Category: Art & Culture

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The Jordan Journal content – Teachings Of Ramon Jimenez – are free for his memorial anniversary

NY Times photo of Ramon Jimenez
Foto Source: @NYTimes article: Activist Is Celebrated at the College He Helped Save

On May 10th, 2016 at the age of 67 activist Ramon Jimenez passed away of prostate cancer. The Harvard-trained lawyer, litigator, activist, writer, former administrative law judge, and journalist was a permanent fixture in the movement for social justice and a champion of progressive struggles. He led the fight to save Hostos Community College in the South Bronx, organized rallies against police brutality, took on South Bronx corrupt politicians and spearheaded a campaign that led to the removal of a corrupt National Puerto Rican Day Parade board to one with a more reform-oriented bent. On the electoral front this fiercely proud and apologetically Black Puerto Rican disenchanted with the Republican and Democratic duopoly was the Attorney General candidate for the Freedom Party and the Green Party read more

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The Masuo women in China are their community’s leaders

mosuo woman
Source: http://stuckenschmidt-aw.de.tl

In China’s Himalayan region is a tribe run by women, where all of the major rules and transactions are handled by women. Children are cared for communally and may not know their true fathers. They are raised in homes with grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Jump to The Guardian’s article The kingdom of women: the society where a man is never the boss.

Hat tip to Leen De-Weerd Mosley for the fun share.

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10 year old girl sings a sweet, pure and strong “Hallelujah” that might make you cry

Killard House School choir
Source: Killard House School via YouTube

Ireland has music deep in its soul. Phenomenal 10 year old Kayleigh Rogers leads her special classmates of The Killard House School in singing such a sweet, pure and strong Christmas rendition of Hallelujah that it brought me right to tears. It will do the same for you, if you’re lucky. God bless.

The BBC comments about Kayleigh’s stellar performance:

Kayleigh is one of 200 students aged three to 16 at Killard House School in Donaghadee, Northern Ireland … (she) often sings at the local Christmas concert at First Presbyterian Church, Newtownards, but this year she lost her voice and had to pull out of last Sunday’s service. Instead her headteacher played the video above, which had been filmed just weeks before at the school, and it left many of the congregation in tears. read more

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On live TV Pres. Obama offers the perfect comeback to Trump’s nasty tweet

Obama: at least I will go down as president
Source: Jimmy Kimmel Live via The Guardian and YouTube

The President responds to Trump’s tweet, “Obama will go down as perhaps the worst president in the history of the United States,” with the comment, “Well, @realDonaldTrump, at least I will go down as a … president … (mic drop)!”

That’s just one of the mean tweets the president read out and responded to on the Jimmy Kimmel show a couple of days ago. Our president does not disappoint.

Mean Tweets President Obama Edition 2015
Source: Jimmy Kimmel show

Here are some of the mean tweets Pres. Obama dealt with on the Jimmy Kimmel show last year.
read more

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Commissary Kitchen, a prison cookbook by a Mobb Deep rapper

mobb deep, prison chef
Source: Teddy Wolff/Infamous Books

A new cookbook is on the market about which its prison chef author Prodigy Johnson of the rap group Mobb Deep writes, “This book won’t make you a better cook, but it might make you a better person.”

Knowing what to eat and how to make it is evidently such an important part of prison life that there’s an entire cottage industry of cookbooks written on the subject. Inmate survival guides often have a section on food and how to use the commissary to augment prison diets. Commissary Kitchen: My Infamous Prison Cookbook, which will be published this month, is written by Prodigy and journalist Kathy Iandoli. read more

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Michelin enters the Singapore street food scene, causing both fame and disruption

Chan in the kitchen
Source: Michelin Guide Singapore via YouTube
52 year old chef Chan Hon Meng has been a street hawker all his life. Before his Singapore food stand opens each day, customers are already queued up to buy his delicious dishes, which costs $2 Singapore – or USD$1.87 – the lowest price Michelin-starred meals anywhere in the world.

When Michelin invited Chan to receive recognition for the excellent quality of his food, the Malaysian-born chef didn’t quite believe that the invitation was real. But a few weeks later in July 2016, he beamed from ear to ear as the company spokesman welcomed him on stage and awarded Chan’s Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle restaurant a single, coveted star. read more

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In Irvington & Jersey City police, fire & community join the Running Man Challenge!

Irvington Fire Fighters dancing
Source: Irvington Running Man Challenge video
Irvington’s video kicks off with a stunning vocal performance by Mayor Vaughn’s secretary and features crowd scenes of city employees rocking the beat and even breakdancing and performing acrobatic stunts.

In Jersey City’s video a police official orders officers to, “Get in there and dance. Have fun!” Even the K-9 unit obeys, dancing at the Hudson River’s edge with New York City for a backdrop. Scenes filmed around the city show its breadth of ethnic and arts diversity. read more

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Physicians for Social Responsibility & others to hold fart-in protest at DNC

Fart-in-Class
Source: WikiHow
The Philly Branch of Physicians for Social Responsibility is promoting a fart-in protest at the Democratic National Convention. USA News tells us what a fart-in is:

Advocates for poor people and progressive causes say they still plan to make a stink – literally – during Hillary Clinton’s big night accepting the Democratic presidential nomination this month.

The plan: feed beans to Democratic National Convention delegates for Bernie Sanders, and send them into the Philadelphia convention hall to show what they think of the former secretary of state… read more

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Filmmakers explore challenges gay life presents for Chinese families in China and abroad

Saving Face film
Source: Saving Face film cover
Homosexuality is a complicated topic in Chinese society, both in China and abroad.

Sophia Lavara directs Inside the Chinese Closet, a new documentary filmed in China about how families in this country hide a son or daughter’s homosexuality by pressuring them into fake marriages. Huck Magazine reports:

Both Cherry and Andy, the protagonists in the feature, have come out to their parents; frank and uncomfortable discussions between families are depicted on screen. “These marriages are still for the parents,” explains Sophia, “it’s funny to say that, as parents know their children are gay, but as long as they go on to have a “normal” life, getting married and bearing a child, the parents are seemingly happy.” Sophia suggests parents are less concerned by their children’s sex life, or with the gender of those people with whom they go on to have an affair. read more

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Hundreds of Asian Americans create Google Doc letter in 1 day to tell their families about the relevance of #BlackLivesMatter

An Open Letter
Source: Letters for Black Lives
Brian Fung of the Washington Post reports on a completely new phenomenon that came to life this week when Christina Xu started a letter online to explain to Asian elders why the #BlackLivesMatter movement has relevance and importance for the Asian community, called for community input and acquired hundreds of collaborators in the space of just a few hours.

In fact, let’s draft letters in our native languages to our parents and our communities. Get it passed around WhatsApp, WeChat, LINE, etc. read more

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Three short poems I wrote tonight in eight minutes

An exercise in the co-op management workshop I attended tonight put me in charge of motivating a team of poetry writers to produce poems; and then measure our production against the forecasts that I provided before we got started. Happy to say, my team of 7 awesome poem writers produced way above expectations, with many submitting more than one poem in each of two rounds of writing – that were each four minutes long. We had fun!

Here are my submissions. What do you think?

On a cool summer’s eve
I think about politics
I think about Wednesday
I think about going somewhere this weekend
The end of the workweek
Beginning of fun!!!
Oh, I like fun.
But, wait. My job is writing poems ….
So, really, I am having fun all week.
I guess I will need to work harder on the weekend:
To have MORE fun.
Sounds like a job.
Sounds like work.
I love work. read more