Movies of Summer 2006
Due to the fact that I was out of the COUNTRY for most of 2006, I spent the better part of my summer catching up on all the films that I missed, courtesy of the Blockbuster month-long movie pass.

V for Vendetta: B+

Crash: A+

Domino: A- (SURPRISINGLY good)

History of Violence: B+

Land of the Blind: C+

Lost City: B-

The Libertine: C

Kingdom of Heaven: C+
- posted by Nicole @ 8:03 PM

 
I Have Such Cool Friends
I don't really care if Barb thinks posting NYT articles is a cop-out. Especially not in this circumstance, because THIS particular article was written by one of my best friends! That's right: my FRIEND, Beth Dickinson, has - at the ripe old age of 21 years old - been published in the NEW YORK TIMES!


Dakar Journal:
Spare Change Is Big Business in a Culture of Generosity

By ELIZABETH DICKINSON
Published: August 21, 2006
DAKAR, Senegal Aug. 16 — Every morning at 9 a.m., Mamadou Sorro makes his rush-hour commute through this seaside capital, expertly guiding his wheels through the stream of pedestrians, cars and scooters.

His journey is short — from the patch of sidewalk where he spends his nights to his regular corner, outside a government building. On a good day he can clear $5.

Mr. Sorro is a beggar, one of thousands who ply the streets here in a city famous across West Africa for its generosity. He moved here from Ivory Coast after a war injury left him disabled. He had heard about Senegal’s tradition of charity, born of its particular brand of Sufi Islam that requires its adherents to give freely in the hopes of increasing their bounty a thousandfold.

These days, though, Mr. Sorro is feeling trapped, and not just by the wheelchair he uses. Dakar’s benevolence is being strained as ever larger numbers of beggars, many of them from neighboring countries like Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, choke the streets.

Begging here once brought in as much as $10 a day, which is about what a blue-collar worker in the region makes nowadays. But, the police have begun chasing Mr. Sorro and his friends away from their normal posts, trying to clean up the city’s image, and the generous hands of Dakar are growing fatigued.

“You can’t walk in peace in the city of Dakar anymore,” said Aminata Diaw, a history professor here at the University Cheikh Anta Diop, who has studied the culture of charity and begging in Senegal.

Almost all African capitals are crowded with beggars. The World Bank estimates Africa’s cities are growing twice as fast as the rest of the world’s cities. But Dakar has a special allure for the indigent, and the country’s relatively robust economy adds to its drawing power.

“Sixty percent of the beggars come from Mali and Guinea alone because this is a religious country that gives greatly to the poor,” said Assan Sagne, an expert on micro-finance for the government’s Project to Fight Poverty. “The beggars understand that Senegalese culture is morally obliged to help them.”

On a recent Friday, a day of prayer, it was not long before Mr. Sorro’s first patron dropped spare change into his calloused hands. In 2002, Mr. Sorro, 42, left his wife and two children at home to try his luck here.

“I looked at my situation at home,” he said. “When I had the occasion to come, I did.”

Dakar has another category of beggars as well. Impoverished village families often send their boys to the cities to attend Koranic schools, where they are expected to support themselves by begging.

The boys are known as talibé, and 100,000 of them wander the streets of Senegal’s cities.

Outside idling buses and taxicab windows, the boys chant Arabic prayers for coins, food or sugar cubes. Some find the system exploitative, and rumors abound of imams who amass significant wealth from their charges.

Nevertheless, people give, freely and often.

“It is not only the poor in our society who need this culture of charity, but the rich as well,” Professor Diaw said. “People give for better luck in their studies, their work, or their lives. They think it is something concrete on the path to heaven.”

Even though Amina N’Doye, a 27-year-old hairdresser, struggles to pay the rent for her hair salon, she follows the suggestion of her imam and gives milk to a group of hungry talibé. “Giving brings blessing and benediction to your work,” she said.

A 50-year-old disabled man who calls himself Sensou said: “It hits the people of Dakar on the day of prayer to see beggars. They are always more generous.” He came to Dakar 20 years ago from the southern town of Fouta, where his family still lives.

Sensou looked around and then quietly opened his hands to show his daily earnings: exactly three coins so far. He counts on bigger donations on the days of prayer — Thursdays and Fridays — to help pay his $40 a week rent for a room downtown.

But with Dakar becoming ever more cosmopolitan — from ice cream shops to government conferences — the beggars do not seem to fit in anymore.

“There is a confrontation growing,” said Professor Diaw. She said the beggars clustered around the pastry and ice cream shops in the center of the city that are popular with well-to-do residents. “Since you are eating dessert, it means you have already eaten and are no longer hungry. Beggars come to confront you because they know you have means.”

Babacar Faye, chief of accident prevention for the city’s Traffic Commission, recently told local reporters that beggars were “posing serious problems, especially on Friday mornings.”

Mr. Sorro said he was tired of waiting for Thursday and Friday, and afraid that even those days might soon be gone.

“I usually get enough to eat, and that is all,” he said.

“If I could, I would be back in Ivory Coast,” he said. “Dakar is hard. But if you leave, you cannot survive begging. In any case, I’m here.”
- posted by Nicole @ 1:13 PM

 
I Hate (American) Television News
I was reminded why I try to avoid watching television news (like the plague) this past week during that whole foiled-terrorism-plot business. Interested in learning more about this remarkable event, I turned on the TV. I was smart enough to avoid FOX news which, I believe, is the root of all evil, and so settled for switching between MSNBC and CNN. Within five minutes, I wanted to pull my hair out. It was exactly as I remembered - heavy on the drama, thin on substance. The utter lack of any meaningful information astounded me. These 24-hour news channels place so much emphasis on imagery and triumphantly proclaiming that they have "global coverage" (whatever that means) of events, that they forget to actually report the news. They keep repeating the same, superficial bits of information over and over again, so that after you watch it for five minutes, you've heard everything they have to say. Yet, they manage to keep this going for twenty-four hours straight?!?

Nearly driven out of my mind, I went to the computer to seek refuge in BBC.com, where you can stream their news broadcasts. I was overwhelmed by the superiority of their coverage. In five mintues, I learned more than I ever would have gotten from five hours of watching American tv news. There's no dramatic music, no flashy images, just people. People talking. About what's happening. And not just news anchors, but experts and scientists and professors and religious leaders. They addressed my questions and skepticism - eg: they had a scientist who explained how such small quantities of volatile liquids could produce an explosion big enough to bring down a 747, what sort of chemicals could be used, how the plot might have been carried out. Then they had someone on to elaborate on possible MOTIVES driving the terrorists to such commit such actions (rather than reciting the meaningless propaganga our president was spewing in his short speech from the airport in Green Bay - blah blah blah, the terrorists hate freedom, blah blah blah, evildoers, blah blah blah. No, George, the terrorists DON'T hate freedom, they actually hate your foreign policy and the way its propogated in their part of the world. Grrrr... THIS JUST IN: WE ARE NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE IN THE SO-CALLED "WAR ON TERROR" IF WE CANNOT COME UP WITH A BETTER EXPLANATION FOR TERRORIST ACTIVITY BESIDES "THEY HATE FREEDOM"....sorry, bit of a sore spot with me...).

What a concept (that American programs would do well to emulate) - BBC actually communicates meaningful, relevant, insightful information, as well as models rational dialogue on the issues at hand. BRILLIANT!
- posted by Nicole @ 4:32 PM