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Chris Van Hollen To Run For Senate
"I am writing to let you know that I have decided to run for the United States Senate from our great state of Maryland," Van Hollen wrote in an email to supporters. "In my very first election for Congress I believed that people were tired of politics as usual, and I ran a campaign based on key issues and ideas that matter to our future. The same is true today."
Van Hollen is running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D Md.), who announced Monday she would retire at the end of her current term. Senate since 1987, and before that, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1976. She has been in Congress longer than any other woman, and was the first woman to head the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who was among those who were expected to make a run for Mikulski's seat, said Tuesday he would not launch a Senate campaign. He has previously said he is "seriously considering" a White House run.
Read the full text of Van Hollen's email to supporters below:
I am writing to let you know that I have decided to run for the United States Senate from our great State of Maryland. I am very grateful to the citizens of Maryland's Eighth Congressional District for the opportunity to represent them and want to thank the many Marylanders who, over the last 48 hours,rolex datejust oyster perpetual replica, have called, sent text messages, or emailed to urge me to run for the United States Senate. A more formal announcement will come later, but I wanted to let you know of my plans.
I am very much looking forward to the upcoming campaign and a healthy exchange of ideas. In my very first election for Congress I believed that people were tired of politics as usual, and I ran a campaign based on key issues and ideas that matter to our future. The same is true today.
The promise of America is that every individual regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation will be given an equal opportunity to succeed and prosper. We have fallen short on that promise. I believe that one of the key challenges of our time is the struggle to make sure that America works for all its citizens, not just the wealthy few.
I am committed to working every day, as I have in my years in the Congress, for policies that ensure equal access to quality education, provide good paying jobs, a strong middle class, and a healthy state, country, and planet for future generations.
In January, I put forward an economic Action Plan to generate more growth in our economy with more shared prosperity. Despite important economic progress,replica rolex datejust oyster, too many hard working families across Maryland and around our country have been struggling to make ends meet. For the last 20 years, as the productivity of our workforce has increased dramatically,replica rolex oyster perpetual datejust cost, paychecks have remained flat. We must unite to promote a tax system that rewards hard work, instead of one riddled with loopholes and special deals for the super wealthy and well connected. We need to make sure that every individual in our state and our country has a chance to climb the ladder of opportunity and build a successful and fulfilling future.
We must sharpen our competitive edge and invest strategically in education, cutting edge scientific research, and modern infrastructure to ensure that every American is equipped to compete in the 21st Century. We must create opportunities for more Americans to save and benefit from the wealth creation that is currently concentrated at the very top of the income ladder.
It is also important that we grow our economy in a way that protects our environment, including our national treasure, the Chesapeake Bay. As the Co Chair of the Congressional Chesapeake Bay Watershed Caucus I have been honored to work with Maryland's farmers and conservationists to protect the Bay and preserve it for future generations. I have also been pleased to Co Chair the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which is committed to addressing the threats and costs to our communities from the disruptions created by massive carbon pollution and climate change.
Even though our nation is politically polarized today, I continue to believe in the power of ideas to bring people of goodwill together for the common good. I've had the opportunity to work across the aisle to get things done on a variety of issues, from funding for the Chesapeake Bay, to expanding research on pediatric cancer, to leveling the playing field for families with children with disabilities by providing equal access to tax free savings accounts to provide for their children's future, to protecting federal whistleblowers who take action to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse.
For 5 long years, I fought to gain the freedom of my constituent, Alan Gross, from a Cuban jail cell and I was honored to travel to Cuba in December to finally bring Alan home. I have also been proud to lead the fight to reduce the influence of secret money and ensure greater transparency and accountability in our electoral process.
I have always believed in the power of the democratic process to further strengthen our nation,rolex watch oyster perpetual datejust replica, to build on the progress we have made, and to create an ever more perfect union. I look forward to hearing your views in the coming days and weeks on how, together, we can achieve these goals and continue the fight to get things done for our great State of Maryland and our country.
"I am writing to let you know that I have decided to run for the United States Senate from our great state of Maryland," Van Hollen wrote in an email to supporters. "In my very first election for Congress I believed that people were tired of politics as usual, and I ran a campaign based on key issues and ideas that matter to our future. The same is true today."
Van Hollen is running for the seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D Md.), who announced Monday she would retire at the end of her current term. Senate since 1987, and before that, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1976. She has been in Congress longer than any other woman, and was the first woman to head the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), who was among those who were expected to make a run for Mikulski's seat, said Tuesday he would not launch a Senate campaign. He has previously said he is "seriously considering" a White House run.
Read the full text of Van Hollen's email to supporters below:
I am writing to let you know that I have decided to run for the United States Senate from our great State of Maryland. I am very grateful to the citizens of Maryland's Eighth Congressional District for the opportunity to represent them and want to thank the many Marylanders who, over the last 48 hours,rolex datejust oyster perpetual replica, have called, sent text messages, or emailed to urge me to run for the United States Senate. A more formal announcement will come later, but I wanted to let you know of my plans.
I am very much looking forward to the upcoming campaign and a healthy exchange of ideas. In my very first election for Congress I believed that people were tired of politics as usual, and I ran a campaign based on key issues and ideas that matter to our future. The same is true today.
The promise of America is that every individual regardless of race, religion, or sexual orientation will be given an equal opportunity to succeed and prosper. We have fallen short on that promise. I believe that one of the key challenges of our time is the struggle to make sure that America works for all its citizens, not just the wealthy few.
I am committed to working every day, as I have in my years in the Congress, for policies that ensure equal access to quality education, provide good paying jobs, a strong middle class, and a healthy state, country, and planet for future generations.
In January, I put forward an economic Action Plan to generate more growth in our economy with more shared prosperity. Despite important economic progress,replica rolex datejust oyster, too many hard working families across Maryland and around our country have been struggling to make ends meet. For the last 20 years, as the productivity of our workforce has increased dramatically,replica rolex oyster perpetual datejust cost, paychecks have remained flat. We must unite to promote a tax system that rewards hard work, instead of one riddled with loopholes and special deals for the super wealthy and well connected. We need to make sure that every individual in our state and our country has a chance to climb the ladder of opportunity and build a successful and fulfilling future.
We must sharpen our competitive edge and invest strategically in education, cutting edge scientific research, and modern infrastructure to ensure that every American is equipped to compete in the 21st Century. We must create opportunities for more Americans to save and benefit from the wealth creation that is currently concentrated at the very top of the income ladder.
It is also important that we grow our economy in a way that protects our environment, including our national treasure, the Chesapeake Bay. As the Co Chair of the Congressional Chesapeake Bay Watershed Caucus I have been honored to work with Maryland's farmers and conservationists to protect the Bay and preserve it for future generations. I have also been pleased to Co Chair the Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, which is committed to addressing the threats and costs to our communities from the disruptions created by massive carbon pollution and climate change.
Even though our nation is politically polarized today, I continue to believe in the power of ideas to bring people of goodwill together for the common good. I've had the opportunity to work across the aisle to get things done on a variety of issues, from funding for the Chesapeake Bay, to expanding research on pediatric cancer, to leveling the playing field for families with children with disabilities by providing equal access to tax free savings accounts to provide for their children's future, to protecting federal whistleblowers who take action to ferret out waste, fraud, and abuse.
For 5 long years, I fought to gain the freedom of my constituent, Alan Gross, from a Cuban jail cell and I was honored to travel to Cuba in December to finally bring Alan home. I have also been proud to lead the fight to reduce the influence of secret money and ensure greater transparency and accountability in our electoral process.
I have always believed in the power of the democratic process to further strengthen our nation,rolex watch oyster perpetual datejust replica, to build on the progress we have made, and to create an ever more perfect union. I look forward to hearing your views in the coming days and weeks on how, together, we can achieve these goals and continue the fight to get things done for our great State of Maryland and our country.
Articles about Murders
Monique King lied to her two accomplices by saying the actor had made sexual advances toward her; she also helped them get away after they shot Santana,rolex perpetual datejust replica, said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler.
ARTICLES BY DATEEmma Donoghue's 'Frog Music' finds murder lurking in old San Francisco
April 24, 2014 Elizabeth Hand
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them," wrote James Baldwin in "Notes of a Native Son. " Much of novelist Emma Donoghue's literary career has involved the liberation of historical figures,replica rolex oyster datejust, often women, from the constraints of the recorded past to the relative freedom of fiction, as in her novels "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter" and "Life Mask," all set in the 18th or 19th century. Her most recent work,gold rolex oyster perpetual datejust replica, the multiple award winning international bestseller "Room," took a more contemporary approach, loosely inspired by the experiences of women recently held captive by abusive men. In her new novel,replica mens rolex oyster perpetual datejust watch, "Frog Music," Donoghue returns to the more distant past to take on an unsolved San Francisco murder: that of young Jenny Bonnet, shot by an unknown killer lurking outside her railway hotel room. District Judge James A.
Boy, 14, wanted for attempted murder, torture of elderly woman
April 24, 2014 By Ruben Vives
The Hemet Police Department is asking for the public's help to find a 14 year old boy wanted in connection with the attempted murder and torture of an elderly woman at a retirement home. When officers responded to a reported burglary and assault at The Camelot, a senior living community at 800 W. April 17, they found an 87 year old woman who had been brutally beaten, police said in a statement . Physical evidence linked two teenagers to the crime. Melchor Macaso, 35, of Norwalk was arrested on suspicion of murder Tuesday after he was restrained by the victim's co workers at the scene, according to Capt. Daryl Evans of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Boy Who Died Boxing Had a Heart Condition
February 7, 2005 From Times Staff and Wire Reports
An autopsy Sunday concluded that a 14 year old who died in a fistfight had a heart condition, officials said. The unidentified boy went to a park Saturday where he met Joshua Kang, 18, said Buena Park Police Lt. Terry Branum. The pair started a "fun boxing match," Branum said, but the boy went into cardiac arrest after Kang punched him in the chest. Prosecutors will decide this week whether to charge Kang, who was held on $250,000 bail. Paul Carpenter. Koklich, 44, who is free on $1 million bail, allowed sheriff's homicide and crime scene investigators inside the home on Fairway Drive, Lt. Ray Peavy said. They planned to look for potential evidence in the case, Peavy said, but he did not specify what.
Monique King lied to her two accomplices by saying the actor had made sexual advances toward her; she also helped them get away after they shot Santana,rolex perpetual datejust replica, said Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler.
ARTICLES BY DATEEmma Donoghue's 'Frog Music' finds murder lurking in old San Francisco
April 24, 2014 Elizabeth Hand
"People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them," wrote James Baldwin in "Notes of a Native Son. " Much of novelist Emma Donoghue's literary career has involved the liberation of historical figures,replica rolex oyster datejust, often women, from the constraints of the recorded past to the relative freedom of fiction, as in her novels "Slammerkin," "The Sealed Letter" and "Life Mask," all set in the 18th or 19th century. Her most recent work,gold rolex oyster perpetual datejust replica, the multiple award winning international bestseller "Room," took a more contemporary approach, loosely inspired by the experiences of women recently held captive by abusive men. In her new novel,replica mens rolex oyster perpetual datejust watch, "Frog Music," Donoghue returns to the more distant past to take on an unsolved San Francisco murder: that of young Jenny Bonnet, shot by an unknown killer lurking outside her railway hotel room. District Judge James A.
