Movies have always challenged us and given us unique perspectives on things we didn’t consider. Some of the greatest arguments of our time have been fought out on the silver screen. From abortion to evolution, these memorable debates are powerful and always deliver both sides of the story. Emily Rose’s story is one of those debates.

Inspired by a true story, Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson) is put on trial for the negligent homicide of 19-year old Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). The priest’s claim is that Emily had been possessed by the devil and that an exorcism had to be performed to release the devil’s grasp on the girl. The young girl died.

Defending Moore the priest is rising courtroom star Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) who has a difficulty believing the priest’s story at the beginning. The prosecuting attorney (Campbell Scott), is a devote Methodist who has to present the scientific side of the case and debunk the priest’s claims.

“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” is a hard film to get your head around. The film is smart, creepy, compelling and has a tasty argument to send to trial but why didn’t it hit home for me.

As the film progressed I often found myself remembering scenes from the 1960 classic “Inherit the Wind” where a teacher is put on trial for teaching evolution in a devote religious system. The film was a blood-boiler as both sides of creationism and evolution were debated in fiery detail. It is still one of the best courtroom films ever made.

I think the problem I had with “Emily Rose” was that I found the courtroom scenes in the film to be rudimentary and photographed rather dully. After seeing countless court scenes on TV and film it was hard to get into this one even if the case was intriguing. There was no passion in the court proceedings but just seemed to be a rigorous game.

This lack of passion in an intriguing case reminded me of the controversial 1989 TV movie “Roe vs. Wade” where a pregnant mother (Holly Hunter) wants to have an abortion in Texas, where the procedure is illegal. The film itself had a good argument but the film itself is heavily flawed and never is each side of the case fairly represented. Especially the prosecution since the film is biased to one side. I felt the same was evident in “Emily Rose”.

To counter-measure the court, you have quite excellent flashback sequences that can be quite unnerving and often stray us away from the factual case. The flashbacks give more meaning to the priest’s case while stealing the audience away from believing the other side of the story.

Even if the story isn’t presented as powerful as it could have been I did like the performances of both Linney and Wilkinson. Newcomer Jennifer Carpenter “no-holds-barred” contortionist performance as Emily Rose is jarring and brilliant. I liked Carpenter but found that the filmmakers let her scenes get way over the top in portions.

I think the film can best be described as “Inherit the Wind” meets “The Exorcist”. Even though the film is probably not what you would expect I wished it was more powerful and delivered a more even handed debate.

(2.5 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.

Check out the movie's website.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 11:02 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- The Battle of Lake Erie

On September 10, 1813, American Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led his home-built 10-vessel fleet to victory against a six-vessel British squadron commanded by Captain Robert H. Barclay in the Battle of Lake Erie. Perry's triumph, marked by his legendary message to General William Henry Harrison, "We have met the enemy and they are ours," was of great strategic value for the United States because it ensured American control of the Northwest Territory. During the battle, Perry left his badly damaged Lawrence and transferred his motto flag, reading, "Don't Give Up the Ship," to Niagara. From there he continued the fight.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:41 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Jomo Kenyatta

Kenyatta was born Kamau wa Ngengi in the village of Ichaweri, Gatundu in British East Africa (now Kenya). The year is uncertain: it may have been as early as 1889 or as late as 1895. He assisted his medicine man grandfather as a child after his parents' death. He went to school in the Scottish Mission Centre at Thogoto and was converted to Christianity in 1914 with the name John Peter, which he later changed to Johnstone Kamau. He moved to Nairobi. During the First World War he lived with Maasai relatives in Narok and worked as a clerk.

In 1920 he married Grace Wahu and worked in the Nairobi City Council water department. His son Peter Muigai was born on November 20. He entered politics in 1924 when he joined the Kikuyu Central Association. In 1928 he worked on Kĩkũyũ land problems before the Hilton Young Commission in Nairobi. In 1928 he began to edit the newspaper Muigwithania.

In 1929 the KCA sent Kenyatta to London to lobby for their views on Kĩkũyũ tribal land affairs. He wrote articles to British newspapers about the matter. He returned to Kenya in 1930 to lobby against female circumcision. In 1931 he went back to London and ended up enrolling in Woodbrooke Quaker College in Birmingham.

In 1932–1933 he briefly studied economics in Moscow before his sponsor, the Trinidadian radical George Padmore, fell out with his Soviet hosts, and he was forced to move back to London. In 1934 he enrolled at University College London and in 1937 studied anthropology at the London School of Economics. During all this time he lobbied on Kĩkũyũ land affairs. He wrote Facing Mount Kenya in 1938 under his new name Jomo Kenyatta.

During World War II, he worked in a British farm and as a film actor, appearing in the movie Sanders of the River along with Paul Robeson. He married Englishwoman Edna Clarke who gave birth to his son Peter Magana in 1943. He later left her.

In 1946 Kenyatta founded the Pan-African Federation with Kwame Nkrumah. In the same year he returned to Kenya and was married for the third time, to Grace Wanjiku. He became a principal of Kenya Teachers College. In 1947 he became a president of the Kenya African Union (KAU). He begun to receive death threats from white settlers.

Grace Wanjiku died in childbirth in 1950 when she gave birth to daughter Jane Wambui. In 1951 Kenyatta married Ngina Muhoho.

His reputation with the British government was marred by his assumed involvement with the Mau Mau Rebellion. He was arrested in October 1952, accused of organizing the Mau Mau and on April 8, 1953 was sentenced to seven years in prison and hard labour. Contemporary opinion linked him with the Mau Mau but later research claims otherwise. Kenyatta was in prison until 1959. He was then sent into exile on probation in Lodwar, a remote part of Kenya.

