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texasobserver · 9 months

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“The Texas Observer’s 2023 Must-Read Lone Star Books” by Senior Editor Lise Olsen, with help from Susan Post of Austin's Bookwoman:

Despite a disturbing rise in book bans, Texas is, against all odds, becoming more and more of a literary hub with authors winning accolades, indie bookstores popping up from Galveston Island to El Paso, and ban-busting librarians and other book-lovers throwing festivals. So as you ponder gifts this holiday season or consider what to read by the fire or by the pool (who can say in December?), pick some Lone Star lit.

Here’s a list of #MustRead 2023 books by Texans or about Texas compiled by the Observer staff with help from Susan Post of Austin’s independent Bookwoman. (Several talented Texans also made best book lists in Slate magazine, The New Yorker, and NPR’s Books We Love.)

NONFICTION

We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America by Dallas journalist Roxanna Asgarian (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) is a dramatic takedown of the Texas foster care and family court system. It’s both a compelling narrative and an investigative tour de force.

The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine (Simon & Schuster) by Ricardo Nuila, a Houston physician and author, is an eye-opening and surprisingly optimistic read. Nuila delves deeply into what’s wrong with modern medicine by painting rich portraits of the patients he’s treated (and befriended) while working at Harris County’s Ben Taub Hospital, which offers free or low-cost—yet high-quality—care against all odds. Each of them had been forced into impossible positions and suffered additional trauma from obstacles and gaps in insurance, corporate medicine, and Big Pharma.

Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians and a Legacy of Rage (Simon & Schuster) by Fort Worth journalist Jeff Guinn is one of two books that mark the 30th anniversary of the standoff between the Branch Davidians and federal agents that ended with 86 deaths. (The other is Waco Rising by Kevin Cook.) Both authors recount how the 1993 tragedy shaped other extremist leaders in America—and still influences separatist movements today.

Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan (University of Texas Press) by Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay has been described as the quintessential Steely Dan book. As part of the project, LeMay, a native Houstonian, created 109 whimsical portraits of characters that sprang from the musicians’ lyrics and legends. In a review, fellow artist Melissa Messer wrote: “Looking at Joan’s oeuvre makes me feel tipsy, or like I’ve drunk Wonka’s Fizzy Lifting Drink and I’m swimming through the air after her, searching for the same vision.”

Memoir

Black Cameleon: Memory, Womanhood and Myth(Macmillan) by Debra D.E.E.P. Mouton, the former Houston poet Laureate, shares lyrical memories of her own life mixed with ample asides on Black culture and family lore. Her storylines sink deeply into a dream world, and yet readers emerge without forgetting her deeper messages.

Leg: The Story of a Limb and a Boy Who Grew from It (Abrams Books) by Greg Marshall of Austin has been described as “a hilarious and poignant memoir grappling with family, disability, and coming of age in two closets—as a gay man and as a man living with cerebral palsy.” NPR’s Scott Simon, who interviewed Marshall, described the memoir as “intimate, and I mean that in all ways—insightful and often laugh-out-loud funny.”

Up Home: One Girl’s Journey (Penguin Random House) by Ruth J. Simmonsis a powerful memoir from the Grapeland native who became the president of Brown University and thus, the first Black president of an Ivy League institution. Simmons begins by sharing stories about her parents, who were sharecroppers, and about her life as one of 12 children growing up in a tiny Texas town during the Jim Crow era. For her, the classroom became “a place of brilliant light unlike any our homes afforded.” (Simmons’s other academic credentials include being the former president of Smith College; president of Prairie View A&M University, Texas’s oldest HBCU; and the former vice provost of Princeton.)

Novels and Short Stories

An Autobiography of Skin(Penguin Random House) by Lakiesha Carr weaves together three powerful narratives all featuring Black women from Texas. Carr, a journalist originally from East Texas, plumbs the depths of each character’s struggles, sharing tales of gambling, lost love, abuse, and the power of women to overcome.

Holler, Child (Penguin Random House), a new short story collection from Latoya Watkins, was long-listed for the National Book Award. Her eleven tales press “at the bruises of guilt, love, and circumstance,” as the cover description promises, and introduce West Texas-inspired characters irrevocably shaped by place.

The Nursery (Pantheon Books) by Szilvia Molnar—a surprisingly honest, anatomically accurate (and unsettling) novel about new motherhood—begins: “I used to be a translator and now I am a milk bar.” It’s a riveting and original debut by Molnar, who is originally from Budapest, was raised in Sweden, and now lives in Austin.

Two legendary Austin writers weighed in with new novels on our tall stack of Texas goodreads: The Madstone (Little, Brown and Company) by Elizabeth Crook, the 2023 Texas Writer Award winner, and Mr. Texas, a fictional send-up of Texas politics by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright.

Poetry

Bookwoman’s Susan Post, who contributed titles to our list, also recommends filling your holiday shelves with poetry by and about Texans:

Dream Apartment (Copper Canyon Press) by Lisa Olstein;

Low (Gray Wolf Press) by Nick Flynn;

Freedom House by KB Brookins (published by Dallas’ Deep Vellum Bookstore & Publishing Co.)

Essays

Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry (University of Texas Press) edited by George Getchow, contains essays from a who’s who list of Texas writers about Larry McMurtry’s influence on Texas culture and their lives. It includes an array of reflections on history and the writing process as well as anecdotes about McMurtry’s off-beat and innovative life.

To Name the Bigger Lie (Simon & Schuster) by Sarah Viren, an ex-Texan who now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University, (excerpted in Lithub) includes reflections on Viren’s experiences (and misadventures) as an “out” academic and writer in states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. As she dryly notes, “Critiques of the personal essay, and by extension memoir, are often gendered—not to mention classist and racist and homophobic.”

Can you help us survive, and thrive into our 70th year during this challenging time for the journalism industry?

Right now, all donations to the Texas Observer will be matched. Donate now!

#books #feminism #feminist books #Texas #fiction #nonfiction #poetry #essay #southern fiction #LGBTQIA #gay fiction

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black-paraphernalia · 2 years

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24TH INFANTRY REGIMENT -1917 Houston Texas

Fed up with violent discrimination, these black soldiers took to the streets of Houston for bloody revenge

When it was over, 19 black soldiers were hanged in one of the largest court-martials in U.S. history

FOR THE SOURCE AND FULL STORY BY COSHANDRA DILLARD She is a Writer specializing in social justice, history and culture, health and wellness.

EXCERPT LISTED BELOW

IT was raining on the night of August 23, 1917, when a group of black soldiers took to the streets in Houston. They were there to protest their inhumane treatment and to avenge the death of a fellow soldier.

By the end of the night, 20 people would be dead, resulting in one of the largest court-martials in American military history and, ultimately, the death by hanging of 19 black soldiers.

Camp Logan housed one particularly noteworthy group: the all-black Third Battalion of the 24th infantry. They were the successors of the famed Buffalo Soldiers, African American regiments who fought courageously on the western frontier. City officials assured the military that the black soldiers wouldn’t pose any problems. When the Third Battalion arrived, they found that city officials’ promises had been empty.

Racial tensions were already high in Texas, and indeed across the country, even before the arrival of the Third Battalion. Texas was a forcefully segregated state with a reputation for racist violence. Lynchings had occurred all over the state, in cities such as Temple, Waco, and Galveston.

Black Americans were also still reeling from the recent, widely reported riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, by white mobs that left dozens of African Americans dead and communities decimated.

As historian Robert V. Haynes describes in The Houston Mutiny and Riot of 1917, white Houstonians wanted to keep black soldiers in check, so that black civilians wouldn’t also demand equal treatment.

While in the city, soldiers endured racial slurs and discrimination from residents and police officers. The mere presence of the black men in uniform threatened to undo the social hierarchy, and white residents clung to the old order.