Boy, 14, wanted for attempted murder, torture of elderly woman
April 24, 2014 By Ruben Vives
The Hemet Police Department is asking for the public's help to find a 14 year old boy wanted in connection with the attempted murder and torture of an elderly woman at a retirement home. When officers responded to a reported burglary and assault at The Camelot, a senior living community at 800 W. April 17, they found an 87 year old woman who had been brutally beaten, police said in a statement . Physical evidence linked two teenagers to the crime. Melchor Macaso, 35, of Norwalk was arrested on suspicion of murder Tuesday after he was restrained by the victim's co workers at the scene, according to Capt. Daryl Evans of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Boy Who Died Boxing Had a Heart Condition
February 7, 2005 From Times Staff and Wire Reports
An autopsy Sunday concluded that a 14 year old who died in a fistfight had a heart condition, officials said. The unidentified boy went to a park Saturday where he met Joshua Kang, 18, said Buena Park Police Lt. Terry Branum. The pair started a "fun boxing match," Branum said, but the boy went into cardiac arrest after Kang punched him in the chest. Prosecutors will decide this week whether to charge Kang, who was held on $250,000 bail. Paul Carpenter. Koklich, 44, who is free on $1 million bail, allowed sheriff's homicide and crime scene investigators inside the home on Fairway Drive, Lt. Ray Peavy said. They planned to look for potential evidence in the case, Peavy said, but he did not specify what.
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Bill Murray to debut classical music project in Napa with cellist he met on a plane,replica rolex oyster perpetual datejust stainless steel
SHANGHAI, CHINA APRIL 15: Actor Bill Murray onstage announces the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award during the 2015 Laureus World Sports Awards show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on April 15, 2015 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images for Laureus) less
SHANGHAI, CHINA APRIL 15: Actor Bill Murray onstage announces the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award during the 2015 Laureus World Sports Awards show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on April 15, 2015 in . more
WASHINGTON, DC OCTOBER 21: Comedian Bill Murray visits the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House October 21, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murray is in Washington to receive the 2016 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center on Sunday. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)WASHINGTON, DC OCTOBER 21: Comedian Bill Murray visits the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House October 21, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murray is in Washington to receive the 2016 Mark Twain Prizemore
Bill Murray, left, Bugs Bunny, and Michael Jordan are shown in a scene from the Warner Bros. film "Space Jam," in this handout photo. The film, with a $48.5 million two week box office take, marked the first time a rival has made a serious dent in Disney's virtual monopoly of the feature animation market. (AP Photo/HO, Warner Bros.) less
Bill Murray, left, Bugs Bunny, and Michael Jordan are shown in a scene from the Warner Bros. film "Space Jam," in this handout photo. The film, with a $48.5 million two week box office take, marked the first . more
One of the quirkiest actors in the business is bringing some of his lesser seen talents to Northern California.
Bill Murray, perhaps unbeknownst to many, is an avid fan of classical music. Recently, The New York Times revealed he's been working on his own unexpected musical endeavor, called "New Worlds," that he plans to debut on July 20 in Napa.
Collaborating with Bill Murray on the project is Jan Vogler, a rather accomplished German cellist Murray met on an international airplane flight several years ago, as well as pianist Vanessa Perez and violinist Mira Wang. The performance, as NPR explains, features Murray "singing a little Gershwin and reciting a little Whitman," and Rolling Stone notes that he'll also sing Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and standards from "West Side Story," and read passages by Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote. Vogler will lead performances of compositions by Schubert, Piazzolla, and Bach.
Altogether, the work explores the concept of identity all four members of the group come from a different country with both literature and musical performance.
"We are from four different continents," Murray said of the production's artists. "And when the continents come together, the music moves right across the peninsulas from one to the other. It's just a short journey from one continent to the other."
The idea for "New Worlds" started to form last summer, when Murray sent a vague text to Vogler, asking him to meet at the "Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge." It was where the annual Poetry Walk was being held,replica rolex oyster datejust perpetual, and eventually, it became where the two began talking about literature, poetry, and music.
"He is so musical and would whistle a tune as soon as I would mention it," Vogler told NPR. "We found our common favorites and started talking about literature. It was surprising how much we agreed on the choices of both literature and music."
On July 20, Murray and Vogler will debut the resulting work at Festival Napa Valley,replica cost of rolex oyster perpetual datejust, a performing arts festival featuring acts like famed violinist Joshua Bell and Latin pop performer Gloria Estefan. After that, they'll tour the act around North America to as of yet unannounced venues. This August,used rolex datejust replica, they'll release the work as a recording.
SHANGHAI, CHINA APRIL 15: Actor Bill Murray onstage announces the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award during the 2015 Laureus World Sports Awards show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on April 15, 2015 in Shanghai, China. (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images for Laureus) less
SHANGHAI, CHINA APRIL 15: Actor Bill Murray onstage announces the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year award during the 2015 Laureus World Sports Awards show at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on April 15, 2015 in . more
WASHINGTON, DC OCTOBER 21: Comedian Bill Murray visits the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House October 21, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murray is in Washington to receive the 2016 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center on Sunday. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)WASHINGTON, DC OCTOBER 21: Comedian Bill Murray visits the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House October 21, 2016 in Washington, DC. Murray is in Washington to receive the 2016 Mark Twain Prizemore
Bill Murray, left, Bugs Bunny, and Michael Jordan are shown in a scene from the Warner Bros. film "Space Jam," in this handout photo. The film, with a $48.5 million two week box office take, marked the first time a rival has made a serious dent in Disney's virtual monopoly of the feature animation market. (AP Photo/HO, Warner Bros.) less
Bill Murray, left, Bugs Bunny, and Michael Jordan are shown in a scene from the Warner Bros. film "Space Jam," in this handout photo. The film, with a $48.5 million two week box office take, marked the first . more
One of the quirkiest actors in the business is bringing some of his lesser seen talents to Northern California.
Bill Murray, perhaps unbeknownst to many, is an avid fan of classical music. Recently, The New York Times revealed he's been working on his own unexpected musical endeavor, called "New Worlds," that he plans to debut on July 20 in Napa.
Collaborating with Bill Murray on the project is Jan Vogler, a rather accomplished German cellist Murray met on an international airplane flight several years ago, as well as pianist Vanessa Perez and violinist Mira Wang. The performance, as NPR explains, features Murray "singing a little Gershwin and reciting a little Whitman," and Rolling Stone notes that he'll also sing Stephen Foster's "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" and standards from "West Side Story," and read passages by Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote. Vogler will lead performances of compositions by Schubert, Piazzolla, and Bach.
Altogether, the work explores the concept of identity all four members of the group come from a different country with both literature and musical performance.
"We are from four different continents," Murray said of the production's artists. "And when the continents come together, the music moves right across the peninsulas from one to the other. It's just a short journey from one continent to the other."
The idea for "New Worlds" started to form last summer, when Murray sent a vague text to Vogler, asking him to meet at the "Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge." It was where the annual Poetry Walk was being held,replica rolex oyster datejust perpetual, and eventually, it became where the two began talking about literature, poetry, and music.
"He is so musical and would whistle a tune as soon as I would mention it," Vogler told NPR. "We found our common favorites and started talking about literature. It was surprising how much we agreed on the choices of both literature and music."
On July 20, Murray and Vogler will debut the resulting work at Festival Napa Valley,replica cost of rolex oyster perpetual datejust, a performing arts festival featuring acts like famed violinist Joshua Bell and Latin pop performer Gloria Estefan. After that, they'll tour the act around North America to as of yet unannounced venues. This August,used rolex datejust replica, they'll release the work as a recording.
Articles about Jess Moody
The first thing that strikes you about the Rev. Jess C. Moody is that he's a talker. Lewis, gives his opinions on what's wrong with churches and explains without hesitation his view of the California work ethic toil until you can afford a Mercedes, then quit.
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Rev,replica van cleef arpel necklace. Moody Envisioned a Promised Land
August 22, 1997 JOHN DART
The Rev. Jess Moody, a large framed Southern Baptist preacher with visions as big as his native Texas, put his brand of evangelical churchmanship on the San Fernando Valley for 19 years before retiring in 1995. Moody arrived in 1976 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, an independent congregation with some 10,000 members. Eight years before, he established Palm Beach Atlantic College while pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Florida.
Rev. Moody Envisioned a Promised Land
August 22,fake van cleef and arpels butterfly necklace, 1997 JOHN DART
The Rev. Jess Moody, a large framed Southern Baptist preacher with visions as big as his native Texas, put his brand of evangelical churchmanship on the San Fernando Valley for 19 years before retiring in 1995. Moody arrived in 1976 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, an independent congregation with some 10,000 members. Eight years before, he established Palm Beach Atlantic College while pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Florida.
RELIGION / JOHN DART : As Church Ponders Merger,fake van cleef necklace, Prominent Minister to Bid Farewell
September 16, 1995 JOHN DART
As merger prospects brighten for his debt burdened church in Porter Ranch,van cleef arpel necklace, the Rev. Jess Moody a prominent churchman locally and among Southern Baptists nationally will resign as pastor Sunday and say goodby to 19 years of turbulence and triumph in the San Fernando Valley. Pressing health problems of his wife and daughter prompted Moody, who turned 70 last month, to leave Shepherd of the Hills Church and move to New Mexico sooner than expected.
Pastor Calls His Effort to Head Southern Baptists Conciliatory
September 2, 1991
The Rev. Jess Moody, pastor of the nearly completed $15 million Shepherd of the Hills Church in Chatsworth, has told a Southern Baptist news agency that he agreed to be nominated for the presidency of that denomination in a last ditch effort at reconciliation between victorious fundamentalist leaders and moderates who have drifted away.
Porter Ranch Pastor Jess Moody finished a surprising second in a three man race this week for president of the 15.2 million member Southern Baptist Convention, but the anti insider mood in American politics didn't extend to that denomination.
The first thing that strikes you about the Rev. Jess C. Moody is that he's a talker. Lewis, gives his opinions on what's wrong with churches and explains without hesitation his view of the California work ethic toil until you can afford a Mercedes, then quit.
ARTICLES BY DATE
Rev,replica van cleef arpel necklace. Moody Envisioned a Promised Land
August 22, 1997 JOHN DART
The Rev. Jess Moody, a large framed Southern Baptist preacher with visions as big as his native Texas, put his brand of evangelical churchmanship on the San Fernando Valley for 19 years before retiring in 1995. Moody arrived in 1976 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, an independent congregation with some 10,000 members. Eight years before, he established Palm Beach Atlantic College while pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Florida.
Rev. Moody Envisioned a Promised Land
August 22,fake van cleef and arpels butterfly necklace, 1997 JOHN DART
The Rev. Jess Moody, a large framed Southern Baptist preacher with visions as big as his native Texas, put his brand of evangelical churchmanship on the San Fernando Valley for 19 years before retiring in 1995. Moody arrived in 1976 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, an independent congregation with some 10,000 members. Eight years before, he established Palm Beach Atlantic College while pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Florida.
RELIGION / JOHN DART : As Church Ponders Merger,fake van cleef necklace, Prominent Minister to Bid Farewell
September 16, 1995 JOHN DART
As merger prospects brighten for his debt burdened church in Porter Ranch,van cleef arpel necklace, the Rev. Jess Moody a prominent churchman locally and among Southern Baptists nationally will resign as pastor Sunday and say goodby to 19 years of turbulence and triumph in the San Fernando Valley. Pressing health problems of his wife and daughter prompted Moody, who turned 70 last month, to leave Shepherd of the Hills Church and move to New Mexico sooner than expected.
