Array-ne Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 7:30 PMUnited Cerebral Palsy of New York175 Lawrence Avenue, Brooklyn, New YorkOfficers PresentEd Powell, PresidentBeverley Kilpatrick, Vice PresidentRoseanne Boland, TreasurerJonathan Judge, Recording SecretaryLaura James, Corresponding SecretaryMavis Theodore, Sergeant-at-ArmsElected Officials & Jonathan JudgeBrooklyn Community Board 14 District Manager Doris OrtÃz invited everyone to attend the Board’s Joint Public Safety, Community Environment, and Youth Services Committee meeting on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 7 PM, to be held at Brooklyn Community Board 14’s District Office, 810 East 16th Street, Brooklyn, NY between Avenue H and the Dead End. The suspect attempted to flee, but was heroically captured by Officers Katinas and Petrie and was put under arrest.Theodore Roosevelt Award for Lieutenant Jacqueline BourneLieutenant Jacqueline Bourne was recently awarded the prestigious Theodore Roosevelt Award by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly for her perseverance in overcoming several physical obstacles while demonstrating excellent performance on the job during her career.State of the 70th Precinct ReportCrime is down in all major crime categories except for felonious assaults. Open Forum with Officers of the 70th Precinct – Police officers arrived and responded by confiscating the speakers.After hearing their concerns, Inspector Harris directed officers to assist residents with resolving their issues.6. Lt. Jacqueline BourneThe 70th Precinct is hosting a Halloween Party for children on Friday, October 26, 2007 at 4 PM in the 70th Precinct, located at 154 Lawrence Avenue, between Ocean Parkway and Seton Place. For more information on how to participate, contact Assembly Member Rhoda Jacob’s office at (718) 434-0446 or (718) 940-0428.President Powell reminded all that the next meeting of the Council will be held at United Cerebral Palsy of New York City (175 Lawrence Avenue) on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 at 7:30 PM.There being no further business, the meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM.Respectfully submitted,Jonathan Judge, Recording Secretary
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She will fail nonetheless because Americans since Richard Nixon want and perhaps even demand a president who can do at least three of the following with grace, humility, and a sense of fun:Drink a beer at a sports bar on a Saturday and not look bored or restless;Show up at a NASCAR race and not be booed;Kiss your spouse and not look embarrassed;Name your favorite sports team and not look as if you consulted a campaign advisor first;Eat barbecue in either a hicktown or honkytonk and consider it a privilege rather than a campaign stop;Salute an officer of the armed forces and exude respect uncorrupted by 1960s idealism;Threaten military retaliation to an obvious and belligerant enemy and not hesitate to wait for a poll or survey;Hunt;Take on some sport or activity for the love of it, even if you are no good at it; Bush- 9I think Richard Nixon scores a 2.Mrs. Clinton scores a 2.You can discount my analysis by saying that Mrs. Clinton is a woman, so different standards apply, and you will be right.
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Retelling the Story of Jesus’ Nativity in the Indonesian Islamic Contextby Ioanes Rakhmat On 7 March 1981 the Council of Indonesian Muslim Scholars and Leaders or Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI)[1] issued a “fatwa”[2] pertaining to the Christmas celebration in which Indonesian Muslims used to take part. The strong need of bringing the fatwa into effect came to the fore as the Council observed that many Indonesian Muslims had been involved in social practices with religious coloring in relation to the Christmas festivities conducted by Indonesian Christian communities. Even though the participation of many Indonesian Muslims in Christmas celebration prior to the promulgation of the fatwa was possibly motivated more by the will to maintaining social bonds and hospitalities as fellow citizens rather than by religious doctrinal concerns, the Council considered this Muslim participation as “haram” or strictly proscribed religious practice.Following the meeting between the MUI and the then Minister of Religious Affairs of the Indonesian Republic (held on April 23), the fatwa was withdrawn on April 30, 1981. This withdrawal, however, could not extinguish its permanent Islamic values and principles. Rejecting the power pressure from the Indonesian government[3] which, in this case, had come to its fruition in the withdrawal of the fatwa, twelve years later, on December 21, 1993, some prominent Indonesian Muslim scholars and leaders hand in hand issued a letter to Muslims suing them for observing the fatwa again for the sake of Islamic doctrine and worship.[4] The act of issuing the letter also testified the perseverance and religious zeal of Muslim scholars and leaders. It is thus clear that after the fatwa was issued, the doctrinal stance of the Council concerning the Christmas is still adhered by, and religiously binding for, Indonesian Muslims in general.From the various Qur’anic verses and the Hadith of the Prophet quoted for the bases of the fatwa, it is clear that the Christian doctrines of the divinity or the divine Sonship of Jesus and of the Trinity were the doctrines that the Council wanted to reject uncompromisingly.