Haynes recounts incidents in which police officers pistol-whipped and arrested black soldiers who tried to intervene when black civilians were harassed by white residents for sitting in “white only” sections on the streetcars or drinking from “white only” fountains.

The black soldiers resented being called “niggers” and insisted that they should be referred to as “colored men.” The riot began when two mounted white police officers, Rufus Daniels and Lee Sparks, assaulted Private Alonzo Edwards for interfering in the arrest of a black woman.

Later, when Corporal Charles Baltimore, a black man in the battalion, tried to inquire about the arrest, it irritated the officers. Sparks struck him with a pistol and shot at him three times. Baltimore fled, but police pursued him until he was cornered in an unoccupied house. He was arrested, but by the time news reached the camp, Baltimore’s fellow black soldiers assumed he was dead.

At least 100 men from different companies marched into the city around 9 p.m. They went to the San Felipe district, a historic black community, in search of Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniels, the two officers involved in the Baltimore arrest.

They found Daniels, whom they killed, along with three other officers. As they moved through the city, they encountered civilians and shot them at random. All in all, 20 people were killed that night. The other men either returned to the camp or hid in black residents’ homes, where they were captured the following day.

As the disarmed black soldiers boarded a train out of Houston a few days later, they left behind a piece of paper that read: “Take Texas and go to hell. I don’t want to go there anymore in my life. Let’s go East and be treated as people.”

Thirteen black soldiers were hung at Camp Travis, by September 1918, following two additional court-martial cases, 53 soldiers were given life sentences and six more soldiers were hung at Camp Travis.

BLACK PARAPHERNALIA DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ

RESPECTFUL COMMENTS ARE WELCOME

#black paraphernalia #this is america still #little known black history

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urbtnews · 2 months

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Hurricane Beryl Set to Impact Central Texas: What You Need to Know

Hurricane Beryl Set to Impact Central Texas: Prepare for Strong Winds, Heavy Rain, and Storm Surge. As Hurricane Beryl intensifies in the Gulf of Mexico, Central Texas is bracing for its imminent landfall. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued multiple warnings, urging residents to prepare for potentially life-threatening conditions. Here's everything you need to know about Hurricane Beryl's path, current status, and what to expect in the coming days. Download the URBT News App from your App store. Apple / Andriod Current Location and Movement As of the latest advisory at 4:00 PM CDT (2100 UTC), Hurricane Beryl is located at 26.8N 95.5W, approximately 130 miles south-southeast of Matagorda, Texas, and 135 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas. The storm is moving north-northwest at 12 mph with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. Beryl is expected to strengthen, potentially reaching hurricane status before making landfall on the middle Texas coast early Monday. Watches and Warnings in Effect Storm Surge Warning: - North Entrance of Padre Island National Seashore to Sabine Pass, including Corpus Christi Bay, Matagorda Bay, and Galveston Bay. - Hurricane Warning: - Texas coast from Baffin Bay northward to San Luis Pass. - Hurricane Watch: - Texas coast north of San Luis Pass to Galveston Island. - Tropical Storm Warning: - Texas coast south of Baffin Bay to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and north of San Luis Pass to Sabine Pass. - These warnings indicate that hurricane and tropical storm conditions are imminent. Residents in these areas should take immediate action to protect life and property. - Expected Impacts - Wind: Hurricane Beryl is expected to bring hurricane-force winds to the warning areas by early Monday. Tropical storm conditions will begin tonight, making outdoor preparations dangerous. - Storm Surge: The combination of storm surge and tide could result in flooding of normally dry areas near the coast. Expected storm surge heights above ground level are as follows: - Port O'Connor to San Luis Pass: 4-7 feet - Matagorda Bay: 4-7 feet - San Luis Pass to High Island: 4-6 feet - Galveston Bay: 4-6 feet - Mesquite Bay to Port O'Connor: 3-5 feet - High Island to Sabine Pass: 3-5 feet - For more detailed information, visit the National Hurricane Center and your local National Weather Service office. Hurricane Beryl Set to Impact Central Texas Rainfall: Heavy rainfall of 5 to 10 inches, with isolated amounts up to 15 inches, is expected across the middle and upper Texas Gulf Coast and eastern Texas through Monday night. This can cause significant flash flooding, urban flooding, and river flooding. Tornadoes: A few tornadoes are possible along the middle and upper Texas Coast through tonight, extending into eastern Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas on Monday. Surf: Swells generated by Hurricane Beryl will affect eastern Mexico and much of the U.S. Gulf Coast, creating life-threatening surf and rip current conditions. Preparation and Safety Tips Evacuation: If you are in an evacuation zone, leave immediately. Follow the instructions from local authorities to ensure your safety. Supplies: Ensure you have essential supplies, including water, non-perishable food, medications, and emergency kits. Secure Property: Secure outdoor items, reinforce windows and doors, and move valuable items to higher ground. Stay Informed: Continuously monitor updates from the National Weather Service and local news for the latest information on Hurricane Beryl's path and impact. Hurricane Beryl Set to Impact Central Texas Hurricane Beryl poses a significant threat to Central Texas with its potential for strong winds, heavy rainfall, and dangerous storm surge. Preparation and prompt action are crucial to minimize the impact of this powerful storm. Stay informed, stay safe, and take all necessary precautions as Hurricane Beryl approaches. Read the Supreme Court Decision Read the full article

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tocitynews · 4 months

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Houston Texas High School Junior Given $300K Bond After Throwing Stolen Drain De–Clogger In 18-year-old Brody Morgan's Eyes Which Could Permanently Blind His Friend – Houston Texas reporting

Branden Jolly, 17, is facing an injury to a disabled charge because the victim, 18-year-old Brody Morgan, is diagnosed with autism.

Brody Morgan was walking through his Friendswood neighborhood with two teens from school. His mom, Amy Morgan, said they frantically returned home with her screaming son.

Brody Morgan thought Jolly threw salt in his eyes.

Brody Morgan claimed one of the teens stole a package from a house down the street. He said Jolly decided to open it, and inside was a tube with powder.

Court documents state Jolly spilled it on Brody Morgan's shirt, which caused Brody Morgan to push Jolly away. Police said that then prompted Jolly to throw the powder at his face.

Doctors at the emergency room urged Amy Morgan to get the police involved after confirming the chemical in his eyes was a drain de-clogger.

Jolly's mom, while she wasn't there, she believes the whole incident was a horrible accident.

She said the substance fell out of her son's hand after Brody Morgan "attacked him."

Court documents show the other teen told police Jolly threw the substance intentionally. Those documents also show the packaging was clearly labeled drain de-clogger.

Brody Morgan could still lose his vision. His eyes badly burned, and he was transferred to the widely respected burn unit in Galveston Texas.

#stupid kid

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newstfionline · 5 months

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Wednesday, May 1, 2024

A Strong U.S. Dollar Weighs on the World (NYT) Every major currency in the world has fallen against the U.S. dollar this year, an unusually broad shift with the potential for serious consequences across the global economy. Two-thirds of the roughly 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg have weakened against the dollar, whose recent strength stems from a shift in expectations about when and by how much the Federal Reserve may cut its benchmark interest rate, which sits around a 20-year high. High Fed rates, a response to stubborn inflation, mean that American assets offer better returns than much of the world, and investors need dollars to buy them. In recent months, money has flowed into the United States with a force that’s being felt by policymakers, politicians and people from Brussels to Beijing, Toronto to Tokyo. The yen is at a 34-year low against the U.S. dollar. The euro and Canadian dollar are sagging. The Chinese yuan has shown notable signs of weakness, despite officials’ stated intent to stabilize it. “It has never been truer that the Fed is the world’s central bank,” said Jesse Rogers, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

High Tide (Washington Post) The number of high-tide floods in cities along the Gulf Coast has been rising, and their frequency is upending centuries of settlement and threatening billions of dollars’ worth of damage along the coast. The projections suggest that the flooding seen lately is just the beginning, with high-tide floods in the Gulf region projected to be 15 times more frequent in 2050 compared to the frequency seen in 2020. Some of that is because the cities themselves are subsiding and getting lower even as the waters are rising, which has exacerbated the impacts of the rising seas. In Galveston, the sea level is 8.4 inches higher in 2023 than it was in 2010, and in Pensacola it’s 6.5 inches higher.