Pastor Calls His Effort to Head Southern Baptists Conciliatory
September 2, 1991
The Rev. Jess Moody, pastor of the nearly completed $15 million Shepherd of the Hills Church in Chatsworth, has told a Southern Baptist news agency that he agreed to be nominated for the presidency of that denomination in a last ditch effort at reconciliation between victorious fundamentalist leaders and moderates who have drifted away.
Porter Ranch Pastor Jess Moody finished a surprising second in a three man race this week for president of the 15.2 million member Southern Baptist Convention, but the anti insider mood in American politics didn't extend to that denomination.
2 dead in Turnpike crash in Jersey City
Earlier today, Jersey City Medical Center Barnabas Health spokesman Mark Rabson said a total of four people were hospitalized. Reports indicate that one of the two people who died was pronounced dead shortly after the accident, while the second fatality was reported later.
Rabson said two adults and one child were taken to JCMC after the two car accident in the westbound lanes of the Hudson County Extension,replica mens rolex oyster perpetual datejust watch. Rabson said the child was taken to the hospital in critical condition,rolex datejust perpetual oyster replica.
Meanwhile,replica oyster rolex perpetual datejust, a CarePoint Health van operated by a McCabe Ambulance Service driver was struck by one of the cars involved in the primary collision, according to Mickey McCabe, the company's founder and president.
"The vehicle that was struck I believe rolled and continued into the east bound lane" and hit the van, McCabe said,replica sell rolex oyster perpetual datejust, adding that the van's driver was not injured but taken to CarePoint Health Bayonne Medical Center.
Earlier today, Jersey City Medical Center Barnabas Health spokesman Mark Rabson said a total of four people were hospitalized. Reports indicate that one of the two people who died was pronounced dead shortly after the accident, while the second fatality was reported later.
Rabson said two adults and one child were taken to JCMC after the two car accident in the westbound lanes of the Hudson County Extension,replica mens rolex oyster perpetual datejust watch. Rabson said the child was taken to the hospital in critical condition,rolex datejust perpetual oyster replica.
Meanwhile,replica oyster rolex perpetual datejust, a CarePoint Health van operated by a McCabe Ambulance Service driver was struck by one of the cars involved in the primary collision, according to Mickey McCabe, the company's founder and president.
"The vehicle that was struck I believe rolled and continued into the east bound lane" and hit the van, McCabe said,replica sell rolex oyster perpetual datejust, adding that the van's driver was not injured but taken to CarePoint Health Bayonne Medical Center.
18 killed as train derails in Maharashtra,rolex oyster perpetual datejust womens replica
Eighteenassengers were killed and,replica rolex datejust watch?1 injured when the Secunderabad Manmad Express derailed at Ghatnandur railway station in Maharashtra's Beed districtfter ramming into a stationary goods train in the early hours of Friday.
This is the second rail accident in the region in a fortnight and Railways Minister Nitish has said that 'human failure' was responsible. He has also warned of stern action against the erring officials, some of who fled the spot after the incident.
Of the 41 injured, several were rendered first aid at the site while seven were admitted to the Ambajogai government medical hospital, 18km from Ghatnandur.
Four grievously injured, including two children, were flown by an IAF helicopter to Hyderabad, a senior railway official in Hyderabad said.
The remaining passengers were taken to Parli railway station by buses and they resumed their onward journey to Manmad by train.
According to preliminary reports, the Express train, which was to move into a loop line, accidentally got into the main line and rammed into a goods train.
As a result,datejust rolex replica, the engine and three coaches (the passenger cum luggage van,rolex watch oyster perpetual datejust replica, a general coach and one AC 3 tier coach) of the Express train derailed. The fate of the driver of the express train was not known immediately.
Meanwhile, a special train with relatives of the passengers left for the accident site from Secunderabad station at 0930 IST.
Union Minister of State for Railways Bandaru Dattatreya and Railway Board chairman I I M S Rana rushedo the accident site by helicopter.
Eighteenassengers were killed and,replica rolex datejust watch?1 injured when the Secunderabad Manmad Express derailed at Ghatnandur railway station in Maharashtra's Beed districtfter ramming into a stationary goods train in the early hours of Friday.
This is the second rail accident in the region in a fortnight and Railways Minister Nitish has said that 'human failure' was responsible. He has also warned of stern action against the erring officials, some of who fled the spot after the incident.
Of the 41 injured, several were rendered first aid at the site while seven were admitted to the Ambajogai government medical hospital, 18km from Ghatnandur.
Four grievously injured, including two children, were flown by an IAF helicopter to Hyderabad, a senior railway official in Hyderabad said.
The remaining passengers were taken to Parli railway station by buses and they resumed their onward journey to Manmad by train.
According to preliminary reports, the Express train, which was to move into a loop line, accidentally got into the main line and rammed into a goods train.
As a result,datejust rolex replica, the engine and three coaches (the passenger cum luggage van,rolex watch oyster perpetual datejust replica, a general coach and one AC 3 tier coach) of the Express train derailed. The fate of the driver of the express train was not known immediately.
Meanwhile, a special train with relatives of the passengers left for the accident site from Secunderabad station at 0930 IST.
Union Minister of State for Railways Bandaru Dattatreya and Railway Board chairman I I M S Rana rushedo the accident site by helicopter.
A Mine Eats a 400
For a woman intent on moving an entire city, fifty six year old Congresswoman Gloria Ramos Prudencio, barely five feet tall, looks unassuming. Her city is Cerro de Pasco, population 70,000. Perched on the treeless Peruvian altiplano at 14,200 feet, it's one of the highest cities on the planet.
"As a girl, walking past Bellavista, where the Americans lived, I would pester my mother, 'Why do the gringos get the nice houses?' " the soft spoken Ramos recalls. "In school my teachers called me preguntona" she of too many questions.
Latin America over the past decade has seen its mining sector triple in value to $300 billion. Peru's economy, among the fastest growing, derives one sixth of its gross domestic product from minerals. At Cerro de Pasco, you can see the entire history of Peruvian mining and the costs it sometimes imposes: The mine here is literally consuming the 400 year old town that supports it.
The open pit mine operated by a subsidiary of Volcan Compa Minera, a Peruvian company, is a crater terraced like an inverted ziggurat. Over a mile long by a half mile wide by a quarter mile deep, it laps at the retreating town like a hungry sea. A line of abandoned houses, their steel roof tiles rusting and pockmarked, serves as a no man's land between the chasm and the living city.
Daniel Alcides Carri was a medical student in 1885, when workers building the railroad into town were being decimated by a disease called Oroya fever. By injecting himself with tissue from a survivor's skin lesion,cost of rolex oyster perpetual datejust replica, Carri proved that the fulminant fever and a chronic condition known as Peruvian wart had the same cause a microbe that,replica 1986 rolex oyster perpetual datejust, decades after Carri injected himself, would become treatable with antibiotics. Side panels along the statue's base depict how he died, delirious with fever.
A shop in the base sells commemorative plastic syringes. They make strange souvenirs of a star crossed town but once you've been there, and seen what its inhabitants are up against, they seem apt.
Four hundred years ago, legend has it, the rocks around campfires in Cerro de Pasco "wept silver." For centuries, the mine here ranked among the Spanish Crown's richest, filling galleons with silver. In 1820, the town was the first in Peru to be liberated from the Spanish. By the early 1900s it was Peru's second largest city; fancy carriages and European consuls graced its streets.
In 1903, the world's highest railroad completed its 200 mile cut into the Andes. It brought in Americans of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, which bought the mine. Copper ruled, but silver could still be found. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, and the Vanderbilt family, among other gringo investors, made bundles. In the 1950s, copper gave way to zinc and lead, a lot of it now destined for China.
Until the mid 1950's, miners dug out ore the old fashioned way, through tunnels. A year after Gloria Ramos was born, the mining company switched from tunnels to more efficient open pit mining within the city limits. In one of history's unluckier wish we'd known thens, it turned out the richest veins of lead and zinc were under the town.
"The center of the city once had foreign consulates and historic homes," Ramos says. "For many years, we were Peru's second city. The tajo (pit) took all that. These days, even the neighborhoods built in the 1960s to get away from the pit are falling into it."
All raw cinderblock and rough hewn sidewalks, the rump of today's Cerro de Pasco lacks potable water, because its lakes and rivers glow orange with mining runoff. Trucks supply drinking water at 25 times the cost in Lima. "My neighborhood gets water six hours a week," Ramos says. This year, a judge allowed Volcan to continue dumping mining waste into a pond just south of town.
There is also almost no indoor heating in Cerro de Pasco. The Andean cold drives shopgirls into parkas and fingerless gloves; you see your breath over dinner in restaurants. Kids scampering down sidewalks have scarlet cheeks, as if they've been slapped.
Along the western rim of the mine, massive mounds of lead laced tailings brood over neighborhoods such as Paragsha and Champamarca. Dust from the mounds blows everywhere.
Since 1996, Peru's health ministry has sampled blood lead levels in children here twice a year. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took part. The results are always the same: More than half the children tested have high lead levels, most likely from ingesting the tailings dust.
"This place is Chernobyl," says Paul Rodr a doctor in Paragsha's community clinic. A beefy guy with a quick, ironic smile, Rodr is frustrated. He knows from the surveys that the kids coming into his clinic are at risk in four cases he's even seen the blue line across the gums that heralds severe lead poisoning. But he can't order up a diagnostic blood test when a child needs one.
Volcan spokesman Jorge Leoncio Murillo Nu says the company complies with all Peruvian environmental laws and has "carried out campaigns to inform the population about hygiene and cleaning procedures to mitigate the effects of pollution."
Cecilia Bera was born in Champamarca, a half mile south of Rodr clinic. When I met her, she was living with her two boys in a school storeroom. before trekking an hour down to the base of the mine to work as a shoveler. an hour.
Wedged between the pit and the tailings mounds,replica gold rolex oyster perpetual datejust, Champamarca is lead city. Cecilia's boys, ages 10 and 7, had lead levels in their blood of 14.5 and 13.7 micrograms per deciliter. CDC considers anything over 5 dangerous.
"In March his level was 18.9. He's had three seizures, we spent last New Year's in the hospital. They sent him home with no medicines. My older sons weren't born here and they are OK. I came for the work. For my son's sake I would sell my house and leave, but no one is buying."
Lead poisoning is a sneaky beast. Even low levels sap energy, make joints ache, and impair learning; moderate levels, especially in children, permanently lower IQs. Go higher and you get convulsions, organ dysfunction, and death.
"They don't learn well," Cecilia said of her boys. "The Ministry of Health sent doctors for one day to examine them. All they prescribed was some vitamins 'to make them sharper,' they said."
This past September, townspeople marched the 150 miles from Cerro de Pasco to Lima to draw the capital's attention to the town's 2,070 children with blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter twice the danger level. Soon afterward the government announced plans for a new hospital with a heavy metals testing and treatment unit. But plans have been announced before.
In the 1980s, when the mine was still government owned, President Alan Garc administration spent $30 million on a housing project 15 miles from town to try to entice mining families to move there. At 200 square feet, the houses were not very enticing. Only a smattering of people live in the forlorn neighborhood, which is now controlled by Volcan; its logo is stencilled on every house. Neat rows of street lamps stand in grassy fields where construction stopped.