The state of emergency was lifted in December 1960. In 1961, both successors of the former KAU party, the Kenya African National Union (KANU) and the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) demanded his release. On May 14, 1960, Kenyatta was elected KANU president in absentia. He was fully released on August 21, 1961. He was admitted into the Legislative Council the next year when one member handed over his seat, and contributed to the creation of a new constitution. His initial attempt to reunify KAU failed.

In elections in May 1963 Kenyatta's KANU won 83 seats out of 124. On June 1 Kenyatta became prime minister of the autonomous Kenyan government, and was known as mzee (a Swahili word meaning old man or elder). At this stage he asked white settlers not to leave Kenya and supported reconciliation. He retained the role of prime minister after independence was declared on December 12, 1963. In 1964, Kenya became a republic, with Kenyatta as executive president.

Kenyatta's policy was conciliatory and he kept many colonial civil servants in their old jobs. He had to ask for British troops' help against Somali revolts in the northeast and an army mutiny in Nairobi (January 1964). Some British troops remained in the country. On November 10, 1964, KADU's representatives joined the ranks of KANU, forming a single party.

Kenyatta instituted relatively peaceful land reform, oversaw Kenya's joining the United Nations, and concluded trade agreements with Milton Obote's Uganda and Julius Nyerere's Tanzania. He pursued a non-aligned foreign policy. Stability attracted foreign investment and he was an influential figure everywhere in Africa. However, his authoritarian policies drew criticism and caused dissent.

Kenyatta was re-elected in 1966 and the next year gained extended powers. This term brought border conflicts with Somalia and more political opposition. He made the Kĩkũyũ-led KANU practically the only political party of Kenya. His security forces harassed dissidents and were linked in public to various murders of opposition figures. He was re-elected again in 1974. He died on August 22, 1978 in Mombasa and was buried on August 31 in Nairobi.

Kenyatta was a colorful and controversial figure. His death left the Kenyan republic once more at risk from tribal rivalries. He was succeeded by Daniel arap Moi.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:50 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Friday, September 09, 2005

Tour Guide and Promoter!

It is really cool to show someone your city. The roads, the building, and the greasy north-american food!!
I took Matt to this breakfast house where you can eat as much as you can for $9. Bad idea and we realsed it after the third plate! We had to walk for an hour to digest all this fake powder eggs that we stuffed our mouths with, it tasted good at first but then we felt the aftermath!!

It was funny hearing Matt's persepective about Toronto and the lifestyle comparing to Germany. Too many fat people here, not enough healthy food, no smoking in bars?! We walked along Lake Ontario and had some ice cream and chilled out watching the yachts and corporate events in different ships partying.

With that it didn't stop me from promoting for the event, as I was showing Matt around I was stopping random people on the streets talking to them about the hip hop event and how it would help fund the kids in the slums so they can get into school and learn something useful other than stealing and begging. I sold couple of tickets :)

Today is going to be another long promotional day with some ideas of how to show Matt an awesome time in Toronto, cuz I know he would do the same when I visit him in Stuttgart next month. That would be hype, to meet a friend in three different countries in three different continents in one year. Kenya, Canada and Germany!!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:04 PM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- The Bloomer Costume

Nineteenth-century reformer Amelia Jenks Bloomer, (1818-1894) of Seneca Falls, N.Y., was the editor of The Lily, a periodical "devoted to the interests of women."Along with her support of woman suffrage and temperance, Bloomer was an advocate of dress reform. Believing that restrictive corsets and cumbersome skirts were injurious to the health of women, in the 1850s Bloomer designed and often wore a comfortable costume of a short skirt worn over baggy trousers drawn tight at the ankle. Bloomer's costume, portrayed in this Currier and Ives print, became so controversial that any reasonable talk of dress reform was drowned out by the jeers. Finally, Elizabeth Cady Stanton advised bloomer advocates to abandon the costume. It was not until the 1930s and 40s that women began wearing pants, although bloomers were the inspiration for early bicycling and beach apparel.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:38 PM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Airport Delay!

Well it's been a long day today. I went to the University of Toronto to promote the event, and walked blocks and blocks looking for the student center and everybody was really not helpful. After 40 minutes of walking and getting lost I finally found the student center but it was closed!!
So I wrote down the info for their student club and I guess I'll show up there again some other time!!

Then I had a meeting with my editor at 1pm and it was cool. We talked about my books and how the impact should be given into those books to make it sound hype and intense especially with (Brothers in Terror) and (Brain Washing). We even acted some of the scenes in the book to make it sink in properly and the Editor can use the right words. It was fun!!

I went back home around 4pm and had a hair cut, Finally!! I didn't have for almost 3 months now and I was starting to have an Arab Afro!! But now I look professional!!!

I met Alex at 6pm at Kipling to go to the airport and pick up Matt - A friend from Germany who me and Alex met when we were in Kenya - who is coming to Toronto to support us in the event and the premiere!! What a guy!! flying all over here just to support us!!! Big up!!
Unfortunatly as we get into the airport we find out that Matt's flight is delayed for one whole hour, what the hell are we suppose to do for a whole hour in the airport?! We just sat there watching people walking back and forth and it was fun actually, Alex and I started making stories about the people, where they are going or where they came from, Did they have a good time? Are they ready for their new adventure? Are they going home or are they going on vacation?

At the end Matt arrived and it was nice seeing him again, we took him straight up to Allan's place for he was having a BBQ party. There were burgers waiting for us and that was cool...I ate like a monkey!! And Alex had his gay veggie burger as usuall!!!