As new Haiti leadership takes power, gangs demand a seat at the table (Reuters) Haiti’s new transition council is set to choose the country’s next president on Tuesday, but leaders of the gangs who have exerted increasing control are clamoring for political influence and amnesties and threatening violence if their demands are not met. In an interview with CNN published on Monday, Vitel’homme Innocent, who heads the Kraze Barye gang and is accused of orchestrating the 2021 kidnapping of U.S. missionaries, called for the council to listen to the gangs and find a resolution to the crisis “as soon as possible.” Kraze Barye forms part of a loose coalition of gangs known as Viv Ansanm, or “Live Together,” who now control most of capital Port-au-Prince. The coalition is demanding the future government grant them an amnesty for their crimes and create a plan for young gang members who may have been forced into joining, either under threat of violence or due to a lack of economic alternatives, Innocent told CNN. Viv Ansanm’s leader, a former police officer named Jimmy Cherizier who is known as “Barbeque,” warned of consequences if the gangs were ignored.

Mexico is taking Ecuador to the top UN court over the storming of the Mexican Embassy (AP) Mexico is taking Ecuador to the top U.N. court Tuesday, accusing the nation of violating international law by storming the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice president who had just been granted asylum by Mexico. The April 5 raid, hours after Mexico granted asylum to former Vice President Jorge Glas, spiked tensions that had been brewing between the two countries since Glas, a convicted criminal and fugitive, took refuge at the embassy in December. Leaders across Latin America condemned the raid as a blatant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Ecuador said Glas was wanted on corruption convictions and not for political reasons, and has argued that Mexico granting asylum to a convicted criminal was itself a violation of the Vienna convention.

Ukraine Retreats From Villages on Eastern Front as It Awaits U.S. Aid (NYT) Russian troops have captured or entered around a half-dozen villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week, highlighting the deteriorating situation in the region for outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces as they wait for long-needed American military aid. “The situation at the front has worsened,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said in a statement on Sunday in which he announced that his troops had retreated from two villages west of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the east that Russia seized earlier this year, and another village further south. Military experts say Moscow’s recent advances reflect its desire to exploit a window of opportunity to press ahead with attacks before the first batch of a new American military aid package arrives in Ukraine to help relieve its troops.

Growing devastation in Ukraine (NYT) As the largest and deadliest war in Europe since the end of World War II stretches into its third year, the scale of the devastation wrought by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues to mount. The front line is a place of ghastly violence where hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, according to conservative Western estimates. The list of Ukrainian cities and towns largely razed to the ground by Russian bombs and artillery grows with each passing month. Away from the front, millions of Ukrainians have spent hours in bomb shelters as Russia continues to rain down missiles and drones on both military units and civilians across the nation. Ukraine’s energy grid is severely damaged—working but sporadic. Thousands of schools, hospitals and cultural institutions have been damaged or destroyed. Millions have lost their homes.

An assassination plot on American soil reveals a darker side of Modi’s India (Washington Post) The White House went to extraordinary lengths last year to welcome Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a state visit meant to bolster ties with an ascendant power and potential partner against China. But even as the Indian leader was basking in U.S. adulation on June 22, an officer in India’s intelligence service was relaying final instructions to a hired hit team to kill one of Modi’s most vocal critics in the United States, Sikh activist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun. That India would pursue lethal operations in North America has stunned Western security officials. In some ways, however, it reflects a profound shift in geopolitics. After years of being treated as a second-tier player, India sees itself as a rising force in a new era of global competition, one that even the United States cannot afford to alienate. Asked why India would risk attempting an assassination on U.S. soil, a Western security official said: “Because they knew they could get away with it.”

Bags (Nikkei Asia) The world’s airline companies mishandled an average of 7.6 pieces of baggage per 1,000 passengers in 2022, a seemingly inevitable challenge to adequately loading, stowing and transporting millions of bags. However, perfection is indeed possible, as seen by Japan’s Kansai Airport, which has not lost a single item of baggage in 30 years since it opened in September 1994. That’s thanks to an incredibly efficient loading and unloading process and, despite handling 10 million baggage items in 2023, a pretty high level of perfection.

Iranian teen was killed by security forces (BBC) As protests on the streets spread across Iran in the autumn of 2022, Nika Shakarami became a symbol of women’s fight for greater freedoms. The 16-year-old disappeared from an anti-regime protest and her body was found nine days later, with the government claiming she took her own life. Nika’s disappearance and death were reported at the time. But a BBC Eye investigation has revealed she was sexually assaulted and killed by three men working for Iran’s security forces, who left her body in the street. The investigation examined a leaked security forces document marked “highly confidential” to piece together Nika’s last moments.

Residents of northern Israel brace for possible all-out war with Hezbollah (Reuters) Eli Harel was an Israeli soldier in his early thirties when he was sent into Lebanon in 2006 to battle fighters from the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in a bloody, largely inconclusive month-long war. Now 50, Harel is ready to rejoin the army to fight the same group if shelling along Israel’s northern border turns into a full-blown war with Hezbollah. Harel lives in Haifa, Israel’s third biggest city, well within range of Hezbollah’s weapons. Haifa’s mayor recently urged residents to stockpile food and medicine because of the growing risk of all-out war. Israel and Hezbollah have been engaged in escalating daily cross-border strikes over the past six months—in parallel with the war in Gaza—and their increasing range and sophistication has spurred fears of a wider regional conflict. Hezbollah has so far restricted its attacks to a strip of northern Israel, seeking to draw Israeli forces away from Gaza. Some 60,000 residents have had to leave their homes, in the first mass evacuation of northern Israel. Eyal Hulata, a former Israeli national security adviser, said Israel should announce a date in the next few months when displaced Israeli civilians can return, effectively challenging Hezbollah to scale back its shelling or face all-out war.

Surrounded by Fighters and Haunted by Famine, Sudan City Fears Worst (NYT) Fears of renewed ethnic slaughter in the Sudanese region of Darfur, where genocidal violence killed as many as 300,000 people two decades ago, have soared in recent days, with a looming assault on an embattled city that is already threatened by famine. The contest for control of El Fasher, the last city held by Sudan’s military in Darfur, has prompted alarmed warnings from American and United Nations officials who fear that mass bloodshed may be imminent. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations, told reporters on Monday that the city was “on the precipice of a large-scale massacre.” El Fasher is the latest flashpoint in a year-old civil war between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group that the military once nurtured and is now its bitter rival for power. The conflict has devastated one of Africa’s largest countries and created a vast humanitarian crisis that U.N. officials say is one of the biggest in decades.

Kenya orders evacuation of all riverside dwellings amid deadly floods (Washington Post) Kenya’s president ordered Tuesday the evacuation of all homes along the nation’s rivers after floods killed at least 169 people in the past month, with dozens still missing. The announcement came a day after a torrent of water swept away scores of people near the town of Mai Mahiu, about 30 miles northwest of the capital, Nairobi.