In 2008, Gloria Ramos gave up on such partial fixes. Elected congresswoman in 2006, she managed to get the Peruvian legislature to pass by unanimous vote Law 29293, which mandates the complete relocation of Cerro de Pasco. But the law left a crucial question undecided: Who pays?
"They allocated $2 million to study alternative sites," Ramos sighs. "But the ministries of Mining and Finance simply ignore committee meetings, so nothing moves." (The Peruvian government did not respond to requests for comment.)
In the meantime, the government halted planning for a new water system for Cerro de Pasco why invest in a city that's about to disappear? And Volcan withdrew its own proposal to buy the last vestige of the historic town now at pit's edge and reconstruct it farther away.
Walk around town and concrete private property markers bearing the name of Cerro SAC the Volcan subsidiary that now runs the mine pop up everywhere. "The company chips away at the town by buying every third house in a neighborhood, then boarding it up," says Gladys Huam Gora, director of Labor Pasco, a local watchdog group. "Prices fall, so people scramble to sell. But the mine is in no hurry; whenever people try to unite and resist, it backs off and waits."
The structure of the labor force helps keep the town fragmented. In Cerro de Pasco, you can't miss the miners: Rugged and compact,rolex datejust oyster replica, they swagger by in orange jumpsuits. A slogan spray painted on a wall reads Somos machos pero no muchos "we are macho but not many."
For a woman intent on moving an entire city, fifty six year old Congresswoman Gloria Ramos Prudencio, barely five feet tall, looks unassuming. Her city is Cerro de Pasco, population 70,000. Perched on the treeless Peruvian altiplano at 14,200 feet, it's one of the highest cities on the planet.
"As a girl, walking past Bellavista, where the Americans lived, I would pester my mother, 'Why do the gringos get the nice houses?' " the soft spoken Ramos recalls. "In school my teachers called me preguntona" she of too many questions.
Latin America over the past decade has seen its mining sector triple in value to $300 billion. Peru's economy, among the fastest growing, derives one sixth of its gross domestic product from minerals. At Cerro de Pasco, you can see the entire history of Peruvian mining and the costs it sometimes imposes: The mine here is literally consuming the 400 year old town that supports it.
The open pit mine operated by a subsidiary of Volcan Compa Minera, a Peruvian company, is a crater terraced like an inverted ziggurat. Over a mile long by a half mile wide by a quarter mile deep, it laps at the retreating town like a hungry sea. A line of abandoned houses, their steel roof tiles rusting and pockmarked, serves as a no man's land between the chasm and the living city.
Daniel Alcides Carri was a medical student in 1885, when workers building the railroad into town were being decimated by a disease called Oroya fever. By injecting himself with tissue from a survivor's skin lesion,cost of rolex oyster perpetual datejust replica, Carri proved that the fulminant fever and a chronic condition known as Peruvian wart had the same cause a microbe that,replica 1986 rolex oyster perpetual datejust, decades after Carri injected himself, would become treatable with antibiotics. Side panels along the statue's base depict how he died, delirious with fever.
A shop in the base sells commemorative plastic syringes. They make strange souvenirs of a star crossed town but once you've been there, and seen what its inhabitants are up against, they seem apt.
Four hundred years ago, legend has it, the rocks around campfires in Cerro de Pasco "wept silver." For centuries, the mine here ranked among the Spanish Crown's richest, filling galleons with silver. In 1820, the town was the first in Peru to be liberated from the Spanish. By the early 1900s it was Peru's second largest city; fancy carriages and European consuls graced its streets.
In 1903, the world's highest railroad completed its 200 mile cut into the Andes. It brought in Americans of the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, which bought the mine. Copper ruled, but silver could still be found. Morgan, Henry Clay Frick, and the Vanderbilt family, among other gringo investors, made bundles. In the 1950s, copper gave way to zinc and lead, a lot of it now destined for China.
Until the mid 1950's, miners dug out ore the old fashioned way, through tunnels. A year after Gloria Ramos was born, the mining company switched from tunnels to more efficient open pit mining within the city limits. In one of history's unluckier wish we'd known thens, it turned out the richest veins of lead and zinc were under the town.
"The center of the city once had foreign consulates and historic homes," Ramos says. "For many years, we were Peru's second city. The tajo (pit) took all that. These days, even the neighborhoods built in the 1960s to get away from the pit are falling into it."
All raw cinderblock and rough hewn sidewalks, the rump of today's Cerro de Pasco lacks potable water, because its lakes and rivers glow orange with mining runoff. Trucks supply drinking water at 25 times the cost in Lima. "My neighborhood gets water six hours a week," Ramos says. This year, a judge allowed Volcan to continue dumping mining waste into a pond just south of town.
There is also almost no indoor heating in Cerro de Pasco. The Andean cold drives shopgirls into parkas and fingerless gloves; you see your breath over dinner in restaurants. Kids scampering down sidewalks have scarlet cheeks, as if they've been slapped.
Along the western rim of the mine, massive mounds of lead laced tailings brood over neighborhoods such as Paragsha and Champamarca. Dust from the mounds blows everywhere.
Since 1996, Peru's health ministry has sampled blood lead levels in children here twice a year. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took part. The results are always the same: More than half the children tested have high lead levels, most likely from ingesting the tailings dust.
"This place is Chernobyl," says Paul Rodr a doctor in Paragsha's community clinic. A beefy guy with a quick, ironic smile, Rodr is frustrated. He knows from the surveys that the kids coming into his clinic are at risk in four cases he's even seen the blue line across the gums that heralds severe lead poisoning. But he can't order up a diagnostic blood test when a child needs one.
Volcan spokesman Jorge Leoncio Murillo Nu says the company complies with all Peruvian environmental laws and has "carried out campaigns to inform the population about hygiene and cleaning procedures to mitigate the effects of pollution."
Cecilia Bera was born in Champamarca, a half mile south of Rodr clinic. When I met her, she was living with her two boys in a school storeroom. before trekking an hour down to the base of the mine to work as a shoveler. an hour.
Wedged between the pit and the tailings mounds,replica gold rolex oyster perpetual datejust, Champamarca is lead city. Cecilia's boys, ages 10 and 7, had lead levels in their blood of 14.5 and 13.7 micrograms per deciliter. CDC considers anything over 5 dangerous.
"In March his level was 18.9. He's had three seizures, we spent last New Year's in the hospital. They sent him home with no medicines. My older sons weren't born here and they are OK. I came for the work. For my son's sake I would sell my house and leave, but no one is buying."
Lead poisoning is a sneaky beast. Even low levels sap energy, make joints ache, and impair learning; moderate levels, especially in children, permanently lower IQs. Go higher and you get convulsions, organ dysfunction, and death.
"They don't learn well," Cecilia said of her boys. "The Ministry of Health sent doctors for one day to examine them. All they prescribed was some vitamins 'to make them sharper,' they said."
This past September, townspeople marched the 150 miles from Cerro de Pasco to Lima to draw the capital's attention to the town's 2,070 children with blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter twice the danger level. Soon afterward the government announced plans for a new hospital with a heavy metals testing and treatment unit. But plans have been announced before.
In the 1980s, when the mine was still government owned, President Alan Garc administration spent $30 million on a housing project 15 miles from town to try to entice mining families to move there. At 200 square feet, the houses were not very enticing. Only a smattering of people live in the forlorn neighborhood, which is now controlled by Volcan; its logo is stencilled on every house. Neat rows of street lamps stand in grassy fields where construction stopped.
In 2008, Gloria Ramos gave up on such partial fixes. Elected congresswoman in 2006, she managed to get the Peruvian legislature to pass by unanimous vote Law 29293, which mandates the complete relocation of Cerro de Pasco. But the law left a crucial question undecided: Who pays?
"They allocated $2 million to study alternative sites," Ramos sighs. "But the ministries of Mining and Finance simply ignore committee meetings, so nothing moves." (The Peruvian government did not respond to requests for comment.)
In the meantime, the government halted planning for a new water system for Cerro de Pasco why invest in a city that's about to disappear? And Volcan withdrew its own proposal to buy the last vestige of the historic town now at pit's edge and reconstruct it farther away.
Walk around town and concrete private property markers bearing the name of Cerro SAC the Volcan subsidiary that now runs the mine pop up everywhere. "The company chips away at the town by buying every third house in a neighborhood, then boarding it up," says Gladys Huam Gora, director of Labor Pasco, a local watchdog group. "Prices fall, so people scramble to sell. But the mine is in no hurry; whenever people try to unite and resist, it backs off and waits."
The structure of the labor force helps keep the town fragmented. In Cerro de Pasco, you can't miss the miners: Rugged and compact,rolex datejust oyster replica, they swagger by in orange jumpsuits. A slogan spray painted on a wall reads Somos machos pero no muchos "we are macho but not many."
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A road map for suicide research and prevention
Suicide is one of the three leading causes of death in the economically most productive age group those aged 15 44 years and rates have risen since the economic crisis triggered by the banking crash in 2008 (see 'Suicide rates in Europe'). For example, the number of suicides per year in the Netherlands rose by 30% between 2008 and 2012,cartier replica gold love ring, from 1,353 to 1,753. In the United States, the average suicide costs society US$1.06 million according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite its enormous societal impact, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding or treatment of suicidal behaviour. We do know that up to 90% of suicides occur in people with a clinically diagnosable psychiatric disorder1. Large epidemiological studies have shown mental disorders,love ring replica cartier, particularly depression and alcohol addiction, to be major risk factors2. And there is compelling evidence that adequate prevention and treatment of such disorders can reduce suicide rates2.
But psychiatry has long neglected the topic. Other than as symptoms of borderline personality disorder and mood disorders,cartier replica ring engagement, suicide, suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts were not listed in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). The DSM 5 (published last year) does not code suicidal behaviour the most prominent emergency in psychiatry in primary care. Suicidality is perceived as a medical complication rather than as a disorder in its own right.
For every study on suicidality published in the two highest ranking general psychiatry journals (American Journal of Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry) over the past five years, there were six papers on schizophrenia, the incidence of which is one quarter that of suicidal behaviour. And, in contrast to the studies on schizophrenia, those on suicidal behaviour are mostly epidemiological and do not investigate underlying mechanisms.
The lack of suicide research may be due to several factors. The first is cultural taboos. People are hesitant to talk about the suicide of a family member or friend, and many religions consider suicide dishonourable. It is often deemed unlawful, too. In India and Singapore, for example, attempted suicide is punishable by up to a year in prison. In several US states, suicide is still considered an unwritten 'common law' crime, which can have financial consequences for the family. Assisted suicide is illegal in many countries.
Second, the triggers of suicide are complicated, involving mental health, financial, social, cultural and moral issues. Third, suicidal behaviour could be difficult to study if non fatal suicidal attempts differ in aetiology from fatal ones.
What is urgently needed is a road map for the systematic study of the mechanisms of suicidal behaviour, independent of any associated disorder. Only then can evidence based prevention programmes be framed.
In our view, these four steps are needed.
