Community // Current

Nina Silvert's Milk

British artist/rockstar Nina Silvert new music project entitled "milk," challenges the comercial propaganda surrounding... more

edsonuk
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Uptown Arts Era

A conversation with Savona Baily McLean, the Executive Director of the West Harlem Arts Fund.

uptownflavor
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Bad reporter goes for ratings and the community reacts negatively.

Houston reporter Wayne Dolcefino files another in a long series of poorly researched, misguided reports, this time about funding... more

zenfilm
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Homeless Veterans Find Solace at Jericho

Something to think about on Veteran’s Day: one in four homeless people are veterans.

To combat this situation, veterans themselves broke ground on the first of two alternative shelters for homeless veterans in the Bronx on Monday.

The groundbreaking was part of the Jericho Project, which was formed in 1983 to provide assistance to the increasing number of homeless veterans on New York’s streets. The Project owns and operates five houses in Harlem and the Bronx using alternative rehabilitation methods to help homeless veterans get back on their feet and become self-sufficient.

“Many veterans become homeless due to trauma, substance abuse, and lack of resources,” said Jericho executive director, Tori Lyon. “This program will enable them to rebuild their lives by providing supportive housing within an atmosphere of healing and dignity.”

According to the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients, 23 percent of all homeless and 33 percent of homeless males are veterans. Disproportionately, there are only two houses in the city geared toward the specific needs of veterans.

“Many more veterans are severely rent burdened and at risk of homelessness than we know about” Lyon said in a release. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 500,000 veterans pay more than 50 percent of their income on rent. In America, 200,000 veterans are homeless and 3,500 of them are in New York City.

The US Veterans Administration expects the number of homeless veterans it has seen in the last three years to escalate. A lot of veterans are staying with family members or friends, are jobless, and many have substance abuse issues.

Forty percent of the units will be reserved for low-income veterans from the community, with priority given to veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sixty percent will be set aside for veterans who have a history of homelessness and substance abuse.

“Especially for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, war-induced trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder are leading to a cascade of financial dislocation, family estrangement and homelessness. Extended tours and intensive violence abroad accelerate these effects,” Lyon said. “One in five veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan suffers from PTSD.”

The Jericho Model of stable housing, comprehensive counseling services and ongoing aftercare has resulted in independence for 95 percent of its graduates from all five residences in Manhattan and the Bronx, New York. This example is being followed by similar endeavors across the nation.Something to think about on Veteran’s Day: one in four homeless people are veterans. To combat this situation, veterans... more

goldenways
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7 days ago

Does Religion make you a nicer person?

"Where there is no God, all is permitted."
"Religion poisons everything.""

Are the religious happier than the secular? And does that make you a nicer person? In his article, Paul Bloom talks about this. The conclusion he comes to is less about religion and atheism than it is about a community: joining one or rejecting one--or rejecting one because it rejects you.

(Edited. Check out the link for more.)
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Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew.

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!)

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one's reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them.

Maybe, then, religious people are nicer because they believe that they are never alone.

In a 2004 study, twice as many religious people say that they are very happy with their lives, while the secular are twice as likely to say that they feel like failures.

In general, you might expect people in less God-fearing countries to be a lot less kind to one another than Americans are. Countries worthy of consideration aren't those like North Korea and China, where religion is savagely repressed, but those in which people freely choose atheism. And—even without belief in a God looming over them—they murder and rape one another significantly less frequently than Americans do.

American atheists, by contrast, are often left out of community life. The studies that Brooks cites in Gross National Happiness, which find that the religious are happier and more generous then the secular, do not define religious and secular in terms of belief. They define it in terms of religious attendance. It is not hard to see how being left out of one of the dominant modes of American togetherness can have a corrosive effect on morality. As P.Z. Myers, the biologist and prominent atheist, puts it, "[S]cattered individuals who are excluded from communities do not receive the benefits of community, nor do they feel willing to contribute to the communities that exclude them."

The sorry state of American atheists, then, may have nothing to do with their lack of religious belief. It may instead be the result of their outsider status within a highly religious country where many of their fellow citizens, including very vocal ones like Schlessinger, find them immoral and unpatriotic. Religion may not poison everything, but it deserves part of the blame for this one."Where there is no God, all is permitted." "Religion poisons everything."" Are the religious... more

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8 days ago

Alt-weeklies seek to help the economy by promoting local shopping

The readers of more than 70 alternative newspapers are being urged to spend at least $100 of their holiday money this fall at locally owned stores in their communities -- a move that could pump more than $2.9 billion into urban economies during this recession-plagued season.

The project is based on data showing that money spent in locally owned businesses tends to stay in the area and circulate through the community, increasing economic activity. Economists call this the "multiplier effect."

"If every one of the 17.5 million readers of these weeklies were to spend just $100 with local, independently owned merchants, the impact would be enormous," said Jody Colley, publisher of the East Bay Express in Berkeley/Oakland and the originator of the project.

The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) helped develop the unprecedented project. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, a trade organization of 130 alternative newspapers, helped line up 73 papers in the United States and Canada.

"This is an incredibly exciting and unprecedented effort by the press to reach out and work with the local economic development community," said Erin Kilmer-Neel, program officer at OneCalifornia Foundation, and active member in both BALLE and AMIBA. "In my mind, this can be a perfect partnership -- local, independently-owned publications helping other local indie businesses in their community toward positive economic change."