Faith-Based Retirement Communities (NYT) Before Helen Leddy moved to Shell Point Retirement Community in Fort Myers, Fla., last year, she got the lowdown on the place. Ms. Leddy, 86, was concerned that the denomination that founded Shell Point, the evangelical Christian and Missionary Alliance, might promote values that did not match hers, and that her new neighbors might proselytize. A friend, who has lived at Shell Point for six years, told her that wasn’t going to happen. Faith-based communities like Shell Point, which was established in 1968, generally don’t insist that residents subscribe to the religion that shaped the communities, according to Katie Smith Sloan, the president and chief executive of LeadingAge, an association of nonprofit providers of aging services. Instead, the religious aspect, which was once a meaningful calling card, is now often seen as just another effective marketing tool, like on-site beauty salons or golf pro shops. Ms. Leddy, who recently attended a pizza party in her building, said that gatherings at Shell Point “generally start with a blessing, and maybe there’s a blessing at the end.” Otherwise, acquaintances toss off the occasional “God bless.”

#headlines #news

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brookstonalmanac · 1 year

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Events 8.23 (before 1900)

30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, the eldest son of Mark Antony, and Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and only child of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.[citation needed] 20 BC – Ludi Volcanalici are held within the temple precinct of Vulcan, and used by Augustus to mark the treaty with Parthia and the return of the legionary standards that had been lost at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.[citation needed] 79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. 476 – Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes (Herulic - Scirian foederati), is proclaimed rex Italiae ("King of Italy") by his troops. 1244 – Siege of Jerusalem: The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to the Khwarazmiyya. 1268 – The Battle of Tagliacozzo marks the fall of the Hohenstaufen family from the Imperial and Sicilian thrones, and leading to the new chapter of Angevin domination in Southern Italy. 1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for high treason at Smithfield, London. 1328 – Battle of Cassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers. 1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. 1514 – The Battle of Chaldiran ends with a decisive victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire, over the Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty. 1521 – Christian II of Denmark is deposed as king of Sweden and Gustav Vasa is elected regent. 1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada. 1572 – French Wars of Religion: Mob violence against thousands of Huguenots in Paris results in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. 1595 – Long Turkish War: Wallachian prince Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Călugăreni and achieves a tactical victory.[citation needed] 1600 – Battle of Gifu Castle: The eastern forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu defeat the western Japanese clans loyal to Toyotomi Hideyori, leading to the destruction of Gifu Castle and serving as a prelude to the Battle of Sekigahara. 1628 – George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, is assassinated by John Felton. 1655 – Battle of Sobota: The Swedish Empire led by Charles X Gustav defeats the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1703 – Edirne event: Sultan Mustafa II of the Ottoman Empire is dethroned. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion. 1782 – American Revolutionary War: British forces under Edward Despard complete the reconquest of the Black River settlements on the Mosquito Coast from the Spanish. 1784 – Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it is not accepted into the United States, and only lasts for four years. 1799 – Napoleon I of France leaves Egypt for France en route to seizing power. 1813 – At the Battle of Großbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bülow repulse the French army. 1831 – Nat Turner's rebellion of enslaved Virginians is suppressed.[citation needed] 1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for the First Opium War with Qing China. 1864 – American Civil War: The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas. 1866 – The Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague. 1873 – The Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opens. 1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departs from London.

#Events

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jeromekaramlawyer · 1 year

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Jerome Karam: The Prominent Attorney and Commercial Real Estate Lawyer in Houston

Jerome Karam is a name that resonates with many in the legal industry in Houston, Texas. With years of experience as an attorney and commercial real estate lawyer, he has gained a reputation as one of the best in the business. In this blog, we will take a closer look at the life and career of Jerome Karam, exploring his background, education, and professional achievements. We will also delve into his approach to commercial real estate law, the types of clients he represents, and his overall impact on the industry.

Background and Education

Jerome Karam was born and raised in Galveston, Texas, and he attended the University of Houston, where he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1989. After completing his undergraduate studies, Karam enrolled in South Texas College of Law in Houston, where he earned his Juris Doctor degree in 1993. During his time in law school, Karam was heavily involved in moot court and mock trial competitions, and he also worked as a law clerk for a prominent Houston law firm.

Professional Achievements

After graduating from law school, Jerome Karam began his legal career as an associate at a boutique law firm in Houston, where he focused on commercial real estate law. In 1995, he decided to strike out on his own and start his own law firm, which he named the Law Offices of Jerome Karam. Over the years, Karam has built a reputation as a tough negotiator and a skilled litigator, and he has successfully represented clients in a wide range of commercial real estate disputes.

In addition to his legal work, Karam is also known for his philanthropic efforts in the Houston area. He has donated millions of dollars to various charitable causes, including local schools, hospitals, and churches. Karam is also a devoted family man, and he spends much of his free time with his wife and children.

Approach to Commercial Real Estate Law

Jerome Karam takes a unique approach to commercial real estate law, which is based on his extensive experience in the industry. He believes that the key to success in this field is to be both aggressive and strategic, and he is not afraid to take on even the most challenging cases. Karam works closely with his clients to develop customized legal strategies that are tailored to their specific needs and objectives.

Karam is also known for his attention to detail and his ability to analyze complex legal issues quickly and effectively. He is a master at negotiating complex commercial real estate transactions, and he has helped many clients save time, money, and stress by avoiding costly legal battles.

Clients

Jerome Karam represents a diverse range of clients in the commercial real estate industry, including developers, investors, landlords, and tenants. He has worked on many high-profile projects throughout the Houston area, including shopping centers, office buildings, and mixed-use developments. Karam is also known for his expertise in the area of lease negotiations, and he has helped many clients negotiate favorable lease agreements that protect their interests and maximize their returns.

Impact on the Industry

Over the years, Jerome Karam has had a significant impact on the commercial real estate industry in Houston. He has built a reputation as a skilled negotiator and a fierce advocate for his clients, and he has helped many businesses and individuals achieve their real estate goals. Karam's innovative legal strategies and his commitment to his clients have set him apart from his peers, and he is widely regarded as one of the top commercial real estate lawyers in the city.

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judge-lonnie-cox · 4 years

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Lonnie Cox Galveston - Re-Elect Judge Cox

Judge Lonnie Cox is the judge of the 56th District Court in Galveston County. The duties of the 56th District Court are to promote justice and to facilitate the scheduling of trials and the disposal of cases through trials or agreements.

Elected in 2004, Judge Cox has been committed to serving his community with three goals; efficient justice, following the law, and keeping our community safe.

Before becoming a judge, Judge Cox was an Assistant Criminal District Attorney for Galveston County for over 10 years, with assignments as Chief Felony Prosecutor and Chief of Misdemeanor. As an Assistant District Attorney, he tried over 50 jury trials before his election to the bench.

Before his legal career, Judge Cox worked for the Lubrizol Corporation, first as an operator and later working his way up to Customer Service Supervisor for two Texas plants. Before Lubrizol, he was a musician with the Calgary Philharmonic, the Houston Symphony, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Houston Ballet. While working a full-time job and raising a family, he received a Master of Business Administration from Houston Baptist University and a Doctorate of Jurisprudence for the University of Houston Law School. He also has a Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Houston.

Recognized for his dedication and service, he has received two awards from Mothers against Drunk Drivers (MADD) as well as the Texas Gang Investigators Association Damn Good judge Award. Judge Cox has a long history of service to his community as well. He has served as President of Communities in Schools, a director of the Galveston Employees Credit Union, President of the Kiwanis Club, President of the Rotary Club, President of the Optimist Club, President of the Gideon’s Camp, is currently the Vice President of M I Lewis Social Services, a member of the Propeller Club, Galveston Beach Band, and is a Deacon and Sunday School Teacher at South Main Baptist Church.

He is also a member of numerous professional organizations. He is a member of the State Bar of Texas, Texas Board of Legal Specializations in Criminal Law, the College of the State Bar of Texas, a graduate of the Texas Judicial College, the Galveston Bar Association (where he served as a Director and Secretary), the Pro Bono Committee for the years 2002 and 2003, the Judicial Section of the Texas State Bar, Chair of the Galveston County Community Supervision and Correction Board, Director of the Galveston County Juvenile Probation Board, member of the Advisory Board for Rules for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Judge Cox has been appointed twice as an MDL (Multi-District Litigation) Master (handling over 40,000 cases in addition to his regular case load). Judge Cox has also been a visiting Judge on the 1st Court of Appeals.