Four point planDefine suicide as a distinct disorder. Treatment of the mental disorders commonly associated with suicide, such as depression, fails to prevent suicidal behaviour in most people. Although suicidality touches different medical and psychosocial disciplines, it should come under the remit of psychiatry, which being at the crossroads of mind and brain is well positioned to appraise all dimensions. Psychiatry should take responsibility for defining suicidality adequately, incorporating it in classification systems, developing ratings scales to predict and assess severity and examining treatment options. This will make suicidal behaviour visible as a mental disorder.
Understand the mechanisms. The roots of suicide psychological and neurobiological could stem from difficulties in emotion regulation and the underlying brain circuits. The most important psychological correlates are anxiety, reduced impulse control and increased aggression2. Furthermore, people showing suicidal behaviour tend to suppress their emotions and have difficulties identifying their feelings4. Suicidality is associated with hopelessness, sensitivity towards social disapproval and a reduced ability to imagine positive future events5. But there are probably several routes to suicidal behaviour.
Research should focus on individual differences in cognitive control of emotion. Some people may have excessively strong emotional reactions to challenging events such as bereavement or job loss, some may lack cognitive flexibility and coping skills in the face of adversity, and some may show impulsive aggressive tendencies. Widely accepted models of the role of emotional reactivity and lack of cognitive control in setting the stage for suicidal behaviour need rigorous investigation6.
An example of the sort of research that we need more of is a neuroimaging study7 by a team led by psychiatrist Scott Matthews at the VA San Diego Healthcare System in California. They compared brain activity in combat exposed war veterans considered to be at risk of suicide with that in those not deemed to be at risk. Both groups had similar levels of depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Members of the suicidal group showed stronger activation of the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex when they made mistakes while performing a concentration task. These brain areas are involved in cognitive control and monitoring of actions. This deserves investigation in larger samples, taking into account different emotional states.
Fund suicide research. Governments and funding agencies should invest more in the topic. The Horizon 2020 European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation should include a challenge devoted to suicide research most urgently,diamond replica cartier ring, the definition of valid criteria for suicidal behaviour as a mental disorder and the investigation of putative abnormalities in emotion regulation circuits associated with such behaviour. The Societal Challenges presently defined in the framework do not mention suicide. The US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, has requested applications to develop ways to screen adolescents for suicide risk, but larger and more comprehensive programmes are necessary.
Promising in this regard is the institute's Research Domain Criteria project, which offers funding for the development of ways to classify psychopathology according to observable behaviour and neurobiological measures. For example, apathy is frequently observed in psychiatric and neurological disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Because the mechanisms leading to apathy may well be the same across these disorders, apathy is increasingly being studied as a distinct syndrome, irrespective of whether the patient has other symptoms of psychiatric or neurological disorders. Because suicide is a risk in various mental disorders, and encompasses neurobiological as well as social aspects, it is similarly suitable as topic within this project.
Promote prevention. Governments should invest as much in suicide prevention as they do in reducing fatal road accidents. In 2008 09, UK spending on road safety awareness, including television advertisements, topped 19 million (US$32 million); by contrast, 1.5 million was invested over three years in suicide research. Fatal road accidents have declined steadily over the past decades, whereas suicide rates have levelled or even increased. Suicide awareness and prevention was highlighted in a review published earlier this year, which concluded that there is a return on investment for several mental health promotion and illness prevention interventions8 (see 'Prevention pays').
Risk factors are known from epidemiological studies, which should help to shape developing programmes aimed at prevention. Notable risk factors are mental disorder, previous suicide attempt, anxiety, impulsivity in combination with aggressive tendencies, family history of suicide and stressful life events such as job loss or divorce. Comprehensive prevention programmes should be developed that incorporate state of the art knowledge3.
A good prevention programme would increase awareness and mental health literacy in the general population to improve people's understanding of warning signs. Better education is also important for general practitioners (GPs), because many people with suicidal thoughts contact their GP in the weeks before attempting suicide. Prevention programmes would offer clear and easy access points for help, and a monitoring service for those at risk. Programmes must enlist governments and other stakeholders to tackle stigma, a major obstacle to suicide prevention.
Few have systematically implemented such programmes. Examples include Finland, Scotland and the US military. Their efforts should now be evaluated to pave the way for evidence based improvements. Researchers should take advantage of progress in neurobiology and neuroimaging technology to uncover the brain mechanisms involved. Clinicians must focus on suicidal behaviour as a target of treatment in its own right. As Australia's National Mental Health Commission put it9: "We can and must do better."
Suicide is one of the three leading causes of death in the economically most productive age group those aged 15 44 years and rates have risen since the economic crisis triggered by the banking crash in 2008 (see 'Suicide rates in Europe'). For example, the number of suicides per year in the Netherlands rose by 30% between 2008 and 2012,cartier replica gold love ring, from 1,353 to 1,753. In the United States, the average suicide costs society US$1.06 million according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Despite its enormous societal impact, little progress has been made in the scientific understanding or treatment of suicidal behaviour. We do know that up to 90% of suicides occur in people with a clinically diagnosable psychiatric disorder1. Large epidemiological studies have shown mental disorders,love ring replica cartier, particularly depression and alcohol addiction, to be major risk factors2. And there is compelling evidence that adequate prevention and treatment of such disorders can reduce suicide rates2.
But psychiatry has long neglected the topic. Other than as symptoms of borderline personality disorder and mood disorders,cartier replica ring engagement, suicide, suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts were not listed in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV). The DSM 5 (published last year) does not code suicidal behaviour the most prominent emergency in psychiatry in primary care. Suicidality is perceived as a medical complication rather than as a disorder in its own right.
For every study on suicidality published in the two highest ranking general psychiatry journals (American Journal of Psychiatry and JAMA Psychiatry) over the past five years, there were six papers on schizophrenia, the incidence of which is one quarter that of suicidal behaviour. And, in contrast to the studies on schizophrenia, those on suicidal behaviour are mostly epidemiological and do not investigate underlying mechanisms.
The lack of suicide research may be due to several factors. The first is cultural taboos. People are hesitant to talk about the suicide of a family member or friend, and many religions consider suicide dishonourable. It is often deemed unlawful, too. In India and Singapore, for example, attempted suicide is punishable by up to a year in prison. In several US states, suicide is still considered an unwritten 'common law' crime, which can have financial consequences for the family. Assisted suicide is illegal in many countries.
Second, the triggers of suicide are complicated, involving mental health, financial, social, cultural and moral issues. Third, suicidal behaviour could be difficult to study if non fatal suicidal attempts differ in aetiology from fatal ones.
What is urgently needed is a road map for the systematic study of the mechanisms of suicidal behaviour, independent of any associated disorder. Only then can evidence based prevention programmes be framed.
In our view, these four steps are needed.
Four point planDefine suicide as a distinct disorder. Treatment of the mental disorders commonly associated with suicide, such as depression, fails to prevent suicidal behaviour in most people. Although suicidality touches different medical and psychosocial disciplines, it should come under the remit of psychiatry, which being at the crossroads of mind and brain is well positioned to appraise all dimensions. Psychiatry should take responsibility for defining suicidality adequately, incorporating it in classification systems, developing ratings scales to predict and assess severity and examining treatment options. This will make suicidal behaviour visible as a mental disorder.
Understand the mechanisms. The roots of suicide psychological and neurobiological could stem from difficulties in emotion regulation and the underlying brain circuits. The most important psychological correlates are anxiety, reduced impulse control and increased aggression2. Furthermore, people showing suicidal behaviour tend to suppress their emotions and have difficulties identifying their feelings4. Suicidality is associated with hopelessness, sensitivity towards social disapproval and a reduced ability to imagine positive future events5. But there are probably several routes to suicidal behaviour.
Research should focus on individual differences in cognitive control of emotion. Some people may have excessively strong emotional reactions to challenging events such as bereavement or job loss, some may lack cognitive flexibility and coping skills in the face of adversity, and some may show impulsive aggressive tendencies. Widely accepted models of the role of emotional reactivity and lack of cognitive control in setting the stage for suicidal behaviour need rigorous investigation6.
An example of the sort of research that we need more of is a neuroimaging study7 by a team led by psychiatrist Scott Matthews at the VA San Diego Healthcare System in California. They compared brain activity in combat exposed war veterans considered to be at risk of suicide with that in those not deemed to be at risk. Both groups had similar levels of depression and post traumatic stress disorder. Members of the suicidal group showed stronger activation of the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex when they made mistakes while performing a concentration task. These brain areas are involved in cognitive control and monitoring of actions. This deserves investigation in larger samples, taking into account different emotional states.
Fund suicide research. Governments and funding agencies should invest more in the topic. The Horizon 2020 European Union Framework Programme for Research and Innovation should include a challenge devoted to suicide research most urgently,diamond replica cartier ring, the definition of valid criteria for suicidal behaviour as a mental disorder and the investigation of putative abnormalities in emotion regulation circuits associated with such behaviour. The Societal Challenges presently defined in the framework do not mention suicide. The US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, has requested applications to develop ways to screen adolescents for suicide risk, but larger and more comprehensive programmes are necessary.
Promising in this regard is the institute's Research Domain Criteria project, which offers funding for the development of ways to classify psychopathology according to observable behaviour and neurobiological measures. For example, apathy is frequently observed in psychiatric and neurological disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Because the mechanisms leading to apathy may well be the same across these disorders, apathy is increasingly being studied as a distinct syndrome, irrespective of whether the patient has other symptoms of psychiatric or neurological disorders. Because suicide is a risk in various mental disorders, and encompasses neurobiological as well as social aspects, it is similarly suitable as topic within this project.
Promote prevention. Governments should invest as much in suicide prevention as they do in reducing fatal road accidents. In 2008 09, UK spending on road safety awareness, including television advertisements, topped 19 million (US$32 million); by contrast, 1.5 million was invested over three years in suicide research. Fatal road accidents have declined steadily over the past decades, whereas suicide rates have levelled or even increased. Suicide awareness and prevention was highlighted in a review published earlier this year, which concluded that there is a return on investment for several mental health promotion and illness prevention interventions8 (see 'Prevention pays').
Risk factors are known from epidemiological studies, which should help to shape developing programmes aimed at prevention. Notable risk factors are mental disorder, previous suicide attempt, anxiety, impulsivity in combination with aggressive tendencies, family history of suicide and stressful life events such as job loss or divorce. Comprehensive prevention programmes should be developed that incorporate state of the art knowledge3.
A good prevention programme would increase awareness and mental health literacy in the general population to improve people's understanding of warning signs. Better education is also important for general practitioners (GPs), because many people with suicidal thoughts contact their GP in the weeks before attempting suicide. Prevention programmes would offer clear and easy access points for help, and a monitoring service for those at risk. Programmes must enlist governments and other stakeholders to tackle stigma, a major obstacle to suicide prevention.
Few have systematically implemented such programmes. Examples include Finland, Scotland and the US military. Their efforts should now be evaluated to pave the way for evidence based improvements. Researchers should take advantage of progress in neurobiology and neuroimaging technology to uncover the brain mechanisms involved. Clinicians must focus on suicidal behaviour as a target of treatment in its own right. As Australia's National Mental Health Commission put it9: "We can and must do better."
A Call for Change in Islam
Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a native of Somalia who emigrated to The Netherlands in the early 1990s, is no stranger to controversy among her fellow Muslims. Living in the West, she felt free to publicly criticize Islam's treatment of women.
