all-nude tiddlywinks tournament with returning champions 3rd year running, the 1976 Playboy Bunnies. They might be a bit older but damn if they can't still tiddly them winks!

But God forbid that the cold hit you on the weekend. All that means is the day you woke up and decided to tough it out at the office, only to have your coworkers giving you mean looks, covering their noses, and spraying their desks with Flu-B-Gone when you walk by, you should've been home in bed watching reruns of "Love Connection." Makes you wish you did infect those co-workers, all healthy and smug with their strings of garlic and rosaries on their office doors to keep you at bay. Lick the rim of their coffee mugs when their not looking, I say.

That's why, this year I'm boycotting colds. "Snuff out the Sniffles in 2000-Sissle!" And as soon as I get over this damn cold, I'm sucking down all the garlic soup and echinacea I can get my grubby mitts on. Speaking of grubby mitts, my secret weapon: bright yellow rubber gloves. Pink-eye on subway poles be damned!!! You may get past the anti-bacterial hand gel and the infrared-motion-detecting Lysol Mist Master 3000, but the yellow rubber gloves will be your doom!!! You'll spot me from a mile away as only the foolhardiest among you will attempt to withstand my rubbery saffron might.

Truthfully, I have no such plans. Just wishful thinking. Or maybe it IS febrile delirium, in which case I've got dreams of giant marshmallows the size of my pillow to look forward to tonight, woo-hoo!!! No, instead, like every other poor sap out there with a scratchy throat, I will be grabbing my ankles and taking it from these microscopic cell-mates named Bubba-Joe. No recourse but hot tea and double-doses of vitamin C. But when did hot tea and vitamin C ever keep you from getting cornholed? I digress. Worse than anything, however, it's the weekend, so not even the "Price is Right" is on to lull me into a catatonic stupor leaving me to be painfully aware of the dry eyes, dripping faucet nose, and the mountain gorilla building its summer condo in my head. Take the weekend off will you? Spay this Barker!!

Playing with Blog Entry Poster for GNOME

About two weeks ago I upgraded my purchased SUSE 9.3 Professional system to OpenSUSE/SUSE 10.0.

First of all, huge props to Novell/SUSE for turning their distro into a community-supported project. Having known Novell since my dad used their network in his office back in the '80s, it's great to see them restoring their former glory via the Open Source game. And SUSE being the first distro I purchased and actually got working on one of my own PCs (back in '99) I feel confident that this move will take what was a strong distro and make it stronger. Sure, Red Hat blazed the Corporate-cum-Community trail with their release of Fedora Core, but SUSE's not only stepped up but come up strong.

Case in point. I type this post on my OpenSUSE upgraded HP Pavillion dv4150 laptop(!!!) and will be posting it via the Wireless G connex I'm using here at boloco's inspired burritos (pretty damn inspiring, I might add). The upgrade was ridiculously easy. Far better than when I upgraded my roomies older HP and my sister's Dell with WinXP. Yisch!!! Terrible memories.

Anyhow, since the upgrade, I've been playing with different tools that came with the distribution. Having generally stuck to my workhorse tools (OpenOffice, Mozilla, Kaffiene, Thunderbird...) I've gotten more and more interested in pushing the system and software to its limits.

Which brings me to this Blog Entry Poster tool. I found it in the Applications > System > Configuration > Desktop Applet menu. Kind of a wierd spot for it, especially since I didn't see a second icon for it under the Internet or Office menus. It was about as hard to pinpoint on the web as it was (would have been) to find it on the desktop (had I actually been looking for it). But now that I've found it, it's a gem that I'll be keeping close going forward.

Setup was stupid easy. Select your Blog Site from the drop down list. Enter your blog account ID and Password. Hit the Lookup Blogs button and it pulls up a list of your blogs from the given account. Hit Close (wish it had the usual OK and Cancel buttons - but that's minor) and the Post Blog Entry screen pops up. Type as you would with any word processor and when you're done click Post Entry. After that, your ramblings are up for everyone to see!

I'm damn impressed. From my Googling, it looks like SUSE and Ubuntu Gnome install with the tool. If your distro doesn't have it, just go to:

http://www.gnome.org/~seth/gnome-blog/

and click Download in the upper right.

I'm diggin' it. The AFroNaut will definitely Bloggeth much more often. Check it out and enjoy!

Lo! Tolerants.