So that Matt is here, we are pumped up for this promotion and I know we will do a great job!!
It's all about time, baby!!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:48 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Hurricane Strikes Galveston

Bishop's Palace in Galveston, Texas, remains standing amid piles of rubble after the island city suffered the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history on September 8, 1900. Days earlier, residents of the city were warned of an approaching hurricane. It moved in swiftly on September 8, bringing torrents of rain and raising water levels drastically. By nightfall, winds reached 125 mph and the city was under 15 feet of water. Some 8,000 people were killed in Galveston by flying debris, collapsing buildings and drowning. The storm let up around midnight, leaving in its wake $30 million in damage and thousands of bodies. Many of the dead had to be hastily dumped in the ocean for fear of spreading disease.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:19 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- My First Film!!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 1:16 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

My 5th Novel??

No I have not yet finished this book, I started writing it a month ago and I am around 110 pages done! I should finish this one by the end of this year. The reason why it would take me this long is because I will be travelling the next two months to Europe, Africa and possibly UAE!

So this is a sneak preview to all of you of what my new book's cover would look like. Still not approved though!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 2:04 PM :: 2 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Promotion!

I didn't know promoting an event could be this frustrating. We finally got a date set for the premiere night for my film, September 19th. Moreover, Hip Hip Empathy which is a fundraisig event will be taking place on the 17th. Lots of work, less time to party and rest. But at the end of it all I know that I will sit down one night and recall how much fun this all was!!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 12:31 PM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Malcolm X

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska. His mother, Louis Norton Little, was a homemaker occupied with the family's eight children. His father, Earl Little, was an outspoken Baptist minister and avid supporter of Black Nationalist leader Marcus Garvey. Earl's civil rights activism prompted death threats from the white supremacist organization Black Legion, forcing the family to relocate twice before Malcolm's fourth birthday. Regardless of the Little's efforts to elude the Legion, in 1929 their Lansing, Michigan home was burned to the ground, and two years later Earl's mutilated body was found lying across the town's trolley tracks. Police ruled both accidents, but the Little's were certain that members of the Black Legion were responsible. Louise had an emotional breakdown several years after the death of her husband and was committed to a mental institution. Her children were split up amongst various foster homes and orphanages.

Malcolm was a smart, focused student and graduated from junior high at the top of his class. However, when a favorite teacher told Malcolm his dream of becoming a lawyer was "no realistic goal for a nigger," Malcolm lost interest in school. He dropped out, spent some time in Boston, Massachusetts working various odd jobs, and then traveled to Harlem, New York where he committed petty crimes. By 1942 Malcolm was coordinating various narcotic, prostitution and gambling rings.

Eventually Malcolm and his buddy, Malcolm "Shorty" Jarvis, moved back to Boston, where they were arrested and convicted on burglary charges in 1946. Malcolm placated himself by using the seven-year prison sentence to further his education. It was during this period of self-enlightenment that Malcolm's brother Reginald visited and discussed his recent conversion to the Muslim religious organization the Nation of Islam. Intrigued, Malcolm studied the teachings of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Muhammad taught that white society actively worked to keep African-Americans from empowering themselves and achieving political, economic and social success. Among other goals, the Nation of Islam fought for a state of their own, separate from one inhabited by white people. By the time he was paroled in 1952, Malcolm was a devoted follower with the new surname "X." He considered "Little" a slave name and chose the "X" to signify his lost tribal name.

Intelligent and articulate, Malcolm was appointed a minister and national spokesman for the Nation of Islam. Elijah Muhammad also charged him with establishing new mosques in cities such as Detroit, Michigan and Harlem, New York. Malcolm utilized newspaper columns, radio and television to communicate the Nation of Islam's message across the United States. His charisma, drive and conviction attracted an astounding number of new members. Malcolm was largely credited with increasing membership in the Nation of Islam from 500 in 1952 to 30,000 in 1963.

The crowds and controversy surrounding Malcolm made him a media magnet. He was featured in a week-long television special with Mike Wallace in 1959, The Hate That Hate Produced, that explored fundamentals of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm's emergence as one of its most important leaders. After the special, Malcolm was faced with the uncomfortable reality that his fame had eclipsed that of his mentor Elijah Muhammad.

Racial tensions ran increasingly high during the early 1960s. In addition to the media, Malcolm's vivid personality had captured the government's attention. As membership in the Nation of Islam continued to grow, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) agents infiltrated the organization (one even acted at Malcolm's bodyguard) and secretly placed bugs, wiretaps and cameras surveillance equipment to monitor the group's activities.Malcolm's faith was dealt a crushing blow at the height of the civil rights movement in 1963. He learned that Elijah Muhammad was secretly having relations with as many as six women in the Nation of Islam, some of which had resulted in children. Since his conversion Malcolm had strictly adhered to the teachings of Muhammad, including remaining celibate until his marriage to Betty Shabazz in 1958. Malcolm refused Muhammad's request to keep the matter quiet. He was deeply hurt by the deception of Muhammad, whom he had considered a prophet, and felt guilty about the masses he had lead into what he now felt was a fraudulent organization.

When Malcolm received criticism after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for saying, "[Kennedy] never foresaw that the chickens would come home to roost so soon," Muhammad "silenced" him for 90 days. Malcolm suspected he was silenced for another reason. In March 1964 he terminated his relationship with the Nation of Islam and founded the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

That same year, Malcolm went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The trip proved life altering, as Malcolm met "blonde-haired, blued-eyed men I could call my brothers." He returned to the United States with a new outlook on integration. This time, instead of just preaching to African-Americans, he had a message for all races.