But that freedom came at a price. In 2004, a short film Ali scripted called Submission was shown on Dutch television. In the film, naked women veiled with see through shrouds painted with verses of the Quran kneel in prayer, telling their stories as if they are speaking to Allah. A letter pinned to the body with a dagger threatened Ali's life. Since then, she has been under the constant protection of body guards.
The danger hasn't stopped her from remaining outspoken about her beliefs. American President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and numerous other leaders in the West asked Muslim organizations in their countries to distance themselves from Islam as preached by these nineteen terrorists. This plea was met with indignation from Muslims who thought it was inappropriate to hold them responsible for the criminal conduct of nineteen young men. Yet the fact that the people who committed the attacks on September 11 were Muslims, and the fact that before this date Muslims in many parts of the world were already harboring feelings of immense resentment toward the United States in particular, have urged me to investigate whether the roots of evil can be traced to the faith I grew up with: was the aggression, the hatred inherent in Islam itself?
My parents brought me up to be a Muslim a good Muslim. Islam dominated the lives of our family and relations down to the smallest detail. It was our ideology, our political conviction, our moral standard, our law, and our identity. We were first and foremost Muslim and only then Somali. Muslims, as we were taught the meaning of the name, are people who submit themselves to Allah's will, which is found in the Koran and the Hadith, a collection of sayings ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad. I was taught that Islam sets us apart from the rest of the world, the world of non Muslims. We Muslims are chosen by God. They, the others, the kaffirs, the unbelievers, are antisocial, impure,cartier replica black diamond ring, barbaric, not circumcised, immoral, unscrupulous, and above all, obscene; they have no respect for women; their girls and women are whores; many of the men are homosexual; men and women have sex without being married. The unfaithful are cursed, and God will punish them most atrociously in the hereafter.
When my sister and I were small, we would occasionally make remarks about nice people who were not Muslim, but my mother and grandmother would always say, "No, they are not good people. They know about the Koran and the Prophet and Allah, and yet they haven't come to see that the only thing a person can be is Muslim. They are blind. If they were such nice and good people, they would have become Muslims and then Allah would protect them against evil. But it is up to them. If they become Muslims, they will go to paradise."
There are also Christians and Jews who raise their children in the belief that they are God's chosen people, but among Muslims the feeling that God has granted them special salvation goes further.
About twelve years ago, at age twenty two, I arrived in Western Europe, on the run from an arranged marriage. I soon learned that God and His truth had been humanized here. For Muslims life on earth is merely a transitory stage before the hereafter; but here people are also allowed to invest in their lives as mortals. What is more, hell seems no longer to exist, and God is a god of love rather than a cruel ruler who metes out punishments. I began to take a more critical look at my faith and discovered three important elements of Islam that had not particularly struck me before.
The first of these is that a Muslim's relationship with his God is one of fear. A Muslim's conception of God is absolute. Our God demands total submission. He rewards you if you follow His rules meticulously. He punishes you cruelly if you break His rules, both on earth, with illness and natural disasters, and in the hereafter, with hellfire.
The second element is that Islam knows only one moral source: the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad is infallible. You would almost believe he is himself a god, but the Koran says explicitly that Muhammad is a human being; he is a supreme human being, though, the most perfect human being. We must live our lives according to his example. What is written in the Koran is what God said as it was heard by Muhammad. The thousands of hadiths accounts of what Muhammad said and did, and the advice he gave, which survives in weighty books tell us exactly how a Muslim was supposed to live in the seventh century. Devout Muslims consult these works daily to answer questions about life in the twenty first century.
The third element is that Islam is strongly dominated by a sexual morality derived from tribal Arab values dating from the time the Prophet received his instructions from Allah, a culture in which women were the property of their fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, or guardians. The essence of a woman is reduced to her hymen. Her veil functions as a constant reminder to the outside world of this stifling morality that makes Muslim men the owners of women and obliges them to prevent their mothers, sisters, aunts, sisters in law, cousins, nieces, and wives from having sexual contact. And we are not just talking about cohabitation. It is an offense if a woman glances in the direction of a man, brushes past his arm, or shakes his hand. A man's reputation and honor depend entirely on the respectable, obedient behavior of the female members of his family.
These three elements explain largely why Muslim nations are lagging behind the West and, more recently,how much is replica cartier love ring, also lagging behind Asia. In order to break through the mental bars of this trinity, behind which the majority of Muslims are restrained, we must begin with a critical self examination. But any Muslim who asks critical questions about Islam is immediately branded a "deserter." A Muslim who advocates the exploration of sources for morality, in addition to those of the Prophet Muhammad, will be threatened with death, and a woman who withdraws from the virgins' cage is branded a whore.
Through my personal experiences, through reading a great deal and speaking to others, I have come to realize that the existence of Allah, of angels, demons, and a life after death, is at the very least disputable. If Allah exists at all, we must not regard His word as absolute, but challenge it. I once wrote about my doubts regarding my faith in the hope of starting a discussion. I was immediately confronted by zealous Muslims, men and women who wanted to have me excommunicated. They even went so far as to say that I deserved to die because I had dared to call into question the absolute truth of Allah's word. They took me to court to prevent me from criticizing the faith I had been born into, from asking questions about the regulations and gods that Allah's messenger has imposed upon us. An Islamic fundamentalist murdered Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who helped me make Submission: Part I, a film about the relationship between the individual and God, in particular about the individual woman and God. And he threatened to kill me, too, a threat that others have also pledged to fulfill.
Like other thinking people, I like to tap into sources of wisdom, morality, and imagination other than religious texts other books besides the Koran and accounts of the Prophet and I would like other Muslims to tap into them, too. Just because Spinoza, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, Kant, or Bertrand Russell are not Islamic and have no Islamic counterparts does not mean that Muslims should steer clear of these and other Western philosophers. Yet, at present, reading works by Western thinkers is regarded as disrespectful to the Prophet and Allah's message. This is a serious misconception. Why should it not be permitted to abide by all the good things Muhammad has urged us to do (such as his advice to be charitable toward the poor and orphans), while at the same time adding to our lives and outlook the ideas of other moral philosophers? After all, the fact that the Wright brothers were not Islamic has not stopped Muslims from traveling by air. By adopting the technical inventions of the West without its courage to think independently, we perpetuate the mental stagnation in Islamic culture, passing it on from one generation to the next.
The most important explanation for the mental and material backlog we Muslims find ourselves in should probably be sought in the sexual morality that we are force fed from birth (see chapter 3, "The Virgins' Cage"). I would like to invite all people like me who had an Islamic upbringing to compare and contrast J. S. Mill's essay "On the Subjection of Women" (1869) with what the Prophet Muhammad has to say on the subject of women. Both were undeniably interested in the role of women, but there is a vast difference between Muhammad and Mill. Mill, a model of calm reason in the face of contentious issues, argued that if freedom is good for men, it is good for women, a position that today most of the modern world considers unassailable.
Yet any investigation into the Islamic trinity by a Muslim is thought to be an act of complete betrayal of the religion and the Prophet. It is extremely painful for a believer to try to question. And it is extremely painful for a believer to hear that other Muslims are questioning the Islamic trinity. Muslim's strong emotions and condemnations of people who do question the trinity impress outsiders, myself included, especially when they are expressed on a massive scale by entire communities and even nations, as has happened in Egypt, Iran, and Indonesia.
Think, for instance, of the murder of Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam, a Western city in a Western democracy, for exercising his free speech rights to look critically at Islam in Submission: Part I, the film he and I made. While you may have heard of the death threats that have been made also against me for this film, you may not know that when I initially spoke on the immoral practices of the Prophet Muhammad, more than one hundred fifty complaints were made against me to the police and the government. Four ambassadors visited my party leaders ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia. They carried a letter attached to which was a list of twenty one countries belonging to the Islamic Conference including Turkey that supported the letter. The main complaint in their letter was that I had insulted the Prophet and had deeply hurt the feelings of more than 1 billion Muslims. Death threats followed against me and also against the leader of my party when he refused to take seriously this complaint and evict me from Parliament.
Think also of the reaction to the Miss World beauty pageant in Nigeria in 2002. Religious extremists protested the holding of the contest and became violently inflamed when a Christian journalist in an independent newspaper suggested, in reply to the scolding question, What would the Prophet Muhammad make of this improper display of women's beauty and bodies?, that the Prophet may have chosen a new wife from the contestants had he been alive today. This was felt to be a grave insult to the Prophet. During the subsequent protests, the office of the newspaper was burned down; two hundred people were killed and at least five hundred were injured.
Think also of the aftermath of Newsweek's story in May 2005, of a 2002 FBI report made available to the journalist, that a soldier had flushed a Koran down a toilet at Guantnamo Bay, where Afghan and Pakistani soldiers suspected of being Taliban members are being held after capture in Afghanistan. Violent protests erupted in Pakistan and Afghanistan and lasted for several days; at least sixteen people were killed. All the artists he approached said, No, we can't do it; we fear Muslim reprisals and would fear for our lives. Twelve cartoonists agreed, and the newspaper published their images in September 2005. Muslim organizations immediately demanded an apology, which the editor in chief refused to make, saying that a democracy makes use of all means of expression, including satire, and the images were not intended to insult the Prophet or Muslims. Nonetheless, 3,000 of the 187,000 Muslims living in Denmark protested the paper, which had to post guards as a result of death threats. Eleven foreign ambassadors visited the paper to complain. Months later, in January 2006, Muslim countries began to boycott Danish products. The Danish economy lost some 90 million euros in about a week; companies were forced to lay off hundreds of employees. In February, newspapers in other European countries published the images in support of Denmark and freedom of the press. Islamic extremists attacked and burned the Danish embassy in Beirut; one person was killed. Other European embassies in Islamic countries were attacked. A Christian priest was killed by a Turkish man screaming "God is great." As protests were fomented around the world, violence increased and the death toll mounted. Some moderate Muslims who called for restraint in Islamic countries were silenced by their governments, even jailed. Yet European governments are seriously considering limiting the freedom of the press to discuss Islam; some newspaper editors were fired for printing the cartoons. The tragedy for many Muslims is that their inability to criticize the dogma of religion in their own countries will be continued in Europe.
I am amazed that Muslims are not more offended by the invocation of Allah and "God is great" for murder than by cartoons. Why do Muslims not fly into flights of rage when people who go to help Iraqis are kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded in the name of Islam? Political cartoons that point up problems with an extremist religion are used to manipulate people into violence instead of reflection and debate. Freedom of expression for Muslims is a one way street; Muslims can criticize the West, but the West cannot criticize the practices of Islam.
I understand that a Muslim may feel a duty to scold anyone who attempts to call into question the absoluteness of God's word or someone who regards other sources of morality as equal, or superior even, to the Prophet Muhammad's. History shows that for many people to make a mental transition of this magnitude and question their beliefs is always a very slow process, and one that generates resistance and causes bloodshed. In this context I can place the murder of Theo van Gogh, the death threats and legal steps against me, and the intense rejection and condemnation of me as an individual, a heretic, and a blasphemer. Remember that the Protestant Reformation took many years of protest (the source of its name) as well as bloodshed and widespread unrest to establish itself firmly. A quick look at Islamic history shows us that critical voices from within Islam have almost all been either killed or exiled. I find myself in good company: Salman Rushdie, Irshad Manji, Taslima Nasreen, Muhammad Abu Zaid they all have been threatened by fellow believers and are now being guarded by non Muslims.