Tolerance can mean all sorts of things. People develop tolerances to noxious compounds. Exposed to poisons in a diluted form over time, one's body can learn to handle these potentially lethal substances enough so a serious exposure will not result in death or permanent damage. The same goes for diseases, hence vaccinations. Yesterday we conquored polio, today we conquor...erectile dysfunction, and tomorrow, ...err...uh...polio? Of course there are some poisons, heavy metals for examples, that will screw you whether they get into your system all at once or gradually. Is that Flipper's menacing chuckle I hear?

Psychologically, those who dare may learn to withstand the minor irritants facing those living in proximity to other sentiant beings: the smokers who dare foul the air whilst relaxing your sandal-clad tootsies on a park bench; the oncoming ambulance making you pull over to the right even though you're 2 minutes late for bikram yoga; or the guy standing behind you in line with the crusty booger up his nose that makes a high-pitched whistle right in your ear each time he breathes in. With maturity we learn to foster the Zen mind towards these petty annoyances bringing us in harmony with our environment, our neighbors and ourselves. Om that, mother-$#@%&*!

In mechanical systems, high tolerance means that for a given variable, temperature, torque, friction, or other, the system continues to function even when the variable deviates greatly from a given standard. Hence the AK-47s ability to fire as reliably as it did when they first came off the line even after being buried in sand for five years. I guess that would make body armor a pretty sound investment, eh?

So I love it that on a day like today, the day we remember the life and sacrifices of Dr. King, so many folks audaciously proclaim the gospel of racial tolerance. It reminds us that we need not wax nostalgic for the days of bitter acrimony and misunderstanding that was crucible and backdrop for Dr. King's lifelong struggle, nor that we consider such struggle a relic of days gone by. After all, political correctness, our modern day guide to manners and civility, dictates that folks like me are to be tolerated. Poisonous and infectious are we, yet regular incremental exposure to us will bring the sanctity of immunity to John and Jane Q. Public. Deviants (from the standard) that we are, rest assured that our existence warrants little more attention than a petty, fleeting annoyance.

So to all of you tolerants out there who, today parade your true nature for all to see, I thank you for your honesty and courage. May pride and contentment fill your heart, may tuna fill your dinner plate, and may second-hand smoke fill your nose perpetual. From the other end of the park bench, this is TheAphro.

Note: Had you read this before, you may have noticed that I changed the last line. When I originally typed this, I was groping for a third metaphor for the last line (above). Suffice it to say that the metaphor I chose (sand and a certain type of weapon) didn't sit well with me. No one's commented to me or complained about it, so my decision to modify the line was all my own. I was seriously reaching as far as metaphors go, but more importantly I felt it implied a sentiment I simply do not hold, and wouldn't even want suggested. Having considered (and sometimes still considering) serving our nation's military the last thing I'd wish on any of our soldiers (yep, even the dickheads) is for their weapon to jam. The thought makes my heart stop. My views about our leadership and its chosen misadventures overseas are largely shaped by my feelings for our soldiers. The fact that current policies and their execution is at the expense of too many young men and women simply galls me. A friend of mine, my age, joined up recently, and has been training for the past year. Far from being a neo-con or a friend-of-W, his words to me before heading to basic were "folks like us have gotta be represented in the service. And those kids going in are just too young not to have folks our age helping them out." God bless you and all there with you G. Keep your head down, your clip full, and your chamber clean.

So, long story short, that's why I changed the last line. You gotta admit your mistakes to correct them. My apologies to you if you did read it in its original form and thought I might have meant something I didn't. Peace and blessings.

Star Wars III - The Phantom dilemma...

...or how I learned to stop worrying and love George Lucas again...or not.
I can't decide whether or not to go see Star Wars III. I'll say this. When I saw Episode I, I was caught between crying, vomiting, and burning down the theatre. Three words. You guessed it. Jar-Jar Binx.

I know very few Black people who didn't writhing in anguish every time Jar-Jar appeared on screen, much less opened his mouth. You may count me among the writhing. I was also immediately struck by how the trade council sounded like an Asian stereotype, and how Anikan's slave master seemed like a horrible Arab or Jewish caricature.

I know, I know. It's just a movie, and a fantasy movie at that. In fact it's a fantasy movie set completely outside the context of America, Earth, and all the stupid prejudices, bigotry, and deep history of insults and injustices that have shaped American history in particular, and world history overall.

Believe me. All the physical writhing I did in my chair at the theatre was nothing compared to the mental and emotional writhing in my head as I reminded my bruised and battered psyche that it's a movie, it's fantasy, it's fun for kids. In The Matrix, Cypher had a point. "Ignorance is bliss."