[5] Thus it is clear as well, that in the sight of Indonesian Muslims in general and of Indonesian Muslim scholars and leaders in particular, Christmas is the celebration and worship of Jesus as the Son of God, not the celebration of the nativity of the human ’Isa al-Masih, one of the prophets and apostles commissioned by God as testified by the Qur’an.No doubt Indonesian Muslims well know that the Qur’an has more than one version of the story of the nativity of Isa. The concluding comments of the longest Qur’anic story of Isa’ s birth (Sûra 19:34-35), possibly “revealed” and interpolated later into the “original” or earlier accounts,[6] however, have indeed the Qur’anic story of Isa’s birth as a whole function to refuse the equation Christians make of Jesus to God. This explains why the biblical Christmas stories as traditionally interpreted and enacted idyllically by Christian communities in every Christmas celebration are understood by Muslims as giving witness to the deity or divine Sonship of Jesus, even to the Trinity.[7]In such a context, I opine, it is an urgent task for Indonesian theologians, on the one hand, to rethink about the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth, and reclaim their original meaning in their narrative and socio-historical context. Are the stories telling about the divinity of Jesus Christ, even about the Trinity, as is assumed strongly by both Muslims and Christian communities all through the ages? Or else, what are they telling about in their narrative and socio-historical context? And, on the other hand, Indonesian theologians may humbly invite Muslims to see some other aspects of the richness of the longest Qur’anic story of the nativity of Isa, instead of letting them fixed solely on its concluding comments.Consequently, my twofold endeavor is first to understand the Qur’anic story of the nativity of Isa as a sacred narrative without paying attention to its concluding comments which simply aim at refusing “syirk” or polytheism (which no Christians support as well) and then to understand the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth in their narrative and socio-historical context apart from Christian dogmatic presuppositions which long since have been attached to them by Christian communities. It is my sincere hope that this twofold endeavor will bear the fruit of christological thinking in an Indonesian Islamic context, especially in connection with the retelling of the biblical story of Jesus’ nativity which is able to be enacted in every contemporary Christmas celebration.The Story of Isa’s Nativity in the Qur’anBefore moving on to the Qur’anic story of the birth of Isa, some verses of the Qur’anic Annunciation should first draw our attention. A heavenly messenger comes to Mary (in the Qur’an: Marjam), announcing that she is going to conceive and give birth to the babe Isa. He said: “I am only a messenger from thy Lord, to announce to thee the gift of a holy son.” She said: “How shall I have a son, seeing that no man has touched me, and am I not unchaste? He said:
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He also mentions that in 429 he contracted but survived the plague (2.48.3).In the opening paragraph of his work, Thucydides wrote: “Thucydides, an Athenian [ThoukydidÄs AthÄnaios] wrote the history [xunegrapse] of the war [ton polemon] waged by the Peloponnesians and the Athenians against one another” History is “a barometer by which to gauge the writing of history both past and present,” for his methodology set a precedent for the writing of history, especially by other ancient authors, whether they did or did not agree with Thucydides.[5]Thucydides’ as employed in modern social science) is not a work of history written by an “objectivist”, “positivist” History, the elements of tragic drama and the role of speeches or rhetoric are considered, it quickly becomes clear that the ancient historian had blended historical facticity with literary and rhetorical creativity. In other words, it can be shown that, in his History, Thucydides applied a dialectic or interactivist epistemology in the pursuit of historical truth. What is to be found in his History, therefore, is the interfusion of essential fidelity to the factual events of recent history with literary imagination and creativity; Although it cannot be known whether Thucydides personally believed in the god(s) or not, or whether he could be called an agnostic, as modern scholars might suspect, in his History he did make room for the role of traditional Greek religious beliefs. As Marinatos has stressed, the tragic effect in a work of history would be inconceivable without a divine framework in the Greece of the fifth-century BCE, when the drama of existential atheism had not yet been discovered.[11] Thus, in Thucydides’ Programmatic StatementAs declared in his programmatic statement in Book 1.22, the method which Thucydides used in writing his History is a rational, inductive one.[12] It was the objectivity of historical truth, solid facts, which he attempted to gain, on the one hand; In Book 1.22.1-2, Thucydides declared his compositional procedure in composing the speeches that he put into his History.