Added Kilmer-Neel: "When people choose to shop at locally-owned, independent businesses in their communities, they are re-circulating dollars in those communities, supporting more local jobs, keeping their neighborhoods interesting and unique and reducing their carbon footprints.

"We came out in the millions to make change this week by voting. Conscious shopping, like voting, is a powerful way to make change. Collectively, we will continue to spend billions and billions of dollars as we shop throughout our lives -- imagine the power that this money can have if each one of us tries to be conscious about where it goes."

The move is "simply part of our mission as a newspaper," Tim Redmond, executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, one of the early supporters of the project, said. "A sustainable community needs a sustainable economy, and that starts with locally owned independent businesses."

The project will run through the holiday season. The readers of more than 70 alternative newspapers are being urged to spend at least $100 of their holiday money this fall at... more

bedeboop
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19 responses

9 days ago

Video Games Raise $115,000 For Pediatric Cancer

On Oct. 18th, 2008, members from Sarcastic Gamer and other communities, including Rooster Teeth, Gamertag Radio, Podtacular and... more

heimai69
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1 response

11 days ago

The Great American Detour

Vanguard producer Lauren Cerre zigzags from Los Angeles to New York on bus, stopping to talk to young Americans about national... more

LaurenCerre
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36 responses

20 days ago

Presentazione aziendale 3D. Corporate e marketing.

Le aziende ancora si affidano a strumenti di comunicazione, diciamo tradizionali, dimenticando che la possibilità offerta... more

contexart
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17 days ago

Bio Lab built on island could release deadly pathogens

GALVESTON, Tex. — Much of the University of Texas medical school on this island suffered flood damage during Hurricane Ike,... more

TyMarshal
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20 days ago

Cat in the Hat Fever!

KISHIKAWA, Japan (CNN) -- Tama is a 9-year-old calico cat, who used to live a simple life hanging out at the train station next to... more

TyMarshal
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20 days ago

Bella Flor

In the mountainous periphery of Bogota there is a neighborhood called Bella Flor where the children have created a music group.... more

octaviroyo
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1 response

20 days ago

The seeds of the stones

A social circus arrives by bus to the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado. There, they met some people who did not want to be... more

octaviroyo
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20 days ago

Virgin Of East LA

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a 16th century Mexican icon of the Virgin Mary which appears on wall murals and tattoos around the... more

BooksBrown
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13 responses

8 months ago

United Kingdom Talk Video Saturday 25th October 2008

Saturday's edition of my three times a week talk show. Watch the show here on CURRENT TV on Tues, Thurs & Sats. In... more

ChrisReardon
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25 days ago

25 Years of the NYC LGBT Center and Robert Woodworth

From http://gaycenter.org/ This year the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York City turned 25 and... more

OutAtTheCenter
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1 response

26 days ago

In Japan, retired men find new role as caregivers

When retiree Kohei Yoneyama looked in the mirror about a decade ago, he didn't see a guy ready to spend more time on the golf... more

goldenways
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26 days ago

Detroit’s First Lady: Invincible

Words by: Andres Reyes

After immigrating to Michigan from Israel at the tender age of 7, Ilana Weaver, aka Invincible, used her natural gravitation towards hip-hop as a way to learn English. By the time she was in high school, she had begun to build her reputation as an MC, performing at open mics and throwing events in abandoned buildings around Ann Arbor and Detroit. Her passion for the music eventually led her to make a trip to NY at 16, where she linked up with the famed underground, all-female aNoMoLies crew. During that late-90’s NY indie boom, Invincible was able to build with like-minded progressive artists and continue to perform constantly with aNoMoLies. Still, for all the work her and the crew put in, there is not too much tangible from that period. Invincible explains, “the way people would see us was live at shows, and we would do shows so often. We would be at every event at that time in New York opening for everybody that was coming out at that time, Blackstar, deadprez, even Black Eyed Peas at one point.”

After turning down numerous major label offers that stifled her creative vision, Invincible moved back to Detroit in 2001 and began focusing more on her own music as well as her activism. She has since solidified links with the Waajeed-led Bling47 Group as well as with fellow D artist Finale to build strong musical network for her music. Her involvement with the Detroit Summer non-profit community collective has helped her use her skills and hip-hop in general as a way to speak to and organize youth around community issues such as predatory development and the criminalization of local schools. Rather than having her music and her community involvement exists separately, Invincible makes a conscious choice to mix those ideologies into her music, while still making sure the beats are hard and the rhymes match.

That mixture of good music and a message is just what she plans to deliver when she drops her first album after more than a decade in the game, ShapeShifters, released on her own independent label Emergence Music. They say an MC’s debut album is always a lifetime in the making and in this case, it shows. The unrelenting MC tackles deeply personal issues like emigrating from Israel at a young age, the realities of the seemingly liberal Ann Arbor she grew up in and family depression, all with the finesse of a true MC. With beats by fellow Michigan family like Wajeed, House Shoes and the Lab Techs, Invincible fashions a hard-hitting musical landscape that fills the low-end nicely as she tells her story. When questioned as to the significance of the title of her album, ShapeShifters, Invincible explained “it has to do with the concept of self transformation and how that’s connected to transforming our communities, our struggles, being able to transform that through transforming ourselves.” Truly a revolutionary in both thought and action, Invincible continues to be a beacon of hope for hip-hop and her community as she leads by example.Words by: Andres Reyes After immigrating to Michigan from Israel at the tender age of 7, Ilana Weaver, aka Invincible, used her... more