When a reader in Playa del Rey suggested I track down Sevilla, I thought I'd find yet another L.A. story of hard luck in the shadow of conspicuous riches.
But this one stands out: a great-grandmother who worked her whole life, avoids trips to the doctor because she can't afford the Medicare deductibles and has to sleep with a foot on the brake.
Sevilla is from Long Beach but moved to Chicago with her husband. When the marriage came apart in the late 1960s, she raised her three kids by working as an interior designer. She returned to California in 1989, following two of her children, but found it difficult to get decent pay for honest work. She wondered if her age — mid-50s at the time — was beginning to weigh against her.
A daughter took her in, but the apartment was cramped and Sevilla felt uncomfortable about imposing. When the daughter got married, Sevilla packed her bags, determined to make it on her own and confident that she would.
"It's my responsibility to take care of myself," she said, but that was easier said than done. She found part-time jobs, but with a developing heart condition, she couldn't be on her feet for more than a few hours at a time.
For a while, she ended up sacked out at her son's place in Irvine. But he had been in a terrible car accident, suffered brain damage and felt horribly depressed about the burden he'd become.
On Christmas Eve in 1998, Sevilla asked him to accompany her to church, but he wasn't feeling up to it. The next day, he went off by himself, put a gun to his head and took his life. He was 40.
That's when Sevilla found herself living in the car, wounded, distraught, scared.
After she gets off work, Sevilla motors over to the El Segundo Public Library on Main Street to work on her drawings. Employees and patrons were so impressed, they began bringing in photos for her to sketch, and she's good enough to command $60 for a print. For an additional $20, she'll make 12 postcards on handsome stock, using her laptop as a print shop.
DODA: In a desperate bid to derail a fledgling peace process, terrorists struck with a numbing carnage two days before a round-table conference on the Kashmir issue was to start.
At the end of J&K's bloodiest massacre in three years, the toll stood at 32 dead, including a six-year-old, and about a dozen wounded.
...
They stormed into homes in Kulhand and herded terrified residents of two hamlets in Kulhand area into village headmen's homes, saying there was an important announcement. Then they mowed them down with a hail of bullets.
Easa bin Abdul Karim from Plachimada, Kerala, who was participating in the NBA protest, badgered Khan to stay away from the soft drinks giant Coca-Cola. He said Coke plants are making tribal lands infertile.
"They are drawing out ground water through tube-wells to make Coke, drastically lowering water levels. Six litres of water is required to produce one litre of Coke. The remaining five litres, which have been treated with chemicals, are put back into the ground. As a result the land becomes infertile and tribals lose their only source of living," he said.
When Javed, an 18-year-old class XII Delhi student, escaped the Meerut trade fair inferno unscathed he could have thanked his stars and returned home. But he did not. Aware of the grave risk he was taking, Javed moved back to the blazing pandal and pulled out nine kids to safety.There are allegations that he was not treated properly at the hospital, and then there is the issue of the reason of the fire in the first place. Overall, a sad occurance. [also, I wonder what one's chances of survival are after 70% burns]
In doing so, Javed suffered 70 per cent burns. The superhero succumbed to his injuries on Thursday morning.
Medics collect and bag body parts of the dead and wounded. "I don't want their buddies to have to do it," said Sgt. Tomas Chavez, a flight medic stationed in Balad
...
About 60% of the patients are Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians, including the very people who set the bombs that kill and wound Americans.
...
The hospital sometimes treats insurgents in the same trauma room as Americans they have just attacked.
...
Troops are often disturbed and occasionally enraged by the treatment afforded their enemy, Powell said. But medical workers say they make no distinctions. They compare treating insurgents to treating wounded cop-killers or drunk drivers in U.S. hospitals.
"You're not the judge or jury in the emergency room — you're a doctor," Powell said. "It's irrelevant to me what a patient's status is. I'm going to do what I'd do for an American."
Quoting references from the holy Quran, the mufti said Islam strongly condemned and restricted the 'fitn-o-fasad' (violence).