Relations between Malcolm and the Nation of Islam had become volatile after he renounced Elijah Muhammad. Informants working in the Nation of Islam warned that Malcolm had been marked for assassination (one man had even been ordered to help plant a bomb in his car). After repeated attempts on his life, Malcolm rarely traveled anywhere without bodyguards. On February 14, 1965 the home where Malcolm, Betty and their four daughters lived in East Elmhurst, New York was firebombed (the family escaped physical injury).

At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage and shot him 15 times at close range. The 39-year-old was pronounced dead on arrival at New York's Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Fifteen hundred people attended Malcolm's funeral in Harlem at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ on February 27, 1965. After the ceremony, friends took the shovels from the gravediggers and buried Malcolm themselves. Later that year, Betty gave birth to their twin daughters.

Malcolm's assassins, Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson were convicted of first-degree murder in March 1966. The three men were all members of the Nation of Islam.

The legacy of Malcolm X has moved through generations as the subject of numerous documentaries, books and movies. A tremendous resurgence of interest occurred in 1992 when director Spike Lee released the acclaimed Malcolm X movie. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Denzel Washington) and Best Costume Design.

Malcolm X is buried at the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 11:35 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- The Assassination of President William McKinley

On September 6, 1901, at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York,deranged anarchist Leon Czolgosz made his way along a reception line filing past President William McKinley. Concealed within a handkerchief, Czolgosz held a .32-caliber revolver. As he came face to face with the president, he fired two shots through the handkerchief, striking McKinley in the chest and the abdomen. McKinley died eight days after the shooting. Czolgosz, explaining that he "thought it would be a good thing for the country to kill the President," was put to death by electrocution 45 days later.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:02 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 6th in History

394 - Theodosius becomes sole ruler of Italy after defeating Eugenius at the Battle of the River Frigidus.

1422 - Sultan Murat II ends a vain siege of Constantinople.

1522 - One of the five ships that set out in Ferdinand Magellan's trip around the world makes it back to Spain. Only 15 of the original 265 men that set out survived. Magellan was killed by natives in the Philippines.

1688 - Imperial troops defeat the Turks and take Belgrade, Serbia.

1793 - French General Jean Houchard and his 40,000 men begin a three-day battle against an Anglo-Hanoveraian army at Hondschoote, southwest Belgium, in the wars of the French Revolution.

1847 - Henry David Thoreau leaves Walden Pond and moves back into town, to Concord, Massachusetts.

1861 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces capture Paducah, Kentucky from Confederate forces.

1870 - The last British troops to serve in Austria are withdrawn.

1901 - President William McKinley is shot while attending a reception at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, by 28-year-old anarchist Leon Czolgosz. McKinley dies eight days later, the third American president assassinated.

1907 - The luxury liner Lusitania leaves London for New York on her maiden voyage.

1918 - The German Army begins a general retreat across the Aisne, with British troops in pursuit.

1936 - Aviator Beryl Markham flies the first east-to-west solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1937 - The Soviet Union accuses Italy of torpedoing two Russian ships in the Mediterranean.

1941 - Germany announces that all Jews living in the country will have to begin wearing a Star of David.

1943 - The United States asks the Chinese Nationals to join with the Communists to present a common front to the Japanese.

1953 - The last American and Korean prisoners are exchanged in Operation Big Switch, the last official act of the Korean War.

1965 - Indian troops invade Lahore; Pakistan paratroopers raid Punjab.

1976 - A Soviet pilot lands his MIG-25 in Tokyo and asks for political asylum in the United States.

1988 - Lee Roy Young becomes the first African-American Texas Ranger in the force's 165-year history.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:17 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Monday, September 05, 2005

The First Labor Day

The first Labor Day observance--a picnic and parade--was held in New York City on September 5, 1882. Parades like this one in Buffalo, New York, around 1900, soon became an important part of Labor Day festivities. Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the New York City Central Labor Union, probably first suggested the celebration in 1882 to recognize the contributions of workers to America. Local and regional Labor Day observances spread across the nation until, on June 28, 1894, the U.S. Congress passed an act making the first Monday in September a legal holiday.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 11:07 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Victor Hugo

Hugo was born in Besançon, Doubs, in the region of Franche-Comté. He lived in exile during the reign of Napoleon III: in Jersey, 1852–1855, and in Guernsey from 1855 until his return to France in 1870.

Although Hugo is better known to the English-speaking world as a novelist, many consider that it was as a poet that he broke new ground. The French poetic traditions were as well-established in his time as the English ones were before the time of the Romantic poets, and Hugo's contribution may be compared with that of William Wordsworth. He believed that the poet's purpose should be two-fold:

To echo universal sentiment by revealing his own feelings, uniting the voices of mankind, nature and history.
To guide the reader: "faire flamboyer l'avenir" — to lead the way.

Hugo was also a painter and a designer, and put together some very innovative decor in his homes, notably in St Peter Port. His paintings are said to anticipate impressionism and surrealism by many decades.

In his epic, La Légende des Siècles, he attempts, by reference to historical events, to depict humanity's struggle to emerge from obscurity into enlightenment.
The term 'United States of Europe' (États-Unis d’Europe), made famous in the 20th century by Winston Churchill and the European Union, was in fact first used by Victor Hugo, at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849 and during speeches at the French National Assembly, including those on September 4, 1869 and March 1, 1871.

Hugo was the Honorary President and founder of the Association Littéraire et Artistique Internationale (ALAI) in 1878 in Paris which gave itself the objective of creating an international convention for the protection of literary and artistic properties which was achieved eight years later with the Berne Convention on September 9, 1886.

