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Monthly Archives: June 2014
Ninja Man Drafted To Speak On “Life and Death” In Trinidad
Violence
DownSound recording artist Ninja Man recently went to Trinidad to give a speech in regards to the upliftment and inspiration of youths involved in violence on the Caribbean island.
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Read to Children Beginning at Birth
this is something to be encouraged
The American Academy of Pediatrics will announce a new policy directing doctors to tell parents to read aloud to their infants from birth.
Per the New York Times, “With the increased recognition that an important part of brain development occurs within the first three years of a child’s life, and that reading to children enhances vocabulary and other important communication skills, the group, which represents 62,000 pediatricians across the country, is asking its members to become powerful advocates for reading aloud, every time a baby visits the doctor.”
Reading, talking and singing are all considered important in increasing the number of words children hear and know at the earliest ages, creating distinct advantages when they begin school.
This should be reason enough to visit your local library.
Click here for the entire New York Times article.
– posted by Ed, Reference Services
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Cocoa Extract May Influence Alzheimer’s Disease Mechanisms
great news
A new study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai shows mechanisms behind cocoa’s benefit which may lead to new treatments or dietary regimens.
A specific preparation of cocoa-extract called Lavado may reduce damage to nerve pathways seen in Alzheimer’s disease patients’ brai…
Read more Cocoa Extract May Influence Alzheimer’s Disease Mechanisms
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Chocolate Truffles and Waving at the Queen
Homemade chocolate truffles
Homemade truffles are very easy to make but always seem quite impressive. They are perfect for the end of a meal or as a gift. I made these for a lunch with friends for Royal Ascot week.
Royal Ascot, if you haven’t heard of it, is one of the most important horse racing events in the calendar. It lasts for a week and is “Royal” because the Queen attends every day. She leaves Windsor Castle by car and is driven through the Great Park where she and the most important members of her party get into the horse-driven carriages that they take to the racecourse. Waving at the Queen as she passes in her carriage has become a tradition: I look forward to it every year. It almost makes up for a week of chaos and traffic nightmares! My friend Vana organises a lunch for the mums…
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Blurring Borders: Fear, Shame, and Sexuality in Brazil and Beyond
Interesting
Blurring Borders: Fear, Shame, and Sexuality in Brazil and Beyond
Sexuality is a complex and mysterious aspect of human existence and interaction. Though it has come to represent one’s identity since the 18th century (Weeks, 2006), sexuality was once seen as a behavior, and didn’t inform the construction of one’s identity, nor the way one is perceived by society. Nowadays, for better and for worse, sexuality and identity are inseparably linked. But the multiplicity of sexual identities is not aptly summarized by the slew of labels that attempt to homogenize groups of distinct individuals into neat, legible boxes.
Interestingly enough, and perhaps counterintuitively, heterosexuality is at least as limiting, if not more so, than other sexual referents. Society wants to be able to identify homosexuals with ease- therefore the limits of heterosexuality are relatively well-defined, especially in contrast with homosexuality, which is more of an umbrella term than a precise…
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2014 Trafficking In Persons Report on Trinidad and Tobago Revealed.
an eye opener…
Today, Friday 20th June, 2014 saw the official release of the 2014 Trafficking In Persons Report by U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry. This long-awaited annual publication serves as a means whereby the US Department of State ranks the efforts of many of the world’s governments to combat modern slavery.
According to the Department of State’s website, “[t]he Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report is the U. S. Government’s principal diplomatic tool to engage foreign governments on human trafficking. It is also the world’s most comprehensive resource of governmental anti-human trafficking efforts and reflects the U. S. Government’s commitment to global leadership on this key human rights and law enforcement issue. In the TIP Report, the Department of State places each country onto one of three tiers based on the extent of their governments’ efforts to comply with the “minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking” found in Section 108 of…
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ASL around the world: A Trinidadian, an Englishman, a Nigerian and a Guyanese walk into a park in Guyana…
More interesting stuff from people making a difference…
In 2012, I made the short trip to Guyana to meet with members of the Deaf community in the capital, Georgetown, to see some of the work being done by a group then called Deaf in Guyana, now called the Deaf Association of Guyana (DAG), and to do some initial linguistic research. Walking through Georgetown’s beautiful botanical gardens one afternoon, a group of us happened to meet a hearing Nigerian man who had gone to a deaf school as a child in Nigeria (his father was the principal, I think). We chatted together for a while as we waited for a rain shower to pass. We talked about the differences between our countries, about languages and religions. As we talked — a Nigerian, an Englishman, two Trinidadians and one Guyanese, some hearing, some Deaf — the language we used was American Sign Language.
I thought of that trip as I read Julie Hochgesang’s…
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