Too bad I'm not ignorant. What's more, I don't think Lucas can rightly claim ignorance either. The fact that the best defense he's mustered for himself is that the flim is a fantasy totally outside Earth's context only tells me that if the story were placed within Earthly confines, people like me (and a lot more folks like him than he probably thinks) would then have every right to be offended. To add insult to injury, he angrily blamed critics and "the media" - which I suppose would include the humble blog - for getting all us good colored folks worked up over nothing is a patent insult in and of itself. I guess to Mr. Lucas, we are all just sheep with no agency of our own. Critics, he explains are not doers or makers, simply destroyers. So I guess it's the dumb leading the stupid.

Thanks, I feel a lot better now.

Lucas isn't the first to hurt me so, and he won't be the last. In fact it's largely because of the slings and arrows my heritage and therefore my ego have suffered at the hands of Hollywood that I'm determined to become a screenwriter. So artist to artist, and audience to artist, know that I have forgiveness in my heart, and forgiven so many before you.

With that, I most likely will go see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in the theatre. It actually looks like it will be a decent story this time 'round, finally worthy of the name Star Wars. Good art can sometimes transcend one's personal failings. Hopefully this episode will be that start.

And even if it doesn't, know that there remains in me the 4-year old who was indelibly changed by a film at the time inexplicably subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope.

Dog Eat Dog? - The Verdict Is 'Rendered'

A friend of mine told me the other day that pet foods, including Science Diet, the brand I currently feed my cat, use “Animal Byproducts” produced from the rendering of any animal material, including euthanized pets. My immediate impulse was to do my best Charlton Heston impersonation: “Soylent Green...is PEOPLE!!!” Honestly, I cant remember whether I actually did it or not. Probably did.

Anyhow, movie impersonations aside, I was pretty freaked out. My roommate, who'd been very insistent that I use Science Diet in the first place, and who'd later given me the evil eye for coming home with a bag of Iam's, wanted (and still wants) to get the Science Diet in the trash faster than I could do a little web research to corroborate my friend's story.

Having hidden the bag of the corpus delectae up in my room I took my time sifting through articles that I'd Googled on the subject (keword search terms included in various combinations: “cat food”, euthanized pets, pentobarbital, rendering, byproducts). I got a mixed bag of hit results ranging from fanatics decrying the pet food industry, and fanatics defending the pet food industry, to alternative pet food vendors, vegitarean and vegan sites, and even som Christian websites. Needless to say, emotions run high on this subject, as one hates to think of dearly-departed Fido, ending up in newly-arrived Frodo's food bowl. And besides, YEEESH! The thought's just gross!!

Anyhow, I digress. Here's some of the information I found:

The tons of waste produced from meat processing has long been disposed of through rendering, a process in which discarded animal parts (including spinal and brain tissue – I'll come to the importance of that bit later) are heated at temperatures at or around 260 Farenheit. The rendering process results in:

1. animal fat: used in lubricants, cosmetics, polishes and other domestic and industrial products
2. tallow/grease: light protiens and lipids producing gelatin - used in pharmaceuticals, holistic medicines, candies (gummy bears/worms/etc....) - soaps, candles,...
3. heavy protiens: dried out to create meal found in pet foods and animal feeds (also source of controversy in Mad Cow outbreaks)
   sources: http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/render_ed.html; http://animalcontrol.co.la.ca.us/html/pages/for%20the%20record/Rendering%20.pdf; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0106-03.htm

Regardless of the source, all agree that the rendering practice has been around for ages, even since ancient Egypt (perhaps explaining some of the Rabbinic laws around kosher foods – Moses...Charlton Heston...do I see a recurring theme here?). The practice of feeding these animal byproducts to animals (as opposed to raw scraps from the kitchen or butcher, or dinner table leftovers) was used in dairy heards in increased amounts through the 1980's which is also the time during which Mad Cow Disease was first identified (see above sources).

Now the real freaky part is that there are rendering plants that accept euthanized pets - apparently over 200 nationwide. Besides the fact that these once were, or had the potential to be someone's loved one, domestic animals, especially older euthanized ones are today, a cornucopia of veterinary pharmaceuticals. Add to that the question of tag removal (plastics and heavy metals), flea collar removal (pesticides), pentobarbitol (mentioned earlier: the barbiturate used for humans as an anesthetic or sleep aid, used by vets to euthanize pets), and even removal of animals from the plastic bags before processing! In addition, many also accept roadkill from various municipal departments. Though this practice is not “condoned” by the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine, neither is it sanctioned outright. Perhaps it was easier in the days of Ancient Egypt, knowing that molesting cat or dog in any way (including rendering) could well possibly incur the wrath of Horus, Isis, or the entire pantheon. I'm sure the FDA would kill for that kind of clout.