Hugo died in Paris on May 22, 1885. His life, and the spontaneous national mourning which followed, inspired the French government to reinvent the Panthéon in Paris as a temple in homage to the great men (and, eventually, women) of France. He is buried in its necropolis.
Hugo also became one of the three primary saints worshipped in the Vietnamese religion Cao Dai.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:36 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 5th in History

1666 - The Fire of London is extinguished after two days.

1664 - After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrenders to the British, who will rename it New York.

1792 - Maximilien Robespierre is elected to the National Convention in France.

1804 - In a daring night raid, American sailors under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, board the captured USS Philadelphia and burn the ship to keep it out of the hands of the Barbary pirates who captured her.

1816 - Louis XVIII of France dissolves the chamber of deputies, which has been challenging his authority.

1859 - Harriot E. Wilson's Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman.

1867 - The first shipment of cattle leaves Abilene, Kansas, on a Union Pacific train headed to Chicago.

1870 - Author Victor Hugo returns to Paris from the Isle of Guernsey where he had lived in exile for almost 20 years.

1877 - The great Sioux warrior Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted at age 36 by a soldier at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

1878 - Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Bill Tilghman and Clay Allison, four of the West's most famous gunmen, meet in Dodge City, Kansas.

1905 - The Russian-Japanese War ends as representatives of the combating empires, meeting in New Hampshire, sign the Treaty of Portsmouth. Japan achieves virtually all of its original war aims.

1910 - Marie Curie demonstrates the transformation of radium ore to metal at the Academy of Sciences in France.

1944 - Germany launches its first V-2 missile at Paris, France.

1958 - Martin Luther King is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police.

1960 - Leopold Sedar Sengingor, poet and politician, is elected president of Senegal, Africa.

1975 - President Gerald Ford evades an assassination attempt in Sacramento, California.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:33 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Going back to school?

Last night Justina held a - going back to school - party at her place. Although %80 of the people who attended the party had already graduated including myself. The party started very slow, with the dim lights, and the only three guys who arrived who had to work all day, I thought this was going to be one stupid boring party.

I was wrong!!

One by one, everybody started showing up till the whole FAM arrived, and of course pictures of the same pose from different angles started taking place. Everybody as usual started gathering in the Justina's tiny kitchen, looking for something to munch on. We didn't realize that it was 3 in the morning, not until Justina told us that she wants to go to sleep......we knew what that meant! Get the hell out!!! hahaha

Kevin, Mykie, Alex and myself started driving to Kevin's place to spend the rest of what is left of the night at his place. However the beach sound was so tempting, so we decided to chill at the beach and wait for the sun rise. That didn't happen!! We were so tired that we decided to just go to Kevin's place and crash. That didn't happen either!! We go to Kevin's place and started playing FIFA on his XBOX, that was so much fun, we looked out of the window and it was daytime now, we looked at the clock and it was 7am!!

Alex looked at me and asked me if I wanted to go home, I nodded and he approved!! So we left Kevin's place and Alex dropped me out to my place The morning breeze was so refreshing and it actually reminded me of school for some reason, reminded me of my early classes where I had to wake up at 5am to catch the bus at 6am and then take the train downtown and by then I'll arrive to the university at 7:45am for my class which will start at 8am!!

I asked Alex as he was pulling over to my place if he miss going to school now.
He nodded and I approved!!

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 12:55 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Humanitarian Albert Schweitzer

Philosopher, musician, doctor, theologian and humanitarian Albert Schweitzer died on September 4, 1965. Born near Alsace, Germany, in 1875, Schweitzer decided to devote himself to providing health care to people in Africa at the age of 30. Schweitzer and his wife Hélène moved to Gabon in 1913 and opened a hospital in Lambaréné, which he later expanded with money from the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 1952. Schweitzer also spoke out against the dangers of nuclear weapons, became an organist and expert on Johann Sebastian Bach, and served as a church pastor and university professor. He lived by the principle of "reverence for life."

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 12:27 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 4th in History

1260 - At the Battle of Montaperto in Italy, the Tuscan Ghibellines, who support the emperor, defeat the Florentine Guelfs, who support papal power.

1479 - After four years of war, Spain agrees to allow a Portuguese monopoly of trade along Africa's west coast and Portugal acknowledges Spain's rights in the Canary Islands.

1781 - Los Angeles, first an Indian village Yangma, is founded by Spanish decree.

1787 - Louis XVI of France recalls parliament.

1790 - Jacques Necker is forced to resign as finance minister in France.

1820 - Czar Alexander declares that Russian influence in North America extends as far south as Oregon and closes Alaskan waters to foreigners.

1862 - Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invades Maryland, starting the Antietam Campaign.

1870 - A republic is proclaimed in Paris and a government of national defense is formed.

1881 - The Edison electric lighting system goes into operation as a generator serving 85 paying customers is switched on.

1886 - Elusive Apache leader Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Ariz.

1893 - Beatrix Potter sends a note to her governess' son with the first drawing of Peter Rabbit, Cottontail and others. The Tale of Petter Rabbit is published eight years later.

1915 - The U.S. military places Haiti under martial law to quell a rebellion in its capital Port-au-Prince.

1941 - German submarine U-652 fires at the U.S. destroyer Greer off Iceland, beginning an undeclared shooting war.

1942 - Soviet planes bomb Budapest in the war's first air raid on the Hungarian capital.

1943 - Allied troops capture Lae-Salamaua, in New Guinea.

1944 - British troops liberate Antwerp, Belgium.