Judge Cox’s long list of accomplishments and multiple organizations with which he is affiliated have given him many life experiences which have helped him serve his community as Judge of the 56th District Court. His experiences and working with people in the private sector have given him a special insight and have taught him to be fair and courteous to all people. He recognizes an even greater need when people are experiencing the stress of legal proceedings. His courtroom is dedicated to maintaining those ideals.

With his multiple years of experience in the courtroom, having the advantage of being involved in trying cases as Assistant District Attorney, and having the perspective of being on both sides of the bench, Judge Cox knows the importance of having an efficient courtroom that allows justice without unnecessary delay. His experiences have shown him how to effectively move cases so that a fair and just outcome is achieved for all parties involved. It’s that commitment that leads to effective outcomes.

His involvement in the community has shown him every day how we must all work together for a safer community. Judge Lonnie Cox understands how important a safe community is for the hard-working citizens of Galveston County and is dedicated to continuing his long record of working towards and achieving that goal. He works and volunteers with multiple organizations with the goal of strengthening those ties to the community. Local Police Chiefs and Law Enforcement Associations have routinely supported and continue to support Judge Cox and his fair but firm stance against crime.

But, that goal cannot be achieved without your help. The upcoming election that will be held on Tuesday, November 3rd, is critical. Good, dedicated public servants like Judge Lonnie Cox will need your vote at the ballot box. There are many important dates to observe in anticipation of Election Day. Here are a few to keep in mind. If you have not requested your ballot by mail, and are eligible to do so, PLEASE APPLY NOW! Also, please note that if you are not currently registered to vote, the last day you can register is October 5, 2020. The first day to vote early by personal appearance is Monday, October 19, 2020, and you can vote early at any Galveston Early Voting Center until the last day of Early Voting on Friday, October 30, 2020.

There are many reasons to get out the vote on November 3rd and cast your ballot for Judge Lonnie Cox. We need to keep experienced, dedicated judges that are concerned about what’s best for the citizens of Galveston. We need courts that are run efficiently and justly. Judge Lonnie Cox has a proven record of excellence serving in that position.

But, most of all, Judge Cox is proud to be married to Alison and a proud father to six children, grandfather to 11, and great-grandfather to seven. Both personally and professionally, his dedication and hard work have helped and contributed to making Galveston County a safer place for everyone. Efficient justice, fairness to all concerned, following the law, and keeping the community safe – goals that have been the focus of Judge Cox’s service.

#Re-Elect Judge Cox #Judge Lonnie Cox #Lonnie Cox Judge #Lonnie Cox Galveston #Galveston Lonnie Cox #Told you Lonnie Cox #Galveston #Lonnie #Cox #Re-Elect #Galveston County #Judge Galveston County #Judge Galveston #High Court Galveston #High Court Galveston County #Court Galveston County #Court Galveston

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lonniecox · 4 years

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Re-Elect Judge Cox - Judge Lonnie Cox

Elected in 2004, Judge Cox has been committed to serving his community with three goals; efficient justice, following the law, and keeping our community safe.

#Judge Lonnie Cox #Lonnie Cox Galveston #Re-Elect Judge Cox #Lonnie Cox Judge #Galveston Lonnie Cox #Told you Lonnie Cox #judge #Galveston #Lonnie #Cox #Re-Elect #Galveston County #Judge Galveston County #Judge Galveston #High Court Galveston #High Court Galveston County #Court Galveston County #Court Galveston

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seeselfblack · 5 years

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Asa Hilliard, an educator of truth

On this date in 1933, Asa Hilliard was born in Galveston, TX. He was an African American professor of educational psychology.

After completing high school, Asa Hilliard III attended the University of Denver, earning his B.A. in 1955, his M.A. in counseling in 1961, and his Ed.D. in educational psychology in 1963. Hilliard was a teacher in the Denver Public School system from 1955 until 1960.

He began as a teaching fellow at the University of Denver, where he remained until he earned his Ph.D. He joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in 1963, and spent the next 18 years at San Francisco State where be first became a department chairman and spent his final eight years as dean of education. He also served as a consultant to the Peace Corps and as superintendent of schools in Monrovia, Liberia, for two years.

After leaving San Francisco State, Hilliard became a professor at Georgia State University (GSU). He was the GSU Fuller E. Callaway Professor of Urban Education, serving in both the Department of Educational Policy Studies and the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education. Hilliard was a founding member of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations and served as vice president. He served as an expert witness in court testimony on several federal cases regarding test validity and bias, and was the co-developer of an educational television series, "Free Your Mind," "Return to the Source: African Origins."

He wrote hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including ancient African history, teaching strategies, and public policy. Hilliard was the recipient of the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the Association of Black Psychologists, a Knight Commander of the Human Order of the African Redemption, and the Distinguished Leadership Award from the Association of Teachers of Education.

Dr. Hilliard died on August 13, 2007 in Egypt, which was the backdrop for much of his research, reportedly from complications of malaria. He was married to Patsy Jo Hilliard, former mayor of East Point, Georgia, with whom he had four children.

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urbtnews · 2 months

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Hurricane Beryl Set to Impact Central Texas: What You Need to Know

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realtybymonica · 2 years

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Beautifully Remodeled 3BD 2BA Home For Sale in Galveston

https://www.realtybymonica.com/2022/06/23/beautifully-remodeled-3bd-2ba-home-for-sale-in-galveston-2/

*Popular Vacation Rental! Beautifully remodeled & Fully Furnished 3/2 Canal-front home with quick access to Galveston Bay and Beach. This successful vacation rental known as Sea Isle Splendor features Open living/kitchen/dining area with tile flooring, high vaulted ceilings & exposed beams. Kitchen has stainless-steel Samsung & Bosch appliances, custom cabinetry, wide granite countertops with additional seating at breakfast bar, & wainscotting. Primary bedroom has private deck & all three bedrooms have Shaw engineered hardwood flooring. Exterior features include wide canal frontage, Tiki Style Bar, outdoor shower, outdoor TV, boat slip, boat lift replaced (2018), decking & staircase replaced (2017.) AC/Heating (2016.), Roof (2015.) Sea Isle has as great amenities such as community pool, Marina, boat launch, tennis courts, park, lit fishing pier over the bay, & restaurant. Wetlands reserve across from home with incredible bird watching!