As for pet food reviews, some brands were castigated, but often these were on sites actually selling their own “alternative” brand of pet food. Despite their own marketing wizardry, theirs and other articles made the same general comments. Articles cautioned readers to avoid products with unspecified meat ingredients such as: “animal meal”, “animal proteins”, “meat byproducts”, “animal fat”, etc... Using this advice to check the Science Diet Kitten ingredients, I saw only one offending item, “Animal Fat”, about a third to half of the way through the ingredients list. However, the first ingredient on the list was “Chicken Byproducts”. By and large, this is better than “Animal Byproducts” or even “Poultry Byproducts”. Though it still means that the food uses everything from the beak to the tail feathers, at least the beak and tail feather and everything in between is supposed to come from a chicken. Plus, a cat in the wild would do much the same thing. Process as much as possible before the hairball cometh. In general it sounds like the higher end pet food companies have their own livestock rendering facilities or only use products from facilities that render livestock exclusively (though this could still include horses). One scary notion however is that there is a commodities market that trades in various fats and tallows, so one could conceivably get a batch of processed giraffe or Fluffy and be none the wiser.

Despite the absence of a true indictment of any given brand or product the general advice went as follows:

• Avoid the cheap stuff, generics and store brands in particular. A lot of bigger companies pass on their reject or otherwise unsold batches for repackaging through these non-brands.
• Caveat Emptor: know how the labeling works – there's a 70% content difference between “Chicken and Liver Cat Food” versus “Chicken and Liver Cat Dinner”according to FDA labeling guidelines. It's the whole “Orange Juice” versus “Orange Drink” con game -or- “consumer marketing”. Check out the FDA Guide to Pet Food Labeling.
• Read and know the meaning of the ingredients lists (especially to see whose byproducts are in use). You do that for yourself already, don't you?...DON'T YOU???
• Slip some raw meat to your kitty or pup every now and again. Even some lightly steamed veg. Plenty of advice and recipes on fixing home brew pet food and treats available online.
• Adopt, spay/neuter, and bury/cremate your lost loved one. The fewer number of strays and unadopted pound pets, the less we have to worry about them being euthanized and haplessly plunked into the (pet) food cycle. And though we hate to think about it, taking care of the remains yourself allows you and your pet to part with dignity.

There's a lot of information out there and a lot worth thinking about. Don't feel bad about being curious or suspicious. I felt a little silly looking into this issue so deeply, or even considering it an issue for that matter. My initial thought was that there are people who'd be lucky to even get what I feed my cat daily. And I realized, what I was saying. There are millions of folks in our own country who barely have enough to eat. And what little they do get to eat, are the scraps, the throwaways, the unsanitary, and the overprocessed. What we're feeding our pets has long been a reflection of what we feed ourselves. And these days, as Fast Food Nation and SuperSize Me, like Sinclair's The Jungle before them, have all shown that we process our food now more than ever, we can't take where our food (and our animals' food) comes from for granted. Mad Cow disease and Avian Bird Flu outbreaks are ominous reminders of that. What we think we introduce for efficiency and convenience supposedly advancing our food supply can very likely be to our detriment.

As for me, I'm satisfied sticking with Science Diet Kitten until the bag I have runs out. I'll be taking her to get spayed soon since she's only just old enough, so I'll see what the vet recommends, and check out the crunchy neighborhood pet store too. One of the handy things about this investigation was that one of the articles I read mentioned switching your pets brand every 3-4 months. That way, he or she won't be stuck forever with any one manufacturer's kooky ideas on what pet nutrition really is. Most of the high-end commercial pet foods I've never even heard of. So if I'm going to have to run to a pet store for these anyway, might as well go down to the crunchy neighborhood shop and see what the people who're much more serious than I am about their food have to say and sell. Despite the supposedly lower prices those giant pet marts sell for, there's no telling what I'm likely to come home in addition: kitty floss, kitty whisker wax, kitty after dinner mints... It's endless!