1945 - The American flag is raised on Wake Island after surrender ceremonies there.

1951 - The first transcontinental television broadcast in America is carried by 94 stations.

1957 - Arkansas governor Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to bar African-American students from entering a Little Rock high school.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 12:20 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh, real name Nguyen Tat Thanh (1890-1969), Vietnamese Communist leader and the principal force behind the Vietnamese struggle against French colonial rule. Ho was born on May 19, 1890, in the village of Kimlien, Annam (central Vietnam), the son of an official who had resigned in protest against French domination of his country. Ho attended school in Hue and then briefly taught at a private school in Phan Thiet. In 1911 he was employed as a cook on a French steamship liner and thereafter worked in London and Paris.

After World War I, using the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc (Nguyen the Patriot), Ho engaged in radical activities and was in the founding group of the French Communist party. He was summoned to Moscow for training and, in late 1924, he was sent to Canton, China, where he organized a revolutionary movement among Vietnamese exiles. He was forced to leave China when local authorities cracked down on Communist activities, but he returned in 1930 to found the Indochinese Communist party (ICP). He stayed in Hong Kong as representative of the Communist International. In June 1931 Ho was arrested there by British police and remained in prison until his release in 1933. He then made his way back to the Soviet Union, where he reportedly spent several years recovering from tuberculosis.

In 1938 he returned to China and served as an adviser with Chinese Communist armed forces. When Japan occupied Vietnam in 1941, he resumed contact with ICP leaders and helped to found a new Communist-dominated independence movement, popularly known as the Vietminh, that fought the Japanese. In August 1945, when Japan surrendered, the Vietminh seized power and proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) in Hanoi. Ho Chi Minh, now known by his final and best-known pseudonym (which means the “Enlightener”), became president. The French were unwilling to grant independence to their colonial subjects, and in late 1946 war broke out.

For eight years Vietminh guerrillas fought French troops in the mountains and rice paddies of Vietnam, finally defeating them in the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Ho, however, was deprived of his victory. Subsequent negotiations at Geneva divided the country, with only the North assigned to the Vietminh. The DRV, with Ho still president, now devoted its efforts to constructing a Communist society in North Vietnam. In the early 1960s, however, conflict resumed in the South, where Communist-led guerrillas mounted an insurgency against the U.S.-supported regime in Saigon. Ho, now in poor health, was reduced to a largely ceremonial role, while policy was shaped by others.

On September 3, 1969, he died in Hanoi of heart failure. In his honor, after the Communist conquest of the South in 1975, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh was not only the founder of Vietnamese communism, he was the very soul of the revolution and of Vietnam's struggle for independence. His personal qualities of simplicity, integrity, and determination were widely admired, not only within Vietnam but elsewhere as well.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 11:05 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 3rd in History

1189 - After the death of Henry II, Richard Lionheart is crowned king of England.

1260 - Mamelukes under Sultan Qutuz defeat Mongols and Crusaders at Ain Jalut.

1346 - Edward III of England begins the siege of Calais, along the coast of France.

1650 - The English under Cromwell defeat a superior Scottish army under David Leslie at the Battle of Dunbar.

1777 - The American flag (stars & stripes), approved by Congress on June 14th, is carried into battle for the first time by a force under General William Maxwell.

1783 - The Treaty of Paris is signed by Great Britain and the new United States, formally bringing the American Revolution to an end.

1838 - Frederick Douglass escapes slavery disguised as a sailor. He would later write The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, his memoirs about slave life.

1855 - General William Harney defeats Little Thunder's Brule Sioux at the Battle of Blue Water in Nebraska.

1895 - The first professional American football game is played in Latrobe, Pennsylvania between the Latrobe Young Men's Christian Association and the Jeannette Athletic Club. Latrobe wins 12-0.

1914 - The French capital is moved from Paris to Bordeaux as the Battle of the Marne begins.

1916 - The German Somme front is broken by an Allied offensive.

1918 - The United States recognizes the nation of Czechoslovakia.

1939 - After Germany ignores Great Britain's ultimatum to stop the invasion of Poland, Great Britain declares war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II in Europe.

1939 - The British passenger ship Athenia is sunk by a German submarine in the Atlantic, with 30 Americans among those killed. American Secretary of State Cordell Hull warns Americans to avoid travel to Europe unless absolutely necessary.

1943 - British troops invade Italy, landing at Calabria.

1944 - The U.S. Seventh Army captures Lyons, France.

1945 - General Tomoyuki Yamashita, the Japanese commander of the Philippines, surrenders to Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright at Baguio.

1967 - Lieutenant General Ngyuen Van Thieu is elected president of South Vietnam.

1969 - Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam, dies.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:49 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Friday, September 02, 2005

The Great Fire of London

In 1666, a fire demolished about four-fifths of London. The fire started on September 2 at the house of King Charles II's baker, Thomas Farrinor, after he forgot to extinguish his oven. The flames raged uncontrollably for the next few days, helped along by the wind, as well as by warehouses full of oil and other flammable substances. Fire-fighting methods of the time were insufficient and approximately 13,200 houses, 90 churches and 50 livery company halls burned down or exploded. But the fire claimed only 16 lives, and it actually helped impede the spread of the deadly Black Plague, as most of the disease-carrying rats were killed in the fire.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:07 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 2nd in History

1666 - The Great Fire of London, which devastates the city, begins.

1789 - The Treasury Department, headed by Alexander Hamilton, is created in New York City.

1792 - Verdun, France, surrenders to the Prussian Army.

1798 - The Maltese people revolt against the French occupation, forcing the French troops to take refuge in the citadel of Valetta in Malta.