#3Bedrooms #galveston #HomesForSale #RealEstate #SeaIsle

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brookstonalmanac · 4 years

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Events 8.23

30 BC – After the successful invasion of Egypt, Octavian executes Marcus Antonius Antyllus, eldest son of Mark Antony, and Caesarion, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt and only child of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra.[citation needed] 20 BC – Ludi Volcanalici are held within the temple precinct of Vulcan, and used by Augustus to mark the treaty with Parthia and the return of the legionary standards that had been lost at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BC.[citation needed] AD 79 – Mount Vesuvius begins stirring, on the feast day of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire. 476 – Odoacer, chieftain of the Germanic tribes (Herulic - Scirian foederati), is proclaimed rex Italiae ("King of Italy") by his troops. 1244 – Siege of Jerusalem: The city's citadel, the Tower of David, surrenders to Khwarezmian Empire. 1268 – The Battle of Tagliacozzo marks the fall of the Hohenstaufen family from the Imperial and Sicilian thrones, and leading to the new chapter of Angevin domination in Southern Italy. 1305 – Sir William Wallace is executed for high treason at Smithfield, London. 1328 – Battle of Cassel: French troops stop an uprising of Flemish farmers. 1382 – Siege of Moscow: The Golden Horde led by Tokhtamysh lays siege to the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. 1514 – The Battle of Chaldiran ends with a decisive victory for the Sultan Selim I, Ottoman Empire, over the Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty. 1521 – Christian II of Denmark is deposed as king of Sweden and Gustav Vasa is elected regent. 1541 – French explorer Jacques Cartier lands near Quebec City in his third voyage to Canada. 1572 – French Wars of Religion: Mob violence against thousands of Huguenots in Paris results in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. 1595 – Long Turkish War: Wallachian prince Michael the Brave confronts the Ottoman army in the Battle of Călugăreni and achieves a tactical victory. 1600 – Battle of Gifu Castle: The eastern forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu defeat the western Japanese clans loyal to Toyotomi Hideyori, leading to the destruction of Gifu Castle and serving as a prelude to the Battle of Sekigahara. 1628 – George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, is assassinated by John Felton. 1655 – Battle of Sobota: The Swedish Empire led by Charles X Gustav defeats the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. 1703 – Edirne event: Sultan Mustafa II of the Ottoman Empire is dethroned. 1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James's stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion. 1784 – Western North Carolina (now eastern Tennessee) declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin; it is not accepted into the United States, and only lasts for four years. 1799 – Napoleon I of France leaves Egypt for France en route to seizing power. 1813 – At the Battle of Großbeeren, the Prussians under Von Bülow repulse the French army. 1831 – Nat Turner's slave rebellion is suppressed. 1839 – The United Kingdom captures Hong Kong as a base as it prepares for the First Opium War with Qing China. 1864 – American Civil War: The Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas. 1866 – Austro-Prussian War ends with the Treaty of Prague. 1873 – Albert Bridge in Chelsea, London opens. 1898 – The Southern Cross Expedition, the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, departs from London. 1904 – The automobile tire chain is patented. 1914 – World War I: The British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army begin their Great Retreat before the German Army. 1914 – World War I: Japan declares war on Germany. 1921 – British airship R-38 experiences structural failure over Hull in England and crashes in the Humber Estuary. Of her 49 British and American training crew, only four survive. 1923 – Captain Lowell Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours. 1927 – Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti are executed after a lengthy, controversial trial. 1929 – Hebron Massacre during the 1929 Palestine riots: Arab attack on the Jewish community in Hebron in the British Mandate of Palestine, continuing until the next day, resulted in the death of 65–68 Jews and the remaining Jews being forced to leave the city. 1939 – World War II: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression treaty, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In a secret addition to the pact, the Baltic states, Finland, Romania, and Poland are divided between the two nations. 1942 – World War II: Beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad. 1943 – World War II: Kharkiv is liberated by the Soviet Union after the Battle of Kursk. 1944 – World War II: Marseille is liberated by the Allies. 1944 – World War II: King Michael of Romania dismisses the pro-Nazi government of Marshal Antonescu, who is arrested. Romania switches sides from the Axis to the Allies. 1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster: A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England, killing 61 people. 1945 – World War II: Soviet–Japanese War: The USSR State Defense Committee issues Decree no. 9898cc "About Receiving, Accommodation, and Labor Utilization of the Japanese Army Prisoners of War". 1946 – Ordinance No. 46 of the British Military Government constitutes the German Länder (states) of Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein. 1948 – World Council of Churches is formed by 147 churches from 44 countries. 1954 – First flight of the Lockheed C-130 multi-role aircraft. 1958 – Chinese Civil War: The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis begins with the People's Liberation Army's bombardment of Quemoy. 1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon. 1970 – Organized by Mexican American labor union leader César Chávez, the Salad Bowl strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history, begins. 1973 – A bank robbery gone wrong in Stockholm, Sweden, turns into a hostage crisis; over the next five days the hostages begin to sympathise with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome". 1975 – The start of the Wave Hill walk-off by Gurindji people in Australia, lasting eight years, a landmark event in the history of Indigenous land rights in Australia, commemorated in a 1991 Paul Kelly song and an annual celebration. 1975 – The Pontiac Silverdome opens in Pontiac, Michigan, 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Detroit, Michigan 1985 – Hans Tiedge, top counter-spy of West Germany, defects to East Germany. 1989 – Singing Revolution: Two million people from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stand on the Vilnius–Tallinn road, holding hands. This is called the Baltic Way or Baltic Chain. 1990 – Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi state television with a number of Western "guests" (actually hostages) to try to prevent the Gulf War. 1990 – Armenia declares its independence from the Soviet Union. 1990 – West and East Germany announce that they will reunite on October 3. 1991 – The World Wide Web is opened to the public. 1994 – Eugene Bullard, the only African American pilot in World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. 2000 – Gulf Air Flight 072 crashes into the Persian Gulf near Manama, Bahrain, killing 143. 2006 – Natascha Kampusch, who had been abducted at the age of ten, escapes from her captor Wolfgang Přiklopil, after eight years of captivity. 2007 – The skeletal remains of Russia's last royal family members Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia, and his sister Grand Duchess Anastasia are discovered near Yekaterinburg, Russia. 2011 – A magnitude 5.8 (class: moderate) earthquake occurs in Virginia. Damage occurs to monuments and structures in Washington D.C. and the resulted damage is estimated at $200 million–$300 million USD. 2011 – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the Libyan Civil War. 2012 – A hot-air balloon crashes near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, killing six people and injuring 28 others. 2013 – A riot at the Palmasola prison complex in Santa Cruz, Bolivia kills 31 people.

#Events

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livinginlandmarketing · 3 years

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The first time Olani LaBeaud learned in detail about Juneteenth — a day in history that marks the end of slavery in America — was toward the end of high school, in an AP history class.

She was in her first year of college at Cal State Long Beach when she heard about the Tulsa Massacre — a race riot in 1921 when mobs of White residents, some deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked Black residents and destroyed homes, killing more than 800 people and wounding many others.

LaBeaud, who graduated from Summit High School in Fontana in 2017, learned about Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in the classroom and during Black History Month, observed in February. But as a young African American girl, she had to rely on her own curiosity and research skills to discover illustrious figures such as Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and women’s rights activist who was born into slavery, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, Truth became the first Black woman to win such a case against a White man.

“Why did I not hear about her in school?,” LaBeaud asks. “What about Ida B. Wells, Toni Morrison and so many others? Why did I have to learn so much on my own?”

Depth, context lacking

LeBeaud is not the only one asking such questions. A year after a nationwide reckoning with racism following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and a pandemic that disproportionately killed African Americans, Black students, teachers and activists in Southern California and across the U.S. are demanding better Black history programs in schools. They speak of an urgent need to give Black history the context, depth and meaning it deserves.

On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday, commemorating June 19, 1865, the day Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, who had fought for the Union, led a force to Galveston, Texas, to deliver the message that the war was over, the Union had won and now had the manpower to enforce the end of slavery. This came two months after the Civil War ended and after President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

African Americans have traditionally commemorated Juneteenth with readings of the Proclamation, cookouts, food festivals and other activities celebrating African American history and culture.

While many in the community are happy to see Juneteenth formally recognized by the U.S. government, some worry that history lessons say little about the strife and struggle Black people endured after that day and the systemic inequities that took shape in the next century.

A report titled “Inland Empire Black Education Agenda” released by the BLU Educational Foundation in San Bernardino in February, found that Black history was among the top three priorities for Black students and their parents, a finding that came as a surprise even to the study’s authors at the time. The group surveyed 1,100 Black parents, students and community members in the Inland Empire.

A 2015 study by the National Museum of African American History and Culture showed that U.S. history classrooms devote one or two lessons to Black history. In a 2014 study, the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 12 states did not require any instruction on the civil rights movement. Fewer than half covered Jim Crow laws.

The center gave California a B for its history standards, which were adopted in 1998 and recently updated in 2016.

