The Nahmias Cipher Report

What made America? What makes us? These two questions are at the heart of the new PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Harvard scholar turns to the latest tools of genealogy and genetics to explore the family histories of 12 renowned Americans — professor and poet Elizabeth Alexander, chef Mario Batali, comedian Stephen Colbert, novelist Louise Erdrich, journalist Malcolm Gladwell, actress Eva Longoria, musician Yo-Yo Ma, director Mike Nichols, Her Majesty Queen Noor, television host/heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, actress Meryl Streep, and figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi. Source: PBS @ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/facesofamerica/

Reblogged from This is MY Soapbox: Are all men pedophiles? Of course not! But this is the recent subject of a documentary. I’ll let you watch the trailer. The trailer isn’t bringing up any facts that would change my mind. Just because models start off their careers at the age of 16 doesn’t imply that all [...]

Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief Last Modified: 23:05 PM EDT, 19 February 2012 We each possess the power to positively or adversely impact our fellow human beings. So, “beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and [...]

We must not define ourselves by freedom from religion, from abuse, from rape, from derision. From societal norms, from conformance, from acceptable compliance. From race, from the accident of geographical happenstance of birth or of life whether lived extraordinarily or pedestrian, with unsung aplomb, or within the rarefied strata of the new minted pantheon of ‘celebrity’ deities.

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.

A truly powerful movie that is metaphoric and profound on so many levels. Words fail to capture the depth of longing portrayed by the principal character of this film who is the veritable “everyman” calling out to the great unknown for guidance, support, and assistance. As an artist and a deeply spiritual person the other worldliness and mysticism experienced by the characters in this film transcend man made boundaries to emote true connection to the “unseen” that binds us all.

In a time of deep divides along geographical, political and religious lines, it is important for people to remember that ultimately these factions and the resultant conflicts have been a facet of humanity since its beginning. Therefore, we should not define ourselves by this our greatest failing, instead we should strive to identify the communality of our experiences, our humanity, and our intrinsic need to understand from whence we came and to where we return.

In the Middle East and North Africa women rights are coming to the forefront as they begin their modern-day suffragette movement amidst the recent uprisings – now known as the “Arab Spring”. Suffragette “derived from the word “suffrage“, means the right to vote,” however; women across the Middle East are fighting for more than the [...]

After the release of information by the American government which claims that pornography was discovered on Osama Bin Laden’s computer, the idea of pornography in Islamic nations shouldn’t be strange. In fact, I wrote a post titled “Sex for Sale from Moldova to Dubai,” which deals with the topic of human trafficking and sex slaves from former Eastern Bloc countries who end up working across Europe and the Middle East.

But even researching these abuses I had never heard of “Granny Porn.” The term evoked an image of an elderly frail grandmother with white hair engaged in non-consensual sex. In fact, because of the lead-in I thought that Dr. Drew was going to focus on the issue of the rape of elderly women in nursing homes.

As of 45 minutes ago it was reported that the military leader Than Shwe has signed the release of Aung San Suu Kyi who received the paperwork earlier today. Her release came on the heels of Myanmar’s 7 November 2010, its first election in twenty years. Even with this demonstration of Myanmar’s desire to move closer to Democracy the elections have been marred by charges of fraud.

The newly elected government has been condemn by the international community. Even President Barak Obama has stated the elections were “neither free nor fair.” Upon Suu Kyi’s release she is expected to participate in the investigations of allegations of fraud in the polls and other irregularities.