1870 - Napoleon III capitulates to the Prussians at Sedan, France.

1885 - In Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, 28 Chinese laborers are killed and hundreds more chased out of town by striking coal miners.

1898 - Sir Herbert Kitchner leads the British to victory over the Mahdists at Omdurman and takes Khartoum.

1910 - Alice Stebbins Wells is admitted to the Los Angeles Police Force as the first woman police officer to receive an appointment based on a civil service exam.

1915 - Austro-German armies take Grodno, Poland.

1944 - Troops of the U.S. First Army enter Belgium.

1945 - Japan signs the document of surrender aboard the USS Missouri, ending World War II

1945 - Vietnam declares its independence and Nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaims himself its first president.

1956 - Tennessee National Guardsmen halt rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton.

1963 - Alabama Governor George Wallace calls state troopers to Tuskegee High School to prevent integration.

1975 - Joseph W. Hatcher of Tallahassee, Florida, becomes the state's first African-American supreme court justice since Reconstruction.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:51 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Project's Website is Online!

Finally and after almost a month of wait and work, the website is over with!
Check it out!!

Why Should I Care?

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 2:06 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Hitch

How can one improve on the most formulaic of genres? The romantic comedy probably suffers more from formula than any other genre on the silver screen. How can Hollywood spice it up and make the romantic comedy fresh again? Pardon the pun but how about adding the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith? Well that’s a start.

The next ingredient is why not make part of the film appealing to guys as well as girls. This probably wont work for all guys but it will work for some.

The very last ingredient, don’t cast a Julia Roberts, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson instead make the guy the centre of the story.
Well there you have what makes “Hitch” a really different romantic comedy.

Hitch stars Will Smith as Alex Hitchens, a date doctor for the hopelessly romantic male in the heart of New York City. Hitch, as his friends call him, prides himself on helping romantically challenged males have a chance with the woman of their dreams. As Hitch puts it, we only have one chance and one chance only with that special someone and if we screw it up we will lose her.
Hitch’s latest client is accountant Albert (Kevin James) who is desperately in love with one of his firm top clients. She is Allegra Cole (Amber Valletta), a celebrity and way, way out of Albert’s league. But with a little help from Hitch’s magic maybe his dream can come true.

Investigating the case of the “urban legend” known as the date doctor, gossip columnist Sara (Eva Mendes) seems to be hot on his trail when she discovers who Allegra Cole’s latest date is, a nobody named Albert. How is this possible? Is she in over her head? Will the ties that bind rip these people apart or will love find a way?

Ok, I am a romantic at heart and I have had a lot of problems with the romantic comedy. They always seem to star some lovely starlet down on her luck until the buffed man of her dreams sweeps her off her feet. In those tiresome films, like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” or “Someone Like You”, it’s always the supporting characters that are the most charming and believable. That isn’t the case with Hitch.

Hitch’s central character played by Will Smith is sort of the “Ferris Bueller” of the dating world and he is ultra cool. Also like “Ferris Bueller” he is also vulnerable and approachable. It’s that dynamic character development that makes this film so appealing. We love this guy.

What is also great about the film is the hilarious, yet real approaches to the characters around Hitch. Kevin James is like a lost puppy dog and how can you not cheer for him. Eva Mendes has surprisingly toned down her sex appeal and went for a more grounded approach to her character. That is really fresh and makes her character even more believable.

What is uncanny about my “Ferris Bueller” reference to Hitch is that the film’s director Andy Tennant also worked quite heavily on the “Ferris Bueller” TV series. But Tennant is probably best known for directing “Sweet Home Alabama”.

I really liked Hitch a lot more than I thought I would because I had given up on the romantic comedy at least five years ago. Don’t get me wrong there have been some funny and delightful ones but nothing that really took a new approach to the genre.

The only pratfalls I had with Hitch were in the film’s third act which seems to be littered with romantic comedy clichés. For how new the approach was to the genre I for once wanted to see a surprise resolution. But it was such a great new look at a tired genre.

So go to this movie for Will Smith but stay for Kevin James. It’s a lot of fun and such a surprise in a weak start to the 2005 movie season.

(4 out of 5) So Says the Jaw Breaker.

Check out the movie's website.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 10:04 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Hitler Invades Poland

Early on September 1, 1939, a small formation of German Stuka dive bombers flew over Poland and released their bombs--just minutes before the Wehrmacht infantry and panzer divisions rolled into Poland. The dive bombers, like these shown about to attack Polish troops and supply depots as a German armored car looks on, became instrumental in the blitzkrieg warfare of World War II. Adolf Hitler had ordered the attack on Poland mere days after the Nazi-Soviet Nonagression pact was signed. He ignored an ultimatum from Britain the day after the attack on Poland, putting Germany officially at war with Britain and France.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 9:11 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- Helen Keller

Keller was born at an estate called Ivy Green, on June 27, 1880. She was not born blind and deaf, but was actually a typical, healthy infant. It was not until nineteen months later that she came down with an illness that the doctors described as an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her blind, deaf, and unable to speak. By age seven she had invented over sixty different signs that she could use to communicate with her family.

In 1886, her parents, Captain Arthur H. Keller and Kate Adams Keller, finally contacted Alexander Graham Bell, who worked with deaf children. He advised them to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, then in South Boston, Massachusetts. They delegated the teacher Anne Sullivan, who was then only 20 years old, to try to open up Helen's mind. It was the beginning of a 49-year period of working together.

