Wednesday, September 25, 2013

The lighter side

The lighter side


A little boy was found crying in a supermarket. When asked what was wrong, he told the security guy that he had lost his mum.  
 
“What does she look like?” asked the security guy
“I don’t know” sobbed the boy.

A moment later his mother came down the aisle.

 
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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why Did Jesus Fold the Napkin?

The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. 

The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin. 

 Early Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 

She ran and found Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. She said, 'They have taken the Lord's body out of the tomb, and I don't know where they have put him!' 

 Peter and the other disciple ran to the tomb to see. The other disciple out ran Peter and got there first. He stopped and looked in and saw the linen cloth lying there, but he didn't go in.

 Then Simon Peter arrived and went inside. He also noticed the linen wrappings lying there, while the cloth that had covered Jesus' head was folded up and lying to the side. 

Was that important? Absolutely! > Is it really significant? Yes!


 In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. > The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every > Jewish boy knew this tradition. 

When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. > > The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table, until the master was finished.. >

Now if the master were done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. 

The servant would then know to clear the table. For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm finished.." 

But if the master got up from the table, and folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because..........


 The folded napkin meant, > "I'm coming back!" 

 Did you know this before? I didn't. Now I know why the priests so meticulously fold the napkins at the altar!

Are Afghan women better off after a decade of war?

Are Afghan women better off after a decade of war?


By Heather Barr, Special to CNN
March 8, 2012 -- Updated 1052 GMT (1852 HKT)
Editor's note: Heather Barr is the Afghanistan Researcher for Human Rights Watch. She has lived in Kabul, Afghanistan, since 2007.
Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- When U.S. forces toppled the Taliban government following the 9/11 attacks, there was a global wave of support from people horrified by the plight of Afghan women. Under the Taliban, women had been denied education, banned from medical treatment by male doctors, and publicly executed for "immorality."
The Taliban's fall promised women some basic freedoms and rights. Indeed, over the past 10 years there have been significant improvements for Afghan women and girls. Official restrictions ended on access to education, work, and health care. Millions of girls went to school for the first time. Women joined government, won elected office, and became police officers and even soldiers. A new constitution in 2004 guaranteed women equal rights, and a 2009 law made violence against women a crime.
Heather Barr
Heather Barr
Underneath the surface of these changes, however, deep seated problems persist. Women in public life have suffered harassment, threats, and sometimes murder. Forced marriage, underage marriage, and domestic violence are widespread and too widely accepted.
About 400 women and girls are imprisoned at present for the "moral crimes" of sex outside of marriage and simply running away from home, often to flee abuse. While education is more accessible, more than half of girls still don't go to school. Every two hours an Afghan woman dies of pregnancy-related causes.
As the announced departure of international forces in 2014 draws closer, many Afghan women look to the future with fear. They worry that the troop pullout signals the end of interest in Afghanistan, and with it the international commitment to push the Afghan government to promote and protect women's rights. Also likely to decrease is the foreign aid that pays for schools and clinics that have changed many lives. Afghan women fear being abandoned again by the rest of the world, as they were during the Taliban era.
Plans for peace negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government raise the specter of women's rights being bargained away. If there are no women at the negotiating table, this is even more likely.
This week the fragility of women's rights in Afghanistan has been on full display. The Ulema Council, a government-supported body of religious leaders, issued a statement on several issues, including the recent burning of copies of the Quran at a U.S. military base. The longest part of the statement, however, gave religious guidance on how women should be treated and should behave.
The statement said some good things. It prohibited a traditional practice of giving a girl to another family to resolve a dispute ("baad"). It spoke against forced marriage. It confirmed women's rights to inherit and own property.
On women's duties, however, the statement took a turn for the worse: Women should not travel without a male chaperone. Women should not mix with men while studying, or working, or in public. Women must wear the Islamic hijab. Women are secondary to men.
If this was just the view of conservative religious leaders, it would be discouraging, but just another in a long line of discriminatory statements about women from Afghanistan's male dominated institutions. What caused consternation, however, was the sense that President Hamid Karzai had embraced the statement. In a departure from usual practice, the statement was posted on the Presidential Palace website, distributed to the media by the Palace, and defended by President Karzai at a news conference.
President Karzai has a mixed record on women's rights. He committed Afghanistan to an international convention promising equal rights for women and pushed through by decree the 2009 law making violence against women a crime. He recently spoke out on two high-profile cases of violence against women.
On the other hand, in the run-up to the 2009 presidential election he curried favor with hard-liners by signing the Shia Personal Status Law, which, for Afghanistan's Shia minority, gives a husband the right to withdraw maintenance from his wife, including food, if she refuses to obey sexual demands, grants guardianship of children exclusively to men, and requires women to have permission from their husbands to work. Some women fear that Karzai is using the Ulema Council statement to send a message about what compromises he is ready to make with the Taliban.
With international interest in Afghanistan waning, negotiations with the Taliban in the offing, and Karzai's endorsement of the Ulema Council's statement, Afghan women are more vulnerable than at any time in the past 10 years. Now President Obama and other backers of the Afghan government should make it clear that they will not support any deals that sacrifice women's rights, and press Karzai to make his position clear. The risks for Afghan women are too high to do anything less.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/08/opinion/afghanistan-women-rights-barr

