The Nahmias Cipher Report

The Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks about the traditions of a single story framed by prejudice, stereotypes, and misinformation. The author of “Half of a Yellow Sun” (2006), she has several other notable books, short stories, plays and poem anthologies under her belt, but this presentation transcends continents, cultures, and class. View the video here.

“This is the year 2010, right? Just checking. I’ve been a trucking industry blogger for several years, with well over a million readers, and, been a driver for a lot longer than that. Like most people looking in on the trucking industry I’ve had opinions and judgments based on notions of what I thought I was looking at. As I became more and more entrenched and involved in issues as they pertain to truck drivers (and that’s an entire book in itself if we’re talking general controversy), my jaw would hit the floor on numerous occasions. The subject of this editorial is one of these “occasions”, and in my view the most important one. Many industries, in past decades, have been battlegrounds for women’s rights on several fronts. We’re talking – equal pay, promotions, fair treatment, and of course, sexual harassment and abuse.

What would you say if I told you we still had an industry here in America where women were routinely harassed, abused and even placed in trucks as part of training procedures with known male convicted felons of sex crimes.” ~ Daniel Audet

BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo – First Lady Olive Lembe Kabila, the wife of President Joseph Kabila led approximately 17,000 women on Sunday in a march against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  The term ‘weaponized rape,’ has come to define the practice of raping women as a means of subjugating and [...]

Of course silence is an option, but is it moral? “From woman, man is born; within woman, man is conceived; to woman he is engaged and married. Woman becomes his friend; through woman, the future generations come. When his woman dies, he seeks another woman; to woman he is bound. So why call her bad? From her, kings are born. From woman, woman is born; without woman, there would be no one at all.” ~ Guru Nanak, 15th Century Founder of Sikhism

“Tell your own story, and you will be interesting. Don’t get the green disease of envy. Don’t be fooled by success and money. Don’t let anything come between you and your work.” ~ Louise Bourgeois

Artist Louise Bourgeois died at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan on Monday, 31 May 2010. She suffered a heart attack Saturday night, said the studio director, Wendy Williams. Although 98, she was still working and in fact finished her latest piece just last week.

These Algerian Desert Flowers were featured in a 1917 National Geographic story that documented the exotic beauty of North African people and their religious customs. Unlike the anthropological approach to other cultures, people and countries that primarily exists today, the captions that reference many of the photos in this series ‘Scenes of Orient’ are ethnocentric, paternalistic and colonialist at best, and downright racists at worst. Thankfully, the beauty of these captured moments surpass the limitations of the recorder.

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief Last Modified: 22:25 PM EDT, 26 April 2010 KUNDUZ PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Afghan women have been subjected to increasing levels of violence since 2002. The war-torn region is subject not only to external forces as America and its allies attempt to fortify the borders against Taliban insurgents, but to the internal pressures [...]

A plant bears from the fecundity of the soil in which it takes root. Our progenitors are the original farmers and we their crop. It was up to them to nurture and protect us, but broken people are want and often sow their bitterness into the trough.

“Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot… wait for the boy who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, who thinks you’re just as pretty without makeup on. One who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky his is to have you…. The one who turns to his friends and says, ‘that’s her.’” ~ Anonymous