"Islam is synonymous with peace and protection of humanity," he said, adding that Allah has expressed unhappiness on all those acts that breach peace.
Allah says: "Slaying an individual without any reason is a heinous crime and sin; if one kills an innocent person, it is the killing of entire humanity, and if one saves an innocent person it is an act of protecting the entire humanity." (Quran; Sooreh Maida, Ayaat 32).
The fatwa against terrorism came in response to the written queries put before the Mufti by Qamar Jehan, former head of the department of Urdu, Banaras Hindu University, and Muniza Rafiqu Khan, registrar of Gandhian Institute of Studies, to know whether terrorism had any place in Islam.
...
The three-page fatwa said all human beings of the world were members of the family of Allah. The safety of each individual is essential and there is no barrier of religion or geographical boundary.
The holy Quran strictly denounces the act of violence through its different 'ayaats' including 'Sooreh Bakara - 60 and 205', 'Sooreh Araf - 56' and 'Sooreh Qasas - 83'.
It is the duty of each and every Muslim to have good relations with all individuals, irrespective of their religion. The fatwa further stated that a person of any country or religion involved in act of terrorism goes against the teaching of Islam.
Such persons could not be termed as religious-minded, as terrorists have no religion. Islam not only restricts a person from doing wrong, but also commands not to support evil as it is a sin.
While maintaining that the conduct of none of the four members "was above board and they need to be handed out appropriate punishment", it gave the benefit of doubt to the four lawmakers saying the "improper conduct" on their part "did not, strictly speaking, relate to their parliamentary duties and none of the said members was actually shown accepting the money".
"Alemao Churchill (Cong), Paras Nath Yadav (SP), Faggan Singh Kulaste and Ramswaroop Koli (both BJP) may be reprimanded. They may also be suspended from the membership of the House till 22 March 2006," recommended the Committee in its 51-page unanimous report tabled in the House today.
The Committee recommended that the Government suitably revise guidelines governing MPLADs with a view to plugging various loopholes and lacunae.
A suggestion made by the Committee to the Government on implementation of the MPLADS scheme was that NGOs and private institutions be barred from getting any funds under the scheme.
This was because most of such NGOs are "merely facades for unscrupulous organisations formed to usurp funds" from MPLADS, which are meant for community development works.
Under the scheme, each MP is entitled to sanction developmental projects in their respective parliamentary constituency to the tune of Rs two crore annually.
It asked the Government to initiate steps for laying guidelines and norms for sting operators.
The Committee expressed concern that the media has been indulging in "sensationalism on a competitive basis" in a race to achieve viewership.
It noted that in this case, a television channel had implied that all MPs were susceptible to corruption.
"Carrying out such operations in an unregulated manner, which cast aspersions on MPs, erodes the credibility of our democratic institutions," the Committee said noting that "such motivated trial by the media needs to be regulated".
Of all the soundbites that emanated from the mouths of leaders after the Varanasi blasts, it was surprisingly Uma Bharati — the “daughter of BJP cast out in the darkness” — who spoke with the most wisdom. The burden of her words was this: these attacks are not about religion, they are about crime. The nation needs to remain united now more than ever. True, many others expressed similar sentiments, but when the woman who had once celebrated the fall of Babri Masjid expressed them, they assumed importance; and when her words were compared with the statements of her former colleagues in the BJP — including of course those of the inimitable Pravin Togadia, anxious to convert the blasts into bankable political capital — they assume even greater importance. Because these, precisely, are the two ideas that need to guide political and popular response to the grave and wanton aggression on Varanasi. One, do not communalise these attacks — criminalise them; two, come together in resistance against them, don’t fall prey to the larger design of their perpetrators.
The drug regimen, known as Aggrenox, was being tested for its ability to forestall a second stroke. S. P. Kalantri, the doctor tapped to lead the trial in Sevagram, quickly grasped the offer's appeal. Patients in Sevagram are poor enough that the benefits of taking part in the study would amount to a health care windfall; among other things, Boehringer Ingelheim guaranteed participants two physicals during each of the three years that the trial would run. For each person enrolled, moreover, the hospital would receive 30,000 rupees (about $665) - no small amount, given the puny budget of the center's stroke ward, a single room of eight pallet beds. Kalantri talked the matter over with the chair of the hospital's ethics committee, and the two concluded that the trial drug itself, with its possible side effects and limited efficacy, would provide little benefit to their patients. Then they went ahead and signed up.
