The Nahmias Cipher Report

Happy New Year!! Wishing you increased prosperity, health, peace and happiness for 2010.

Have you ever seen gorgeous, impossibly intricate head wraps and wondered how these beautiful, exotic women fashioned them? Well, when I was a child in Nigeria, these were my very thoughts until Mama Nyiyi taught my mother and aunt how to wrap the “Gele” as this Yoruba head wrap is named.

The Gele goes beyond mere head covering, these wraps are creations of art. This post also contains an instructional video on how to properly wrap the Gele.

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief Last Modified: 22:50 PM EDT, 27 December 2009 SAO PAULO, Brazil – Gabriel Wickbold is a young Brazilian Photographer whose images are intriguing and captivating. This post features his ‘Faces of Brasileiros’ series. Related articles Putumayo Celebrates Carnival in Rio with Brazilian Beat (wholefoodsmarket.com) Totalmente Brasileiro (cortez.wordpress.com) Carnaval Brasileiro Austin 2012 (worldculturesaustin.com) [...]

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief Last Modified: 14:07 PM EDT, 27 December 2009 CHINA – This blog addresses many issues regarding human rights and seeks to encourage the reader to act even if it is through sharing a post or video. Somewhere in the world today, some person or group of people are being treated inhumanely. We [...]

January 7, 2010 is the day that Ethiopians will celebrate Christmas. Although there is no direct correlation between a Jewish festival and this date when Ethiopian Christians among others (i.e. Russian, Serb, and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians) celebrate Christmas, I did find a unique minor holiday that reinforced the shared history, Gizret.

“This invisibility—this erasure out of the complex history of our life and time—is the greatest source of my longing. As you know, I’m a woman who yearns, who longs for. This is the key to me and to the work, and something which is rarely discussed in reviews or essays, which I also find remarkably disappointing. That there are so few images of African-American women circulating in popular culture or in fine art is disturbing; the pathology behind it is dangerous. I mean, we got a sistah in the White House, and yet mediated culture excludes us, denies us, erases us. But in the face of refusal, I insist on making work that includes us as part of the greater whole. Black experience is not really the main point; rather, complex, dimensional, human experience and social inclusion—even in the shit, muck, and mire—is the real point.” — Carrie Mae Weems

Honor killings, domestic violence and rape does not only occur in Muslim countries, it is happening more and more in the United States, and we are each responsible for doing our part to stop this scourge. It happens in Western and Eastern cultures, and also in Christian and Islamic countries.

This post does not seek to indict one faith or group of people over another, for the real culprits are the men of any nationality, culture, and faith who feel that women are chattel, and deserve to be treated with disrespect, physical and sexual violence, and even death. This behavior continues unabated because the perpetrators know that there will be no repercussions for their acts of violence.

“Awareness leads to interest, which leads to desire, that leads to action.”

The more burdened we become by the cares of the world, the easier it is for us to forget the dreams of our youth. I like this song because it is an anthem, a reminder to me and I hope to others to never forget our dreams that can yet be realized and definitely achieved if we believe.

Lady Gaga is an interesting phenomena whose theatrical and satirical music videos offer an insightful commentary on and parody of America’s wanton sexuality, consumerism and self-absorbed showmanship. Even the ambiguity of her sex and sexuality contribute to effectiveness of her appeal as an extraordinarily marketable performance artist. As a consequence of several comments from readers, it should be noted that this critique of Lady Gaga is limited to the video “Paparazzi,” as I am unfamiliar with the rest of her work.