“As to the speeches that were made by different men, either when they were about to begin the war or when they were already engaged therein, it has been difficult to recall with strict accuracy the words actually spoken, both for me as regards that which I myself heard, and for those who from various other sources have brought me reports. but, for the purposes of this study, it is not necessary to enter into that seemingly endless debate on the Thucydidean policy of structuring and composing the speeches.[13]Comparing Thucydides’claims about the speeches with their contents and his use of them throughout his History, J. History consists of two interfused elements: what was actually said by the original speakers from both sides during the war, and the historian’s interpretation of the war through the use of narratives and speeches which have their source primarily in the historian’s own thinking and literary creativity. History was the result of the interaction between two epistemological poles: objectivity and responsible subjectivity.[15] With this conclusion, it is appropriate to question those modern scholars who label Thucydides a positivist or objectivist.[16] For instance, Hornblower apparently missed the main epistemological characteristic of Thucydides’ work when he commented on the function of the speeches in History that “The speeches offer further evidence that two hearts beat in Thucydides’ Viewed from the perspective of subsequent history, the Peloponnesian War was not the greatest disturbance (kinÄsis) and certainly did not have an impact on the majority of humankind (cf. Nevertheless, as Luce has written, the causes of the war “go to the heart of what the war was about generally and instruct us not just about Greek factionalism, but human nature itself.”[18] And, for Thucydides himself, human nature in this regard is constant, as he emphasizes repeatedly (1.22.4; see also Luce, The Greek Historians (London, New York: Routledge, 1997) 60-98.[2] Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I and II (LCL; challenge on the widespread notion of the epic grandeur of early Greece as described in, e.g., Homer’s works.[3] Luce, The Greek Historians, 98.[4] For a discussion on the historico-literary problem as to whether the first two books of Xenophon’s Hellenica which contain “a very sufficient history of the final period of the Peloponnesian War” Chico, CA, 1984) 123-133.[9] For the full treatment of this subject, see Marinatos, Thucydides and Religion.[10] See further Marinatos, Thucydides and Religion, 47-55.[11] Marinatos, Thucydides and Religion, 58.[12] See, e.g., J.L.
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-ne Jami and I had a great time in Phoenix. Got to spend time with all of our family and enjoyed being there for my cousin’s wedding. We stayed with Steve and Kris Jami’s Step Dad and Mom’s house this time. Steve and I went out to the shooting range and I shot some high power rifles for the first time. My cousin’s wedding is why we came home and it was a great time.
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-ne Dear all,The Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) conducted a two day environmental competition in the Dubai Knowledge Village. The NGO has pioneered leading programmes like workshops for students, teachers and companies, environmentally themed public speaking competitions for schools and universities, awareness campaigns for schools, recycling campaigns involving academic institutions, clean up drives, and so on. It included Dr. Darem Tabaa, Director, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Al Baath University, Syria and Director, Spana Syria, Dr. Tomador Hassoun, President, ANVK, The Arab Dutch Women’s Council, Dr. Eisa Mohammed Abdellatif, Senior Technical Advisor, Zayed International Prize for the Environment and Dr. Radhiya Al Hashimi, Director, Environmental Center for Arab Towns, Dubai Municipality. Teams were assessed based on their research and depth of environmental knowledge, environmental problem solving solutions and suggestions, oration and presentation skills. Our education programmes are high tuned to suit this objective, and our emphasis is on building knowledge and skills required to be environmentally responsible citizens, among students in schools, colleges and universities. Speaking on the occasion, Iris Kraska, Marketing & PR Director for Volkswagen Middle East said, “We at Volkswagen Middle East are very proud to join hands with the Emirates Environmental Group (EEG) for the 7th Inter College Public Speaking Competition. Volkswagen has been committed to protecting the environment for many years and partnering in initiatives like the Inter College Public Speaking Competition with the EEG reinforces our commitment.”Mr. Mohammed Al Sarhan, Manager, Al Safi Club for Friends of the Environment, said, “Al Safi Club for Friends of the Environment is proud to be a close and long term associate of the EEG. Dr. Ayoub Kazim, Executive Director of Dubai Knowledge Village and Dubai International Academic City said “We are very pleased to sponsor and participate in the 7th Inter-College Public Speaking Competition, which was organized by Emirates Environment Group and participated by 47 local and regional universities and colleges. “Also, we are extremely proud that two of our key business partners namely University of Wollongong and BITS Pilani won the top spots in the environmental competition event.
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