Nonetheless we who were brought up with Islam must summon the courage to break through this wall of emotional resistance or to climb over it, until eventually the number of critics grows large enough to counterbalance the entrenched opposition effectively. In order to achieve this we will need the help of the liberal West, whose interests are greatly served by a reform of Islam. But above all, we Muslims must help each other.
I am feeling optimistic about that reform. I base my optimism on positive signs, like the local elections in Saudi Arabia (although women were excluded from these elections, at least the elections were held); the successful elections in Iraq and Afghanistan (where a secular government has taken over after the Taliban); the demonstrations against the terror of the Islamic Party by journalists and academics in Morocco; and the promising agreements between Sharon and Abbas about the future of Israel and Palestine. Abbas is more reasonable than the late Arafat and seems to act in the interest of the Palestinians, and Israel's giving back the land to the Palestinians for self rule is good progress, although the election in which Hamas became the ruling party is a setback. Another indication of progress is Pakistan's acceptance of Israeli aid to the victims of the terrible October 8, 2005, earthquake. Of course, I realize that these are quite recent developments.
I am optimistic, and I normally would have looked to the West for help in reforming Islam, from secular liberals, Westerners who are traditionally opposed to the enforcement of religious beliefs and customs. In certain countries, "left wing," secular liberals have stimulated my critical thinking and that of other Muslims. But these same liberals in Western politics have the strange habit of blaming themselves for the ills of the world, while seeing the rest of the world as victims. To them, victims are to be pitied,cartier replica diamond band ring, and they lump together all pitiable and suppressed people, such as Muslims, and consider them good people who should be cherished and supported so that they can overcome their disadvantages. The adherents to the gospel of multiculturalism refuse to criticize people whom they see as victims. Some Western critics disapprove of United States policies and attitudes but do not criticize the Islamic world, just as, in the first part of the twentieth century, Western socialist apologists did not dare criticize the Soviet labor camps. Along the same lines, some Western intellectuals criticize Israel, but they will not criticize Palestine because Israel belongs to the West, which they consider fair game, but they feel sorry for the Palestinians, and for the Islamic world in general, which is not as powerful as the West. They are critical of the native white majority in Western countries but not of Islamic minorities. Criticism of the Islamic world, of Palestinians, and of Islamic minorities is regarded as Islamophobia and xenophobia.
I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My own criticism of Islamic religion and culture is felt by some to be "harsh," "offensive," and "hurtful." But the attitude of the cultural experts is,cartier replica yellow gold love ring, in fact, harsher, and more offensive and hurtful. They feel superior and do not regard Muslims as equal discussion partners, but as the "others" who should be shielded. And they think that criticism of Islam should be avoided because they are afraid that Muslims can only respond to criticism with anger and violence. These cultural experts are badly letting down us Muslims who have obeyed the call to show our sense of public responsibility and are speaking out.
Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a native of Somalia who emigrated to The Netherlands in the early 1990s, is no stranger to controversy among her fellow Muslims. Living in the West, she felt free to publicly criticize Islam's treatment of women.
But that freedom came at a price. In 2004, a short film Ali scripted called Submission was shown on Dutch television. In the film, naked women veiled with see through shrouds painted with verses of the Quran kneel in prayer, telling their stories as if they are speaking to Allah. A letter pinned to the body with a dagger threatened Ali's life. Since then, she has been under the constant protection of body guards.
The danger hasn't stopped her from remaining outspoken about her beliefs. American President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and numerous other leaders in the West asked Muslim organizations in their countries to distance themselves from Islam as preached by these nineteen terrorists. This plea was met with indignation from Muslims who thought it was inappropriate to hold them responsible for the criminal conduct of nineteen young men. Yet the fact that the people who committed the attacks on September 11 were Muslims, and the fact that before this date Muslims in many parts of the world were already harboring feelings of immense resentment toward the United States in particular, have urged me to investigate whether the roots of evil can be traced to the faith I grew up with: was the aggression, the hatred inherent in Islam itself?
My parents brought me up to be a Muslim a good Muslim. Islam dominated the lives of our family and relations down to the smallest detail. It was our ideology, our political conviction, our moral standard, our law, and our identity. We were first and foremost Muslim and only then Somali. Muslims, as we were taught the meaning of the name, are people who submit themselves to Allah's will, which is found in the Koran and the Hadith, a collection of sayings ascribed to the Prophet Muhammad. I was taught that Islam sets us apart from the rest of the world, the world of non Muslims. We Muslims are chosen by God. They, the others, the kaffirs, the unbelievers, are antisocial, impure,cartier replica black diamond ring, barbaric, not circumcised, immoral, unscrupulous, and above all, obscene; they have no respect for women; their girls and women are whores; many of the men are homosexual; men and women have sex without being married. The unfaithful are cursed, and God will punish them most atrociously in the hereafter.
When my sister and I were small, we would occasionally make remarks about nice people who were not Muslim, but my mother and grandmother would always say, "No, they are not good people. They know about the Koran and the Prophet and Allah, and yet they haven't come to see that the only thing a person can be is Muslim. They are blind. If they were such nice and good people, they would have become Muslims and then Allah would protect them against evil. But it is up to them. If they become Muslims, they will go to paradise."
There are also Christians and Jews who raise their children in the belief that they are God's chosen people, but among Muslims the feeling that God has granted them special salvation goes further.
About twelve years ago, at age twenty two, I arrived in Western Europe, on the run from an arranged marriage. I soon learned that God and His truth had been humanized here. For Muslims life on earth is merely a transitory stage before the hereafter; but here people are also allowed to invest in their lives as mortals. What is more, hell seems no longer to exist, and God is a god of love rather than a cruel ruler who metes out punishments. I began to take a more critical look at my faith and discovered three important elements of Islam that had not particularly struck me before.
The first of these is that a Muslim's relationship with his God is one of fear. A Muslim's conception of God is absolute. Our God demands total submission. He rewards you if you follow His rules meticulously. He punishes you cruelly if you break His rules, both on earth, with illness and natural disasters, and in the hereafter, with hellfire.
The second element is that Islam knows only one moral source: the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad is infallible. You would almost believe he is himself a god, but the Koran says explicitly that Muhammad is a human being; he is a supreme human being, though, the most perfect human being. We must live our lives according to his example. What is written in the Koran is what God said as it was heard by Muhammad. The thousands of hadiths accounts of what Muhammad said and did, and the advice he gave, which survives in weighty books tell us exactly how a Muslim was supposed to live in the seventh century. Devout Muslims consult these works daily to answer questions about life in the twenty first century.
The third element is that Islam is strongly dominated by a sexual morality derived from tribal Arab values dating from the time the Prophet received his instructions from Allah, a culture in which women were the property of their fathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, or guardians. The essence of a woman is reduced to her hymen. Her veil functions as a constant reminder to the outside world of this stifling morality that makes Muslim men the owners of women and obliges them to prevent their mothers, sisters, aunts, sisters in law, cousins, nieces, and wives from having sexual contact. And we are not just talking about cohabitation. It is an offense if a woman glances in the direction of a man, brushes past his arm, or shakes his hand. A man's reputation and honor depend entirely on the respectable, obedient behavior of the female members of his family.
These three elements explain largely why Muslim nations are lagging behind the West and, more recently,how much is replica cartier love ring, also lagging behind Asia. In order to break through the mental bars of this trinity, behind which the majority of Muslims are restrained, we must begin with a critical self examination. But any Muslim who asks critical questions about Islam is immediately branded a "deserter." A Muslim who advocates the exploration of sources for morality, in addition to those of the Prophet Muhammad, will be threatened with death, and a woman who withdraws from the virgins' cage is branded a whore.
Through my personal experiences, through reading a great deal and speaking to others, I have come to realize that the existence of Allah, of angels, demons, and a life after death, is at the very least disputable. If Allah exists at all, we must not regard His word as absolute, but challenge it. I once wrote about my doubts regarding my faith in the hope of starting a discussion. I was immediately confronted by zealous Muslims, men and women who wanted to have me excommunicated. They even went so far as to say that I deserved to die because I had dared to call into question the absolute truth of Allah's word. They took me to court to prevent me from criticizing the faith I had been born into, from asking questions about the regulations and gods that Allah's messenger has imposed upon us. An Islamic fundamentalist murdered Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who helped me make Submission: Part I, a film about the relationship between the individual and God, in particular about the individual woman and God. And he threatened to kill me, too, a threat that others have also pledged to fulfill.
Like other thinking people, I like to tap into sources of wisdom, morality, and imagination other than religious texts other books besides the Koran and accounts of the Prophet and I would like other Muslims to tap into them, too. Just because Spinoza, Voltaire, John Stuart Mill, Kant, or Bertrand Russell are not Islamic and have no Islamic counterparts does not mean that Muslims should steer clear of these and other Western philosophers. Yet, at present, reading works by Western thinkers is regarded as disrespectful to the Prophet and Allah's message. This is a serious misconception. Why should it not be permitted to abide by all the good things Muhammad has urged us to do (such as his advice to be charitable toward the poor and orphans), while at the same time adding to our lives and outlook the ideas of other moral philosophers? After all, the fact that the Wright brothers were not Islamic has not stopped Muslims from traveling by air. By adopting the technical inventions of the West without its courage to think independently, we perpetuate the mental stagnation in Islamic culture, passing it on from one generation to the next.
The most important explanation for the mental and material backlog we Muslims find ourselves in should probably be sought in the sexual morality that we are force fed from birth (see chapter 3, "The Virgins' Cage"). I would like to invite all people like me who had an Islamic upbringing to compare and contrast J. S. Mill's essay "On the Subjection of Women" (1869) with what the Prophet Muhammad has to say on the subject of women. Both were undeniably interested in the role of women, but there is a vast difference between Muhammad and Mill. Mill, a model of calm reason in the face of contentious issues, argued that if freedom is good for men, it is good for women, a position that today most of the modern world considers unassailable.
Yet any investigation into the Islamic trinity by a Muslim is thought to be an act of complete betrayal of the religion and the Prophet. It is extremely painful for a believer to try to question. And it is extremely painful for a believer to hear that other Muslims are questioning the Islamic trinity. Muslim's strong emotions and condemnations of people who do question the trinity impress outsiders, myself included, especially when they are expressed on a massive scale by entire communities and even nations, as has happened in Egypt, Iran, and Indonesia.
Think, for instance, of the murder of Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam, a Western city in a Western democracy, for exercising his free speech rights to look critically at Islam in Submission: Part I, the film he and I made. While you may have heard of the death threats that have been made also against me for this film, you may not know that when I initially spoke on the immoral practices of the Prophet Muhammad, more than one hundred fifty complaints were made against me to the police and the government. Four ambassadors visited my party leaders ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, Malaysia. They carried a letter attached to which was a list of twenty one countries belonging to the Islamic Conference including Turkey that supported the letter. The main complaint in their letter was that I had insulted the Prophet and had deeply hurt the feelings of more than 1 billion Muslims. Death threats followed against me and also against the leader of my party when he refused to take seriously this complaint and evict me from Parliament.
Think also of the reaction to the Miss World beauty pageant in Nigeria in 2002. Religious extremists protested the holding of the contest and became violently inflamed when a Christian journalist in an independent newspaper suggested, in reply to the scolding question, What would the Prophet Muhammad make of this improper display of women's beauty and bodies?, that the Prophet may have chosen a new wife from the contestants had he been alive today. This was felt to be a grave insult to the Prophet. During the subsequent protests, the office of the newspaper was burned down; two hundred people were killed and at least five hundred were injured.