Syrian Refugees Struggle at Zaatari Camp

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/09/world/middleeast/zaatari.html?ref=syria

Syrian Refugees Struggle at Zaatari Camp

About 120,000 Syrians are calling the tents and trailers of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan home, at least for the foreseeable future. Related Article »
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Syrian refugees at a food distribution center at the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan.
– Some 1.3 million Syrians fleeing civil war have flooded surrounding nations. More than 500,000 are in Jordan, perhaps 120,000 of them in the mind- numbing rows of tents and trailers in the overcrowded Zaatari refugee camp. To move out into Jordan’s overwhelmed cities and villages, Syrians need a sponsor guaranteeing financial support. This leaves many stuck in Zaatari, which opened last July, for months, struggling to survive cold nights, dusty days and a diet of dry rations, and with little to do but long for home.

A Makeshift Metropolis Emerges in the Desert

From September to November of last year, Zaatari doubled in size, to 5,000 shelters. It long ago exceeded its planned capacity of 60,000 people. There are now 25,000 dwellings sprawling across five square miles. Aid workers hope to replace all the tents with sturdier mobile-home units by mid-summer. So far, there are 10,000.
Feb. 3, 201318,169 Shelters
DigitalGlobe
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Hope and Uncertainty at the Border Crossing

Most refugees cross the border at night, some after days of trekking led by opposition fighters. But as the rebels have taken control of areas close to the border, more people are crossing during daylight. At Shajarah, a major Jordanian Army registration point along the border, 541 refugees arrived one recent Wednesday. They were given biscuits and juice and spent up to 12 hours crowding around two soldiers in a dimly lighted tent who checked their identification and logged their names by hand.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
A Syrian father with his two daughters and their belongings shortly after arriving in Jordan through the border crossing at Shajarah. 
“We slept in a bus and we rode in a taxi then from car to car. Half of the trip was walking on rocks and we reached here at 3 a.m. I’m waiting here until God makes it better there.”
Ruqaya Mohammad al-Ahmad brought her two children, Sindra, 7, and Tariq, 3, to Zaatari.

From Tent to Trailer, Waiting to Go Home

In Zaatari, the mobile-home units known as caravans are the most precious commodity, separating those who have little from those who have less. The 200-square-foot caravans, donated by more than half a dozen countries, have windows, floors and doors that lock.
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Zaatari opened as an emergency outpost but now sprawls across five square miles and costs $1 million a day to run.
“It’s so easy. I feel proud because I feel like I help my family by bringing this income.”
Ahmad Ojan, 14, sells cups of hot tea for 15 cents apiece to people waiting at the registration camp and in the open-air market.