In the end, getting back to the sci-fi morality plays, I think Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Ursula LeGuin, and the like have been onto something all these years. It's very easy for us to get comfortable, to not question, or simply avoid the things that don't quite sit well with us. Though it's one thing to be paranoid, it's another thing entirely to follow in blind faith, especially when the leader is not a prophetic messiah, but a profiting meshuggeneh. Though this heavy concern about pet food initially looked so much to me like our American “full-stomach-syndrome”, looking into this reminded me that our food supply is a sacred thing. There's no religion in the world I can think of that doesn't voice some concern about what we eat, how we eat, and how to regard our food supply: as a scarce commodity. And even with religion, despite its intermediaries, we are (or should be) personally involved in our own spiritual nourishment. Should we not do the same with our physical nourishment also?

Born Into Brothels: An Informal Education

Probably one of the most well-deserved Oscars I've seen awarded in a long time. I was lucky enough to have gone to see it at the Kendall Sq. Cinema before the Oscar ceremony two weeks ago Sunday. In and of its own right, an excellent film, Born into Brothels runs the gamut of emotions, and challenges the viewer's notions of mores, innocence, and the power of education.

Chronicling filmmaker, Zana Briski's journey through the brothels of Calcutta to document the lives of sex workers, her subject immediately shifts to the lives of the children also living in the Calcutta red light district. Taken by their energy, curiosity, and engaging characters, Briski begins to teach a small group how to frame and compose photographs. She issues them small automatic cameras that the children then use to document their lives in the two crowded alleys comprising their forbidden world. This serves a dual purpose. The children, more adept in negotiating access to the inner-lives of the sex workers, clients, and other denizens of the Calcutta brothels, are better able to capture life inside the brothel than she was. Also, it propels her beyond her initial mission of documenting the lives of sex workers to taking active steps to help their children out of their desperate circumstances; ones that for several (the girls in particular) would result in their own entrapment into the skin trade.

The beauty of the film lies in Briski's humility. Unlike many fictional stories and documentaries of Westerner's visiting and observing the peoples of a developing land, she opens herself to the trials and frustrations that the children and their parents face in their dire circumstances. Her simple digital camcorder is unwavering as it records the joys and sorrows of her subjects, including herself. And moreso, in her humility, she shuns the center stage in deference to the children, allowing their pictures, their voices, and their actions to relay their individual and collective stories to the audience. And from them, she draws inspiration and an education on perseverance, and the capacity of the human spirit. Because for its many tragic moments, and overall tragic circumstances, the children remain children: laughing, playing, uncannily observant and creative, and despite all that besets them, full of life and dignity.

As educators, we witness a curriculum in action, rich with potential real-world outcomes. Not only do the children apply what they learn from Briski's coaching, but they also collaborate through interactive discussions, viewing and critiquing each others work. They talk directly and with striking maturity about the emotions their pictures convey and their rationale behind their pieces: selections of subject, setting, framing, lighting, angle, etc. They discuss the theory, apply it in the field, then revisit the theory to critique and learn further from their end products. Briski takes this a step further by inviting other photographers to teach a class and discuss the children's work with them, by setting up a gallery showing for local affluent art aficionados, and in an episode with all the theatrical suspense of a Hitchcock thriller, submits the work of one of her charges for entry to an international youth photography summit. One couldn't ask for more authentic performances of understanding and assessments!

The most transformative experiences for Briski and the children lay in her attempts to get the children into the local boarding schools. With the inherited stigma affixed to children of sex-workers, the schools were loathe to accept them. Even the hardest hearts in the audience tearfully succumb to the children and Briski's rollercoaster of triumphs and defeats as school after school finds reason to not admit the children. Even with potential admission, the children still face the obstacles of family that may wish for them to stay in the brothels, financial burden, as well as the fears and homesickness any 10 year-old would have in leaving their only home.

Born into Brothels serves as a persistent reminder of why I came to the School of Education in the first place. Briski, a photojournalist without formal training as an educator, armed only with a love for her art and the children with whom she shares it, provides the children with and herself gains transcendence over unimaginable odds. If in the heart in every educator there lay a Zana Briski, the world could truly be transformed. Until then, start by spending the 8 bucks and two hours to have yourself touched and transformed by these incredible children, Born into Brothels.

Cidade de Deus

I had avoided seeing City of God when it was in theaters a couple years back for fear it would be too depressing. What a lame fuckin' excuse. I continue to hang my head in shame. Thankfully, I've grown up a bit since then, having gone to see Dirty Pretty Things in the theater (and a few times since on DVD) and plan to see Hotel Rwanda as soon as it's released. My roommate's Netflix queue has now allowed me redemption, as the City of God DVD arrived several days ago and I finally summoned the courage to watch. In doing so, I was richly rewarded.