California schools introduce Martin Luther King Jr.’s story in kindergarten in the context of learning about the national holiday named for him. In second and third grades, students learn about Harriet Tubman, who pioneered a network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad to rescue and free slaves. The standards call for a deeper dive into slavery around fifth grade.

In eighth grade, teachers are encouraged to discuss resistance by enslaved people and the role slavery played in American politics. In 11th grade, students analyze the development of federal and civil voting rights legislation and landmark cases such as Brown v. Board of Education that led to the desegregation of schools.

Related links

First Juneteenth events set for two Inland cities

Celebrating Juneteenth looks back on previous challenges and victories, the fight ahead

Can Inland Empire leaders turn racial justice talk into action in 2021?

Student-led group aims to make high school reading lists more diverse

Teaching hard truths

Despite those standards in California, actual teaching practices fall short, said Akilah Lyons-Moore, an assistant professor at USC Rossier School of Education. Students learn about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, she said, and they learn about slavery, but the racial aspect of slavery is not explicitly taught.

“We move from indentured servitude to slavery to slave trade,” Lyons-Moore said. “But students don’t learn about how color became a way to distinguish who was enslaved and who was free. They learn that the slaves were freed. But they have no idea that the period of reconstruction — what came after Juneteenth — was the deadliest for Black people.”

While slavery “may feel like a long time ago” for some, she said, it doesn’t feel that way for Black people.

“My grandma was born into a sharecropping family,” Lyons-Moore said. “That’s barely two generations ago. And the repercussions are still being felt. You don’t get that from the history that is taught in our classrooms.”

Black history should be introduced in detail at the elementary school level, said the Rev. James Baylark, pastor at First Community Baptist Church in Desert Hot Springs. He says he is working with school districts in the Inland Empire and in Los Angeles County to make that happen.

“I will not say California is any better than other states when it comes to teaching Black history,” he said. “It seems to me that the teaching is limited to Black History Month. It should be talked about every day.”

Catching them young

Even high school students have no idea who Garrett Morgan was, notes Baylark, who is African American. Morgan was an African American inventor whose notable inventions were the traffic signal and the gas mask.

“It seems to me that important facts about Black history are introduced too late,” the pastor said. “By that time, (students have) lost interest. We need to catch them young. And it’s important for all children, not just African American children.”

Elementary school teacher Billy Bush at his home in Yorba Linda, CA, on Friday, June 18, 2021. Bush believes students don’t learn nearly enough about slavery and what happened to Black people after slavery. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

But when African American children, especially, are not taught their history and culture, it leaves a lasting impression on their psyche, said Billy Bush, who teaches history and math at Dr. Mildred Dalton Henry Elementary School in San Bernardino.

“Children’s self worth comes from knowing who they are and where they come from,” he said. “When it comes to education, they don’t seem to be going for depth. They’re trying to cover the bare minimum and move on. African American history needs to be taught in depth. It’s particularly important for Black boys who are seeing themselves on television either as ball players or drug dealers. It’s sad because they are not given a journey or a narrative.”

Real history, real change

Teaching Black history in schools is also a great way to improve race relations, said Bush, whose mother is African American and father is White.

“The only way racism can be overcome is when people understand what’s been done to the oppressed,” he said. “If you teach everyone real history, you will see real change.”

The recent push to teach anti-racism and ethnic studies in public schools is essentially about highlighting the experiences of those whose voices have not been heard so far, Lyons-Moore said.

“In a history class, anti-racism would involve looking at multiple perspectives and understanding the way different people look at the same events,” she said. “There are many things we don’t discuss at school. We don’t teach about lynchings or how the U.S. Postal Service used to make postcards from pictures of lynchings. This is a part of our history we cannot deny.”

Teaching Black history or anti-racism is neither about making White people look bad nor about portraying Black people as victims, Lyons-Moore said.

“It’s really an opportunity to understand each other in a way we haven’t before,” she said. “How do we understand it? How do we see it in our laws, policies and norms? How can we put forth solutions? And above all, how do we keep history from repeating?”

-on June 18, 2021 at 10:35AM by Deepa Bharath

#riversidenews

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newstfionline · 6 years

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Texas school had a shooting plan, armed officers and practice. And still 10 people died.

By Todd C. Frankel, Brittney Martin, Tim Craig and Christian Davenport, Washington Post, May 19, 2018

SANTA FE, TEX.--They, like so many others, thought they had taken the steps to avoid this.

The school district had an active-shooter plan, and two armed police officers walked the halls of the high school. School district leaders had even agreed last fall to eventually arm teachers and staff under the state’s school marshal program, one of the country’s most aggressive and controversial policies intended to get more guns into classrooms.

They thought they were a hardened target, part of what’s expected today of the American public high school in an age when school shootings occur with alarming frequency. And so a death toll of 10 was a tragic sign of failure and needing to do more, but also a sign, to some, that it could have been much worse.

“My first indication is that our policies and procedures worked,” J.R. “Rusty” Norman, president of the school district’s board of trustees, said Saturday, standing exhausted at his front door. “Having said that, the way things are, if someone wants to get into a school to create havoc, they can do it.”

The mass shooting--which killed 10 people and wounded 10 others in this rural community outside Houston--again highlighted the despairing challenge at the center of the ongoing debate over how to make the nation’s schools safer. It also hints at a growing feeling of inevitability, a normalization of what should be impossible tragedies.

The gunman in Santa Fe used a pistol and a shotgun, firearms common to many South Texas homes, firearms he took from this father, police said. So there were no echoes of the calls to ban assault rifles or raise the minimum age for gun purchases that came after the shooting three months ago in Parkland, Fla.

Most residents here didn’t blame any gun for the tragedy down the street. Many of them pointed to a lack of religion in schools.

“It’s not the guns. It’s the people. It’s a heart problem,” said Sarah Tassin, 61. “We need to bring God back into the schools.”

Texas politicians are pushing to focus on school security--the hardening of targets.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said he planned to hold roundtable discussions starting Tuesday on how to make schools even more secure. One idea he and other state officials mentioned was limiting the number of entrances to the facilities. Rep. Randy Weber (R-Tex.) said Congress eventually would consider legislation focused on “hardening targets and adding more school metal detectors and school police officers.”

But the horror in Santa Fe shows that there are limits there, too.

Norman said he saw school security as a way to control, not prevent, school violence. And the school district had some practice. In February, two weeks after the Parkland shooting, Santa Fe High went into lockdown after a false alarm of an active-shooter situation, resulting in a huge emergency response. The school won a statewide award for its safety program.

“We can never be over-prepared,” Norman said. “But we were prepared.”

His school board approved a plan in November to allow some school staff members to carry guns, joining more than 170 school districts in Texas that have made similar plans. But Santa Fe was still working on it, Norman said. People needed to be trained. Details needed to be worked out, such as a requirement that school guns fire only frangible bullets, which break into small pieces and are unlikely to pass through victims, as a way to limit the danger to innocent students.

All of these efforts, Norman said, are “only a way to mitigate what is happening.”

The search for red flags about the gunman’s intentions continued Saturday--another familiar hallmark of school shootings.

Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the 17-year-old student who police said confessed to the shooting, was being held without bond at a jail in Galveston. Wearing a trench coat, he allegedly opened fire in an art class, moving through the room shooting at teachers and students, and talking to himself. He approached a supply closet where students were barricaded inside, and he shot through the windows saying “surprise,” said Isabelle Laymance, 15.

The gunman shot a school police officer who approached him, then talked with other officers, offering to surrender. The entire episode lasted a terrifying 30 minutes, according to witnesses and court records.

The Pagourtzis family released a statement Saturday saying they are “shocked and confused” by what happened and that the incident “seems incompatible with the boy we love.”

Nicholas Poehl, the Galveston attorney for Pagourtzis, said his client appeared “pretty dazed” when he met with him Saturday and that it would take time for him to learn what happened.