Think also of the aftermath of Newsweek's story in May 2005, of a 2002 FBI report made available to the journalist, that a soldier had flushed a Koran down a toilet at Guantnamo Bay, where Afghan and Pakistani soldiers suspected of being Taliban members are being held after capture in Afghanistan. Violent protests erupted in Pakistan and Afghanistan and lasted for several days; at least sixteen people were killed. All the artists he approached said, No, we can't do it; we fear Muslim reprisals and would fear for our lives. Twelve cartoonists agreed, and the newspaper published their images in September 2005. Muslim organizations immediately demanded an apology, which the editor in chief refused to make, saying that a democracy makes use of all means of expression, including satire, and the images were not intended to insult the Prophet or Muslims. Nonetheless, 3,000 of the 187,000 Muslims living in Denmark protested the paper, which had to post guards as a result of death threats. Eleven foreign ambassadors visited the paper to complain. Months later, in January 2006, Muslim countries began to boycott Danish products. The Danish economy lost some 90 million euros in about a week; companies were forced to lay off hundreds of employees. In February, newspapers in other European countries published the images in support of Denmark and freedom of the press. Islamic extremists attacked and burned the Danish embassy in Beirut; one person was killed. Other European embassies in Islamic countries were attacked. A Christian priest was killed by a Turkish man screaming "God is great." As protests were fomented around the world, violence increased and the death toll mounted. Some moderate Muslims who called for restraint in Islamic countries were silenced by their governments, even jailed. Yet European governments are seriously considering limiting the freedom of the press to discuss Islam; some newspaper editors were fired for printing the cartoons. The tragedy for many Muslims is that their inability to criticize the dogma of religion in their own countries will be continued in Europe.
I am amazed that Muslims are not more offended by the invocation of Allah and "God is great" for murder than by cartoons. Why do Muslims not fly into flights of rage when people who go to help Iraqis are kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded in the name of Islam? Political cartoons that point up problems with an extremist religion are used to manipulate people into violence instead of reflection and debate. Freedom of expression for Muslims is a one way street; Muslims can criticize the West, but the West cannot criticize the practices of Islam.
I understand that a Muslim may feel a duty to scold anyone who attempts to call into question the absoluteness of God's word or someone who regards other sources of morality as equal, or superior even, to the Prophet Muhammad's. History shows that for many people to make a mental transition of this magnitude and question their beliefs is always a very slow process, and one that generates resistance and causes bloodshed. In this context I can place the murder of Theo van Gogh, the death threats and legal steps against me, and the intense rejection and condemnation of me as an individual, a heretic, and a blasphemer. Remember that the Protestant Reformation took many years of protest (the source of its name) as well as bloodshed and widespread unrest to establish itself firmly. A quick look at Islamic history shows us that critical voices from within Islam have almost all been either killed or exiled. I find myself in good company: Salman Rushdie, Irshad Manji, Taslima Nasreen, Muhammad Abu Zaid they all have been threatened by fellow believers and are now being guarded by non Muslims.
Nonetheless we who were brought up with Islam must summon the courage to break through this wall of emotional resistance or to climb over it, until eventually the number of critics grows large enough to counterbalance the entrenched opposition effectively. In order to achieve this we will need the help of the liberal West, whose interests are greatly served by a reform of Islam. But above all, we Muslims must help each other.
I am feeling optimistic about that reform. I base my optimism on positive signs, like the local elections in Saudi Arabia (although women were excluded from these elections, at least the elections were held); the successful elections in Iraq and Afghanistan (where a secular government has taken over after the Taliban); the demonstrations against the terror of the Islamic Party by journalists and academics in Morocco; and the promising agreements between Sharon and Abbas about the future of Israel and Palestine. Abbas is more reasonable than the late Arafat and seems to act in the interest of the Palestinians, and Israel's giving back the land to the Palestinians for self rule is good progress, although the election in which Hamas became the ruling party is a setback. Another indication of progress is Pakistan's acceptance of Israeli aid to the victims of the terrible October 8, 2005, earthquake. Of course, I realize that these are quite recent developments.
I am optimistic, and I normally would have looked to the West for help in reforming Islam, from secular liberals, Westerners who are traditionally opposed to the enforcement of religious beliefs and customs. In certain countries, "left wing," secular liberals have stimulated my critical thinking and that of other Muslims. But these same liberals in Western politics have the strange habit of blaming themselves for the ills of the world, while seeing the rest of the world as victims. To them, victims are to be pitied,cartier replica diamond band ring, and they lump together all pitiable and suppressed people, such as Muslims, and consider them good people who should be cherished and supported so that they can overcome their disadvantages. The adherents to the gospel of multiculturalism refuse to criticize people whom they see as victims. Some Western critics disapprove of United States policies and attitudes but do not criticize the Islamic world, just as, in the first part of the twentieth century, Western socialist apologists did not dare criticize the Soviet labor camps. Along the same lines, some Western intellectuals criticize Israel, but they will not criticize Palestine because Israel belongs to the West, which they consider fair game, but they feel sorry for the Palestinians, and for the Islamic world in general, which is not as powerful as the West. They are critical of the native white majority in Western countries but not of Islamic minorities. Criticism of the Islamic world, of Palestinians, and of Islamic minorities is regarded as Islamophobia and xenophobia.
I cannot emphasize enough how wrongheaded this is. Withholding criticism and ignoring differences are racism in its purest form. Yet these cultural experts fail to notice that, through their anxious avoidance of criticizing non Western countries, they trap the people who represent these cultures in a state of backwardness. The experts may have the best of intentions, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My own criticism of Islamic religion and culture is felt by some to be "harsh," "offensive," and "hurtful." But the attitude of the cultural experts is,cartier replica yellow gold love ring, in fact, harsher, and more offensive and hurtful. They feel superior and do not regard Muslims as equal discussion partners, but as the "others" who should be shielded. And they think that criticism of Islam should be avoided because they are afraid that Muslims can only respond to criticism with anger and violence. These cultural experts are badly letting down us Muslims who have obeyed the call to show our sense of public responsibility and are speaking out.
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A Democratic plan for big middle class tax breaks
Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, unveiled his proposed tax cuts on Monday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
If you and your spouse make less than $200,000 and have kids, or if you're single and make less than $100,000, you would benefit from new tax proposals put out by a top House Democrat on Monday. But if you're in the top 1% of earners meaning you make at least $435,000 you'd be footing the bill.
Representative Chris Van Hollen,cartier replica wedding ring sets, the leading Democrat on the House Budget Committee, estimates his proposal would provide $1.2 trillion in tax cuts over a decade.
The plan, which is not part of any bill yet, has not been officially analyzed. But Van Hollen said his proposals wouldn't add to the deficit because he would pay for them by curbing tax breaks for the rich and taxing financial trades.
Under his plan, the percentage of tax filers who end up owing no federal taxes would "almost certainly" increase, said Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
But Van Hollen's proposals have virtually no chance of becoming law in a Republican controlled House and Senate.
"For Democrats, the calculation is strictly political," Greg Valliere, chief political strategist for the Potomac Research Group, wrote in a note.
Related: Top 1%: What they made,love ring replica cartier, what they paid
Here is some of what Van Hollen's proposal would create:
A $1,cartier replica ring online,000 paycheck bonus tax credit: This would provide every worker making up to $100,000 with a $1,cartier replica ring box for sale,000 tax credit which would reduce their federal tax bill by $1,000.
A saver's bonus: Any worker who saves at least $500 of his $1,000 tax credit would get an additional $250 to add to his savings.
A bigger child and dependent care credit: Parents who pay for child or dependent care would be able to take a larger credit. Today the maximum credit is between $1,200 and $1,800, depending on your income. Under Van Hollen's proposal, you can get a credit up to $4,000.
A second earner tax deduction: Two earner couples with kids would receive a 20% tax deduction on up to $60,000 of income.
Van Hollen estimates that a couple making $90,000 in which one spouse earns $60,000 and the other $30,000 would save about $900 as a result.
Related: Wealth gap between middle class and rich widest ever
His plan would also:
Encourage big employers to pay workers more: Van Hollen proposes a few ways to use the tax code to incentivize corporations to boost worker pay.
He would bar corporations from deducting CEO pay over $1 million unless they also provide workers with pay increases in line with worker productivity and inflation. Big companies would also not be able to take the deduction if they lay off workers in a given tax year.
Van Hollen didn't specify just how much he'd curb their benefits, or which ones would be affected. But he did note that the top 1% benefit disproportionately from the major tax breaks on the books.
Such major breaks include the tax free treatment of employer contributions to workers' health insurance; tax preferred retirement savings; state and local tax deductions; and reduced rates on capital gains and dividends.
Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, unveiled his proposed tax cuts on Monday at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
If you and your spouse make less than $200,000 and have kids, or if you're single and make less than $100,000, you would benefit from new tax proposals put out by a top House Democrat on Monday. But if you're in the top 1% of earners meaning you make at least $435,000 you'd be footing the bill.
Representative Chris Van Hollen,cartier replica wedding ring sets, the leading Democrat on the House Budget Committee, estimates his proposal would provide $1.2 trillion in tax cuts over a decade.
The plan, which is not part of any bill yet, has not been officially analyzed. But Van Hollen said his proposals wouldn't add to the deficit because he would pay for them by curbing tax breaks for the rich and taxing financial trades.
Under his plan, the percentage of tax filers who end up owing no federal taxes would "almost certainly" increase, said Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center.
But Van Hollen's proposals have virtually no chance of becoming law in a Republican controlled House and Senate.
"For Democrats, the calculation is strictly political," Greg Valliere, chief political strategist for the Potomac Research Group, wrote in a note.
Related: Top 1%: What they made,love ring replica cartier, what they paid
Here is some of what Van Hollen's proposal would create:
A $1,cartier replica ring online,000 paycheck bonus tax credit: This would provide every worker making up to $100,000 with a $1,cartier replica ring box for sale,000 tax credit which would reduce their federal tax bill by $1,000.
A saver's bonus: Any worker who saves at least $500 of his $1,000 tax credit would get an additional $250 to add to his savings.
A bigger child and dependent care credit: Parents who pay for child or dependent care would be able to take a larger credit. Today the maximum credit is between $1,200 and $1,800, depending on your income. Under Van Hollen's proposal, you can get a credit up to $4,000.
A second earner tax deduction: Two earner couples with kids would receive a 20% tax deduction on up to $60,000 of income.
Van Hollen estimates that a couple making $90,000 in which one spouse earns $60,000 and the other $30,000 would save about $900 as a result.
Related: Wealth gap between middle class and rich widest ever
His plan would also:
Encourage big employers to pay workers more: Van Hollen proposes a few ways to use the tax code to incentivize corporations to boost worker pay.
He would bar corporations from deducting CEO pay over $1 million unless they also provide workers with pay increases in line with worker productivity and inflation. Big companies would also not be able to take the deduction if they lay off workers in a given tax year.
Van Hollen didn't specify just how much he'd curb their benefits, or which ones would be affected. But he did note that the top 1% benefit disproportionately from the major tax breaks on the books.
Such major breaks include the tax free treatment of employer contributions to workers' health insurance; tax preferred retirement savings; state and local tax deductions; and reduced rates on capital gains and dividends.
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