City of God (Cidade de Deus) is the story of a ghetto (favelas) of the same name on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. The tale of the Cidade is told over three decades through the lens of favela resident Rocket (played incredibly by Alexandre Rodrigues), the narrator/protagonist/guide. Himself Afro-Brazillian, he eventually comes to tell the tale of his home-favela, not only to us but to his countrymen outside the favelas through the lens of his camera. Through the eyes of Rocket, life on the edge of paradise is replete with bitter irony, humor, tragedy, and every now and then, a miracle. The Cidade is a dark and empoverished lining to Rio's rich silvery-white cloud. The Rio of the movies is so often the exotic and picturesque backdrop to romance, mystery and glamour, featuring non-African and usually non-Brazillian characters. It is very refreshing to see the story told on the other side of paradise, in the voices and persons of the favela's neglected and forgotten residents (conspicuously more racially mixed than any American ghetto portrayed on film, television, or in the news).

Rather than moving scenery, the multitude of characters are skillfully crafted of heart, sinew, and spirit. In some cases, a seemingly incidental character resurfaces supplying essential color and direction to the story. At many points when I first viewed the DVD, I wanted to rewind to see exactly when some of these characters first appeared. In this way, the filmmakers achieved a masterpiece both in craft and content.

A number of reviews have criticised the film for its highly stylized imagery juxtaposed to brutal violence. I think what reviewers found most discomforting was not the presence of violence so much as the violence being executed largely by adolescents, some characters even as young as 9 or 10. The clever camera work and violent gunplay have been familiar friends to gangster tales since The Godfather. I think the fact that the film shows the horrifying reality of the young and impoverished as the footsoldiers and in some cases capos of the horrible enterprise gangster films depict. The tragedy and horror as depicted in the Cidade is that much more real, and by turn, the film's commentary about violence, poverty, and their intersection, a much more powerful and responsible one than any other film I've ever seen.

City of God was not the foreign language grief-fest a more cowardly AFroNaut had originally anticipated. It told its story with a deft combination of humor, tragedy, levity, pathos, and sobriety. I remember hearing an Asian film critic saying of Hong Kong films that the target audience in China, paying its hard earned cash, expects to experience the full range of human emotions in the two-and-a-half hours entertainment they've paid for. I and all others whom I've spoken to about City of God felt we'd definitely gotten our two-and-a-half hours worth. I think because of the nature of the tale, the levity became that much more a comic relief, and the tragic, that much more poignant. Don't deny yourself this rich experience. Most importantly, don't deny the children of the City of God (and the many cities like it, at home and abroad) of your witness to their ongoing struggle.

see more at:

• Amazon
• Miramax Film
• City of God - Official Film Website

God's Politics

I've always chaffed at the mention of the religious right. Mostly because it invokes a distracting and misleading play on words. "Religious RIGHT???" How could a group labeled as "right" get it so WRONG? To me, what's referred to as the "religious right" represents more of a political body than anything driven by a moral ethic. I say this because the issues at the fore both for them and their adherents has more to do with power, especially political power, than ethics and morality.

I think this is why the recent interviews with Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners and editor-in-chief of Sojourners Magazine, has struck such a deep chord in me. His recently released book, God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It, discusses the co-opting of the language of faith in current national politics. And his discussion goes to the heart of the matter that I found so absent in the runup to our last election: morality, and Christian morality, has first and foremost been concerned with the condition of the poor, the disenfranchised, the helpless, and the needy. Left to the standards as reported leading up to the election, the test of your morality whatever your faith and especially of your worthiness as a Christian was whether you stood against Gay Marriage, and Roe vs. Wade, and whether you supported the Invasion of Iraq. In God's Politics, Rev. Wallis returns to the issues that, covered in 3000 verses of the bible, are central tenets to Christianity (and Judaism and Islam as well): poverty, charity, community responsibility.

I have yet to read Rev. Wallis' books but plan to very shortly. He's done several interviews from NPR to the Brookings Institue to The Daily Show on Comedy Central. What he's said in these interviews so far has spoken to me where I live. Our spirituality is our words and deeds. If there should be any shortcut or tip sheet to work from, don't let it be the voting guide given to you outside your local polling station. Let it instead be The Golden Rule: "As you do unto the least of these among you, so you do unto Me."