The alleged gunman’s classmates and parents said they saw no signs of trouble before the shooting, though some said he had seemed somewhat depressed in recent months.

Bertha Bland, whose grandson is good friends with Pagourtzis, said she knew the teenager well and described him as “an outstanding kid” and a good student.

Scott Pearson, whose son played football with Pagourtzis, described him as a quiet, normal kid. He didn’t talk to him much when he took him home from football practices, but he never got the impression that he was dangerous. He noticed that Pagourtzis regularly wore a trench coat but didn’t think much of it.

“Kids do weird stuff,” Pearson said. “I don’t understand when my son wears a hoodie out in 90-degree heat, either.”

The evidence recovered in the first day of the probe suggests that the gunman was a disturbed young man without any particular ideology.

The shooting didn’t seem to rattle beliefs or prompt the calls for change that followed the Parkland shooting. Norman Franzke, 69, whose granddaughter safely escaped Santa Fe High, noted that guns have been part of the culture here for generations. When he attended, students kept shotguns on racks in their pickups, ready for hunting after school.

“I don’t think this will change the mentality of this community,” Franzke said. “There may be some changes in how kids enter and leave school. But even then, he was a student, so he would still have had access.”

#Texas school shooting #Santa Fe High School shooting

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brodmanfamily · 3 years

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On custody & abuse

(If you arrived here accidentally, this post is tied to a GoFundMe campaign to help our family survive eviction and hopefully pay for our teenage daughter’s rehab treatment. Here is the link to the campaign: gf.me/u/zpuurv )

Our family has gone through so much collective trauma and individual trauma over the last 6 years. And nearly all of it is related to fighting for custody of our kids.

We first became aware of emotional abuse that our kids were suffering at bio mom’s house in 2015. It was sporadic, and as far as the kids told us, a long time between occurrences. At one point in that year, during a visitation exchange where the kids were coming over to our house for the weekend, bio mom came to the front door and started hitting it with a shovel. She stood outside screaming, ringing the doorbell, and hitting the door while our two children sobbed in the back of the house, thinking someone was trying to break in. By the time we called the police, she was gone and nothing came of it.

We also found out that bio mom was teaching our then 12 and 10 year old children to pole dance. She had a permanent pole installed in the upstairs landing of her home right outside the two children’s rooms. We tried to discourage our children from learning how to pole dance because it wasn’t appropriate for their ages, but they continued learning.

Things really ramped up in 2016. Every month, something would happen. In January 2016, we became aware through our eldest daughter’s texts that bio mom had punched her so hard in the face that she had a bruised eye and swollen face, and that bio mom had held up a lighter to our daughter’s arm to try to burn her. When we found out, we submitted a report to CPS, along with details about a new story the kids had told us wherein bio mom pulled a gun on her step-son in the presence of our children. We never received a response.

The following month, on Presidents’ Day of February 2016, we received a video message from our eldest that showed her mother dragging her sister by her hair openly down the sidewalks of Galveston. She texted us saying she was really scared and asked if the two of them could come stay over with us that night. We managed to convince bio mom to let us have the kids for the night. What we found out after the fact is that our youngest had bruises on her arm where she had been pinched, and a hand-shaped bruise around her wrist where she had been forcibly pulled. We submitted this video and pictures to HPD and nothing came of it.

On and on, more incidents would happen. Every month, there was something new. Our kids were coming over on our visitation days, crying or sobbing about something that had happened at bio mom’s house. We were at a loss for what to do. By our 4th CPS report and no action, we felt so frustrated. We stupidly believed there would be relief through CPS – that through enough reports maybe the kids would be removed from bio mom’s care and allowed to be with us full-time. We were getting closer and closer to the idea of fighting for custody, but we also knew we wouldn’t have the funds for it.

We tabled the idea until December 2016, when we finally became aware of abuse so vile that we simply couldn’t let our kids stay there. Our eldest, who was 13 at the time, came to us disgusting allegations against her stepdad. You do the math. The following morning we filed a report with CPS, we filed a report with the Harris County Sheriff Department, and found a lawyer. (Bio mom did not believe her child, still doesn’t, and she is still married to the man who victimized our children).

Within a few weeks, we served a temporary restraining order against bio mom and took full temporary custody of the kids. That legal battle lasted a long time before the case was finalized in our favor. We were able to get some protections in place: an injunction against the stepfather being around the children, and no overnight visitation with bio mom at all. Even though we wanted more protections, namely supervised visitation to keep our children safe, we were advised that getting supervised visitation for our case would be nearly impossible in the Texas courts.

We lived in this new normal, accepting that we had as many limitations as possible and with the hope that as the kids entered their teenage years, they could learn to set boundaries with bio mom and protect themselves. We thought for a time they were doing well, because they insisted bio mom wasn’t causing them anymore trouble. But we learned finally in July 2020 that the verbal, emotional, and (sometimes) physical abuse never stopped. Our eldest child had instead been feeding her addictions at bio mom’s house since 2018, and she had enlisted her younger sister to lie for her so they could continue seeing bio mom. For her, bio mom’s house meant freedom to engage in her addictions.

By the time we found out all of the details, the web of lies, the continued abuse from bio mom, the harm our eldest caused our youngest, etc., our 16-year-old daughter was so far gone, she proudly stated she was going to live with her mom and become a stripper. At the encouragement of bio mom, she engaged in an addictive and reckless lifestyle. Bio mom was driving our daughter to and from boys’ houses, and allowing her to engage in her addictions in the privacy of her home. She bought our eldest a second phone so our child could run her secret, addictive lifestyle from a phone we had no knowledge of.

There are so many more things involved, but they’re just too much to list. The summary is this: our eldest’s two therapists have stated that in their professional opinion, bio mom’s actions should be considered “borderline child prostitution” and “grooming for sex work.”

Our eldest came from a deep history of trauma and we knew there were no other options besides removing her entirely from the toxic environment and get her help. The damage was so severe that her therapist at the rehab facility told us she was the worst case of sexual trauma and sexual addiction she had ever seen, after 10 years of working for CPS in her state.

Our family has been through so much. Our kids have both been through so much. We are doing everything in our power to give them the safe home they deserve and a chance at a future that isn’t marred by the traumas they have been through. Our eldest is still not well enough to come out of treatment, and our youngest is doing her best to work through her traumas in therapy. It’s a day by day thing. Sometimes hour by hour. We are so busy focusing on making sure our family survives and our kids are okay, that we don’t even have the time to tend to our own mental health.

We don’t regret for one moment what we spent to get full custody of our kids. But we simply never fully recovered from the debt. It was an extensive legal battle that spanned from January of 2017 until November of 2018. At the time that we entered these legal proceedings, we took out part of Jason’s 401k (with a penalty), emptied out our children’s college savings account, and got some of those sleazy payday/quick loans from one of those places with ridiculously high interest. All of these things were still not enough to cover our regular cost of living in addition to the legal expenses, which all in roughly come out to about $195k. We finished paying off our main lawyer in December 2019 and finished paying off one of our many loans in February 2020, just in time to have our former home burglarized, and just months before we had to scramble to get money to put our eldest daughter in treatment.

We never fully recovered from the debt before we were hit with the next crisis.

It has been a rough 6 years of ups and downs for us. Every time we feel like we have hit rock bottom, something else happens to shatter our sense of foundation. We keep trudging along, hoping the tide will turn for us. We still believe there are good things coming, we just don’t know when. We are hoping we can survive until the tide turns.

We have said a lot here. We feel lost. We feel empty. We feel ashamed. But we have to do whatever it takes to take care of our children. They are, above all, our main motivation.

Thank you for taking the time to read our story. Even if all you did was read it, it has been therapeutic for us to put it down in words. We are sending this out into the giant void that is the internet, and praying for a miracle.

#gofundme #help #addiction #rehabilitation #abuse #eviction #rehab #grooming #custody

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