Sullivan demanded and got permission from Helen's father to isolate the girl from the rest of the family in a little house in their garden. Her first task was to instill discipline in the spoiled girl. Helen's big breakthrough in communication came one day when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on her palm symbolized the idea of "water" and nearly exhausted Sullivan demanding the names of all the other familiar objects in her world (including her prized doll).

Anne was able to teach Helen to think intelligibly and to speak, using the Tadoma method: touching the lips of others as they spoke, feeling the vibrations, and spelling of alphabetical characters in the palm of Helen's hand. She also learned to read English, French, German, Greek, and Latin in braille.

In 1888, Helen attended Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1894, Helen and Anne moved to New York City to attend the Wright-Humason School for the Deaf. In 1898 they returned to Massachusetts and Helen entered the The Cambridge School for Young Ladies before gaining admittance, in 1900, to Radcliffe College. In 1904 at the age of 24, Helen graduated from Radcliffe cum laude, becoming the first deaf and blind person to graduate from a college.

With tremendous willpower Helen went on to become a world-famous speaker and author. She made it her own life's mission to fight for the sensorially handicapped in the world. In 1915 she founded Helen Keller International, a non-profit organization for preventing blindness. Helen and Anne Sullivan traveled all over the world to over 39 countries, and made several trips to Japan, becoming a favorite of the Japanese people. Helen Keller met every U.S. President from Grover Cleveland to John F. Kennedy and was friends with many famous figures including Alexander Graham Bell, Charlie Chaplin and Mark Twain.

Helen Keller was a member of the socialist party and actively campaigned and wrote in support of the working classes from 1909 to 1921. She supported Socialist Party candidate Eugene V. Debs in each of his campaigns for the presidency. Her political views were reinforced by visiting workers. In her words, "I have visited sweatshops, factories, crowded slums. If I could not see it, I could smell it."

Newspaper columnists who had praised her courage and intelligence before she came out as a socialist now called attention to her disabilities. The editor of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote that her "mistakes sprung out of the manifest limitations of her development." Keller responded to that editor, referring to having met him before he knew of her political views:

"At that time the compliments he paid me were so generous that I blush to remember them. But now that I have come out for socialism he reminds me and the public that I am blind and deaf and especially liable to error. I must have shrunk in intelligence during the years since I met him...Oh, ridiculous Brooklyn Eagle! Socially blind and deaf, it defends an intolerable system, a system that is the cause of much of the physical blindness and deafness which we are trying to prevent."

Helen Keller also joined the industrial union, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), in 1912 after she felt that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog." Helen Keller wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. In "Why I Became an IWW" Helen wrote that her motivation for activism came in part due to her concern about blindness and other disabilities:
"I was appointed on a commission to investigate the conditions of the blind. For the first time I, who had thought blindness a misfortune beyond human control, found that too much of it was traceable to wrong industrial conditions, often caused by the selfishness and greed of employers. And the social evil contributed its share. I found that poverty drove women to a life of shame that ended in blindness."

Helen Keller wrote glowingly of the emergence of communism during the Russian Revolution Her contacts with suspected communists were frequently investigated by the FBI.

In 1920 she was one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union. In the 1920s, she sent a hundred dollars to the NAACP with a letter of support that appeared in its magazine The Crisis.

In 1925 she addressed a convention of Lions Clubs International giving that organisation a major focus for its service work which still continues today.

On September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor.

Keller devoted much of her later life to raising funds for the American Foundation for the Blind.
Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968 at the age of 87, more than thirty years after the death of Anne Sullivan. She was cremated and her remains were placed in the Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea in Washington National Cathedral.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:43 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo--------------- SEPTEMBER 1st in History

1676 - Nathaniel Bacon leads an uprising against English Governor William Berkeley at Jamestown, Virginia, resulting in the settlement being burned to the ground. Bacon's Rebellion came in response to the governor's repeated refusal to defend the colonists against the Indians.

1773 - Phillis Wheatley, a slave from Boston, publishes a collection of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, in London.

1807 - Aaron Burr is arrested in Mississippi for complicity in a plot to establish a Southern empire in Louisiana and Mexico.

1821 - William Becknell leads a group of traders from Independence, Mo., toward Santa Fe on what would become the Santa Fe Trail.

1836 - Protestant missionary Dr. Marcus Whitman leads a party to Oregon. His wife, Narcissa, is one of the first white women to travel the Oregon Trail. The Oregon Trail emigrants who chose to follow Stephen Meek thought his shortcut would save weeks of hard travel. Instead, it brought them even greater misery.

1864 - Confederate forces under General John Bell Hood evacuate Atlanta in anticipation of the arrival of Union General William T. Sherman's troops.

1870 - The Prussian army crushes the French at Sedan, the last battle of the Franco-Prussian War.

1876 - The Ottomans inflict a decisive defeat on the Serbs at Aleksinac.

1882 - The first Labor Day is observed in New York City by the Carpenters and Joiners Union.

1894 - By an act of Congress, Labor Day is declared a national holiday.

1902 - The Austro-Hungarian army is called into the city of Agram to restore the peace as Serbs and Croats clash.

1904 - Helen Keller graduates with honors from Radcliffe College.

1905 - Alberta and Saskatchewan become Canadian provinces.

1916 - Bulgaria declares war on Rumania as the First World War expands.

1923 - An earthquake levels the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, killing 300,000.

1939 - Germany invades Poland, beginning World War II in Europe.

1970 - Dr. Hugh Scott of Washington, D.C. becomes the first African-American superintendent of schools in a major U.S. city.

Posted by Ahmed Arshi :: 8:10 AM :: 0 comments

Post a Comment

---------------oOo---------------