...
Little by little, however, Kalantri began to see the problematic side of outsourced trials. "When I try to explain that a drug is experimental, that it might not work, the understanding is not there," he observes. "One woman said to me, 'What do you mean, the drug might not work? All drugs work!'"
The khateeb (the person delivering the sermon) stated that it was not right that Islam was the target of abuse. He said some will go out of their way to disrespect Islam. He said the Muslim community demands an apology, and (thankfully) he called on Muslims to be peaceful and forgiving.
...
Some Muslims may say that public opinion does not matter when it comes to Islam. Yet if one examines the life of the prophet Muhammad, one would conclude that he carefully considered public opinion. When he negotiated a treaty with Arabs who were at war with him, he did not insist that his title as "prophet" be placed in the document (this act horrified his companions, to the point where they thought it was sacrilege). Instead, he had his name written as simply Muhammad, the son of Abdulla. This placated his enemy and was essential to successfully concluding the treaty, which gave the Muslims an extended period of peace that allowed them to publicize Islam. In fact, the opportunity the treaty created may be responsible for Islam's existence.
However, the most significant aspect of this day is that children are taught their first words on this day, for it is considered an auspicious day to begin how to read and write.
Surprisingly, Vasant Panchami is the second most important festival in the Pakistani city of Lahore. Despite being a Hindu festival, it is still celebrated in Lahore with the same enthusiasm that was evident in the pre-partition times.
“People think we are crazy so much so that our families have also failed to understand our motto, but we won’t give up,’’ he added.
The core team of “Paritrana’ ’ comprises Rajpurohit , Shukla, Amit Beesen, also the vice president and a B Tech (Mechanical) from IIT Bombay and a LLB graduate, Chandrashekhar (national treasurer), B Tech (computer science) from IIT Kanpur, Bharat Sundaram, the PRO of the party and B Tech from IIT Kanpur and PhD in electronics from Melbourne.
“Paritrana means complete relief from the various causes of distress, and that is what we want to do for our people,’’ added Chandrashekhar. Low funds have not discouraged them in their efforts of holding door-to-door campaigns in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and parts of Maharashtra.
"The victim has pardoned Naushad. This has been authenticated by a Saudi court," Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed told reporters in New Delhi on Monday.
The decision to pardon Naushad, currently held in a Saudi jail, was officially conveyed to Ahamed by Saudi Ambassador Saleh Mohammed Al-Ghamdi on Monday evening.
"We are very grateful to the Saudi government for this generous act," Ahamed said. "This is just the right gesture that will boost goodwill between the two countries."
The victim, who worked as a domestic help at Dilip's residence, was raped by Dilip and his accomplice, Vinod Chauhan. Meena's mother had abandoned her at the Ahmedabad Mental Hospital, near Dilli Darwaza on August 18, 2004, promising to return with some biscuits for her.
The MoU, according to defence counsel, was made after Dilip and Meena gave their consent for marriage. According to public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt, "the consent of the victim, who according to medical reports is equivalent to a 10-year old child, cannot undermine the case."
The research prototype enables the addition of information such as the location of polling booths and other data, that helps citizens create and maintain maps that are uniquely relevant to their communities. Microsoft Research India and the Department of Science and Technology plan to leverage experiences from this prototype, to develop effective country-wide mechanisms for spatial data creation, collection and dissemination that can be useful in a number of ways, such as for disaster management.
ISRO considered this achievement as a major technology breakthrough in air-breathing propulsion. Other than the United States, which had recently carried out in-flight demonstration of supersonic combustion for a short duration, work related to supersonic combustor designs in other countries like Japan, China, Australia, Russia and Europe were either in their initial or ground testing phase.
